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Apr. 6th, 2007 04:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmatonakThis one is pretty long.
Chapter Twenty: 1134 Commerce Park Road
The building was like a million others in California: stucco walls, just a few too many windows, and blandly beige. Angel leaned in, grabbed the double doors, and threw them open.
Instead of the generic office reception area he could see through the windows (and indeed, the doors themselves, since they were glass), he looked down a corridor like an artist's trick, a crushingly unsubtle illustration of one-point perspective. At the far end, he could just make out a wooden door with an incongruous green knob. There were runes inscribed along the entrance to the corridor.
He leaned over and looked into the building front through one of the excess windows. Even with the doors open, the windows showed him the same bland grey carpet and bad mass-printed art in cheap frames he had seen walking up to the place.
He punched a window. There was a brief flare of white light. The window cracked, then was as pristine as before. "Oh, of course it is," he said, and walked through the doors. The others followed.
Chapter Twenty-One: The Long Corridor: Gunn
When he saw he was alone, Gunn wasn't surprised. He looked to his right and left and realized two things. He had no memory of ever seeing the runes written there before, and he could read them anyway. So he did.
"I walk this path under the protection of the Vakach," he said. The corridor blurred for a second and then was a lot shorter. He bounded across it and threw open the far door.
Ambrose looked up from his desk. Gunn could see the flaming figure of Anya in a piece of glass over Ambrose's left shoulder.
"Oh, hi," Ambrose said, and shot him in the chest.
Chapter Twenty-One: The Long Corridor: Angel
Angel heard Marcus Hamilton before he saw him. The words were familiar.
"You still manage to fail everyone around you. Doyle, Cordelia... Fred. They're all gone." The next words were new: "I could keep going, of course. You left Buffy to die on the Hellmouth. Jenny Calendar. Darla. Drusilla. All your other victims, and all their victims, world without end, amen."
Now Angel could see him, at the head of a long parade, with those he'd named at the front.
Angel lifted his chin and glared at Hamilton. Cordelia smiled and gave him a little wave.
"No," Angel said. "I'm not doing this again. I've been through this too many times already. I'm sorry, and I have no way of showing you all how true that is. But I can't do anything about my old sins now. All I can do is try to do better. To be better." He looked at Hamilton.
"You, I'm not sorry about."
He walked forward, prepared to barrel into Hamilton if he had to. Instead, he walked right through the taller man, who dissipated in a puff of smoke. He took the parade with him. Angel smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Long Corridor: Illyria
Of course, when she walked through the doorway, she was Fred again. The light continued to seam her skin. Abruptly, she had the conviction that something inside her had liquefied, that it was fluid and no longer light seeping out from the tiny cracks in her cheeks. She put a hand to her face and felt that it was merely light after all. She began to stride forward.
Her lips and teeth and tounge moved by themselves, and she spoke: "Feigenbaum... I have to find him... he's the master of... I have to have Feigenbaum here." She had no idea what it meant.
She was appalled. She felt (it took her a moment to remember the word) vertigo.
"I don't remember," she said, and sobbed. She felt a new web of fine cracks spreading across her forehead.
"I'm terrible... time like this, I'm worried about how crappy I look."
She began to feel the light inside her bones, cracking them as easily as it did her skin. She choked and writhed and felt herself burn from the inside out. She reached out a hand and began to drag herself along the wall.
"Oh God, I've sinned... I've sinned and I'm being punished. I don't know what's wrong..." She missed the next words as she remembered- this had happened to her before. No, not to her, to Fred.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... make it stop..." She was. But it didn't. She began to choke. She fought to remember where she was- Chula Vista, that stupid little building with the stucco exterior.
"Why did we go there?" Her body said more words, but she couldn't hear them. She continued to force herself forward.
"We're so close..." Her body continued to speak. She wished it would shut up and let her die.
"Would you have loved me?" The words made her think of Wesley, and even through the pain she felt something inside twist up at the thought of him.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." More words she couldn't hear.
"They have to know I wasn't scared, and that it was quick." But she was, and it wasn't.
"I'm not scared... I'm not scared..." She realized she had begun to speak herself. instead of merely listening. I killed her, and now she gets to kill me back. Fair's fair, right?
"Please... Wesley..." Her hand reached out for the green knob. "Why can't I stay?"
She could feel her eyeball begin to calcify, and she could feel the light building up behind it, about to burn her away.
She turned the doorknob and fell forward into blackness.
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Long Corridor: Angel
He was somehow almost at the far door when the bullheaded man appeared in front of him and roared something unintelligible. What with the brandishing of the giant hammer, it was hard to mistake the general meaning, even if the language barrier made for some hazy specifics.
Angel smirked. "This, I'll do again," he said.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Ambrose's Apartment
"This will do," Ambrose said from close by. Illyria felt something cool on her skin and opened her eyes. Ambrose was there- close enough to kiss, she thought- gently cleaning her face with a damp cloth. The basin he was holding held a liquid with a faint green glow.
"Hello, your highness," he said. Illyria regarded him impassively. "I've taken steps to dismiss some of your overflowing power, and I've begun to patch your shell. Are you feeling discomfort?"
"Nothing physical. I ask you again, what is your business with me?"
Ambrose smiled. "I meant no disrespect. Burkle was the only one of Angel's intimates who kept a substantial amount of personal effects with sentimental value outside the Wolfram and Hart building. I felt, correctly, that I could use them to find you- and through you, Angel."
"I am not accustomed to being used in this fashion."
"I know, and I apologize. I have business with you now, if you'll permit it." She cocked her head, but made no reply. He continued: "Angel will arrive soon, and I mean to kill him. He has inherited a considerable amount of power from the Order of the Black Thorn, but is unskilled in its use. I intend to take that power from him."
"What has this to do with me?"
"My original intent was to ransom the power back to the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. I could give it to you, instead."
"Why?"
"Because the Senior Partners are weaker now than they have been in all the ages of man, and Angel cemented his claim on their power by tasting blood, blood we can take from him in turn. They could be overthrown, supplanted. I can't do it- I'm mortal. You are not." His voice began to speed up. "You could reign as King and God again, with me as your high priest- your kwa-ha-zon. All you would have to do is kill Angel through purely physical means, which you could do easily."
Illyria flinched.
Ambrose said, "You're disturbed by the idea? If you've formed some sentimental attachment to him, remember that the sentiments are not yours. You are Illyria. You are not Winifred Burkle."
"Like hell I'm not," said Illyria. She grabbed Ambrose by the throat and stood.
"I'm afraid I can't accept you into my service, Mr. Ambrose. I don't consider the position vacant, and even if it were..." She drop-kicked him as hard as she could. For some reason, his progress was slowed, but he still went through two interior walls.
"...you make me really cranky."
She followed him into his swanky little kitchen. As he floated to his feet, she recognized the power he was using as her own, and seethed. It was like something out of her bad nights in high school- he'd taken liberties while she was helpless. She resolved to punish him severely for this affront to her person.
From what looked like empty air, Ambrose drew a wicked knife with a curved blade. Illyria readied herself to take it from him, wondering why it seemed familiar.
Moving with her own stolen speed, he blurred forward and stuck the knife up to the hilt in her side. As she began to slump, he twisted the knife and backed away, taking it with him. She put her hand to the wound, and it came away covered in blue blood.
Cyanotic, she thought, then Oh, of course, it was Vail's knife. Despite herself, she began to laugh, weakly. I guess fair's fair after all, my darling.
When he was sure Illyria had stopped moving, Ambrose stepped over her, kicking her in her wounded side on the way past. He'd come back to harvest her body later, he decided. He had to move quickly.
Angel would be there soon.
to be continued
I think there's one more part, maybe two.
How are you liking it so far?
Chapter Twenty: 1134 Commerce Park Road
The building was like a million others in California: stucco walls, just a few too many windows, and blandly beige. Angel leaned in, grabbed the double doors, and threw them open.
Instead of the generic office reception area he could see through the windows (and indeed, the doors themselves, since they were glass), he looked down a corridor like an artist's trick, a crushingly unsubtle illustration of one-point perspective. At the far end, he could just make out a wooden door with an incongruous green knob. There were runes inscribed along the entrance to the corridor.
He leaned over and looked into the building front through one of the excess windows. Even with the doors open, the windows showed him the same bland grey carpet and bad mass-printed art in cheap frames he had seen walking up to the place.
He punched a window. There was a brief flare of white light. The window cracked, then was as pristine as before. "Oh, of course it is," he said, and walked through the doors. The others followed.
Chapter Twenty-One: The Long Corridor: Gunn
When he saw he was alone, Gunn wasn't surprised. He looked to his right and left and realized two things. He had no memory of ever seeing the runes written there before, and he could read them anyway. So he did.
"I walk this path under the protection of the Vakach," he said. The corridor blurred for a second and then was a lot shorter. He bounded across it and threw open the far door.
Ambrose looked up from his desk. Gunn could see the flaming figure of Anya in a piece of glass over Ambrose's left shoulder.
"Oh, hi," Ambrose said, and shot him in the chest.
Chapter Twenty-One: The Long Corridor: Angel
Angel heard Marcus Hamilton before he saw him. The words were familiar.
"You still manage to fail everyone around you. Doyle, Cordelia... Fred. They're all gone." The next words were new: "I could keep going, of course. You left Buffy to die on the Hellmouth. Jenny Calendar. Darla. Drusilla. All your other victims, and all their victims, world without end, amen."
Now Angel could see him, at the head of a long parade, with those he'd named at the front.
Angel lifted his chin and glared at Hamilton. Cordelia smiled and gave him a little wave.
"No," Angel said. "I'm not doing this again. I've been through this too many times already. I'm sorry, and I have no way of showing you all how true that is. But I can't do anything about my old sins now. All I can do is try to do better. To be better." He looked at Hamilton.
"You, I'm not sorry about."
He walked forward, prepared to barrel into Hamilton if he had to. Instead, he walked right through the taller man, who dissipated in a puff of smoke. He took the parade with him. Angel smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Long Corridor: Illyria
Of course, when she walked through the doorway, she was Fred again. The light continued to seam her skin. Abruptly, she had the conviction that something inside her had liquefied, that it was fluid and no longer light seeping out from the tiny cracks in her cheeks. She put a hand to her face and felt that it was merely light after all. She began to stride forward.
Her lips and teeth and tounge moved by themselves, and she spoke: "Feigenbaum... I have to find him... he's the master of... I have to have Feigenbaum here." She had no idea what it meant.
She was appalled. She felt (it took her a moment to remember the word) vertigo.
"I don't remember," she said, and sobbed. She felt a new web of fine cracks spreading across her forehead.
"I'm terrible... time like this, I'm worried about how crappy I look."
She began to feel the light inside her bones, cracking them as easily as it did her skin. She choked and writhed and felt herself burn from the inside out. She reached out a hand and began to drag herself along the wall.
"Oh God, I've sinned... I've sinned and I'm being punished. I don't know what's wrong..." She missed the next words as she remembered- this had happened to her before. No, not to her, to Fred.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... make it stop..." She was. But it didn't. She began to choke. She fought to remember where she was- Chula Vista, that stupid little building with the stucco exterior.
"Why did we go there?" Her body said more words, but she couldn't hear them. She continued to force herself forward.
"We're so close..." Her body continued to speak. She wished it would shut up and let her die.
"Would you have loved me?" The words made her think of Wesley, and even through the pain she felt something inside twist up at the thought of him.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." More words she couldn't hear.
"They have to know I wasn't scared, and that it was quick." But she was, and it wasn't.
"I'm not scared... I'm not scared..." She realized she had begun to speak herself. instead of merely listening. I killed her, and now she gets to kill me back. Fair's fair, right?
"Please... Wesley..." Her hand reached out for the green knob. "Why can't I stay?"
She could feel her eyeball begin to calcify, and she could feel the light building up behind it, about to burn her away.
She turned the doorknob and fell forward into blackness.
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Long Corridor: Angel
He was somehow almost at the far door when the bullheaded man appeared in front of him and roared something unintelligible. What with the brandishing of the giant hammer, it was hard to mistake the general meaning, even if the language barrier made for some hazy specifics.
Angel smirked. "This, I'll do again," he said.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Ambrose's Apartment
"This will do," Ambrose said from close by. Illyria felt something cool on her skin and opened her eyes. Ambrose was there- close enough to kiss, she thought- gently cleaning her face with a damp cloth. The basin he was holding held a liquid with a faint green glow.
"Hello, your highness," he said. Illyria regarded him impassively. "I've taken steps to dismiss some of your overflowing power, and I've begun to patch your shell. Are you feeling discomfort?"
"Nothing physical. I ask you again, what is your business with me?"
Ambrose smiled. "I meant no disrespect. Burkle was the only one of Angel's intimates who kept a substantial amount of personal effects with sentimental value outside the Wolfram and Hart building. I felt, correctly, that I could use them to find you- and through you, Angel."
"I am not accustomed to being used in this fashion."
"I know, and I apologize. I have business with you now, if you'll permit it." She cocked her head, but made no reply. He continued: "Angel will arrive soon, and I mean to kill him. He has inherited a considerable amount of power from the Order of the Black Thorn, but is unskilled in its use. I intend to take that power from him."
"What has this to do with me?"
"My original intent was to ransom the power back to the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. I could give it to you, instead."
"Why?"
"Because the Senior Partners are weaker now than they have been in all the ages of man, and Angel cemented his claim on their power by tasting blood, blood we can take from him in turn. They could be overthrown, supplanted. I can't do it- I'm mortal. You are not." His voice began to speed up. "You could reign as King and God again, with me as your high priest- your kwa-ha-zon. All you would have to do is kill Angel through purely physical means, which you could do easily."
Illyria flinched.
Ambrose said, "You're disturbed by the idea? If you've formed some sentimental attachment to him, remember that the sentiments are not yours. You are Illyria. You are not Winifred Burkle."
"Like hell I'm not," said Illyria. She grabbed Ambrose by the throat and stood.
"I'm afraid I can't accept you into my service, Mr. Ambrose. I don't consider the position vacant, and even if it were..." She drop-kicked him as hard as she could. For some reason, his progress was slowed, but he still went through two interior walls.
"...you make me really cranky."
She followed him into his swanky little kitchen. As he floated to his feet, she recognized the power he was using as her own, and seethed. It was like something out of her bad nights in high school- he'd taken liberties while she was helpless. She resolved to punish him severely for this affront to her person.
From what looked like empty air, Ambrose drew a wicked knife with a curved blade. Illyria readied herself to take it from him, wondering why it seemed familiar.
Moving with her own stolen speed, he blurred forward and stuck the knife up to the hilt in her side. As she began to slump, he twisted the knife and backed away, taking it with him. She put her hand to the wound, and it came away covered in blue blood.
Cyanotic, she thought, then Oh, of course, it was Vail's knife. Despite herself, she began to laugh, weakly. I guess fair's fair after all, my darling.
When he was sure Illyria had stopped moving, Ambrose stepped over her, kicking her in her wounded side on the way past. He'd come back to harvest her body later, he decided. He had to move quickly.
Angel would be there soon.
to be continued
I think there's one more part, maybe two.
How are you liking it so far?
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Date: 2007-04-06 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-07 06:05 pm (UTC)