Part 6
 

###

"It will not be easy, Buffy." Giles said. "According to the records of the Council the Butcher Knight killed at least a dozen Slayers, maybe more."

"Just do your best, Giles!"

Buffy sat down on the couch, trying to think. Willow slouched down beside her, looking worried.

"So if Buffy's dream is right and Angel is not the Butcher Knight," Willow asked, "why was the Knight's sword in Angel's apartment?"

"Much more interesting would be the question how Mr. Fitzpatrick can still be alive if he was, in fact, a knight in the middle ages."

Buffy closed her eyes. Angel, a knight. Somehow the image fit. A knight in shining armor trying to save the damsel in distress. Okay, said damsel had obviously been a Slayer, which would preclude her needing much rescuing, but still ...

"And you wore battle armor, Buffy?" Xander asked. "Women's armor, I mean? Molded to your ... you know?"

"Off topic, Xander!" Willow remarked.

"During the middle ages it was quite customary for warriors to wear armor," Giles started to lecture, "though only a few Slayers ever did. Women who were seen wearing armor and weapons might have ... upset the more delicate sensibilities of that time."

"Huh?"

"He means girls trying to play with the toys of the boys got burned at the stake."

"Oh!"

Giles was rummaging through books again and Buffy found herself with nothing to do except more of the same. She wished she knew where Angel had gone to. From the looks of things he had left town in a hurry. If he was gone, though, why did she still have these warning dreams about him and the Butcher Knight?

She just hoped he was okay.

#

Angel regained consciousness and immediately became aware of the pain in his chest. Something wet was trickling across his face. He tried to open his eyes and succeeded somewhere around the fifth or sixth try.

He was still sitting in his car, only there was not a whole lot left of it. Most of the hood was gone, wrapped around a large tree. It was hard to figure out which parts of his car the warped metal around him might have been before the crash.

Angel hung in the seat belt, sure that it had broken at least several of his ribs. The steering wheel was pressing hard into his chest and he was unable to move his arms. He didn't want to think about how much of his legs might be left, he couldn't see any trace of them right now.

It was still dark, so he couldn't have been gone too long. Once the sun rose he would be safe. Safe from her. Then he could see about getting out of here and ...

"You look stuck."

Darla walked up to the car. Her clothing was in tatters, but her skin unmarked. She smiled at him.

"Sorry that I had to leave you for a while, but I needed a snack to get back in shape. Thankfully there was a truck driver up there, looking to see if he could be of help. I think the Americans' sense of helpfullness is highly underrated."

Angel tried to get out of the car, tried to do anything, but he was stuck. Every little movement hurt him.

"You gave me a good chase, Angel," Darla said, "but now it's over. Take it like a man, okay?"

"Never!" He managed to growl at her.

"You don't exactly have a choice right now!"

She knelt down beside him, looking over his body.

"Look at you. All cut up and crushed. It won't kill you, of course, but how long do you think it will take until you can heal all that? Weeks? Months?"

She pressed a kiss to his cheek and he could do nothing. One of her hands cupped his chin and forced his neck around until she looked into his eyes.

"I'm getting tired of the chase, lover. There is a Slayer in this town, who has been all too much trouble to us. It's time to deal with her."

"No!" He screamed.

"Not your choice!"

She slapped him hard and then sat down on the ruined hood of the car, looking at him.

"By Bond of Blood I call the Might"

The pain in his chest intensified, but it was no longer a result of the car crash. He could feel his blood beginning to boil as the magic gathered in the air around him.

"Of Fire From Hell, Inferno's Light"

"Please, Darla! No!" He didn't care that he was begging. He would have kissed her feet if she would just stop this. She just smiled and continued.

"I Curse Your Soul with Satan's Bite"

He screamed as he felt the darkness pool inside him, liquid fire running through his veins. The wreckage of the car protested as his arms and legs came free, breaking the warped metal easily with a strength that was anything but human. Darla watched it all with pure rapture in her eyes and completed the incantation.

"Arise Angelus, my Butcher Knight!"

The forest fell silent as Angel's scream shut off abruptly.

#

"Uh, guys?" Willow startled everyone, rousing them from their research work.

"Willow, what is ..." Giles looked up, his eyes following Willow's pointed finger.

Buffy had almost fallen asleep again, now she was wide awake. They had taken the sword of the Butcher Knight from Angel's apartment and brought it here. Now there was an eerie light playing around the blade, energy sparkled from it like a halo.

A moment later the sword was gone without a trace.

"This is not good, right?" Xander asked.
 

Part 7
 

###

Buffy was feeling extremely worried. They didn't know much more than before, but there was little doubt that the disappearance of the Butcher Knight's sword was not a good sign. They had to find Angel, he was the only one who could presumably tell him what was going on here.

Giles and Willow were going to contact the Council for more information on the Butcher Knight, hoping that some records existed somewhere in a dusty cellar or something. Xander was going to visit Willy the Snitch, prepared to dish out some money in order to get some information about Darla and where she might be hiding.

Buffy was patrolling, hoping against hope to find a trace of Angel.

Or the Butcher Knight.

She carried more than her usual arsenal of weapons. A stake would be of little use against a guy wearing armor and wielding a sword. Giles had given her a sword from his weapons' chest, along with some knives and a small ax.

Times like these, she wished for a gun.

For the past few minutes she had felt uneasy, as if someone was following her. It was a bit like the tingle she always got when there were Vampires close by, but not the same. It was much stronger, like a little demon in the back of her head, using barbed drumsticks on her brain.

She was passing through an alley close to the Bronze when she finally felt certain. There was someone close by. Someone who, all of a sudden, didn't seem to care anymore whether she knew of his presence or not. Steps came closer through the darkness and Buffy tensed, eyes trying to penetrate the darkness.

A huge shadow separated from the walls and became a solid figure that was slowly walking toward her. A man, six feet eight or more by the looks of him, dressed in black. She could not see his face yet, but there was little doubt in her mind. She had seen this man in her dreams. Amber demon eyes glowed in the dark.

"Sorry it took me so long," he said, coming closer, "but traffic was murder."

She could see him better now. He wore black leather pants and a black, unbuttoned shirt. His chest was gleaming marble beneath it, looking very inviting to a girl without a boyfriend. What few notions she might have had were quickly banished, though. She could see the sword strapped to his back.

His face came into the light of the street lamps and she gasped. She had seen his face in her dream, yet had not really seen it. The only thing she had remembered where the demon eyes. Now she saw the whole thing.

#

"Yes, thank you." Giles put down the receiver.

"Anything?" Willow asked.

"A bit, at least. It seems that the Butcher Knight did make some scattered appearances in the last thousand years, though it seems he was quite different from before."

"How so?"

Giles sat down, rubbing his tired eyes.

"The early accounts tell of the Butcher Knight just wading into towns, slaughtering everyone that crossed his path, until he found the Slayer. If no Slayer was to be found he just continued on. He seemed little more than a mindless engine of destruction."

He took the notebook where he had written down what he had been told over the phone.

"Somewhere around the turn of the millennium, though, something changed. The Butcher Knight stopped his senseless slaughter and vanished for a long time. His next recorded appearance does not happen until almost two centuries later. He presumably killed a Slayer in Italy and instead of just slaughtering whomever stood between her and him, he seemed to go at it with what the Watcher of that time called 'a streak of sadistic playfulness'. He killed only very few people and only those who were near and dear to the Slayer."

Willow shivered, realizing who the people closest to the Slayer were this time around.

"Any idea how this change came about?"

Giles studied his notes and Willow could see the gleam of a thought beginning to appear in his eyes.

"There is a possibility. Buffy said that this Vampire, Darla, she used some kind of incantation on Mr. Fitzpatrick."

He suddenly rose, searching through his collection for another book.

"The lore said that the Butcher Knight was like a Vampire, yet without the weaknesses. Maybe ... ah, here it is."

He put the book down on the table and Willow looked at the page he had opened.

"There is a species of demons called 'Etrigani'. Powerful warrior demons who can be summoned only by the most skilled of sorcerers. The Etrigani are little more than killing machines and nearly unstoppable."

"Sounds like what we read about the Butcher Knight." Willow said, worried about Buffy.

"Yes. What makes these Etrigani so interesting is they can either be bodily summoned to the Earth plane or they can be summoned to rise inside a mortal host, much like Vampires. I would suspect that, if the latter happens, the host's personality would, to a certain degree, influence the deeds of the Etrigani."

"So you think," Willow said, understanding, "that this change in attitude happened because the Butcher Knight got a host or something? Like, he started out all 'ride on and slaughter everyone', but his host liked to do things with a little more, I don't know, sick sort of finesse?"

Giles nodded.

"It would also explain Buffy's dream. She saw Mr. Fitzpatrick and the Butcher Knight, two separate beings. Back then the Knight was still the demon incarnate, slaughtering people where they stood. But sometime soon after that the demon was bound to a mortal host."

"And ... and you think that host, he is ..."

#

"Angel?" Buffy whispered.

He looked like Angel, yet he did not. It was like someone had taken Angel's face and then remade it into something completely different. There were vampire ridges, yet they weren't as prominent as with most Vampires. The demon eyes seemed to glow brightly in the night. The fangs in his mouth glistened.

"Close, but no cigar."

He stopped several feet away from her, looking down. He was taller than Angel, that much was certain, much more muscular. His skin was not pale as that of most Vampires. He almost looked tanned, actually.

"You're the Butcher Knight." She whispered.

"I never much liked that nickname," he said, "though it does fit. What can I say? Those were barbaric times back then. Demons were expected to ride through the night in black armor and slaughter everyone they met."

He laughed and it sent a chill down her spine.

"Times change." He continued. "These days I would look pretty ridiculous running through the streets in that outfit, don't you think? And I don't think there is a horse within a hundred miles of here. Too bad."

He reached behind his back and slowly drew the sword from its sheath. The blade gleamed in the light of the street lamps.

"Some things never change, though," he said, "especially not the important ones."

Buffy drew her own sword, trying to get a sense of her opponent. Angel? She wasn't sure. Whatever, he was a big fellow, outweighing her by at least a hundred pounds. He had nearly twice her reach, especially with that long sword, and he held the heavy blade like it weighed nothing.

"Do you need a sword that long to cover for certain inadequacies?" Buffy taunted him, feeling the need to do something. She didn't think rushing him was a good idea. If he truly was over a thousand years old odds were he had a lot more experience in using that sword than she had.

"Maybe I should show you my inadequacies somewhere between now and your ugly death, Chosen One. Would you like that? I think you would."

He leaned in a bit closer, keeping the sword back.

"I know how you always stared during the classes. I could feel the lust welling up inside you. Do you like it rough?"

Without warning he started attacking. The blade arced through the air and she just managed to jump backwards. She didn't want to go blade to blade with him. Her own sword seemed small and fragile beside his.

"This is going to be fun!" The Knight said and attacked her again.

Part 8

###
 

Buffy was fighting for her life.

In her three years as the Slayer she had met several opponents she considered her match. Luke, the Master, Spike, Faith, but in the end she had beaten them all. Here, though, today, she was nowhere near so sure.

The Butcher Knight did not seem to be in any kind of a hurry. He moved methodically, aiming to take her apart inch by inch. On the third strike she had been too slow and now her sword lay on the ground, shattered in two by the Knight's monstrous blade. She defended herself using battle axe and knife, but she didn't even manage to get inside the arc of that sword.

She was bleeding from several small cuts on her shoulders and legs. Those could have been much deeper, she felt, but the Knight didn't seem interested in finishing her off all that quickly.

She managed a surprise attack and the Knight took a step back, looking at the bloody gash on his chest.

"You really are in love with this body, aren't you?" He smirked, pausing a moment to rip his shirt away. He stood, naked from the waist up, and Buffy watched as the gash healed in seconds.

"Bruce Lee knew why he was always fighting shirtless," the Knight said, "much better effect on the chicks."

He was upon her again almost before she could react and her momentary lapse earned her a deep cut across her stomach, ripping her blouse apart. She took a moment to check the wound, found it wasn't deep, but soon blood loss would begin to be a problem. She was amazed at how calm she still felt. Things didn't look good after all.

Suddenly the world around her shifted and her vision blurred. For a brief moment she was in another place. Stone walls, candlelight, a large bed with curtains around it. Someone came in through the door and she felt her lips stretch into a broad smile. A shimmer of knight's armor. Her husband.

"Beloved, I missed you!"

Next she knew she was evading another strike of the Knight, losing a few locks of hair in the process. She threw one of her remaining knives, more out of reflex than conscious thought, and the short blade glanced along the Knight's shoulder, leaving a shallow cut. A cut that healed in seconds.

"Pay attention, will you!?" The Knight complained.

What had that been? She could still see afterimages burnt into her eyes. A bedroom. A man in shining knight's armor. A face. Angel? How was that possible?

She stumbled backwards and only just managed to roll away before the sword struck the concrete floor where she had been only moments before. Laughter filled the air, but not the Knight's throaty roar. A woman's laughter, totally out of place in this dark alley. Buffy looked up and saw the Vampire called Darla sit on a fire escape not far away, watching the scene.

"Kill her slowly, Angelus!" She cheered. "Let her drown in her own fear!"

"With pleasure!" The Knight growled. Angelus? Was that his name?

The Knight was beginning to herd her toward the dead end of the alley, but the appearance of Darla had given Buffy an idea. Maybe she couldn't hurt this creature, but she knew all about hurting Vampires. And maybe, if the Knight was on Darla's leash or something, ...

When he struck again Buffy vaulted over him and hit the ground running.

"No running away, Chosen One!" He yelled after her, his running steps making the ground shake. "There is nowhere for you to hide."

"And who's hiding?"

She reached the bottom of the fire escape, jumped nearly ten feet straight up, and swung up to the level Darla was sitting on. The Vampire seemed completely surprised and had barely begun to move when Buffy's boot caught her in the face.

Buffy felt the fire escape shake as the Knight began making his way up, moving his large body much faster than she would have thought possible. She drew a stake from her ruined jacket and straddled Darla's prone form.

"Back off or she's dust!" She yelled toward the Knight.

He stopped, but a few steps away from them, sword already raised for the kill. Buffy kept the stake poised on the flesh above Darla's unbeating heart, the Vampire's eyes glancing up at her full of rage. Buffy was panting from exhaustion.

"Drop the sword! Come on, drop it!"

The Knight complied and the blade hit the floor of the alley below. She could feel his demon eyes burning holes into her, but he made no offensive move.

"Now, climb up the fire escape and don't stop until you hit the roof!"

He started climbing up the steps with a speed no human could have matched, reaching the roof in seconds. On the last step he seemed to stumble, foot slipping. A loose piece of metal tumbled down the fire escape and Buffy's eyes followed it. She had a second to realize that she'd made a stupid mistake.

Darla came to life below her, using the distraction to swat the stake away. Her other hand closed around Buffy's throat and the Slayer found herself lifted bodily off the prone Vampire, choking.

"Nice idea," Darla said, slamming her body against the wall, "but lacking in execution."

Buffy was on the verge of blacking out and put all her strength into one last kick, managing to dislodge the hand. Darla was fighting for balance on the edge of the iron railing. From the corner of her eyes Buffy saw that the Knight was on his way down again.

Buffy sent Darla flying with another kick. The entire walkway shook and moments later she saw the reason why. The Knight had jumped off the fire escape, twisting in mid-air. A movement caught her eye in the alley below and she watched with amazement as the sword left the ground and flew toward its owner.

The Butcher Knight caught his sword in mid-air as he was halfway down the fire escape. Buffy didn't even have time to react. He swung the sword and his downward momentum made it shear through four levels of fire escape. The entire metal construct came apart and Buffy screamed as she lost her footing, everything around her tumbling down.

She had the distant impression of hitting the ground, then there was only darkness.
 

Part 9
 

###
 

It was a gray day and Buffy stood on a field of grass that might have been green once, but all she saw when she looked down was red. Blood. So much blood.

There were some burnt-out remains of huts in the distance, some of them still smoking as embers sizzled beneath the light rain that soaked into her robes. As she walked the ground beneath her squished, soaked with rain and blood.

The ground was littered with bodies. Men in armor that might have been shining once, but was now stained with dirt, rust, and blood. Empty eyes looked up at her, regarding her with the kind of supreme disinterest only the departed managed.

Only a few solitary figures were moving in the distance and Buffy found that her feet were carrying her toward a small group she could see standing beside a horse-drawn carriage. She could see one figure kneeling on the ground, one hand gently touching one of the bodies.

"It was not your fault!" One of the standing men said. The words sounded strange, not English. English was the only language she knew, though Giles would probably say that was debatable, but she understood them nevertheless.

"It was my duty to protect her and I failed." The kneeling man said. His face was covered by the strands of his long hair, but the voice was familiar.

"Angel?"

None of them seemed aware of her presence. The standing man put a hand to Angel's shoulder.

"She is at peace now. I know how much you loved her, my friend, but our duty must now be to whomever God has chosen next. We have to find her before the Butcher does."

Angel pushed the other man away and rose to his feet, his face a mask of pain and fury.

"And what will it achieve if we do? This abomination can not be stopped by sword or arrow. We will only lose again. Nearly a thousand men came to stop it and they all died. For naught!"

"With God's help we will ..."

"God has no power here!" Angel screamed. "A thousand knights sworn to his service and he could not help them. The cross does not repel this monster. If God's grace can not aid me in battle then I renounce him!"

The other men edged back from him, scared by the burning intensity they saw in his eyes.

"Your grief does not excuse heresy!" One of them said.

"Leave! All of you! Crawl back into your churches and pray! I will find a way to stop the Butcher Knight without help of God."

He knelt down, giving the prone form one final kiss on her dead lips. Only now did Buffy see that it was a young woman, little more than a girl, wearing battle armor. The armor was broken, the flesh beneath it torn and shredded.

Without a doubt Buffy knew that this had been the Slayer, the one she had dreamed of being before. The Butcher Knight had killed her.

Angel sheathed his sword and jumped on the back of a horse, riding toward the burnt-out village.

#

"Wakey, wakey!"

The sound penetrated past the haze of unconsciousness and Buffy slowly came awake again. The last thing she remembered before that strange dream was the collapsing fire escape and a long fall into the alley below. As if in response her body began to hurt.

Opening her eyes she saw a tangled mess of bent steel and metal girders, surrounding her like a spiders' web. Pain shot through her legs and arms as she tried to move, bringing tears to her eyes.

"Looks like someone has gotten her wings plugged on the way down."

The Butcher Knight stood only meters away, smirking at her. Darla stood half a step behind him, smiling broadly. Neither of them looked very hurt.

"You gave a good accounting of yourself," the Knight complimented her, "but in the end it doesn't make a difference, deary. All Chosen Ones die at my hands. It has always been like this."

She looked into his eyes and suddenly she knew. She knew what had happened to him, if not how. This was not the creature she had seen in her first dream. He looked like Angel and she knew why.

"Not always, has it?" She asked him, trying to ignore the pain. "There was a time you protected the Chosen One, Angel! You fought against Darla and her creature to protect her, do you remember that?"

For a moment the Knight seemed confused, shaking his head.

"You confuse him with the flesh he wears," Darla said, "and such adorable flesh."

She slid her hands across his nude upper body, snuggling into his side like a kitten.

"This, my dear, is Angelus. My Butcher Knight. And now he will kill you!"

She left his side and motioned for him to proceed. The Knight shook his head again and started to move toward Buffy, who was still pinned beneath the metal.

"Remember who you are, Angel!" She demanded. "You fought against her! You were desperate because you failed to protect the Slayer from her creature. You were ready to do anything to stop the Butcher Knight. You can do it now! You're stronger than he is!"

She grew desperate as he came closer, her words seemingly without effect. She couldn't move as he stood before her, starting to raise his sword.

"Angel, please! Remember how much you loved her!"

A shiver went through the Knight's body and he hesitated. His demon eyes looked down upon his helpless victim and Buffy had the distinct impression that he was not seeing her, but someone else. Someone who had died over a thousand years ago.

"Beloved?" He whispered, his voice not that of the demon.

"Kill her!" Darla screamed. "What are you waiting for?"

He turned around to look at her and there was fire in his eyes.

"Be ... Be Gone ..." He began, his voice shaking.

"No!" Darla yelled, coming closer. The Knight swatted her away with a backhand, then bent over as if in pain.

"Be Gone ... Angelus, Butcher Knight!"

Darla rose, looking at him with fear in her eyes.

"Be Banished Back Into the Night!"

"Stop! I command you! You are my creature, bound to me by blood!"

The Knight ignored her, having fallen to his knees.

"The New Day's Dawn Shall Be ... Shall Be Your Ban!"

Energy sparkled around him, arcs of electricity running across his flesh like fingers, making him scream in pain. The sword fell to the ground, trailing energy behind it like a comet's tail. Darla screamed, demon face showing. Buffy suddenly noticed that one of her stakes was lying close to her hand.

"Angelus!" Darla was by his side, her hands on his shoulders.

"Return Once More in Form of Man!" The Knight screamed and Buffy had to close her eyes, the light around him flared into brilliance. Darla stumbled back and Buffy managed to get her arm free of the metal.

The light faded after a second, shadows pooling in behind it, the light of the street lamps seeming like darkest night in comparison. Where the Butcher Knight had knelt but moments ago a man slid to the ground, groaning in pain.

"No!" Darla yelled again, coming closer once more. "You bastard! You think you have achieved something?"

She kicked the prone figure and he groaned again, clutching his side.

"You have achieved nothing! What you have done, I can undo!"

She smiled and her eyes sparkled.

"By bond of blood I call the might.
Of fire from Hell, Inferno's light.
I curse ..."

Before she could finish the incantation Buffy finally managed to prop herself up and let the stake fly with all her remaining strength. Her aim was unsteady, though, and she didn't hit the heart. Instead the wooden projectile buried itself in Darla's throat.

The Vampire reared back in pain, trying to scream, but only a gurgled sound emerged. She stumbled, stood again, hands trying to pull out the stake without success. Moments later, seeing that Angel was on the verge of getting back to his feet, she took off running.

Buffy leaned back, the pain from her movements only now becoming real. Angel rose on his elbows, looking at her with eyes that were thoroughly human again.

"Angel!" She whispered.

"You ... you're not her." He managed, his throat raw from the screaming. Moments later he collapsed again.
 

Part 10

###
 

Angel regained his consciousness slowly, aware of the pain shooting through his flesh. It was always that way when he finally managed to wrest back control of his body from Angelus, yet never before had the demon fought him this intensely. He was aching all over.

The demon. Angelus. His eyes shot open and bright light stabbed into them, forcing him to blink.

"He's awake!" An unknown voice said.

After a few moments Angel was able to make out the face of a man leaning over him. He was quite certain he didn't know that man and neither was he familiar with the room that slowly too shape around him.

"Mr. Fitzpatrick?" The man asked him. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I had to battle a demon for control of my body." He groaned. "Oh, wait! That really happened."

He looked up to see two more people sitting in the room. One was a red-haired girl he seemed to remember from one of his classes, the other a dark-haired boy. Both of them were staring at him with a mixture of amazement and fear.

Someone was missing from this picture, though.

"Where ... where is ... the Slayer?"

"Right here!"

Turning his head he saw her coming down the stairs of the apartment he was in. She looked bruised all over and her left arm was in a makeshift sling, but apart from that she seemed unhurt. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. Thank God he hadn't added another to his long list of victims.

Buffy sat down next to him, looking at him with concern in her eyes. Those eyes looked so very familiar to him. Like the eyes of another Slayer he had once known.

"How do you feel?" She asked him.

"Did I hurt you?" He asked back.

She gave him a shy smile. "I'll live."

"Mr. Fitzpatrick," the older man said, "we need to talk about certain things. Things concerning the entity living inside your body."

"You are her Watcher, I guess?" He asked him.

"Yes. My name is Rupert Giles."

"But we all just call him Giles." The boy added. "My name is Xander, by the way. This is Willow. I guess you and Buffy met before."

Angel nodded, looking at Buffy again. So close, he whispered to himself. So very close to snuffing another innocent life.

"So you want to know about the Butcher Knight?" He asked them.

"That would be helpful, yes." Giles said. "We have learned some of the story already. If our information is correct you and the Knight did not always share the same body, correct?"

Angel shook his head.

"I spent a large portion of my life trying to hunt that cursed creature down. I wanted to see it destroyed."

"It killed your lover." Buffy said.

"How do you ...?" He asked, then stopped. "Ah, I remember. Elia told me about the prophetic dreams she sometimes had. Is that where you learned of me?"

"Yes. I dreamed of the night shortly after you came here. Afterwards I saw some scenes of a battle. You were there, trying to save me ... or the person from whose eyes I saw everything, from the Knight."

"I failed!" Angel whispered, balling his fists as he felt tears threatening to fall.

Buffy put her hand on his shoulder and for a moment he could imagine that the last thousand years hadn't happened. That Elia was touching him, in the way only she could. It was but illusion, though. Elia was long dead. Dead because he had failed her.

"After her death," Angel continued after a moment, "I could think of nothing else but hunting this creature down. I dedicated my life to it and followed it to my dying breath."

"What happened?" Giles asked.

"What you'd expect to happen when a mere mortal goes after a monster like Angelus." Angel gave a dry laugh. "I died."

#

He was dead.

That knowledge took a while to penetrate, but once it was locked inside his head there was no going back.

He was dead.

He remembered how he had died. He had tracked down the Butcher Knight and engaged the monster in combat. He had fought with every last ounce of his strength, had used every dirty trick ever known, but in the end it had not been enough. The Knight had impaled him upon his monstrous sword and Liam O'Connelly, Earl of Angel's Haven, had died.

He was dead.

Looking around he found death to be a strange place, if place it was. There was light everywhere, turning the world around him into a single bright whiteness, devoid of all color or shape. He wondered whether he would soon face the Lord and whether his renouncing Him would earn him a place in Hell.

After some time, he had no way to measure how long, he became aware of two shadowy figures in the distance. Lacking anything better to do he walked toward them.

Soon he could make them out. A man and a woman, dressed in some kind of togas, skin the color of gold. Jesus and the Virgin Mary? Somehow he had never imagined them to look like this.

"Welcome, warrior!" The female greeted him, her voice a beautiful music.

"Is this Heaven?" He asked her.

"No, this is not heaven!" The male said. "You might consider this a way station. If it is your wish to pass on into what you understand to be Heaven, you will soon do so."

"First, though," the female said, "we have a proposition for you. If you will hear it. It concerns the entity known as Angelus. The Butcher Knight."

The familiar fury flooded through his veins, if veins he still had.

"I want it destroyed!" He growled.

"Your hatred is strong, your will is even stronger." The male said. "Which is why you are the right man."

"Right man for what?"

"The Vampiress known as Darla," the female explained, "made a terrible mistake when she summoned the Etrigani into the corporeal world. She has unleashed something even she has no hope of stopping or controlling. As she will soon learn."

"No weapon can harm Angelus," the male continued, "nothing will ever kill him. He does not age, he does not die. Only a power greater than his own could banish him from the Earth once more and the resulting battle would lay waste to your world, warrior."

His rage grew upon hearing those words.

"What are you telling me? Are you trying to make me feel better for my failure? If nothing can hurt him, that means I never had a chance. Is this your way of making a mockery out of my life?"

"No, we want to show you a way." The male said.

"The Etrigani can not be destroyed," the female explained, "but he can be caged. We can bond his form to that of a man. It would have to be a man of exceptional strength and will. A man who will do anything to make sure that the entity he carries inside him never breaks its chains again."

He understood.

"You want to bond me with this creature? The one I have sworn to see destroyed? You must be mad!"

"It is the only way to stop him. If you do not do it, he will carry on his mission. He will seek out Slayers and destroy them. He will slaughter everyone in his path. When he does not find a Slayer, he will kill everyone else he finds. He will never stop."

He clenched his fists, the images of the monster on a rampage cascading through his mind.

"What ... what will happen to me if I agree?" He asked.

"You and Angelus will be bonded. The Knight does not age and neither will you. Nothing can kill him and the same holds true for you. If the bond is established it will be your task to keep the creature imprisoned inside you. It will be a constant struggle, for the demon is strong. If you prevail, the Earth will be safe from the Butcher Knight. If you do not, you will become Angelus and kill again."

"Can you carry this burden to keep your world safe?" The female asked him.

#

"I said yes, of course." Angel said. "What else could I have done?"

"You have carried this demon inside of you for a millennium?" Giles asked.

"More or less. For nearly two centuries I was able to keep him imprisoned inside me. It wasn't easy, but I managed. I lead as normal a life as one who does not age could, never staying in any one place for too long a time for fear of being found out. It was not a good life, but neither was it unbearable."

He leaned back, sighing deeply, feeling the memories press in on him.

"Then, one day in the year 1189, I was in Italy. And Darla found me."

Go to Part 11