Angel - Shakedown Part 23

The store was closed, its windows dark, a barred security gate across the door. Beyond the gla.s.s, Angel could make out the silhouettes of mannequins.

The sign over the door readANGELUS FASHIONS.

Angel took a few steps closer. He could see a light on in the recesses of the shop. It flickered and seemed to grow stronger as he approached, like a candle when first lit.

He reached out, touched the bars of the gate. They were wrought iron, not the painted steel usually found in mall storefronts.

The gate unlocked with a loud click at his touch. It swung aside with a squeal of long-rusted hinges.

Angel paused with his hand on the doork.n.o.b. He knew he shouldn't go in, but he couldn't seem to stop himself. Something was pulling at him, drawing him closer. He couldn't resist it.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. His shoes left prints as distinct as if he were walking on the moon, grit crunching underfoot. A heavy velvet curtain in a red so deep it was almost black hung on one wall; an antique harpsichord stood in the corner. Wax dummies in frock coats and long gowns were posed here and there, their sculpted faces frozen in expressions of horror. They all looked familiar, and after a second Angel knew why. They were all people he'd killed.

The flickering light was coming from behind a thin cloth curtain that hung in a doorway beyond the front counter. Angel approached the counter, dread building in his heart. He knew he should turn around and run. He didn't.

Behind the curtain the light rose from waist- to chest-level. A lamp, being picked up. A hand appeared at the edge of the curtain and drew it aside.

Angelus grinned at him with a mouth full of curving fangs.

"Well, well, a customer, at long last. I was beginnin' t'think one would never show up . . . but you know what they say; in business, location is everything." His brogue, while not as exaggerated as Doyle's had been, gave a cheerful lilt to his voice.

Angel's mouth had gone dry. "You're not real," he said.

Angelus chuckled. He was wearing a black frock coat with a spray of white lace at the throat and cuffs, and held an oil lamp in one hand. "I'm as real as you are, Liam. Where d'you think I go when you're in charge and I'm not? I'm right here, locked away in your head. I see everything you see, hear everything you hear, know everything you know. Everything . . . and everyone."

Angelus hung the lamp from a hook beside the door, then came around the counter and stopped in front of Angel. "You might think I'm powerless, but I have more of an effect on you than you grasp. And caged though I am, I can afford t'be patient; I'm quite sure my time will come again."

Abruptly, the iron gate clanged shut.

"Why, my time might even be comin' up sooner than you'd expect. . . ."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"Onlyone of us is walkin' out that door," Angelus said. "And it's not goin' t'be you."

Angel dropped into a fighting stance, but Angelus just laughed. "Think we're goin' t'settle this with fisticuffs, do you? If that's the way things worked, I would have been free long ago. No, no, my boy, this is a different sort of battlefield."

Angelus walked over to the nearest wax figure. It was a young woman in a peasant's simple dress, with a white bonnet and ap.r.o.n. Her eyes and mouth were open in terror. "Let's take a little stroll down memory lane . . . ah, sweet Annabelle. Do you remember her, Liam?"

"You know I do," Angel said grimly.

"Let's see just how well-" Angelus reached up and stroked the figure's cheek.

Wax became flesh. The woman's shriek was immediate and piercing. She sank to the floor, cowering and holding up her hands in self-defense. "Please," she sobbed. "Please, please, oh please . . ."

"That's enough," Angel snapped.

"That's not what you said back then," Angelus said with a smirk. "As a matter of fact, I believe it was three hours before you reached the point of 'enough.' But I really don't think it's necessary to go through the whole thing again-not when there are so many other lovely tidbits to sample."

"This isn't going to work," Angel said. "I didn't do these things. You did."

"Really? But yourememberdoing them, don't you? You remember the screams, the pleading, the things they offered if you'd only stop. The things they offered near the end were the sweetest, though, because they were the truest, the most heartfelt. And all they wanted at that point was simply to die. . . ."

"Stop it."

"You remember how itsmelled,you remember how ittasted-and most of all, you remember how it felt.

You remember how much you enjoyed it."

"No," Angel whispered. Suddenly, his legs felt too weak to support him; he put a hand against the counter to steady himself.

"I apologize for the state of the shop, but it's hardto keep up sometimes," Angelus said. He reached over to a velvet rope-pull hanging from the ceiling. "I know it doesn't look like much, but this is just the showroom; here, let me give you a look at the rest of my stock." He yanked on the rope, and the velvet curtain on the far side of the store drew aside.

The room it revealed was the size of a barn. Hundreds of wax figures stood, crouched or knelt in various poses; the expressions on their faces ranged from dawning fear to mindless horror.

"As you can see," Angelus said, "I have quite a collection to care for. Not that I'm complainin'; why, some of our finest moments are here."

Angel knew if he didn't leave in the next few moments, he never would. He could feel his strength leaving him.

"I've been thinkin' about that Gypsy curse," Angelus said. "It's what keeps me here, after all. But with you in here with me, I'm thinkin' the rules might be a little different. See, right now everythin's a little mixed up; the Tremblors, the sacrifice victims, you and me. Whatever happened, it's caught everybody's minds in the same net. Now, a simple Irish lad like myself doesn't know too much about mind-readin'

and whatnot, but I do know this is a cell built for one, and all that really matters is that one of us stays.

Since you were obligin' enough to waltz right in, I think there's a pretty fair chance Ican waltz right out in your stead. Worth a try, wouldn't you say?"

"Never," Angel snarled, but there was a hint of desperation in it. Somehow, Angelus had gotten between him and the door.

Angelus stepped closer, until his face was inches away from Angel's own. "And d'you think you can stop me? I may be a prisoner, but after a hundred years I know my cage in a way you never will. It's full of things that give me strength and drain yours, and the longer you're here the weaker you become.

That's your fatal flaw, you see-you burden yourself with useless guilt. Whereas I-"

He grabbed the front of Angel's trenchcoat with both hands. "I feel only simple satisfaction."

He launched Angel up and backward with one convulsive two-handed thrust, sending him flying over the tops of the still figures to land sprawling in the middle of them.

Angel was back on his feet in an instant, but before he could do anything else, Angelus clapped his hands together.

All the figures surrounding Angel were suddenly alive.

Angel knew that was impossible. After all, he could clearly remember murdering each and every one . . .

Angelus laughed, and headed for the door.

When the steel pickax plunged into Baasalt's brain, it penetrated the telepathic center in his cerebral cortex. The immense jolt his mind received was broadcast to every other Tremblor.

Most of them, unused to abrupt sensory input, went into shock. They tried to retreat into their own minds in self-defense, and were unable to. Some were actually stunned by the sheer mental impact.

And at the center of the psychic maelstrom, the First Warrior-Priest was having another epiphany.

It was unlike the previous bursts of insight he'd experienced. Rather than an explosion of ideas and concepts, Baasalt felthimselfexpand. His mind spread itself through the psychic web every Tremblor was part of, though they rarely used telepathy for group communication; more than three or four minds speaking together became a chaotic jumble that was hard to make out. The Grounding sometimes made p.r.o.nouncements to all the Tremblors at once, and there were mental tournaments every few centuries, but proclamations were strictly one-way, and the tournaments had rigidly defined rules.

Baasalt was in simultaneous contact with every member of his race. Even through their shock and fear, he felt that each Tremblor was part of him, and that together, they were unstoppable.

That conviction slowly seeped into the minds of hispeople. It calmed them, gave them something to focus on. The source of the storm now became its savior.

Theirsavior.

His hand was on the doork.n.o.b when something struck Angelus in the back. It propelled him forward, smashing his face through the gla.s.s door and into the steel bars of the gate on the other side. An instant later he was yanked backward, falling to the floor amid shards of gla.s.s.

He looked up into Angel's grim face. "Little tip," Angel said. "When you send an army of the dead to run interference for you, don't pick people who are terrified of your target."

Angelus glanced at the room of victims. They were all cowering in the corners, gibbering in fear. "Ah, well," he said cheerfully. "I prefer the oldfashioned approach, anyway."

He launched himself at Angel, slamming his shoulder into Angel's stomach and driving him backward into the counter. Angel responded with a knee to his foe's belly, then grabbed him by the hair and smashed his head into the counter-once, twice, three times.

Angelus broke his hold and delivered a roundhouse to Angel's jaw. Angel staggered back, parried the next punch and threw one of his own.

They went at it, toe-to-toe. Kick, punch, block.Punch, block, kick. It went on and on, the shop fading away into a gray oblivion around them as their universe contracted to a purely personal one of attack and retaliation.

They were too perfectly matched, Angel realized. It was a fight that could go on forever, unless something changed. From the look on his enemy's face, he could tell he'd reached the same conclusion.

"Well, this has been fun," Angelus said as they grappled, "and don't think I haven't dreamed of beating your brains in for the past century, but I believe our dance is up." He broke away from Angel abruptly, and the confines of the shop snapped back into focus. "Time for a little somethin' I was keepin' in reserve."

"There's nothing you can throw at me I can't handle," Angel growled.

"No? There's a bit of history that's been gnawin' at you lately, my boy. I think it might be just enough t'tip the scales. C'mon out, darlin'!"

And from out of the doorway Angelus had appeared from stepped Maria. She looked just like the last time Angel had seen her, in the ruins of a church cellar in 1755.

"No," Angel whispered.

Yes.The thought was that of every Tremblor, united in a single purpose. That purpose was the will of the First Warrior-Priest.

No.A single cry of dissent; not every Tremblor, then. Baasalt turned his attention to the one who opposed him, and discovered that it was six minds, speaking as one. The Grounding.

Join us,Baasalt thought.Join us and I will lead our race to greatness.

No.The thought was firm.This unity is an illusion. You impose your wishes upon minds weaker than your own.

Those minds are stronger, now. I add my strength, my vision, to theirs. Our wishes are the same.

Your wishes are madness. We were willing to overlook your eccentricities until you had fulfilled your duties in the Crushing of Souls-but now we see we can wait no longer.

Baasalt could feel something building in the minds of the Grounding, a concentration of mental energy.

What are you doing?he demanded.

Restoring the balance.

Maria was not alone, of course. There was also the dead body she was lashed to, face-to-face.

She shuffled forward in a horrible parody of a waltz, his limbs moving with hers. Angelus had stripped off their clothing before tying them together, limb to limb, torso to torso, so she would feel his dead, naked flesh against every inch of herown. He had broken all her fingers to prevent her from untying the knots, and rigged a hangman's noose around a beam and the corpse's neck to keep them upright. The rope trailed down the corpse's back like a necktie thrown over the shoulder of a drunken executive.

She staggered forward, trying to form words with b.l.o.o.d.y lips. She couldn't, of course; he had ripped her tongue out so she couldn't cry for help.

"Some of yourbestwork," Angelus said. "And you didn't even kill her, just lit some candles and then sealed the place back up. Left her there, swaying slowly back and forth with her silent partner, staring into his blank eyes as the candles burned down. Your last words echoing in her ears, as you showed her how clever you'd been with the rope; how all it would take to undo the whole thing and free herself was to release the loop around his neck. Of course, the rope was far too tough to gnaw through, and she'd be long dead of thirst or hunger by the time his head rotted off-which left her one very unpleasant choice. She could die in the dark, bound to a dead man, or she could lean forward and take that first, fleshy bite-"

"I remember," Angel said tonelessly. He felt like every muscle in his body had seized up. In another second, Angelus would bolt for the door, and he wouldn't be able to stop him . . .

"Hey, is this place, like, open?" Sarah said from the doorway.

Angel reacted without thinking, and it saved them both. He shoved Maria into Angelus and dove for Sarah. His momentum carried both of them out of the shop, and the door clanged shut behind them.

"What's yourdamage?" Sarah said crossly.

"At the moment, mainly self-loathing. . . ."

Power surged from the Grounding, a mental attack directed at Baasalt himself. Lightning crackled in his skull, thunderbolts spiking agony into his brain, then arcing throughout the psychic web Baasalt had established. It shattered under the blow.

Baasalt found himself alone once more.No,he thought.NO!He reached out, seeking that allencompa.s.sing connection once more.

He was rejected. The Tremblors had reached their limit for the new and the strange; after the lightning bolt of pain each of them had felt, they wanted nothing more to do with the First Warrior-Priest.

The same could not be said for the Grounding.You will answer for your actions,the Batholith thought.

We will see,answered Baasalt. He closed his mind to further messages.

Baasalt?Feldspaar thought. Baasalt stalked out of his alcove and past his former comrade without replying. He was First Warrior-Priest no longer, he knew.

Now, he was a heretic-and a fugitive.

There was a flash in his head, and Angel found himself back in his rocky cell.

At least Angel a.s.sumed that's where he was; he was in total darkness again. A second later and Fisca's Zippo flared, confirming the situation.

"Whoa," Fisca said in a shaky voice. "What was allthatabout?"

"It affected you, too?" Angel asked. "What did you see?"