Disclaimer: The title came from Disney's 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame', so I don't own it, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Angel' came from Joss Whedon, so I don't own them, and 'Charmed' came from Constance M. Burge, so that's not mine either.
Anyway, enjoy.
Feedback: It's here to be read; let me know that it has been
Teranika Meneldil: That's a relief; I was worried it might be a bit short to attract interest
Mysticallove: Good to hear others like my point about the blood; I was worried it wouldn't work
Aussiehottiemjm: No, I never saw the 'Nip/Tuck' premiere; the show as a whole never really sounded like my kind of thing
JitterBug: Glad you like the plot so far; I just hope the rest of it continues to impress you
Jedi-Princess: Trust me, Walsh may be evil, but there's someone even worse than her inside the Initiative…
kiara86: You wanted more, and here it is
Tara Summers: Yes, he still has a soul; Cole just never heard he got one in the first place and thinks he's still Angelus
What Makes a Monster?
Belthazor blinked in surprise at that.Angelus didn't know?
That was unexpected…
He sighed, and looked back at the vampire.
"If you must know, I'm half-human; my father was a mortal," he explained, already preparing another energy ball in case Angelus was trying something. "It gives me a human soul, and certain human traits in both forms, but I assure you, my power isn't any weaker than other demons for all that."
He glared at Angelus, who was looking at him with an expression that could only be surprise on his face.
Angel could only stare at Belthazor for a few moments, unable to believe what he'd just heard.
Belthazor had a soul? Belthazor, one of the deadliest demon assassins of all time, a demon who was said in some circles to torment his father's spirit on a regular basis- Angel had never heard exactly what the father had done to deserve that treatment by his son- had a soul?
"Does it actually affect you?" he asked the demon, shifting his balance as he prepared to leap towards his foe if he got the wrong answer to this question- the wrong answer, in this case, being any comment towards the effect that he found the soul was merely a handicap in his line of 'work'.
Belthazor stared at Angel incredulously for a moment or two, and then spoke.
"You don't really keep up-to-date with the news from my side of the supernatural world, do you?" he asked.
Angel shrugged. "The occasional titbit, but you know how it is; both our sides generally ignore the other," he replied. "Why?"
"Because, if you did, you'd know that I recently betrayed my superiors because of my soul," Belthazor replied.
Then he looked at Angel quizzically. "If you didn't know that, why were you fighting me? Career thing?"
Angelus shook his head as he looked back at Belthazor.
"Far from it, Belthazor," he replied, finally dropping the combat stance he'd been in for the duration of their talk and walking towards the demon. "Didn't you notice that I haven't really been as active in the last century as I was in the one before it?"
Belthazor nodded in acknowledgement. It was true; anything he'd heard about Angelus in his lifetime among the Underworld had all been old information. He'd never heard of anything that Angelus had done relatively recently, although there had been rumours that he'd been roped into helping the Allies pick up a lost submarine during the Second World War…
Belthazor had always wondered about that, to be honest; why would Angelus, the most ruthless vampire of all, ever actually help anyone?
"Well," he said, looking back at the vampire, "I did wonder about that, to be honest, but I guess we all assumed that you'd just decided to operate in a manner that was attracting less attention than before."
Angelus shook his head. "Far from it, Belthazor," he said, as he stood in front of the demon, beside an empty rack that looked like it might have been used for guns before somebody emptied it. "I had a little run-in with a clan of gypsies back in 1898, when I killed the favoured daughter of a clan. They wanted me to suffer, so…"
He sighed, and looked Belthazor in the eyes. "They gave me back my soul."
Belthazor's eyes widened in surprise. He may not know much about vampires, but he knew enough to know that they always consisted of a demon inhabiting a human corpse, each demon lacking even the slightest trace of a conscience and only possessing a similar personality to their body's original inhabitant, rather than the actual person.
To have the soul actually returned to the body…
"I guess they left you your memories of the demon's crimes?" he asked the vampire, as he lowered his arm and extinguished the energy ball he'd held there. "That's rough; I'm sorry."
"Thanks," 'Angelus' said, looking at Belthazor with a slight smile on his face. "But call me Angel."
He held out his hand, and Belthazor shook it.
And there, after a short and violent battle by way of an introduction, a legend was born.
"Wait a minute; they're fighting!" Buffy asked, looking at Doyle in horror. "Who's winning?"
"It looked like a draw, but there's no guarantee that's how things'll stay," Doyle replied, as he glanced over at Phoebe. "Is Cole stronger than humans in demon form?"
"Not by much," Phoebe replied, shaking her head. "I'll guess Angel is?"
"Quite noticeably so," Giles said, nodding at Phoebe. "We have to get down there as soon as possible; if this group learns about Angel and Cole having souls, there's no way of knowing what they'll do…"
The ex-Watcher looked over at Leo inquiringly. "You said you're a Whitelighter; doesn't that mean you can… what's the term again… orb to certain locations whenever you want?"
Leo nodded. "Yeah, that's right," he said, then holding up one hand as Giles began to speak again. "But if you're asking me to orb to Angel and Cole and rescue them, it won't work; I've already tried to sense Cole, and I can't."
"Wait a minute; you can sense Cole?" Piper asked, looking at her husband in confusion. "I thought you could only sense your charges?"
"Well, after he came over to our side, the Elders extended my 'remit' to cover him as well as you three," Leo explained. "He's not exactly my charge, but I can still sense where he is mostly…"
He frowned. "Which is why I'm so concerned about the fact that I can't place him right now; all I know for sure is that he's in this town, and that's as far as it goes."
"Um… could something be… I dunno, blocking his 'signal' to you?" Xander asked, raising an inquiring hand. "Or whatever the hell the expression is…"
"Well, there are circumstances where I can't detect where my charges are, but I'd rather not think about that," Leo said, looking over at Xander. "You see, only powerful, evil magic could stop me detecting their location, and-"
"Wait wait wait; magic?" Buffy said, interrupting the ex-army medic as she looked at him. "You sure there's not something else that could do it? Cause we know there's some freaky rouge branch of the military behind this, and magic does not come under the heading of tricks they know about!"
"As far as we know," Anya pointed out, from where she was sitting. "I mean, when you get down to it, what do we really know about these guys, beyond the fact that they like capturing demons, think anything demon is evil, and stuck that bizarre chip in Spike's head to stop him attacking humans?"
Paige looked over at Anya curiously.
"Spike?" she asked. "Who's that?"
"Bloody hell, you sods finally remembered me?" a voice called out from a nearby wardrobe. "I thought you'd all but forgotten I'd ever been bleeding born!"
Buffy and Willow looked at each other and sighed.
"Spike," Buffy said, looking over at the Halliwells and Leo by way of explanation. "He's a vampire, but he's also the only link we've got to this facility so far; he was captured by them, but he somehow managed to get out and, well, we've been keeping him around until he tells us more about it."
"He's not talking yet?" Paige asked.
"Nope," Willow said, shaking her head. "You guys have anything that could help us?"
"Well, we do have a truth spell, but I'm not sure if it works on vampires; we've only ever used it on humans," Piper said, jerking her thumb at the cupboard where Spike's voice had come from. "Any other ideas as to how we could find this place?"
Doyle sighed. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this so soon- particularly in front of Cordelia- but all other options had been exhausted.
It was this, or let Angel die, and Doyle wasn't prepared to do that.
"Um… I have an idea," he said, raising one hand like he was a child in school.
"What?" Phoebe asked, looking over at Doyle eagerly, the others turning in his direction as well.
"Well… we both have visions, right?" Doyle said, looking at Phoebe. "Couldn't you three, like, cast a spell or something to 'link' you 'nd me so you can see what I see? Then I could let meself get captured by these guys, somehow trick 'em into taking me to where they're keeping Angel and Cole, and then… well, break out?"
"Um… question?" Paige put in, looking at Doyle. "You're human, Doyle; why should these guys target you?"
Doyle swallowed.
This was it.
"Well, y'see, Paige, I'm kinda like you and Cole in that regard," he said, as he stood up. "My mother was a hundred per cent human, but me da…"
He closed his eyes, focused, and opened his eyes once he'd felt he familiar spines pop up out of his face, to the gasps of surprise from the others in the room.
Doyle shrugged casually.
"As you can see, me dad wasn't."
Eventually, Cordelia broke the silence by getting up, walking over to Doyle, and slapping him.
"Hey!" Doyle said, clutching his sore cheek (The quills had started retracting as soon as Cordelia's hand began to move towards them in order to avoid injuring her hand). "What was that for?"
"DUH!" Cordelia said, yelling at him. "You're a demon! You're meant to tell people you're a demon! I thought we agreed that secrets were bad!"
"I was going to tell you!" Doyle protested. "I just figured you'd tell me to get lost!"
"Oh please, what am I, superficial?" Cordelia asked. "So you're half demon! That's so far down the list, way under 'short' and 'poor'!"
Having vented her immediate frustration, she looked at Doyle again. "Is there anything else I should know about you?"
"The half demon thing?" Doyle said, looking at her. "Pretty much my big secret."
Cordelia smiled. "Good," she said, nodding at him. "That's out. It's done. Now, could you just ask me to dinner already for when this is over and our brooding boss is restored to us?"
Doyle was about to say something to that, but then Xander coughed politely.
"Um, I'm all in favour of office romance, but could we focus on more immediate concerns here?" he asked, looking around at the rest of the group. "I mean, we do still have a base to infiltrate here, you know."
"Oh… yeah, right," Buffy said, looking over at the Halliwells. "You three see what you can do about a spell that can do what Doyle suggested; the rest of us'll see if we can do anything about preparing for an attack on that facility."
"Wait a minute; an attack?" Xander asked, looking over at Buffy in surprise. "Don't get me wrong here, I'm as opposed to those guys just experimenting on demons as the next guy, but wouldn't it make more sense to just blow the place up?"
"As well as whatever's on top of it?" Phoebe put in, looking over at the young man critically. "I couldn't get much from my vision, but the facility is definitely underground; I think there's no way we could risk a cave-in."
"Besides, if we blow the place up, they might just set shop in another location," Willow put in. "If we're going to stop them, we need to do it in a manner that actually delivers a message to whoever set this up; show them that they can't treat anything like that."
"Agreed," Piper and Buffy said simultaneously.
The two groups smiled slightly at that little incident; interesting to see how rapidly their leaders were starting to think on the same wavelength.
Right then, as each member of that strange team looked around at the others, whether old friends or new, they all knew one thing.
United, nothing could stop them from destroying the Initiative.