Disclaimer: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and related characters are owned by Joss Whedon, WB and Mutant Enemy. I can only take credit for the new main characters I have created and various other vampire minions which may wander into my stories. I created them, so they are mine. Don't sue as this is just pure fanfic.
*****Chapter Two - FREAK*****
‘Ex?’ said Willow. ‘As in, used to go on dates kind of ex?’
‘Yes. She’s a werewolf too, that’s why Oz could smell weird stuff, and I’m guessing that’s how she found me.’
From her position on the floor Esmerelda snorted. ‘Yeah, I found you. After a hundred years, I finally found you again. And i’m going to make you pay for what you did to me…’ She took her hands away from her face, but kept the ear covered.
‘Oh great. A jealous-ex-vampire-werewolf-beast-thing situation. Angel buddy, you’re on your own.’ Said Xander. He thought.
‘…you ruined my life, our lives Angelus. When that bitch changed you, you became a disgusting animal; feeding on everyone around you, our friends, our family, us…’ Esmerelda sniffled as she struggled to hold back her tears and speak.
‘I’m sorry, I was…’
‘You knew what you did when you bit me, you knew how it would be if a werewolf became a vampire…’ Her tears disappeared; she was no longer upset, just angry. Angel took her hand in his and looked intently into her eyes.
‘I swear I didn’t know it would affect you…’ She shoved him away from her roughly and he crashed into the table, he got up straight away and tried to speak again, but she shouted over him.
‘Of course you knew, you knew other vampires would reject us, you knew Spike would try to kill us!’
‘Spike?’ said Buffy. Cordelia entered the library as she spoke and instantly looked afraid.
‘What about Spike?’ She looked around worriedly. ‘And who are these people?’
‘Friends of Angels, it would appear.’ Said Giles.
‘He’s no friend of mine!’ yelled Esme, staggering to her feet again. ‘He can just go to hell!’
‘Look, I understand how you must feel, but…’
‘You don’t understand anything!’ she shrieked and kicked him hard in the stomach. The force threw him backwards across the table and he crashed straight into Oz and Xander, all three went tumbling into a bookcase. Willow and Cordelia ran to them, whilst Giles and Buffy stood staring astonished by Esmerelda’s strength. She walked towards Angel as he scrambled to his knees. She leant down towards him and rolled up her sleeves, revealing scars. She had several long claw marks, vampire bite marks and circular burns. Then she lifted her sweater to reveal her navel, upon which the word ‘FREAK’ was awkwardly scratched; and as she turned round she revealed a large cross shaped burn mark on her lower back.
‘Look!’ she yelled, almost in tears. ‘Look what they’ve done to me!’
‘Who?’ asked Buffy, finally feeling able to put down her stakes.
‘Other vampires; masters, demons…slayers. Spike wrote ‘freak’.’ She dropped her sweater back down to cover the scars and started walking slowly around the library. ‘After you ran off, all overcome with guilt…’ She rolled her eyes. ‘After we got our souls back too, he came looking for us. You were never his idol, but at least you commanded some respect form him. Not anymore tho…no, he went off the rails that day, Dru was already nuts, thanks to you.’ She turned to point a finger at Angel, then sighed and looked away, lowering her angry tone. ‘No one accepts us now Angel, no other vampires, no werewolves, no witches or warlocks…no one.’ The last words came out almost in a whisper.
Suddenly the skin around her bare arm began to change, it grew thick golden-brown hair.
‘You see!’ she cried. ‘I can’t predict when it happens, or how much it will happen!’ The rest of her body began to change, it was then that Oz realised what was going on. He jumped to his feet and helped Eve and Eli to push her into the book cage.
‘She’ll be fine here.’ He said. ‘This is where I go, every full moon.’
Before their eyes she began to change into a wolf-like creature, but like none they had ever seen before, much more ferocious than Oz, and much bigger. But there was a beautiful, almost pure-wolf look about her. Less demon, more animal…just very, very angry.
‘Okay,’ said Oz. ‘she’s way scarier than me right?’
‘Yeah.’ Said Willow, taking a few steps back. ‘Way scarier.’
‘Well,’ said Giles, staring intently at her huge fangs, larger than Oz’s had ever been ‘at least we know she’s not a lycanthrope.’
‘Ly…what?’ said Cordelia.
‘Lycanthrope, it means that a person has, well, delusions that they are in fact a werewolf.’
‘Well I think it’s safe to say that that is definitely not the case.’ Said Xander sarcastically as he stepped towards the cage. Then Esmerelda jumped at the bars where he was standing, snapping her powerful jaws. ‘Ah, well I guess she’s getting hungry.’
‘No, it’s not hunger, its anger.’ Said Elijah sorrowfully, speaking for the first time.
‘At me, right?’ said Angel who had been silent since Esmerelda had revealed her scars.
‘No, well yes, but that’s not all.’ Added Eve.
‘Well what is all?’ asked Buffy.
‘When we first got our souls back and realised what trouble we were in, we tried to find a way to control Esme’s changing. We did a lot of research, into werewolves and vampires. We found a book with a section on werewolf/vampire crosses, so of course we studied it intensely.’ Said Elijah.
‘We found that when the two are mixed the strength can be vastly increased, the appetite is bigger, major wounds leave scars and the only way to kill her is a silver stake through the heart.’ Eve added.
‘Well I say start sharpening the silver stakes…oh no, sorry, I forgot, they don’t exist.’ Said Cordelia, bitterly.
‘Cordelia!’ Buffy reprimanded her. ‘What else did you find?’
‘Well, it said that her changing would be different and unpredictable, unless…’ said Evelyn.
‘…Unless we had a powerful silver amulet, it contained a charm that would restrain the two conflicting forces contained within her.’ Elijah finished.
‘But, you don’t have this amulet?’ asked Buffy.
‘We did, but it was lost thirty years ago, when we last came into contact with Spike.’
‘Of course!’ yelled Giles, marching towards them from behind a bookshelf, leafing through the thin, yellowing pages of a book. ‘There are only two amulets like it in the world, they were both made from the same piece of metal.’
‘Once again, Giles comes through with the knowledge.’ Said Xander.
‘Legend has it, ‘Giles continued enthusiastically, ignoring Xander ‘that many thousands of years ago, under a very unusual full moon, a potent spirit was released from the depths of Hell. It was the spirit of the werewolf, but more dangerous, its fangs were enlarged…somewhat like Esmerelda’s…and it possessed certain demon-like qualities. It preyed on the small villages in the early Indian territories, then the elders of these villages found a way to bring the demon to flesh…to harness its spirit, if you like, into a physical body. Then, according to Legend, they used a bullet like piece of silver to kill the beast. After it’s death it’s body turned to stone, they then drilled the silver from the stone and melted it to form two amulets…or charms as some would call it…each one possessing the power to control the wolf demon, if it ever appeared again on the earth.’
‘And it has then, right?’ Asked Buffy.
‘Yes, I’m afraid it has. You see the mixture of vampire and werewolf is similar to the wolf spirit. The werewolf in her would have to have been killed when she died…I mean by way of a silver bullet…but then she’d have been bitten by Angel and…’ they all glared blankly at him. ‘…Oh dear, I’m not explaining my self very clearly am I?’ he said.
‘Not really, no.’ Said Oz.
‘Yup, you got me.’ Said Xander.
‘Me too.’ Admitted Buffy.
‘I think I know.’ Said Angel. ‘To become a vampire you have to be killed, by a vampire, and the demon takes your body. But, werewolves have to be killed by a silver bullet. So, she’s sort of dead, but her wolf spirit hasn’t been killed. Instead the old wolf spirit and the new vampire demon co-exist in the same body, right?’
‘Hmmm? Oh…absolutely, yes.’ Giles muttered, still engrossed in the book. ‘But both parts of her are fighting for control, which causes the spontaneous appearance of the wolf. Left long enough I’m sure she’d lose control of the vampire within her aswell…or perhaps the two would tear her apart.’
Eve whinced at his words and Eli placed a comforting arm on her shoulders.
‘Okay,’ said Buffy. ‘We need to take control of this situation. Where can we find this amulet and how did you lose it?'
‘We lost it thirty years ago, we were down in Salem and ran into Spike, and some of his friends, he surrounded us. He stabbed Esme in the heart with a sword, she was too weak to fight, so then he carved ‘FREAK’ on her flesh and stole the amulet from round her neck.’ Said Eli.
When he mentioned Esme’s name he glanced at the cage, he noticed that she had changed back into her human form and lay motionless on the floor.
‘So he has it?’ asked Buffy.
‘No, he threw it in a nearby Lake.’ Said Eve.
‘That would mean that it’s in that lake, right?’ Buffy asked again.
‘No, some archaeologist or something found it and took it out. We’ve been tracking its progress ever since, we’ve never managed to get to it on time before it is moved again. We heard that it was on a truck heading for Sunnydale, so we hired a motel room, we were going to find it last night, but Esme ran into you. Then tonight she caught Angels sent, so we came here instead.’ Said Eve.
‘What does this amulet look like?’ Asked Willow.
‘It’s just a silver sphere, it has a small symbol carved on one side of it, and it looks like a fang.’ Said Eli.
‘I’ve seen that somewhere!’ said Xander excitedly.
‘Yeah, at the museum, that field trip last Friday, in the mythology section.’ Yelled Willow.
‘Okay, now we have a plan. Willow, you take Angel, Elijah and Evelyn to the museum, Giles you can go too.’ Said Buffy.
‘Okay, follow me.’ Said Willow, Eve and Eli seemed reluctant to leave Esme, but they followed Willow and Angel, Giles was last to leave.
‘Oz, you go down to the cafeteria with Xander and Cordelia, and try to find some raw meat, she may be hungry if she changes again.’ As she spoke Esme changed again.
‘What about you?’ said Xander.
‘I’ll watch her, now go.’ The three of them walked out, letting the doors swing closed behind them. Now she was alone with Esme, within seconds the werewolf morphed back to human form once more, Esme sighed deeply and sank to the floor.
‘You okay?’ asked Buffy as she stared at Esme’s human form, still slightly amazed.
‘Yes, I’m fine. That’s the longest one so far, it must be getting worse.’
‘I’m sorry…’
‘Don’t be, you didn’t do this to me. It was Angel and Spike…’ Her voice trailed off as she realised she was talking to a friend of Angels.
‘How long have you been a werewolf?’
‘I was twelve when I first changed into one, the night of my birthday.’
‘Wow, some birthday present huh.’ Buffy tried desperately to lighten the mood.
‘No.’ There was an awkward silence.
‘So how’d you know Angel?’
‘We grew up together in Ireland, me, him, Eli and Eve…and the rest of my family. We were engaged once.’
‘Engaged?’
‘Yeah, we planned to marry in the autumn, he was 24 and I was 18.’
‘Did you love him?’ Buffy asked quietly, hoping Esme wouldn’t hear and she wouldn’t have to hear her say yes.
‘Did I love him? I think so; it’s so long ago now, I can’t really remember. I think I did.’ Esme stood up and began to pace the cage.
‘Did he love you?’ She found herself desperately wishing Esme’s answer to be no.
‘I thought so, at the time. Then two days before our wedding he met Darla. She went everywhere with him, around all the pubs and the brothels.’ Esme sounded disgusted and Buffy tried to remain calm, she didn’t want to think of Angel in a brothel.
‘Then when the day of the wedding came he seemed different somehow, almost wild.’ She gave a dry laugh. ‘At the altar he turned to me, swore he loved me, then he sunk his teeth into my neck. I can remember feeling different, possessed somehow. I didn’t realise what I was, what he had made me…the worst thing was that I had to see him feeding on my family, killing some and changing others. He gorged himself that day.’
Buffy was beginning to feel sick; she was reeling from these shocking revelations. Angel had always avoided the exact details of his past and the watchers diaries were lacking in detail. To Buffy the eye witness account was too much to handle, inside she wished for Esme to stop talking. Esme didn’t.
‘For the next hundred years or so we raged through the towns and villages in Europe with Darla, picking up Spike and Dru along the way. After he’d finished with me Dru became his new obsession…his new toy.’
Buffy turned away from Esme, she bit her lip to keep from crying as she wondered if she too had been just another of his obsessions…but it was over now, she’d never go back there. Esme’s voice continued to tell Angel’s sordid past.
‘Then one night we found a gypsy camp. Darla, Druscilla and Spike fled…Dru had some sort of vision; we thought it was just superstitious bollocks so we stayed to help round up the victims, while Angel fed on a young girl. But afterwards he wasn’t allowed to get away with it and neither were we. That night our souls were returned to us. All the memories of what we had done came back to us. Angel fled, stricken with guilt and fear. We ran too, and I hated him from that day, I vowed to kill him if ever we met again.’
For a moment Buffy stayed silent, expecting more terrible truths to be revealed. Realising that she had been told all that Esme was willing to tell she spoke.
‘You vowed to, but you didn’t.’ She sounded almost puzzled.
‘No, but then again, a hundred years does give you time to think.’
‘So you don’t hate him anymore?’
‘No.’
‘Do you still love him?’
‘Hell no, and I’m guessing he’s in love with someone else by now.’
‘Really.’ She said quietly. Hearing that…just thinking that Angel still loved her gave her a funny feeling in her chest, but it didn’t matter…it was over.
‘I could see it in his eyes when he admitted I was his ex. So,’ she changed subjects, sitting on the floor again ‘you’re the new slayer are you? I guess that’s why you must be taking this all so well.’
Relieved to change the conversation topic Buffy turned back to face Esme, she was distracted for a moment thinking about how easily Angel could be attracted to someone as beautiful as Esme. She snapped back to reality and replied shyly.
‘Yeah, kinda, I’m still training, or so Giles tells me.’ She smiled nervously.
‘You’re the brave one, the chosen one I guess. The fearless one.’ Something in Esme’s tone of voice seemed almost bitter and perhaps a little threatening as she let out a hollow laugh.
‘I am.’ Buffy was defensive, unsure what to make of Esme’s change in mood. Esme stared at her intently with a serious expression on her face.
‘I can smell your fear Buffy, all slayers have that fear. It’s what gives them their edge.’ She started laughing again, tearing her eyes away from Buffy’s puzzled and slightly hurt expression. Buffy thought for a moment how evil the laugh sounded, how twisted it was. Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening.
‘There’s no meat in the whole cafeteria.’ Said Xander as he barged in. ‘Oh, your back?’ He glanced at Esme, then looked back at Buffy. She had to snap back to earth suddenly, resuming the role of the slayer he looked up to…putting Esme’s laughing behind her.
‘Go and check outside for the others, but be careful, and don’t invite any strangers in-they might be vampires.’
‘And, I’m going back out again, see ya.’ He said, then turned on his heel and left.
‘If vampires can only come in if you invite them, how did you get in here?’
‘Werewolves don’t need an invitation.’ Esme said shortly, she seemed distracted. ‘Besides, there’s that Latin engraved over the door.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Enter all ye who seek knowledge or something.’
‘Oh, right. I should’ve…yeah…’ Buffy walked to the other side of the library to look at the book Giles had been leafing through. ‘In the books Giles read,’ she said absently, ‘the other watchers diaries, they mentioned Angel, but they didn’t mention any others with him.’
‘We were his creations, Elijah Evelyn, Spike, Druscilla and me, and Darla was only his creator, he was the centre of attention. Besides, we didn’t eat as much as he did.’ She grinned. Sensing another change in Esme’s mood Buffy slumped into a chair and wondered how the others were getting on.
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