Buffy dove her foot into Angelus' chest, and he flew back through the door, hit the floor and rolled to a stop. Before he could scramble to his feet, Buffy leaped in and swung her sword downward, her blade scything towards his shoulder, but the vampire managed to parry her blow, barely, and then quickly stepped back to check his footing.
A rapid flurry of attacks and parries immediately followed, each trying to draw the other into the tiniest mistake that they could then take advantage of. Angelus missed a block and Buffy's blade snapped out and opened a large gash on his hand, forcing him to drop his sword.
As her opponent grabbed his injured member, Buffy kicked him in the face, and he fell backward to slam against Acathla, then toppled forward, landing on his knees before her.
Buffy stepped back and, gathering her resolve to do what she knew needed to be done, she drew her sword back and braced herself to thrust it into Angelus' chest, when suddenly, her eyes whipped open in surprise and pain. Taking a small step back, she looked down at the sword protruding from her chest and the blood that now streamed from her wound. She looked at her former lover imploringly, an expression of complete bewilderment on her face at this turn of events.
As she dropped to her knees, the strength rapidly ebbing from her like the blood from her wound, Angelus sneered triumphantly at the Slayer as he rose to his feet. Behind him Acathla's power swirled in the vortex, the red-tinged portal slowly beginning to grow once more, after pausing briefly at its current six foot diameter.
Buffy slumped limply onto the patio's brick surface, her face still holding an expression of disbelief that Angelus had truly stabbed her, and gazed over his shoulder at the faint rays of light peering over the patio wall that promised the coming dawn. All her fault...
A dawn that would see the coming of a demonic invasion against which humanity would be unable to prevail.
Angelus stood over her, gloating down at his now thoroughly defeated foe. It was actually his favorite part, seeing the look in their eyes, when they knew the end was near. It never got old.
"Like I said, I guess that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends... No hope," he repeated himself. "Hell comes to earth and it's all thanks to you, lover... Couldn't have done it without you."
His words were filled with such contempt and scorn that Buffy was brought to tears, as she realized that everything she held dear was now being sacrificed for the false memory of a man who no longer existed. Humanity was doomed and it was all because she had held onto her memory of a man long after any hope of rescue for him was gone. Just like in the Master's cave, it was her actions as much as her enemy's that brought this about.
"Please...don't," she whispered, as she felt her life's blood draining away, leaving her feeling so cold.
"Don't what, darling?" the tall brunet mocked her, but his next words were drowned out by the deafening report of a gunshot echoing across the patio.
Angelus dropped limply to the stones, his face slamming down against the flagstones to smash his nose flat and ruin the angelic features from which he had gained his name, his blood splattering and mixing with that of Buffy's already pooled there.
The vampire lay there, helplessly, unable to move, wondering at the sudden lack of sensations from his entire body and the sudden pain at the base of his neck.
He could hear the sound of frantic footsteps crossing the patio and he nearly groaned aloud when he saw the Slayer's lapdog drop to his knees and crouch by the Slayer's side, an Army issue .45 pistol tucked in his belt.
"Buffy? Can you hear me? Talk to me, Buff," the brunet Scooby said frantically as he gathered the blood-soaked Slayer up into his arms.
Seeing the extent of the blood already pooled on the ground around her with its deep arterial color, Xander dully realized that he had arrived too late, that the petite blonde was beyond any help medical assistance could offer, even if it had been immediately available.
Seeing the confirmation of what she already knew in her friend's eyes, Buffy made an effort to speak, ignoring Xander's pleas to save her strength.
"I'm s-sorry, Xan. Should ha-have listened to you. You were right all along," she choked out, a sudden spasm of coughing spraying her blood across his shirt as he held her. "N-now it's all wrong," she told him.
"You, you have to stop it. Whistler t-told me...An-angelus' blood... opened the gate," she gasped, clutching frantically at Xander's shirt. "His blood.. will close it. Please...do it...Now."
"Okay, Buff, no problem. I can do that," Xander agreed, as he gently set his hero down on the stonework beneath them.
Looking around, he grabbed a knife lying on a nearby patio table, and approached the paralyzed demon, his hatred for the creature he was looking at blazing in his eyes.
"We need a little blood donation here, Deadboy," he said as he knelt by the prostrate brunet, "and you're elected for the donor. Hope this hurts," he muttered, as he rolled his bitterly despised foe onto his back. He was rewarded with a loud scream as he hastily plunged the knife into Angelus' stomach and dragged it upward. He tossed the crimson-coated blade into the ruddy lambent gate, and was gratified to see the swirling energies abruptly contract back into the statue's mouth before winking out of existence.
Quickly returning to Buffy's side, Xander carefully picked up the woman who had dominated his dreams from the moment he had first seen her and smiled down at her.
"Mission accomplished, Buff-meister," he announced with a heartbreaking, wretched attempt at a smile. "You managed to save the world again."
"Uh-uh, Xan," the blonde quietly disagreed, concentrating on her words as the feeling of cold and a lack of sensation slowly took over more of her body. "You did...again," she said, as he shook his head in negation of her words.
"Don't...argue," she ordered, her voice a bare whisper which he reluctantly obeyed, not wanting their last moments together to be ones of discord. "I'm sorry...I... screwed up...should have...chosen... you," she whispered, as his vision blurred with his tears.
"I love you, Buffy," he told her. "Always have. Always will."
"I could.. should...have loved...you, Xand," Buffy smiled up at him weakly, the light beginning to fade from her eyes. "We... would... have been... good together."
"We would have been great together, Buffy," he agreed, and was rewarded with seeing her smile one final time before her eyes glazed over.
He knelt there for an indeterminate time, simply holding his first love's body, before he finally came back to a sense of where he was.
"Oooo, what a heart-rending scene that was," he heard the mocking voice of Angelus sneering at him. How long the demon's mocking monologue had been going on he had no idea, but he found himself tired of listening to him droning on and now wanted to hear only silence.
Carefully setting Buffy's now cooling body on the stones, he got up and walked with an eerie calmness over to where the former leader of the Scourge of Europe lay helplessly and looked down at him.
"What're you going to do now, Harris?" Angelus sneered. "Gonna kill me, so you can brag about being the one who finally took down the great Angelus?"
Although he would have denied it vehemently, the look in the boy's eyes as he stared down at him shot a thread of fear through the justly-infamous demon, before he managed to shake off the feeling.
If he could just keep the boy distracted for a little while longer, he figured, his vampiric healing would let him recover sufficiently to get away. Then he could hole up until he was a hundred percent again, and once he was fully recovered, he would hunt down this arrogant little shit and show him pain the likes of which no one had ever felt before.
"No," the brunet standing over him finally answered him. "I'm not gonna kill you, Angelus. Not now. That would be too quick. You're gonna suffer before you finally get to die, leech. And that's not gonna be for a while yet," he quietly promised.
He turned away, as if to return to Buffy's body, and Angelus silently rejoiced. He was beginning to be able to feel his arms and legs again, and he knew it was only a matter of a few more minutes before he'd be able to move again.
He'd play it smart this time, and go hide until he was fully restored. And then, once he was whole again, he'd truly unleash hell here on earth, on this child and everyone he'd ever cared about.
The cheerleader would be first - he'd catch her and have some fun with her for a while. Maybe even get a camcorder and film every single moment of what he did to her. That's one thing that would really get to the boy, seeing him and his minions using the girl he cared about like she was the lowest form of whore. And then, once he decided he'd had enough fun, he'd finally turn her and set her after everyone else the boy cared about.
But only after he had called and warned the little shit about what he was going to do, and where and when he could find her. Making the boy kill his ex in order to save his remaining friends would be the first step in destroying the boy's soul.
After that, he'd go after the redheaded computer nerd who thought she had what it took to be a witch. He'd disabuse her of that idea soon enough. He'd turn her, too, because that -
His plans for the future were rudely interrupted, however, when the boy called over to him as he crouched beside the Slayer's body.
"Hey, Deadboy," Xander said, and Angelus looked over to see what the little bastard wanted.
"I didn't forget about how fast you bastards heal," he smiled, as he picked up the Slayer's sword and walked back to stand over the now very worried demon.
"I want to make sure you'll still be here when I come back, so don't think I'm doing this just to hurt you," he said, as he raised the blade above his head, then brought it down onto Angelus' left leg, a few inches above the knee.
The meaty THUNK! as it cleaved through the limb was drowned out by the vampire's scream of pain.
Three more times the sword dropped, accompanied by three more screams, before the brunet stood quietly, looking down at his now limbless foe.
"Like I said," he spoke quietly once the demon's screams ceased, "I wasn't doing that to hurt you."
Pulling the .45 from his belt, he thumbed the hammer back, pointed the pistol at Angelus' groin and calmly squeezed the trigger, as a wide-eyed Angelus began pleading for him not to fire.
"THAT, I did to hurt you," he smiled as he stared into the hated yellow eyes, once the screaming had finally stopped. "Don't go away. I'll be back in a little while... Stumpy."
Turning his back, Xander dropped the sword and walked over and carefully picked up the limp body of the Slayer, holding it as though it were the most precious thing in the world to him.
Ignoring the raging threats and promises of retribution filling the air behind him, Xander carried his friend and love's body home.
"Look, I'm telling you guys everything I know," the weasel-y dark-haired bartender repeated himself for the third time, gulping nervously at the dozen and a half vampires staring at him from various positions around the bar. "Nobody's seen or heard from Angelus since before the Slayer was buried. The last I saw him was about a week ago, when he was looking for information about where he could find the Slayer's Watcher. That's it, I swear!"
The bartender's interrogation was halted as the front door of the bar was kicked open and two figures wearing dark clothes and black balaclavas stepped inside, one of them holding a pump-action shotgun while the second carried a large duffle bag, which he casually tossed towards the currently empty center of the room.
"If you're looking for Angelus, I think you guys might be interested in seeing what's inside this," the second figure announced in low-pitched voice, as he swung a cut-down shotgun hanging from his shoulder into position. "If you want to discuss the contents further, we'll be waiting at his mansion until dawn."
The two then carefully stepped back outside, their weapons not wavering a millimeter from the bar's patrons.
As they carefully eyed the open front door, several of the more daring demons cautiously edged their way towards the duffle bag, from which muffled sounds could be heard by the more sharp-eared among the bar's clientele.
Ripping the bag's fastener open, a red-haired vampire, who had been sired by Drusilla in one of her more lucid moments, upended it, then jumped back in shock as the bag's contents hit the floor.
His dark, piercing eyes were missing, his nose broken and smashed flat, all of his teeth were missing and his tongue had been torn out, but Angelus' features were easily recognizable under the bruises and dried blood streaking his face. The former master vampire's limbs were also missing, leaving behind a crippled caricature of what had been of the most feared and legendary demons to walk the earth.
A note, apparently scrawled in blood, most likely Angelus' own, had been pinned to the demon's torso with a paring knife recognizable by some of the vampires present as one that Angelus had liked to use when slowly carving up his victims, usually while they pleaded for the mercy of a quick death.
'HE MAY HAVE KILLED THE SLAYER, BUT HE DIDN'T LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO ENJOY IT,' the note read. 'LEAVE TOWN NOW, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO JOIN HIM.'
Appalled by the sight of the former master vampire lying on the floor in front of them, mewling pathetically, one of Angelus' former minions snapped a rung from one of the nearly barstools and quickly staked him, both the stake and the ruined remnants of the demon transforming into a handful of dust.
"Who the fuck do these guys think they are?" the minion who had staked Angelus demanded, spurred by a mixture of fear and outrage. "Humans think they can tell us to leave town? That's not how things work here! We feed on them! They worry about us, not us about them! I'm gonna go rip out their throats, and then I'm gonna find their families and drain all of them, too! Who's with me, huh?"
A dozen voices joined the first's in their declarations of how things should happen, and how they were going to demonstrate the proper way they should go, and Willie let out a sigh of relief as he watched them storm out the front door, intent on teaching the upstart humans who had maimed Angelus a lesson.
"I don't who you guys were, but I gotta say 'Thanks.' Those guys were getting kinda peeved," he muttered. "I hope you're smart enough not to really be there when they show up," he added, under his breath, looking around to make sure none of his customers had heard him.
"All right, fools! We're here to 'discuss' what happened to Angelus, and what's gonna happen to you!" the self-appointed leader yelled as he slammed open the front door and stormed into the house, closely followed by Willy's other ex-clientele.
They milled around, checking the various rooms for the two humans who had promised to be waiting for them, while several of them tried to open a large foot locker that had been pushed to one side next to a black leather couch.
"What do you think Angelus had stored in here?" one of them asked, as they tore the padlock off and threw the lid open to reveal half a dozen blocks of some kind of putty-like substance and what looked like the torn-apart contents of a stereo system, along with several bottles that smelled like gasoline and soap.
"Anyone know what the hell are these things?" the redhead asked, looking over at one of his cohorts.
Across the street, Xander smiled at the voices coming through the small earpiece from the small transmitter he had secreted inside the locker.
"Could there be a 'C' there, Pat?" he asked rhetorically. "And possibly a '4'?" he added, as he pressed the button on the palm-sized transmitter he held in his hand.
A loud WHOOOMP! accompanied the transformation of the mansion into a blazing ball of fire that rose nearly a hundred feet into the night sky.
"These creatures truly are as arrogant and stupid as you predicted," Giles smiled, standing next to the younger man. "Come on, now, we need to get you home. You do have school in the morning," he said as the two turned away from the raging inferno and headed towards the Englishman's car.