Part Seventeen –
And like a little girl cries in the face of the monster that lives in her dreams, is there anyone out there 'cos it's getting harder and harder to breathe
Waking from her dreams Buffy felt the warm rays of sunlight dance across the bare skin of her arms and wished for a moment she was still in Sunnydale. Where in the little she had seen of it she had been assured that there was a hell of a lot more green open spaces than there were to be found in LA. But on the minus side… people trying to kill her. Still, she mused it would have been nice to be able to go out doors and lay in the gardens of the mansion, feel the sun dancing across the skin and warm her with a thousand gentle touches. But she had been cold inside for a long time, and the sun did little to warm her.
Battling with a big-bad that was stuck in your head sucked, Buffy decided as she slipped out of bed, glancing back she watched as Angel slept. He was breathing, out of habit she supposed, and the ring was still on his finger, so that as the rays of light touched his chest they did nothing but make her notice how pale he was. Running a hand through her hair she wrinkled her nose at how gross it was, she hadn't felt so awake in months… that fact that she remembered little of the night before meant she'd probably be doing her marvellous channelling thing again. She thought sarcastically. She wondered for a moment why Angel wasn't nearly as affected as she and Willow were… well he was more affected than them so far as the actual bonding went. But whatever it was that was trying to kill her from inside her brain out didn't seem to affect him at all. Shrugging she dismissed the thought and headed for the shower, she was feeling too cheerful today to dwell on demons and darkness.
When Angelus woke later Buffy was not in bed with him, and he missed the warmth of her skin curled up against him. It was strange too to feel the sun on his face first thing in the morning, something he had barely experienced in hundreds of years. He was still struggling to fight his demons run away instinct and enjoy it. Slipping out of bed he slipped on some leather trousers and wandered into the next room. Buffy was curled up on the sofa facing the window, one of his books open on her lap she cradled a steaming mug of coffee and her wet hair was dripping all over the sofa. He tried not to wince at the thought of the book getting wet.
Heading over to her he dropped a kiss in her hair before heading to the kitchen and getting some blood out the fridge, he took a sip before pouring the rest into a mug and sticking it in the microwave. He suppressed a laugh at what Spike would say if he saw what he was doing. When the microwave told him the blood was warmed up he pulled the mug out and joined Buffy on the sofa. Studying the skyline for a few moments he glanced at Buffy when she didn't say anything.
"What are you reading?" he finally asked.
It was a moment before she took in what he said "Uhm…" She glanced down at the book. "Oh… I've no idea. I was just thinking."
"What about?" He asked taking a sip of blood.
"You know… this thing, that's in the link… I just…" She shifted her position so they were facing. "I don't understand why it's having such an affect on Willow and I and it's doing exactly nothing to you."
Angel opened his mouth to reply and then shut it again. "I don't know." He finally admitted. "But it might help us find out what ever it is." Eyeing the heavy morning sun for a moment Angel sighed. "I'll go ring Dalton there might be something in the prophecies."
"We should get in touch with Giles and Wesley too, it might help them." Buffy added curling up on the sofa again.
"And what are you going to do?" Angel teased.
"Sleep." She shot back stretching lethargically. The doorbell rang, groaning Buffy looked hopefully at Angel who smirked and walked into their bedroom. Sighing she got up and running one hand through her hair went to open the front door.
Pulling the door open Buffy put all her effort into glaring at whoever it was that was visiting at nine am on a Saturday, her redheaded friend grinned back at her.
"Willow." Buffy greeted, face immediately splitting into a grin she enveloped her in a hug. "Hey! What are you doing in town?"
"Didn't Angelus tell you?"
Buffy turned around to see Angelus leaning nonchalantly against a wall. "Willow came by when we were out yesterday, left us a note." He filled in.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Very useful."
He just shrugged. "Coffee?"
"No thanks." She danced on the balls of her feet. "It makes me jittery."
Buffy eyed her suspiciously. "You didn't happen to have some this morning did you?"
Willow laughed. "Uh yeah… but just a little bit."
Smiling wryly Buffy led Willow into the kitchen where Angel was now frying bacon with the phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear. Willow suppressed a smile. "What?"
"It's just y'know… vampire overlord cooking breakfast for his girlfriend. It's kinda funny."
Buffy smiled guiltily. "I know… but hey – I love it. And I'm pretty confident he'll be back to be hacking bits off of demons as soon as he trusts me to be on my own for more than half a minute." Angel chucked a tea towel at her. Catching it without turning round she laid it neatly on her lap. "So Wil, apart from pokin' fun at my guy, what are you doing here?"
Willow shrugged. "My life history part two. There's lots more about the council we haven't covered yet. And as much as I love you guys the goodness about having a free ride in your heads? Kinda worn off. So… life history it is."
"We were just talking about the link actually… trying to work out why it is you and I are doing the freaky channelling thing and Angel's not." Clicking off the phone Angel served up the bacon before sitting down with another mug of blood. Stealing a bit of Buffy's bacon he dipped it in before taking a bite.
"There must be something different about me and you compared to Angelus." Willow surmised.
"Exactly – Angelus is a vampire but we're all preternatural in our own way. If anything supernaturally speaking I'm more like Angel than you."
Angel nodded. "The first Slayer was made using black magic and demons."
Willow sighed. "Unlike wiccas." She chewed on some bacon thoughtfully. "Well… there's always the obvious."
"That we're girls and Angel's not?" Buffy shrugged. "It seems kinda petty. I mean…" She trailed off and stared at Angelus thoughtfully. "That's it!"
"It's 'cos we're female?" Willow echoed one eyebrow raised in doubt.
"No! It's because we have souls… and Angel doesn't… just a little bit of mine. Whatever this thing is, it's feeding on our souls, Angel doesn't have one so it's not affecting him."
"You have a little of her soul?" Willow echoed. "Well that kind of makes sense, If this soul-sucker is hitching a lift in Buffy a little of it must be in you as well, when it travelled between the two of you it must have got caught up in my magick and spread to me. That's why I can't get out of the link, I'm all tangled up with the demon…" Willow breathed deeply. "The spell I did it's meant to make me live Buffy's prophetic dreams with her… but it's all messed up so it's back fired, and it's just randomly gathering prophetic information… maybe from this demony thing as well as from Powers That Be."
"Why assume it came in through me?"
"It doesn't work the other way round. My link didn't start out being two way… it couldn't have travelled from me to you. If it could have it would have infected all of the Slayers. If it is a soul-sucker, it would have had no reason to possess Angelus."
"I guess." Buffy grudgingly admitted. "Which means the only question is… what the hell is it and where did it come from?"
"Well what happened right before you became vision girl."
Buffy shrugged. "I don't know. Spike said I was channelling something when I was in the initiative… but I don't remember. I was completely out of it most of the time I was there, I don't know if anything they did had any affect."
"It could have… maybe something they did was the catalyst."
"No." Angelus growled in frustration. "It's not that. Buffy, what where you doing before you were kidnapped?" He demanded.
"I was fighting a demon by Éire Shaor… but that was all a set up by the council."
"Before that."
"I…" She trailed off, throat dry. "I was at the Hyperion with Giles… clearing out a nest of demons." Angelus growled getting out of his seat he stalked off angrily slipping in and out of vampiric guise as he fought for control of his anger he braced his arms against the wall.
Now looking frightened Willow shrunk further away from him, and watched wide-eyed as Buffy crept around the table to his side. Putting one hand on shoulder she persisted as he flinched away from her, Running her hand along his arm she worked at his taught muscles with her fingers calming him with her touch. Dropping his arms to his side he faced her, lips curled around his fangs he growled at her… Buffy was undeterred. Bringing her hand to her brow she ran it down the side of his face smoothing the ridges under her touch. "Shh…" She whispered bringing her lips to his in a soft kiss. After a moment his hands crept around her waist and he responded, pulling her body to tighter to his. Kissing his hungrily around his fangs Buffy moaned slightly and smiled. Remembering their spectator she pulled away and pushed Angel back into his seat. Curling up in his lap she pressed one hand against his chest.
"Now… what's wrong?"
"In the thirties I was working for Aurelius in LA looking after one of our interests, a law firm called Wolfram and Hart. One of their clients was a fear demon. Fear demons play on people's insecurities, incite violence and mayhem and then feed on the emotions it creates. This particular demon was living in the most popular hotel in all of California… the Hyperion. After a while people started noticing that the guests at the hotel never came out quite right. Wolfram and Hart had vested interests in the longevity of the Hotel and asked of Aurelius could just get rid of the demon… outside of the company payroll. The master agreed and I was sent to kill it." He paused taking a sip of blood and ignoring the two girls hanging on his every word ran his fingers over the skin of Buffy's stomach. She pushed him away.
"What happened next."
"In the hotel the demon had driven everything to a fever pitch, when I arrived he turned the guests against me and they hung me from the chandelier in the lobby."
"As in hung… hung?" She asked.
"As in rope round my neck… yes." He shrugged. "I pretended to be dead until they took me to the mortuary, and sent Penn to finish the job. Next I heard everyone was singing the praises of the champion Penn and saying how tragic it was that Wolfram and Hart decided to close the hotel anyway." Angelus fangs shifted back into place. "Penn must've cut a deal with the lawyers, so they'd make it look like he'd beaten the demon."
"How could it still be alive? That was seventy years ago and the Hyperion's been abandoned that long."
"It must've adapted somehow… or been living off anyone who happens to go in. It's not boarded up, there was nothing to stop people going in."
"So they did." Buffy sighed at the thought of the countless hundreds of unknown victims of this creature, who'd undoubtedly only gone in to the Hyperion looking for somewhere well, not very warm, but dry at least to sleep in. She remembered Anne who now ran the teen shelter and wondered how many of her kids she'd lost. "This world is crappy." She muttered abstractedly, running a hand through her hair she got up and stood behind her chair, no longer feeling any of the warmth she'd woken with that morning. It was weird how single conversations could change everything.
"So I guess we should start looking for some kind of exorcism spell, to remove the demon." Willow voiced.
"Yeah." Angel was watching Buffy cautiously. "Bind's compendium might help, we'll need something stronger but more careful than the normal ritual if the demons as knotted up as you say."
"There's a reference in La Demonique. That might be useful."
"There's a copy in Giles' room, it's the door by the window." Buffy said, her voice flat and monotone. Glancing anxiously between Buffy and Angelus, Willow left to find the book.
"Buffy…" Angel started.
"It's okay. We'll exercise this thing, and kill it and it won't hurt anyone again. Then everything will be fine." She swore.
"I know we will." Angel smiled softly. "But I don't know about you being fine."
"Why?" She turned around eyes flashing dangerously.
"Buffy, you are not fine. You where not fine when we met and you're not fine now." She moved to say something but Angel cut her off. "I know demonic possession. I met you a month before you set foot in the Hyperion and you were drinking yourself into a stupor."
"I had a bad day." She muttered. "And, I haven't been drunk since then." She protested.
"It's not about the goddamn drink!" he shot back. "It's about why you felt the need to do that."
"What's this therapy now?" She yelled back.
"I think you need it!"
"Well I can't have it, can I?" She yelled tears welling in her eyes. "I'm not allowed to tell anyone what's happening to me, can't defend myself when people think I'm starting fights and burning down buildings for the fun of it. It's not allowed I - can't - tell - anyone." She emphasised. "I can't-" her breath hitched and she wrapped her arms around herself.
Feeling guilt well up inside him Angel was by her side in a moment, wrapping her in a hug, he held her for long moments before her arms snaked around him, clutching his closer to her body, and she sobbed into his shirt. "You can tell me." He whispered, kissing her hair.