Fic: Soul of an Angel (1/?)

[annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Soul of an Angel, Part One.
Comments/Flames/Etc. to: annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

--

Nothing made sense. The words of the spell... she didn't really 
understand them. They'd been left for her, a tragic legacy of Miss 
Calendar's. God, how she missed Miss Calendar. The words spewed from 
her as if she were possessed. She tried not to think about what she 
was doing although she couldn't forget for one moment the being she 
was trying to save had murdered the woman she'd most admired and 
respected.
But she was doing this for Buffy, and she loved Buffy.
"Lasa orbita sa fie vasul care-i va transporta, sufletul la el."
Shadows crept menacingly at the periphery of her vision as the 
litany spewed onward, gathering momentum. Last page now. Willow 
closed her eyes. She didn't need to see the words anymore. They were 
indelibly written in searing letters of fire across the tableaux of 
her mind.

*

There were no regrets. Only sorrow. Buffy stared at the empty space 
where Angel had been standing. Only moments before, she'd killed him. 
Took the sword and run him through. Sent him back to hell. She'd 
wished Willow could have brought Angel's soul back from the 
wastelands of the damned; but it had been a selfish wish and she knew 
it.
Buffy shivered. Nothing left for her here now. Nothing but lost 
hopes, shattered dreams; Maybe a once-happy memory. But she still had 
her friends. Wonderful friends. She ought to go back to them. Maybe 
her mom could sort out Snyder. She hoped so. She had to go and find 
Willow. She needed her best friend. Now, more than ever.
She turned and left. Miserable, but with no regrets.

*

"Oh god!" Willow screamed in agony as energy rippled over her.
"What's happening?" Giles cried out over the whistling of 
preturnatural wind. Rapidly fluctuating weather patterns were 
something you least expected to come across inside a hospital ward.
"The spell went wrong... I guess I failed to summon Angel's soul!" 
Willow bit her lip, then screamed again, helplessly, as she was 
washed once more in iridescent energy. All the lights went out.
Except it wasn't dark. The room was lit by the bright light 
emanating from the Orb of Thesulah. It was beautiful and mesmerising. 
It exploded.

*

Giles sat beside Buffy's hospital bed and cried. Here, alone and 
helpless, he could finally allow himself to cry. Stiff upper-lip be 
bolloxed. Buffy wasn't physically injured. What physical bruising 
she'd received fighting Angeles had faded before she'd even arrived 
at the hospital; But she'd had to be sedated as she'd lost all 
control at the news of Willow's death. Or possible death. Xander was 
in critical condition. Shards of metal from Willow's bed had 
punctured a lung in the explosion. He was in bad shape, but under 
observation and stable. For whatever that meant.
Joyce and Sheila were both on their way, Xander's parents didn't 
really give a damn. Bastards.
Willow. Oh god, Willow. Giles broke down once more and grieved for 
a young woman who'd become almost like a daughter to him. Gone, 
erased in a moment of dark magic and fire. Vanished without a trace.

*

She awoke to the warmth of the dawn. Almost by instinct the air-sac 
at the base of her syrinx contracted and she joined the dawn chorus. 
The breeze picked up, riffling the smallest, most delicate feathers 
that cloaked her elongated fingers. She lifted her stubby arms to the 
open skies, revelling in the joy that suffused her when the breeze 
caught her blue-tipped wings. She launched herself into flight.
Sounds rushed unfiltered through her mind. The rustle of leaves, 
the rush of a creek over three miles away. The steady roar of her 
heart which pumped highly oxygenated blood to her extremities and 
feather-stems as it managed over one hundred and eighty beats per 
minute.
She tried to laugh, to cry, to scream, but to no avail. Flickers of 
memory came to her in a meaningless collage. She couldn't seem to 
think properly. Her overly-rounded eyes narrowed as she caught sight 
of a road maybe twelve miles away across the forest. She slowly 
banked and headed in that direction.
Cars! She remembered cars. Cars used roads. Why couldn't she think 
properly? What was she doing here? Her wings beat faster as she 
hovered. Soon she would need to hunt, to find food. But she felt 
there was a journey for her to begin. She could see the path in her 
mind as clearly as if it were really there. She could sense it, feel 
it. So she began to follow it.
Willow began to *home*.

*

The man swallowed a mouthful of beer as he drove his pickup along I-
90. A real 'good old boy', he'd just finished a drinking session with 
some of his drinking buddies over at Arthur's bar, and now he was 
just a-followin' the road back home. One hand gripped the wheel, the 
other nursed a Bud.
Not completely drunk, he kept a periodic check on the rear-view. 
You never knew when some State trooper might take it into his head to 
creep up on you, hammer you with the tea-total fist of Justice. And 
that's how he became the first person to witness the breath-takingly 
wondrous Angel; the naked red-head with gossamer-white wings flying 
carefree in parallel to the Interstate. It might have made him 
famous, if he hadn't doubted his own eyes and continued home to sleep 
it off.

*

Buffy considered leaving Sunnydale. It wasn't the first time the 
thought had occurred to her. When she'd learned the Master was going 
to kill her, she had a sudden impulse to flee. But she hadn't the 
strength to leave her mother all alone. Not like that.
Could she now?
"Oh Willow, where are you? Are you still alive?"

*

Giles sank into a wicker reading-chair and rubbed his eyes. For 
company, he turned on the TV and saw Willow. At first he didn't 
understand, or rather couldn't believe, what it was he was seeing. 
Flicking channels, every channel showed the same image. An Angel in 
the skies.
With trembling fingers, he phoned Buffy.

*

"...is KTTS coming to you live..."
"...unable to believe..."
"...sign from Heaven, praise..."
"...appears to be a young woman, maybe in her late 'teens or early 
twenties with red hair and white wings. And boy, can she fly! The 
pilot informs us the helicopter is travelling at its maximum speed of 
just over one hundred forty miles per hour, and even so we're 
beginning to lose ground..."
"... hasn't deviated from her course since she was first spotted..."
Buffy stopped channel hopping at the first channel with a close-up 
of the Angel's face. Tears blurred her eyes, and faintly she 
recognised Giles voice coming from the receiver which still lay on 
the floor where she'd dropped it.
"Its really her," she said.

*

Could anything feel more wonderful than this? Sun coated her whole 
body like a glove, yet the frigid air made her skin tingle as she 
increased her speed once more. She was going home, home to where she 
belonged, to where she was loved.
She was going home to Buffy.

*

End Part 1.