| Title: Captive of the Soul Author: Yatzee Chapter 5 "We are isolated here," Father Augustine said. "This is good." The priest's voice echoed in the emptiness of the abandoned warehouse; his cultured accent reverberated from exposed metal and the concrete floor. A few left-behind things cluttered the corners -- a red bandanna, some cans of Dinty Moore beef stew, one brown boot. One boot, Cordelia thought. Who leaves one boot? I mean, if you need one of them, you're gonna need the other. Right? When Angel had explained all this last night, she'd convinced herself it was for the best. And when she could think on the end result -- happy, secure, new-and-improved Angel, now with fewer demons -- it still seemed like a good idea. But the end result was harder to picture right now, with the reality of what they were about to do there in front of her. The priest was an imposing man, foreign and strange. Wesley had gone unusually grave; he'd set up all his paraphernalia on a battered old table. Instead of snickering at his collection of potions and crystals and what-not, Cordelia found herself somewhat intimidated by it all. Intimidation was a fairly new emotion for her. So far, she decided, it pretty much sucked. Angel was walking around the perimeter of the room, just a little too slowly for it to be called "pacing." She tried to give him a reassuring smile and did so poorly that he immediately came over to her. "Cordy -- are you all right?" "Yeah, I am. Or I will be," she said, hugging herself against an imagined chill. "It's just a little like attending Charles Manson's parole hearing, you know?" "I know," Angel said quietly. "God, there I go again," Cordelia said. "I'm sitting here all obsessed about how I feel. But you're the one really going through it. I mean, you've got to be tripping, right?" "Right," Angel said, then frowned. "If I understand what that word means." "It means, you know -- nyaaagh," Cordelia said, making a face that seemed appropriate. Angel almost smiled. "Yes. I'm tripping. Just keeping it on the inside." "When the demon's out -- Angel, where are you? Where does your soul go?" Cordelia said. "I wish I knew." "I guess it doesn't matter, as long as you come back," Cordelia said. "I'm not going away. I'm just --" Angel paused. Cordelia, realizing he did not mean to continue, took one of his hands in her own and squeezed it gently. Though he did not seem to acknowledge her gesture, after a moment he spoke again. "I worry about what's going to happen while my soul is gone. What I'll do. What I'll say." "If it scares you, Angel -- we don't have to do this," Cordelia whispered, gesturing slightly at Wesley and Father Augustine, who were still bustling about with some magic powder in one corner. "It's not too late." Angel shook his head. "I have to do it. As long as that demon is a part of me -- Cordelia, I'm its captive. I can't get through a single day without wondering what I would do if I weren't strong enough. About what I might do to you -- " "Listen to me," she said, stepping a little closer to him and folding his hand in both of her own. "That demon's not going to do anything to me, or Wesley, or anybody else. We won't let it. You're going to be all wrapped up, safe -- safe like a baby in a blanket. You're not going to do anything you have to feel sorry for. You're not going to say anything we can't handle. When that demon's gone and your soul comes home, we're still going to be here. And we're still going to be your friends. Okay?" Angel didn't answer, but smiled at her gently. She managed to smile back. "Very well," Wes said, a little loudly, calling them without calling them. Angel hesitated for a moment, then let go of Cordelia's hands and walked toward Wesley. Cordelia followed, to see what the others had put together. "We have constructed a protective circle," Father Augustine said. "No vampire should be able to step within its boundaries, save on St. Vigius' Day, which is still months away." "So this is like our shark cage," Cordelia said. "Very apropos," Wesley said. Cordelia wasn't quite sure what that meant, but his tone was approving and so she felt mollified. He continued: "The tranquilizer gun will be kept in here. So, should something untoward occur -- though of course it will not -- we are all to run into the circle. The first one here takes up the gun. Understood?" Angel shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on the ground, then walked over to the chair. Wesley had spent the better part of the afternoon welding it to one of the building's metal beams; after giving it an experimental tug and finding it secure, Angel sat down. He sighed deeply as he put his hands behind his back. "Let's do it." Wesley picked up the chains they'd brought and began securing Angel's feet to the chair. Cordelia took the handcuffs out of her bag and walked behind Angel, then shackled his hands around the metal beam. The tension in the room was thickening, as was her own dread; she wanted to say something to break it, something funny. But she knew it would sound wrong, more wrong even than this terrible stillness broken only by the clanking of metal. When they were done, she and Wesley stepped away. Angel looked -- smaller, somehow. Vulnerable. Strange, to think of Angel that way -- Angel nodded. "Let's go." Wesley rubbed his hands together quickly. "Right." He nodded at Father Augustine, then walked behind the small table they'd set up and re-angled Cordelia's emergency flashlight so that its beam shone through a purple crystal. "Angel, I need you to look within this crystal. There is a flaw inside it -- deep, at the center." His voice took on a tenor Cordelia had never heard from him before, something lower, more soothing. "Find that flaw. Concentrate on it. Let the light there flow back into you." Angel's face was so strange, Cordelia thought, so different. Normally, even in his happiest moments, there was something -- tense -- about him. She always had the sense he was holding something back, holding something in, and she'd always been very glad of the fact. But now he was completely relaxed and blank. "Angel?" Wesley said, in normal Wesley-voice. Angel did not respond. In the lower tone, Wesley continued: "The soul within your body must rest, for a time. The soul will not leave the body, nor be extinguished, yet only remain quiet until such time as I summon it forth once more. When you hear this sound chime once --" Wesley struck a metal rod against the crystal, and it hummed on a high, silvery pitch, "-- your soul will go silent and control you no more. When you hear it twice together, the soul will return to its full strength. Do you understand me?" Angel nodded slowly. Wesley took a deep breath. "Very well." And with that he struck the rod against the crystal once more. For one second, there was only silence. Angel's face had changed again. Not relaxed, not blank, but not holding anything back -- "I do NOT believe this," Angelus growled, lunging forward in a futile attempt to break his bonds. "He's out," Wesley said. "Thanks for the news flash," Cordelia said, mostly to herself. Father Augustine said nothing, but straightened up and squared his shoulders, as though preparing for a blow. "Is this a game?" Angelus shouted, continuing his struggle with the chains. "Are you people actually that stupid? You're calling me up for an evening's entertainment?" "That is not our purpose here," Father Augustine said. "As well you know." "You think you can get rid of me. Well, Padre, you are sadly mistaken. That puts you above these two, who are just sad -- but not as sad as they're gonna be." Angelus fixed his icy stare on Wesley. "Nice little toys you've got here, Watcher Boy. Magic wands and crystals. Sticks and stones, they'll break your bones --" "They'll do more than that to you," Wesley said with an almost-convincing bravado. "This is your big night, isn't it? Your night to prove you can actually do something," Angelus sneered. "But the only thing you're gonna do is get yourself killed. Don't worry, Wesley. I'll make sure you get to see Cordelia die first." Angelus then looked over at Cordelia, something beyond hate in his eyes. "Don't forget. We have a date later." Cordelia turned on her heel and walked as far away from Angelus as she could get. She heard Wesley jog after her. "Cordelia --" "I'm fine," she said abruptly. The temporary shock of seeing Angelus again had shaken her; no matter how many times she thought about it, how many nightmares she had on the subject, she never really remembered the malevolence behind those cold eyes. But Cordelia screwed up her courage. Angel's counting on us, she reminded herself. He's counting on me. "If that's the worst he's got, then we're gonna be fine. Right, Wes?" "Right," Wesley said, and he was so steady, so sure, that Cordelia could have hugged him. "I think the part of the rhyme Angelus failed to mention says, 'words will never hurt me.' We can handle this." Cordelia wished he sounded more convincing. Title: Captive of the Soul Author: Yatzee Chapter 6 Angel generally did not speak of Angelus in the third person. It was a small point, one that might go unnoticed by some, but Wesley prided himself on attention to detail. No matter how horrific, how demonic, how -- different -- Angelus seemed, Angel almost never referred to the demon as a separate entity. Angel said, I did this. Or, when I was there. Or, I enjoyed it. Wesley had always found that strange, never more so than now. "This is rich," Angelus snarled, pulling at the chains that bound him. Wesley could see blood dripping behind the chair, no doubt trickling from the newly lacerated skin at Angel's wrists. (Or were they Angelus' wrists now? Who owned this body? No way ever to know.) "You people think you're gonna get rid of me as easy as this? You think you can have the soul without the demon? What fools." Trying to pretend that Angelus' words didn't mirror his own fears, Wesley turned back to Father Augustine, who was studying the vampire calmly, and Cordelia, who looked anything but calm. "We ought to hurry," Wesley said in a low voice. "He's tearing himself up in those chains --" "He can't get out," Cordelia said, her voice slightly shaky. "No, but he's causing damage Angel will have to suffer for later." "We should hurry in any case," Father Augustine said. "The demon grows stronger with every moment of dominance." "Fine. Great. Get all chanty and incensy and whatever. Just get Angelus out of there," Cordelia said. "It is not so simple," Father Augustine replied. "We are using the oldest and most powerful form of the ritual. His counterattacks will no doubt be vicious. For this reason, each of us will take one section of the ritual." "You mean, Wesley and I have to do this too?" Cordelia said. "Boy, you know when a great time to mention this would've been? Anytime before NOW." "To speak of it earlier would have been to warn the demon," Father Augustine said. "And this isn't warning him?" Cordelia snapped. "He will not have sufficient time to prepare if we act quickly," Father Augustine said sharply. "Which of you has known Angel longer?" Cordelia half-raised her hand. Father Augustine pulled out a battered old book and handed it to her. "At the top of the page. Begin." "Cordelia -- are you sure you can --" "Wesley, it's okay," she said. "Better get it over with." She turned to face Angelus, who was smirking at her -- nothing new there, but nothing good there either. She started to read. "I confront you, demon, in the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit --" "Listen to all of you. Over there whispering like I couldn't hear you. You keep trying to show off how smart you are, Cordelia -- keep trying to show us all that there's a brain beneath all that hairspray. Or a heart under that push-up bra. But then you go and do something stupid like letting me hear you, and the truth will out." Keep reading, she told herself. You've heard worse than that. "The body is the temple of Christ. God shall not suffer a profaner within the temple, and ye -- ye? -- shall be cast out of the temple --" "This body hasn't been God's temple in a real long time, Cordy," Angelus. "For a couple hundred years now, it's been nothing but a corpse. I just drag it around with me. You like to forget that, don't you?" Then, right then -- she knew it, even as it was happening, but couldn't stop it all the same -- he punctured her defenses. She'd prepared herself for the insults, at least she thought so. But this -- oh, dammit, he had a point. "The demon isn't the intruder here," he continued, in his slow, silky voice. "The demon's right at home. The soul -- that's another story." The exorcism was all about casting out something that didn't belong. Did the demon belong -- more than the soul? Was that possible? And in her moment of doubt and confusion, he turned his blade sideways and slipped its narrow edge in. "You've been wondering if I'd ever fall in love with you." Cordelia's voice choked in her throat. The holy book almost slipped from her hand. She was suddenly terribly aware of Wesley's presence. "I -- no. No. Your place is, is, is in hell, I mean, in pernicious hell, and there you will be, uh --" "I do look at you, you know. I mean, I'm dead, not made of stone. You've got a body that just doesn't quit, baby," Angelus had narrowed his eyes, pursed his lips, dropped his gaze lower than her face. "And you know what? I'd love to just shoot you down, tell you I never thought about it, but I gotta tell the truth. The idea has definitely crossed my mind." "There you will be cast among the demons and the dark ones and the night," Cordelia blurted out, hating herself for her hesitation, hating herself for wanting to hear what Angelus would say next. "You will return to your rightful place, your history, your past--" "Do you know why, Cordelia?" Angelus said softly, shifting in his seat so that he almost looked relaxed. "Do you know why I think about fucking you?" "Your past -- your past shall be as your future --" "Because I know it's safe, honey. No curse to worry about with you. No perfect happiness on the horizon. I don't love you. So that means I could throw you down and bang you senseless, and I'd be able to just get up, walk away, and leave all the evilness before you locked in the closet like a bad little boy. You'd be -- convenient, Cordelia. Isn't it nice to know you could finally be of use?" "Cordelia --" Wesley said, and she didn't immediately register the pain in his voice. All she could perceive was the crushing weight in her chest, the heat of the blood that had flushed in her cheeks. "Your past shall be as your future," she said, her voice thick and painful to utter. "Hell is your rightful home, and you shall return there and be as you once were. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen." And with that, she turned on her heel, thrust the book at Father Augustine and ran out of the room. Cordelia pushed the heavy metal door open and blindly stumbled into the alleyway; she groaned as she realized it was raining, a faint, cool mist that turned the world gray. She backed up to the brick wall of the building, allowing herself the scanty shelter of the rusty old fire escape. As she covered her face with her hands, she took in a shaky breath. He knew, she thought. He knew, and all that meant to him was -- |