Nineteen

SCORPIONS

Rebecca descended into darkness with a monster.

The monster was immortal and it had murdered people for generations, had wiped out families, bloodlines, even entire villages as it descended upon its victims like some terrible unstoppable plague, like some curse called down by a vengeful god. The creature had slaughtered people by the thousands like animals and relished every moment of their suffering. A vicious predator she had hunted for years in the shadows, following the trail of terror and despair it left in its wake through haunted cemeteries and fetid sewers and black forest paths, a trail that led Rebecca to deserted farms and crumbling tenements, to London opera houses and Parisian opium dens, to ancient castles and ruined nunneries, to bars and bordellos and little girls’ bedrooms. That predator had left its black stain on a thousand cursed places and its legend had never faded. It lingered in whispered tales of bodies stacked up and left to rot in cellars, of people hung up on hooks like animals. It lived on in stories of raped nuns in Prague and mutilated prostitutes in London, and one traumatized little girl in a village in Lyon, France.

But Rebecca needed the monster. So she swallowed her pride, her outrage, her almost feverish yearning to kill the thing and send it to the Hell it so richly deserved, and cursed herself, and descended into darkness with it. And wondered if she was dirty now.

“Didn’t have to pick me up,” the monster--he called himself Angel these days--said as they walked through the parking garage and made their way through the dark to the rental car, their footsteps echoing on the concrete, seeming very loud to Rebecca in the subterranean stillness. Angel carried a scuffed black leather satchel that looked like a doctor’s bag. “Got the name of the hotel. I could’ve taken a cab.”

Rebecca had watched him from the moment she met him at the terminal--actually, she had been watching him from the moment she met him in Sunnydale two months before. She hated him, but he fascinated her. She had hunted him for years and now she could study him in the flesh, up close. It was like having a timber wolf in a cage. Rebecca considered Angel an intriguing study in contrasts. He moved with grace and without any extraneous motion: he only moved when there was a reason to move. In Giles’ house in Sunnydale the morning before he had stood still as a statue for hours. When there was no reason to move Angel remained utterly still, like a calm lake without the slightest ripple disturbing its placid surface. There seemed to be a kind of serenity at the heart of him--or maybe a coldness. He only acted when there was a reason to act, only spoke when he had something to say. He didn’t put his hands in his pockets or tap his foot or stroke his chin or try to make conversation. Nothing seemed to concern him unduly, the world hardly seemed to make an impression upon him. He didn’t seem to give any thought to how people would react to him, he never put on airs. Angel seemed to glide through life, Rebecca thought; he seemed almost to float above the world. He made everything look easy.

But there were moments when Rebecca thought she saw a glimmer of the tortured man beneath the placid surface: the man who maintained, every single second, a frighteningly complete control. Before Faith had found out what Angel had done to Willow, she had spent some time with him--Rebecca knew Faith liked Angel, and consequently Rebecca had warned Angel to keep his distance from Faith, and she had also told Faith in no uncertain terms that she would not ever allow her to go on a date with him; she’d fly her straight back to Boston before she allowed that and Sunnydale and its various apocalypses could just go hang. Faith had laughed--Rebecca’s motherly concern always amused her to a degree. But Faith knew Rebecca wasn’t joking. In one of their conversations Angel had told Faith that he remembered the faces of the people he had murdered, with perfect clarity--every last one of them. Angel might have seemed lighter than air, but he was carrying a weight: the weight of more than thirteen-thousand destroyed lives. There were moments when Rebecca thought she saw him struggling to bear it.

“That would have been rather rude,” Rebecca said. “And I wanted to talk to you on the way.” They reached her car. She unlocked the passenger side door. Angel got in, stowed his satchel in the back and unlocked Rebecca’s door for her before she reached it.

Rebecca got in the car. “Faith said you have a problem figuring out modern devices. Telephones, computers, television remotes. You figured out that door lock pretty well.”

“I’m good with cars. Phones--not so much.” His voice was soft as a spring breeze. She remembered the monster...heard again all the whispered tales. This man didn’t seem to fit them. Could a soul mean so much? Could its absence cause such a terrible change in a person?

She thought about Tara again. Trying to live without a soul...holding on as best she could, moment to moment. Feeling cold and empty inside. Losing her mind, slipping away...it had only been a day. If they failed to restore her soul, where would Tara Claremont be in a year? Who would she be in a year?

She dismissed the thought. Failure simply wasn’t an option.

Rebecca started up the car and pulled out of the parking spot and drove up the ramp to the street level. Cars were packed into the garage like matches in a matchbook: it was the day before Thanksgiving. She hoped she’d have something to be thankful for soon.

“Thank you for coming,” Rebecca said. “I’m not overstating the situation when I say you’re Tara’s only hope. Luckily for us, Charlotte seems to have an almost neurotic fear of vampires--she can’t read your minds, so your kind terrifies her even though she could burn you to cinders with a snap of her fingers. It’s just about the only bit of luck we’ve had I’m afraid, but it’s something.”

“After our last conversation it kinda threw me when you called.”

“You mean our conversation about Genevieve Desmarais.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t want to call. I don’t like feeling indebted to you. I wish I could kill you, if you want me to be perfectly honest. But you saved Faith and I owe you for that. And you’ve saved Buffy and Willow on numerous occasions. And Tara shouldn’t suffer because of my pride. Whether I like it or not, and I certainly don’t like it, I think you and I will be seeing each other from time to time. I know you’re moving to Los Angeles. But you’re part of this...part of the fight. You have a role to play. For good or ill.”

Rebecca pulled up to the booth, fished her ticket out of her purse, and handed it to the attendant.

“That will be twenty-four dollars, please,” the attendant said. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen and he had a voice like a strangled partridge.

Rebecca pulled her wallet from her purse. Angel looked at the parking attendant like he was a masked ruffian who had waylaid them along some treacherous back road and was now holding the two of them at the point of a sword.

“Twenty-four dollars?” Angel said. “How long did you park for, a week?”

“A couple of hours,” Rebecca said.

Angel leaned forward and got a good look at the attendant. “A couple hours and you guys are charging twenty-four dollars? Are you kidding me?”

“Uh...that’s the rate, sir,” the attendant said. He wasn’t brandishing a sword and he wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a ruffian of any sort. He was in fact a rather shy boy named Darren. Darren was as penetrating and insightful as a Britney Spears album but he made up for that by being unfailingly courteous. He wasn’t brave either and he was beginning to look flustered under Angel’s black stare, the way marshmallows begin to look flustered when you impale them on a stick and then hold them over a fire.

“It’s the Thanksgiving holiday, everyone’s flying in and out to visit their relations,” Rebecca said, as she pulled money from her purse and handed it to Darren with a raised eyebrow and a sigh. “Parking at the airport is at a premium.”

“You know how much stuff I could buy for twenty-four dollars in the eighteenth century, kid?” Angel said, still eyeing Darren suspiciously. “I could live like a king for a month on twenty-four dollars.”

“The eighteen-hundreds?” Darren said. “Wasn’t that like, a long time ago?”

“Seventeen-hundreds,” Angel said, frowning at Darren. Darren quickly looked down at his register and concentrated intently on making change for a twenty and a ten. He pressed buttons on his cash register like he was entering missile launch codes.

“Twenty-four dollars,” Angel said. “I could have stayed in the finest lodge in Ireland for a month and gotten three gourmet meals a day for my trouble.”

“Uh...yes, sir,” Darren said, very specifically not looking at Angel as he handed Rebecca her change and pressed the button to raise the gate.

“There would have been plenty left over for beer too,” Angel said, still eyeing Darren as if he was a cutpurse, or a monster of some sort in disguise. Perhaps even a werewolf. “And not that pisswater you people drink. Real beer.”

“Uh...beer, yes, sir,” Darren said.

Rebecca sighed again as she took her measly six dollars in change and drove on up the ramp. Angel looked back at Darren dwindling away behind him, and went on frowning.

“Twenty-four dollars,” Angel muttered. “Frigging highway robbery. Kid’s a damned highwayman.”

“I won’t go hungry,” Rebecca said, as she pulled out into the airport and headed for the highway. “Are you sure you’re not Scottish?”

“Irish through and through. Nothing wrong with knowing the value of money.”

“Will you stop bloody talking about the twenty-four dollars if I agree to buy your mansion?”

“You wanna buy my mansion?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“As a fallback. Faith says your mansion is all stone and a good portion of it is underground. And Willow and Buffy say it has sewer access.”

“Yeah. It’s a good place to hole up. Everything’s stone, it’s got lots of little rooms you can barricade and two levels are underground. There are escape routes through the sewers leading to different parts of town.”

“You do legally own it, right?”

“Yeah. I paid cash for it when I came to Sunnydale, I have the deed.”

“How much do you want for it? Name a price, let’s settle on a figure now.”

“Why the hurry?”

“Because according to Buffy, trying to find a buyer for the mansion is all that’s keeping you in Sunnydale and I want you to leave. You’ve been dithering around looking for a buyer for two months now. For Willow and Buffy’s sake it’s better if you move to Los Angeles sooner rather than later. Right now you’re an open wound. It won’t start healing until you leave.”

“Yeah. Make me an offer.”

The negotiations were quick because Angel was a terrible businessman. He had paid one-point two million dollars in cash for the mansion and he offered it to Rebecca for the same price. She took pity on him and offered him a million-five so he could at least come away with a bit of profit. They were quiet for awhile after that. Rebecca had only met him a few times before but she knew Angel didn’t make conversation. And he never seemed uncomfortable in silence. He slipped into silence like a spider into shadows.

Rebecca drove fast along the highway and Angel rolled down the window. The storm from the night before had passed and the darkening sky was clear now, but there was something wild in the wind.

They got off the highway and headed into downtown. Angel said, “You’re taking over.”

“What?”

“In Sunnydale. With Buffy and Willow and Faith. You’re gonna be in charge of it.”

“Yes.”

“How did you get Buffy to sign onto that?”

“Faith did, mostly. But I think Buffy realized things need to change.”

“What about Giles?”

“Research.”

Angel nodded. “That’s all he ever did anyway really. Buffy never let him lead. She always went her own way. She should’ve listened to him more but...”

“From what Willow tells me, Buffy stopped listening to Giles fairly early on.”

“She didn’t respect him as a fighter. That was always the problem. End of the day, that’s what it’s about with Slayers.”

Angel was much more talkative than she had expected. The other times she had met him he’d barely said a word to her, though he was chatty enough with Faith.

There was an ease about him, a kind of charisma. Again, Rebecca reminded herself who he was...what he was.

“You taught Buffy how to fight,” Rebecca said. “Giles didn’t. Buffy told me she learned from you.”

“The basics. We were just starting to get into the advanced stuff when...” Angel’s voice trailed off.

Rebecca nodded. “Yes. You did a good job with her. She’s still entirely too headstrong but she uses her speed with marvelous effectiveness. Buffy says she would have died without the training you gave her and I’m inclined to believe her.”

“Well, she died once. Now I’m depending on you to make sure it never happens again.”

He looked out the window, at the city lights winking by in the dark. His black eyes reflected cold silver. He was beautiful in his way, Rebecca thought. Like a shark gliding through the cold beneath the waves. Perfectly conceived. A hunter by design.

“I’ll be pissed at you if she dies, Rebecca,” Angel said. “I’m only leaving because she’s not giving me a choice. I’d feel a lot better if I could still be there watching over her. Giles calls himself her Watcher but I’m the one who watched her. She won’t let me do that anymore.”

“My job is to die before they do,” Rebecca said. “I’m going to do my job.”

“You’ve got this Evan guy coming. He’s as strong as Kakistos and a lot smarter. And he’s got Dru with him.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve captured their witch but they can go right out and find another one.”

“You make it sound easy. Pure witches like Charlotte don’t grow on trees.”

“I’ve got my nose to the ground in Sunnydale. I know things Buffy doesn’t. Evan’s the real deal. People are flocking to join him in Cleveland. Bad people. He’ll have witches lining up outside his door. He’s building an army. And Buffy and Faith and Willow aren’t ready.”

“No,” Rebecca said. “They’re not.”

“The way I hear it, he’s taking his time. He won’t come for you guys until he has things wrapped up in Cleveland. Taking his witch will set him back too. I figure you’ve got some time. But he’ll be coming and you need to be ready when he does.”

“This venture you’re starting in Los Angeles...”

“Angel Investigations.”

Rebecca raised her eyebrow. “Angel Investigations?”

“I think it’s kinda catchy.”

“You’ll be taking on clients for money.”

“Yeah. But I gotta hire some people to help. A witch, some people for research, maybe some guys for extra muscle. A secretary, I guess. And I’ll need computers, weapons, magic supplies, occult books. That’s why I couldn’t leave Sunnydale until I had a buyer for the mansion. It isn’t just buying the hotel out there, there are lots of start-up costs. There’s plenty of my kind of work to go around in L.A. so I’m not worried about keeping it going, but starting up will be expensive.”

“Why on Earth are you setting up a supernatural detective agency, or whatever the hell it is you’re doing, in an old condemned hotel?”

“How do you know it’s condemned?”

“I did some research. The Hyperion has been closed down since the fifties.”

Angel shrugged his shoulders. “It’s still in okay condition. No structural damage. Some of the rooms are a lost cause but there are plenty more to go around. I lived there for awhile in the fifties. Always liked it. It just kinda...feels right.”

“So what’s your rate for taking on these supernatural detective jobs?”

“Depends on the job I guess. But actually...I’ve got no idea. No one else is doing this, I’ve got nothing to compare it to.”

“I’d like to hire you.”

“Don’t have to hire me. You guys need my help with something, just ask.”

“For this I’ll be taking up a lot of your time so I’m going to hire you. We’ll settle on a rate.”

“For doing what?”

“Once this business with Tara and Charlotte is done I intend to get the girls into training, intense training. Combat exercises. They need to learn to work as a team in the field. They need to train for the kind of fight Evan will bring.”

“Yeah. They do.”

“I want you to help me train them. The girls have school again starting next week. I’ll be putting them through a sort of boot camp at night, but on the weekends I want to give them combat exercises. I want them to learn how to fight an enemy like Evan, someone smart and strong who will capitalize on their weaknesses. I want to design a series of combat scenarios and I want you to help me. More to the point--I want you to fight them. You’ll be playing Evan.”

“With everything that happened when I lost my soul, you really think it’s a good idea to have me going up against Buffy and Willow?”

“Yes, actually. I want them feeling as uncomfortable as possible. I want to find their weaknesses and exploit them. But I take your point. Willow especially doesn’t need to be seeing you right now. So she won’t be seeing you. I can do a bit of magic. Here’s what I propose. I’ll cast a glamour around you to conceal your identity. I’ll introduce you to the girls as a stranger. You know everything about them but they won’t know you and it’ll put them at a disadvantage, which is what I want. You and I will devise a series of combat scenarios that we’ll run through with the girls on Friday and Saturday nights. I have some friends in the British military whom I’ve called in to prepare the locales, complete with cameras to record everything. They’re already at work and they should be ready within a week.”

“Locales?”

“Well we can’t do these exercises in my living room, can we? One of the lovely things about Sunnydale is that land is cheap: large swaths of the town are either undeveloped or abandoned. I bought a few abandoned properties, my friends are preparing them. I’ll pay you for your time but I want you every Friday and Saturday from sunset to sunrise and then I want you on Sunday nights as well to review the film of the exercises with me. You know Buffy and Willow’s weaknesses better than anyone, and I know Faith’s weaknesses better than anyone. You and I will come at the girls over and over and over again until they learn.”

“How hard do you want me to come at them? Saying you want to exploit their weaknesses is one thing. But I know you care about them.”

Rebecca looked at him, and her eyes were as cold as ice.

“I care about them, so I don’t want them dead,” Rebecca said. “If I can’t toughen them up Evan will kill them. I don’t want you for these exercises. I want Angelus. I want you to hunt them and hurt them and not show even a moment of hesitation when you do it. I want you to hunt them and hurt them the way you did when you lost your soul. I want you to ruthlessly exploit their weaknesses. I want you to fight dirty. The girls won’t know who you are--they’ll think you’re a human mercenary I hired to help train them, another of my soldier friends from the British military. But I want them to hate you by the time the first exercise is through. I want you to kick them while they’re down until they learn how to stand up to you. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Will you do it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll give you five-thousand dollars a day for your time. I’ve done this work and that’s the going rate for a military consultant. Is that acceptable?”

“Works for me. What about Tara? You said she’s a witch. Maybe you should bring her back to Sunnydale with you.”

“I’m going to make the offer, assuming we can get her soul back.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“You sound confident. But are you that certain? You don’t know Charlotte.”

“Believe me,” Angel said. “It won’t be a problem. But I’ve got some conditions.”

Rebecca pulled onto Kilbourn Avenue. The hotel was in sight.

“Conditions?”

“I’ll do this for you. I’ll get Tara’s soul back. But it has to be my way.”

“Meaning?”

“It has to be just Charlotte and me in the hotel room. No one comes in the room unless I say. You wanna talk to me, you knock at the door. If I don’t answer that means you can’t talk to me right then. It’s gonna get intense. Some of what I do to the witch will be a bluff, but not all of it. You can’t deal with that, you start to get squeamish and run into the room, it won’t work. We’re not doing good-cop bad cop.”

“I don’t care what you do to her. Hurt her. Torture her. Kill her. I don’t care. She victimized hundreds of people in the worst way imaginable and then murdered them afterwards. Do whatever you have to do to her as long as you convince her to open that goddamned crystal. I won’t get squeamish.”

Angel nodded. He regarded her silently for a moment.

“You’re not like Giles,” he said.

“I’m a soldier,” Rebecca said.

Rebecca pulled up in front of the Intercontinental. The parking attendant was instantly standing beside the car.

They got out of the car, Rebecca handed the keys to the parking attendant, Angel picked up his leather satchel, and they walked up the steps to the hotel.

“Anything else?” Rebecca said.

“You guys gonna kill this witch?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I don’t wanna have to worry about her coming after Buffy.”

“Do you need anything?” Rebecca said, as they headed for the elevators. “Anything that’s not in that bag you’re carrying?”

Rebecca wondered what he kept in the bag. She decided not to ask.

“Brought everything I’ll need,” Angel said. “But a few beers might be nice. And none of that pisswater everybody drinks.”

Michael Moon sat at his desk in his dormitory room at Princeton University, eating macaroni and cheese, frowning at his laptop as he worked out a particularly recalcitrant piece of code for his Advanced Programming Techniques course, and ignoring Dorothy, his on again-off again girlfriend. Dorothy had been yapping at him all afternoon, because she was needy, and she always wanted to talk about her feelings. It was one of the reasons she was so often off-again: she was a great and very attentive lay but she annoyed him so he tended to treat her badly. He went out with other girls and it hurt her. He hurt her partly because she so often annoyed him, but mostly, he hurt her because he could. She could have been the perfect girlfriend and he would’ve hurt her anyway. She was weak, and he enjoyed hurting her.

There was a word for people like Michael Moon, and Michael knew what the word was. He had chosen the word, embraced the word. But society seemed to have forgotten the word: lost sight of it in a haze of wishful thinking, buried it under rationalizations and justifications, banished it from their discourse because the word scared them. They were right to be scared, Michael thought. But in their fear they had plucked out their eyes, and now they were blind, and it made them even more vulnerable...to people like him. People who embraced the word.

Dorothy was still yapping. She was a history major--supremely impractical, a perfect major for her. There wasn’t much you could do with a history degree except write history books no one would ever read or teach history to other impractical people. But Michael knew that Dorothy wouldn’t have to worry about her career. She wasn’t going to have a career.

He had been marshalling his power for weeks, and tonight Dorothy was out of time.

“What?” Michael said. He hadn’t been listening. She was reading about the Mayans, or the Aztecs...one of the pre-Columbian societies. She had a paper due. She had been babbling about it for days and she was still babbling about it now.

He looked back at her. She was lounging in his bed, naked: she liked to be naked. Her parents had been hippies, Woodstock, Greenpeace, sit-ins, the whole nine yards, and Dorothy had acquired the gene. She really did have a wonderful body, he thought. He smiled as he looked at her, the way one appreciates a well-bred dog. He was going to miss fucking her. The last time he had broken up with her and then gotten back together, he had told her about the girls he dated. He always told her about other girls when he got back together with her, because she loved him desperately, and it hurt her more. The last time he told her that one of the girls had let him fuck her up the ass. It was a lie, a lie designed to test a hypothesis: he was curious to find out if Dorothy would let him fuck her up the ass, after that. She had been angry at him for about a week, which was a refreshing change from her usual sappy clinging, but eventually, she did let him. She cried when he did it because it hurt her, and that made it even better.

He checked his watch. He was surprised: there were only two minutes left now until the ritual. He often got lost in his own head when he was working on an interesting bit of code. He had set his alarm, but still, it was surprising, how time could get away from him, how quickly it could be lost.

It was the only thing that scared him: dying. Running out of time. He had been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis a few years before, and while the attacks had been infrequent and the disease hadn’t affected his cognitive abilities yet, he knew it would someday: it might even kill him someday. It was the reason for the ritual. Once the ritual was complete, he wouldn’t have to worry about his multiple sclerosis anymore. He wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore.

Dorothy smiled. “I swear you’re like the biggest computer geek in the world, Michael. No one else spends so much time on that stuff. How many perfect scores do you need?”

“I like being at the top of the class,” Michael said.

“That’s for sure. I was talking about these human sacrifices the Aztecs were into.”

“Human sacrifice. Sounds like those Aztec priests were a bunch of evil bastards.”

“No, they were just...ignorant. It was their way of understanding the world. But it was just so...” She shook her head. “Religion is fucked up.”

“Religion exists because people are afraid. Afraid there’s nothing out there.”

“There isn’t anything out there, Michael. There isn’t anything but us. And until we all start learning how to cherish each other without needing some childish reward-punishment scenario, we’ll never solve our problems. Until we stop seeing everything as simple black and white absolutes...”

He turned away from her, and tuned her out again. She could talk and talk and talk.

As he was about to take another bite of his macaroni and cheese, he dropped his fork.

“Company’s coming,” Dorothy said, as he picked it up.

He turned to her again. It wasn’t just that she talked endlessly. It was that so much of what she said was nonsense. It got to be like white noise eventually.

“What?” he said.

“You dropped a fork. Mean’s company’s gonna be dropping by.”

“I’m failing to see the causal relationship here.”

She got up, and kissed him. She’d had his dick in her mouth a few hours before. But he always made her use mouthwash afterwards. She loved kissing--it was her favorite thing to do.

He had shot his cum all over her face that morning. The way they did in porno movies. It was something else he had been curious about, another hypothesis he wanted to test: would she let him do it? If he hinted that their sex was becoming boring, that he was becoming restless again, would she let him do it?

She did. When she slunk away to the bathroom to wash it off, the look on her face had been priceless. He wished he had taken a picture.

“Just an old wives’ tale,” she said. “So what are we doing tonight? Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. You don’t wanna come to my folks’ place, so...”

“Had stuff to do here. You could’ve gone yourself. I wasn’t stopping you.”

He would have stopped her: he needed her for the ritual. But he knew she wouldn’t leave him. He knew she’d stay, and let him come on her face, and fuck her up the ass, and ignore her, and casually disparage her. Toss her around like an old toy he had become tired of. The more he ignored her, the more callous he was toward her, the more she tried to earn his affection. Like a dog. He wondered if she would have let him hit her sometimes. Unfortunately, it was too late to test that hypothesis now.

She smiled again. Her eyes were big and blue and full of light. She was a fragile, yet beautiful thing.

When Michael was a little boy, his mother had bought him a goldfish. They had gone to the store together and he had picked out the goldfish himself. The fish glided through the water like a ray of sunlight through the clouds, serene in its little bounded world. They brought the fish home in a plastic bag full of water, but Michael kept on reaching his hand into the bag to touch it. It was so beautiful as it darted around in quick circles like liquid gold, like firelight. He couldn’t resist touching it.

It died. His little fingers had crushed it, somehow. He hadn’t meant to kill it. It had been so beautiful, yet so fragile.

But Michael wasn’t sad when the goldfish died, because its death was a revelation: because that was the moment, at age six, that Michael discovered a new kind of beauty. The beauty of power. The beauty of knowing you could take a life in your hands: that you could nourish it, or snuff it out. Power like a god...

“Can’t spend Thanksgiving without you, baby,” Dorothy said, as she stood naked and beautiful and serene, and yet so terribly fragile, in his dorm room, like a goldfish in a plastic bag.

His alarm went off. She jumped at the sound.

“What’s the alarm for?” she said.

Now it was his turn to smile. “Got a surprise for you, Dorothy.”

He got up, and took off his clothes. She smiled appreciatively, and ran her fingers over his shoulders. He had a good, lean body and she loved touching him. She kissed his chest.

“Already had this surprise but I’m willing to be surprised again,” she whispered.

He walked naked to the little closet and pulled out a silk tie.

“No peeking,” he said. “Don’t wanna ruin the surprise.”

He turned her around, and blindfolded her with the tie, as she giggled in his arms. He leaned over his desk, and pulled something from the top drawer.

“So is it bigger than a breadbox?” she said, and reached back toward his dick. He was hard. The thought of what he was about to do made him hard. “Mmmm...a lot bigger than a breadbox.” She giggled again.

“Loki,” Michael whispered. “Accept my sacrifice, and grant my plea...oh God of Lies, appear to me.”

“Um...what...?” Dorothy said. She giggled again.

Michael slit her throat with a dagger.

Dorothy gasped, and made a whimpering sound. She didn’t die instantly: she instinctively raised her hands to her throat, and tried to spin around, tried to get away. He undid the silk tie--he wanted to see the look in her eyes. Then he threw her to the floor. She tried to get up, but she couldn’t. She held her hands to her throat, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood, but it was hopeless: he had slit her throat in just the right way, severed the carotid artery. He had studied the technique. She made a choking sound, and looked up at him with tears in her eyes. She tried to say his name. It came out a strangled gurgle. As her life bled out of her, she managed to get to her knees, and she tried to reach out to him. He kicked her away, and she fell to the floor again. He knelt by her side, and pulled her hands away from her neck, and waited.

“There’s a word for me,” Michael whispered to her, as her eyes fluttered closed, and her tears came ceaselessly, and her life drained away. “A word people like you are afraid to say, a word everyone seems to have forgotten even exists. Evil. That’s the word, Dorothy. I’m evil. It’s a choice I made a long time ago.”

A moment later, she had stopped moving. A moment after that, she was gone.

Her blood was on his hands. It felt warm.

As her innocent blood ran over his fingers, Michael felt energy, coalescing around him. It increased the temperature of the room for a little space around his body. It was like lying in a tanning bed. But Michael had expected this...it meant the spell had worked. As he knew it would. He waited, next to the body of the girl who had thought he could love her.

Michael had never killed a human being before, though he had often fantasized about it. He had killed small things, just to see what it was like--after the goldfish he had graduated to killing bugs, then he had moved on to small animals. He was surprised now at the intensity of the feelings killing Dorothy stirred in him. It was like a drug. It hadn’t felt like this when he had killed the goldfish, the bugs, the dogs and the cats and the squirrels and the birds. And it wasn’t just because a human being was a step up from fish and insects and animals. It was because he was using her, he realized. Because he had taken everything she had and he was using it to increase his own power. Taking Dorothy’s life to increase his own power gave him an ecstatic rush, a jolt that made his blood race and set his every nerve on fire and made him want to leap up and dance. He laughed. In that moment, he felt full of joy.

The magical energy released by the spell was like static electricity on his skin now...like a thousand tiny fingers caressing him. Michael felt hot, like he was burning up...he felt his hairs standing on end...

Then the energy disappeared. The temperature of the room returned to normal. Dorothy’s body disappeared, in a flash of black light. But her blood remained on his hands.

“I suppose we both knew this day was coming, Michael Moon,” a beautiful, mocking voice said. It was a voice like music.

Michael looked up, and saw her.

Loki was a beautiful, raven-haired woman, with bright green eyes and a cruel smile. Michael was puzzled for a moment; he had expected a man. In all his studies, in all the mythologies he had read, Loki was a man. But then he remembered: Loki was a shape-changer as well. Of course he could appear as a woman, if it suited his purposes.

Michael remained there, naked, on his knees. A chill went through him, when he looked into Loki’s eyes. She approached him. Michael cast his eyes down to the floor, and for the first time in his life since he had gotten his MS diagnosis, he felt afraid.

“Loki, I welcome you,” Michael whispered. “I would ask of you...a boon.”

The god stood before him now, in a silk tunic and tight-fitting leather trousers, leather boots, and a silver, jewel-encrusted diadem crown. She wore a cloak that seemed to be made of some sort of feathers. Her green eyes held Michael down like a butterfly with a pin stuck through him...like a goldfish swimming around in a plastic bag.

“Ever since you were a child, you were...different,” the god said.

Michael tried to read the expression on her face, and found that he couldn’t. The god seemed bored. Like she was going through the motions here...like this was something she had long expected, but hadn’t anticipated with any particular relish. But she seemed amused as well... and perhaps even a little bit sad.

“I have been watching you,” the god continued, as she stood there frowning at his slovenly dorm room like a unicorn in a circus tent. “I have watched as you dabbled in petty cruelties, and then advanced to more elaborate and cunning depravities. I have watched you master your human sciences, and then, restless, turn your mind to the higher and more subtle arts of magic. You are gifted. Aye, you remind me of King Midas. Perhaps you’ve heard tell of him. He was granted a wish by that ridiculous Greek god, Dionysus, and then everything he touched turned to gold.” The god stood over him, and stroked his hair. Michael shivered at her touch. And he thought about the goldfish...and he wondered if he would be crushed to death by the god’s mere caress. “All your life, Michael Moon, whatever you have turned your mind to, has turned to gold. You did not have to kill the girl. An animal would have sufficed.”

He smiled. “I like being at the top of the class.”

“In cruelty, you are for a certainty. In ambition as well. As for the rest...we’ll see. But you’ll suffice for my purposes.”

The god gave him a strange look, then.

“Yes...” Loki whispered. “You will prove an excellent challenge for her.”

“What’s that?” Michael said. “Her?”

The god turned her back on him.

“You ask a boon of Loki,” she said. “What is it?”

“Two things,” Michael said. “I have a disease--multiple sclerosis. I want you to cure me of it. You can do that, right?”

“Of course.”

“And I want power. I’ve been dabbling in magic for a few years but there’s too much stuff I can’t do, stuff that no guy can do. For a man the road to power goes through the gods.”

“And you picked me. Why?”

“You’re the most powerful.”

She turned to him again, and smiled. She was breathtakingly beautiful. “Flatterer. And what does Loki get in return for these boons you seek?”

“Your collar around my neck. I pledge myself to you, Loki. Grant me these things I ask and I pledge myself to you forever.”

She nodded. She approached him again. An iron collar appeared in her hand.

“May I ask a question?” Michael said.

The god raised her eyebrow. He amused her, he realized.

“Why did you appear as a woman? I’m not complaining, believe me. I’m just curious.”

She bent forward, and moved close to him.

“I thought you would find this form pleasing,” she whispered.

Her lips brushed against his.

“Do you not find this form pleasing?” she whispered.

For the first time in his life, he blushed.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re...you’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.”

“Never let it be said that Loki is not attentive to the wishes of his worshippers,” the god said. “Perhaps, someday, if your service pleases me, you might see more of my beauty.”

Loki stood up. Her green eyes flashed bright as emeralds as she regarded him.

“Hear now my terms, Michael Moon,” she said. “I shall weld this collar around your neck, and it may never be removed so long as you live. And you shall swear oaths of fealty to me, in this life and the next, and you shall be my slave forever. In return, I will cure you of this disease as you ask, and grant you some of my power. Will you sacrifice yourself to me, forever, in this life and the next, for all eternity? Wilt thou accept my collar around your neck?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

“Do you swear to pledge yourself to my service?”

“I do. I swear.”

“And do you swear fealty to me, forever?”

“I swear.”

In an instant, it was done. The iron collar felt cold and heavy around his neck. It would take some getting used to. But Michael felt Loki’s power, surging through him, filling him up... he felt like he was bristling with power.

And not just power: knowledge. All the spells he could never master before, as well as spells he had never read about nor even heard of were child’s play now. He could conjure flame, call down lightning, kill a person with a snap of his fingers. It was all so simple. He couldn’t believe how simple it all was...it was just a matter of awareness. A way of seeing. If you could see the world for what it was, see the building blocks, the interplay of elements, you could manipulate it all...arrange and rearrange it to your liking. That’s all magic was. It was simple...

“Thank you, master,” Michael said. “Thank you.”

“Serve me well,” Loki said. “That is the only thanks that matters.”

“I will. What do you want me to do first? I’m your instrument.”

Loki smiled again.

“Answer the door,” she said. “Company’s coming...it is time to begin your journey.”

And then she disappeared, in a flash of black light.

Michael stood up. He looked around the room. It was a crummy little room. He was only a sophomore, so he didn’t get to have one of the good dorms. He looked over at his textbooks, at his laptop on the desk. None of it mattered anymore. Getting his degree didn’t matter anymore, having a career didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t need any of it, didn’t need any of the stupid, mundane things people spent their lives trying to acquire.

All he needed was...

There was a knock at the door.

He answered it, naked. For a second, he thought he should throw some clothes on. Then he realized it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to think in those terms anymore. He didn’t need to worry about other people’s expectations--not ever again.

When he opened the door, he saw two men and two women.

One of the men was about his age, white, tall and handsome. The other one was black, and he looked bigger than the door.

“Dude!” the white man said, frowning and turning his head away. “Cover yourself up, man. We don’t swing that way.”

“And I thought it was just the white boys that was crazy,” the black man said, and puffed cigar smoke at Michael. “Guess you Oriental boys are pretty crazy too.”

Michael frowned. “Asian. Specifically, I’m Korean.”

The black man laughed. “Well lawzy me mastah Mike, I wouldn’t wanna be racially insensitive, no sir.” He bowed. “You is a Korean, and I is, specifically, an African-American, yesirree.”

Michael was trying to work out whether or not he was being insulted or just kidded. One of the women was older, perhaps in her forties. She had blonde hair and hard eyes the color of slate and she wore a stylish suit. She seemed amused and not at all embarrassed or uncomfortable as she watched him.

“Kids these days,” she said. “But I see he’s got a collar already. We can put him to work right now.”

“Charlotte’s gonna be jealous,” the black man said, and grinned.

“Good,” the blonde-haired woman said.

But the other woman was the one, more than any of the others, who really held Michael’s attention. She was almost as beautiful as the god had been: she had raven-black hair and cold blue eyes that seemed to penetrate straight down to his heart...it was as if she knew him already, even though they had never met.

“Hello, Michael,” she whispered, and smiled...and took his bloody hands in hers, and kissed him.

“He’s here,” Faith said, and leapt up off the couch. Tara looked toward the door. No one was knocking. She couldn’t hear anyone coming down the hall toward the room.

“Um...he is?” Tara said. “Where? And how do you know?”

“She’s a Slayer,” Clea said, as she stood over Charlotte, watching the unconscious witch carefully. She pulled a needle from her shoulder bag. “She can smell vampires.”

“The nose knows,” Faith said.

Tara sat up straight on the couch, and held Faith’s crystal pendant in her hand. It was pulsing with light and warmth and it gave her some small measure of solace as she lived every moment with a hole inside her now. She was feeling a little better. The crystal helped, and she and Faith had talked for a long time too...Faith held her, and they had told each other secret things. In a way, they had made love.

If she had Faith, Tara thought she might be able to go on: maybe, she could even go on without her soul.

Tara heard them now, coming down the hall. Rebecca, and the vampire. She stiffened. She was about to meet a vampire, and she hadn’t the slightest idea what to expect, and she suddenly realized she was frightened. She hadn’t really thought about the vampire with everything else that had happened, but now that he was here...

She was about to meet a vampire. A monster that killed people, attacked them in dark places far from help and drained their blood. She felt a wave of fear move through her like a snake slithering around her insides.

Faith took her hand. It was as if Faith had sensed her fear, somehow.

“It’s okay, Tara,” Faith said.

A key turned in the door. Rebecca came into the room. A tall, handsome man in a black trenchcoat came in behind her, and he seemed to bring the darkness outside in with him.

Instinctively, Tara reached out with her mind, and tried to read him. But she couldn’t. She remembered then what she had learned from Charlotte: a vampire’s thoughts couldn’t be read. They cast no reflections, whether in mirrors or in a telepath’s mind. They were like walking holes in the world.

There was a stillness about the vampire...a kind of quiet dignity. He stood there, and looked each of them in the eyes in turn.

Clea met the vampire’s dark eyes, unafraid. “Thanks for coming, Angel,” she said. “We’re out of options here.”

“Yeah,” Angel said. “I’m happy to help. You’re a witch. Can you cast some sort of spell that muffles the sounds coming from this room?”

“Yeah,” Clea said. “Why?”

Then she realized what he must have meant.

“Oh,” Clea said. “Right. Yeah. Once you’re ready to start with her I can cast a silencing spell around the room. Don’t want hotel security coming up here.”

Angel nodded, and looked at Tara. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Angel.”

When those black eyes swept over her it was like staring into a solar eclipse. Tara immediately looked away.

“Um...um...hi,” Tara whispered. “I’m T-Tara. Tara...Claremont.” Tara blinked like there was a spotlight shining on her. She fidgeted with her hair. Mercifully, Angel released her from his gaze.

But when Angel met Faith’s eyes, Tara felt it in her mind like chain lightning: rage. Faith was boiling with it. Faith wanted to kill this man...this vampire. She was like an animal straining against a chain.

Tara saw it, in Faith’s mind: saw the image as Faith contemplated it. Saw Faith leap at Angel, roaring like a lion. Saw her tear into his throat with her teeth, shrieking...saw her slicing him to ribbons with her fingernails.

The image sent a chill through her.

Faith looked at her, then, and smiled. It wasn’t a human smile. That smile was an icepick in Tara’s heart and in that moment Tara understood, for the first time, exactly what a Slayer was.

“Cats and dogs, Tara,” Faith said. “Just how it is.”

Then Faith looked at Angel again.

“Hello, Faith,” Angel said. If he sensed the chaos whipping through Faith’s mind, the rage that made her want to kill him, he didn’t show it. He stood perfectly still, and watched her. He seemed relaxed, perfectly at ease. He might have been reading the newspaper for all the strain that showed on his handsome face.

“I know what you did to Willow,” Faith said.

“Now isn’t the time for this, Faith,” Rebecca said.

“Not now,” Faith said. “But someday. Someday GQ and me are gonna make the time.”

Angel nodded.

“Thought we could maybe be like, almost friends,” Faith said. “That was before I found out about Willow. Can’t ever happen now.”

“My loss,” Angel said.

“You’re real polite when you’re not raping girls,” Faith said. Tara sat up like someone had jabbed her with a nail.

“Faith,” Rebecca said. “That’s enough.”

Faith turned her back on Angel, and Rebecca too. Tara was still fidgeting with her hair. Her hands were shaking now. Faith sat next to her on the couch, and held Tara’s shaking hands in hers.

“Sorry about the drama,” Faith said.

“That’s...that’s okay,” Tara said. “Everything’s been...um, pretty dramatic lately.”

“He’s here to help us,” Faith said. “Forget the other stuff for now.”

Tara nodded.

“Clea, are we ready?” Rebecca said.

“Yeah,” Clea said. She closed her eyes and raised her hands, and whispered a word...

The effect of the spell was like being in an elevator that suddenly shot up to the roof while rushing past all the floors along the way. For a moment Tara felt almost like she had been swept off her feet and into the air. There was a pressure in the room. Her ears popped. Then the pressure went away.

“It’s done,” Clea said. “Coyote has contained Charlotte’s magic. We have seventy-two hours.” She injected Charlotte’s wrist with the needle she held in her hand. “This will wake her up in a bit.”

“And she won’t be able to cast any spells at all?” Rebecca said.

“She won’t be able to conjure so much as a puff of smoke,” Clea said. “She can still read minds--her telepathy isn’t magical, it’s an ability she was born with. But that’s all.”

“Okay,” Angel said. “I’ll need the crystal.”

Clea gave Angel the crystal that caged Tara’s soul. Angel put it in his coat pocket.

“Does Tara need to be in the room when Charlotte unlocks the crystal?” he asked.

“No,” Clea said. “Once the crystal is unlocked Tara’s soul will find her.”

“How does stealing a soul work? Once Charlotte unlocks that crystal, how do we stop her from just saying some magic words and taking Tara’s soul again?”

“By killing her. But Charlotte would have to be in physical contact with a person for a good long time to take their soul. It isn’t just a matter of saying a few words. Besides, like I said, she can’t cast any magic at all for seventy-two hours. You convince her to give Tara her soul back, then I put her down so she can never do this to anybody else.”

Angel walked over to the couch, and knelt down in front of Tara. He could smell her fear.

“I know I scare you,” he said. “I’m sorry about that. I just wanted you to know that I know how you’re feeling right now. The emptiness inside. The cold.”

“You...you do?” Tara whispered.

“Yeah. But it won’t be for much longer. I’m gonna get your soul back. I promise. Okay?”

“B-but...what if sh-she won’t do it? Clea’s gonna kill her and, and Charlotte knows that.”

“There are worse things than dying, Tara.”

“You don’t...you don’t really seem like a vampire. I mean...you’re not like, all Dracula-ish. Or Nosferatu-ish.”

“The movies get it wrong.”

“Um...you kinda remind me of the vampires in this book I read once though...Interview With the Vampire. You kinda remind me of those guys.”

Angel smiled. He had a beautiful smile, Tara thought.

“Lestat’s a pansy,” Angel said.

Tara smiled too.

Charlotte moaned. Angel stood up.

“Okay, time for you guys to take off,” he said.

“Angel and I agreed that he’ll need privacy to do this work,” Rebecca said. “The four of us will be next door in Faith’s room while Angel does what he has to do. Let’s go.”

As she walked out the door with Faith, Tara took one last look at Angel. He was watching Charlotte as she stirred to consciousness. But he no longer seemed serene. Now there was something else...Tara wasn’t sure what it was, at first.

Just before Rebecca closed the door, Angel looked back at them. And then, Tara knew what the other thing was, the thing that robbed Angel of his serenity, his certainty. Somehow, for some reason, Angel was feeling humiliated, now. It was a subtle thing--the tilt of his head, a movement of his lips, a slight change in his posture, but Tara was certain of it. And it wasn’t because of what Faith had said to him. It was this moment, right now: this thing he had to do. Torturing Charlotte. For some reason, it humiliated him...made him ashamed. It made him feel...

Dirty, Tara thought, as the door closed behind her. It made him feel dirty.

“Wakey wakey,” a voice said.

Charlotte’s eyes fluttered open. She looked around her. It was difficult to make her eyes focus.

She was sitting in a chair, at a wooden table, in a hotel room. There was an empty chair facing her. She tried to stand up, but the moment she did she lost her balance and collapsed back into her chair.

The owner of the voice came into view. A man, carrying a leather satchel. He had dark hair...he wore a long, dark coat. Charlotte tried to make her eyes focus, tried to think. She felt hazy, sluggish. It was hard to concentrate.

Then she gasped, as she recognized the man carrying the satchel: it was Angel.

Immediately, instinctively, she raised her hand and tried to conjure a fireball. Nothing happened. For some reason, she couldn’t make her hands form the correct gestures...

Then she noticed her fingers. Every one of them was broken. She screamed.

“What...what did you...do to me?!” Charlotte shrieked.

Angel took off his coat, draped it over the empty chair, and set the satchel on the table. He smiled.

“Me? Nothing,” he said. “I haven’t harmed a hair on your pretty little head, darlin.’ Not yet at least.”

Charlotte couldn’t use her hands but there were spells that didn’t require specific hand gestures. Defensive spells. She tried to conjure a force field...

Nothing happened.

Angel opened the satchel. He was quick and efficient and precise. He moved like a surgeon.

Charlotte tried to conjure the force field again. Nothing happened again.

Angel pulled a serrated hunting knife out of the satchel, and set it down on the table. He pulled a pair of pliers out of the satchel, and set it down on the table next to the knife. Charlotte tried to get up again, tried to run. Angel smacked her in the face, half-heartedly, as if he wasn’t really paying attention. The way you might cuff a dog across the nose with a rolled up newspaper. The blow sent Charlotte flying out of the chair and tumbling into the living room.

“Come back to the chair,” Angel said.

He wasn’t looking at her. He was concentrating on his satchel, and the things he was pulling out of it. He pulled out a long needle, and set it next to the pliers. Charlotte’s mouth was bleeding. Hazily, she saw the door on the other side of the room. She could run...

Again, she tried to conjure a force field, tried to separate herself from him with a barrier. Again, it didn’t work. She felt like she had been drugged...it was hard to concentrate. But there was something else...something else preventing her from casting spells. She felt blocked, somehow...caged.

She looked back at Angel. He still wasn’t bothering to look at her. He didn’t seem concerned at all that she might run out that door, that she might escape him. He pulled a straight razor out of the satchel and set it down on the table next to the needle. He took a moment to make sure all the instruments were lined up perfectly parallel with each other.

“Tick-tock, darlin’,” Angel said.

Charlotte tried to stand. She was able to this time, but she felt dizzy and nauseous.

She knew she had a choice to make. She could run...or not.

But it wasn’t any choice at all. He was a vampire: inhumanly fast. He would be on her before she made it two steps to the door, even if she wasn’t feeling so dizzy she could hardly keep her balance.

“Wh-what...what are you...gonna do to me...?” she whispered. It was hard to talk. They had definitely drugged her with something. For one thing, her broken hands should have hurt like hell but all she felt was a dull throb coming from her fingers at the moment. She tried to remember how she had gotten here...she had taken the girl’s soul...Tara. Then there was a vampire...he had said he was a follower of Kakistos...he had taken down Clea and the Slayer... what happened after that?

They drugged her, somehow...anesthetics of some kind. The drugs kept her unconscious, and minimized her pain now. But her pain was coming back...the drugs were wearing off. Every second, Charlotte’s hands hurt a little worse.

“We’re gonna get to know each other,” Angel said. “By the by, you should know that if you talk without my leave again, I’ll hurt you. Come back to the chair. If I have to repeat myself again, I’ll hurt you.”

Angel took a pair of game shears from the satchel, and set them next to the straight razor.

Charlotte came back to the table. Angel picked her chair up off the floor. Charlotte sat.

“How did you get here?” Charlotte said. “What--”

He smacked her in the face again. She went flying out of the chair again. This time she slammed into the coffee table in the living room. Everything went black...

Charlotte was sitting in the chair again. She didn’t know how she had gotten back to the chair. She assumed he had picked her up and put her there.

“You’re not too good with directions, Charlotte,” Angel said. He was sitting across from her, smiling. The smile seemed genuine. He looked like he was having fun. Instinctively, Charlotte reached out, tried to read him. There was nothing there. A void. “Told you not to talk until I give you leave.”

His instruments were all laid out on the table between them, stainless steel, gleaming in the light. At some point he had taken out a lighter, a roll of bandages, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol too. Charlotte looked at all of it. She felt fear blossoming inside her like flies buzzing around a corpse.

“Here’s the deal,” Angel said. “You took that girl’s soul...whatshername, Tara something. I really couldn’t care less about that, but you pissed me off when you came into my mansion and stole that necklace from me, so now I’m taking something from you. You’re gonna give the girl her soul back. Not just yet though.” He grinned. “We’re gonna get to know each other first. ”

He stood up, and took off his shirt. He shrugged his shoulders to relax the muscles in his chest, as if he was about to start a workout. Then he sat back down.

“You sucker punched me on the way out too,” he said. “I don’t mind tellin’ ya darlin’, I’m a little peeved about that. What did you do with the necklace, by the way?”

“I...” Charlotte’s voice was a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat. “I destroyed it. Drusilla told me to melt it down and throw it away, so I did.”

Angel nodded.

“Dru and I go way back,” he said. “She tell you the story? She tell you about me?”

“No.”

“It’s a long story and I’ve told it too many times, so I’ll just give you the highlights. Once upon a time I was the most depraved, ruthless, clever, charming, handsomest damn bastard of a vampire who ever lived. I locked Drusilla in a closet and raped her, oh, about four-hundred times I guess. Raped her sisters too. And her mother. I drove Dru insane and turned her and damn if that wasn’t more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Then I made the mistake of pissing off some gypsies.” He frowned, and rolled his eyes. “Frigging gypsies. They restored my soul so I could feel all guilty about all the fun I had. Everything was sort of a drag after that for awhile, but eventually I got back into the fight, but this time I was one of the good guys. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather, believe me. But I met a girl in Sunnydale--the Slayer. Not Faith, the other one. Buffy Summers.” He chuckled. “And man, was she a great lay! A real bunny in the sack. As long as I was banging that sweet, tight Slayer pussy, I was fine with being one of the good guys. So I did the hero thing and banged the Slayer on the side and things were okay for awhile. But what the gypsies hadn’t anticipated was that I’d learn to deal with the guilt they laid on me eventually. Time heals all wounds, they say.”

Charlotte’s broken hands were shaking. She tried to stop them, but she couldn’t. Tears filled her eyes.

He took her broken hands in his. His touch was cold.

“Y’know, this situation reminds me of a parable I heard when I was out drinking with this old Spaniard in Barcelona,” he said. “His name was Enrique. He was a funny old guy, worst card player I’ve ever seen, and he told great stories. Of course, I didn’t find out until later that I had raped and murdered his daughter Esmeralda the week before...whoops! How was I supposed to know she was his daughter? Anyway, Enrique’s parable goes like this. A scorpion was wandering along the bank of the river, wondering how to get to the other side. Suddenly he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river. The fox said, ‘No. If I do that, you'll sting me and I'll drown.’ But the scorpion said, ‘Why would I do that? If I did that, we'd both drown.’ And the fox thought, okay, the scorpion’s got a point. So the fox said what the hell, let the scorpion climb up on his back, and the fox started to swim across the river. But halfway across, wouldn’t you know it, that bastard scorpion stung him. As the poison filled his veins and the fox knew he was about to drown and the scorpion was about to drown along with him, he turned to the scorpion and said, ‘Why the hell did you do that? Now you'll drown too.’ And the scorpion said, ‘I couldn't help it. It's my nature.’ The end.”

He smiled. His teeth were sharp as knives and his eyes were black and empty as two gun barrels.

“I’m the scorpion,” Angel said. “Buffy and Faith and all the rest of ’em think that just because I have a soul now, that I’m always gonna be one of the good guys. But you can see the flaw in their reasoning, right? You know a soul doesn’t mean shit. You of all people know that. I mean, you have a soul, and how many people have you killed? Me, I’ve killed more than thirteen-thousand. But the killin’ wasn’t the best part. No, the best part was hurting people. That’s what I like to do and it’s never changed. It’s who I am...it’s my nature. Sure, I can fight the good fight with the Slayers out in Sunnydale--but only because I still get to hurt people. That’s the whole point of it for me. I don’t give a shit what side someone’s on. I don’t give a shit that you stole that girl’s soul. I just like hurting people. Especially women...and pretty women like you are my favorites. Rebecca called me in to help with this thing because she thinks I can scare you. And we both know she’s right about that. You’re pissing your panties and I haven’t even gotten started yet. But I’m only offering to help with this because I get to hurt you. You and me, we’re gonna have us a grand ol’ time.”

He picked up the pliers. Charlotte jumped.

“Okay, time to get started,” he said. “Here’s the rules. Simple. You do what I say. Speak when you’re spoken to. I’m gonna hurt you for awhile, then I guess you’re gonna release whatshername’s soul from that crystal just so they can all stop frigging bothering me about it. I’ll rape you at some point, though I’d like it better if you had a smile on your face when I fucked you. I don’t think you’re gonna have much cause to be smilin’ though, more’s the pity. Anyway then I’m gonna kill you, but it’ll be quick, because Clea and Rebecca are squeamish. If you’re smart that’s how you’ll play it.”

He squeezed the pliers. Charlotte made a whimpering sound, when he did it.

“But actually, I’m hopin’ you don’t play it that way,” he said. “Because the other way is so much more fun! You disobey me. You speak out of turn. And I hurt you a hell of a lot worse than I was plannin’ on. You refuse to let whatshername’s soul go, so instead of killing you...”

He leaned forward, grabbed her by the hair, and kissed her. She screamed, as he jammed his tongue into her mouth.

When he was done, he yanked her head back by the hair and dragged his teeth across her neck. She felt them...almost breaking the skin. She started crying.

“I’ll just turn you into a vampire,” he whispered in her ear.

When he said that, Charlotte’s fear nearly strangled her: she felt like she was suffocating.

“Once I turn you, you’ll belong to me,” Angel said. “Vampires always have a bond with their sires. Once I sire you, you’ll do anything for me, darlin’. You’ll give that girl her soul back just because I told you to. You’ll suck my dick and you’ll do it with a big smile the way I like it just because I told you to. Anyway, it’s your call. Time to lose some teeth.”

He slammed her head down on the table, and held her there. He wrenched her mouth open, and jammed the pliers inside. She screamed.

“This is really gonna hurt,” he said, and chuckled. “On the bright side though, it’ll feel better for me when you’re sucking my dick...”

Charlotte was crawling on the floor. She had blacked out for awhile...she didn’t know how much time had passed.

She remembered the pain, as he pulled teeth out of her skull. She remembered begging, while he just laughed. Four of her teeth were scattered on the floor around her, in little puddles of blood. Her mouth was full of blood...she kept swallowing blood.

“Well that was a fun little diversion,” Angel was saying. She looked up. She saw perfectly shined black shoes. He was standing over her. “You kinda went away there for awhile. Good to have you back.”

“Please...” she whispered.

Crawling across the floor, shaking and sobbing and bleeding and in pain, and hysterical with fear, Charlotte did the only thing she could do. She couldn’t cast spells, but she could still read minds...she could still broadcast her thoughts. Evan wasn’t even in the same state as she was, but she thought maybe she could reach him...though she knew there was almost certainly nothing he could do to help her. Even if she managed to reach him with her thoughts from this distance, even if he got on a plane immediately, she would still almost certainly be dead by the time he could arrive...

But there was nothing else she could do.

She reached out with her mind...searching.

“Next up: the needle,” Angel said. “You’re gonna love this. Well...I am.”

“Please,” she whispered. “I...I have money...”

She felt herself being lifted through the air. Suddenly she was sitting at the table again. She coughed up blood.

Angel stroked her cheek. “You really are a pretty girl, darlin’, you know that?” he said. “That’s why I pulled the back teeth, not the front. Wouldn’t want to mar that pretty face. What I wouldn’t give to fuck you. Oh sure, I could rape you, and believe me, I’m plannin’ on it. But there’s nothing like a girl who does it with a smile.”

“Please, I’ll...I’ll fuck you, I’ll...I’ll do anything you want,” Charlotte whispered, gulping down blood. “Anything you want. I have money, I’m rich, I have, I have hundreds of millions in overseas accounts. I’ll wire it all to you! Please...just don’t...don’t hurt me anymore. You think I’m pretty, right? I’ll fuck you, I’ll suck your dick so good, I’ll do it with a smile baby...all my money too, anything you want, anything...”

“Anything, huh?” Angel said. “Well I gotta admit hundreds of millions of dollars sounds kind of interesting. But there’s also the matter of restoring that girl’s soul, and from what I hear it’s real important to you. I figure you’re gonna need a lot more pain before you’re willing to part with it. At least, I hope so, because I was really looking forward to giving you more pain. I mean, look at all this stuff I brought! We’ve only done the pliers so far!”

The pliers were back on the table, Charlotte noticed: they were covered with her blood. Angel picked up the needle.

“You don’t need both your eardrums to hear with,” he said. And then Charlotte screamed again, as he slammed her face down into the table, and held her still. He stuck the needle in her ear, slowly. Making his way carefully toward her eardrum. She shrieked, as the needle penetrated deeper....as she felt the cold metal point touch the surface of her eardrum like a pin against a balloon. With perfect, inhuman control, Angel had the needle balanced against the surface of her eardrum without breaking through it...yet.

“PLEASE!” she screamed. “I’ll restore her soul, I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I’ll do anything you want! All my money! You can fuck me, you can rape me! ANYTHING! ANYTHING!”

He rolled his eyes. “Told you I don’t care about her soul. Come on, Charlotte! I brought all these tools. Are you really tellin’ me you’re gonna roll over before I even get to use the game shears? Those things can cut through bone!”

“Please...” she whimpered. “Please, oh God please...I’ll do anything you want Angel...”

He sighed. “Fine. Whatever. If you’re gonna be all frigging whiny about it.” He withdrew the needle. He pulled the crystal from the pocket of his coat and laid it on the table.

“New deal,” he said. “I like money and pussy almost as much as I like hurting people, and you’re the prettiest girl I’ve seen in a long, long time. You restore whatshername’s soul, and then give me the blowjob to end all blowjobs, and then let me fuck your sweet little ass with a big smile on your face, and then give me the bank account and routing numbers for those hundreds of millions of dollars you were mentioning, and I won’t puncture your eardrum with this needle. And maybe I won’t take a couple of your toes with the game shears, though I gotta tell you that’s really raining on my parade and you’re gonna have to fuck like a banshee to make up for it.”

It was a lifeline. Charlotte was practically ecstatic. She leaned over and kissed him with her bloody lips, and leaned her head against his chest.

“I’ll make up for it, Angel,” she whispered. “I’m gonna be the best lay you ever had. Take me out of here, baby. Don’t let them kill me. I’ll stay with you forever. I’m a strong witch, with my help you can go anywhere, do anything. And I’ll swallow your cum and give you my ass every night. I can make you so happy baby...”

“Whatever. Unlock the frigging crystal first so I can get all these damned women off my back. Then we’ll see about your blowjob technique.”

Charlotte’s mind was still reaching out...looking for Evan. She had been in such a panic that she had forgotten she was doing it. He was far away...she had a sense of him. But vampires were difficult quarry, and besides that, she could broadcast to a vampire, but she couldn’t read their thoughts. She hated to do it, but she knew her smartest strategy was to look for Abigail instead. She had known Abigail so long that she could find her no matter where she was...

Charlotte knew Abigail hated her, but they were both with Evan now. Evan had her loyalty...but did he have Abigail’s? Would Abigail set aside her hatred of Charlotte to serve Evan’s higher purpose? This would be the test.

Almost absent-mindedly, Charlotte waved her broken hand over the crystal that held Tara’s soul, and whispered a word...and threw away a treasure she had spent her whole life trying to acquire.

Tara gasped, and fell to her knees.

“Tara!” Faith shouted, and ran to her. She caught Tara up in her arms.

“What is it?” Rebecca said, kneeling beside Faith on the rug. “What happened?”

Tara was trembling all over...but she was smiling.

She threw her arms around Faith, and giggled, and cried.

“Honey?” Faith whispered. “Tell me.”

Tara ran her fingers through Faith’s hair. She kissed Faith’s lips.

Standing above them, Clea was smiling too.

“I’m back,” Tara whispered. “I have it back. I’m...I’m me again. I’m filled again. I feel warm...I feel warm.”

“He...Angel did it?” Faith said. “You mean...it’s done? You...have your soul back?” Faith smiled. “Really?”

Tara giggled again. Sweet tears ran down her cheeks.

“I love you, Faith,” Tara whispered, and kissed Faith again.

“Happy Thanksgiving, honey,” Faith whispered back.

“It’s done,” Charlotte said. “She has her soul back.”

Angel listened to her heartbeat. She wasn’t lying.

The phone in the bedroom rang. He walked over and picked it up. Charlotte sat at the table, bleeding from the mouth. There was a roll of bandages on the table in front of her, but she was too afraid to use them. Afraid Angel would hurt her.

“Hello?” Angel said into the phone, too loud: he never could get the hang of phones.

“It’s done,” Clea said. “Thanks.”

“I did my part,” Angel said. “But I won’t do the next thing.”

“I know,” Clea said. “I wouldn’t ask you to. The responsibility is mine. I’m on my way.”

“You’ll make it quick. She’s taken enough pain.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He hung up, and came back to the table.

“Who was that?” Charlotte said.

“Clea,” Angel said.

Abigail, Charlotte said.

It had been awhile since Abigail had received a message from Charlotte telepathically. But Abigail still remembered how to send her thoughts.

They were all sitting in a Papa Gino’s in one of the cafeterias that serviced the university. The day before Thanksgiving, it was practically deserted. Evan and Caesar and Michael Moon--who had thankfully gotten some clothes on--were eating pizza and making plans. Drusilla had tried a bite of the pizza and frowned, and then gotten annoyed at the Papa Gino’s staff when they wouldn’t fix her any tea, but luckily there was a Starbucks at the other end of the cafeteria. Drusilla had her tea, Abigail had a croissant, the boys were eating pizza and apparently getting on swimmingly, and everything was well with the world.

And now Charlotte was calling.

What do you want? Abigail said, in her mind.

Help me, please, Charlotte’s voice whispered back. I’m about to die.

“I’m sorry I had to hurt you, Charlotte,” Angel said, as he buttoned up his shirt.

Charlotte nodded. She knew Clea would be coming to kill her in a moment. She knew it was hopeless. But she did those desperate things hopeless people always did anyway. She grasped at any straw that presented itself. She was in telepathic communication with Abigail, hoping she could get a message to Evan. She had no idea how that could help, but anything was worth a shot.

“You’re a hell of an actor, Angel,” Charlotte said. “In fact, no one’s that good of an actor. I don’t care what you say. Part of you meant all those things. Part of you liked it. Part of you wanted it.”

Her hands hurt--the pain was almost blinding. She winced with it. And the gouges where four of her teeth had been were hurting even worse. The drug, whatever it was, had worn off completely now. It was an effort to talk, it was an effort to think. She kept swallowing blood, and wincing in pain, and she felt like she was walking across a tightrope of despair. If she lost her balance for even a second, it was over.

She leaned in close to Angel. She knew she was pretty. She had used her looks as a weapon before. But never in this way...she had never offered herself as a whore.

“We can leave together, you and me,” she whispered. “I know you think I’m pretty...I know you want my lips around your dick.”

“No,” he said.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. She felt her tears coming, and stopped them with an effort of will.

She heard the door to the next room open and close. She heard someone coming down the hall. She felt her last precious seconds slipping away.

“I know part of you wants it,” Charlotte whispered. “Wants to hurt me...wants a woman who likes being hurt. You can rape any woman you want. But I’ll give myself to you willingly. You can hurt me, Angel. Every night...”

“No,” he said.

“I’ll be your slave,” she whispered. “You can own me.”

Clea walked into the room.

“Evan, I’m going to give you a gift,” Abigail said. “If your new wizard can pull off teleporting like he thinks he can, I’m going to prove my loyalty to you right here, right now, once and for all.”

Drusilla looked at her over the rim of her cup. “What are you talking about, Abigail?”

“Charlotte,” Abigail said. “Angel and Faith captured her in Milwaukee and they’re about to kill her. She’s communicating with me telepathically. They’re going to kill her right now. You have seconds to save her. Or not. It’s all the same to me. I can’t stand the fucking bitch.”

Evan nodded, as if someone had just mentioned that it might rain. Then he looked at Michael.

“Okay, Loki Junior,” Evan said. “You’ve been talking the talk all night about your awesome Asgardian sugar daddy and how he’s got you all powered up. Time to walk it. Show me what you got.”

“So this is it, huh?” Charlotte said. She had regained her composure. She was in a hell of a lot of pain but her hatred kept her strong now. She hated Clea Crow. She had always hated her.

“Yeah,” Clea said. “This is it.”

Charlotte, Abigail’s voice whispered in Charlotte’s mind. I have a wizard sitting to my right who says he can teleport you to us. Focus in on him and cross your fingers. And don’t let yourself think for a second that I don’t still hate you. This is for Evan, not you.

Charlotte smiled, as she found the wizard’s mind. Whoever he was, he had an exceptionally strong mind. “I don’t get any last requests? A last meal? A cigarette at least?”

Clea raised her hand. Charlotte wondered how Clea intended to kill her. Knowing Clea it would be quick and relatively painless--Clea had always been soft.

“No,” Clea said.

“Well for Christ’s sake,” Charlotte said, stalling for time. “Can’t you at least tell me how you guys captured me? I thought I had it all under control.” She couldn’t quite make herself believe that this new wizard could actually pull off teleportation--almost no one could pull off teleportation. Clea had tried and failed more often than not and her only successes were with fish as far as Charlotte knew. Charlotte had failed as well. Cynthia Thorne, Malika Tahri, Xavier Grant, Sun-Hi Lee, Adelle Black--all of them had failed. It was rumored that Cyvus Vail had managed it, but as far as Charlotte knew, no one else ever had, at least not with a human being...

And then Charlotte felt it: an electric tingling on her skin, forming around her...

“No,” Clea said. “No more words, Charlotte. It’s time for you to go. Wherever you end up, may the gods have mercy on your black soul.”

“Fuck you too,” Charlotte said.

“I don’t know why, but she’s stalling for time,” Angel said.

Clea’s hand filled with flame...too late.

Charlotte smiled.

“Here’s why,” Charlotte said, just before she disappeared in a flash of black light.

The last things she saw were a fireball passing impotently through the space where her body had been a fraction of a second before...and Clea Crow, screaming with rage.