All Ye Who Enter

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

Part II

“I’ve met some remarkably stupid women over the years,” he observed conversationally. He was lounging back on the couch, feet on the coffee table, eyes lifted to the ceiling, not bothering to watch her. Theoretically she could have made a break for the door, but both of them knew that wasn’t about to happen. (Not now, not yet, but soon, soon …) “Killed most of them,” he went on airily, “starting with my sister. Would you believe it? after she’d been to my funeral, and with half the neighbors already sucked dry by the marauding demon that appeared after I climbed out of my grave, that adorable little idiot invited me in voluntarily.” He chuckled in fond memory. “I’ll always have a soft place in my heart for her.”

Joyce forced herself to concentrate through the ache in her head, the throbbing in wrist and shoulder, the knifelike pain of cracked ribs. “She sounds nice,” she said, her mouth dry.

“Oh, she was delicious.” He smirked at her. “But you’ll not be changing the subject here. Now, my sister pretty much tops the list. Then we have Dru, she was absolutely the perfect blend of dumb and devout and poorly educated, I really made a project of her. And Léonie was priceless, convinced she was setting me up for the guillotine and never considering that there might be worse things than aristocrats; that’s right, by then I could pass for an aristocrat, Darla loved to graze the upper crust.”

Insane, Joyce thought. Paranoid schizophrenia, psychotic delusions. “My invitation wasn’t exactly voluntary,” she pointed out. “You twisted my arm. Literally.”

“It’s still attached to you, so you shouldn’t complain.” A shouted threat would have been less frightening than the amused satisfaction in his tone. “And I think you should be quiet for awhile, I’m trying to go somewhere with this and I can’t lay it out properly if you keep interrupting. Let’s see, now, I was about to come to Buffy. You’ll probably be surprised to hear that I don’t really count her as stupid. She has this big, beautiful, wonderful blind spot, and I’m gonna have a lot of fun with it, but she’s actually fairly bright. So the question is —” He sat up to look straight at her, eyebrows raised sardonically. “— how on earth did she come out of a brainless cow like you?”

“Seventeen hours’ labor,” she replied evenly. “You should try it.” Bastard.

It didn’t ruffle him in the slightest; if anything, his smile broadened. “You still don’t have the vaguest idea of what’s going on. That’s the wonder of it, that’s why I came here. I could have taken you any time, but I wanted the pleasure of a long conversation with you, to see if I could make some sense out of whatever passes for thought in that empty head of yours.”

“You’re right about one thing,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean.” He hadn’t specifically forbidden it, so she began to climb to her feet from where he had thrown her against the wall, moving slowly, testing her fitness and making it appear that she could barely force herself upright. He was monstrously strong, but if he believed her to be weaker than she truly was, he might get careless …

“Don’t worry, I’ll clear it up for you soon enough.” He stood with a catlike fluidity that mocked her (exaggerated) difficulty. “Feeling a little stiff there, Joyce? You were being naughty, and don’t think I didn’t appreciate it.”

In heaven’s name, how could she be terrified and bored at the same moment? She had never met anyone more in love with the sound of his own voice, and not even the sharp awareness of her peril could still her tongue. “If you liked that, you’d love what I’d do if I could get my hands on a gun.”

He laughed and took her by the arm, ignoring the little involuntary jerk of alarm. “No, you actually had a better idea with the pepper spray. Not a chance of using it, but it was still a better idea.” He steered her to an armchair, placing her into it firmly but with paradoxical gentleness. “That’s why I was so rough with you … well, that, and it was just so darn much fun. Bullets hurt more, but the spray would have lasted a lot longer. It was a gutsy move, and I’m going to make you really sorry for it.”

“You’ll enjoy that, I’m sure.” She kept her voice defiant. “Your type always does.”

“Preying on the weak, you mean?” He sat across from her, studying her with that thin smile. “Be fair, Joyce, that’s just how it works in nature. And do you have any idea how far I’d have to go to find someone stronger than me?” He gave her a sly look. “Of course you don’t. Even though you live with her.”

That was so meaningless it didn’t bother her. “If you’re looking for Buffy, you picked the wrong night, she’s staying over with a friend.” She knew as she said it that she might be sealing her fate, but she didn’t want him here when her daughter returned.

He shrugged it away. “Not a problem. I told you, I wanted you and me to have some quality time. And it’s not just curiosity; an artist has to know his subject. I was proud of the scene I set for Giles — one of my best works, really — but do you think I could have done it if I hadn’t known what was between him and that gypsy woman?”

What did he …? Giles, the librarian? Was this supposed to mean that Angel had been involved in that awful tragedy? Before she could collect her thoughts, he leaned forward and said, “Now, if you were Willow’s mother, I know exactly what I’d do. Jews really get shook up by that kind of thing, and it’s just been ages since I crucified anybody. In the family room would be best, and the little framing touches … well, I’d improvise with the materials at hand. I’m good at that.”

So, he was going to kill her. Part of her had known it as soon as he revealed his face. It numbed rather than paralyzed her, and in a strange way it simplified things. She had nothing to lose now. “We’re not exactly a religious household,” she heard herself say. True, Buffy had taken to wearing a necklace with a pendant cross, but that seemed more like a fashion choice than anything else …

“Right,” he said, nodding. “You see my situation. I want to make a statement here, so this has to be classic. And it’s not like I’ll get another shot at it. I mean, she only has one mother, so I have to make you count. What do you think? Can we work together on this?”

She made herself look into those empty eyes, and said, “I think that very soon you’re going to be in a very small room, with very large men holding you down for your next gallon of thorazine.”

He assumed a wounded expression and asked, “Does that mean I don’t get to call you Mom?” Then he slapped her playfully on the shoulder — the injured one, smiling as she winced — and said, “You know what our problem is? We haven’t really bonded yet. Boiling oil is sort of traditional for this kind of thing, you wouldn’t happen to have a Fry Daddy in there …?” He glanced toward the kitchen.

It was only for a fraction of a second, but she was already moving. She’d been watching for such an opportunity, she couldn’t hope to match him for strength so to hell with strength, as he turned back to her she drove her extended thumb into his eye, twisting and gouging with the nail. He fell backward with a bellow, and she felt a thrill of unholy joy at hearing pain as well as rage in that cry. He was inhumanly quick, though, coming to his feet even as she did, and she snatched the nearest object from the side table and smashed it against his face. It was a hinged pair of stained-glass panels in thin metal frames, a stylized cross on one side and praying hands on the other, no weight or solidity and it should have done no more than distract him for an instant, if that, but he dropped as if struck with a twenty-pound sledge. Now was the time to run, that was the whole point of this, but instead she reached for another weapon, a heavy ornamental hurricane lamp in cut glass, and heaved it above her head in both hands. Terror-fueled fury transcended her battered joints and muscles, he’d laugh a different tune once she bashed in his fucking SKULL —!!!

The lamp exploded above her, showering her with fragments of glass, her hair and the light sweater drenched in scented oil. It was so unexpected and incomprehensible that she simply stood where she was, open-mouthed; and then Angel had hurled her the length of the room, and she hit the couch with a force that slammed the air from her lungs. She rolled onto her back, tasting blood where she had bitten the end of her tongue, struggling to breathe, to think, to understand. He wrenched her up into a sitting position and, his face inches from hers, said, “Move from there again and I’ll gut you.”

He was done playing with her; the lofty amusement was gone, and he spoke with a soft savagery that was barely short of murder. He must have heard it, too, the near-loss of control, for he stepped back and stood glowering down at her. She turned her gaze to where she had been, bewilderment for the moment greater than fear. How had he —?

Oh. He hadn’t. She had been standing just in front of the triple-wide doorframe where the living room gave way to the entrance hall, and in the space above it she had recently hung decorative ironwork, turn-of-the-century farm tools and household implements. The lamp must have shattered against one of them. She looked away, sick with self-contempt. Stupid, incompetent, useless …

“I’ve gotta tell you, Joyce, I’m impressed.” His voice held the faintest ghost of his earlier good humor, but he didn’t even pretend to smile. “Slayer doesn’t fall far from the tree, does she? You landed two good ones, almost three, and I wish I had a week or so to show you just how much that means to me.” He began to pace, anger still curling about him like tendrils of black fog. “Thing is, I’m not enjoying myself any more. You’ve taken a special moment and turned it into a chore. So I think I’ll just get to the point.”

He sat suddenly on the other end of the couch, which put him between her and the door. (Had she shaken his confidence? If so, it was a tiny victory, and one that would cost her.) Without preamble he said, “I’m a vampire. Buffy’s a Slayer. It’s her destiny to kill things like me, and it’s going to be my pleasure to kill her.” He looked her over with thin-lipped impatience. “I know, you don’t believe me. That’s what I could never understand about you. You’re living with humanity’s champion against the forces of nasty badness, and you won’t see it. Well, I can’t stand to kill you without yanking you out of your dream world first, but I’m not in the mood to talk you through it. Look at me.”

She did.

He changed.

It wasn’t a trick, she knew it wasn’t, he was only a few feet away, this was real. His brow ridges swelled and thickened, his teeth elongated, his eyes … his eyes …

Strangely, he wasn’t ugly. Though no one would mistake that for a human face, it was actually imposing in a leonine way. But those eyes were windows into Hell.

“This is what I am,” he said, his voice unchanged but the words coming out differently from the altered mouth. “This is what your daughter’s been snuggling against for the past year. Like it? She did, she couldn’t get enough of me. The two of us, out every night together, battling the undead and kissing under the stars …” He snarled at the thought. “I owe her a lot, and you’re going to be the next installment in my extended payback plan.”

“She … Buffy …” Joyce shook her head, trying to clear it, the shocks were coming too fast to process. “It’s not possible. How could she fight creatures like you?”

“She is a creature like me. We’re both part of the same big cosmic balance, only I get to do all the fun stuff: you know, death, torture, terrorizing the countryside. She gets all of the grunt work and none of the glory, and she’ll die young, I’ll see to that.” He leaned toward her, fixing her with those demon’s eyes. “She’s the Slayer, you dumb bitch. She’s every vampire’s nightmare … well, every one but me. She’s stronger than we are, she’s quicker than we are, in the middle of a fight she’s more ruthless than I am — which is really saying something, but after an evening with Mother Dear, I’m starting to see where that comes from — she’s got me outclassed on all the things that are supposed to matter, and it doesn’t matter at all, I’m still going to kill her and laugh over every minute of it.”

“You can’t.” The protest was automatic and impotent, but the threat to Buffy had sharpened her attention, and she seized on his words, remembering Ted and the gang attack on the school. “If she’s this great deadly Vampire Killer, how can you beat her? You said it yourself, you’re not in her class.”

He tsk!ed at her, his face shifting back to imitation-human. “Come on, Joyce, after what we’ve been through together? I’m stronger than you are, but you still put me on the floor for a second, even before you knew what I was; you saw a weakness and went straight for it, no hesitation, no mercy … y’know, I’m kinda getting a sense of why hubby split for greener pastures.” He reached out and took hold of her shoulder (again, the injured one, though by this time little of her wasn’t injured), and began to squeeze with steadily increasing pressure. “See? You’re not the only one who can hit where it hurts. Buffy’s a hellcat in a fight, I’ve seen her wade through vamps five and six at a time — and she just obliterated that KiłtonRǚq raiding group, even I was impressed — but I don’t plan to fight her. I’ll cut her apart piece by piece, because I know her weakness, and I don’t have any.”

She could barely hear him, the pain was so intense she was ready to faint. He eased up — not wanting to lose his audience? — and continued, “What weakness, you say? Easy: she cares. She has all these people around her, and she cares about every one of them. She can look out for herself, but she can’t protect all of them, not all the time, and that’s the chink in her armor.”

Joyce found her voice. “It’s not a weakness.” He favored her with that mocking smirk, but she forged on. “Caring about other people, that isn’t weakness. It’s why we do the things we do, the reason we’re alive. It makes us stronger.”

“Well, see, Joyce, we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. You’re pretty much out of time here, all that’s really left is to figure out the best approach.” He released her and stood up, eyeing her with sadistic speculation. “The important question is, what would hit Buffy the hardest? Finding you spread out over the lawn in little bits? or hanging upside-down in the shower, stripped and bled like a slaughtered sow? or — here’s a thought — what if I made you a vampire and forced her to kill you herself?” He rubbed his hands together. “Decisions, decisions.”

She broke for the stairs, and he glided to intercept her with that lazy, impossible quickness, except she was ready for it and she drove off her lead leg for an instant change of course, slamming into him at an unexpected angle. He could have crushed her as easily as a soda can, but she hit below the outspread arms, and with all his strength he wasn’t braced for a hundred thirty pounds clipping him at hip level at a dead run. She bore him down and levered herself atop him, fastening to him like a leech, scissoring his legs with her own and wrapping one arm around his neck. “It’s not a weakness,” she gasped, sobbing with effort and pain and triumph. “It’s not a weakness!”

Perhaps he could have torn her loose in time, but he didn’t try. True to his nature as she to hers, he laughed and shifted to demon face; and as he lunged for her throat, she stretched out her free arm to pass the fuel-soaked sleeve over the flame of the nearest candle.

After that, it was only a matter of holding on.

 
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