Part Three
Angelus banged his way into the building, slamming doors, curses trailing in his wake. Drusilla hurried after him, but even her concern couldn't soothe his anger.
He emerged into the gardens to find Spike, sitting there in his wheelchair as always. Something about the imperturbable look on the younger vampire's face stirred a snarl from Angelus. He attacked a hedge, tearing leaves and branches in an attempt to spend his fury on the innocent wood.
"You're upset," Spike observed calmly, after several minutes of Angelus' impromptu pruning.
"So nice of you to take an interest," Angelus growled. He threw himself on the stone bench and allowed Drusilla to embrace him. She cooed softly, in what she apparently thought to be a comforting manner.
"Want to talk about it? I hear that sort of thing is therapeutic." Spike's voice was cold, caustic, belying his inner amusement. He'd only made it back a few minutes before, but if Dru hadn't decided to go after Angelus earlier in the evening, Spike wouldn't have been able to get out at all that night. So far, things were going splendidly.
"It was the Slayer," Dru replied quietly. "And the new vampires. They had a big fight."
"Ah." Spike nodded, his mind racing beneath a cool surface. His new lackeys weren't supposed to have encountered their prey yet - still, in a small town like Sunnyhell, he supposed it had been inevitable. As long as they didn't realize it was him they were to kill. "New ones, eh?"
Angelus stood up, shrugging Dru off. He was still brimming with anger, and Spike couldn't yet figure out why he was so upset. "Yeah," he said tightly. "Already buddies with our favorite Slayer. And the girl—"
He broke off, still snarling.
"What about the girl, Angel?" Spike knew he was in dangerous territory, but he had to know.
"She's the one - the reason I was cursed in the first place. That goddamned Romany brat!"
"It's all right, love, we'll get her." Dru was at Angelus' side again, her hands moving delicately over his arms and back. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he succumbed to her ministrations, closing his eyes as he gradually relaxed.
The Romany brat... This was even better than he'd hoped. The girl couldn't have any reason not to want Angelus dead - if not because of a sense of justice, being that she was apparently a friend of the Slayer, then out of hatred of her Sire, who'd killed her entire family before making her a vampire against her will.
Spike needed to be alone, to think. He let a final glare rake over Angelus and Dru, for appearances' sake - and even if his mind was on other matters, it still made him sick to see them all over each other - and then he spun the wheelchair around and headed back inside, to ponder the ramifications of this news.
"Come again?" Giles said, blinking at Clarissa.
Clarissa ignored the bemused looks on the others' faces as she approached Giles. Opening the book again, she flipped pages rapidly, pointing out first one invocation, complete with woodcut illustration, then another. "We'd need to combine these..."
"Yes, I see what you're saying," he began. "Can you adapt the wording?"
As the two trailed off into rapid-fire witchspeak, Michael rolled his eyes and stood. "Clarissa," he said, quietly, then louder when she didn't respond. She paused mid-phrase and looked up at him.
"I'm going to go," he said. "I'll see you back at the hotel?"
"All right." She fished the keycard from her pocket and flipped it to him. He nodded to Buffy and Giles, and departed from the library without another word.
"What's his deal?" the Slayer said, eyebrows furrowed as she glanced after him.
"He's not much for sitting around and talking," Clarissa said. Then she leaned on the table and sighed. "And this is a side of me he's never seen before. He's not exactly comfortable with it."
"Mmm." Buffy considered this for a moment, then looked up at Clarissa again. "Okay, so we know why you're not a garden-variety, run-of-the-mill bloodsucker. How about him?"
Clarissa returned her gaze to the intricate wording on the pages before her. "Another story," she said. "Let's just say he's the way I realized I'm still chovhani."
"You – you're more powerful, then, now that you've been a vampire for so long?" Giles put in almost absently, flipping pages through the text.
She nodded quickly, her eyes following the movements of his elegant hands. "Again, I'm not sure why. I think it might be partially because I was made by Angelus, who is a strong one--" There was a snort from Buffy's direction, and Clarissa rolled her eyes before continuing. "And he was also made by one who was strong. I think the powerful blood has interacted with the magics I inherited, so that now I probably can do things only an entire circle of Elders could do in my youth."
"But you haven't tested it." The Watcher sounded mildly disapproving. Clarissa shrugged.
"Haven't had any need to, not since I found Michael."
"Did you make him?" Buffy suddenly wanted to know.
The vampire turned to look at her. A bleak and somewhat upset look had filled her face. "No, I did not. I would not ever make someone into a vampire. I found him, abandoned by his Sire - and that is part of the story that I will not get into."
"'Scuse me for being curious," the Slayer muttered under her breath.
Just then, the doors to the library banged open, admitting two panting, wide-eyed teenagers, a dark-haired boy and a small auburn-haired girl. The boy had a hand on the girl's shoulder; something about them spoke to Clarissa of a lifelong friendship.
"Willow!"
"Xander?"
Buffy and Giles spoke at the same moment, concern evident in their voices. Buffy had risen as soon as the two had entered, and now she hurried around the table to them. "What happened? How come you guys aren't at the Bronze?"
"We saw him, we saw Spike." The words tumbled out of Willow's mouth. Giles stiffened at the mention of that name, and Clarissa turned to fully face them as well, somehow already knowing what was coming next.
"Spike's healed? Great, that's all we needed." Buffy gripped Willow's hand; she looked scared half to death, which was no mean trick for someone who had seen and done the things she had.
"He's up and about, all right," Xander said tightly. "Not only that, it looks like he's recruiting. We saw him with someone."
"Perhaps," Giles cut in, his voice low and sensible, "we should sit down and relate exactly what happened in order."
"Good idea." But as Buffy began to head back to the table, Xander and Willow saw the unfamiliar face next to Giles. They jumped, almost in unison, and then Xander pointed at Clarissa.
"Who's she, and what's she doing here?"
"She's a friend," Buffy started.
"No she's not," Willow declared, her voice trembling. "She's the one we saw talking to Spike!"
"What?!" The Slayer whirled to face Clarissa, whose face reflected a resigned, serious look. Giles was moving away from her, and as she set the old grimoire down on the table slowly, Buffy began to approach her.
The tiny blonde had produced a stake from somewhere on her person; one part of Clarissa's mind was impressed, considering how scantily the girl was clad. Nonetheless, she backed up instinctively from the weapon. "All right," she sighed, "I understand. It's not like trustworthy vampires are exactly commonplace. You want to let me explain, or are we just going to fight now?"
"Explain. I'd love to hear it." Buffy's voice was a low snarl of contained rage. Briefly, Clarissa wondered just why she was so upset, then decided it must have something to do with Angelus.
Carefully, choosing her words with caution, Clarissa went over the details of her encounter with Spike, leaving out nothing. The others were silent throughout the recitation. Once she'd finished, Buffy replaced the stake - in a fold of her loose shirt, which she'd tied in a knot at her waist - and sank into a seat, looking pained. Xander and Willow had assumed chairs near the table, while Giles walked around to stand by the teenagers, giving Clarissa plenty of space.
"If this just isn't the sunniest news we've had all night, I don't know what is," Buffy sighed.
"I wonder who Spike was referring to," Giles mused softly, almost to himself, as Xander leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table.
"Well, I know that I speak for Willow as well as myself when I say 'who the hell are you'?" The boy's voice was more than a little defensive, for which Clarissa couldn't truly blame him. Though she did find it odd that two teenagers were apparently completely aware of the Slayer's activities, at this point she was beyond caring why, when, or how.
"My name's Clarissa," she said softly. "I'm a vampire, as you probably guessed, but I'm not here to hurt you."
"It's a really long story," Buffy put in, a yawn on the heels of her words.
Her Watcher saw it. "I think perhaps the three of you should head home. Buffy, you can fill the others in on the events of the evening, and Clarissa and I can work on the spells."
"Spells?"
"Spells," Buffy echoed Willow's query. "Come on. I'll tell you about it on the walk home."
As the trio of teenagers stood - Xander aiming a last threatening look at Clarissa before they departed the library - Giles moved back over to the stack of books by which the vampire stood.
"I am sorry about that," he said softly. "We've... had problems with trusting vampires before."
"Angelus," she guessed, and he nodded, reaching for a thick, wide volume that read 'Vampyr' in large capital letters on the cover.
"Yes, Angel. When we first met him, we didn't even know he was a vampire. He warned us about things - the Harvest, the, ah, 'Fork Guy'--" He used the term with obvious disdain, which gave Clarissa the impression that it must have been initiated by one of the teens. "--and so forth. By the time Buffy learned his true nature, there were already some emotional, ah..."
He trailed off then, and Clarissa smiled a little as she leafed through the grimoire again. "Complications," she supplied.
"Yes, exactly. The attraction was mutual, and very tragic and romantic." Giles was looking at the pages, but his gaze was somewhere else. Clarissa suddenly had a very strong sense of how deep his devotion ran for Buffy. There was a great deal of paternal affection, hidden by the prickly British exterior, as well as respect and tolerance.
"And then the rest of the curse hit," she prompted.
"Er, yes." He glanced back up at her. "So now he has reverted to form, so to speak, and has spent his time finding some less than pleasant ways of torturing Buffy, as a sort of twisted revenge for the happiness they shared."
"Mm." Clarissa's mind was already sliding off in other directions, as she translated words of a language she hadn't spoken in eighty years. "Hey, here's something."
"What's that?"
"I think it has something to do with the original curse. I wonder..."
She read in silence, and the preoccupied look on her face suddenly jarred Giles' memory. Of course, he thought with a mental rap to the brain. She said she was of the Kalderash...
"Can I ask you something?" he said quietly. She glanced up at him, blinking.
"Shoot."
"Have you... had any contact at all with your clan? Since the... incident?"
Polite British manners, she thought with a smile. "Since I became a vampire? No, I'm afraid not. I knew they'd try to kill me if I got anywhere near them. Why?"
He glanced back at the book he'd been skimming. "I... there was a woman from the clan, she taught here, in computer science. She... was killed, by Angelus."
Despite the careful tones of his statement, Clarissa could read with ease the emotional undercurrent beneath the words. "I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't know her. I wish I could say that I did..."
"It's all right." The librarian's reserved mask slipped back into place easily. "I think I'll be happiest knowing we've sent Angelus to hell where he belongs."
Her voice, when she replied, was barely a whisper. "You and me both."
this page last updated on 18 january 2003