THE ANGEL CHRONICLES, Vol. 2

by Richie Tankersley

  “Okay.” Willow nodded uncertainly. “Huh?”

  “The important thing is,” Giles went on, “everybody’s okay. Still, it is quite apparent that we are under serious attack—”

  “Yeah,” Buffy interrupted. “These Taraka guys are Uberbad. If Kendra hadn’t been there today I would have been toast.”

  Silently Kendra looked at her, the thanks duly noted.

  Giles’s face was troubled. “I fear the worst is yet to come. I’ve discovered the remaining keys to Drusilla’s curse. The ritual requires her sire and must take place in a church on the night of the new moon—”

  “The new moon?” Kendra repeated. “But that is tonight.”

  “Exactly. I’m sure the assassins are here to kill Buffy before she can put a stop to things—”

  “They need Drusilla’s sire?” Now it was Buffy who interrupted, jumping to her feet, her voice urgent. “You mean the vamp that made her?”

  Willow saw the fear on Buffy’s face. “What is it, Buffy?”

  Buffy turned away from them. She took a moment to compose herself, and then she faced them once again.

  “It’s Angel,” she said softly. “He’s Drusilla’s sire.”

  “Man!” Xander burst out. “That guy got some major neck in his day—”

  Willow punched him. Xander shut up. Kendra looked annoyed but managed to hold her tongue.

  “This thingy,” Buffy peered earnestly at Giles. “This ritual. Will it kill him?”

  Giles hesitated. He met her eyes reluctantly, his tone gentle. “I’m afraid so.”

  “We have to do something,” Buffy choked. “We have to find the church where this ritual will take place—”

  “Agreed. And we must work quickly. There are only five hours to sundown.”

  “Don’t worry, Buffy,” Willow tried to console her. “We’ll save Angel.”

  But Kendra couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  “Angel?” she exclaimed. “Our priority must be to stop Drusilla.”

  Angrily Xander turned on her. “Angel’s our friend,” he snapped. Then he paused . . . thought about this. “Except I don’t like him,” he added lamely.

  “Look.” Buffy faced Kendra now, her voice defiant. “You’ve got your priorities, and I’ve got mine. Right now, they mesh. You gonna work with me, or are you gonna get out of my way?”

  Their eyes locked and held.

  The tense silence stretched out.

  “I am with you,” Kendra said at last.

  “Good,” Buffy replied furiously. “’Cause I’ve had it. Spike is going down. You can attack me, you can send assassins after me . . . that’s just fine.”

  She drew herself to her full height.

  Her eyes smouldered.

  “But nobody messes with my boyfriend.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Drusilla was actually feeling better now.

  She smiled as she took a small bottle of holy water from an old, velvet-lined box.

  She spoke dreamily as she moved about her room.

  She was recalling another time, a long-ago time . . .

  And she was savoring the memories.

  “My mother ate lemons,” Drusilla murmured. “Raw.”

  The room was soft with candlelight. Angel lay at the foot of the bed, his hands bound to the bedposts, his bare chest exposed.

  He watched as Drusilla drifted over to him. As she knelt before him on the rug.

  She ran her hands slowly along his chest. The heat they’d once shared was still there—scorching and intense—fanned even hotter by all those lost, lonely centuries between them.

  Drusilla felt it seeping into her fingertips, into the most secret places of her heart.

  And now she took her time playing with it . . .

  Just to watch him squirm.

  “She said she loved the way they made her mouth tingle,” Drusilla went on quietly.

  She lifted the bottle of holy water. She dribbled a bit on his chest. The liquid hissed as it burned into Angel’s skin. His jaw clenched in pain, but he didn’t cry out.

  Drusilla smiled at him, her ravaged mind drifting. “Little Anne, her favorite was custard, brandied pears . . .”

  Again she tilted the bottle. More holy water poured out and Angel writhed in silent torment. Part of him welcomed this misery—knew he deserved it—and part of him longed to beg for release. For this was a torment not only of torture, but also of remorse, for what he had done to her.

  “Dru—” he moaned, but she sternly cut him off.

  “Shhhhh.”

  He turned his head away. For one brief instant he could see her through a flowing haze of time—that innocent Drusilla of long-ago gazing up at him with wide, beautiful, trusting eyes. And he remembered the adoration he’d seen there, the fear and confusion, and then, when it was finally done, only the emptiness he’d left her.

  Angel choked on the bitter taste of the past.

  Drusilla waited till he’d grown still.

  “And pomegranates,” she whispered. “They used to make her face and fingers all red—”

  And still she tilted the bottle over his chest, and still she watched the holy water trickle out.

  Angel closed his eyes and ground his teeth together. This time he nearly cried out.

  “Remember little fingers?” Drusilla taunted him. “Little hands? Do you?”

  Her voice had grown hard and cold. She was waiting for his answer.

  “If I could,” Angel gasped, “I—”

  “Bite your tongue,” Drusilla snapped at him. “They used to eat. Cake. And eggs. And honey.” She paused, her voice changing to sweetness. “Until you came and ripped their throats out—”

  Another dose of water. Angel’s hands knotted into fists. He arched his back, trying to twist away.

  But gazing down upon his face, Drusilla suddenly saw something she’d never seen there before.

  The sorrow. Regret. The endless pain of remembering . . .

  Her face began to soften. For a brief instant she looked completely vulnerable, genuinely lost.

  “You remember?” she asked him gently.

  Angel managed a nod. “Yes.”

  “You remember that kind of hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  Drusilla smiled. “You used to feed me.”

  She wasn’t talking about food now, and Angel knew it. Uncomfortably, he looked away.

  “You think you don’t have it in you now,” Drusilla purred, leaning close to him. “But you do. I can feel it.”

  Without warning she doused him with holy water.

  Angel threw back his head and screamed in unbearable agony.

  “I can almost taste it,” Drusilla whispered.

  And she slowly licked her lips.

  CHAPTER 20

  There was still so much to be done.

  Night had fallen beneath a full moon, and somewhere in Sunnydale a macabre ritual was about to take place.

  “There are forty-three churches in Sunnydale?” Giles watched over Willow’s shoulder as she scrolled through the computer. “That seems a bit excessive.”

  “It’s the extra evil vibe from the Hellmouth,” Willow explained. “Makes people pray harder.”

  “Check and see if any of them are closed or abandoned.”

  Willow obligingly did so. As Giles carried a large book over to where Xander and Cordelia were sitting, he couldn’t help noticing how tense they both looked. Their chairs were pulled together side by side at the table, yet they seemed to be deliberately avoiding eye contact. Both sat ramrod straight. As they diligently searched through a volume of demon pictures, Giles could only wonder at their odd behavior.

  “We got demons,” Xander told him. “We got monsters. But no Bug Dude or Police Lady.”

  Giles handed over the book he was holding. “You should have better luck with this. There’s a section devoted entirely to the Order of Taraka.”

  Xander began leafing through the pages.

  In Giles’s
office, Kendra was gazing quizically out at the others. Then she glanced over at Buffy, who was in the process of checking and rechecking her weapons. Buffy’s face was tight and drawn—she was clearly in a silent panic about Angel.

  “And those two,” Kendra said, indicating Xander and Cordelia. “They also know you are the Slayer?”

  Buffy kept her attention on her battle gear. “Yup.”

  “Did anyone explain to you what ‘secret identity’ means?” Kendra challenged, lifting an eyebrow.

  “Nope.” Buffy stayed focused. “Must be in the Handbook. Right after the chapter on personality removal.”

  Kendra ignored her. She picked up a crossbow and inspected it closely.

  “Careful with that thing,” Buffy warned.

  “Please. I am an expert in all weapons—”

  Without warning the crossbow went off in Kendra’s hand, firing an arrow straight into Giles’s lamp, which toppled. Startled, Kendra tried to recover herself.

  “Is everything all right?” Giles called.

  “It’s okay,” Buffy called back. “Kendra killed the bad lamp.”

  Kendra shot her a look. “Sorry. This trigger mechanism is different.” She paused, then added in a more conciliatory tone, “Perhaps when this is over, you can show me how to work it.”

  Buffy sighed. “When this is over, I’m thinking of pineapple pizza and teen videofest—possibly something from the Ringwald oeuvre.”

  “I’m not allowed to watch television,” Kendra told her. “My Watcher says it promotes intellectual laziness.”

  Buffy stared at her. “And he says it like that’s a bad thing?”

  They both turned as Xander yelled to Giles. “Here we go,” Xander said excitedly, pointing to his book. “I am the Bug Man, coo-coo coo-chu.”

  It was indeed an ancient drawing of the creature now known as Mr. Pfister. Round-faced, meek, not even very scary looking. But a magnified detail of the drawing showed every squiggle of his wormy composition.

  Xander made a face. He ran a finger down the page and added, “Okay. Okay. He can only be killed when he’s in his disassembled state.”

  Cordelia looked up at him. He leaned over, addressing her as if she were a three-year-old.

  “Disassembled,” he pronounced each syllable slowly. “That means when he’s broken down into all his buggy parts—”

  Cordelia snatched the book from him. “I know what it means, dork-head.”

  “Dork-head?” Xander tried to grab the book back. “You slash me with your words.”

  Their tension was almost palpable. Willow and Giles stared at them, and then at each other, completely in the dark.

  Kendra looked over at Buffy. “Your life is very different than mine.”

  “You mean the part where I ocasionally have one? Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “The things you do and have,” Kendra tried to explain, “I was taught distract from my calling—friends, school, even family.”

  “What do you mean—even family?”

  Kendra moved slowly about the room, her face grave. “My parents—they sent me to my Watcher when I was very young.”

  “How young?” Buffy asked.

  “I don’t remember them, actually. I’ve seen pictures, but that’s how seriously the calling is taken by my people. My mother and father gave me to my Watcher because they believed that they were doing the right thing for me—and for the world.” Kendra paused. “You see?”

  “Oh. I’m—”

  At a loss, Buffy stared back at her. As Kendra read the shock and sympathy in her eyes, she shut down tight.

  “Please,” she said firmly. “I don’t feel sorry for myself. Why should you?”

  And I thought I had it bad! Buffy thought a moment before she spoke. “It just sounds very lonely.”

  “Emotions are weakness, Buffy,” Kendra said, though not unkindly. “You shouldn’t entertain them.”

  Buffy looked surprised. “What? Kendra, my emotions give me power. They’re total assets.”

  “Maybe,” Kendra replied dubiously. “For you. But I prefer to keep an even mind.”

  She picked up a dagger and began to polish it. For a long while Buffy watched her. And then Buffy shrugged.

  “Huh. I guess that explains it.”

  Kendra glanced up quickly. “Explains what?”

  “When we were fighting.” Buffy shrugged again. “You’re amazing. Your technique. It’s flawless. Better than mine—”

  “I know.”

  Buffy bristled, but managed to keep her cool. “Still,” she sighed, “I would have kicked your butt in the end. And you know why? No imagination.”

  Kendra frowned. She was polishing the knife a little more intensely now.

  “Really?” Kendra’s tone was level. “You think so?”

  “Yep. You’re good. But power alone isn’t enough. A great fighter goes with the flow. She knows how to improvise.” Buffy leaned back, surveying Kendra with interest. “Don’t get me wrong, I mean, you have potential—”

  “Potential?” Furious, Kendra put the knife down. She marched over to Buffy and leaned into her face. “I could wipe the floor with you right now.”

  They stared at each other. And then Buffy smiled.

  “That would be anger you’re feeling,” she said.

  It caught Kendra completely off guard. “What?”

  “You feel it, right? How the anger gives you fire?” Buffy nodded wisely. “A Slayer needs that.”

  At that moment Xander walked in and grabbed a book from Giles’s desk. Kendra instantly froze, her eyes shyly aimed at the floor.

  “’Scuze me, ladies,” Xander said smoothly. He looked at Kendra. “Nice knife.”

  As Xander left, Buffy regarded the tongue-tied Kendra with sympathy. “I’m guessing dating isn’t big with your Watcher either.”

  “I am not permitted to speak with boys,” Kendra admitted.

  Buffy couldn’t help but smile. “Unless you’re pummeling them, right?” And then her eyes widened with a sudden thought. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “That guy,” Buffy said. “The sleazoid you nearly decked in the bar.”

  Kendra was puzzled. “You think he might help us?”

  “I think we might make him.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Angel was reeling from the pain.

  As Drusilla knelt before him, one knee wedged between his long legs, he could see the dreaded bottle of holy water in her hand. She dangled it over him teasingly.

  “Say uncle . . .”

  Weakly, he looked away from her.

  “Oh, that’s right.” A sly smile curled the corners of her lips. “You killed my uncle.”

  She splashed him again, delighting in his cries of pain. Spike entered the room behind her, his eyes fixed at once on their compromising positions. He wasn’t pleased.

  “That’s it then,” Spike said firmly. “Off to the church.”

  Drusilla looked up at him, all childlike innocence. She held out her bottle of holy water.

  “It makes pretty colors,” she smiled.

  She got up to kiss him, but Spike scarcely seemed to notice. Right now he was interested in only one thing, and more than eager to get it over with.

  He moved to untie Angel. Angel had seen Spike coming into the room—he’d seen the quick flash of jealousy and betrayal on Spike’s face. And now a plan began to form, a plan that would ultimately bring about his release.

  I’m sorry, Buffy . . .

  Angel took a shuddering breath. He’d have to wait for just the right moment.

  “I’ll see him die soon enough,” Spike went on, untying Angel’s hands. “I’ve never been much for the pre-show.”

  This was Angel’s chance. Without hesitation, he took it.

  “Too bad,” he mumbled to Spike. “That’s what Drusilla likes best, as I recall.”

  Spike froze. He straightened very slowly.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

&
nbsp; Angel looked over at Drusilla, his tone leering. “Ask her,” he nodded. “She knows what I mean.”

  Drusilla did know what he meant.

  She couldn’t help but smile at the memory.

  “Well?” Spike demanded, turning to face her.

  Drusilla shook her finger at Angel. She gave a playful growl. “Shhhhhhh. Bad dog.”

  “You should let me talk, Dru,” Angel taunted, grimacing through his pain. “Sounds like your boy could use some pointers.” He shifted a sidelong glance at Spike. “She likes to be teased—”

  “Keep your hole shut!” Spike yelled.

  He’d had enough, more than enough. No need to be reminded of Angel and Dru’s past together. He yanked Angel up by the throat and slammed him against a bedpost.

  Angel could hardly stand, and he was in no condition to fight. Yet stubbornly he kept on, gasping out the words.

  “Take care of her, Spike. The way she touched me just now, I can tell when she’s not satisfied—”

  “I said shut up!” Spike shouted.

  “Or maybe you two just don’t have the fire that we did—”

  “That’s enough!”

  Spike’s hand tightened around Angel’s neck. His other hand reached for a standing candelabra, smashing it into pieces, fashioning one of them as a stake.

  Swiftly Spike drew back his arm. Angel could see the stake clutched there in Spike’s hand, and he steeled himself bravely, a mere heartbeat away from death . . .

  “Spike, no!” Drusilla cried.

  And then Spike stopped.

  For a long silent moment he glared at Angel.

  And then, slowly, he smiled.

  “Right,” Spike mumbled. “Right, you almost got me.”

  He put the stake down. He tried to compose himself.

  “Aren’t you a ‘throw himself to the lions’ sort of sap these days?” he laughed. And then he roared like a beast into Angel’s anguished face. “Well, the lions are on to you, baby. If I kill you now, you go quick and Dru hasn’t got a chance. And if Dru dies, your little Rebecca of Sunnyhell Farm and all her mates are spared her coming-out party.”