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Title: Vengeance
Author: Rabbit
Email: gatewaytoarashmaharr@hotmail.com
Rating: R, for violence and angst and probably sex.
Distribution: Just ask
Spoiler: Angel, season 1
Summary: Janna (Jenny Callander) must watch Angel even after she is dead, and impresses upon us that vengeance is a living thing. Hmmn, doesn't look good for our hero.
Feedback: Knock yourself out.
Disclaimer: these characters live in Joss land and dance attendance to his whims, and sometimes the rules of the WB, Fox, Sandollar, Mutant Enemy ,Kuzui Enterprises and maybe some other people who aren't me. I own only my own crack addled thoughts and God forbid you should be subjected to those. Enjoy..
Prologue..
A small child sat playing in the ever-increasing shadows of the approaching twilight, humming a soft tune to herself. Today was her birthday; she was six years old. She'd always been an odd girl, quiet and thoughtful. Other children didn't play with her because of those things, and the fact that she was Romani.
"Janna," her mother called as she walked into the room. "Look who has come to visit you?" She stepped aside to reveal a man with a large nose, dressed in a black overcoat. He held one hand behind his back, concealing something.
"Uncle Enyos!" the girl cried in delight, launching herself across the room and into his embrace. Her excitement overrode her usual solemn nature. "Have you brought me a present?"
"Janna!" the woman admonished lightly. "Don't be rude."
The man ignored the protest, hugging the child to him. "Would I visit the most beautiful princess it the world with out bringing her a present? On her birthday? Enyos set the child on the floor, bowed extravagantly and presented her with an elaborately wrapped package.
Janna sat on the floor and carefully loosened the paper, showing remarkable restraint for a child of six. Her compressed lips and wrinkled brow belied her concentration as she carefully folded the cream colored paper, with its beautiful rendering of lilac flowers, and set it aside. When she opened the top of the box, she lifted out an exquisite doll, dressed in the traditional Romani costume.
Long brown curls cascaded down the front of the doll's white blouse, while brown eyes peeked out from between long, real looking lashes. Janna looked up in wonder, her own eyes remarkably similar to the toy she held.
"For me?" She breathed in astonishment. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." She looked back down at the toy and smoothed her hand reverently down the front of its garment.
"Yes," Enyos laughed in agreement. "What will you name her?"
"Her name is Tatiana."
Her mother and uncle stiffened, exchanging a cryptic glance, but the child was not paying attention to them, she focused solely on the doll.
Her uncle cleared his throat softly, shaking his head in response to her mother's worried look. "How did you think of that name?" He queried calmly, gently. Janna's mother pressed her lips firmly together, refusing to speak.
"She told me." Janna replied, still fingering the brown curls.
"What else did she tell you?"
The girl listened intently for a moment. "That she's sad today. She's thinking about the bad man."
Her mother gasped out loud, crossing herself. Enyos continued, "The bad man?"
"The one that killed her." the child raised her cherubic face, dark eyes shining. "Angelus."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You know what it is, this thing vengeance?"
"Uncle, I have served you. I have been faithful. I need to know."
"To the modern man vengeance is a verb, an idea. Payback. One thing for another. Like commerce. Not with us. Vengeance is a living thing. It passes through generations. It commands. It kills."
"You told me to watch Angel. You told me to keep him from the slayer. I tried. But there are other factors. There are terrible things happening here that we cannot control."
"We control nothing. We are not wizards Janna. We merely play our part."
"Angel could be of help to us. I mean he may be the only chance we have to stop the judge."
"It is too late for that."
"Why?"
"The curse. Angel is meant to suffer, not live as human.yes; it is not justice we serve. It is vengeance........."
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I must perform the task I failed while living; I must watch Angel. The ancestors demand it. It is vengeance I serve.
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Vengeance pt 1
"Here you are Cordelia," Wesley offered a steaming mug of coffee to the brunette in his usually solicitous manner.
"You made this?" Cordy raised one brow in surprise; Wesley's incompetence with all things technological was common office banter. "All by yourself?"
"Why yes," Wesley puffed up defensively. "I am perfectly capable of brewing a cup of coffee. It's a simple task, not beyond the reach of my capabilities."
Cordelia sniffed delicately at the mug she held in her hand, still reluctant to sample his latest attempt. What made an Englishman think he could make a decent cup of coffee? "You just keep telling yourself that, as long as it gets you through the night."
Angel walked out of the door to his office, spied Cordelia holding the cup and asked, "For me?"
"Ugh, yeah." Making a face, she gratefully handed him the beverage and walked back to the desk, sitting back down to finish her morning's task at the computer.
Angel looked at her in confusion for a moment, but had long ago given up trying to understand how Cordelia Chase's mind worked. He shrugged instead and took a large swallow of the hot liquid he was holding.
"Ppffthhhapphhth." Angel spit out the offending brew immediately and glared at Cordelia. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"Don't look at me." She didn't bother looking up from the computer screen, but pointed her finger in Wesley's direction. "It's all Mr. Juan Valdez over there."
The vampire swung around to address the other man. "Wes, didn't we have a talk about you not touching the coffee."
"Yes, angel. I just wanted to make myself useful to you. I know you have so much to do, you need all the help you can get."
"Hello! Vital part of Angel investigations sitting right over here," Cordelia interrupted.
"I-I mean I just want to be of service to you," Wesley stammered to Angel. "I remembered you said you like it strong."
"I don't really like it at all, its more of a habit now," Angel admitted, clapping the Englishman on the back. "Don't worry," he added on a softer, serious note. "You've been a big help to me. It's been great having you around."
'Okay, if you two are through with your Oprah moment, come over here and see what I've just found that will help us on the Roberts case." Cordy called from across the room. Angel and Wesley joined her, all eyes on the electronic screen on the desk.
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I see him.
My heart speeds its rhythm as I gaze upon him, upon my murderer. I close my eyes, but my mind scrolls the scenes behind my eyelids; there will be no escape from my inspiration and duty.
I see him as he was, burning fiercely with hate and the passion for destruction that was always his gift. I see him as he crashes my computer to the floor of my classroom, reveling in my fear and rejoicing in the chase that had been so long denied him by the curse of my people. I see his face twisted in the mask of death that he showed me as he broke my neck and I feel his pleasure and ecstasy as my soul slips from my body.
Yes, I don't just see it; I can feel his emotions as the scene plays. This is the gift that Tatiana has given me, to remind me of the ancestor's cries and my purpose here, which is vengeance.
I have come to exact the price my ancestors demand of Angel, here in the city of angels, eternal torment. I argued that price while I lived, argued of reform and good works and of atonement for past wrongs. But these things are meaningless. I didn't understand that until I died, didn't understand that Angel was not meant to pass as human, to live among them. He was always meant to be separate and must always suffer.
They can't see me, the three of them. Not yet. Their conversation blurs until its drone fills the room, fills my head. But I don't need to hear it; I can see how Angel rests his arm affectionately on the girl's arm. Cordelia seems to have forgiven him his sins, I cannot. I can feel the easy camaraderie that exists between the three of them, can see that Angel lives among them like he is one of them. That was never part of the bargain.
I lean across the desk, inches from them; they are oblivious. Angel smiles and points at something on the screen and Cordelia laughs and punches him lightly on the arm. My head swarms with the images of Taiana's body shuddering its last as Angelus raises his head from her neck, her life dripping down his chin and throat and of my own corpse arranged on the bed and the anguished cries of my lover Gile's as he finds me placed for his torment. I can feel the rage swell from deep inside my soul, bubbling up until it threatens to drown this room, this building, this city. And that is the key.
To learn to manipulate object in the physical world is difficult, it takes the most pure form of concentration. It takes the essence of pure will, boiled down and contained in the minutest space of time; then, released in an explosion of directed energy.
I draw energy from the earth and the sky, until it hums through me, spiraling vertically along my spine. Then I push it down, compress it as small as I can, and scream as I push it out as a laser of force directed at a phone sitting on the desk.
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"So their key witness is basically a great guy except for the prostitution and the drug dealing..Aaahhh!" Cordelia's train of thought was interrupted as the phone on the desk violently flew across the room.
"So what is it, bring your ghost to work day?" Angel glanced at Cordelia in puzzlement.
"Not my ghost." Cordelia shrugged.
"Poltergeist phenomena?" Wesley queried with excitement. "This will call for some research." He started pacing back and forth, already compiling a list in his head.
"Not exactly Casper." Cordy noted, viewing the phone that lay battered and abandoned against the far wall.
"No," Angel agreed, pointing at the computer. "Find out everything about this building. Former inhabitants, unusual occurrences, unexplained deaths." "And Wesley, find us a spell, a binding or an exorcism or something like that. We need to find out what we're dealing with."
Don't worry, you'll soon find out.
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I've been watching him as he sleeps, noting the dark lashes fluttering against pale cheeks. I smile when he tosses fitfully against dark burgundy sheets. Silk?
He doesn't own many things, but what possessions he does have are expensive, exquisitely tasteful. There is a closet full of silk and even one or two velvet shirts in muted, dignified colors. These quarters display furniture whose age gleams with carefully applied layers of wax, protectively buffed by his own hand. He is particular about these possessions, meticulous in his care of them and insistent that they are 'just so', that they live up to his standards of quality. He has superb taste, honed during his mortal life. Born a merchants son, to privilege, he could never accept anything inferior. How did he survive for all those years, skulking in alleys and eating rats? His strength and the extraordinary power of guilt.
So far, I can only affect him at times like this, when he crosses that threshold between sleep and consciousness. I reach out to touch his hair, sharp and spikey against the sheen of the linens, and smooth my palm down his neck, his shoulders and come to rest on his chest.
I will my touch to turn to fire, imagine rays of heat penetrating his torso and spreading throughout his body, replacing the chill of his dead flesh with the fires of a hell he escaped once. Each night I do this, binds us together further. Soon I will be able to manifest.
His memories play across my senses, the landscape of his mind tortured with the millennia of perversion and pain he endured when the Slayer sacrificed him to stop Acathla. My people do not call for his eternal damnation in an unspeakable pit, the hell we require is here on earth, one of his own making, a more personal one. But I will store these images; catalogue them for a future time, if he should become complacent about his existence in this world.
He shifts, turning more fully to me. He still retains the decadency of his youth in Galeway, sleeping nude in the sweltering heat of a Los Angeles night. The sheet slides across his hips and barely gives me a glimpse of his cock. Many have found pleasure in his embrace in the past, but none will now, or ever again. Nor will I ever feel the touch of a lover again, thanks to Angelus. There are choices that you make that change your life; his was to follow a pretty girl into an alleyway. That was a choice that ended his life, and ultimately, mine as well.
The scenes of his mind change, littered with the faces of those he's known in the last 240 odd years, including Tatiana's. I freeze.
"Buffy," he sighs, moving to more peaceful dreams.
Buffy? You murdered me, slaughtered my uncle Enyos and killed the most beloved daughter of my tribe, yet every night you sleep in a soft bed and dream of Buff?. NO!
I visualize heat passing from my hand into his body, burning him from the inside until his skin blackens and his sleeping form crumbles to dust. This is the dream I share with you my beloved Angel.
*Thud *
Angel shook himself awake, only to feel the hard chill of the floor against his face and the impression of a desert sun disintegrating his body to mingle with the waves of sand that spread in every direction as far as the eye could see. He looked around with sleepy eyes to reassure himself that he was still in his room, albeit lying on the floor wondering how his mind could conjure up he and Buffy trekking across Egypt. Dreams are weird.
"Just a dream," he muttered, groaning as he attempted to raise himself. He stopped suddenly, noting the hairs prickling the back of his neck and the definite charge of electricity in the air.
And to think, he was the thing that was supposed to go bump in the night, not literally. "Who's there?"
It's Janna Angel.
Nothing disturbed the silence of the room except his voice. "Listen, I've been dead 240 years, you're not going to scare me."
Maybe I'm not trying hard enough?
A ghost, great, and one who apparently isn't big on the concept of sleep. "You're dead," Angel began.
Really?
"And for some reason, you're stuck here in this building."
No, I'm stuck here watching you.
"You need to move on, to find peace."
Peace? O can't help but laugh at that. I'll never know peace and neither will you.
He struggles, and then rises to his feet. He can't see me yet, soon. I approach him and place my hand once again on his smooth torso and will him to see my face, as it was that night, the panic, and the fear. I will him to feel the violence and destruction he carried and the surge of pleasure they gave him. Understanding spreads over his features and he begins to fight, to stumble backward in desperation to leave the memories he battles everyday to suppress. Horror and understanding as he realizes.
"Jenny?"
Hello lover.
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Angel sat at his desk, hands reflexively flexing and extending. He stared at an indeterminate spot of the wall in front of him, face frozen in contemplative meditation. A muscle in his jaw was his only other movement. Jenny Calander?
Wesley and Cordelia spied on him from the outer room.
"What's with Mr Broody man?" Cordelia asked, wrinkling up her nose in exasperation. "After 240 years you'd think he'd reach in his little bag and pull out some other emotion."
"I don't think he's slept in days, something's bothering him. Every time I try to ask him what's wrong, he just stares at me. He won't say anything, he's just so quiet." Wesley readjusted his glasses and sighed.
"Angel, quiet? What a shock."
"I mean it Cordelia, something is wrong."
Cordelia closed her mouth, cutting off her next remark and turned her gaze back to her boss.
END PART 1
Angel sighed and rolled over, away from the clock on the nightstand. 4 am. It was hard to adhere to the schedule imposed by a mortal world that lived in relation to the sun and the pre dawn hours were usually the worst, that's when his mind refused to be still.
It was better if he focused on mundane tasks, cleaning and straightening the apartment or researching a case, something to force his brain on autopilot, and then fall exhausted into bed when the sun rose again. Sheer and utter fatigue allowed him to sleep 3, maybe 4 hours, until Cordelia awakened him with some crack about undead slacker types. She didn't know how diligently he pushed himself to be able to afford those few hours of oblivion, or maybe she did and knew he needed her tough, motherly bravado. Cordelia was a motherly type? What a world they'd made.
Yeah, 4 am was the worst time. The night, which used to delight in the destruction he wrought, cried out for her fiercest warrior to return to her; to amuse her once again with acts of pure viciousness. The lure started as soon as the sun went down, a whisper of a familiar scent or sound that soon progressed to the coquettish remembrance of the taste of blood from a living victim. It never stopped there though, night paired with memory in an intricate dance meant to entice him, seduce him, make him forget his progress and revert to what he'd been. A killer.
There was a way to silence these remembrances. The key was to focus on something pleasant, something from his new life: friends, his job, helping the hopeless. If that didn't work, sheer force of will would usually get it done. If anything, Angel was a stubborn Irishman, exactly like his mortal father, the man who wouldn't shed a tear at the grave of a defiant son. Usually one of these mental paths would occupy his mind, but tonight each effort was futile.
*Rivulets of blood snaking a path through the dust. *
Think of something else.Woo, another hot night.
*Pacing in front of a figure that slumped against the wall, bound hands chained to a ring protruding from the ceiling are the only thing only thing preventing the form from sliding to the floor *
Were those new shoes Cordelia was wearing today?
*A knife inserted between rib bones slowly, painfully, an inch at a time for maximum brutality, Angelus' victim's eyes shining with confusion; pleading for compassion, mercy, death? *
Angel closed his eyes, trying to block the memory and reflexively touched his own ribs. The night's call was particularly strong this evening and there was only one memory powerful enough to banish it-Buffy. A pretty girl in an alley had ended his life and a young, blonde college girl was the only thing that could save it now.
His hand ventured down, sliding the sheet over his thighs and untangling the silken hold on his limbs, then that cool hand gripped his limp shaft and rubbed it's length, noting every familiar contour and ridge of skin. Is this what having a soul had reduced him to, making him feel like a dirty old man, masturbating in the dark about a girl who didn't even love him anymore?
* A tavern whore lifted her skirts as she slipped some coins into her cleavage, and then screamed as she looked up into the face of the devil her mother had always told her would claim her soul. That strangled cry was her last as a dark haired vampire ripped her throat open, a devil with the face of an angel, proving her mother right after all. *
Angel gripped harder; moving his hand faster as if that action could drive the terrible thought back to the hell it belonged to. He cautioned himself to think of The Slayer's muscled arms wrapping around his neck, whispering in his ear of her need, of her desire, repeating his name over and over again until it rang throughout his head, his soul, throughout the night that desperately tried to reclaim him. Oh God Buffy, he cried out to her memory, save me from what I've been, from what I'm afraid to become again.
It's funny that Buffy has been a friend and ally to my people, without her ever knowing it. For seventy years Angel lived a scavenger's existence, plagued and haunted by the deeds of his past, but that was nothing compared to the exquisite torture he's endured by loving her and never being able to have her. I wonder how many years will pass before it's another face he conjures in the dark? How many years before he calls another's name? This time I am prepared, vigilant. His soul will remain, to trap the demon that dwells within, that I promise.
His memories are beginning to help him drive away the call for blood, I can tell as his face softens and his head rolls back against the pillow. I miss that, that sweet, pleasure filled oblivion; that total devotion to self, being unconcerned with pleasing another or worrying about their needs, their judgments. I miss touching myself, touching those sweet and secret places that bring such aching release, and yet, that's the only release he has anymore
I walk toward the bed and reach out, intend to burn him again as has become my nightly ritual, to make him suffer again. Except this time my hand stops, covering his own.
You pray for Buffy's memory to keep you connected to your soul, to stave off the lust for blood that is your essence, the inherent need to kill that is the vampire's legacy. She is what nearly cost you your soul the last time you trusted her, the last time you tried to fit yourself into the mortal world. Lay back and let me show you another way.
Angel felt a small pinch, a bite on his left nipple. His hand left its momentum to slap at the distraction in irritation, and he got a completely different surprise; the sensation of a tongue flicking across the head of his cock, then swirling in delicious, torturous circles down its length as he immediately swelled in delight and anticipation.
His eyes snapped open in shock, but that's all he could manage, his limbs were frozen to the mattress.
"What the hell?" The room was empty.
Something was going on though. He felt like he was going to burst out of his skin as an invisible tongue swiped a hearty path around his balls, massaging them and them engulfing his entire shaft in a mouth he still couldn't see.
"Wh..Whhat is going on?" He was torn between panic and arousal as the unseen mouth sucked him in and slowly let him slide out again, all the while investigating every signature bump and vein on his engorged shaft with that wicked tongue.
He fought to control his eager cock, but it was having a great time and refused to pay him any heed. He tried desperately to prevent the spill of his seed, but a few more seconds of this intensely perfect torture and it would be all over.
Oh, I miss this.
"Why are you doing this?" He moaned out loud, beyond really caring about anything except that it kept happening.
Because I need this, I need you to feel this. It's been so long.
He was given a reprieve as the unseen mouth left him straining and made its way along the hard muscles of his abdomen, causing them to constrict at the sensation as small kisses dotted his torso, occasionally enhanced by a broad sweep of a flat, wet tongue. Sharp teeth nipped at the hard nub of his right nipple, causing him to gasp aloud in pain and pleasure.
The sound of his gasps and moans cause a spasm in my clit and a torrent of wetness that spills out over my thighs. Angelus fucked me, and now my Angel, I'm going to fuck you. You owe me this.
The feel of his cock being encircled once more, this time by a ring of muscle that clenched desperately around him and then expanded to allow him further penetration, nearly sent him over the edge. The feel of breasts rubbing against his chest was not helping matters either; his mind struggled to retain rational thought, the ability to form sentences, the proper procedure for hot-wiring a car, anything sane that did not involve a ghost fucking him while he lay helpless.
He opened his eyes and blinked as he looked into the dark eyes of a dead gypsy. At least he knew she was dead, but she looked anything but that now. She was an age-old image of a lover's release, with her flushed face and opened mouth. The dark depth of her gaze betrayed that illusion though, mirroring her desire, but also her rage and malevolence.
He could only utter one word, whispered in question, confusion, "Jenny?'
"Call me Janna. You killed Jenny." She squeezed her pelvis mercilessly.
Yes he had. And now Janna was killing his soul slowly, a bit at a time and it would take eternity because he was already dead, but he guessed that was her intention. He shuddered as he exploded inside her, knowing that he was lost, suspecting that a stubborn Irish vampire had no prayer against a vengeful gypsy bent on revenge. God help them all.
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Angel entered the office, not acknowledging Wesley or Cordelia, even though they stood not ten feet away. He was visibly shaking as he grabbed the bag of coffee off the small table, reaching inside to scoop some out. He grunted suddenly in pain, dropping the bag onto the floor to reveal the silver glint of a cross nestled in a bed of black grounds.
Wesley and Cordelia looked at each other in confusion.
"You coulda just said you wanted to be in charge of the coffee Wesley. I'm sure he'd learn to love your barista skills, right angel?" Cordy prompted the vampire with wide eyes, nodding her head slowly up and down. Clearly their rogue demon hunter was off his rocker.
Wesley ignored her, walking next to the other man who was staring at the mess in front of him."What is going on, how did that get in there? Tell us so that we can help you, you're not alone."
"But I am, I mean I have to be, that's what she wants."
"Who."
"Janna."
Two blank expressions greeted his statement. "Jenny Calander."
"You mean Ms. Calender, what does she have to do with it?" Cordelia asked.
"She's our ghost," Wesley guessed correctly.
"And she's pissed at you." Cordy finished.
"And she's been visiting me at night."
Wesley tilted his head at an angle and furrowed his brows in thought at Angel's statement, an idea obviously forming.
"Um, haunting me.." Angel corrected, hoping Wesley wasn't going to start asking a bunch of questions.
Cordelia continued on, oblivious to the subtext swirling around the two men. "Ms Calender, huh? I wonder."
"She prefers Janna, that was her name, when she was a gypsy." Angel warned. He started thinking about staring up into those flashing, dark eyes last night and smoothed a hand over his chin, willing his cock to lie down and play nice.
"And she wants to harm you, kill you?" Wesley wondered aloud, still suspicious of Angel's nervousness.
"No just see that I suffer eternally. You know, carry out the letter of the curse."
"Well great," Cordy beamed and gestured at Wesley. "Book guy here will cook you up an exorcism and we'll send her packing by lunch."
Angel grimaced, knowing an easy answer like that wasn't going to work. "I don't think."
"Aaahhrrgghh," Cordelia screamed in pain as a vision ripped through her skull. She fell to the floor and started rolling around, clutching her temples.
"Leave her alone!" Angel shouted. He accepted his penance, but Cordelia and Wesley were innocent.
I don't want to hurt the girl, but I will if I have to. I can show her things that will make her rip her eyes out.
"No more talk of exorcism. You weren't meant to live among men, but I'll overlook it. I'm here to ensure that your soul stays and you repent your crimes against my people. Your affection for them only makes my task easier."
Cordelia was released from her vision and the two men exchanged glances at each other as they helped her to her feet.
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Angel turned the water on in the shower and soon the steam filled the small room. He shrugged out of his shirt and slowly dropped his trousers.
The water poured over his head as he leaned back into the spray. Mechanically, he reached for a bottle on the shelf and began lathering his chest. He turned to face the stinging cascade, hoping to wash away guilt, remorse.memory? It didn't matter, nothing could ever banish those things.
The feel of two hands stroking his back and circling around to grip him in a passionate embrace barely startled him anymore. As Janna kissed his shoulder, he hung his head forward; he had no fight left in him.
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"The curse. Angel is meant to suffer, not live as human. One moment of true happiness, of contentment , one moment where the soul that we restored no longer plagues his thoughts, and that soul is taken from him.
"I hoped to stop it, but I realize now it was arranged to be so. Yes, it is not justice we serve. It is vengeance.
Finis.