MERRY WARS AND SAD SONGS 
AUTHOR: Katta - full name Katarina Maria Hjärpe 
E-MAIL: head_overheels@hotmail.com 
SUMMARY: A powermad demon makes an army of slain 
warriors. He must be stopped, even though he’s actually 
doing Angel Investigations a favour. 
DESCRIPTION: From lightweight drama to dark action and 
vice versa. 
NOTE: I dedicate this story to GK Chesterton, because 
before he graced the scene, all I had for a title was a 
few half-bad options and a Shakespeare quote. 
SPOILER: Considering that ”Angel” hasn’t aired in Sweden 
yet and that most of my knowledge of the series is web-based 
- none. 
DISTRIBUTION: Ask first. 
FEEDBACK: As long as you’re civil, I love it. 
RATING: If you’re old enough to watch ”Angel” you’re old 
enough to read this. 
DISCLAIMER: The ones from the TV series ”Buffy…” and 
”Angels” belong to the people who made those TV series. 
Everyone else belongs to me. 





Taking a five minute break, Doyle stretched out his body while keeping his 
eyes on his teacher. There were still things he didn't quite understand 
about her. 

"May I ask you something?" 

"Sure. What?" 

"That pact you have with Spike - how can you stand teaming up with him all 
the time?" 

Wilma leaned back, thinking. "I'm rather fond of him and I don't want to see 
him die, is that an answer?" 

It was, and a clear one, but it shocked Doyle, who had seen what Spike could 
do at his worst. "But he's evil, you know that, don't you?" 

She sighed. "I lost track of that sort of things after Hiroshima." 

"The bomb?" Doyle asked, confused. 

"Yup. Thousands of innocent people killed, children born with deformities 
and cancer, and all of this was done by the good guys. The guys that we had 
hoped for all through the war. At least Spike is selfish." 

"I thought selfishness was a bad thing." 

"If a person has a cause," she started, choosing her words carefully, "and 
you disagree with the cause or with the methods, there's no way of getting 
along with them. But Spike's only cause is himself - his meals, his safety, 
his lady. You can only kill so many people to satisfy your own hunger. To 
satisfy some great ideal, there's no limit." 

Janie, who once again, and this time of her own free will, had decided to 
spend the evening at her grandmother's house, entered the room and stopped 
to listen to the philosophical conversation. 

"Okay," Doyle said after doing some thinking, "so everything is relative. 
I'd still say that teaming up with a soulless sod with no remorse is taking 
a big risk." 

"I thought I had the perfect solution to that problem once," Janie said, 
deciding to enter the conversation. "Unfortunately, I didn't." 

"What solution?" Doyle asked, since she seemed wanting to tell the rest. 

"There's this story by Anatole France," she said, "in which an old, 
half-blind priest comes to an island inhabited by penguins. He thinks 
they're people, so he baptizes them. That causes a lot of headache in 
Heaven, because penguins aren't humans with immortal souls, yet they're 
baptized and must be allowed to enter. Finally, saint Catherine of 
Alexandria comes up with the idea to give them an immortal soul, but a small 
one. So I figured, let's baptize the vamps! Then I remembered that if you 
were to baptize a vampire…" 

"…he wouldn't live through the ceremony," Doyle concluded. 

"Exactly." She sighed. "So much for my perfect solution." She turned to her 
grandmother. " I ran into mom and Sean down town, they said they might be 
coming over." 

Wilma gave Doyle a quick glance, and there were traces of worry in her face. 

"I don't know if that's a good idea." 

Janie looked sympathetic to Wilma's doubt, but shrugged to show there was 
nothing she could do about it. Doyle didn't like those glances, even though 
he didn't know what they meant. Yet. 


********** 


Wilma's daughter Tineke seemed to have her own key, because she just showed 
up in the hall. The man in his late twenties trailing her must be Sean, and 
by his looks Doyle guessed that he was another of Wilma's grandchildren. Not 
that the man was of much concern to him, since all he did was give Doyle a 
quick nod and then settle down in a chair with a cigarette. Unlike his 
mother. Tineke didn't say much when she spotted Doyle, who was currently 
playing cards with Janie, but her face froze and she gave Wilma an 
if-looks-could-kill stare. 

"Mother," she said coldly, and everyone in the room except Doyle knew that 
she only used that aloof word when she was furious. Doyle could guess. "Can 
we have a talk?" 

"If we have to," Wilma said and the two of them left the room. When the door 
had closed behind them, Tineke immediately flamed her mother. 

"What is that demon doing here?" 

"He and Janie are playing poker for matches," Wilma answered calmly. 

"You know what I mean! Is he a client?" 

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes. He wishes to get a human shape 
and I'm helping him." 

"Oh, and why are you doing that?" Tineke asked sourly. "So that he can go 
out and seduce my daughter - who by the way still is a minor?" 

"Oh, for Christ's sake, don't be ridiculous," Wilma snapped impatiently. 

"And even if he were, wouldn't that be Janie's choice?" 

"Why? Was it ever mine? Do you think it was my choice to grow up in a house 
with stakes in every corner? To have Jacob babysit me while you were curing 
some werewolf, or to lie to my highschool friends about who that gorgeous 
blonde cockney they saw in my house was? Did you even ask me, mom?" 

"No," Wilma admitted. "I didn't. But if you choose one thing I did to 
repeat, does it have to be one of my mistakes?" 

Tineke's face wasn't quite as blushed as the moment before, and she took a 
deep breath to stay calm. 

"All I want is a normal life, mom. I didn't protest when Wilson got engaged 
to that Torun person, because it was about accepting her or losing my son. 
But I'm glad they broke up, glad to have a life without any traces of the 
otherworld, and I'd like to keep it that way, and I don't want any more 
demons dating my children." 

"I can't believe you," Wilma said, and there was shock in her voice. "To say 
something completely speciesist like that…" 

"Speciesist?" Tineke interrupted her. "I can't stop the kids from playing 
your little games, or to meet your friends, but I'd like you to remember 
that I want a human family, human grandchildren, and if that makes me a 
speciesist, so be it." 



********** 


The youngsters watched the two women leave, and then Janie turned to Sean: 

"Worse than usual, isn't she?" she asked. 

"Bad day at work," Sean said briefly, speaking for the first time. "So," he 
said, turning to Doyle, "you're the demon guy my little sisters keep talking 
about? Kitty said you had 'certain aspects of perfection'. Sounds like 
highest praise to me. By the way, were is Kitty?" 

"She's out with Clifford," Janie said, still involved in the card game. 

"Ah. Well, I guess even perfection isn't as good as a Bob Marley wannabe who 
ends up looking mighty muppety." 

"Oh, Doyle is a fine muppet, too," Janie said absent-mindedly. 

"Yeah, your mother seemed to think so," Doyle said bitterly, "judging by the 
look she gave me." 

"Never mind mom," Sean said with a laugh. "If the Arch-angel Gabriel came 
down from the heavens and told her she was to be the mother of the new 
Messiah, she would give him the exact same look she gave you. She hates the 
otherworld, it's a simple as that. A severe case of bad potty training, I'd 
say, but apart from that, there's no harm in her." 

Maybe that was true, Doyle thought, but even if it was, it wouldn't help 
much. Even in human shape, he would always be part of the otherworld, 
whether he wanted to or not. 


********** 


In spite of the fact that he completely trusted Wilma, in some corner of his 
heart Doyle hadn't really thought that he would turn back. Not until they 
had reached that point in his tuition where he actually managed to focus on 
his hands and keep them human for several minutes. It was exhausting, but 
what a reward! When he was allowed to take a break, he would have fallen 
asleep on the sofa if it hadn't been for the fact that Kitty's legs was 
already occupying most of it. 

"Getting somewhere?" she asked and moved aside enough for him to sit down. 

"You bet!" he answered with a satisfied smile. Leaning back and relaxing - 
he had become rather good at varying hard work with complete relaxation - he 
continued: "You know, it's funny. I still don't much like being a demon, but 
this body isn't half bad. As long as I put aside what it *means*, that it 
nearly ruined my life and that everything I thought I knew turned out to be 
a lie, well it is pretty impressive. I could wear it to a fight no problem." 

"That's what the transsexual said, too," Kitty remarked. 

He stared at her. "Say what?" 

"Well, not exactly that. But she said that when she saw her body as 
something apart from herself, she stopped thinking of it as a flawed woman's 
body and realized she could easily fall in love with a man wearing it. 
Before, she couldn't even stand the look of it, and then how are you 
supposed to change anything? It's funny, Granny isn't used to gender issues 
and didn't know whether to take her at first, but then she figured what the 
heck, it's reversible anyway. Unlike an operation." 

"I thought Wilma usually taught people how to become animals," he said 
cautiously, trying to figure things out. 

"That's the expensive cases," Kitty said. "It takes years to turn into an 
animal, and it's basically luxury, so yeah, that brings in the most money. 
Then there's the stuff that's practically charity. She has had three women 
who had their breasts removed." 

Doyle thought about that. It seemed like Wilma had experience from a vast 
number of areas. That meant that even if he was an extraordinary case, he 
wasn't *quite* as extraordinary as he had thought. Kitty sensed some of this 
in his expression and laughed. 

"'I don't think I'm different or in any case unique'," she said, "think 
about yourself for a minute and you'll find the answer in it, everyone's a 
freak.'" 

Janie entered the room. 

"Why are you quoting ABBA on him?" she asked. 

"I'm just trying to teach him there's no reason to play Eey-ore," Kitty 
said. 

"Sad, are you?" Janie said softly. 

"Not at the moment, actually," Doyle said with a grin. 

"But he's usually not half-bad at the Eey-ore thing," Kitty pointed out. 
"Who taught you, the Eey-ore master?" 

"The…?" 

"You work for him, don't you?" 

Doyle chuckled. "Angel." 

"Eey-ore master doesn't even cover it," Janie said. "He's Eey-ore, Marvin 
and Puddleglum thrown into one. I'm the first to admit that self-pity is a 
noble art, but maybe not all the time. Cute and all, but how depressive! One 
the other hand, it's better than the opposite." 

"What, being happy?" 

"Being Pollyanna." 

Kitty giggled. "Ah, let's see, how would Pollyanna cover being a vampire? 
Oh, I know! 'At least I'll finally have plenty of time to get around to 
reading the classics!'" 

She burst into helpless laughter, and Doyle couldn't help laughing, too. In 
this company, it was impossible to stay broody for long. 


********** 


Still, there were moments when Doyle was feeling less than happy. A lot 
less. Okay, so he might soon get back his humanity, and that was a good 
thing, but it wouldn't make him human, and he didn't know what Cordelia 
would feel like once she got used to having him back. Maybe everything was 
alright as long as he could pass for human. Maybe it wasn't. How was he to 
know which? 

"Kitty, can I ask you something?" he asked at a moment when they were alone 
together. Kitty wasn't the most desirable female in the universe, but she 
was female, and he trusted her to be truthful, and right now that was all he 
needed. 

"Sure," she said, trying to get Fluffy off a bookshelf. 

"Do you.. Could you ever find me attractive?" 

Fluffy could wait. She stared at Doyle. "What kind of question is that?" 

"Forget it," he mumbled in embarrassment, trying to leave the room. 

"No, Doyle, I don't find you attractive. As for the 'could I ever', that's 
not a question I intend to ask myself. I have a boyfriend, whom I love very 
much, and I'm not going to mess things up with him just to satisfy your 
ego." She stepped down from the chair she had been using. "Because that's 
what this is all about, isn't it? You certainly don't find *me* attractive." 

"Well…" he tried to stall, and she raised an eyebrow. "Okay, then, no. I 
don't." 

"But there are people who do," she replied. "And my opinion of you isn't 
necessarily the same as anyone else's. Anyone in particular?" 

"Cordelia," he said. 

She made a grimace. "Let's hope she's not what the name implies. Anyway, so 
this Cordelia, she likes you?" 

"I think I dare say 'yes' on that one," he answered. 

"But she's not a big fan of demons." 

"No." 

"Well, here's a thought. If you want to know what she thinks about you, 
maybe I'm not the right person to ask, since I *do* like demons, but you 
personally… well, I like you and all, but my heart doesn't exactly flutter 
when you enter the room." 

"What if this shape shifting takes longer than Wilma thinks?" he asked. 

"You mean seventeen years, like it did for me?" Kitty countered. "Don't 
worry. You're almost done already." 

"Why did it take so long for you?" Doyle asked. He realized he was entering 
Kitty-centered territory, but after all that time the women in this house 
had spent listening to his problems, he might as well pay back some. 

She sighed. "That acknowledgment thing never worked for me. I wanted to get 
the hell out of my life as quickly as possible, and since there's nothing 
physically wrong with me, granny never figured that one out." 

"What was wrong with your life?" 

"To put it briefly: first day of first grade, I had promised to sit next to 
my best friend Melissa Duncan. Then Amanda Paterson, who had a golden 
bracelet and her own pony, came up to me and said 'I like your hair. Do you 
want to sit next to me?' I abandoned Melissa in an instant." 

Doyle remembered moments like this from his days as a teacher, but didn't 
quite understand. "Is that all?" 

"That, and ten years like it. Choosing hobbies, clothes, friends and 
boyfriends by what was considered cool by other people. We spent a few years 
in Europe that were a little better, but not much. It may sound trivial to 
you, but for most of us, that's all it takes." 

"Hey, I had a human life too, once," Doyle protested. "Don't think I can't 
relate to the trivial. So, you snapped out of it and turned freaky instead?" 

"More or less," she said with a grin. "I had a boyfriend that I was really 
tired of, so I kicked him out of the relationship, and then I pleaded for 
sympathy. Only, I didn't get any. A girl I considered the greatest bitch in 
humanity told me straight to my face that I only had myself to blame. It 
ended with me against the entire volley ball team, so I quit and started 
hockey instead. Funny thing is, I liked it. Then I cut my hair and liked 
that too, and one day when greatest-bitch-girl passes me in the hallway, she 
says 'Hey, Kincaid! Happiness becomes you!' So here I am, two years down the 
road, and I will on demand change my eye color, stand on thin air, heal 
small wounds and *almost* turn into a pigeon, but I will not wear cute 
clothes and a permanent fake smile on a sulky face, nor will I ever again 
date a handsome guy." 

Doyle had listened with sympathy, but this surprised him. "You don't like 
handsome guys?" 

She frowned. "Generalizing here - but in 90% of the cases, handsome guys are 
assholes who knows they can have any girl they want and don't have to be 
nice. The exception would be Janie's boyfriend Ray, he's absolutely 
gorgeous, but on the other hand, he works as a drag queen and has to prove 
that he's straight all the time, so he doesn't count. Clifford is a 
sweetheart, but 'his form and face, his manly grace, are not the kind that 
you would find in a statue'. But any better than him and you'll be entering 
dragon slaying territory." At this, she stopped to think and looked 
curiously at Doyle. "Speaking of which, do you want to learn the best 
come-on in history? Just to use on girls who find you attractive?" 

"Sure," he agreed, and she quoted: 

"Hey, can I tell you something? I mean, this might be kind of embarrassing 
coming from a guy you just met and everything, but, uh, I really think you 
should know. Say this was like the olden days, you know - thousands and 
thousands of years ago. I'd kill a dragon for you. Really I would. I'd get 
right out there and I'd kill one! In fact, I'll make you an offer. If you'll 
go out with me some night this week, I'll make a definite commitment to kill 
the first dragon that I see." 

Doyle laughed. "Pretty good one. Still, I don't think I'll be using it. 
There's too big a risk I would have to fulfil the promise." 

"True," Kitty admitted. "I don't think it was designed for people with 
supernatural contacts." 



********** 


Angel entered Cordelia's office only to see her slamming her own head into 
her desk. In two quick strides he was by her stride and held her until the 
vision ended. 

"What did you see?" he asked, hoping it would have something to do with the 
cult. Her visions hadn't been very helpful in that area so far. 

"Snowball," she breathed. 

"A snowball? In L.A.!?" 

"Not that kind of snowball!" she said impatiently. "One of those crystal 
balls you shake, that have little snowflakes in them. A pretty tacky one, 
too." 

Angel sighed, a little disappointed. "Was that all?" 

"No, an address too." She grabbed a paper and wrote it down, handing the 
paper to Angel. "Does it ring any bell?" 

"Not really. But the street is only a few blocks away." Angel glanced at the 
window. Still light outside. "I don't want you to go alone. Where's Wesley?" 

"Wesley is at home, and apart from that he'd be of no help whatsoever. I can 
take care of myself." 

When Angel just looked at her, she sighed. 

"Forget it, I'll call Buffy." 

Buffy knew very well that this could be a breakthrough, so she hurried to 
meet with Cordelia and see what was at the address. It turned out to be a 
small shop with the somewhat nutty name "Tokens and Things" written in green 
uneven letters on the pink front door. 

"A bric-a-brac shop," Buffy said, a little confused. 

"And just as tacky as my vision, too," Cordelia said and opened the door. A 
clerk answered the sound of the little bell. He was a middle-aged man in 
casual clothing who seemed a little bored by his occupation but eager to 
hide it. 

"Hello!" he said with a big smile on his face. "What can I do for you?" 

"We're looking for one of those balls with snowflakes in them, do you have 
one?" Buffy said. 

"Several," he answered. "Here's one with puppy dogs, for example. And here's 
Cinderella. You know, it's funny, I can't remember it snowing in the 
Cinderella story. Once I had one with Hawaii palm trees, that was weird." 

"It's not any of these," Cordelia said to Buffy. "It had the virgin Mary and 
baby Jesus in it, and a clock below. Really tacky." 

The clerk looked curious. "Oh, so you're looking for a special one?" 

Cordelia bit her lip, realizing she had said too much. 

"Yes," Buffy said. "It… belonged to her… grandmother, but she… let a friend 
borrow it, and then the friend sold it. By mistake." 

"Oh. I see." The clerk picked up a big box and started digging in it. "I got 
this load of religious things the other day, I haven't had time to go 
through it yet… aha! Something like that?" He triumphantly held up a ball. 
Inside, snowflakes were falling on the holy mother and her divine child. 

"That's it!" Cordelia cried and snatched the ball from his hands. "That's 
the one!" 

"Shall we say five dollars?" 

"Five dollars!?" The shopper in Cordelia took over. "For this tacky piece of 
junk? Are you nuts!?" 

"Two," Buffy said. 

The clerk shook his head. "No, a beauty like this can't go for any less than 
four fifty." 

"Three. We can buy a new one for her grandmother for less than that." 

"But you won't, will you?" The clerk grinned. "Okay, since you're such a 
pretty girl, three it is." 

To their great disappointment when they went back, the ball absolutely 
refused to show why it was important enough to be in a vision. It looked and 
acted like the typical religious souvenir. 

"No luck at all?" Angel asked, coming into the office where the girls were 
sitting, trying to figure out the ball. 

"No, nothing," Cordelia said. "I'm beginning to think that we were tricked. 
Either by that clerk or those awful PTB. What's wrong?" 

Because Angel had picked up the ball and then quickly put it back on the 
desk again, and now gave it a peculiar look. 

"It just felt funny. Warm, and… I can't explain it. I feel a little sick." 
He shook his head. "If someone tricked us, it wasn't the Powers That Be. 
Maybe you should go back to the shop and have a talk with that clerk." 

So that's what they did, and as soon as they entered, the clerk brightened 
up. 

"Why, back so soon! Did you forget something?" 

"No," Buffy said. "I don't know… Is there something else you can tell us 
about that ball?" 

"You know," the clerk said, "it's funny you should ask." He picked up a 
piece of paper that was lying on a chair by the counter. "I just found this 
in the box. I don't know what it says, because it's in Latin, but it seems 
to have come with the ball." 

He handed them the paper. It was just a regular Xerox thing, looking like a 
tourist brochure, except those usually don't come in Latin. The clerk 
estimated the looks on their faces. 

"Would you be interested in buying this? I would give you a good price, of 
course, since you already bought the ball it's talking about. Still, it's 
pretty interesting stuff…" 

"A dollar," Buffy said. "Not another cent." 

"Deal." 



********** 


They gave Wesley a call, and he spent a couple of hours reading 
dictionaries. At one point he asked for a bible, but apart from that he was 
reading, scribbling and impossible to contact. 

"Amazing," he finally said and looked up from the pile of books and papers. 
He looked stunned. 

"Are you done?" Angel asked and hurried to sit down next to him. The others 
gathered around him as well. 

Wesley nodded. "This," he said, pointing at the tacky souvenir, "is a model 
of a statue made in the 14th century by a cleric that served under Gerard de 
Bretagne." 

"Oh, swell," Cordelia muttered. "A lesson in art history, just what we 
need." 

Buffy kicked her, and she silenced. Wesley continued without acting as if he 
had heard what she said. 

"The cleric was well known to have powers over evil spirits, and the statue 
he made was soon made famous because of its abilities to fight off evil. The 
writer of this brochure mentions a few cases, of which the most remarkable 
one was set in the 16th century and quite clearly the downfall of the same 
cult we're dealing with now." 

"So what we need is the original," Angel said, who had followed the 
explanation with intense concentration. Wesley shook his head. 

"No. The original was used in this manner now and then into the late 19th 
century, when a sever case forced the fighters of evil to take it out of the 
church. It was assumed to have been stolen, and when it returned it was put 
behind glass. Nowadays there is an alarm as well, and the statue is safely 
protected - and completely incapable of serving its purpose. The writer 
himself discovered the truth of the legends, and performed a rite that 
allowed the statue to share its powers with some of the miniature versions 
of itself. He explains that he wrote the brochure in Latin so that only 
people really trying would find the truth and no ordinary tourist would keep 
the magic object as a joke. He also deliberately chose the least artistic 
objects because nobody who didn't know a lot about the otherworld would ever 
think it possible that a thing like this would have any powers. However, the 
miniature Mary-and-Jesus in this ball has the same powers as the original, 
and on top of it all, the writer, who is a priest, has blessed the ball so 
that it is in fact now filled with holy water." 

Xander gave a slow whistle. "Not bad." 

"So how do you use it?" Angel asked. 

"You open or crush the ball, then take the statuette and recite a chant in 
Greek. He has it transcribed into the Latin alphabet, thank heavens." 

Wesley showed the transcription. It said: "Ei tis eis aichmalosian, eis 
aichmalosian hypagei, eis tis en machairei apoktenei, dei auton en machairei 
apoktanthenai. Hode estin he hypomone kai he pistis ton hagion." 

"Any clue what it means?" Buffy asked. 

"Yes, actually, since it's a Bible quote and the verse is mentioned. It's 
from the 13th chapter of Revelations: 'He that leadeth into captivity shall 
go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the 
sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.' Once we've said 
that, according to the description of the last time the cult appeared, we 
can destroy the altar and their power is broken." 

A rare smile came upon Angel's face. 

"That's the best news I've heard in a very long time," he said.