The karaoke bar
was relatively uncrowded for a Friday night. Angel sat stiffly at a round table
with Lorne beside him, clenching and unclenching his fingers as Darla, settled
on the tall stool behind the microphone, finished her song.
“Blow, ill
wind, blow away… Let me rest today… You’re blowing me no
good… No good… No good…”
The applause was
tremendous as Darla walked slowly off the stage, never taking her eyes from
Angel.
Lorne, who sat
next to him, put down his Sea Breeze and clapped for all he was worth.
“Someone get my heart, that girl’s ripped it right out.”
“Those
girls,” Angel
reiterated on Willow’s behalf.
Lorne rolled his
eyes. “Look, we both know that your cute little redhead has got mundo stage
fright. That was Darla singing, so my heart belongs to her.” His red eyes
followed the small blonde as she stepped down from the stage and began making
her way towards them. “Okay—and I know I’m probably going to
regret this—in fact, being prescient, I’m actually sure of it, but
there is one way… It’s a bit of a quest and it’ll probably
kill you.”
“I’ll
take it,” Angel said immediately.
“All
right, big fella, you asked for it,” Lorne said in his best
don’t-blame-me-for-the-consequences tone of voice. He produced a
waiter’s checkpad from a pocket on his outrageously patterned jacket and
wrote an address carefully. “You’re about to face Hell and high
water. Go to this address, out in back…”
“—What
is it?” Angel interrupted.
“It’s
where we find out if you’re really ready to take the plunge,” Lorne
said with a slightly ironic grin. “Babycakes!” He grinned up at
Darla’s body, which stood between the two of them. Willow peered out of
Darla’s eyes, looking terrified.
“I just
sang onstage,” she said.
“Darla
just sang onstage,” Angel corrected her.
“We just sang onstage,” Willow
retorted. “I was right up there, singing with her, and I would like some acknowledgment of
my bravery, if you please. A purple heart should do nicely.”
Angel turned to
Lorne. “You told me—!” Lorne just grinned at him.
“Go on,
give the girl a reward and then get out of here. You’ve got work to do,
if I recall.” With a wink that was more than a little lewd, Lorne pushed
back his chair and went to talk a group of orange slimy things out of singing
“My Heart Will Go On.”
“Reward?”
Willow said with a raised eyebrow. “And what work?” She glared
suspiciously at the piece of paper Angel held.
“As a
reward, you get this,” Angel said, kissing her firmly on the lips. Willow
sighed against his mouth and opened her own to let Angel’s tongue sweep
inside, but there was a very rude “Ahem!” from Lorne, who was
suddenly right next to them again.
“Enough
tonsil hockey, children,” he said sternly. “Angel…” He
patted the vampire tentatively on the shoulder. “…Good luck.
You’re going to need it.”
“I
don’t think this is right,” Darla said, confused.
“He said I
had to take the plunge,” Angel pointed out, though he didn’t sound
particularly enlightened either.
The three of them
looked doubtfully into the deep, decidedly empty swimming pool in front of
them.
“Into an empty
pool?” Willow
shrieked.
“Sure,”
Angel said casually, “’Cause if you had water in there you’d
get all wet and miss out on the skull-crushing.”
Both Darla and
Willow winced. “Maybe he meant another pool?” they said hopefully.
“He’s
testing me,” Angel explained, though he sounded quite unsure.
“It’s that whole leap-of-faith thing.” He paused, and headed
for the diving board.
‘Leap
of Faith’? Willow
asked Darla. The Leap of Faith is something you do at summer camp in a harness!
“Don’t
do it!” Darla yelled at Angel. “Angel… Some green-faced
horned lounge singer tells you to do something like this and you just do it?”
“Yes,”
Angel said seriously.
“Why?” Willow asked.
Angel turned to
meet her eyes but didn’t say a word.
Willow took a
deep breath. Ohmigod. I’m the ‘why’?
Yes, Darla said. He’s not doing this
for me at all.
Darla! Willow sounded hurt. You know I
didn’t mean it like that and of course
he is!
“I’m
either coming back with a cure,” Angel said, “Or you’re about
to see something kinda funny…”
It
won’t be funny,
Willow said, biting her lip, but she only said it to Darla, and Angel
couldn’t hear.
He hopped up
onto the diving board and took a deep breath. Then he started to run.
Willow and Darla
clutched each other tightly in their minds, but forced themselves to watch as
Angel dove off the diving board, fell into the air, and just before he hit the
concrete bottom of the pool, slid through it.
Goddess, Willow gasped. Ohmigod, I thought he
was going to die…
Darla just
concentrated on breathing.
Suddenly, Willow
whimpered. Darla, do you feel that?
It was a sort of tugging on her. Are we about to snap back to Sunnydale?
Please, not now…
I don’t
like this at all, Darla
said. She grimaced and tightened her hold on her roommate. At all.
And then
everything went black.
* * *
They arrived
with a jolt and a bit of pain in a dark hallway. Angel stood in front of them,
glaring at a valet who looked pretty much as though he couldn’t care
less.
“Why are they here?” Angel was demanding.
Willow shifted
awkwardly and reached out for Darla, but she wasn’t there. Dar—
She was in her
own body, alone, and Darla stood next to her. “What are you doing in
there?” Darla hissed indignantly.
“What are you doing in there?” Willow demanded.
“…
wish to save their lives?” the valet was asking Angel.
The vampire
clenched his fingers and said, “Yes.”
“They are your
collateral then. Should you complete all three trials, they will each be made
whole.”
“What
happens if I don’t complete
the trials?” Angel asked dangerously.
“They die
instantly,” the valet said goodnaturedly. He turned to Darla and Willow,
who stood shocked. “In the meantime, ladies, you can relax with an iced
beverage in our antechamber.”
“He’s
nuts,” Willow whispered.
“Completely
batty,” Darla replied.
“No—”
Angel began in protest, but the uncomfortable tugging happened again, and Darla
and Willow appeared soundlessly in what they could only assume was the
antechamber.
Darla and Willow
held hands so tightly they could almost feel the bones popping.
“I
can’t breathe,” Willow whispered.
“Join the
club,” Darla replied quietly. “I wish I knew what was going on…”
The valet
appeared pompously beside them and pulled out a pocketwatch. “Seventeen
seconds,” he commented cheerfully. “Already twice the time most
others have lasted!”
“Call this
off,” Willow said stonily. Her fingers flexed in Darla’s grip.
“Impossible,”
the valet said. “Once the tests have started, they cannot be
stopped.”
Darla and Willow
turned to glare at him. “We need to see what’s happening,”
they said together. He looked doubtful, so Darla gave him her best you-really-don’t-want-to-mess-with-me smile.
“Now.”
The valet
gulped, nervous despite the fact that there was really very little either of
the women could have done to him, and then shrugged and held his hand up.
“If you insist.”
The two young
women took a step back. The valet held up his other hand so that one rested
just before Willow’s forehead, the other before Darla’s. “But
remember: you did
ask.”
Then his hands
moved forward, and Darla and Willow could see.
“Oh
no,” Darla said, and Willow’s hand tightened in hers. “Oh
no.”
Willow’s
head snapped to the side as Angel’s did when he was punched.
“Angel!”
Both girls fell,
their hands still clasped, as Angel’s opponent stabbed the dark vampire
in the leg with a hook. Willow and Darla stayed down, rather than try to stand
again and fall.
The valet
watched almost sympathetically as they wound their arms around each other in a
sad heap on the floor.
Finally, when
all they could say was “Angel!” and all they could see was his
bruised features and all they could feel was his pain, it stopped.
“Is it
over?” Darla whispered. She had Willow clutched so closely she could feel
the other woman’s heart beating against hers.
“No,”
Willow replied hoarsely. She cleared her throat and closed her eyes again, but
she couldn’t stop seeing. “The demon’s not dead.”
Darla growled
low in her throat. “My boy will find a way out of it. Kill it, Angel!”
And as if he
heard her, he did.
The valet chuckled
as he considered his pocketwatch again. Willow scowled at him. “This how
a little guy like you gets his rocks off?”
“I have no
feelings about this contest one way or another, Miss.” His even gazed
darted back and forth between the two of them interestedly. “Do
you?”
Angel walked
through the gate and stood in the hallway beyond it. Darla hissed and her
features twisted as if she was trying to put on her own game face, for the
corridor was covered in crosses.
The floor, the
ceiling, and the walls were all laden with crosses: wooden ones, metal ones,
ones that were laid flat, ones that stuck out. Angel winced and squinted his
eyes, trying to see past the blinding crucifixes to the end of the corridor.
“Why not
just kill him if you
want him dead?” Darla moaned.
The valet took a
contemplative bite of a cookie. He chewed and swallowed, and frowned lightly at
the two girls who were standing again, leaning on each other for support.
“We don’t ‘want’ anything, Miss. In this place, the
journey is all; where it may lead is not our concern.”
Angel took a
deep breath and ran.
Darla steeled
herself for the pain; she knew what crosses felt like. Too late, she remembered
that Willow did not, and she dug her fingernails into the other woman’s
arm. “Willow—!”
Willow screamed.
As if he could
hear her, Angel paused, tripped and fell.
“No!”
Willow hissed. “Angel, get up, get up please…”
He pushed his
hands beneath him, gritting his teeth as they started to smoke, and shoved
himself to his feet. Then he began to run again.
“Oh,
no,” Willow said. “This is like Alice In Wonderland—the door,
it’ll be locked, the key, he left the key, it’s in the little
receptacle, he’ll have to go back—”
The valet looked
pleased. “Most observant!”
And she was right.
Angel reached the door and fell against its blessedly cool surface but could
not open it.
“The
basin, Angel, the basin,” Willow murmured.
Angel stood and
looked back down the hall, and as realization dawned, his features grew haggard
and resigned. “Oh, Angel, I’m so sorry,” Willow whispered.
Angel took a
deep breath and ran.
The receptacle
was thankfully only half the first distance again, and Willow bit her lip to
keep herself from crying out. Angel paused when he stared down into the water
in the small basin, and Darla’s eyes widened. “Holy water,” she gasped, and Angel shoved his
hand in to grab the key at the bottom.
Neither Willow
nor Darla could say anything as Angel grabbed again and again at the slippery
key. “He’s quite
remarkable,” the valet said, sounding surprised.
“Yes,”
Darla said quietly.
“He
is,” Willow agreed.
Angel finally
had the key. His arm was a violent red, and smoking from the burns of the holy
water. Grimacing, he ran back across the crucifixes in the floor, collapsed against
the door and shoved the key into the lock, falling into the next room when the
catch clicked open.
“Sorry,
must go,” the valet said, not sounding sorry at all, and he winked out of
Darla’s and Willow’s presence, but didn’t leave their sight.
As chains bound
Angel’s arms and stretched him completely defenseless, the valet strolled
out of the darkness of the last chamber, giving his approval of Angel’s
trials with fond applause. “You’ve fielded our strokes from end to
end! My hat’s off to you, sir. Of course, there is the one final
challenge…”
Darla’s
and Willow’s eyes snapped open as stakes popped to the ready from the
holes in the walls opposite Angel.
“What is
this?” Angel demanded, his eyes feral.
The valet looked
bemused at the question. “I think you know, sir,” he replied.
Angel’s
gaze moved evenly from the valet to the deadly wall facing him.
“Stakes,” he stated.
The valet
nodded. “And many of them,” he embellished.
“You call this a test?” Angel growled, pausing halfway
through the sentence to spit a gob of blood to the side. Willow winced.
“The only way it could work is, you kill me.”
“Exactly,”
the valet said. “You do understand? This third test has no…
‘catch’, as you put it. Death is the final challenge. We can’t
restore one life without taking another… you see?”
“Oh,
no,” Willow whimpered. “Angel—”
“In order
for Willow to live, you must die,” the valet explained matter-of-factly.
Darla grimaced
at the slight, but adjusted her grip on Willow’s arm. They listened
tensely as the valet indulged Angel in some final banter. “Don’t do
this,” she murmured. “Angel…”
“He’s
asking his permission?” Willow hissed, incredulous.
“Say no, Angel,” Darla moaned.
“Please, please say no…”
“Do
it,” Angel said, and the stakes flew.
“What are
you saying?” Angel demanded, his eyes flashing.
The valet stood
with a hand on the forehead of each of the women, his face twisted with
surprise. “I can’t help you,” he said. He actually sounded a
little apologetic.
“We had a
bargain,” Angel said, struggling to keep his voice even. “They need
a second soul.”
“I’m
afraid it’s this one’s fault,” the valet said, indicating
Willow.
“Me?” she squeaked.
“She
hasn’t done anything wrong,” Darla growled, stepping in front of
the taller woman to defend her.
“You’ve
restored a soul before, have you not?” the valet asked Willow.
“Y-yes,”
she said hesitantly. “But—but it was his already! I was just giving
it back, not inventing a whole new one!”
“I say,
the Powers That Be don’t like you much,” the valet said,
“With all your mucking about with souls. You’ve overstepped your
boundaries, I think; they’re most determined not to let that happen
again.” He turned to Angel. “But you played the game magnificently.”
* * *
“I
don’t know what to do,” Angel confessed.
Willow’s
body had been sent back by the valet to wherever in Sunnydale it had been
before; Willow and Darla fit back into Darla’s body without much fuss.
“You could turn me,” Darla pointed out.
“You
wouldn’t have a soul,” he said.
“That’s
the point,” she countered. There was a long pause as she shifted on the
lumpy bed in her motel room, and then Darla said, “Angel, I see it now.
Everything you’re going through, every thing you’ve gone through,
I’ve felt it.
I’ve felt how you care about her, in a way no one’s ever cared
before. Not for either of us. That’s all we need from you.”
Angel sighed.
“It’s not enough…”
“It
is,” Willow sighed.
“How could
the Powers That Be allow you to be bright back—dangle a second
chance—and hurt you and Darla like this?”
“Maybe
this is Darla’s
second chance,” Willow mused. She put Darla’s small hand on top of
Angel’s where it rested on the bedspread.
“To die?” Angel demanded. “And what
about you?”
“Yes, to
die,” Willow said. “The way she was supposed to die in the first
place.” She didn’t answer his second question.
Angel looked up
from where he’d been staring at their now-entwined hands and met her
eyes. “I’m not going to leave you,” he told Willow.
“Every moment you have left, I’ll be by your side.”
A tear slid down
her cheek and Angel held out his arms. Darla and Willow leaned against his
chest and let him stroke Darla’s back. “Sorry I’m making your
shirt all teary,” Willow said softly.
Angel smiled
slightly and ran his fingers through Darla’s hair, letting himself
pretend it was red instead of blonde.
The brief
silence was shattered by the door being kicked in. In no time at all, two huge
bodyguards knocked the still-weak Angel to his knees and pulled Darla’s
struggling body away. “Willow!”
Lindsey slowly
entered the room and crouched before Angel, pulling him up by his hair to make
his nemesis meet his eyes. “How did you think this would end?” he
demanded, and gestured behind him.
Drusilla floated
in, her eyes fixed on Darla’s. Darla and Willow together forced all of
their hate into the one stare, but then Darla whispered, Willow, this is
what we’ve been waiting for.
Drusilla? Willow
said, shocked. Oh, Darla…
She’s
over one hundred years old,
Darla said. She’s brilliant, even if she is insane, and she’s
batty enough that she’ll be a useful sire but not tie me down. Please, Willow. Don’t fight it.
And when I die, run home. The last thing we need is a catatonic Willow and another vampire with a soul.
Darla, Willow said quietly. I
wouldn’t have minded going insane. Much. Because it was you.
Shut up, you
silly youngling, Darla
retorted. You would so. But the sentiment is nice, she added.
Drusilla bent
and stroked Darla’s hair away from her neck.
It was nice
knowing you, Darla,
Willow said softly.
When I die, Darla repeated, Run.
And then it was
over.
