More Than Who We Are: Part Eight
by Calie Johnston
Part Eight

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Buffy crouched against the side of the brick, graffiti-covered wall.

At least, she hoped it was graffiti.

It was red, and the only option other than graffiti made her sick to her stomach, even after everything she had seen and done.

There were still a few hours until daylight, and with any luck, Aurélie would leave again before the sun rose. Buffy sighed. She didn't want to put off her break-and-entering any longer.

But leaning against the wall in that darkened ally, Buffy got the impression that the crime of breaking and entering was the very least of the crimes committed in this area. Skulls littered the ground in clumps, some were blackened and burnt, looking like they had been part of some kind of sacrifice. Buffy realized. Considering the other alternative - that people were sick enough to dismember the dead like that just for the sake of it - demons and ritual occult sacrifices sounded perfectly sane.

Buffy shivered and peered warily into a broken window.

The vampire Aurélie had made only about an hour ago was pacing the room.

Alone.

She leaned in a little closer. Aurélie was nowhere in sight.

Knowing that she was taking a huge risk, she climbed in through the window, as quietly as she could.

A bang echoed through the room.

she thought wildly as she collapsed onto a pile of boxes stacked up beneath the window.

The vampire came at her in full game face. It snarled, ready to attack.

Buffy somersaulted underneath him, jumping up and pulling a stake out of her pocket. The vampire growled ferally, its yellow eyes glinting the dim light of the warehouse. It slammed its fist into her face...

...tried to, anyway.

"Oops, missed me!" Buffy said cheerfully, ducking its repeated punches. She spun and kicked the vampire, pinning it down on the ground. Buffy pressed the tip of the stake to its chest. "Is she here?" Buffy demanded.

The vampire shook its head, afraid of its sire even though Buffy was about to stake him anyway. It shifted, trying to get out from under her grasp.

Buffy held out the cross she was wearing, holding it right above his face. She shook one finger at him. "Nuh-uh. You're not going anywhere."

Buffy pressed the cross to his face, scalding his deathly-pale cheek. It screamed in agony as she held it there.

The thing shook its head, in too much pain to answer.

Buffy took the cross away from his face. "Hmmm?"

"Sees...nah...'ere..." it rasped.

She smiled brightly. "Thank you!" She staked him and stood up. Glancing at her arm, she saw a deep cut from a nail on one of the boxes. The blood was already beginning to clot, making her arm swell. She looked warily around the room, still not sure Aurélie was gone.

she thought with a sigh. The inside of the warehouse was filled with boxes, more than a hundred by her estimate. Buffy looked back at the boxes she had landed on top of. Piles of papers had been dumped out of them, nearly all of them were filled, front and back, with sloppy handwriting. She crouched down next to them, picking up a small, crimson notebook.

She began to read, and she slowly slid down the wall. "Oh, my God..." she murmured.



Buffy continued skimming the entries, which seemed to be more of the same. Until one word caught her eye.

*Rumania*.

She read the entry carefully, not missing a word. Aurélie had tracked down the vampiric trio to Rumania, and hidden in the bushes as Angelus fed on the Gypsy girl.

Had stayed hidden in the bushes as the Kalderash elder woman had cursed Angelus with a soul, unknowing that the curse affected any vampire within hearing range.

But if she had her soul...why was she still evil?

The journal entries became fewer and fewer after Aurélie was cursed, then ceased to exist about a year later. But judging from the ones Buffy skimmed through, even after she regained her soul, the female vampire was still determined to leave a legacy of cruelty.

And Aurélie had discovered a way to do it.

< I summoned the demon Beirgin yesterday. He is one of the wisest and oldest demons on both this Earth and Hell below it. br />

For I have discovered my legacy, one that is both ironic and cruel, and need someone to lend me the power to fulfill it.

As revenge for the curse placed on me, I will take away the souls of weakling humans who cannot live without them. Beirgin, it seems, has watched me since I was made by Angelus some nineteen years ago. He is proud of my cruelty, which, unlike Angelus', has remained very much a part of me even since I was cursed. He agrees to reward me with this power, so that I might begin to act upon the rage that has been boiling up within me.

I will not disappoint, Beirgin. >

Buffy swallowed hard and dropped the paper.

She couldn't do this by herself anymore. She needed someone who knew what she so very desperately had to find out.

Buffy raced back to Jordan's apartment.


* * *
Picking up the phone, not caring that it was barely five o'clock in the morning, Buffy speed-dialed Giles' home number.

Her Watcher picked up on the fifth ring, groggily answering, "Hullo?"

"Giles?"

The weariness erased itself from the older man's voice as he replied, "Buffy! Thank God! Are you - are you coming back to Sunnydale?"

Buffy shook her head, then remembering he couldn't see her, "No. Giles, I really need your help -"

"Buffy, I'm afraid matters are quite urgent," Giles interrupted. "It seems a quite powerful vampire has taken up residence here, and is quite bent on wreaking havoc in Sunnydale...he goes by the name of Stéphan, and I have reason to believe that he may have been sired by Angelus...which would make him quite dangerous indeed."

She hesitated a moment - there were two of them?! - before replying, "Giles? Angel is the only vampire that has a soul, isn't he?"

He seemed surprised by her question. "If there was a-another, I'm sure it would have been recorded by someone, and Angel's is the only case I've ever come across of that particular curse even being attempted."

"Giles, that curse...was it specific to Angel? I mean, if there was another vampire or demon around there when they cursed him, would it affect them too?"

"I-I'm not sure, really. It most likely would, but as I said, there would probably be a rec-"

Buffy cut him off. "Then we've got big problems. Giles, I can't go back to Sunnydale. There's another vampire here, another French one actually, named Aurélie...I followed her to this warehouse, and she had all kinds of diary entries and stuff. She was made by Angelus, at least according to everything she wrote. Giles, is - is it possible to suck out someone's soul, just by...just by touching them?"

Another pause. "That's what this vampire does?"

"I think so," Buffy replied.

She could practically see Giles adjust his glasses nervously as he answered, "It's not unheard of. Generally one would have to make, quite literally, a deal with the Devil in order to do so, but I suppose it's possible."

She nodded. "And just to add a really, really weird twist...this Aurélie...has a soul. But she's still really, really evil, you know? I mean, is that possible? To be evil even with a soul?" Buffy knew she sounded desperate, asking that. She didn't want to believe that anyone with a soul could be that cruel. she asked herself savagely.

Giles cleared his throat. "Buffy. You know as well as I do that human beings kill, are cruel, all the time. I'm not going to lie to you, it's an all too real possibility that this Aurélie does indeed have a soul, and is indeed just as evil as any demon that doesn't, if not more so. If a demon is cursed with a soul, that's not all that they regain. Human feelings, human intelligence...and also the human attitude that life is a cruel game that is won only by being as cruel as the world that surrounds us." A long silence passed between the two before he spoke again. "I want you to stay where you are. You have your hands full there. Perhaps Willow will be able to find some sort of enchantment to stop Sunnydale's latest vampiric leader from gaining too much power."

"Giles, I can come home if you really need me to."

"No. But Buffy," his voice softened. "Please do come home after your situation is resolved. We all miss you quite a bit."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Send everyone my love."

"Will do," Giles replied, hanging up the phone.

Buffy sighed, then turned around to see Jordan standing in the doorway.

"Nicole," Jordan addressed her, "what happens to someone after they lose their soul?"

Buffy raised one eyebrow curiously, wondering why he wanted to know. "I don't know...I only saw it happen once, and just from far off. I dunno, the guy looked braver, more macho, or something. Why?"

His voice cracked as he spoke. "You know my friend Randy? From the gas station?" She nodded. "Listening to what you were saying, I-I think that it might have happened to him."

She collapsed onto the couch. "Oh, God..."

"What?"

"Jordan, it's my job t-to protect people, to stop that kind of stuff from happening...I feel like I've failed."

Jordan sat down next to her. "No, you didn't. Nicole, you can't...you can't save everyone...people die all the time."

She looked up at him. "Yeah, but usually I don't know them," she said, choking out a laugh. "You don't blame me?"

He shrugged. "I guess I do, a little bit, but let's face it. This probably would have happened even if I'd never met you, and if I never met you, I wouldn't have anybody to blame, now would I?"

Buffy snorted. "Okay, that twisted little piece of logic made you sound *exactly* like Xander." This time, Jordan laughed too.

Impulsively, Buffy reached out and hugged him. Surprised, he returned the gesture. "Thank you," she said into his shoulder. She pulled away. "You never had to help me, you know, and you did...thank you."

Jordan sighed. "And I'm going to keep helping you." He looked out through the window. "Because now this is personal."


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