[identity profile] brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] still_grrr
Title A Place Called Hope
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG13
Word Count 363
Prompt 192 make up - Holtz
Characters Holtz
A/N: Begins with a quote from the episode ‘Dad’, by David H Goodman


Woman (Files and Records): "Seventeen sixty-four. Angel and Darla kill Holtz, Caroline, Holtz, Sarah, and Holtz, Daniel infant son."
Lilah: "Massacred his family. That'll do it."
Woman: "Holtz vows to avenge their blood, May seventeen sixty-four. Pursues Angel and Darla relentlessly for nine years, racking up an incidental body count of three hundred seventy-eight vampires in the meantime."


Holtz, Daniel.

How long is it since anyone called him Daniel?

Foolish question. He knows precisely. To the day. To the hour. To the moment when he kissed her goodbye, and she wished him well on his mission. The morning of the eighteenth of May 1764. When she had just hours of breath left in her.

“Be safe, Daniel. I am so proud of you.”

Daniel, in her voice. Not a tremor of fear allowed to show as she waved him off. Caroline had been a marvellous woman. Just rebellious enough to catch his eye first of all, and later understand his need to be more than the others who’d tried to take down Angelus in the past.

She had been proud of him. Truly so. She’d feared for his life, of course. Checked him over every time he returned from a fruitless mission, looking for any sign he had been lost to the devil’s side. But always, always sent him away again with a smile, a kiss, a good wish for her Daniel’s safe return.

And return he did. Safe, whole and with all faculties intact. Eyes to see her bloody corpse, a nose to smell the first stages of the rot in the corpse of their son, a mouth to lie to their dead daughter, and ears to listen to her plead as he threw her out to burn.

After that day, he didn’t feel a thing.

He’d thought he would feel, when he caught the killers at last. But he didn’t catch them, and the burning of a hundred more of their kind didn’t cause a flicker of sensation.

He should have felt when the demon offered him dark magicks to continue the fight long into the unknown future. He merely nodded, and took the chance.

He should have felt more when he strode into the flaming building, seconds from his final vengeance over Angelus and Darla. But no.

Finally, in that alley, over the ashes of the evil woman, staring at the living child and the vampire with a soul... he feels.

Holtz has hope now, just as Angelus does. Hope of a fitting vengeance. Hope that the vampire will come to know true pain, to echo the scream of Daniel’s soul through the ages.

As it should be.

*

Date: 2010-11-01 02:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slaymesoftly.livejournal.com
ooooh - chillingly real.

Date: 2010-11-01 04:10 pm (UTC)
shapinglight: (Angelus & Darla C18th)
From: [personal profile] shapinglight
Very good indeed. I always thought Holtz was the best villain AtS ever had - mainly because he wasn't technically a villain.

Date: 2010-11-02 03:07 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ever-neutral.livejournal.com
Fantastic. You so did the guy justice.

Finally, in that alley, over the ashes of the evil woman, staring at the living child and the vampire with a soul... he feels.

Chilling and poignant all at once!

Date: 2010-11-04 07:03 pm (UTC)
angelus2hot: (Riley/Buffy no words)
From: [personal profile] angelus2hot
You always do such an amazing job with writing, especially characterizations and this one is no exception! Well Done!

Date: 2010-11-06 01:52 pm (UTC)
lynnenne: (angel connor)
From: [personal profile] lynnenne
Holtz has hope now, just as Angelus does. Hope of a fitting vengeance. Hope that the vampire will come to know true pain, to echo the scream of Daniel’s soul through the ages.

Very nice.

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