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Part NineIt didn’t take too long for Spike to drive back to the graveyard. Siobhan and her underlings looked startled when he slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the van — that was one he had back on the redheaded bitch — but true to form she recovered quickly.
“What’s with the wheels, boyo?” Siobhan asked.
“We’re going to need some transportation, as it turns out. The Slayer’s holed up in a house watched by a guardian familiar.”
“Surely,” Siobhan said, “you weren’t stupid enough to try to fight it.” Her face had an irritating, mysterious smile.
“I’m still standing here, aren’t I?” Spike answered. “Tell me, dare I hope from that wide grin on you face that you’ve found the Orb?”
Making a grand theatrical bow, she pulled aside and pointed to an open grave, under a monument of stone long since worn down. A well-preserved corpse lay inside, clutching a nearly spherical greenish-colored stone the approximate size of a goose egg. This was it? This was the much-vaunted Orb of the Savior?
“That’s it? How can you be sure?”
“Well,” Siobhan answered sarcastically, “I’d suggest you touch it … but you’ve been keeping your word to me, so I shan’t do that. You two!” she said, pointing to two of the larger vampires, “Bring that one over here.” The vampire in question yelped and immediately tried to run, but was stopped by a well-placed fist and dragged over to the open grave. “No, please …”
His complaining stopped abruptly on top of the corpse and he landed with his chest directly on top of the stone. Then he began screaming. A few seconds later he managed to claw his way out, but the damage had been done. There was a hole in his chest a good three inches deep, and the edges still seemed to be burning.
“It’s like holy water, only it hurts about ten times as much — or at least, that’s what I’m seeing.”
Oh, this was fucking marvelous. “Then how the bleeding hell are we supposed to use it? This little plan of mine involves us taking the stone to the Slayer and not the other way around.”
But the damned redhead just kept smiling. “I think that can be arranged.” And then, to Spike’s horror, she casually reached down onto Gruber’s corpse and picked up the stone. For a few fleeting instants Spike had a horrid vision of her arm rotting off and being unable to fulfill her part of the Prophecy of Dark Judgment — and so having the good guys win by default, and his beloved Dru languish in nonexistence for the rest of eternity.
The moment passed, as Siobhan’s arm was quite clearly not being burned away. Then he had it. “Of course,” he muttered. “The Orb of the Savior can only be used by a woman and will destroy any male who uses it. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite this literal, though.”
“That’s what comes of reading all those fancy books,” Siobhan said. “Now me, I just told these demons to grab it, and waited until one could do it without getting her hand burned.”
Spike forbore saying that eventually this could have led to a severe shortage of vampires; after all, it had worked, and much as he wasn’t fond of Siobhan, he saw no need to deliberately piss her off. And, he had to keep reminding himself, she was holding up her end of the bargain.
“Right then. Well, we have the Orb, and we know where the Slayer is. Siobhan, you can ride up front with me —”
“Why thank you, kind sir —” she said sarcastically.
Spike ignored the tome. “The rest of you mopes pile into the back of the truck. And bring the tools. We might need them.”
“So, what’s your plan?” The red-haired vampire asked as they walked towards the truck.
“I understand you have a thing for fires …” Spike began.
* * *
Willow was quickly learning that there was no such thing as a limit for how much you can be shocked in one night.
Angel’s reappearance was to her on the approximate level of probability of the earth spontaneously opening up at her feet and disgorging the body of Jimmy Hoffa, clothed in a tutu and carrying the Dead Sea Scrolls.
But here he was. Angel. Whom she would have sworn Buffy had killed in an explosion eighteen years ago.
Emily, always saner and more in control, seemed about half a second away from sheer hysteria herself, but she at least retained the presence of mind to say, “You’re dead.”
Angel grimaced and said. “Well, yes,” in an even tone.
“Don’t be a smartass,” Emily answered, suddenly yelling, “And don’t move any closer to us, either! You know what I mean. The last we saw of you, Buffy was about ten seconds away from torturing and killing you.”
“And she had a kind of revenge. She did to Angelus what Angelus had done to her: Killed him and dumped the body down into the sewers. Then I woke up … ten years after everyone thought I had, and far too late to make a difference. I owed you all so much — but I also knew that if I came, as myself, anywhere near you, you would all want to kill me. Not that I could have blamed you.” He sighed heavily. “So I went off for a few months and began creating the persona of Galen Petrillo, reclusive Italian millionaire-adventurer. The only time I came back was when Cordelia had her baby. I — I kept track of you, wanted to make sure you were well, that you prospered. But when Cordelia had such difficulties with the labor — I had to help.”
That cleared up a little mystery. Ever since Buffy Harris was born they’d all been wondering about the identity of the mysterious benefactor who’d paid for Cordelia’s hospital stay. And a long hospital stay it had been, too. Later it was discovered that Cordelia had been born with several strikes against her when it came to conceiving and giving birth. Eggs that rarely stuck around long enough for the sperm to penetrate. A very narrow birth canal. At the time the doctors had considered Buffy Harris’ birth a miracle, never knowing how literally true the phrase had been.
Had her birth been all part of some plot? Or was Angel telling the truth?
Either way, he was going to a very hard man to forgive. Which is why the Prophecy of Dark Judgment called him the Unforgiven, no doubt.
Willow had a horrid thought. Assume that Angel had been telling the truth about the dual prophecies. In the one applicable to the villains — those trying to bring about Dark Judgment — Angel was the Unforgiven, and that one specific fact leads to the villains’ victory.
But still … forgiveness isn’t just something you can conjure up on a moment’s notice, no matter how dire the circumstances. And as much as Willow realized intellectually the need for forgiveness …
Emotionally, oh my God, emotionally. This was still the same vampire who had fooled them for ten years. Who’d killed Buffy … and Giles … and Oz. And emotionally, she still hated him for that. And if she hated Angel for what he’d done — and she had always been the most forgiving of any of them — then there would be no chance, no chance at all that Xander and Cordelia would forgive him.
She suddenly realized how quiet the room had become. The silence brought her back to herself, and she spoke for the first time. “Buffy swore she was going to kill you.”
“Her exact words, if I remember rightly, were, ‘ I could never harm my beloved Angel. Angelus, on the other hand —’ and that’s exactly what she did. She killed the demon inside me.” He picked up the cross Emily had earlier thrown to him and held it firmly, then displayed the naked, smooth flesh underneath. “I also don’t have a problem with holy water. Sunlight still bothers me — though not quite as much as it used to. Nor do I need to drink blood. Essentially, what Buffy left me with was all of the advantages to being a vampire and none of the disadvantages.”
“Okay,” Emily said. “Something about this is a bit off. You say you have a soul again —”
“I do,” Angel interrupted.
“Okay. I’ll give you that,” Emily said. “Then — forgive me — why the hell are you still here? I mean, everything I learned about you — the you with a soul, I mean — tells me that you were something of a brooder.”
“So I was told.” Angel’s voice was absolutely even; none of the humor Willow would have expected with an answer like that. Did this mean he was faking again, or …?
Never mind. Her mind was racing too far, too fast, to do any kind of logical analysis of the situation. Best to let it play itself out.
If either Slayer or vampire noticed Willow’s essential quiet, they gave no sign. Emily answered Angel, “Then I’d think given what you’d done, over and over, to people — to the woman — you loved, you would have killed yourself a long time ago. To put it like Regan would put it, Angel, why aren’t you dead?”
Actually, Regan probably would have sworn as she said it. Made it no less of a good question. Angel’s answer was short and came straight to the point. “I would be … except for one thing. Buffy asked me not to …”
* * *
When Angel finally came to, he was lying on the stone floor of a warehouse. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was making love to Buffy … and then pain, a most searing pain, and then nothing.
As he tried to sit up, he found himself pinned against the floor by some kind of magical energy. “Stay there!” A vicious demonic voice spoke from behind him. Then the voice said, with a slightly different tone, “Goddammit, Elsza, not now!” And then he was released, and stood up, and spun to face …
Buffy.
“What — what happened?”
Gritting her teeth — which shifted rapidly between the teeth of a human and the teeth of a vampire, and oh God! He knew why — Buffy said, “Easy, there. You have a lot of stuff to work through — but you don’t have time now. I’ve got one pissed-off demon inside me gaining power by the second, and if she ever takes control for more than a few seconds, well … Kablammo. So what I’m going to do right now is save you.”
“Will you be —?” his voice cracked.
“Don’t ask. You know the answer.” Then she picked him up — struggle though he tried, he couldn’t get free — and she carried him over to an open sewer access. “This is never going to work!” the demon within Buffy howled.
“I beg to differ, Elsza,” Buffy muttered right back, her voice showing severe strain.
“Buffy — don’t —”
“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Please!” She was nearly in tears. “We don’t have time for an argument.” A seizure wracked her, and with great effort she held Elsza down. Then she shoved Angel into the opening and he fell ten feet or so into a pool of old, smelly water. “One — more thing. No, two,” she added. “The demon’s gone. I killed him. And second —” another attempt by Elsza, and this one Buffy couldn’t fight off. “Don’t die. Whatever you do, don’t die. Help them. Now, move!” And in one motion Angel was propelled fifty feet down the tunnel …
… as Buffy exploded.
* * *
“And you know the remainder,” Angel concluded. “Now, Willow, I ask: Can you forgive me?”
And the answer immediately shot back.
“No.”