I felt the cold.
I feel it still.
It calls me to its door step every day, and I never turn away. I follow it willingly, hoping that if I follow, it will one day tire of me and never beckon for my heart again. But that day has yet to come to me, as I find still, that the cold reaches for me night after night.
But then there is warmth. Warmth like sunshine I can never endure, if I expect to live to see another moon, and another night. Well, I can�t say I live, because philosophically, as well as literally�I am dead in all aspects. But then they did say that the dead could rise and feel life�Didn�t they? I know now why they said that, for I have felt the heat of life bouncing over my veins like fire set to a line of kerosene. I have felt the small of sunshine as it rained all around my face. I have felt the warmth of a love that a creature such as I should never have dared to hope for.
But then again, I�m not like every creature such as myself�If there are any that match what it is I have become.The fire I speak of. The warmth that saves me from the cold. She is my fire. She is my life line to the life that I so long to embrace and hold tight. With her in my arms, I can almost imagine having the sun rise and set around us, and sleeping at night instead of waking. It could almost be real�
But the fantasy dies when I realize that I shall never be able to provide her with the life I so long for. With the warmth of the sunshine that I can never have a part of.The odd thing is, that no matter what, she doesn�t seem to care.
She doesn�t care if my life is spent in the darkness. She will gladly join me there, for she feels that the day has nothing to offer her. She doesn�t care for the darker tinge of her skin tone that may befall to her and make her even more spectacular, if she stays in the sun�s glorious ways. No. She doesn�t care.She doesn�t care for the smiling faces on happy beaches where children can play in the sand under the watchful eyes of their loving parents. No. She doesn�t care for this at all.And she doesn�t care, that no matter what we may feel, there is always a heat stronger, warmer, than the love and warmth I can offer her from the depths of my soul-however damned it may be. No. She has yet to begun to care for the thought of another world than in my arms.All she cares, is to be here with me.
And I smile at the irony of the situation�Who would have thought an angel would so love to play in the arms of the devil�In eternal darkness.Not I. Not I, the devil. The one that through loving her, condemns her to Hell for all eternity. But what of it? If we got to Hell, then we shall burn for eternity together. Burn, with our love, and with our pain. For pain is love, and all evil is good. Nothing can come from suffering, if those of suffer know nothing but pain.
So I know love.
I know warmth despite the cold.
I know Buffy.
My story begins, in a darker place. A darker time. One that I care to never tell my love about. I would never tell her of my drunken father, who would come home to our plantation every night and ruthlessly abuse my mother in his dark, cold state of mind. I would never tell my sunshine, of the cries of my sisters as they crawled in to bed with me to avoid being taken away by my father to a fate that the Devil himself, could only imagine as a nightmare.
I could never describe to the warmth of my life, how such a shadow was cast around the room as I fought my father for protection over my sisters and their lives. The way that the darkness enveloped me when he loomed over me, the smells of the alcohol on his breath. It is all too dark for my beauty. I would never allow her to bare the thought of my memories of pain.But it is from these memories, that led me to the death that took me to life. For one night, I didn�t get home before my father in his usual drunken state. My horse had stumbled, and my father�s time surpassed my own.
I failed to save my sisters. My mother. And all that was left when I arrived at last, was the stench of death and despair, and the questioning eyes of my smallest sister, Faith, as she stared up at me and asked me why I couldn�t have saved her from this treacherous fate.
And every night from then, I asked myself why it was that of all nights, fate allowed me to be late on the night that my father took my existence away, by ending my own life as well as the only people I cared for, when I tried to breathe life in to my mother.
I stumbled in to the night, bleeding slowly to death, only to be found by a death worse than the one my father had inflicted upon me. I found eternal death, in the eternal life that Darla granted me that evening. As the poison from my father�s gun drained my life, Darla drained my blood and fed me in return, creating the ultimate pinnacle of beauty, death, and everlasting life that none could hope for.
And so I was reborn as Angelus. No longer Liam, for Liam had died by his father�s hands, and Angel, the beauty and darkness of the night, was born from Darla, the Dear One who took pity upon his soul and gave it up to the heavens in exchange for an eternal mate to kill with.
I accepted this with a song in my soul, even as it fled my body, and from then on I was nothing. I was darkness. Beauty, yes. Completely seductive in a way that only we, the condemned, can seem. But then, I was pure darkness down to the last drop of blood that Darla drained from me.
For two hundred and forty years, Darla and I existed together. We tasted the death of one era, and the birth of another, many times over. We saw the south fall. We watched America rise to stand strong above the world as the ruler of the earth with a power no man could bare alone. We saw fashions circle, but never fade. Every love, every beauty, it never died. It merely faded for a time, and then came back with renewed force for a period, only to again hush away until it was called forth once more by fashion-starved victims of no new thrills or impressions.
We moved from place to place. City to city. Ruin to ruin. Castle to castle. Never for a moment were we settled. Darla�s obsession with death turned me off, for something inside of me hungered more for the hunt, rather than the death in itself. To hear the beauty of a mind working to save a soul as I hunted, was purely the most amazing of things that could be offered to anyone. Even a dead creature such as I.
Darla loved me in her own way, lavishing gifts of love, passion, and material upon me every chance she had, although she was the one who indeed loved to be spoiled. Her frequent �toys� as she liked to call them, were particularly involved in the line of letting her have every desire fulfilled by their pockets, their hearts, their mouths, and their bodies. Nothing was to be desired for, for Darla.
She asked me so many times during every night, why I never gave my heart to her. I could only reply that my heart was not mine to give, for it had fled the night that she changed me in to the death I had become. Death had no soul, so how could I give my own to someone as if it were true?
After over two centuries of loving, of hoping I would change to her, Darla tired of my company, and left me alone. I wandered on, alone now, but oddly enough feeling the same as when I had all the company in the world in Darla and her numerous and always amusing companions. I fed, yes. But never with the desire Darla had. A vampire could live for months off one kill, and so I did. I limited myself to the hunt, and once I saw death, I fled. I loved to taunt and tease, and twist with my victims, but nothing could be said for the kill itself. For to me, it was nothing to be cherished. Just frowned upon.
Finally, I lost all hope.
After two hundred and fifty years, my hope had finally fled. It had started to waver when my father first hit my mother, and now it has fled with the realization that a man can not change.I can not change.
But then a new light dawned. A sunshine so bright that I thought it would, like natural light, take my life. I welcome this death�s embrace of life.
I had started a business. A multi-million dollar corporation now. It had been something to distract myself many years ago, but now it had become the only thing I had left to cling to life. It specialized in shipping, and I controlled the entire works of it, making sure nothing slipped my mind.
My fortune rose substantially with every deal I made, and I spent m money as fast as I earned it, hating the people that came along with it. I bought mansions all over the world. One in Ireland, near my home, though it was never visited. One in New York. One in California, where the sun was so bright that I slept mostly while I was there. One in Canada, where no one was around to hear me scream.
One day, it was brought to my attention of a potential business deal between my corporation and another like it. It could be one of the most fantastic mergers of all history in the shipping business, and with luck I could soon rid myself of the owner of the other corporation, and own it all by myself, ruling the world of shipping and becoming richer with every passing day.
For they do say that money makes the world go round.
It was arranged for me to meet the owner of Summers Shipping one evening in the spring, to discuss the merger with D�Aestas Inc. I arrived fashionably late, by about five minutes, and was shown in to the parlor of the Summer�s mansion. Over all, it was like any other mansion in the world, but for some reason to a vampire, it felt as though it was different. It hummed of a life I didn�t know, and a passion I could only hope to seduce with my smile.
Hank Summers, an aging man in his forties, was nothing to be alarmed by. He had the same dark smile as any business man, and I matched it with a fake smile of my own. We sat in the parlor, and over brandies, we discussed the potential of a merger and all it would include.
Deals were passed. Offers were made. That night we came to the conclusion that we would be undefeatable if we joined forces to rule the world of shipping, and so we did. That night, contract were signed and agreed upon, and D�Aestas Summers Shipping Inc. was created.
As we shook hands the final time, Hank said he usually didn�t mix family with his business, but seeing as how we would be working closely to form this enterprise of power, that he would make an exception. I was invited to dinner the following evening, to enjoy time with his family. He informed me of a wife, Joyce, and a daughter with strong will and a �fire for life� that he rightly had named Buffy.
I politely accepted the invitation, and agree to arrive the following evening as promised. As I left the mansion to the car that was waiting for me, all started by the valet of the Summers� residence; I noticed something in a window at the top of the three-story, stone mansion. In a small, window, I saw a face. This face, I knew, would haunt me for the rest of my eternity.
The light from the lamp she had on, cast a glow around her, and lit up her golden hair in a way that reminded me of the last sunrise I had ever seen in true life, in full color. Not on some television screen.
She watched me closely, her bright eyes flashing with intrigue. With my vampirically enhanced senses, I could smell the sweet vanilla of her perfume, and I could see the bright outlines of her eyes. Her hair glowed in the light in a way that could only be described as glorious.
My heart, usually kept so distant from myself and my mind, leapt towards the beauty in the window. I tried to shake it. All of this feeling and emotion from one face? One glance? How was it possible? I tried to ignore it as I went to sleep that night, in my large, dark-canopy-covered bed. I had long ago given up the coffin, for a more comfortable manor, although I kept it nearby in the event that my heart should yearn for the past�
Which it never did.
It never would. For my heart was forgetting the past with every passing day, as what was left of my soul was fading away with my loss of hope. But perhaps that face could return my faith. It could. Inside, deep down in my darkness, I heard a light that whispered�
It could.
~~
Arriving for dinner, I was not surprised at the way the home had been lit with an elegant manor that spoke of grace and stature. I had dressed for the occasion, and so had everyone else. I met Joyce, Hank Summers� wife, and she smiled politely in all her womanly beauty, and I kissed her hand like a proper gentleman.
Hank led me form the parlor in to the dining hall, where he helped Joyce seat, and then asked a maid where Buffy was.�For Christ sake, Adelaide, where is my daughter?� He asked in a hushed tone that spoke of how upset he would be with her if she did not show up when she was bid to be her overbearing father and his ego.
�I�m here,� she said with a sigh, entering the room dressed all in white. It was so appropriate, for the beauty that walked in to the room, was the angel I had seen at the window. She was magnificent with her innocent glow that screamed of allure that she wasn�t aware she contained. Her na�ve mind was all the more attractive to someone who has tasted more darkness and evil that many can share in seven thousand lifetimes.
�Ah, Buffy,� Hank smiled broadly when he saw that she had dressed for the meeting. Her long, white gown hugged her perfect curves in a way that I had yet to see fashion achieve over the years. Her body was perfection defined, and I couldn�t help but to gawk slightly at her beauty and her mystique.
Her blonde hair was held off her face, and cascading down the back of her low-cut dress in gentle waves that made me long to run my fingers through them as she slept in my arms after a night of love.
She smiled at me when she saw me, and held out her hand. Her nails were done perfectly in a French manicure, and I imagined for a moment that she was offering me her hand for eternity, not just for an introduction.I took it, and calmly bent to kiss her tender, soft skin, all the while never letting my eyes leave hers. Her breath caught in her chest as she gazed at me, and I know that had it not been for her father breaking the trance we were in by clearing his throat to draw attention back to his greedy smile and his ready-to-kill soul, that I could have stayed that way with my new love and obsession forever.
Forever and beyond.
Throughout dinner, I found myself barely able to listen to Hank Summers as he explained his family, how he got started in the business of shipping, and all of his hobbies. Usually I would be inclined to practice the well-learned art of pretending to listen to everything he said and ask questions to express interest, but the mortal beauty sat across from me, looking delicate and precious, was more than enough of a distraction.
My mind was whirling, and I began to wonder if it was possible for love to exist at first sight. Would she agree? Would she accept me if I revealed my true self? My true face? The horrible things I�ve done? No. I had to stop thinking about such things. The idea of even thinking of taking this precious jewel in to the night and eternal darkness with me was unfathomable. I had to stop myself from looking at her. The cautious, hesitant smiles and glances that she was shyly passing my way were making it so hard to ignore her. She was seduction defined, perfect and pure, and erotic in the most natural way.
Towards the end of dinner, I couldn�t resist speaking to her in one of the few breaks between Hanks rambles. �Buffy?� I quested.
She smiled and a faint blush covered her cheeks.�Do you attend school, or does your father arrange for home-schooling?� I asked her casually, trying to make it seem that I wasn�t all that interested. After two hundred years, I had become exceptionally good at acting calm and collected. It was one of the things about me that had driven Darla to leave. That I never showed emotion. Of course there were many, many other reasons for Darla�s leave.
�My father has a tutor come every Tuesday and Thursday,� Buffy replied with a slight smile. �The rest of the time I educate myself on the lessons of scientists and English philosophers from my father�s collection.�
One of the things that amused me the most about the education system that the government invested so much money and time in to, was that two hundred years ago, education in a formal way didn�t exist, and in a few years, I knew that it wouldn�t even be a thought.
�Buffy is quite interested in philosophy,� Hank explained, jumping in to the conversations once more. �Especially Irish and Greek mythology.�
�I enjoy the Celtic passages,� she added with a slight blush.
�Really?� I raised an eyebrow. My internal mind was suddenly blinking a signal light to me. The woman who had so abruptly bewitched my heart and my soul, was interested in something I could speak of with passion and complete intellect. It was my chance to know her. To hold her. �It just so happens, Miss Summers, that I specialized in the studies of Irish mythology and Celtic phenomena at the University of Ireland. I�m originally from those areas, my�Family goes back to the days of the Celts.� That was true, I told myself. Just as long as too much about my past wasn�t revealed, it was clear to me in the utmost confidence of my mind, that this plan forming in my mind would work.
�Is that so?� Mr. Summers was impressed. He looked to his daughter and said, �well, Buffy, it so appears that if you had the will to learn more, that Angelus might be a fabulous tutor. That is, if he was interested.�
I tried to keep calm, while my insides were churning for what seemed like the first time in three hundred years. That would be the first time in my entire existence. If it was possible for beauty to love a beast, than sunshine could fall for the light, couldn�t she? Anything was possible if she only understood�
�I usually don�t have much time on my hands,� I began trying to keep my words precise and uninterested with a slight tinge of intrigue. The look of sheer disappointment in Buffy�s eyes as I spoke those words, made me rush uncharacteristically in to my point. �However,� I said a little too loudly. �It just so happens that with a merger between your father and I, Buffy, that I�ll have a little less work to do, since the company will have two operators."
The beaming smile that she sent my way was enough to melt even the coldest of hearts in the middle of the arctic circle.
After dinner, Hank and I made arrangements for seeing eachother later in the week, and I turned to Buffy to say good-bye. She smiled at me in an adorable way when I kissed her hand like a proper gentleman should, and I knew that I had lost myself right then and there. Or for that matter, I'd lost myself the moment that I laid my eyes on her.
~~
Leaving the Summers Residence that evening, the cold hair hit my skin, and I felt the temperature for the first time in over two hundred years. It was rare for a vampire to feel the heat, or the cold, but around Buffy, it was almost like I could feel again. Could it be that she was the source of my faith? Perhaps I had endured this trial of death and it�s existence for a purpose. Perhaps Buffy was my purpose.
But then, she was so beautiful. So young and virgin to the world. I couldn�t bare the thought of touching her youthful heart and holding it to my own, though I knew that there was no way I could bare to let it end any other way.
~~
Over the next week and a half, I spent many hours working with Hank Summers, but not a mention was made about Buffy. For the first time in all that I could remember, I found myself restless and uneasy. My mind was always focused on her, even when I slept-not breathing but dreaming. Dreaming of the glorious sunshine that was Buffy Summers.
One day, coming out of one of our main offices, I asked Hank how his family was, hoping it would lead nonchalantly to the topic of my seeing Buffy again before I went insane.
�Well, Joyce is out of the country with some girlfriends for three weeks. I will be heading down to Chicago tomorrow for a few weeks of meetings about the organization while you tend to things here. All in all, I think things with the family are great.� He smiled.
I wondered briefly if he was aware that he had avoided Buffy�s part in all of this, or if it just got left out naturally because he was as self-involved as any other business man I�d ever met.
My hands were crossed behind my back, and as we walked I asked casually, �and Buffy? How are her studies?�
�Buffy�s fine,� he smiled. He stopped then suddenly. �Oh! I almost forgot something!�
I looked at him, slightly concerned and confused about how mentioning his daughter could remind him of work he had to do. �What?� I asked, peering closely at the worm of a man that had created the most perfect creature in the world.
�Buffy,� he smiled at me as a memory shot across his sly features. �Buffy was interested in getting together to learn more from you.�
�Really?� I tried to act like it didn�t matter as much as my heart was pounding, though it didn�t beat.
�She�s been talking about it all non-stop,� Hank laughed slightly "Actually, If I have to hear one more thing about you over a casual dinner at home, I do believe I shall have to kill you myself, Angelus.�
I chuckled softly to show my amusement as he laughed, though I didn�t particularly have the focus to fake a laugh.
�No, not really. I do believe however, that she mentioned that this week, her tutor, Mr. Giles wasn�t coming on Tuesday due to a surgery he is having on his knee after tripping down the stairs. You know men in their fifties, huh Angelus?� Hank smiled.
I wanted to say �been there, done that� but I knew better than to imply something that could lead to question. I simply nodded as we continued to walk, and waited for him to speak more, rather than pushing the subject and making him suspicious about my interests in his young daughter.
�Anyways, she asked me if I would offer Tuesday to you.� He stopped and turned to look at me. �Buffy is...She�s very special to me, Angelus. She has interests that most girls her age care nothing to know exist. She has much potential with what she does, I do admit that. Most fathers would will their own successful line of work upon their only child, but with Buffy...No. I don�t want her in this fierce world of business. And what she enjoys, seems to be where she will one day put her life.�
He paused a moment, and I found myself listening to every breath, every heartbeat very closely as he confessed that his daughter did indeed matter to him slightly from time to time.
�Well, what do you say, Angelus, my boy?� Hank asked. �Do you have the time or care to tutor my daughter, or shall I...Send my regrets for you?� He raised an eyebrow to watch me.
I smiled, showing no emotion, �Hank, the Celtic passages and traditions are probably where I should have staked my profession, despite that I seem to have a knack for business. I would be thrilled to speak to your daughter of them, and it so happens that Tuesday, is an available day for me.�
�Good, my man,� Hank smiled and patted me on the back like a child. �She will be absolutely thrilled.�
