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Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part III

It was no poisoned apple that brought an end to her idyllic dreams, but a cursed happiness. Not a stroke of midnight marking the return of an enchanted coach to pumpkin status, but an hour of passion that freed a monster to walk smiling in the guise of a man. No enchanted spindle to prick her into endless sleep, but a gray dawn where she woke into nightmare.

Fine, because she was no fairy-tale princess. Their job was to look pretty, and get rescued, and snag a prince for themselves. Basically, to be ornamental and useless.

She was something else entirely. Others like her had swayed the fate of nations, brought scheming courtiers and over-ambitious prime ministers and rival kings to ruin.

And, sometimes, turncoat lovers as well.

*               *               *

Waiting time.

Cordelia didn’t like it, but she’d taught herself to be good at it. After delivering Buffy to within sneaking distance of the factory, she had driven quickly to a spot two blocks short of the mansion; then, on foot, she’d slid from one place of concealment to another until she had a spot where she could settle herself, wait, and plan. She kept her muscles relaxed, but her mind refused to stay still.

They might not be at the factory at all.

The mansion itself might be a false clue: mockingly empty once she broke in, or with a message waiting to direct her to the actual field of play.

They might spot Buffy before she made it inside, or catch her before she had a chance to locate Xander.

Either or both of the prisoners might be chained, or crippled … or even killed and turned. That would go against her conviction that Angel would keep them alive simply to torment her with her inability to save both, but otherwise it perfectly matched his sadistic sense of artistry.

Anything could go wrong.

Everything could go wrong.

She waited.

Would Angel be here, or at the other location? He hadn’t specified … but this was the place he’d told her about, as if daring her to come ahead. He lied as easily as breathing — more so, he had to remind himself to breathe — but he also had that demon’s pride. This was his game, she was supposed to be one of the puppets he was moving around … He’d be here. She was sure of it.

And she’d know for certain once Buffy called.

If she ever called.

Claymore in a back-slung sheath. Stakes tucked up either sleeve, two more in narrow thigh-pockets. Holy-water bottle at each hip. Backpack, front clasp rigged so she could drop the whole thing with one tug and toss it to Xander while she proceeded to dispense death to everyone else in reach.

If Buffy would just call.

Call, call, call.

The cell phone vibrated in her hand. She flipped it open, confirmed Buffy’s message, and then — just in case the other girl hadn’t had time — relayed her own message to the people who should be gathered by now in the library: location, situation, grab your gear and move! She forced herself to watch the display until she had confirmation that the text message had been sent. That done, she tucked the phone away, gathered herself, and leaped.

Showtime.

She hadn’t known how long she would have to hold her position before Buffy called, so she had chosen her spot with care: approached with the sun at her back (any minions keeping watch in that direction wouldn’t be able to stand more than quick peeks) and then gone up a tree beside the house, stopping at a level twenty feet from a second-floor window. By keeping the trunk of the tree between her and the house — and the sun still behind her — she had seriously trimmed the odds of her being spotted … and by making an entrance above ground-level, she should have at least a few seconds to get a sense of the interior layout before having to deal with any welcoming parties.

So, a shift to the house-side of the tree, and a brace-and-push with Slayer-muscled legs propelled her easily across the intervening gap and through the window. She led with her knees and elbows, letting the padded cloth take the cuts as she smashed through (her new healing could handle almost anything, but this face deserved to be treated with respect). Momentary tangle in the curtains but she’d known that might happen, she rolled free — no fun while wearing a backpack and slung sword — and to her feet, already looking for opposition.

None, so move fast, this wasn’t a stealth mission! Through the door and straight down the hall, still nobody and a high-arcing jump carried her over the railing at the interior balcony, allowing her to drop straight down to the first floor. She cleared the claymore in mid-air, and landed slashing.

They had thought they were ready; vampires were big on confidence, all part of the whole I-am-a-superior-being-and-you-are-but-fodder-to-me ’tude. They weren’t ready, not for her, and none of them lasted long enough to realize it. She read them with a split-second glance as she alit among them — muscle boys, no flair or cunning — and took them out in a lightning sequence that cost her less than a second per adversary.

(The other Slay Friends — back when she’d been one, before ascending to premier status — had criticized her for stereotyping people. Well, guess what? Stereotypes fit most of the time, and they worked even better for a Slayer. Scope your enemies, slot them to type, handle each according to his/ her basic nature … she’d been doing exactly that in the halls of SHS for years, and the only real difference now was that she could neutralize the opposition faster and more emphatically.)

There had been three of them — Crew-cut, Tattoo-guy, Hook-nose — and they had come at her with fatal, automatic aggression, as if she were their prey instead of they hers. She walked through their dust, sword up, searching for more.

There were others. They fared no better. She boiled through the rooms, taking the vampires one and two at a time; she’d caught them off-balance by appearing inside the house, and she was moving too quickly to allow them time to recover. Besides, she realized, these were outliers, sentries rather than a fighting line. Fair enough, anybody who had time to get out a warning yell was welcome to do it. If they had the time, which she didn’t intend to let happen. She forged on, killing and hunting. There had to be more: this was a set-up, she’d gone in knowing as much, so where was the kicker, the big surprise waiting to be sprung —?

Then she found it.

This wasn’t just a big house, it was a mansion. High walls (she’d gone over one to get to the tree), garden and courtyard, kitchen and pantry and dining room and servants’ quarters (empty) and study and library … and, she discovered, a central room big enough for formal dances and probably designed expressly for such a purpose. Big enough also for the tableau Angel had set.

The man she loved had shunned the spotlight, keeping to the shadows. By contrast, the demon wearing his face had a bent for showmanship, indulged it whenever he could, and created opportunities if none were there to begin with. What he didn’t have was the least hint of style, as evidenced by the cheesy scenario laid out in front of her. Rows of vampires (an even dozen, she noted automatically), arrayed like an honor guard, lined up to form an avenue to the center of the room. Angel waited for her there, posed dramatically — the center of attention, exactly where he always wanted to be — with torches flaring ominously on either side of him and …

… and Willow.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. It was supposed to be Xander here, Willow at the factory. Why hadn’t Buffy told her, instead of just shooting her the “GO” message? Willow had been Buffy’s main training partner after Cordelia became the Slayer; not quite as good — blue-belt level, maybe — but they worked well together, the kind of teamwork Cordelia and Angel had once shared. Buffy and Willow could have held their own, with surprise on their side and reinforcements on the way. Buffy and Xander … and Angel, here, meant it would be Spike and Drusilla at the factory … oh, God. Ohgodohgodohgod —

Focus, Slayer! Reinforcements, remember the reinforcements. Besides, she had more than enough to occupy her in the here-and-now.

Angel gripped both of Willow’s wrists easily in one hand, and he smirked at Cordelia, preening in triumph. “Surprised, princess? I always knew you had a soft spot for the boy, so I thought I’d toss in a little bait-and-switch to shake things up. And I was right, you couldn’t resist coming here, trying to beat the deadline … only, whoops! no boy-toy.” His expression turned mock-regretful. “I’ll bet you’re just feeling all kinds of stupid right now. But then, with your track record, you should be getting used to it.”

Oh, sure, this was where he gloated while she, stung, tried to hit back with insults. Up yours, poster boy, that’s not how we’re playing it! As he opened his mouth for another needling jab, she hurled all four of her stakes in instant succession. Three found their target; Angel dodged the first, diving away, but she’d expected that, the whole idea was to get him away from Willow, two of the minions shrieked and turned to dust and the last stake caromed from the ceiling to land right next to Willow.

Though she lacked supernatural speed, Willow was no novice at combat, she had already grabbed one of the torches and cleared a space around her with a wide swing (great stage-setting, Mousse Boy! plant an enemy next to one of the things that can kill you!), and now snatched up the stake as well. Instead of having to go straight to the girl’s rescue, Cordelia charged the ranks of minions, only just beginning to react, and shouted to Willow, “Fire the room!”

She killed four in as many seconds, chopping and slashing, then the claymore passed through the fourth one — ashes, ashes, all fall down — and lodged in the carved wood of a massive armchair, no time to pull it free so she promptly abandoned it, attacking with feet and fists, and now was the time to get to Willow.

Angel was an accomplished fighter one-on-one, but a crappy leader, Cordelia could tell from the confusion of the minions that he hadn’t given them any contingency instructions, and now they had no idea what to do. The greatest danger had been that he would go for Willow before Cordelia could reach her … but no, he had chosen to stand back and watch, no doubt thinking he’d let his flunkies wear her down before he deigned to join the fight. The ones who hadn’t jumped to meet the Slayer were ringing Willow now; Cordelia flung the contents of one holy water bottle at them, somersaulted over them as they screeched and sizzled, and — damn, the girl was good! — Willow slapped the fourth stake into her hand as she landed, and then automatically went back-to-back with her.

Still seven left, Cordelia traded blows with a female vampire sporting hair the color of raspberry Kool-Aid before getting a clear shot with the stake. Kool-Aid went poof!, Cordelia hit the clasp that dropped the backpack, snapped, “More weapons there!” to Willow, then leaped to the attack. The ring around them had come apart, none of them were pressing Willow at the moment, and Cordelia went straight for them.

She had seen Buffy fight a number of times before her ‘death’, and it was a wonder to her that the girl had survived so long on the Hellmouth. Fast, strong, tough, intuitive — sure, Buffy was all that, and a bag of chips — but she had never seemed to grasp the essential element of fighting monsters, which was to quit fooling around trading quips and punches like they had equal weight, and kill the damn things, already! Well, Cordelia didn’t need any lessons in cutting to the quick, and with Willow doing such a bang-up job of staying alive, it was time to pull out all the stops.

Vampires were predators, gravitating naturally to the human feeding ground, so they weren’t used to dealing with anything more powerful than themselves. Their nature demanded that they attack, while their experience hadn’t prepared them for an enemy who could simply shake off an attack, and Cordelia had months ago discovered, quite by accident, a tactic that caught them by surprise nine times out of ten:

She stopped defending. Ponytail fired a punch at her face, and rather than block or dodge, she just reached under the punch to stake him, taking the hit in order to get the kill. Rambo leaped to take advantage as she staggered, and she moved into the spinning kick he launched at her, spearing him with a lunging extension even as his booted foot smacked her head to the side. She went to her knees, and two more darted in, slamming kicks into her ribs and face and dying above her —

Just like that, it was down to Angel and two others. The room was burning in half a dozen places, Willow taking every opportunity to follow Cordelia’s first shouted instructions, and another of the minions shrieked as his clothes caught fire, jumped and flailed and then dissolved into the flame, easily as a magician’s flash paper … and Angel was running. Running. His strategy had backfired, his army disintegrating while he held himself clear, awaiting his chance, and now — the odds flatlined at two-to-two — he’d lost his taste for combat.

Smart move, but it wouldn’t save him. He’d brought the fight to her one time too many, put himself where she could finally reach him, and now he would pay the price for that blunder. “I’m going after him!” she shouted to Willow, and darted in pursuit. “I’m good!” she heard in reply, and then the burning room was behind her and she was running full-out.

She had just left Willow alone there with an enraged vampire. Horrible risk, but — bottom line — not as big a risk as letting Angel leave here alive (well, undusted). The girl could handle herself; she had the torch, she had the other weapons, she’d played it like a pro from the first moment —

Forget all that. Focus on the target. Right choice or not, Cordelia was committed now.

Angel held his lead at first, knowing the layout of the mansion and not wasting time by looking back or trying to knock obstacles into her path; he just put his head down and charged ahead, and it was all Cordelia could do to keep up. It wouldn’t last, though, geography was against him, he couldn’t spare the time to open any doors so he just smashed through them, and lost a fraction of a second every time he did so.

At last he hit the end of a hall, and there was no way he could break down that door before she caught up to him. He swung to face her, trapped but not yet desperate. His lips curved into a mocking smile, and Cordelia felt hate and rage surge up inside her.

This was the worst of it, this was what filled her with such fury that — after the first disastrous attempt — he had never dared to confront her without a full crew backing him up: his face. He was so different, his demonic transformation spinning her into a U-ie on the Interstate of her life … but he still looked the same.

He would pay for wearing that face, for desecrating her memories …

*               *               *

Spring Fling. They’d made no formal agreement, but Cordelia had privately decided she’d go with Xander if nothing had changed in their situation by the time the dance came around. That plan had gone out the window with the voluntary separation following Marcie’s surrender, and Cordelia found herself in a quandary. Some events she could attend without an escort, setting herself above it all and holding court with the Cordettes instead, but the Spring Fling ranked up there with Homecoming and the Prom: only losers went stag. It had been one thing to plan how to dress Xander up and arrive on his arm (part of her had relished the challenge of dealing with the fallout from that), but another matter entirely to think of going it alone or — worse yet — skipping the whole thing.

She could have found a substitute easily enough, but felt no enthusiasm for any of the available candidates; like it or not, dealing with life-and-death issues — even seeing what social snobbery had done to poor Marcie — had changed her tastes. She still ruled, but she was an enlightened monarch now. She couldn’t stand the as-yet-unattached males who had the necessary status, and there was no way she’d show up with a nobody, she had a reputation to maintain …

Hmm.

Maybe an older guy. That could work.

The next evening that Angel appeared at her window, ready to settle in for conversation, Cordelia invited him inside for the first time. He entered, wary and uncomfortable and trying not to show it, and she ordered him brusquely, “Raise your arms.”

He stared at her, nonplussed. “What —?”

“I said lift ’em, Lugosi!” He complied, and she stretched a measuring tape across his chest. “Right, now arms down. Good, good. Okay, hold your feet apart, this whole thing could go sour with a bad inseam —”

“What are you doing?” he protested.

“Measuring you for a tux. You’re taking me to the Spring Fling.”

He blinked. “I am?”

“Yep,” she said, nodding. “Consider it your introduction to the twentieth-century social scene.”

“I was here when the century began,” he pointed out. “And the one before that.”

She pfft!ed. “And what part of me looks like I care? Don’t try and fight it. You need some culture, and I need some top-quality himbo arm candy. It’s a done deal already.”

He shook his head as if trying to clear it. “Arm … candy?”

So, of course, it was all set.

And, of course, Prophecy Girl had to spoil it for everybody. Some lame prediction that she’d face the Master, and die, leaving him free to open the Hellmouth … please, melodrama much? Nobody had told Angel about the prophecy — they still didn’t fully trust him, even though he had given them the Kotex (gross) to translate — so the first they knew about it was when Miss Calendar phoned her and Willow to tell them that Buffy had knocked Xander out, handcuffed Giles to the railing of the library stairs, and marched out to get herself killed.

So Cordelia went to find Angel, and he set out to try and save Buffy, and she went with him. Down through the sewers. In a $600 dress.

Something happened down there, something that no prophecy seemed to have covered. They found the Slayer in an underground pool, drowned and still … and Cordelia, furious at ruining her finery to no purpose, straddled the girl and started CPR, working from the memory of a single class in PhysEd and a lifetime of medical shows on television. Forced air into her lungs, pumped blood through the slack heart, made her breathe, made her live. When Buffy choked and coughed and vomited water, Cordelia felt triumph roar through her, sizzling like electricity —

Okay, more than just triumph. Something else had moved between them, though neither realized at first quite what it was. Cordelia knew only that she felt tingly … and strong. Strong enough that she and Angel, carrying Buffy together, came up out of the catacombs at twice the speed they’d traveled going in. They took Buffy to the hospital, alive but dreadfully weak, and it wasn’t until they had left her there that Angel broke the news to Cordelia.

She wasn’t buying it. “Are you totally demented? This is me here.”

“Exactly,” Angel said. “I know you, better than I’ve known any other living human. There’s more to you now … and less to her. The prophecy was right: the Slayer died. And now the Slayer is you.”

She shook her head, searching for words of denial, and he fired a punch directly at her face. It was too fast for the human eye to follow unaided … but she struck it aside, yelping with surprise, and caught him with a backhand strike that landed him ten feet away.

He pulled himself to his feet as she gaped at him. “See?” he said.

She let it soak in, and he waited. “Okay,” she said at last. “So … I guess that means we have a big creepy to kill.”

Angel nodded. “Works for me.”

They found the Master on the roof of the school library. Hell was breaking out — literally — below the skylight, and screams could be heard elsewhere on the campus, but he was the source of it. Cordelia approached him alone, her new body carrying her with an assurance far from what she actually felt. He turned to face her, as if he had felt her presence, and that fruit-bat face showed amusement rather than surprise.

“Hmm, another Slayer. So soon. How did that happen, I wonder?” He gave her an eek-some grin. “Oh, that’s right. I killed the other one.” He rolled his spidery fingers as he spoke, hard-nailed tips tapping against each other.

“She was just the warm-up act,” Cordelia told him grimly. “This is the main event.”

He didn’t seem to move at all, yet abruptly he was beside her, and only a diving roll straight out of one of her spirit routines (albeit Slayer-propelled) kept those taloned nails from taking out her throat. “Whoa!” she gasped. “How did you do that?”

“I’ve watched empires age and die, child.” He regarded her with lofty smugness. “My progeny have fought the champions of every nation for six centuries past, and sometimes brought them back for me to play with. Do you believe a —” The already-twisted lips curled contemptuously. “—‘valley girl’ could pose much of a challenge?”

This time she was gone before he reached her, and she smiled at the brief widening of his eyes as he turned to where she now stood. “Thought so,” she told him, smirking. “Some kind of hypno-thing, right? You caught me out once, but what kind of loser would fall for that a second time?”

“Only those of markedly weak intellect,” he retorted. “Slayers, for instance. As I recall, the last one died of it.”

She broadened her smile. “Are you sure about that? What if …” She let her eyes cut toward a point over his shoulder, then pulled them back. “What if she’s right behind you?”

He laughed disdainfully. “Please. Do I look like I died yest–”

The crowbar rebounded from his skull with the wet sound of an axe striking a rotted stump, and Cordelia was in the air at the same instant, crossing the rooftop in a flying leap to drive a kick into his chest. He was catapulted backward through the skylight, and only a hand yanking at the collar of her borrowed jacket kept her from following him down. He landed on a spur of wood upthrust from a broken table; skin and flesh boiled away from him, spraying in all directions like a swarm of wasps, until only the naked bones remained.

Angel took hold of her arm, letting the crowbar fall, and steadied her at the edge of the shattered skylight. Together they watched the Hellmouth recede back into the library floor. “I didn’t like doing it that way,” he said to her.

“You’re sneakier than I am,” Cordelia pointed out. “I’m new to all this, you’ve got a couple of centuries’ skulking practice on me.” The smile she gave him brimmed with predatory satisfaction. “And, like I expected, he didn’t take me seriously. You, he might not have underestimated.”

He pretended to sulk. “So what was all that ‘look behind you’ business? You almost gave me away.”

“Not a chance.” She laughed. “He was way too smart to let me trick him into looking back. Six hundred years old or not, men are all the same when it comes to ego.”

Angel tilted his head to look down at her, a faint smile flitting across his face. “You’re used to having your way, aren’t you?”

“I decide what I want, and I go after it.” She raised her eyes to his. “And I don’t let anything stop me. Anything.”

Warning, and promise. They were alike now, part of the same mystical order. Nothing stood between them, not any longer, and she had no intention of letting him get away …
 

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