ModernPrometheus

Disclaimer: The character of Angel and situations relating to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the WB Network. No ownership by the author is implied. Grr. Arrgh.

Note: Just for the record, I wrote this well before season 4.

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New York City- March 12, 1932

Audrey von Groff walked slowly through the alley behind a row of shops in a section of town rarely visited by women of her station. It was late, and she was alone, and dressed in a bright yellow dress and red jacket. An attack was a foregone conclusion, and it might have been anyone. But it was a vampire.

The undead creature slid up behind her. "Good evening, madam," he said
silkily. "What's a lady as fine as yourself doing alone on an evening like this?"

"I seem to have gotten lost," Audrey said, a catch in her voice.

"What a pity," the vampire replied, baring his fangs as he approached her.

Suddenly a dark figure dropped from the roof above. The vampire whirled, and the figure darted forward, driving a stake into the vampire's chest. The creature exploded in a cloud of dust.

Audrey was dumb with astonishment. "Who are you," she said.

The figure turned to her. "A friend," he said.

In truth, he was a vampire himself, once known and feared as Angelus, a
merciless torturer and killer. But a mysterious Gypsy curse had granted him a soul, and he had become Angel, still vampire, yet not a killer: a strange amalgam of good and evil. He believed himself to be unique in all the world.

"Are you all right," he asked Audrey.

The woman didn't reply, but seemed to be studying Angel intently. So
intently, in fact, that he started to squirm under her gaze.

"I must go," he said, "I would try to fetch a taxi if I were..."

"Oh, no," Audrey said, taking Angel's arm, "come with me. I want to thank you for saving me."

Angel's nerves began to jangle uneasily. Something wasn't right. He edged away from the woman. "No," he said, "I..." and two men stepped out of the cross street several yards distant. One carried a rifle of some kind, and the other swung a large net.

Angel's heart lurched. It was a trap. He spun around and was unsurprised to see two more men approaching from the opposite direction, another net stretched between them.

Angel turned on Audrey, fear letting the demon inside him start to assert itself, twisting his face to its own image, and pitching his voice to a menacing growl. "You set me up," he snarled at her. "What the hell are you doing?"

Audrey spread her hands expansively and stepped away from him. "All will become clear," she said, and the men fell upon Angel, entangling him and binding him in the nets.

Angel fought fiercely, certain he would be staked at any moment, but the men only tied him enough to carry him to a waiting truck. His fear was joined by confusion as it dawned on him that these people did not intend to destroy him, at least not yet.

They took him into the truck, and Angel thrashed against them, terrified by his disadvantage, but the men, whoever they were, were prepared.

First, a metal bit was shoved into his mouth and bound around his head,
securing his jaws so he couldn't bite or speak. Then he was shackled to a large X-shaped frame, immobilizing him completely. Angel could feel the demon inside him, taking his terror into itself and expanding,
strengthening. Angel found himself fighting as hard as he ever had, trying to free himself from these humans and their unknown plans for him while struggling to maintain control of his body.

Suddenly the woman approached him holding a hypodermic needle and Angel lost his battle as the demon ascended in him and seized control.

He watched as though from outside himself as his body pitched against its bonds and he howled with inarticulate rage. Then the woman drove the needle into his neck, and his world went black.

********************

He came to in a white-tiled laboratory. There was a long enamel table with shackles at each corner and glass-fronted cabinets full of strange
implements and bottles of various-colored liquids. The woman and the four men who had captured him were now working at various places in the lab.

Angel himself was restrained in a wrought-iron device that fitted closely around his body, holding his arms extended. He flexed inside it, trying not to attract the humans' attention, but it was no use. It was solid.

The man nearest Angel turned and looked into the vampire's eyes. Angel
noticed with a small bit of satisfaction the panic in the man's face as he realized his prisoner was awake. The man called to the woman. "Doctor von Groff. He's conscious."

The woman approached Angel, her hands on her hips, and regarded him
critically. "Well, I'm glad you're still with us," she said, "the sedative I gave you can be tricky sometimes. Lack of test subjects, you see."

Angel said nothing. He didn't want to betray himself before he knew what he was in.

"I am Doctor Audrey von Groff," she went on, "and this is my staff."

Angel narrowed his eyes. What is this madhouse? he thought.

"I am studying your kind to determine the agent or process by which your life is extended," she said, "in an attempt to isolate and reproduce it, and make it available to all. Of course," she added, "without the accompanying bloodlust."

"I'm not this way through some 'process,'" Angel said. "A demon entered my body and animated my flesh..."

"So I've heard," Audrey answered, "but I am a scientist."

Angel rattled the bars of his tiny prison in frustration. "You have no idea what you're doing here," he said.

Audrey raised her hand. "That's enough," she said, "questions and answers are over. You are a murderer and a vampire. You are here in the interests of medicine. If you try to escape my people are well trained in the methods used to destroy your kind. If you do not co-operate we will use any chemical, surgical, or forceful means to ensure your compliance."

Angel gritted his teeth. "You're making a mistake," he growled.

"I am not interested in your opinions," Audrey told him.

"I tried to save your life," Angel shot at her angrily.

"I am also not interested in what motivates your behavior," she replied
calmly. "Suffice it to say I have worked with enough vampires to be certain it was hardly Christian charity." She turned to her assistant, who was still watching Angel nervously. "Vasily, prepare the subject for study."

"Shall I sedate him again, Doctor," Vasily asked.

Audrey regarded Angel carefully. "No," she said finally, "he seems...
delicate," Angel growled again at this, "and I think his current restraints should be sufficient. Use the necessary precautions." She turned away from him and Angel threw his body around inside his confines, howling with rage.

Vasily stepped cautiously towards Angel, a scissors in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Angel snarled, "you get the Hell away from me."

"Listen to me," Vasily said, so softly Angel knew only he was meant to hear. "She is quite serious. She doesn't want to destroy you, but she will if you make things difficult. Trust me, she has killed dozens of you. I am telling you this for your own good."

Angel eyed the scissors. "What are you doing?" he repeated.

Vasily did not reply, but instead began his work, reaching through the bars of the device that confined Angel and cutting his shirt to pieces and removing them. Angel tried to writhe away or get close enough to bite and defend himself, but the device was ingenious and he had soon been stripped to the waist.

"I'm sorry," Vasily said, again very softly, and he left Angel alone.

Audrey returned a few moments later accompanied by another assistant
carrying a tray, and, as Angel screamed in torment, removed samples of hair, and blood, and tissue, and bone.

********************

The assistants carried Angel, in the device, to another room some hours
later. He had numerous wounds, cut with surgical precision, across the
surface of his skin; many still bled or wept. The doctor had also marked him with ink to track the rate of his healing. The ordeal had worn him down at last and he slumped in his strange prison, too weak to ease the pain on his arms as he hung suspended. He remembered the strength he once had, when he still fed on humans. In those days he'd have made short work of these "scientists." Slowly his presence of mind returned enough that he tried to push these dark fantasies away, but they were seductive, and he found himself almost amused by the thought of slowly disemboweling this Miss Audrey von Groff.

As he began to recover, he realized he was not alone in the room. He raised his head slowly and tried to focus his vision. Not far away were two other vampires: a female, restrained in the same manner he was, and a male chained to an enamel examination table like Angel had seen before. The female looked at him dully, and the male lay motionless. If his eyes had not been open, Angel would have thought he was asleep.

"Who are you?" the female said as Angel met her eyes.

"Angel."

She nodded. "I'm Dominique," she said, and even through his discomfort Angel noted it was an exotic name for a girl whose accent was pure Brooklyn. "He's Alexi," she continued, nodding toward the third vampire, "but he can't talk. They cut out his tongue and part of his throat."

That woke Angel up, and he straightened inside his cage. "Why," he asked.

Dominique shrugged. "Wouldn't shut up, I guess," she said, "so they turned him into a mute. Don't worry, though, they'll get sloppy sooner or later."

"What's wrong with him now?" Angel said.

"Starving," she answered, "he comes in and out. I think they want to see how long we last. For him it's been awhile already."

Angel knew from experience he could go quite a long time on very little
food, as little as one rat every week or two if he had to, but the ache
never really eased. For these two, used to feasting on human blood every few days, the pain would seem unbearable.

"They might get tired of it, though," Dominique said. "The last one stayed like that, in that waking death, for so long they decided to cut him open and see what was happening. They got carried away and cut something they shouldn't have. Turned into dust right on the table." Dominique lowered her voice. "That's what makes the lady doctor nuts. Dead means dust, and she has to keep us alive to see what makes us tick."

As if in response to her words Alexi started to move, his limbs pulling
against the chains.

Angel stiffened, afraid he was watching the poor creatures death throes, when Alexi relaxed and turned his face towards Angel. His eyes were wide, and seemed to be focused on a far-off point, and his mouth moved as though he were speaking. Angel wondered what he saw. Then Alexi's eyes closed, and he seemed to slip into sleep.

"What just happened?" Angel asked Dominique.

The female vampire shuddered. "I hope I never know," she said.

********************

April 7, 1932

Angel was being transferred from the device where he had spent the last four weeks. There was one man at each of his limbs, and Audrey held a stake just over his heart. Escape meant death.

Not that he would have the strength to go far. He'd had a lot of time to think, and his best guess was that his borderline starvation diet of
exclusively rodent blood had made him weaker than the others. And he was deteriorating faster.

He was turned over on his stomach and dropped onto an examination table, then his ankles and wrists were bolted down. Audrey leaned close, examining the scars that still crossed his skin. She shook her head. "The healing process is very slow on this one," she said.

"What do you expect?" Angel said,

Normally his comments were ignored, but Audrey answered him now. "What do you mean?"

"Feed me," he said plaintively, "or kill me, if that's your ultimate goal."

"Out of the question."

"It doesn't have to be human," Angel pleaded, "in fact, I'd prefer if it weren't."

Audrey was back to ignoring him.

"Rats, even. I've been living on rats for thirty years."

That forced a harsh bark of disbelief from Audrey, and she jabbed a probe into one of the wounds that was still open on Angel's back.

Angel screamed, though every bit of his will fought to remain impassive, to not give the woman whatever sick satisfaction she got from this. "You're torturing me," he shouted at her.

"And you'd know about that, wouldn't you," Audrey said calmly.

Angel gritted his teeth in anger and pain, trying to force his cries back down his throat, for her words had cut him more deeply than her knife.

After what seemed like hours, Angel was lifted, limp and bloody, back into the confining device and taken back into the inner lab. Dominique had slipped into the semi-conscious state that Angel was starting to understand was the effect of her enforced fast. Alexi was worse. He had not moved a hair in five days, and only a lack of decomposition betrayed his undead state.

Angel knew that unless something changed, this would be his ultimate fate. He wished he knew if it also meant oblivion, and found he had no faith that it would be. He wept, soundlessly and hopelessly.

********************

May 24, 1932

"It is dry, but not desiccated," Audrey said as she carefully probed the tissue of Alexi's lungs while the vampire lay open on the examination table.

Angel watched the grim surgery intently. He was very weak, and his mind
seemed to drift a lot now, so he had trouble concentrating, but when Audrey had entered with her tray of implements, she had his full attention. She had approached Alexi, and Angel, to his shame, found himself thankful that it was not him.

Dominique was in a trance-like state most of the time, talking to visions. In her moments of lucidity she told Angel that she saw people she perceived as future victims, who promised her she would feast on them. She took this as a sign they would eventually escape.

Angel was not so sure. He had seen strange things in his long life. One of his dark children had even seen visions. But this was only hallucination, he thought, a fever dream. And as day blended into featureless day, as he starved and suffered and bled, he knew these two were showing him a vision of his own future, and utter dread was added to his torment.

He even found himself pitying Alexi, who from Dominique's account was a
fierce killer in his own right. Audrey was sifting through his innards now, looking for some physical indication of his undead state, and Alexi was too weak to even flinch. Angel feared he might be feeling every cut.

Audrey shook her head. "No good," she said, disappointed, "there's nothing here. Let's sew him up." And with practiced skill she closed the slit that ran from Alexi's throat to his navel. When she finished she turned her attention to Angel.

"And how's our youngster doing?" she said.

"Go to Hell," Angel said.

"Your wounds seem to be healing at last," she continued as though Angel had said nothing.

"How fortunate for me," Angel said dryly.

Audrey reached for her instrument tray, and even the blackest of Angel's humor ebbed away. She held up a number of thin wooden skewers. "I presume you know what these are."

Angel turned his head away. "So kill me already."

"I have no intention of killing you," Audrey told him. "Your wounds are
healing. Wounds which would have quickly killed a living human. And yet your kind seems especially vulnerable to wood, and I'm curious why."

Angel gave a dry laugh. "Well, I hope you find what you're looking for," he said.

Audrey's expression turned icy and hard. "Don't you dare," she said coldly, "don't mock my work. I am trying to bring some good out of the devastation you created."

Angel turned back to her. "Is that what this is," he said, truly curious, "was someone you loved killed by vampires? Is that why you're torturing us?"

Audrey didn't answer, only drove the skewers, one at a time, into Angel's flesh.

********************

July 9, 1932

Angel shivered as the girl touched his shoulder, not from pain, but from desire. Her hand was soft, and so warm. She did not flinch from his cold skin, but instead soothed him, comforted him, healed him. He could not see her clearly, but his impression of her was one of beauty, and great strength. She wound her arms around him, cradling him, and she kissed him. Her hair fell across his face, and he shivered again.

"I love you, Angel," she whispered, pressing her lips to his. Tears of
gratitude stung his eyes as he returned her kiss, tenderly, gently.

And then he was awake, bound and bloody in Audrey von Groff's laboratory.

Angel looked up at the body of Alexi, stretched motionless nearby. Alexi's flesh had atrophied almost completely, and his skin hung shapelessly on his bones. He looked like a corpse that had dried out under the desert sun, but Angel knew that Alexi was alive, and he shuddered.

Angel looked down at his own body, and noticed his own muscles had gotten markedly thinner, as well. He was moving towards that state.

He looked across at Dominique. He expected her to be unconscious, she was almost all the time now, but to his surprise she was awake.

"I was dreaming," he said.

Dominique smiled hungrily, though it clearly cost her effort. "They are
visions of the future," she said. "The hunger. It defines us. To be thus consumed. It is clarifying. It expands our vision."

Angel shook his head slowly. "It is madness," he said, "nothing more."

"What did you see," Dominique asked him.

"There was a girl," Angel said, struggling to remember, "a human girl. She had hair the color of honey..."

Dominique licked her lips. "I'll bet she tasted like honey, too," she said.

"No," Angel said, "it wasn't like that. I... I loved her."

Dominique gave a dry, bitter laugh. "You're right," she said, "that is
madness." And her strength spent, she fell again into unconsciousness.

Angel could feel himself slipping and struggled to not be lost to the
hallucinations. But in the end he had not the will, and they rose again in his mind. Silent and motionless, he dreamed.

********************

August 18, 1932

Angel's mind was in turmoil, lost in a fog of images he could not
understand. He saw visions of his family, long dead, and though he tried, he was too weak to even speak to them. And he saw others, ones he did not know, some merely children.

He didn't move anymore. He couldn't, and even the merest effort to stir
brought these strange waking dreams to him. He could not even close his
eyes, and he seemed to slip from dream to reality without even being certain himself which was which.

He came to the surface looking out into the lab, unable to even scan with his eyes. Audrey and her people were working, moving back and forth through his field of view.

As he watched, he saw another figure approach him. She came closer and he recognized her; it was one of his fledglings, Drusilla, the one who saw visions. She came right up to him and leaned close, whispering into his ear. "They're preparing right now," she said. "They want to see what makes the doll walk and talk. They're going to cut him into pieces and try to put him back together again."

Another figure approached, an odd-looking man Angel did not recognize. "It doesn't end here," he told Angel. "Your fate is written on the last pages of a secret history. The powers from before the dawn of time know your name."

"Lies," Drusilla whispered, "insanity. You will be dust on the pages of
time."

And the fog rose around Angel, dragging him under.

********************

A woman was stroking Angel's face, humming softly. Her hair was fine and dark, and though her face was strong, her eyes were haunted and sad. "Poor child," she whispered, "what my people have done to you. Scorn my weakness, but I pity you." She shook her head, and started humming again.

Suddenly Angel felt his mouth forced open, and a hard coppery taste in his mouth. It took him a moment to recognize it. Blood. Cold, long removed from a living body, but blood all the same.

As it ran down his throat his mind began to clear, and he felt strength
begin to return to his limbs. The fog before his vision lifted, and his eyes came into focus. He blinked. Vasily was standing in front of him, pouring a bottle of blood into his mouth and glancing furtively towards the door. Angel stretched forward, closing his lips around the bottle's neck, and Vasily jumped in surprise, pulling the bottle just out of reach. Some of the blood splashed on the floor and Angel moaned. "More," he begged, "please."

Vasily gave him the bottle and Angel gulped the blood as fast as he could. Vasily took the empty bottle away, and retrieved another from a box on the floor. Angel looked down and saw there were three other empties. He took the new bottle into his mouth and drained it, as well. He was still weak, but he was moving now, and he had enough strength to stand in the device that still confined him. Vasily took the bottle away.

"How are you," he asked Angel.

Angel could feel the blood's restoring power flowing through him, and he felt stronger by the second. It was tempting to take more, but he knew Vasily was in danger, so he said, "I'll be okay."

"I have to know," Vasily asked. "When did you come to America?"

Angel blinked, confused. "Why do you..."

"We haven't much time," Vasily snapped, "when?"

"Eighteen ninety-nine. I..."

"No. Just answer," Vasily said. "Where was your port of departure?"

Angel shook his head roughly, trying to concentrate. "Dubrovnik."

"And what was the name of the ship you sailed on."

"I don't know," Angel said.

"Why not?"

Angel looked into Vasily's eyes. "Because I was nailed inside a box," he said. "I was crated up in Bucharest and shipped as cargo." He turned his face away, humiliated. "Terribly exciting, isn't it. The romantic hero. I don't know why you've helped me, but if you have some idea of becoming a vampire yourself..."

"No," Vasily said, "it's not that. Was there a woman who helped you?"

Angel looked hard at Vasily. "Yes," he whispered, "did you know her?"

Vasily reached into his pocket and showed Angel a small photo. The woman was older, but it was definitely she. Angel started to tremble. "Yes, that's her," he said, "do you know her? I never learned her name. She saved my life."

Vasily replaced the picture in his pocket. "She was my mother," he said
softly. "She told me about you. She always wondered what became of you.
She... she passed away three years ago."

Angel felt real grief wash over him. "I'm so sorry," he said.

Vasily shook his head. "There isn't time," he said, and he undid the clasps that held Angel in the device, setting him loose. "We have to get you out of here, and then..."

Angel stepped to the floor, and caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned towards it, and felt a sudden, lurching terror. The thing that was once Alexi, now a mere skeleton wrapped in dried skin, had slipped from its shackles and was moving towards them.

Angel grabbed Vasily, shoving him behind him and backing away from the
monster. Alexi came up to the device and lowered himself jerkily to the
floor where the blood had spilled. He moved his lips, now dry as old
cornhusks, over the blood, working it into his mouth, then took one of the full bottles. His hands were too withered to open the cap, so he dashed it to the floor and took in the blood the same way.

Angel watched, horrified and yet amazed, as Alexi's skin grew supple and filled out right before his eyes. Alexi got a second bottle open in a more usual way and drank it down. He took in ten pints, then with only a casual glance at Angel and Vasily took an open bottle to Dominique and poured it into her mouth. Soon Dominique had taken the remaining five bottles, and was starting to be restored herself. Alexi opened the device that imprisoned her and helped her step down to the floor.

They both turned to Angel, their natural grace almost miraculously restored, and smiled languidly. "Don't be so selfish," Dominique said coyly, "let's share the little one together."

Angel lowered into a defensive crouch, ready to protect Vasily. "Don't you dare touch him," he growled.

Dominique and Alexi exchanged glances, and Alexi shrugged.

"We have to get out," Angel told them. He turned to Vasily. "We need proper clothes," he said.

Vasily was almost frozen with obvious terror. "There are medical jackets in the outer lab," he said faintly.

Alexi strode to the door of the lab, Dominique close behind, and marched through. Angel followed more cautiously, keeping Vasily close to him, protectively. As they entered the outer laboratory, Angel saw that they had surprised two of the assistants. Alexi and Dominique were now clamped onto them tightly, draining their blood. Angel turned to Vasily, hoping to shield him from this horror, but it was too late; the young man was deathly pale and looked close to fainting.

Alexi dropped his victim, who fell to the floor, lifeless, then wiped the gore from his mouth, laughing soundlessly. Angel took Vasily's shoulder. "Let's go," he said, pulling Vasily towards the side door, and sluggishly the young man started to move.

Suddenly the front door opened, and Audrey herself burst in. When she saw the scene before her, her face went red with anger and she pulled a cross from her jacket pocket. She brandished it towards Dominique. "Leave him alone," she shouted.

Dominique lowered her victim slowly and dabbed at her lips delicately. "I'm so glad you're here," she said. "I was afraid I would have to be going before I could give you my regards." And she backhanded the cross out of Audrey's grasp.

The doctor's calm facade broke apart then, and her eyes went wide with fear. She turned and began to run but got not three steps before Dominique and Alexi had reached her. Alexi grabbed her first and bent her back, pressing his mouth to hers. He pulled away from this grim embrace and Angel could see he held the woman's tongue tightly in his teeth. Angel heard Vasily gag beside him, and his own stomach heaved with disgust.

Dominique and Alexi both fell on her then and laughed at her gurgling
screams, Dominique with high-pitched squeals, Alexi in total silence.

Vasily was swaying on his feet now, and Angel decided to forgo other
clothes, and instead scooped the young man into his arms and carried him out into the street. In the fresh air, Vasily seemed to recover a bit, and was able to stand. In the dim light of the alley his eyes darted over Angel's skin, taking in the various scars inflicted in the last five months. Angel lowered his eyes.

"They'll fade," he said, "don't worry. I'm grateful..."

"Stop," Vasily said, "I want you to go away." He removed his medical jacket, now splattered with blood, and handed it to Angel. "There, you have what you need. Now, please..."

Angel took the jacket and backed away. "Your mother..." he said.

"Don't," Vasily said. "Doctor von Groff was right. You are animals. I was a fool."

The words cut deep, and Angel retreated further. "I'm sorry," he said.

Vasily laughed, and it was hysterical, mad laughter. It echoed in Angel's ears as he ran into the night.

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