Creative Works   

Second Coming (Part 4)
By Carla Kozak
© 1999
writeangled(at)yahoo.com

Disclaimer: All of the characters from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER are owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox Television and the WB television network. I am merely a BTVS enthusiast who has woven these characters into a story of my own.

. . .

Part Four.
CODA: What Rough Beast/And Tyrants Disappearing

Angel realized that Tamar was shivering, and her teeth were chattering loudly. He knew those could be signs of shock. She needed to be kept warm, but being near him wouldn’t be of much help.

At least he wasn’t hampered by the near-darkness. Angel saw Tamar’s violin case lying near the wall. He reached for it, then pried the instrument and its broken bow out of her clenched hands, and put them away. Shrugging out of his wool coat, he wrapped it around her like a blanket.

Angel put his hands on her shoulders. “Tamar, look at me,” he said. “I have to ask you some questions.”

Her eyes met his, and he felt her breath slow to a more normal rate. That was good; she was obviously reassured by his human face, and still willing to trust him.

“Did he hurt you, Tamar?” Angel asked gently.

“No,” she shook her head. “He was going to. He told me he was going to. But you got here before he could. Angel, I knew you would come for me. I could feel it. But I was still scared.” Her chin started trembling.

“Shhh,” Angel hugged her for a moment, then picked her up. “He can’t hurt you anymore. Here, you carry the violin, okay? Let’s call your parents and tell them you’re safe, and then we’ll see if we can find the other children.”

. . .

There were relieved and grateful families in Los Angeles the following day, but also a few in mourning. Profoundly thankful as he was that he’d gotten to Tamar in time, and most of the others before they were killed, Angel was cursing himself for the ones who were lost, and for the pain, and loss of innocence, that had been inflicted on the living.

Before leaving for Sunnydale, Cordelia had tried to boost his ego in her own inimitable way. “Hey, you did what you could. Not perfect, but better than the LAPD. It would have been a lot worse without you on the job. And that bastard barely touched Tamar, right? So that’s the upside.”

Doyle was honest with him too, and Angel appreciated it. “You’ve got to face your lousy past, man. Deal with it, use what you can to help people, and go on. I’m not saying forget it, or lock it up where it can’t be found. But you’ve gotta find some way to have it on hand, without moping over it all the time.” That was easier said than done, but Angel knew Doyle was right.

The first thing on his agenda, though, was a talk with Tamar, and Naomi.

. . .

That evening, they were sitting on the small sofa in his office. Tamar was quiet, and Angel couldn’t get a handle on how she was doing. Naomi was troubled, which he’d expected. It was one of the reasons he knew they needed this meeting.

“Angel, Tamar told me she killed Piet Brunswick. Is that what happened? Did she kill a man?”

Angel leaned back against his desk. “She didn’t kill a man, Naomi. She killed a monster.”

Naomi shook her head. “Yes, he was a monster, and of course it was in self-defense, and damn it, you know I’m not crying over him, but still—we have to face these facts. Did you hide the body, Angel? I know you’re trying to help Tamar, but we really need to tell the police….”

“There was no body to hide. Only ashes, mixing with the dirt and slime in that filthy cell he’d locked her in. Tamar did kill a monster, Naomi. She killed a vampire.”

“Angel, stop that. It’s not helping.” Naomi put her face in her hands, and took a deep breath.

Angel moved over to the sofa. “You’ve never seen me during the day, have you, Naomi? Easily explained, of course: I’m at work. That’s true, sometimes. A lot of the time, though, I’m sleeping. But plenty of people sleep during the day, and work nights. None of this is conclusive evidence that I’m not human any more. Okay, we’ll try this.”

Crouching down next to them, Angel indicated the pendant Naomi wore around her neck. “That’s called a mezuzah, right? Like the one next to your front door?”

Naomi nodded. “There’s a scroll of prayers inside.”

“Your holiest prayers,” Angel said. He pushed up his left sleeve, then reached for the chain. He let the mezuzah drop onto his forearm.

Naomi uttered a small scream as smoke rose from Angel’s flesh. She jerked away from him. Angel held out his left arm, showing the raw burn mark that was just the shape of the pendant.

He pushed his sleeve down again. “Don’t worry, I heal really quickly. Hey, the reflection thing is fun, too,” he said, standing to raise the window blind. Naomi stared at the mirrored surface. She saw only herself, and Tamar, sitting motionless beside her.

“So great-grandma Tamara did meet a vampire?” she whispered hoarsely.

“Naomi, Tamara Perlmutter met me,” Angel said. “It’s okay. I’ve changed since then, on the inside, anyway. I look pretty much the same, except my hair is shorter. And did I have a mustache back when I was obsessed with your great-grandmother?” He almost unconsciously touched his upper lip. “No, I think I shaved it off a few years before that, around 1892.”

“Okay, this is getting a bit too weird,” Naomi said. “And on top of everything else, we have to worry about vampires?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Angel assured her. “I’m one of the good guys now. And I’m hoping I’m the only one who has to worry about the others. But you might want to be a bit more careful about inviting people into your home.”

Angel wished he could skip the cautionary tips. What were the chances of Naomi’s family meeting more vampires? Still, it was probably better to play it safe. “I hate to put a lock on your open door policy, Naomi. It’s a wonderful thing, how welcoming you and Jake are. But maybe confine new acquaintances to daytime invitations at first? If they arrive smoke-free, they’ve passed the ‘are you a vampire?’ test.”

“Sure,” Naomi agreed. “And that way they won’t violate our no smoking rule either.” She managed a shaky laugh.

“Even better, have Tamar scope them out.” Angel turned to her. “You’ve been so brave, little one. You’ve been through some terrible things—things I wish you’d never seen, or heard.”

He took her hands in his. “You saw my face turn mean and ugly, didn’t you? Just like his had turned?”

Tamar nodded.

“But you hit him, with your bow, so he wouldn’t hurt me,” Angel said. “You weren’t frightened of me, even when I looked like a monster. Why not?”

Tamar’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I could hear your song.”

Angel smiled. “I wondered how you could determine the difference between us. People have their own songs, and you can hear them?” Tamar nodded again. “And Brunswick?”

“He didn’t have one,” Tamar said. “That’s why I didn’t like him.”

She moved onto her mother’s lap, crying. “I never met a person without a song before. It was so scary. And then he told me he had some special music for me to learn, after rehearsal. I didn’t want to go with him. But he grabbed me, and he took me to that place, and he told me what he was going to do to me….” Tamar buried her face in Naomi’s shoulder, sobbing.

“It’s okay now, sweetheart,” Naomi held Tamar, stroking her back and rocking her as she must have done when her daughter was a baby. “Cry all the scariness out, honey. It’s okay. It’s all over now. I know, I know.”

Then she looked over Tamar’s head, at Angel. “Or maybe I don’t know.”

“I guess it’s like an aura, or some sort of sixth sense,” Angel said. “Tamar is more attuned than most people, and she senses things musically, because that’s so much a part of her. She can hear the music of each soul.”

He added, a bit ruefully, “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, Naomi. I think it might be an inherited thing, like musical skill. That’s why Tamara was suspicious of me. I had no soul then, so I had no song. Tamara could hear my awful emptiness, and she knew something was very wrong with me.”

“So this is a gift, what Tamar has? It’s not a curse?” Naomi asked.

“It saved her life, just like it saved Tamara’s. I’d call that a gift.”

Angel was a bit more reluctant to mention his other theory. That one would be much harder to explain.

Tamar was quieter now. Naomi still held her close. “Angel, it’s going to take me a while to download all of this information,” she said. “It’s just not the kind of thing I learn about every day. But between all the shock and relief of the last couple of days, and the shock of all this, which I’m certain will hit me soon, I want to be sure that I’ve thanked you.”

“There’s no need to…” Angel began.

Naomi interrupted him. “There’s every need. Thank you for taking it on yourself to investigate the whole thing. Thank you for coming into our lives. Thank you for saving my daughter’s life.”

“As I see it, it’s Tamar who saved mine,” Angel said. “And that’s why I feel I have to bring up one more thought I’ve had.”

But how could he explain the concept of the Slayer? Well, Naomi seemed to have accepted that of vampires. Maybe it was best to come right out and say it.

“It’s strange, isn’t it, that you did just the right thing to kill a vampire, Tamar? How did you know that you should stake him through the heart?”

“It was the only thing I could do,” Tamar said. “He was going to hurt us.”

“You must have hit him pretty hard, too. Did you think that you could hit that hard?” Angel asked.

“Are you mad at me, Angel?”

“Am I—no, not at all. Why do you think I’m mad at you, Tamar?”

“You look angry. I thought I did something wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have hit Mr. Brunswick.”

“Tamar, you did exactly the right thing. And we should find some other way to refer to him, he doesn’t deserve so polite a title. I knew someone who used to call him Ratcatcher; it seems to fit him better.” Angel sat down next to Tamar and Naomi. He reached out to Tamar, and she moved onto his lap, and into his arms, as if it were the most natural place for her to be. “I’m just trying to figure out how you knew how to kill a vampire. It’s the kind of thing only a Slayer would know.”

“A what?” Naomi asked.

“As long as there have been vampires, there has been a Slayer. One girl in each generation…except it’s actually several girls to a generation, and I’m not really well-versed on what goes on with these girls before they become the Slayer. It seems as though some are in training from birth, and others don’t know a thing about it until they’re called. And girls from both of those groups might never be called, depending on how long each Slayer is around. There’s about a 10 year window of opportunity, between the ages of 15 and 25.”

“You’ve lost me again,” Naomi shook her head.

“I don’t know any better way to explain it, and I’m hoping I’m wrong about it, anyway. Because a new Slayer isn’t called unless a Slayer dies. I have kind of a vested interest in the current one, and I want her to live for a long, long time. But I’m wondering if it’s not just musical talent, and a sixth sense that Tamar inherited from Tamara, but a destiny as well…a destiny that Tamara never learned she had. At this point, I’d just say if anyone starts hanging around Tamar in seven years or so, talking about vampires, slayers and watchers, try to remember this conversation.”

Angel sincerely hoped he was wrong. For one thing, in seven years Buffy would be 25, and that was way too young for her to die, and he didn’t even want to think about the possibility. Maybe Buffy could be the first Slayer in history to retire? As pleasant a thought as that was, the idea of having Tamar move into that territory, if indeed his theory was correct, was deeply disturbing. Was he destined to care about every Slayer, on and on into eternity, and watch each one suffer the isolation and fear that was a Slayer’s burden? Angel closed his eyes briefly, and cursed his damned immortality.

“You’re going to have to go over that again with me at another time, Angel,” Naomi said. “I’m still trying to deal with the fact that you knew my great-grandmother, more than 100 years ago. Who are you, Angel? What’s your story?”

“I’m just an Irish lad who got drunk once too often, and who had the bad luck to come in contact with a very toothsome woman, one night back in 1753.”

“Okay, don’t think I didn’t catch the pun, but what I meant was, why are you here now, helping people?”

“Ah. That would entail a gypsy curse that gave me back my soul, which made me realize I had a lot of atoning to do for my past deeds,” Angel said. “I sound like I’m making light of it, but I’m dead serious. I was as evil as Piet Brunswick. Once I stood at his side, and worked with him, and I did it with great pleasure. Everything he was, I was, too.”

He let his arms fall away from Tamar, and looked at Naomi. “Do you want me near your child now?”

Naomi took a deep breath, and raised her head almost defiantly. “You told me to trust Tamar’s instincts. She seems to believe in you.”

Angel embraced the girl again; she nestled against him, her head resting on his shoulder. “I’ve been instructed to connect with people, to rescue whatever it is about them that needs rescuing. The strange thing is, anyone I’ve managed to help has saved something in me, as well.”

He looked down at Tamar, cuddled in his arms, and let one of her silky braids slip through his fingers. “You didn’t just save my life, Tamar,” he told her. “You gave me back something I’d lost long ago. A beautiful memory, of a little sister I loved very much. And you helped make right the memory of a very wonderful young woman, who played the violin like no one I’ve heard before or since, until I heard you play.”

“What happened to your little sister?” Tamar asked.

“She died of a fever. This was a long time ago, when many people, especially the very old or the very young, would die of diseases that doctors have found cures for, now.”

Tamar nodded, understanding. Her mother and father had explained those things to her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Angel didn’t tell her that it might have been much worse, nor did he mention that his sister would have been long dead by this time, even if she’d lived a full life. “Thank you,” he said simply.

Naomi reached out to take his hand. He knew from her touch that she understood all he hadn’t said. And then he saw the familiar sparkle return to her eyes.

“Oh, Angel. I’m afraid I’ll never stop bothering you, now. You’re such a wonderful historical resource!”

His laugh was rueful. “Don’t get your hopes up too much. I’ve wasted a lot of valuable time over the years, either satisfying an enormous appetite, or deeply regretting the way I lived. Still, I did absorb some of what was going on around me. Funny, nobody’s tapped into that before. It wasn’t really a topic of conversation at bars, or exciting Hollywood parties.”

“That’s because you’ve been hanging out at the wrong parties,” Naomi said.

“Not always. I hit a great Chanukah party, a couple of weeks ago. So what do you want to know first?” Angel asked.

It was Tamar who answered. “Angel, tell me more about Tamara,” she pleaded.

“Look in the mirror, the next time you play your violin,” he told her. “You’ll see and hear her.”

Just as I do, Angel thought, and wondered what other second comings the Millennium had in store for him. You live forever, you’ve got to expect some déjà vu. It was good to know that if the rough beasts resurfaced, he could help make them disappear permanently. And it was even better to learn that sometimes what came back was not a tyrant, but a source of light in the darkness.

. . .

Page 4 of 4
The End

. . .

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