23. An End to Madness
A/N: Many thanx to my lovely and
talented beta, Eowyn315!! :)
Willow was, unfortunately, more than halfway to Angel's apartment when
her nerve began to fail her. She considered turning back, abandoning
her simple plan to reassure herself, and returning to the safety of her
room; but she told herself that it would be foolish and pointless to
turn back now, when she was nearly there.
*But then -- going on? Also seeming foolish and pointless at the
moment, so...*
She swallowed back her fear and continued toward the tiny apartment
where Angel lived, reassuring herself that once she got there and
actually talked to the newly re-ensouled vampire, she could lay her
irrational fears to rest.
However, as she neared the apartment, she stopped short at the sight of
a shadowy figure, slinking down the sidewalk away from Angel's door,
glancing around as though he feared being observed. He was carrying a
small, dark valise, and walking quickly, apparently in a hurry to get
away from the apartment before someone noticed that he had been there
at all.
The shadowy figure was suspiciously Angel-shaped.
Willow hesitated for a moment, considering, before making her decision
and starting down the sidewalk, a good distance behind the dark
vampire. Her curiosity was quickly overtaking her fear, as she
determined to find out where he was going, and why. Perhaps it was
completely innocent, in which case, her suspicions could still be laid
to rest, and they could all feel better.
Or perhaps, Angel *was* doing something sinister, something that
someone should know about, and she would have a more valid reason for
her distrust toward the vampire, something solid to take to Buffy and
back up the uncomfortable sensation in the pit of her stomach, that
sixth sense that was still screaming at her that Spike was right:
Angel's newly restored soul meant nothing, and he was still a danger to
them all.
*Not that I don't have a valid reason already,* she reminded herself
with resentment, as she made her way down the sidewalk, being careful
to keep a good distance between herself and Angel. *Buffy just doesn't
seem to think that almost-rape is such a big deal -- not when it's her
boyfriend that did it!*
Once again, she found herself rethinking her plan, as Angel's path led
her toward a scary part of town, an area that was deserted and dark,
and made her feel as if something was about to jump out at her from
every corner. Her eyes widened with recognition, as Angel turned the
corner onto Crawford Street, and she realized that he was heading
toward the old mansion where he and Drusilla had stayed during his
brief soulless period.
*What about Drusilla?* she wondered, for the first time since the
tumultuous events of the evening had begun. *Is she still alive? And if
she is, why does Angel want anything to do with her, now that he's got
his soul back? Does that mean he's still evil?*
Angel stopped outside the mansion, glancing around once more to see if
he had been followed, and Willow barely managed to duck back into the
shadows of a nearby abandoned house before he saw her.
He hadn't seen her -- had he?
She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and imagined that he
could clearly hear it. Weren't vampires supposed to have enhanced
senses? Willow's eyes widened further in a trapped, terrified
expression as the question occurred to her -- could he *smell* her? Did
he already know she was here? What if he *was* planning to do something
bad, something he would want to hide from his Slayer girlfriend, and
now he knew she'd seen him?
When Angel turned away and walked into the mansion, Willow sagged
backward against the wall of the old house behind her, as she tried to
catch the breath she had been desperately holding. She waited a moment,
trying to decide what she should do next.
Should she go back and tell Buffy what she had seen?
No...Buffy was too busy interrogating the other scary vampire, too busy
searching for any scrap of information she could find that would make
it okay for her to be with Angel again. She didn't have time to listen
to anything Willow had to say. Besides, by the time they got back,
Angel could very well have left the mansion already.
The only way she was going to know for sure what he was doing in
there...was to go in and see for herself.
She waited until she was fairly certain that Angel would not be
anywhere near the front door, before slipping cautiously along the side
of the house and toward the shadowed entrance to the mansion. She took
a deep breath on the porch, preparing herself to walk through the door,
though the greater part of her *really* didn't want to.
*What if he *did* see me? What if he's waiting for me just inside the
door?*
*He's not, he didn't see me or he wouldn't have gone inside...*
*But what if he...?*
*You're never gonna do this if you don't just *do it*, Willow, you big
scaredy baby...*
She silently pushed the door open, before she could change her mind
again, and slipped into the darkened mansion, closing the door behind
her, fighting the dreadful sense of finality that seemed to accompany
the simple action. She just stood there for a moment beside the door,
her wide green eyes desperately seeking any shred of light as they
struggled to adjust to the pervasive darkness.
Finally, she began to make out various shapes, shadowed forms in the
silent foyer, and she felt her shaking begin to subside as she realized
that she was indeed alone in the room. She noticed the faint glow of
what appeared to be firelight emanating from a room at the top of the
staircase a few feet away; as she watched, the flickering light grew
brighter, and she knew that a second candle had been lit upstairs.
*So, that's where he is...*
Though she was far from comfortable with the situation yet, that
thought made her feel infinitely better.
What didn't make her feel nearly so good was the knowledge that,
against her better judgment, she was about to follow him up those
winding -- and probably creaking -- stairs.
******************************
The tiny candle Angel had left beside Drusilla's bed had nearly
completely burnt down.
He felt a vague sense of disappointment, and realized with a numb,
detached sort of dismay that he had halfway hoped that the thing would
burn down to the table on which it rested, consuming the table, the
room -- and Dru. Although both vampires could see clearly despite the
darkness, perhaps it was the grim nature of those thoughts, and the
half-hearted sense of guilt they inspired in him, that made Angel feel
the need to brighten the room a bit with a second candle.
Or perhaps, he simply hoped to tempt Dru's fate a second time, when he
left the mansion again.
"Naughty Daddy."
Dru's quiet, reproving voice startled Angel, and he jumped, spinning
around to face her. She had been so uncharacteristically quiet and calm
that he had not even realized she was awake until her slightly slurred
voice had broken the silence.
"Dru," he said softly, and then fell silent, unsure what else to say.
How much of his thoughts, his plans, did she know already without being
told?
"Naughty Daddy," she repeated, dark eyes laughing madly despite the
petulant pout of her flawlessly full lips. "Leaving his princess alone
in the dark. You've come home again...but you haven't come alone..."
Angel frowned, instinctively glancing around the room before returning
his wary gaze to Drusilla's face. "What do you mean? Who's here?"
"The little witch...the one you wanted..."
Angel turned abruptly away from her, unable to meet her piercing gaze,
seeing and knowing too much for his comfort. "Shut up, Dru."
An insane giggle of amusement left the lips of the dark vampiress, as
she shook her head slowly in a teasing, defiant gesture. "Can't be
quiet enough to make Daddy go away...he's there, *Angel*..." She spoke the
name that Angel had adopted in his souled state with a note of
contempt, disgust, in her musical voice. "...always there...even though
*you'd* like to pretend he doesn't exist!"
"Dru, would you be quiet?" Angel muttered irritably, unsettled by the
edges of truth to her mad ramblings -- which, at the moment, hardly
sounded mad at all.
"She wants to think so, too...wants to think you're safe...you're *Angel*
now," Drusilla continued as if he had not spoken at all, a note of
triumph to her voice. "But you're not...you'll never be who she wants you
to be...never again...her Angel is gone..."
"Don't talk about her!" Angel snapped, turning toward her again, his
eyes narrowed dangerously.
Dru did not seem the least bit afraid. "Don't talk about who?" she
asked, taunting him.
"The Slayer, who do you think?"
"Not the Slayer," Drusilla giggled, as if at a hilarious joke for which
only she knew the punch line. "Not her..."
"Then...then, who -- in the *hell* -- are you talking about, Dru?" Angel
demanded in a voice of careful, forced patience, barely restraining his
rising, irrational anger with his childe.
Dru's smile vanished, her dark, penetrating eyes suddenly fastened on
the doorway just beyond him. She replied without hesitation, her voice
low and even and certain.
"The witch."
Angel spun around to face the doorway, and found his eyes locked with
the wide, terrified eyes of the redhead who had followed him into the
mansion. She was standing just outside the door, and stumbled backward
with a panicked lurch as he turned toward her, stopping only when her
back hit the wall behind her.
"Willow," Angel began, shaking his head as if to disprove her fears as
he took a cautious step toward her.
Drusilla let out a manic laugh that made both Willow and Angel jump,
turning both pairs of eyes toward her, one in wide-eyed confusion, and
the other in irritated annoyance. She shook her head, her wild eyes
darting between them as she finally spoke.
"Little red Willow, little witch, you're not safe here...don't let the
angel lie to you, he's fallen, he's wicked, he's bad..."
"Dru, you are *not* helping. Shut up!" Angel snarled at her, turning
back toward Willow, only to find that the harsh, menacing tone of his
voice had not helped his case with the nervous redhead in the least.
"He smells your fear...can nearly taste it...and still wants it..."
Willow slowly shook her head in silent denial, unable to find the words
as she took a sideways step along the wall, back toward the stairs.
"No, Willow...she's crazy," Angel insisted with a nervous, unconvincing
laugh. "Come on, anyone can see she's out of her mind! It doesn't mean
anything..."
"Means everything...it's true, I can see...you want her like you wanted her
that night...you don't want to want her, but you do want her...bad
Daddy...always has been a bad Daddy and always will be..."
"That's *not* true!" Angel cringed when Willow flinched violently at
the anger in his voice. "Willow," he tried again, his voice softer in
an attempt to be soothing. "Willow, I don't want to hurt you..."
"Yes, he does...yes, he does...Daddy loves your pain..."
"No, I'm not *going* to hurt you, Willow, you don't have to be afraid..."
"The taste of fear, it's what he craves...even when he was trying not
to...and he's not trying anymore..." Dru's words were punctuated with a
dark, ominous giggle, as she leaned forward against the chains that
still bound her to the bed, gleefully meeting Willow's eyes, visibly
savoring the terror she saw there.
"She's just trying to scare you, Willow," Angel reassured her. "She's
crazy. She's enjoying this! Willow, I'm sorry for what happened, but
that wasn't me...you have to believe me, I wouldn't..."
"Stop it," Willow said, finally finding enough of her voice for a
tremulous whisper. "Stop it, I don't...I don't want to hear it..."
"I barely even remember that night, Willow, I swear it! It wasn't me.
Please, you have to believe me..."
"Oh, he remembers...sometimes on purpose," Dru argued with a suggestively
dark laugh.
Willow let out a low, plaintive moan of distress at those disturbing
words, closing her eyes and creeping further along the wall, clearly
horrified at the implications of what the vampiress had said.
"Dru, *shut up*!"
"Daddy's home, Daddy's home," she chanted in a childish singsong,
bouncing eagerly on the bed. "Come home to stay, he has..."
"I said *shut up!*"
Angel snarled, his temper, frayed to its limits, finally snapping as he
whirled on her, thoughtlessly snatching from his waistband the stake
that he had taken to carrying with him since he had taken up with the
Slayer. Before he knew what he was doing, the rough wood had plunged
through his bound, helpless child's chest, piercing her unbeating heart.
Dark eyes widened, staring up at him, suddenly mirthless, filled with
anguish and betrayal.
"Daddy..." she whispered, a barely perceptible shake of her head
expressing her disbelief -- just before her body crumbled to ash on the
silken sheets beneath her.
Angel stared down at the place where his childe had been, his eyes wide
and shocked as his mind slowly processed what he had just done. He
hadn't really intended to do it, hadn't wanted to harm his helpless,
truly child-like, dark princess -- but now that it was done, he found a
sense of relief edging into his mind, mingled with the pain of loss.
She was gone.
A single, momentary act of thoughtless anger -- and Drusilla had
forever ceased to exist.
He had just been so furious, and she had refused to be quiet, to stop
saying those horrible, confusing, dreadful things that were only making
Willow more and more terrified of him...and in that moment, he had felt
that he had no choice...
He *hadn't* had a choice...had he?
Some part of his mind, affected by the rather weak influence of his
recent soul, wondered uneasily why Drusilla's words had bothered him so
much, incensed him so completely that he would take her life. Could it
be that there was some bit of truth within them, some secret knowledge
that she had been revealing, that he could not allow?
That thought returned him to the little redhead in the doorway, and he
turned toward her -- to find that she was not in the doorway any longer.
Willow had fled.
A momentary sense of panic seized him, and he was suddenly certain that
Willow would waste no time in going directly to the Slayer, telling her
of the mad vampiress's ramblings-which-were-more-than-ramblings. Buffy
knew that, while Drusilla was clearly insane, she was also prescient.
Would the Slayer believe Willow, when she revealed Angel's secret
confusion, the feelings that he had not yet even had time to come to
terms with himself?
He could not afford to find out.
"Willow!" he called, as he took off out the door and down the stairs,
anxious to catch up with her before she got back to Buffy. "Willow,
wait!"