Short Walk to Daylight Part 2 Chapter 9: Angels of Death, an angel fanfic

Chapter 8: Angels of Death

Warning: Violence and disturbing themes

Author's thanks at end.

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'For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;

And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.'

- George Gordon Byron, 'The Destruction of Sennacherib'

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If it had not been for Buffy's slayer strength, then Angel would have had to spend the remainder of the night lying on his back on the rough tarmac, while large rain droplets fell around him, soaking both him and Buffy to the skin.

They staggered into the study, half-leaning, half-supporting each other's reeling bodies. Giles looked up and his face paled.

'Good God, what happened?'

Wesley's eyes rose from the open book before him and he too got to his feet to help them to the couch. Angel noticed that Buffy winced as she slumped down beside him.

'You have to lie down,' he said in concern, 'he touched you.'

'I'm just dizzy. I'll be all right.'

Spike had touched it and been cursed with the nightmares. Could the same thing happen with Buffy? It was not so much a touch as it was a hit and Angel did not know.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and he turned his head.

'Hi Will,' Buffy said.

'Hi Buffy. Hi Angel. How'd it go?'

'None of it worked.' Buffy snuggled closer to him and Angel swore he felt his heart skip a beat.

Giles looked nonplussed. Angel wondered whether that was because of what Buffy said or how she acted. 'I – I'm sorry?'

'None of it worked. Unless our mission was to find out how many ways we can piss off this thing, it was pretty pointless.'

Wes had returned to his place by the table. 'It is still at large?'

Buffy tilted her head slightly and Angel recognised the look she shot his friend. 'You catch on quick, don't you? This thing is nasty and it's out and about with precisely no intention whatsoever of being a good lil' demon and scram back to hell.'

Giles had taken his glasses off and his eyes were closed. 'It is as I feared.'

Xander leant back in his chair and waved the apple he held in his hand around in a flippant fashion. 'Is this the part where we put on horrified faces and go 'Oh no, Giles, please tell us how this demon is going to destroy the world while we can do nothing to stop it'?'

Buffy sat up straighter and Angel felt a pang as her comforting warmth withdrew with the movement. 'Please tell me you've got something on this thing, cos frankly, playing trial-and-error with it is quite tiring and I'm beat.'

Giles slipped the glasses back on his nose. 'Helhesten is not any other demon. Unlike the many, er, demon-hy-hybrids which you have come across such as -'

'Vampires and werewolves,' Angel said quietly.

'Er, quite,' Giles had the book back in his hand and was turning its yellowing pages as he spoke. 'Quite. Uh...unlike them, Helhesten has no earthly desires.'

'Like doughnuts and milky bars?' Xander suggested.

Giles ignored him. 'Like power and wealth. It–it revels in destruction and death alone, seeking to g-gain the soul that can never enter the underworld.'

At the mention of this, a forgotten memory played just out of reach, and Angel blinked. 'What?'

Wesley did not look up from the book. 'Helhesten is the wretched spirit of the horses that were buried alive in church grounds when the Churches were consecrated. It was a common practice in Scandinavia where the Vikings had for hundreds of years worshipped the Gods of Norse mythology, among them Odin, or as he would be known to you, Woden, and his eight legged horse, Sleipnir.'

Buffy pulled her knees under her as she sat on the couch. 'But this thing's only got three...?'

Now Wesley did raise his eyes. 'Please let me come to some sort of point here. The prophets and priests of Christianity sought to obliterate all worship of the Norse gods and since their horses were among the most important possessions of a Viking, it became custom to bury a living animal before the church.'

'Ugh!' Willow exclaimed, pulling a face.

Xander waved the apple core at the redhead. 'I think that sums it up quite nicely, Will.'

The chair's legs scraped along the floor as Wesley stood up. 'Now, in Norse mythology, horses have souls just like human beings. It is believed that a soul is denied entry to the World of the Dead if the body was given to the underworld whilst it was still alive.'

'So this creature is trapped between worlds,' Giles added, falling wearily into a chair. 'Cursed to forever walk this earth without rest, seeking the soul and the salvation that could finally give it peace, but which it shall never find.'

'Literally a purgatorial shadow,' Wes said.

An uncertain, anxious silence fell in the room.

'It spoke to me,' Angel said.

'What?'

'When?'

'In the nightmares. The first time was in the church, I think.' None of the others spoke. He thought back, biting his lip in concentration. ''Don't you see'...'

Buffy was watching him with a strange expression on her face. Wes stepped closer. 'What happened?'

Angel knew he meant in the dream since he and Spike had already given a detailed report of their meeting with Helhesten in the church. Yet, he was not too eager too reveal it; it felt too personal.

Giles was watching him with a cold and distant expression on his face. 'Angel?'

'I was human and I burned,' he explained tersely.

'Oh. The first time?' Giles repeated. 'It has happened again?'

Angel glared back at the old Watcher without answering and it was Giles who looked away.

'Guys,' the sofa sagged slightly as Buffy shifted her weight. 'This is not making a snippet of sense.'

Giles reached for his mug, but, after a quick inspection he placed it back on the table with a crestfallen expression on his face. 'On the contrary, this gives vital insight into the demon's mind and -'

'Giles,' Buffy said, a sharp note to her voice. 'This thing has an empty skull for a head. What would it think with?'

'Well,' Xander said, flinging out his arms in Angel's general direction. 'Lazarus there is technically dead, but that doesn't stop him from toddling about.'

Angel was pretty sure Wes saw the look he shot Xander, as the ex-Watcher quickly said: 'As we said, Helhesten's fury, spite and resentfulness has rendered it incapable of finding release in nothing but the death it spreads. It feeds of the souls of its victims, growing in strength until it will be able to draw the life out of you with a glance.'

'Time out!' Xander gave a nervous chuckle. 'This thing can kill you by looking at you? That's not fair!'

'Having been in pain for so long, it takes pleasure in other's pain and the pain it can inflict,' Wesley continued as though he had not heard Xander. 'It can read the fears of a person and is able to manipulate their minds when in a weakened state.'

Xander was smiling but Angel could sense his uneasiness. 'He is a queer fish, isn't he?'

'This is all kinda nice and comfy background info,' Buffy broke in. 'But let's face it, pretty useless too, huh? How do I kill it?'

For the first time Wes looked slightly flustered. 'Uhm, yes...'

'I believe we still have to find any such information,' Giles said.

Buffy raised her eyebrows before sinking back on the couch. 'Great.'

Wes caught Angel's eyes again. 'When he chose to speak with you, I believe he was trying to show you something -'

Angel nodded. He knew. 'Wanting something so badly it is killing you, but feeling it slip between your fingers like sand. Fading until there is nothing left but a forgotten dream, no matter how hard you tighten your hold.'

Wesley's face was an expressionless mask. 'Life,' he said flatly.

Buffy was very still beside him and Angel closed his eyes.

And there was the time with the mirror. He had suspected the ghost's intentions already then as he stared into the leering face of his own demon, into the darkness within his soul. Helhesten had shown him what he was, made him stare into the face he had never seen and never could be rid off, and in the church he had felt its despair and hopelessness as it showed him what he was never to gain, willing him to see himself and lose all hope. And maybe it was true. Maybe Spike was the vampire in the prophecy, maybe Angel had as little chance of regaining mortality as he had of learning to fly. But that did not mean he planned to give up, to wallow in self-pity while this thing went on a murdering rampage in its own search for feeling.

Angel limped up the stairs and into the spare bedroom, the broken ribs throbbing weakly for each hobbling step. In contrast, the pain in his right side was now so sharp he could no longer feel his leg, and he had a feeling that that was not a good thing.

The door slipped shut behind him and he stood for a moment with his eyes closed, leaning his pounding forehead against the cool surface. Buffy had not wanted him to look at the cut the scrap with the demon had left upon her left brow, but stubbornly insisted it was nothing and she was quite able to clean it up herself. Knowing that arguing was going to accomplish nothing, Angel had fallen silent.

He sighed.

His right shoulder screamed in protest as he pulled the shirt over his head. In the area around his collarbone, the skin was a canvas of red, purple and black nuances and swollen bruises criss-crossed across his chest where the broken ribs were slowly knitting back together.

He carefully slipped his trousers off, and clenching his teeth, he ran his fingers across his hip that had taken on the distinctive purple colour of a seasoned plum. As his fingertips explored the sore area, the sharp pins of fractured bone ran in jagged edges underneath the skin. Air hissed through his clenched teeth in pain and frustration.

Great. So he could not stand without it hurting, he could not sit without it hurting and he could not lie down without it hurting. The only good thing about this was that he had not been squeamish when he thought it was quite painful. He wondered how long he could hold onto that thought before its cheering-up factor dried out.

A timid knock sounded on the door.

He spun on his feet and winced as his hip protested against the movement. 'Yes?'

'Angel? Can I come in?'

It was Buffy. Angel glanced down his front, half-naked and only in pants. But he really did not want to try and pull the trousers back on again and it was not like she was going to see something she had not seen before. 'Yes.'

He watched in silence as her tiny, blonde form slipped into his room, closing the door after her. She had pulled her hair back in a pony tail and her slayer powers had kicked in so the only thing that was left of her bruise was a thin red line.

'I asked Giles and he doesn't think you can say something got away if you were the one who tucked tail and ran.' He saw her brows contract in worry, as her brown eyes travelled across his colourful chest. 'Oh look at you.'

'I know.'

Buffy stepped closer and ran a light touch over his collarbone. 'I think it's broken.'

Angel's mouth went dry as his gaze became lost in her beautiful face, mere inches from his. It tugged in his stomach as if he was falling again. He sucked in a nervous breath and stepped back.

'I'll be ok.'

A confused expression crossed Buffy's face, but she hid it as her eyes travelled to his broken ribs and hip. 'Yep, you look peachy.'

He ignored the snide tone. 'How are you?'

Buffy raised her face to look up at him. 'Peachy,' she said.

Angel sat down at the edge of the bed. Buffy stood for a moment in silence and he could feel her looking at him but he kept his head bowed. Then the mattress squeaked as she sat down beside him.

'Are there any open wounds?'

His eyes dashed to her face before he could stop them. 'No.'

He should have known her better than that.

'What about the gashes in your back? A couple of them have sprung open again and we really ought to clean them out. Maybe you don't get infections but it will really be much more hygienic that way.'

Angel could not help but smile at housewife-Buffy. It suited her. 'The first aid kit is in the cupboard.'

They had talked and it had felt good.

It had felt good, just talking about everyday things like Buffy's normal day, how she was finding life, that she was now being paid for taking out the vampires by a special branch in the city council and her newfound weakness for nocciola ice-cream. And Angel had told her more about his friends and his existence in LA, though he had omitted the small detail of a certain platinum-blonde vampire being very much alive.

Then she had turned to place the box back in the cupboard and fallen silent. A single bedside lamp was the only source of illumination in the shadowy room and its rich, orangey glow fell across her face, darkening her hair so it blazed like threads of copper and gold. The soft gleam caressed her tanned shoulders and caused deep shadows to fall between her shoulder-blades.

Without turning around, she spoke and her voice was barely more than a whisper.

'Why do we always do that?'

It did not sound like the kind of question you were supposed to answer. Uncertain, Angel rose from the bed and took a tentative step towards her.

She spoke again. 'Why do we always talk around stuff? I mean, it is always like we're just saying stuff to keep from saying what we really want to say...'

Buffy was still staring into the plain surface of the cupboard's door and Angel slowly closed his arms around her, feeling her sink back against him as her chest rose and fell with her shaky breaths. Her eyes were closed and he carefully rested his cheek against her hair. Warmth he had not known for a year erupted inside him and he wanted to sing and dance and scream. He closed his eyes and drew in a trembling breath.

For a moment they stood in silence, just feeling the nearness of the other and Angel thought he could have spend the remaining time of this world like that. The words left his mouth as the thought formed in his mind.

'God, I missed you.'

He felt her head move and his eyes glided open to find her hazel eyes staring into his. 'For how long?' she whispered.

Angel did not need to think too long about his answer. 'From the moment I left.'

She closed her eyes.

'Angel?' There was a strange urgency to her whisper. 'I thought you didn't.' Her head moved so the side of her face rested against his chest. 'I didn't understand why you would do something like –' Wolfram and Hart. '- I tried to imagine all these different reasons that would somehow justify it but I couldn't.' She paused. 'I am glad you told me.'

Angel felt his stomach tense involuntarily at this. He had not told her. In the end he did not trust her enough to bare that last detail for her. The thought was gnawing mercilessly at him and he did not know how to respond.

'You know why it scared me, you suddenly being a lawyer and evil and all?'

He thought he did.

'While everything changed around me and everything was so new and different, I was afraid that you would change too, that nothing in the world would ever be the same again.'

Angel cocked his head at this, not daring to believe what he thought she was saying.

'You know, I was really trying to move on with my life, stop behaving like the teenager I no longer was and start behaving like mature, responsible Buffy.' Even though she was standing with her back against his chest, Angel could feel the rhythmic pulse of her heartbeat. It felt good and familiar. Buffy shifted her head to glance up at him and in the dim light of the room her eyes sparkled. 'Do you remember the last time we saw each other?'

'Yes,' he whispered. How could he not with all the times it had haunted him in his dreams?

'You said you weren't getting any older.'

He remembered. That was before Wolfram and Hart, soulful-champion Spike and deals with warlocks; it was funny how many ways there was to age without any visible markings.

'It gave me hope. I forgot everything about being mature and responsible; I just wanted to be a regular girl again.'

Angel blinked. He failed to see just how those two fitted together. 'I don't quite follow...'

The light that fell across her skin shifted as her face split into a smile.

'It's good to see you haven't changed.' She snuggled closer to him. 'I wanted to be with you again, when sometime in the future we'd both worked out how this world works and that we'd seen all the aspects of vampire and demon slayage that are really worth seeing. The suburbia-placed slayer-vampire couple; kinda appealing, isn't it?'

Angel tried to smile back, though an uncomfortable emptiness was spreading around his midriff. He heard the sadness in her voice, though she did her best to hide it with a false light-heartedness, and realized with a pang she did not believe in the dream anymore.

'And we would have a nice white picket fence like they have in all the movies,' she said and leant the back of her head against his chest, her voice growing distant. 'And a yellow garden hose to go with it.'

'And a car with room for the children,' Angel added.

Buffy chuckled. 'You move quickly, don't you?' Then: 'How many?'

'Four.'

'Nah, too many.'

'Two?'

'Better. A boy and a girl...what should we call them?'

'Patrick and Keira?'

'Yeah, sounds nice.'

She felt silent, and Angel just stood, treasuring the warmth of her body and the smell of Buffy that went with it. He closed his eyes.

'Sounds nice,' Buffy repeated in a soft whisper and the sadness was unmistakable. When she spoke again her words were brisk and sharp, as though she hated having to speak them. 'It's strange, isn't it? That you can feel so alone it makes you sick deep within the soul and no matter what you do to feel warm and alive -'

'You still feel cold and empty inside,' Angel mumbled, feeling her take a deep breath.

'The world was ending and everybody was so scared. I died and came back and Spike understood because he felt the same pain, the same fear and he was just as terrified of being alone. But no matter what I did to feel warm, I was still dying inside, the world was still ending.' Her voice shook slightly. 'Spike died saving the world, Anya died saving the world and does the world give a damn?'

'No,' Angel said though he knew she expected no answer. She turned her fair head and her eyes bore into his.

'Then you took over Wolfram&Hart. And I didn't believe – didn't understand. It frightened me – everything was changing, disappearing, crumbling – and suddenly you were slipping away too. And I knew you still had your soul and somehow that just made it worse because you couldn't do something like that and be Angel. Somehow I had always expected you to stay the same, always be there even when I couldn't see you, didn't need you.'

Something was prickling behind Angel's eyes. 'It's okay...' he whispered, leaning his cheek against her silken hair.

'I don't want to lose you again.'

'You never will. I'm right here.'

Buffy tilted her head so she could look up at him. 'I don't want to have to push you away again.'

Something in the way she said it...

'Do you want me to leave?'

She looked at him for a long moment before she raised a hand so her fingers could trail his cheekbone, softly, caressingly. 'No,' she whispered.

She closed her eyes again and Angel felt her press the back of her head against his chest, as though she never wanted to move again.

Kennedy woke to find Willow gone.

The room was dark; faint, green light fell upon the floor where the street's neon-light shone through the window. Cars chased by outside and rain drummed against the panes.

Kennedy sat up, her eyes scanning the empty room, gliding from the ruffled bed sheets to the half-closed door. There was a piece of paper on Willow's pillow. She rolled over to turn her bedside lamp on and rolling back, she grabbed the note and held it under the light.

Hi Ken,

If you wake, don't be alarmed. Giles called and I had to leave, didn't want to wake you up since you looked so cute! Well, hope I'll be back before dawn.

Love,

Will

Kennedy sighed. So much for Giles' promises of free evenings. She had extended an arm to turn off the light when a strange noise made her freeze. Knowing too much about hellmouths and demons, she grabbed the stake from her bedside table and swung her legs over the edge of the bed; she slipped silently through the half-open door and found herself in the unlit corridor, facing the front door. It was rectangular and its wooden structure was surrounded by squares of semi-transparent panes, through which a ghostly silvery-blue light fell upon floor and walls.

Kennedy was about to check the kitchen when the door shuddered violently on its hinges. Raising the stake so it hovered above her shoulder, she stepped nearer and the door trembled again. She peered through the misty windows but could see nothing except the flashing lights of cars and the blue neon sign at the opposite side of the street.

The door was standing cold, flat and motionless before her, and her hand was an inch from closing around the copper doorknob, when shadows began to float into the corridor through the keyhole. She stumbled backwards in surprise, as she realized it was not shadows but dense black smoke.

Kennedy had listened closely enough to Angel's tales to know that this was not an ideal situation, so she did what she normally would never have done. She turned and ran.

Smacking and locking the door after her, she tore the phone from its position by the window sill. The shrill beeps that echoed through the darkness as she dialled Giles' number were followed by the hollow crashes that sounded from the hallway.

Beep.

Please pick it up.

Beep.

Please.

Beep.

Pick up the fucking phone!

Bee-

'Rupert Giles residence, Xander Harris.'

Kennedy practically screamed into the phone. 'Pick me up on the corner. Your fucking demon is taking down my house!'

'Kennedy?'

'No, it's Santa Clause. Who the Hell do you think it is?!!'

She did not bother with hanging up but simply tossed the phone from her, and grabbing the window sill with frantic fingers she forced it open. Without looking back Kennedy jumped out into the night just as yet another crash rocked the walls, and she knew the demon had forced its way through the locked door.

Her knees buckled as she struck the tarmac but she forced her sleep-addled limbs into a run, and turning the corner of the building she could see the lights of the streets a mere twenty yards away. As she turned down the street, she did not pause to ponder the utter lack of traffic but ran, forcing her legs into a faster sprint, forcing her lungs to pump like a pair of bellows and ignoring that her bare feet were soon bleeding from running on the rough tarmac. Behind her an irregular drum grew louder, and in her mind a shrill voice was screaming how long it could take Xander to reach her.

Her panting had grown wheezy as she turned yet another corner, and for the first time she turned her head to look over her shoulder since the uneven drum had suddenly disappeared. Her eyes had only time to register a bare and deserted night-street when she tripped and tumbled to the ground. Kennedy was breathing raggedly, the painful gulps of warm, polluted city-air getting stuck in her throat and never reaching her lungs. She struggled back on her feet and would have screamed had she had the air for it.

Helhesten's blind, white eyes stared at her, unblinking, as it took the last limping hop that trapped her against the brick wall at her back. Long, thin strands of coarse hair fell along the ridged forehead from between the curving ears whose points almost met, and the white surface of the skull were littered by small dark plumages where patches of rotten flesh and hairs remained. It was so close she could feel the heat and smell the pungent stench of burnt, rotting flesh that swelled from it.

Then a hoarse, wheezy voice spoke and it reminded her of a man she had heard on television once. They had removed his voice box so the words escaped him slowly and painstakingly as he sucked the air inward.

'Don't you see?'

And suddenly she was no longer warm from the running, but cold, colder than she had ever been before and a long-repressed memory jumped to life before her eyes.

Her mom had said she was not allowed to play on the ice; it was still too thin and could not hold her. But she did not listen, she never listened.

Large gulps of icy water flows into her mouth and floods her lungs. She tries to scream and more water drowns out her voice. She cannot breathe, she cannot scream. She is drowning and nobody can hear her. Light shines silvery blue through the ice and she cannot see the darker patch where the surface has been broken. Icy water floods her oxygen-depraved brain.

She is drowning.

White light flashes before her eyes before everything goes black.

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Long chapter this time...

A/N: Thanks to all my reviewers who have been so faithful and patient with my snail-pacing :-)

Well, finally this story seems to be going somewhere so please review and let me know what you think!!