You Forget to Mention Hell, Horatio

Parts: 6-10

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‘Oh God.  What am I doing here?’ Willow thought frantically.

In all actuality, she didn’t really *plan* to come to this place.  Her only thought when school let out for the day had been to go home and grab a much-needed nap before going back to the library at sunset.  Stopping by her locker to drop off her extraneous textbooks, Willow left the high school without even saying good-bye to Xander.

Walking at an easy pace, Willow decided to take one of the more scenic routes to her house.  Perhaps, her subconscious was already considering this alternate destination, as this particular way happened to cross Brackton Boulevard.  As it so happened, that particular street led directly to Sunnydale’s warehouse district.

So caught up in her thoughts of what lay ahead later that evening, Willow just vaguely remembered the moment her feet decided to alter their course from her original destination.  In fact, it was only when she caught sight of the massive forest-green door that she realized where she was. Now that she was there, though, Willow found herself in a quandary.

It wasn’t as if this were the first time she’d gone there unannounced and unexpected.   Most of the time, she was greeted with a warm welcome and invited to stay as long as she chose to be there.   Every now and then, however, she would be firmly, but politely, turned away without much of an explanation.

‘I should have called first,’ Willow admonished herself.  ‘I’ll just go now, and no one will ever know I was even here.  But...I really want to see him.’

Usually, Willow either called ahead, or at least knocked first to await permission to come inside the building. Since she hadn’t bothered to phone, Willow followed the established agreement and rapped somewhat quietly on the metal door.

When the seconds of silence that followed continued to stretch on, Willow began to grow concerned.  Usually, the door would be opened before she had time to draw her hand back.   Worried, the teenager knocked again, more loudly this time, only to be met with same quiet response.

‘What if something’s happened to him?  He was so tired last night.  What if he went back to the cemetery after we dropped him off?   Wouldn’t that be just like him; not even following his own advice?  What if he went back and got hurt?  Or dragged off?  Oh God!  What if they took him down into the tunnels?   Ew, rats!  We’re going to have to dissect one of those next month in Biology.  I wonder if they have flies and stuff in their stomachs like the frogs did last week?  I hate frogs.  I don’t know how Buffy could stand them that time.   Hey, maybe he’s heard something about Buffy.  Maybe he left to go after her.  Or maybe he’s inside, really hurt and couldn’t get to a phone...’

Although her train of thought often meandered, the swiftness with which it flowed was astounding.   A sweeping sense of panic overwhelmed Willow as her mind focused in on that last train of thought.   Images of her friend, wounded and bleeding, consumed her.

Terrified as to what might be happening behind the locked door in front of her, Willow reached into her backpack with a trembling hand.  After a few moments of hunting around, her hand emerged with a shiny, metal key.  Having never been used before, it was as pristine as the day the owner of the lock had handed it to her.  ‘Just in case’ he’d insisted without elaborating further.  The exact meaning of ‘just in case’ had kept her wondering for days afterwards, yet she never found the courage to ask for any kind of clarification. Instead, she followed the rules of convention on visiting someone else’s home.

At least, until now.

With her fear overriding her sense of propriety, Willow stepped forward to insert the key into the lock. Nervousness made her hand unsteady, causing her to miss the keyhole twice before she heard the sound of metal sliding against metal.  Twisting the key savagely, the mechanism slid back with a satisfying click.

As soon as she opened the door itself, Willow launched herself into the apartment.   Green eyes swept the spacious main room as her body continued forward at a dead run.  Since she hadn’t expected to find him in the outer room anyway, Willow moved towards the open stairway without so much as slowing down.

Designed by the previous owner, the warehouse was somewhat atypical to most of its kind.   Instead of one huge, open space, large sheets of drywall had been installed to cordon off the kitchen and bathroom.   A banisterless staircase with wide, shallow steps led up to the ‘second’ floor.   It was styled similarly to a loft -- an open-ended bedroom that looked out over the living area below.

In keeping with the current owner’s preference for simple, yet elegant, surroundings, the bedroom contained only two pieces of dark-wood furnishings.  Ignoring the massive armoire that served as the room’s closet, Willow’s eyes sought out the large king-size bed.   In the middle of the darkly printed sheets, she finally saw that for which she’d been searching.  The shock of seeing him stopped her cold in her tracks.

“Angel!?!” His name emerged from her lips in a tone comprised of fear, uncertainty, and desperation.

Startled, Angel abruptly sat straight up at the sound of Willow’s cry.   His brain, however, was still somewhat lethargic after a marathon bout of sleep.   Running on pure instinct, his face automatically morphed into his vampire visage as he searched for the unidentified intruder in his lair.

Only when Angel changed into his “game face” did Willow realize the consequences of waking a sleeping vampire.  Stamping down the impulse to rush forward, she froze in place, once again calling his name in hope that he would recognize her as a friend, not a foe.

The confusion on the vampire’s face was evident as Angel struggled to identify the voice through the sleepy haze over his mind.  It took less than a second for him to realize just who his mystery guest was.

“Willow?”  He asked quietly, turning her name into a question.  “What’re you doing here?”

“Angel!” Willow exclaimed, finally giving into her need to make sure he was, indeed, all right.  Within the span of a single second, she tore across the room, rambling all the way over to the bed.  “I knocked and you didn’t answer.  All I kept thinking about was that you went back out last night and got hurt, but couldn’t get to the phone to reach anybody.  I kept seeing you covered in blood...”

With the intention of taking a running leap, Willow took one last giant stride as she neared the bed.  The maneuver would have worked perfectly, except that she tripped on the pile of discarded clothing scattered randomly on the floor.   Hitting the bed with a strangled ‘oof,’ Willow didn’t bother to let her misstep slow her down.  Shifting upright on her knees, she drunkenly made her way to Angel’s side.  Once there, she grabbed him around the shoulders, pulling him into a giant bear hug.

The only problem Angel had was his uncertainty over who was more reassured by the one-sided embrace: Willow or himself.   The only thing he knew for sure was that, more than anything, he wanted to pull her closer.  Following through on his desire, Angel wrapped his arms around Willow’s slender shoulders and held on tight.

A long moment passed as they both enjoyed the simple comfort of holding and being held.   All too soon, the veil of distortion caused by sleep began to lift away from Angel’s synaptic functions.   Not that he minded Willow dropping by, not in the least, but he was concerned as to what had brought her to his doorstep.

“Willow, Giles and the others...are they okay?”  Angel asked, reluctantly pulling away from the girl in his arms.

“Giles is fine, Oz is fine, Xander’s fine, you’re fine and...naked?!?”   As she spoke, Willow’s eyes had been involuntarily wandering over the vampire’s body, double-checking her assumption of Angel’s condition.  A strangled ‘eep’ escaped Willow’s throat when her green eyes traveled a bit too low.

The darkly printed top sheet that had covered Angel while he slept slipped down his exposed torso when he sat up so abruptly minutes earlier.   While the expanse of fabric currently covered the most ‘vital’ parts of Angel’s anatomy, the way it haphazardly draped across his lap left absolutely no doubt that he was bare-assed naked underneath it.

Self-consciousness set in for Angel when he realized that Willow’s observation was, indeed, correct.  “Well, I kinda wasn’t expecting any company,” he said with a sheepish, but amused, shrug.

“Oh...okay...right...dressed...you should...y’know... like soon...”  A slow, burning blush crept up Willow’s neck and face as she stumbled backwards in embarrassment.   It seemed as if her eyes wandered over every inch of the room with the glaring exception of the vampire before her.

Angel was hard-pressed not to laugh at her adorable discomfort, but he realized that she was right;  he really should get dressed.   Only there was one notable problem: Willow hadn’t yet left the room.

“Uh, Will?” Angel began kindly.  He came close to biting his lip to keep from smiling at her refusal to look directly at him.  “Willow?   Why don’t you go downstairs and get something to drink?”

“Huh?  I’m not...oh... Oh! A drink!  Right!  I’ll just go... wow, I’m so in the mood for a Diet Coke!”   With that said, she bolted for the staircase like a sprinter at the sound of the starting gun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willow was sitting rather formally on the sofa when Angel came down the stairs a few minutes later.   For the sake of propriety, the vampire had thrown on a pair of pants and a dark shirt, which he had left unbuttoned.

“I’m going to grab a quick shower,” Angel informed his guest as he sailed past her on his way to the bathroom. “Make yourself...uh...comfortable.”

Willow blushed at the vampire's choice of words as he closed the door behind himself.   Only when she heard the sound of the shower starting did she throw her head into her hands and groan loudly.  “Oh God, could this get *any* more embarrassing.”

For long minutes Willow sat there considering what exactly had just taken place.   That she’d been so close to a naked man was daunting, and not just any man, but *Angel*, her best friend’s boyfriend...well, sort-of boyfriend.  Well, maybe not anymore.

A lot had changed since she’d brought Angel back from Hell.   Buffy’s absence, Xander’s relationship with Cordelia, Giles’s withdrawal, her mutual break-up with Oz -- each event only added to Willow’s loneliness.   Only her newfound friendship with Angel gave her something besides school to look forward to each day.

For the first time, Willow allowed herself to consider her reasons for actively pursuing a friendship with Angel. After his stint as Angelus, the vampire had returned to find his own life in shambles.   Willow had been the only one to stand by him in his time of need.   Never once did she blame him for Angelus’s actions, not even for the murder of the computer teacher, Jenny Calendar.  If she had, she never would have risked her own life and soul to rescue him from the Demon Dimension.

In the beginning, Willow kept telling herself that she only wanted to protect Angel while he regained his strength after his ordeal.   It hadn’t been easy at first.   Angel wanted nothing more than to be left alone, taking his ‘cryptic, mysterious guy’ act to a whole new level.   But, using courage that she didn’t know she possessed, Willow had been determined not to lose Angel as she had her other friends. Concerned about his well being, she came to visit daily.  She did her best not to let her hurt show on those few occasions he actually did turn her away.  More often then not, however, Angel slowly began letting her into his life.   Gradually, they found that they truly enjoyed each other’s company, especially since they had none of the romantic entanglements of most of their other respective friendships.

At least, that had been true up until this afternoon.

It wasn’t as if Willow had never noticed Angel’s looks before now.   Put simply, only a blind person would fail to see that he was gorgeous -- and he was Buffy’s.   At least, that was how Willow’s always thought of Angel -- not only off-limits, but way out of her league.  What would somebody like him see in a person like herself?   In Willow’s estimation, Angel deserved to be with somebody special, somebody like Buffy.   That Buffy and Angel were no longer an item didn’t change Willow’s opinion at all.

Why, then, was she suddenly hyperaware of Angel’s magnetism?   He’d never shown *that* kind of interest in her and, if she were to be truthful with herself, Willow had never taken any kind of offense at the omission.   Having Angel simply as a friend was more than enough.

Over the past few months, Willow had grown to rely heavily on the friendship Angel offered.   He became a sounding board for her, listening with genuine interest to whatever she had to say.   He was protective without smothering her, there when she needed him -- whether she knew it at the time or not.   His apartment had become her sanctuary, the one place she came when she needed to get away from her home, the library, or both places.  Willow was not about to risk upsetting the status quo between them on the off-chance that Angel might want something more with her.

It wasn’t worth losing his friendship.

Lost in her thoughts, Willow jumped when she heard the door of the bathroom open.  Angel emerged fully dressed in the clothes he’d worn when he first came downstairs.  A knot of apprehension grew in Willow’s stomach as she waited to see how Angel was going to react to the situation that had taken place upstairs.

“Are you hungry?”  The vampire asked absently as he ran a towel over his still-damp hair.  As if sensing her tension, Angel treated Willow to a warm smile.

“I’m fine,” Willow replied, relieved that the vampire was acting normally.   Now, if only she could do the same. Unfortunately, Angel looked unbelievably sexy standing there with damp hair and bare-footed.  ‘Down girl!’  Willow ordered herself.

Angel, however, broke the spell by moving off into the kitchen.  Of course he needed to feed.  Willow knew better than to follow him into the kitchen.  Experience had taught her that Angel was incredibly private when it came to preparing and consuming the blood that kept him ‘alive’.

“So,” Angel called from the kitchen, “you never answered my question.”

“What question was that?” she replied as she retrieved the backpack she’d tossed aside earlier.

“What brought you over here?”

“What?  I can’t just visit a friend?”  Willow called as she settled back onto the sofa with the history book she’d pulled out of her bag.

“I just thought you’d be home resting.   You need to be as prepared as possible, Willow.  This...this whole Legion thing...it’s big, Will.   Probably bigger than anything that we’ve dealt with so far.”

“You said ‘we’,” Willow noted with a smile.

“Huh?” Angel asked as he emerged from the kitchen with a bag of Willow’s favourite chips in his hand.  He’d long ago taken to stocking his kitchen with actual food for when she came over to visit.

“You said ‘we.’  You’ve never said that before.” Willow continued, eyeing the chips with a smile.

“I don’t follow...” the vampire replied, his confusion evident.

“You’ve always said ‘you’ before when you talked about the group.”  Seeing that Angel still wasn’t grasping her meaning, Willow elaborated.  “You’ve never included yourself when you’ve talked about the Slayerettes.”

Angel almost rolled his eyes at the group’s self-appointed nickname, but it seemed to Willow that he finally understood the point that she was making.  For as long as she could remember, Angel had, with the exception of Buffy, insisted on keeping himself distant from the group, both emotionally and physically.  Only recently had she noticed a change in his behaviour.  Never once did Willow realize that she was directly responsible for the difference.

“That’s your doing, you know.”   The words were spoken softly, but there was no mistaking the open gratitude in Angel’s voice.  Uncomfortable with his heart-felt admission, the vampire kept his back to Willow as he retrieved a leather-bound book from his desk.

“Me?” Willow squeaked.  “I didn’t do anything!”

Astounded by her statement, Angel pivoted sharply, and strode across the room.  Kneeling down in front of the sofa, the vampire dropped what he was carrying to take her petite hands into his own.   “Willow, don’t you see?   I owe you everything.”

Words failed her at that moment.  What was Angel talking about?   He’d saved her life so many times, *she* was the one who ought to be thanking *him*.   Knowing that bringing up that particular fact would make the vampire uncomfortable, Willow wisely chose to remain silent.   Still, she was touched by his sentiment and wanted to do something to show her appreciation.  In the end, Willow settled for simply squeezing his hands tenderly until she could gather her thoughts. “You don’t owe me anything, Angel.   Friends don’t keep scorecards.”

They remained that way for a while longer; each lost in respective thoughts over their unique friendship.  Finally, Angel leaned forward and brushed a gentle kiss against Willow’s forehead.

“Thank you,” he whispered, letting go of her hands with one last squeeze.

The moment ended when Angel reclaimed the items he had so carelessly dropped on the floor.  Handing the bag of chips over to Willow, he sat down on the opposite end of the couch and opened his book.

They spent the next hour reading in companionable silence, until they both fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angel woke Willow about a half an hour before sunset.   After preparing a quick meal -- warm blood for him and some soup for her -- they quickly made their way out of the apartment, completely unaware of the three pairs of immortal eyes that followed their progress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘He is as beautiful as they say,’ Eleni Vasqeria Goya y Garcia thought as she stood on a nearby rooftop.   For all of her 500 years, Eleni had been obsessed with two things: beauty and power.   In her own mind, she was already in possession of the former, and she was well on her way to securing the latter.

The only thing that remained was finding the perfect consort to be at her side.

Her search for such a man began long before she reached the primate backwater known as Sunnydale.  It was unfortunate that a viable Hellmouth hadn’t opened somewhere more...civilized, like her native Seville.  It was a pity; but then again, such things could not be helped.

Dismissing her tangent thoughts, Eleni once again focused on the dark-haired vampire below her.  Ever since she’d arrived in Sunnydale, she’d heard stories of Angelus, of his cunning and ruthlessness and, most importantly, of his curse.   Although no one she talked to was certain of the details of his disappearance and subsequent return; all were in agreement that Angelus was once again fighting against his own kind.  Such a tragedy.

Not for long, however.

He alone stood out above the pitiful flotsam this place had to offer, like a single diamond in a bucket full of coal.  Her time of victory was near, and she wasn’t about to walk into the face of triumph alone.   Angelus was the perfect choice, despite his curse.  ‘After all,’ Eleni thought, ‘if it was broken once, it can be done again.’  Now it was time to make it happen.

“Kill the girl and bring him to me,” Eleni ordered the underling that accompanied her.

“Should I bring her across?”  the minion asked.

“No,” his mistress replied without hesitation. Despite the need to increase their numbers, Eleni wasn’t about to allow the creation of potential rival.  Not that she even considered the possibility of Angelus choosing the girl over herself.  Eleni’s beauty had been legendary for more than half a millennia.  Instead, she wanted the girl dead for being near Eleni’s chosen one.   “Feed from her if you wish, but make sure Angelus sees her die before you bring him to me.”

“As you wish, Mistress,” the underling replied.

Her orders issued, Eleni pivoted sharply and disappeared into the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You want me to go where?” Angel asked skeptically as the pair turned the corner before Sunnydale park.

“A college fair...over at Washington High tomorrow at six o’clock.  I mean, it’s no big deal if you can’t go.  I know that we’re supposed be fighting this whole Legion prophecy, but Giles said that we can be spared for an hour or two tomorrow.  We’ll just meet up with everybody at the Restfield Cemetery later on.”

She was rambling out loud from nervousness, but internally, she busy berating.  ‘Right, like Angel would want to go to something as stupid as a college fair.’ Nevertheless, when she mentioned the possibility of attending to Giles earlier, the Watcher had insisted that she not go unescorted.

“...I mean I understand if you don’t want to go. It being a school thing and all, and you probably wouldn’t be interested...”

“I’ll go.”  Angel interrupted absently, only half-listening to Willow’s babbling.   The vampire was jumpy, and he was irritated that he couldn’t figure out why.           “...in something as boring as...”

“Willow, I’ll go,”  he repeated a little more loudly.

“...a college fair.”

Angel couldn’t help but smile at her prattling, but he didn’t need to hear anymore.  “Willow!  I said, I’ll go with you.”

“Oh.”  she replied in what seemed like confusion.  Not that her response, or lack thereof, surprised him.  He could almost envision her mind stopping and rewinding the conversation to search out exactly what the vampire had just agreed to do.

“Oh!  You’ll really go?”  she asked.  Angel merely nodded his head to reaffirm his agreement.  “Oh Angel, this is so nice of you!”

“It’s really not a problem,” the vampire insisted, barely remembering to give Willow a smile of reassurance.   He was preoccupied by his feelings of unease, yet he didn’t want to upset Willow unnecessarily.   Instead, he did his best to make some small talk.  “What I don’t get is the time of it, though.  I thought that the police were actually cracking down on that curfew they established.”

“Supposedly they are, what with all the missing people lately.  But this college fair was set up months ago.  I guess they didn’t want to inconvenience all the reps coming from out of town,” Willow surmised.

“Idiots.”  Angel grumbled at the lunacy of not canceling the entire event.

As they turned the corner into the park, the pair grew silent, more alert of their surroundings.  With all the shrubbery and darkened recesses, this was the most dangerous part of their route.  Yet, it could not be avoided.   Walking around the park would add another fifteen minutes to their trip, which could prove to be just as deadly.

A spike of pain seared through Angel’s head out of nowhere, causing the normally graceful vampire to stumble.

“Angel?” Willow questioned as she reached out to steady him.

“Something...something’s not right,” he gasped as the pain receded.   A strange feeling overcame him.  For no reason at all, he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to run. At that same moment, the demon within him grew unbearably restless, as if it was trying to force him to flee.  It took every ounce of control that he’d learned in the past eighty-odd years to keep from giving into the demon’s demands, but he wouldn’t leave Willow behind.

“Can you walk?” Willow asked anxiously, her eyes darting around to search for either the cause of the vampire’s pain or other potential dangers.  Fortunately, Angel seemed to be recovering quickly.

“C’mon, let’s go,” he insisted, grabbing onto Willow’s arm protectively.  Before they could go more than ten paces, half a dozen snarling vampires jumped out of the bushes on both sides of the pathway.

Acting on instinct, Angel immediately shifted into his game face.  Adjusting his hold on Willow’s arm, he tugged her close to his body in a possessive manner.  He only prayed that Willow would follow his lead.   He had to buy her enough time to cast her protection spell.  Given his proximity to the teenager, the trickiest part was going to be making sure that he didn’t get accidentally dusted by it himself.

“This one is mine,” he growled menacingly to the other vampires.  “Go find your own dinners.”

“Thanks, but we already ate,” the largest vampire sneered.

‘Come on, Willow!’ Angel thought furiously.   Finally, he heard her whispering the familiar words of Latin while one of her hands slowly crept closer to the stake hidden within the sleeve of her denim jacket.

It was, however, too little, too late.

Without any warning another vampire, hidden within the shrubbery, jumped Angel from behind.  Staggering from the force of the impact, Angel lost his grip on Willow, accidentally pushing her towards their waiting adversaries.

“WILLOW!” Angel bellowed.

Using the forward momentum to her advantage, the young redhead jerked the stake free of her sleeve and slammed it into the heart of the vamp who’d been poised to catch her.   Yet, as impressive as the move was, it did nothing to save her from being swatted to the ground like an insect by a vicious backhand from one of the other bloodsuckers.

As soon as Angel realized that the other five were unfazed by Willow’s surprise attack, he knew that they were in real trouble.   These vampires were no newly made fledglings.  They were seasoned, experienced fighters; prepared to die as long as their objective was achieved.

‘But what do they want?’ Angel wondered.

He never had time to speculate, though.  Before Willow could even begin to shake off the effects of the blow she received, the remaining three opponents were all over the vampire with a soul.   He fought his best fight, but it was a losing battle.

In less than a minute, Angel was completely overwhelmed.   Instinctively, he tried to get closer to Willow, willing to sacrifice himself in the slim chance that his demise would buy her the chance to escape.  There was only one vampire between Willow and himself, so he ran forward, hoping to knock it out of his way.

His opponent, however, anticipated the move and, at the last possible second, spun around in a roundhouse kick that sent Angel airborne.   Tumbling head over feet, the last thing Angel saw was the green of the park bench before his head impacted against it with a sickening crunch.

“ANGEL!!”  Willow screamed in horror.  Still dazed from the blow she’d taken, the sound of Angel’s skull fracturing echoed loudly in her head.   Her eyes teared over as she cried unnoticed tears for her fallen friend.

Truth be told, she completely forgot about the other hostile vampires as she stared at Angel’s unmoving body -- at least until one of the creatures wrapped its hands around her neck.  There was a surrealistic quality of the moment, almost as everything was happening to her in slow motion.   Frozen with grief rather than fear, Willow did nothing to resist as the vampire holding her shifted his grip to expose her neck.   A loud ‘bang’ erupted in the distance, but the sound was drowned out by the sharp pain of the fangs that pierced her tender skin.

As she was thrown to the ground, Willow’s vision began to fade to black.   Her last thought was of Angel and if he would be waiting for her on the other side...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘Once, just once, I’d like something to be bloody simple,’ the Immortal calling himself Adam Pierson swore silently as he ran.  ‘Sure,’ he raged at the idiocy of the plan he’d conceived earlier that afternoon.  ‘Follow the girl and wait until she’s alone to ask her about Ahriman.  What could possibly go wrong?’

Everything.

For example, the girl could choose to go somewhere other than the home address Adam had so painstakingly looked up in the phone book during lunch.  She might actually choose to go to the one warehouse in Sunnydale that’s windows were blackened over with thick coats of paint.  She could also choose to while away the afternoon inside said warehouse, only to emerge hours later with what appeared to be a boyfriend in tow -- an older, somewhat dangerous- looking boyfriend, at that.  Then, to add insult to injury, Adam could have easily been spotted as he drove past the entrance to the park, not realizing that the pair had stopped less than fifty feet away for some reason or another.  Or even better yet, Willow and her boyfriend could get jumped by what appeared to be a gang lying in wait.

It was plain, dumb luck that he’d caught sight of the gang members out of the corner of his eye.  Erring on the side of caution, Adam pulled his rental car over to the side of the otherwise deserted street.   Shutting off the telltale headlights, the Immortal reached for a high-power set of golf binoculars and proceeded to watch the encounter unfold.  A knot of tension formed in his stomach as the seconds passed.  Even with the distance between himself and the assembled group, it was plain to see that this wasn’t a friendly meeting.  Yet, he did nothing.  After all, Adam Pierson hadn’t stayed alive for so many years by borrowing from other people’s troubles.

At least that was what he told himself until he saw the hidden man jump out of the bushes in a surprise attack. Muttering a curse in a long-forgotten tongue, Adam threw down the binoculars and exited the car at a dead run.   He hadn’t come this far only to have the girl he’d been searching for hurt or killed in a random mugging.

Rounding the stone-and-fence gateway, Adam felt a sudden chill run down his spine as Willow’s boyfriend took a serious header into a park bench.  With her friend out of the way, one of the attackers grabbed the redheaded teenager and buried his face into her neck.   Thinking that the girl was about to be gang-raped, the Immortal felt memories -- some from the distant past and some from less than a year ago -- rise to the surface unbidden.

“NO!”  Adam Pierson shouted as he forced himself to move even more quickly.   As his feet hit the ground in rapid secession, he was already reaching for his weapons. Seasoned by centuries of battle, he immediately sought out the six round - .38 in his belt with his left hand, while the right slid under his overcoat to reach for the long dagger secured to the small of his back.   While many Immortals would have immediately drawn their swords, Adam knew that his trusty Ivanhoe was an unwieldy choice for a close fight with multiple combatants.

Even from this distance, he could see the girl’s legs begin to buckle.  As slight as she was, it wouldn’t be difficult for the large man that was holding her to carry her off with him if the gang was to retreat.  Realizing that he would never reach Willow in time to prevent such an occurrence, Adam lifted the gun in his right hand, took aim and fired.

Shooting on the run is never as easy as it looks in the movies.  Even for someone as practiced as Adam, the Immortal was lucky to hit one of the gang members -- even if he was off target by over a foot.   Instead of impacting in the chest cavity, the bullet lodged itself deeply into the man’s stomach.

Then, something truly bizarre happened.

When he was about 40 feet away from the assembled group, all of the girl’s attackers suddenly clutched their heads and began shrieking in pain.   Although puzzled by their behaviour, Adam never once slowed down as he raced towards his destination.   At 30 feet, the gang members began stumbling backwards, some still screaming as they made their retreat.

At first, their reaction to his presence reminded Adam of the confusion newly made Immortals had when experiencing ‘the buzz’ of another of their kind for the first time.   ‘The buzz’ was a tingling sensation that all Immortals felt when they came into proximity to another of their race -- a kind of early-warning detection system that made it possible to recognize each other.   While the feeling was less than pleasant for the most seasoned Immortal, it was often disorientating as hell to the younger and more inexperienced. Especially since the older and more powerful an Immortal was, the greater their detection range.

The buzz, however, was a two-way street, and as strong as Adam’s was, he should have been able to sense another of his kind long before they detected his presence. Nearing his destination, the Immortal cast his thoughts aside to focus more of his attention towards the unconscious girl lying on the ground.

By the time he reached Willow’s side, her attackers had disappeared into the protective darkness of the park. Deciding that his gun would be the best choice of weapon should the gang members return, Adam kept it in hand while setting his dagger down on the ground at the girl’s side.

She was lying face down on the asphalt walkway, so the Immortal clutched a petite shoulder to roll her over on her back.    Still out cold, Adam could nevertheless make out the damp tear tracks on her ashen cheeks.   With a practiced hand, the Immortal brushed her hair out of the way as he reached for her neck.   Ignoring the warm, damp blood his fingers encountered, he unerringly found her jugular vein and pressed his fingers against it.   Her pulse was thready, but that was not surprising.   Shock was a common reaction after such a brutal attack.

Speaking of brutal, Adam left the girl’s side to check on her boyfriend.   Having been a medical doctor in several of his ‘lifetimes,’ one look at the dark-haired man’s forehead told the Immortal everything he needed to know.   Despite the futility of his action, Adam checked not only for a pulse, but any hint of the buzz that would indicate that the fallen man might be an Immortal.

Nothing.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Adam noted that the man’s skin was cool, in fact, unnaturally so for someone whose life had just ended moments earlier.   However, before the thought fully registered, a low, pain-filled groan filled the air.

Willow Rosenberg was waking up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The second he heard the noise, Adam abandoned the corpse of the man to return to the girl’s side.   Tapping her face in an effort to stimulate her revival, the Immortal’s hazel eyes swept the surrounding area, keeping watch for any signs of danger.  Seeing none, he replaced the safety on the .38 and tucked it loosely into his belt before turning his attention back towards the teenager.

“Willow?” he questioned, his tone becoming more demanding as he called her name repeatedly.

“Ugghhh.”  With another groan of protest, Willow’s eyes fluttered open.  “Wha..where?”

“Willow?  Come on, kid, work with me here.”  The Immortal kept his voice quiet but firm as he assisted her into a sitting position.  “Are you all right?”

“Kinda dazed and a little confused,” she admitted as she shook her head in an effort to clear out the cobwebs. One of her petite hands came up to rub her aching jaw while she tried to recall exactly how it came to hurt in the first place.   Adam could almost see the wheels of her mind turning as she struggled to put the pieces together.  After a brief moment of silence, Willow’s glassy eyes met his own.

“Dr. Pierson,” he supplied before she could vocalize her obvious question.  “We met at the school library this morning.”

“Wha...what are you d...doing here?”

“I happened to be passing by when I saw those men jump out of the bushes at you...”  Even as the words fell from his lips, Adam saw the moment everything clicked into place in her memory.   He opened his mouth to continue speaking when a heart-breaking cry interrupted him.

“Oh my God!  My...Angel?  Angel!?!”   The girl’s expression was one of pure panic as she craned her neck to search for her fallen friend.   Adam couldn’t help but feel relieved that his body blocked her view of the gruesome sight directly behind him.   Although the cynical, survival-driven portion of Adam Pierson refused to acknowledge it, there was a small part of the Immortal that was both saddened and impressed by the stranger who had given his life in defense of this girl.   It was that fact alone that triggered a sudden attack of the conscience that he so frequently denied having.   Out of respect for the dead man’s actions, Adam decided to keep the girl from seeing the battered body.   He did not want the sight to be her last memory of the boyfriend who obviously cared so much for her.

“I’m so sorry, Willow,” Adam soothed as he leaned forward to pull her tiny frame into a comforting embrace. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” Willow questioned without pulling away from the Immortal.

“His injuries were too severe.   I’m afraid he’s...he didn’t make it.”   The Immortal spoke delicately, uncertain as to how the teenager would react to bluntness.  A small sob was her answer as Willow’s arms rose to clutch tightly at his waist.

“No!”  She managed to whisper around the tears that choked her.  “No.  Not Angel.  Not Angel.”

Adam allowed Willow a long moment to sob out the grief that was overwhelming her.   There was nothing he could do other than to rub her back and whisper soothing noises in her ear while she cried in the comfort of his arms.

Then, Adam noticed a movement in the distance.

“Willow, we have to get out of here.”  The teenager stiffened at his words, instantly reminded of the danger that lurked in the shadows.  “Can you stand?”

Rising even as she nodded, Willow almost tripped over a piece of wood lying on the path.   Sniffling, she bent over to retrieve it.   It was only when she straightened back up that the gasp escaped her.

Alerted by the sound, Adam traced her line of vision only to realize that she’d seen the body of her boyfriend. Fearing that she would become hysterical, the Immortal reached forward to grasp her arm.

“Angel?!!?”  To Adam’s surprise, the girl sounded almost happy to see the corpse resting against the park bench.   In his confusion, Willow managed to avoid his hand, surging past the Immortal to reach her friend’s side.

“Angel, oh God, Angel!”  Her cries were excited as she dropped to her knees to gather his limp form into her arms.   “You’re still here!” she whispered reverently while she rocked the body like a child would a favourite doll.

“Willow...Willow, let go,”  Adam insisted, trying his best to pull her away.  But she wasn’t having any of it. “Willow, listen to me.   He’s not breathing...there’s no pulse.”

“Of course he’s not breathing,” Willow retorted, leaving Adam to wonder if that blow to the head she took was harder than he originally thought.  “We have to get him out of here.”

“We can send the police to collect him later.  Right now, we need to get moving.”

“Angel, please wake up,” Willow pleaded, ignoring the Immortal to tap the man’s face as Adam had done to her own just a short time ago.

“Listen to me,” Adam said sharply.  “He’s dead, Willow, and unless you want to join him, we need to get out of here.”

The Immortal was more than shocked when the teenager roughly jerked her shoulder out from underneath his hand.    When her face turned to meet his, Adam found himself pierced, not so much by her determined expression, but by the green eyes that skewered through him.  Gone was the weeping child he’d held only moments earlier.   In her place was a fiery, self-assured woman.

Yet, even at her best, she was no match for this particular Immortal.  Or so he thought.

“We’re leaving.”  Adam’s tone brooked absolutely no tolerance as he once again reached for her arm...only to find himself staring down the barrel of his own gun.  ‘Son of a...’ he thought to himself, both annoyed and somewhat impressed that the girl had managed to grab the weapon without his knowledge.  It wasn’t often that anyone pulled one over on him.

“I said we’re *not* leaving without him.”  Her words would have been a lot more convincing if both her voice and her hands weren’t shaking.   Apparently, just holding a gun made the teenager nervous.

For a moment, Adam considered just knocking Willow out and carrying *her* out of the park.  Besides, the teenager hadn’t realized that the safety on the gun was still in place.   Balling up his fist to throw the necessary punch, he froze when he heard the simple ‘oh wait,’ followed by the click of the hammer being cocked.

“Please, mister,” Willow begged.  “I want to get out of here just as badly as you do.   I’m so sorry.  I’ve never even held a g...gun before, and I don’t really think that I like it too much, and I know you saved our lives and all, but I really, *really* need your help...”

Like a micro-processor, Adam’s mind rapidly considered his options while Willow babbled nervously. Fight or flight -- both choices were instantly dismissed by his proximity to the teenager.   If he were to try and grab the gun, she would probably squeeze the trigger accidentally; and as unstable as she seemed to be at the moment, he didn’t trust her not to shoot if he decided to cut his losses and make a run for it.  It wasn’t that he was overly afraid of being shot -- that had happened to him countless times over the years -- but bullet wounds were still messy and painful, even to Immortals.  Not to mention the fact that if he were to die, it would still take a few minutes for his body to heal itself, thus leaving him exposed to any number of potential dangers.  In the end, Adam chose the path of least resistance.

“Fine,”  he snapped, leaning forward to pull the body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.   The weight caused him to stagger before he finally found his balance.  Keeping an eye out for potential dangers, he led the way back the car. At least the teenager wisely chose to remain quiet as they walked.

“Unlock the trunk,”  Adam instructed when they reached the rental.   It wouldn’t be the first time he’d transported a body, and he wasn’t about to risk the questions that could arise should he be pulled over by the police.

Much to his annoyance, Willow bypassed the trunk in favour of the rear driver’s side door.   When Adam was about to protest, the teenager simply raised the gun she still held in her hand.   Realizing that she was serious,  the Immortal gave in, less than gently manoeuvring his burden into the back seat.   That accomplished, he slid into the driver’s seat and waited for Willow to get situated in the front passenger position.  Once her door was closed, the teenager twisted in her seat, unwilling to remove her gaze from her boyfriend’s corpse.

“All right, then.   Which way to the hospital?” the Immortal asked with false cheerfulness.

“Not the hospital, the library,” she replied, unwilling to stop staring at her dead companion.

“What?!?” Adam asked, not bothering to mask his confusion.

“The library.  We have to get him to the library.  Giles will know what to do...I hope.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam almost sighed in relief when they pulled into the parking lot of the high school.   Ignoring his steady stream of suggestions that they go to a hospital, Willow remained eerily silent during the duration of the short drive from the park.  In fact, the Immortal wasn’t even sure if she realized that they’d reached their destination.

“Willow, we’re...”

The rest of his comment was lost as the teenager opened the door of the still-moving car.   Muttering a curse at her recklessness, Adam harshly slammed on the brakes while throwing out an arm to protect her from the force of inertia.  The gesture proved unnecessary as the redhead slipped out the door before the car even jerked to a final stop.

“Xander!  Oz!” Willow cried, her voice cracking as the tears she’d held in check on the ride overwhelmed her.

“Will!  We were just coming to look for you.”

Exiting the car himself, Adam watched as two teenaged boys raced across the otherwise empty parking lot. He recognized the dark-haired boy from his visit to the library earlier that morning, but the short blond was a new face to the Immortal.   That he was an acquaintance of Willow’s was made clear when he pulled the redhead into an embrace of reassurance.

“You okay, Willow?”

“Where were you?” the taller boy asked impatiently.

Willow, however, was unable to answer as her tears finally began to fall.   Searching for answers, the blond never let go of her as he lifted his eyes to meet Adam’s.  There was no mistaking the questions in the boy’s gaze.

“What happened?” he quietly asked the Immortal.

“I was driving by when I saw her and her friend being mugged in the park...”  Adam began.

“Friend?”   The dark-haired teen queried.

“Angel,”  Willow gasped.  It was as if simply saying his name renewed the inner strength and courage that the girl had shown when she stole Adam’s gun away from him in the park.  With one last sniffle, Willow swiped her nose with the back of her hand before pulling away from the blonde’s embrace.

“Please, we need to get him to Giles,”  Willow pleaded to her friends.  Two gasps of surprise could be heard as she opened the rear door of the car to reveal the body in the rental’s back seat.   Even in the dim, artificial light of the parking lot, the injury to Angel’s forehead stood out in all its gruesome detail.   The force of impact had smashed the man’s temple, leaving a two-inch divot just below his hairline.  Like most head wounds, this one bled profusely in the minutes that it took the die.  In fact, if Adam didn’t know better, he would have thought that there was *more* blood on the corpse’s face than there had been when he’d first thrown the body into the car.   But that was impossible.   Dead men don’t bleed.  It was a simple law of nature that even Immortals could not defy.

“Oh man...” the blond whispered as he blanched at the sight before him.

“That’s gotta smart,” the taller boy, whom Adam recalled was named Xander, quipped while moving to Oz’s side.

“Hurry up!”  Willow insisted.

“It’s too late,” Adam said softly to the two boys, not wanting Willow to overhear.  “He was already dead in the park, but she insisted on bringing him here rather than a hospital or calling the authorities.  There was no pulse, no signs of life....”

“I’ve been saying that for years...” Xander griped, only to be silenced by a none-too-subtle elbow in the stomach from the shorter kid.

“Let’s get him to the library,” Oz suggested.  As the two teenagers moved forward to retrieve the body from his car, the blond once again spoke directly to Adam.  “Uhh, look.  Thanks for helping out Willow and bringing him,” he nodded towards the corpse in the car, “here.”

“You do realize that’s a dead body.  The police are already going to ask a lot of questions as to why he was moved,”  Adam noted.

“I know this is gonna sound kinda strange, but we’ll take care of everything from here.  I’m sure you don’t need the complications from the police asking a lot of questions, so how ‘bout we just leave you completely out of it.  You never saw any of us, and we never saw you.  Okay?”

Adam instantly saw in the boy’s expression the fervent hope that his offer would be taken without reservation.   For just a moment, Adam considered the offer. After all, getting involved in a murder investigation wasn’t exactly in the best interest of any Immortal.  But something strange was going on here, and Adam would be damned if he just walked away without satisfying his blatant curiosity. Besides, he still needed to talk with ‘Sabrina’ about the subject that originally brought him to this bizarre little town.

“Hey, that’s fine by me,” Adam agreed, punctuating his remark by raising his hands in surrender as the two boys quickly learned the real meaning of the phrase ‘dead weight’.

“Geez, what the hell has Deadboy been eating lately,” Xander grumbled while he maneuvered one of Angel’s arms behind his neck.

“Can we just get to the library?” Willow asked restlessly.  Her barely constrained impatience reminded the Immortal of a racehorse at the starting gate awaiting the sound of the gun.

‘Deadboy?’ Adam wondered silently as the trio of teenagers made their way towards the side entrance of the school.   What truly surprised the Immortal was Willow’s reaction, or more specifically her *lack* thereof, to the comment.  And why in blazes was it so bloody important for them to get the body to the library?  More than ever, Adam was determined to find out exactly what was going on with the strange girl he’d been seeking.

Keeping a discrete distance, the Immortal followed the teenagers into the building.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The walk to the library was a long one.   Even at a distance, Adam could clearly see the redhead as she ran ahead of her friends, undoubtedly to inform the librarian of what had happened.   The two boys struggled with their burden.  They were shouldering the dead man between them, but the disparity in their heights made it difficult to distribute the weight evenly.   The legs of the body dragging along behind them only made matters worse.  As they lurched drunkenly down the hallway, the Immortal couldn’t help but have ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ flashbacks -- that awful movie about two guys dragging their boss’s corpse around for days on end.

Once they reached the library, Adam took up position outside the heavy swinging doors.  The small, round glass windows afforded him a limited view of what was happening inside.  Tilting his head, the Immortal pressed his ear towards the crack between the doors in an effort to listen in on the conversation taking place inside. Although the words were muffled, he could still hear parts of the conversation clearly enough to gain an understanding over what was happening.

The librarian was arguing with Willow even as he examined the body that had been placed on the large table Adam had been seated at earlier that day.  The two boys were standing off to the side with a dark-haired teen-aged girl, who was purposely keeping her back turned to the corpse.  Willow was pleading her case as she emerged from the caged storage room.  In her hands was a large cardboard box.

“...have to do the Rite of Heliocus.”

“Willow, perhaps we should examine this more carefully before we...”

“It’s been over 45 minutes, Giles.  He’s never stayed unconscious that long before.  Besides, even though he won’t admit it, Angel still hasn’t fully recovered from...what happened...”

“Be that as it may,” the librarian interrupted, “what you are proposing is not only dangerous, but reckless as well.  By attempting an incomplete incantation, you might accidentally harm Angel...”

“NO!”  Even with his stunted view, Adam saw the other occupants of the library jump at Willow’s unexpected outburst.   Intrigued, Adam risked being seen by raising his head to peer into the window.   Staring at the redhead, he saw on her face the same determined expression she’d had at the park when she refused to leave her boyfriend behind. However, it only lasted for a few seconds.   Vestiges of self-doubt emerged, despite her best attempts to remain resolved on the matter.

“I...I...don’t ask me how...or why, for that matter. I...it’s just something that I *know* I have to do.”

“Will?”  the young blond questioned hesitantly.

“Oz, I don’t...I can’t explain it.   It’s like, remember that time at the hospital?  When all that wiggy stuff happened with the restoration spell?”   The boy called Oz shared a long, hard look with the dark-haired girl before nodding to Willow.  “It’s like that again.”

“God, Giles, just let her do it, if for no other reason than to close up that disgusting crater on his forehead.  That is *so* gross!  It’s like one of those icky medical surgery things on the Discovery channel.   And why do they always show those things during dinner?  It’s like ‘wow, look, a human spleen!  Pass the carrots, please.’”

Rolling his eyes at the girl’s bizarre and totally useless commentary, Adam stifled a chuckle when Xander spoke.

“That’s our Cordy.  Always so compassionate in a time of need.”

“Yes, indeed,” Giles noted before once again training his attention on the redhead.  “Willow, the Rite of Heliocus hasn’t been performed in centuries, most likely due to the fact that no one has been foolhardy enough to attempt a spell that cannot be completely translated.”

Willow, however, was already pulling various jars and bottles from the box on the table, frequently checking the pages of the cracked, yellowed volume in front of her. It seemed as if the librarian was about to continue his protest when Oz walked up to him and whispered something in the older man’s ear.  Giles’ body jerked in reaction to whatever it was that the boy had to say, but Oz clamped a firm hand down on the librarian’s shoulder, forcing him to be still.   They exchanged whispers until the boy strode off to the storage room, emerging a few seconds later with a black duffel bag in his hand.   Calling to Xander, the pair made their way up the stairs and disappeared from Adam’s line of sight into the stacks.

Willow was busy with an apothecary jar and pumice, mixing and grinding various contents from the collection of jars.  Giving into the inevitable, Giles called to the girl named Cordelia, and together the pair began creating a circle of sand on the floor of the library.

‘A spell?’ Adam thought incredulously as the twosome arranged a series of strategically placed candles. ‘Riiight.  Like that’s going to help.’            When he’d first realized that the girl he was looking for fancied herself to be some kind of witch, the Immortal was amused.  Teenagers.   No matter what age they lived in, they always wanted to test the boundaries, to play on the edge, to somehow distinguish themselves in their otherwise homogenous surroundings.  It was the same cycle repeated over and over, regardless of what century the calendar marked.  They always wanted to be different, to be special, to be recognized as the ‘new and improved’ generation.  So they lashed out, behaving wildly, acting recklessly, dressing differently -- and all the time having no earthly idea that they were doing exactly the same thing that every generation had done before them.

So, it was witchcraft for this little group.  Fine.  So be it.  To Adam, it was far from original.

Over the years, Adam had seen his share of ‘magic’. Once upon a time, he might have believed in its power -- taken the concept of ‘higher and unexplained powers’ as fact.   However, it was very difficult to maintain that belief after he was worshipped as a god himself thanks to his miraculous ability to ‘return from the dead’.   To the Immortal, it just proved that some people would believe anything.

Perhaps P.T. Barnum had said it best when he quipped that ‘there was a sucker born every minute’.   The man calling himself Adam Pierson had been many things over his long life.  A sucker, however, was not one of them. And he’d seen the best the world had to offer.

As far as Adam was concerned, the majority of magic was nothing more than a mixed bag of superstition, rubbish, and parlor tricks.   When it came to anything resembling the ‘supernatural’, the Immortal had to admit that he leaned more towards the Scully and less towards the Mulder.  It wasn’t that he discounted the possibilities of ‘magic’ as a whole -- he had lived long enough to witness things far beyond his level of comprehension at whatever given point in time.  Over the years, Adam had come to realize that ‘magic’ was simply another name for things that could not yet be explained.

“The answers are out there -- you just have to know where to look,”  Agent Scully once said on the X-Files. And, despite the unexplainable existence of his own race, Adam tended to agree with her.           In the course of his rather lengthy life, the Immortal found enjoyment in finding and exposing the ‘tricks of the trade’ when it came to ‘magic.’   For centuries, charlatans and sham-artists had done it all: the utilization of natural phosphate to create light shows, the abuse of legends and folklore to paint more vivid illusions, the mixing of natural herbs to heal the sick, even hypnosis to fog the audience’s mind into believing something that was simply not real.

It never ceased to amaze him that even as mankind was racing to explore the stars, millions of people *still* desperately needed to believe that there was some greater, mystical force out there that only a handful of con-artists could reach.  People paid money for instant ‘cure-all’s’ and phony love spells.  They sent television crews into ‘haunted’ houses.  They paid televangelists millions for ‘healing’ the sick.

Yet, despite the bilking of the public by the pretenders and charlatans, there were times when he found himself wanting -- daring -- to believe.  Twice in the past year alone, he had, albeit out of desperation, placed his faith in the mystical.

The first time was after Duncan MacLeod succumbed to a rare affliction among Immortals -- a so-called ‘Dark Quickening’.   Unable to control his baser impulses, the Scot’s normal, boy-scout personality experienced a complete role reversal.   It pained Adam to see Duncan so out of control, and in one last-ditch effort, the older Immortal brought the stricken Scot to a Holy Spring.  Although he was less than confident that the waters were actually magical, Adam hoped that MacLeod’s belief that they were would be enough.  In the end, Duncan was able to confront the ‘evil’ within, and emerged from the milky waters an older, wiser version of his good-hearted self.           A few weeks after the Dark Quickening, Adam found himself once again in need of a miracle.  This time the person affected was the mortal woman he was in love with, Alexa.  Dying from a terminal disease, the Immortal found himself unable to cope with her impending loss.  Instead, he left her side in pursuit of the Methuselah Stone, a mystical crystal said to bring immortality to the wearer.  Despite the help of MacLeod and the Immortal thief, Amanda, all but one piece of the crystal was lost in the murky depths of the Seine River.  Less than a month later, Alexa passed away, leaving Adam to grieve the loss of yet another mortal lover.

Before he could get swept away in his memories, the Immortal refocused his attention back on the present. Training his eyesight on the interior of the library, he noted that Willow was apparently finished with her preparations and was lighting a series of candles in a circular order. Adam knew enough about the basic tenets of witchcraft to realize that she was attempting to summon the four elements.

The muted sounds of her chanting escaped through the crack in the doors.  She was reading the words directly out of the book, which she was clutching in a white-knuckled grip.  Long minutes passed where, as Adam had suspected, nothing happened.

Then he noticed it.

It was slight at first, a dim blue glow that seemed to seep directly from Willow herself.  In a way, it reminded the Immortal of the early stages of a Quickening, the part where the energy slowly accumulated before the onslaught of the transfer itself.  The light around the girl intensified as her chanting grew louder, leaving him to wonder if the two were connected and, if so, which was the cause and which the effect?

As soon as Willow’s chanting reached a fever pitch, the teenager reached forward to place one of her glowing hands over the wound on the dead man’s forehead. Half-expecting to see the same kind of lightning that accompanied a Quickening, Adam was sorely disappointed when nothing out of the rdinary occurred -- at least if one considered a girl who could make herself glow in the dark ordinary, anyway.

That, however, was nothing in comparison to what happened next.

Had he been standing at a different angle, the Immortal never would have noticed it.  So slight a movement, and yet, so momentous.   A simple twitch of the right foot.

Of a corpse.

In principle, such a sight should not have shocked him.  After all, Adam had witnessed Immortals ‘coming back to life’ countless times.  It was old news, just a simple matter of fact.

But this particular man was not Immortal.  Had Angel even been destined to become one, Adam would have sensed him as he followed the pair from Angel’s apartment to the park.

‘So,’ he wondered silently, ‘what in the fu....’

It was a question he never got the chance to finish as a voice rang out from the hallway behind him.

“I guess you decided not to take that offer on just walking away, huh?”

Startled, Adam abruptly swung around to find himself face to face with the business end of a crossbow. Fighting his intial impulse to reach for a sword, the Immortal slowly lifted his hands in a non-aggressive gesture. Erring on the side of caution, he kept them at waist-level just in case the blond teenager’s trigger finger got itchy. Through experience, he knew the boy named Xander was lurking in the nearby shadows.

“Look, why don’t you two just calm down...”

For the second time in as many minutes, Adam’s train of thought was interrupted; this time by the hair-raising screams coming from within the library.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all happened so fast that Willow could barely keep up.  The injury Angel had sustained in the park was grievous, more than his undead body could compensate for without massive quantities of blood.  Vampires, however, were remarkably resilient as the individual demon that resided within each one had a burning desire to survive. Undoubtedly, Angel’s body would heal itself in time, but that was a luxury they did not have.  With the threat of the Legion bearing down on Sunnydale, they needed Angel up and around as quickly as possible.

At least that was the argument Willow used to persuade Giles.

In truth, the redhead was terrified by the sight of Angel’s motionless body.   They had become close friends since she brought him back from Hell, closer than she had ever expected.  Maybe even closer than they should have been, if Willow’s stray thoughts at his apartment earlier were any indication.

Perhaps that was why she felt her heart breaking back in the park when Dr. Pierson had said that Angel was ‘gone’.    She’d cried on the older man’s shoulder, afraid of looking past his slender frame to see the vampire who meant so much to her reduced to a pile of ash.  When she finally caught a glimpse of Angel’s motionless-but-still-intact body, Willow embraced the vampire with every ounce of strength she possessed, wanting to hold him and never let go.   But approaching danger and common sense returned with a vengeance.

She must have been out of her mind grabbing Dr. Pierson’s gun away like that.  Even holding the heavy, warm metal in her hands made her nervous, but she absolutely refused to leave Angel behind.  She was well aware that Dr. Pierson must have thought her mad or overwhelmed with grief, but it made no difference.

Angel needed her, and she refused to let him down.

Slapping on her ‘resolve face’, Willow used a rare flash of temper to override the protests from Giles and Xander.  Although her breakup with Oz was bittersweet, she knew that she would be able to count on his support, as well as, surprisingly enough, Cordelia’s.   Since the prom queen had officially joined the ranks of the Slayerettes, she had consistently proven to be an asset in crunch times like these. Under that thick layer of snobbishness and self-absorption, Cordelia possessed a good heart and useful ability to ‘tell it like it was’.   With their, albeit hesitant, support, Willow went ahead and cast the spell she instinctively knew Angel needed.

It seemed to work.  One minute he was completely gone, and the next brought a series of visible muscle spasms throughout his long form.   It was difficult to tell under the gory mess of both fresh and dried blood, but it appeared that the gash on Angel’s forehead was beginning to heal.  When she heard the pain-filled groan escape the vampire’s throat, Willow was torn between wincing in sympathy and jumping in elation that the spell had worked.

The next noise from Angel made the blood in Willow’s veins run cold.  It started out as a low moan, an indication of the pain the vampire was feeling from the still-closing wound on his forehead.   However, over the course of a few seconds, the sound grew steadily in both pitch and volume, reaching a crescendo that made every heart in the room skip a beat.

With a move that spoke volumes of vampiric speed and resiliency, Angel bolted upright into a sitting position while his eyes scanned the room wildly.   The way his eyes flitted over every nook and cranny of the library reminded Willow of prey being hunted by a predator in the wild.  Only the non-stop cries pouring from Angel’s lips shattered the illusion.

What was wrong with him?  Had the spell back-fired somehow?   Had it caused him further injury?  Was this what happened when he lost his soul?   Hundreds of possibilities, and Willow did not have the first idea of what was truly wrong.   A sense of panic was overwhelming her, and she was helpless to stop it.

Between the vampire’s screams echoing through the room and the fact that her attention was focused slowly on his agonized face, Willow missed the moment that Adam Pierson, followed closely by Xander and Oz, burst through the library doors.

“NOOOOOOOOO!” Angel wailed, his voice tainted with a tone that Willow had never heard before:  sheer terror.   She tried to call out his name, to reach forward to reassure him that she was there for him no matter what, but the vampire scuttled away from her.

Angel’s arms and legs were a tangled blur as he struggled to escape.  Even the painful-looking tumble he took as he passed the end of the table was ignored.  Willow ran after him, warily keeping a few feet of distance between herself and the agitated vampire.  His cries had not abated, and despite her repeated calls, Angel’s eyes were casting wildly around the library, refusing to settle on any one place for more than a second.

With his progress hampered by the wire cage of the weapons locker, Willow finally took the opportunity to search out Giles, hoping that the Watcher might have some idea of what was happening.  Craning her neck, her eyes moved swiftly past Xander, Oz, and Dr. Pierson.   All of them were pale, undoubtedly just as unsettled by Angel’s sudden feral behavior as she was.

Before she could make eye contact with Giles, Dr. Pierson swiftly moved forward, passing both the librarian and Cordelia in his haste to reach Willow’s side.   The redhead was surprised, however, when he ignored her in order to crouch directly in front of Angel’s shaking body.

If anything, Dr. Pierson’s approach made Angel scream even louder.   Seeing her friend cowering in fear tore at Willow’s heart and, at the same time, made her angry at the man for causing Angel more pain.

“You’re scaring him!  Get away...” she raged, only to be ignored by the slender man.

“Look at me.  LOOK AT ME!” Adam commanded. When Angel ignored him, the professor’s hand shot out like lightning to grasp the vampire’s chin and force it upward.  It was a difficult task, considering Angel’s continued squirming and shouting, yet the vampire made no effort to fight for his freedom.

“What are you doing to him?!!?” Willow demanded, grabbing a deceptively thin shoulder in order to force the other man away from Angel.

“I’m trying to help him, dammit!” Adam fumed as he shrugged off her hand.   Tightening his clasp on Angel’s chin, he once again spoke directly to the vampire.  “In the eye.  Look me in the eye and it will stop.”

The tension in the library was thick as they all collectively awaited Angel’s reaction.   Slowly, as if fighting Adam’s command every step of the way, the vampire forced his eyes to meet the demanding gaze of the man crouching before him.   The moment where chocolate brown connected with mercurial hazel was impossibly long.  Like somebody suddenly hitting the mute button on a remote control, Angel paused in mid-scream.

The sudden silence in the library was just as unsettling to its occupants as the echoing cries had been just moments before.   Willow was trying desperately to make some sense of what had just happened but, for once, her powerful intellect was completely useless due to information overload.  Sparing a quick glance at her fellow Slayerettes, she quickly ascertained that they were faring no better than she was at putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

“There,” Adam remarked in a tone that was both soothing and sarcastic.  “See?  All better now.”

Rising up from his squat, Adam turned with the intention of talking to Willow.  He never got the chance. With every ounce of his vampiric speed, Angel exploded from his prone position to tackle Adam away from the redhead.  The fact that Angel did not slip into his vampire visage only made the snarling expression on his face more frightening as he pinned the other man to the floor with a knee to his solar plexus.   Grabbing a handful of his opponent’s short, dark hair, Angel tugged it hard to guarantee that he had Adam’s full attention.

“Stay away from her, Immortal,” he hissed viciously.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam Pierson was pissed.

When he first burst into the library and saw the way Willow’s boyfriend was clutching his head, it reminded Adam of the reaction of newly made members of his own race. Acting on gut-instinct, the Immortal had approached Angel, in part to confirm whether or not his theory was correct, but mostly to put an end to that God-awful screaming.   When direct eye contact proved to be the solution to the problem, Adam was certain he was about to face a round of interrogating questions or, if he was lucky, a simple thank you.

The last thing the Immortal expected was to end up flat on his back with 180 pounds of insanely jealous boyfriend pinning him down.

Deciding that he’d had enough, Adam pooled his strength even as his vision began to dim from lack of oxygen.   In the blink of an eye, one of the Immortal’s hands shot out to capture Angel’s throat while the other slipped under his coat to withdraw the long knife secured at his back.   Locking his legs around the other man’s waist, Adam managed to flip them completely over, bringing the dagger up to his opponent’s neck at the same time.

“I wouldn’t suggest that,” the Immortal advised the prone figure beneath him.  The once-dead man’s arms were free, and he’d been about to use them to attack Adam when the combination of the warning and the knife at his neck convinced him not to move.

“Let him go.”  The calmly spoken order came from Oz as he aimed his crossbow directly at Adam.

The Immortal ignored the blond kid as a sickening sense of realization swept over him.   He could feel tremors racing through the body beneath him, but not like those caused by fear.   An image came to Adam’s mind as he attempted to categorize what he was feeling.  It reminded him of the way a horse could involuntarily twitch independent muscle groups.   The sensation was unsettling, especially since the Immortal knew that it should not have been possible for a human being.

That was when the next revelation struck him, and he found it to be more disturbing than the last.   The skin he was grasping so tightly was still cool and, more importantly, Adam swore he could not feeling the telltale pulse of blood moving through Angel’s veins.

“What the hell?”  he whispered as an expression of shock graced his angular features.  Using the knife to keep his opponent from moving, the Immortal loosened his grip, extending two outstretched fingers in search of Angel’s jugular.   Finding nothing in the proper spot, Adam moved his hand all around the other man’s throat.   Sensing the futility of his actions, the Immortal slowly trailed a hand down Angel’s chest, pressing his hand down flat over the exact place a human heart should have been.

“You’re...not...what...what are you?” Adam asked in a tone that was a confused mix of fear and astonishment.

‘Oh shit.  I’ve finally lost it!  I’m as bloody insane as MacLeod...’   As soon as he completed the thought, Adam cursed himself for a fool once again.  Ahriman.  Of course, it had to be one of the demon’s tricks.   Ahriman had been tormenting his dreams for weeks, but Adam had yet to experience the waking hallucinations that plagued both MacLeod and Joe Dawson.

The Immortal’s first impulse was to press the knife forward, to end this twisted vision with a single thrust of the blade.   Before he could act, another more disturbing thought forced Adam to stop.   What if he actually was pinning someone to the ground -- was Ahriman concealing an actual heartbeat?  Was that what the demon had done in order to trick the Highlander into killing Richie Ryan?  ‘I won’t do it, Ahriman.  Your visions aren’t going to trick me,’ he thought to himself fiercely.

“Dr. Pierson?  Dr. Pierson!”  Willow’s tone rose in volume as she struggled to gain his attention.  As her voice penetrated into the morass of Adam’s mind, he twisted around to meet her eyes.  The girl’s expression spoke volumes of compassion for him, and the slightest bit of fear over the knife Adam still held to her boyfriend’s throat. “You aren’t seeing things.  This is all real.   Ahriman isn’t doing this, I promise.”

“How...oh.”  Adam stopped in mid-sentence, wondering if he had spoken his thoughts aloud moments earlier.   Or was it just another trick of the demon? “Who...who is this?”  He gestured with the knife for clarification.

“It’s Angel.  My friend from the park, remember?”

“He was dead!  He didn’t have a pulse!” Adam insisted, his eyes narrowing over what he thought to be another trick.  Tired of the games, the Immortal pressed the blade forward.

“No, wait!”  Willow cried out in alarm.  “He is! Angel *is* dead.”

“Then...” The Immoral stopped, confused as to what was happening.

“He doesn’t have a pulse.”   Willow took a moment to look at her friend.  Adam felt the prone man’s almost imperceptible nod as he gave the redhead permission to continue.  “Angel doesn’t have a pulse because he’s a vampire.”

There was a pregnant pause as the Immortal absorbed the information he had just been given.   If the teenagers words hadn’t still echoing in his ears, he would have doubted that he had heard her correctly.  He could see that all the other occupants of the library were awaiting his reaction with bated breath, so Adam did the first thing that came to mind:  he burst out laughing.  Really.  The Immortal made a mental note to compliment Ahriman on his creativity.  After all, it had been years since Adam’s own imagination created something as outrageous as this scenario.

“A witch and a vampire?” Adam asked cynically. “What’s next?  Mummies?  Werewolves?  Little trolls on the wings of airplanes?”

“Two outta three ain’t bad,” Xander mumbled to Oz, who simply shrugged in response.

Adam’s eyes traveled from person to person, studying the reaction of each one to weigh the veracity of Willow’s claim.  They all seemed so serious that the Immortal was half-tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt -- for all of a half second.  It was just a little too preposterous for him to swallow, though.

“Now may be a good time to put all these weapons away,” Giles prompted.  “Perhaps we can talk this out.”

Adam and Oz eyed each other warily before slowly lowering the knife and crossbow.  The Immortal, however, remained where he was, still chuckling over the earlier revelations.

“Do you mind?” Angel asked sardonically.  “If you sit on me much longer, we’re going to have to pick out a china pattern.”  Only then did Adam realize that he was still straddling the supposed-vampire’s waist.

“But we hardly know each other,” Adam purred, meeting Angel’s sarcasm with his own.  As he raised himself up to a standing position, he threw one last barb at the other man.  “So is it going to be a white wedding?”

“Euw!  Visual bad!  Visual very bad!” Xander protested with a pronounced grimace.  Cordelia, however, appeared to give the image more than a passing thought as she quirked an eyebrow of interest.

As soon as Adam’s weight was removed from his body, Angel shot off the ground to pace like a drug addict awaiting his next score.  Giles attempted to shepherd everybody to the large table, cleaning up the candles, sand and miscellaneous jars leftover from the spell along the way. Shoving the items in the cardboard box, the librarian hefted it out of the way before sitting down across from Adam at the head of the table.

“Angel?”  Giles inquired to the still-pacing vampire. Realizing that something was still amiss with the other man, the Watcher called his name again.  “Won’t you join us?”

“I...you...don’t you see?  I *can’t*,” he insisted emphatically, prompting Willow to jump up and move to his side.

“What’s wrong?” she asked gently.

“It’s the demon,” he explained.  “It’s agitated...it’s like...it wants to...run.  It wants *me* to run.”

“Is it afraid?  Of Dr. Pierson?” Giles asked, obviously fascinated by the information.

“No.  It’s not afraid...exactly.  I don’t...know how else to put it.   It’s more than the normal impulses it has, those I can deal with, but this...this feels like it’s practically crawling around under my skin trying to find some way to get out.”

“But it *is* Dr. Pierson’s presence causing this, is it not?”

“Yes...no, wait,” Angel hesitated, thinking back as to when he first felt the sensation.  When the brown eyes narrowed in hostile suspicion, Adam knew instantly what the other man’s next words were going to be.   “You followed us from my apartment.”

“Not exactly,” Adam deferred.  A past master at deception, the Immortal was well aware that it was in his best interest to reveal as little about himself as possible. Besides, he still doubted the claims that this group had made.  At that moment, however, he had a few more pressing questions of his own.  “What do you feel when I get near you?  Is it like a buzzing sensation in your head?”

“Not exactly.”  From the expression on Angel’s face, Adam knew that he was not going to be able to get away with as much as he’d originally thought.  “Is that what your spell is supposed to do?”

“Spell?” Adam echoed in obvious confusion.  “I don’t know anything about spells.”

“Then what are doing to me?”

“It’s not just you, Angel,” Willow interrupted, her voice distant as she thought back to earlier in the evening. Turning back to the Immortal, Willow said her conclusion aloud.  “You made those other vamps in the park run away, too.”

“Look!  Can we stop with the vampire nonsense?” The Immortal’s tone was sharp as his patience began to wear thin.

“It’s not nonsense,”  Willow insisted when she saw the doubt on Adam’s face.   “Show him, Angel.  You know, go ‘grrrr’.”

“I can’t,” the vampire growled in frustration. “Believe me, I’ve been trying since he pinned me down.”

The five Sunnydale natives exchanged glances, each considering this new bit of information with varying levels of interest.  Not surprisingly, Willow appeared to be the most concerned while the librarian looked fascinated by the turn of events.   Adam, however, was still attempting to reconcile all the facts, his mind seeking a rational explanation -- one that did not involve supernatural creatures of the night.

“Do you still have your strength?”  Giles asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had settled over the group.

Without sparing so much as a glance at the table, Angel strode over to the weapons locker.  Once there, he picked up the crow-bar that the librarian had used to open the wooden crate his books had been delivered in earlier that morning.  There was a small smile of satisfaction on his face as Angel bent the solid metal bar as easily as a child would fold a soft stick of gum.   Listless and bored by his display, Angel threw the crowbar aside.  He was already back to pacing by the time the clang of the metal’s impact with the ground rang out through the room.

“The next time I make a testosterone-driven, I’m-more-of-a-man-than-you-are challenge to Angel, remind me *not* to pick arm-wrestling,” Xander asked of no one in particular.           Now the Immortal wasn’t sure what to think.  Even Silas at his peak could never have bent a bar that easily, and Adam’s former compatriot was one of the strongest people he’d ever seen.  Intrigued, he decided to give a little ground.

“This...sensation that you’re feeling, does it get more intense the closer I am?”

Angel’s pacing halted as he considered the question. With an obvious grimace of distaste, the dark-haired man pivoted and slowly stalked closer to the Immortal.  At the half-way point, Angel suddenly stopped and returned to his original place, throwing a positive response over his shoulder as he retreated.

“And you knew that because...” Xander prompted.

Turning to face the others at the table, Adam offered an explanation.   “When two Immortals get near each other, they both experience that ‘buzz’.   It’s how they identify each other.   Once eye contact is made, the feeling stops.”

“That’s why you made Angel look at you,” Oz observed, waiting for Adam’s nod of confirmation before continuing.  “And all Immortals have this?  All the time or just when you get near each other?”

“All the time, I would imagine,”  Adam speculated, his wise hazel eyes following Angel as he moved purposely up the staircase leading to the stacks.  “But the range varies from Immortal to Immortal.”

“Why?” Oz asked, as simple and direct as always.

“There are a lot of factors -- age, strength, power...”

“How old *are* you?” Willow eyes, her green eyes alight with interest.

“Older than some...,” Adam began, but the rest of his vague answer was replaced by a sharp hiss of in-drawn breath.

At the top the stairs stood a fully vamped-out Angel.

Even in the muted fluorescent lighting of library, the Immortal could clearly see the yellow eyes, ridged forehead and, above all else, the prerequisite elongated fangs of the vampire’s true face.  So rattled was Adam by this unexpected revelation, he was uncharacteristically shocked into utter silence, simply staring at the...thing in front of him.           Angel appeared to be conducting an experiment of sorts.    Retracing his steps, the vampire made it to the third from the top when his face smoothly shifted back to it’s more handsome visage.  Each time the vampire moved back and forth between the second and third step, his face changed.

“How far do think this is?” he asked nobody in particular.

For the first time since witnessing Angel’s metamorphosis, Adam looked at the other people gathered around the table.   The Immortal was more than a little surprised that each and every one of the group from Sunnydale radiated tension when Angel spoke in his vampiric face.   He would have thought that the group, Willow in particular, would have been more comfortable at seeing their friend like this.  Then again, perhaps this was a side of Angel they were unused to witnessing.

“Giles?” the vampire questioned impatiently.

“Huh?...Oh...yes...uh, perhaps 10 meters or so,” the librarian stammered absently.

“Meters?”

“About 30 feet, Angel,” Willow replied helpfully.

Both vampire and Immortal stored the knowledge away carefully as Angel made one final shift to his human face and proceeded back down the stairway.   Approaching the table, the vampire’s rich, brown eyes caught Adam’s. There, in those deep, chocolate depths, the Immortal saw the warning that Angel still had the ability to kill Adam were he to endanger any the group gathered around the table. Rolling his eyes at the implied threat, the Immortal decided he’d had about enough of this little freak show.  Time to get things back on track.

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