Author: Philip S.
Summary: Every story has a beginning. For Soulworld it begins in Romania in 1898 when two vampires are cursed by vengeful Gypsies. And the world will never be the same again.
Disclaimer: Angel and Spike are property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. The concept of Soulworld is property Yours Truly.
Rating: R
Archive: All Soulworld stories are archived at http://soulworld.shadow-dancing.com Title Picture: http://soulworld.shadow-dancing.com/Pics/Soul_Beginnings.jpg
Dedication: To Lesley, who kept nagging me about writing this story for a long time back when the first few Soulworld stories came out. It took me a while, Les, but here it is. Hope you like it.
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Romania
December 3, 1898
There is a fire in front of us, the flames consuming the wood we gathered at a rapid pace, but I can not feel the heat. No matter how close I move my hands to the fire they remain cold. It's not the freezing air, though, and the flames have no hope of chasing it from my bones.
It is softly snowing and the snow settles on my shoulders, my back, my arms. No body heat to melt it off and I find myself covered in a thin white blanket that should be freezing me, yet it does not. I am freezing for entirely different reasons. I am cold as death, which is only fitting I guess. Death is what I am. Death that walks like a man.
The sun will rise in a few hours and maybe tonight I will find the courage to put an end to this.
I have barely exchanged two words with the man sitting next to me. I am not sure who he is, which seems strange as I have travelled with him for 18 years now. Yet I do not know him. Not anymore. Not after what they did to us.
Unbidden the memories return. Waking up in this strange forest, not a single clue as to how I came to be here. This stranger at my side, his accent clearly British, both of us on the ground and equally confused. The last I could remember was an alley behind my favourite pub in my hometown of Galway, along with the beautiful young noble woman whom I had followed there.
A man approached us, looking at us with so much hatred in his eyes that I shrank back from his gaze. I did not know who he was. Why did he hate us so? He told us that our suffering would now begin, that we did not yet remember what we had done, but we soon would. That the faces of all those we had killed would haunt us for all times.
I did not understand what he meant then. Killed? I had never killed anyone in my entire life. There were quite a few sins I was guilty of, but murder was not one of them. Then, in that moment, the memories started to return. Slowly at first, one by one, images of blood and horror that I could not grasp, did not want to have inside my head. They would not go away, though. They simply refused to leave me alone.
Now I know. I remember. I am not Liam O'Conner anymore. Liam died in that alley nearly 150 years ago. I am Angelus. The Sadist. The Scourge of Europe. I have wiped out more lives than the plague and laughed while doing it, enjoying every single moment.
Oh God! Why did this have to happen to me?
"She was but a girl," the man next to me mutters. Spike is his name. I made him. Took a young man named William who had caught the eye of my childe Drusilla and turned him into a creature like me. Just one more life I have snuffed like a candle.
"But a girl," he goes on, "and I ... I tore her face off. Oh God!"
"Silence, boy," I growl at him. What does he know about suffering? He was a vampire for a measly eighteen years.
"Don't tell me what to do," he yells back, tears in his eyes. "You did this to me! You turned me into a bloody monster!"
I hold his gaze for a moment, then look down. He is right of course. I made him into a monster. Every single crime that he committed these last eighteen years is my fault. Oh God, why can't the sun rise already? Please, just end this!
For hours we sit in silence as the night slowly passes us by. I know that I will smell the sunrise long before it comes. Yet another sign of the monster I have become. The monster whose instincts have overpowered me these last three nights, forced me to seek shelter even though I wanted to see the sun so badly.
Not tonight. When the sun rises I will be there to greet it. Better to end it right here.
"I am hungry," Spike says. His face is gaunt and pale, dark rings under his eyes. I have little doubt that, beneath his dirty shirt, his body is just as starved as mine.
"Keep your mouth shut!"
For a moment he seems ready to fight with me and I would welcome the violence. Violence I understand, oh yes.
"We will need to feed sooner or later or we will die."
"So?"
Spike sighs, his hands shaking as he combs his blonde locks back from his face. He looks tired, incredibly so.
"If you want to kill yourself," Spike says, "then you won't have long to wait. The sun will rise a few hours from now."
I say nothing in return. What is there to say?
"What do you want to do, Angelus?" he asks me. "It's not like we can just wish this thing away, okay? Don't you think I feel bloody terrible as well? Hell, I've spent more than a few thoughts on killing myself these last few days. God knows I deserve worse than death."
I surge to my feet, feel my face lose its human shape. I know that I am a monster and why should not everyone see it? Snow brakes away from my body as I move, flakes of it falling into the fire, melting into steam.
"You know nothing, boy," I snarl at this man who is my childe. "You have been a Vampire for eighteen years. Eighteen lousy years! What do you have to feel sorry about? The few hundred humans you killed? Half the people in Europe have done more to lose sleep over than you."
My rage is quickly spent and I collapse to my knees, my hands falling into the cold snow covering the ground. The frost does not bite me, does not hurt at all. It should. I deserve to hurt. More than anyone else on this world I deserve to hurt.
145 years. Three human lifetimes of slaughter and mayhem. Some part of my mind takes perverse pleasure in playing with the numbers. 145 years. Nearly 53,000 nights. I do not think there have been more than a handful among them where I did not spill blood in one way or another. So much blood in so many nights.
I deserve death, only it would be too good for the likes of me. Too easy. I know I will not kill myself this night. It would be a coward's act.
"You bastard," I hear Spike mutter. Looking up I see his face warped with anger. "You think you're the only guy who's got something to be sorry for? You think you got the bloody monopoly on pain?"
I shake my head. "You understand nothing, Spike. I ..."
"You were the fucking Sadist, I know." He throws his hand up in a dramatic gesture. "The great and powerful Scourge of Europe. Even other vampires were afraid of you. I know the whole soddin' story, mate. I was there for the last two decades, remember?"
How dare he make fun of my pain?
"Newsflash, mate! Just because you stacked up the most impressive body count around doesn't mean that others have no guilt of their own to take care of."
My vision narrows down to his face and before I know what's happening I'm going for his throat, an animal growl breaking free of my mouth. We tumble through the snow, kicking and punching each other, lashing out with all the pain the Gypsies cursed us with. It hurts so much. Maybe if we hurt each other we won't feel our own pain anymore.
We are both starved and exhausted, though, and the fight ebbs off quickly. We come to rest side by side in the snow, small flakes settling on our faces as we pant unnecessarily. They don't melt. We are cold. I hurt all over and it does not help. Not even a bit. We are still cold.
"I don't know what to do, Will," I whisper to him, feeling my eyes brim with tears. "It hurts so much."
His cold hand clutches my own and I can feel his body shaking.
"I know. I know."
Neither of us says anything else, we just remain like that, lying in the snow with our hands clutched. Sunrise is still a few hours away and I know we will take shelter before it comes. I would welcome death and I know Spike would, too. Not tonight, though. Probably not for a long, long time.
"Angelus?" Spike asks.
"Yes?"
"We have to do something."
I nod. I'm not sure what it is he wants to do something about. Our pain? Our crimes? Our deaths? No matter, though, he is right. We have to do something. Something to make it better somehow.
"We will," I whisper. "We will."
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
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