The characters belong to Showcase and the creators of Lost Girl. I'm here for the fun of it. Like going to the circus but without the peanuts. And the elephants. Just the acrobats and trapeze artists because, well, pink leotards on flexy people is kinda cool.
And to my kind followers and reviewers, two words: Thank You. I've never written fantasy – and it's not my milieu. I did my best with the action scene but it just felt a little weird. But there it is. I'm writing this before the finale of Season 4 so it mos def will not reflect whatever the LG writers have concocted for the Big Bad. And, like I said, I don't write fantasy or sci-fi – I'm just interested in the relationships. I still don't know where this story is going. I never imagined that I'd even get this far. Be it short or long, I hope you enjoy the ride. Now, buckle up.
"I hate rain. This rain." Kenzi fiddled with the hardback book in her hand, mindlessly flipping through the pages of this edition, which, like the hundreds of other tomes in their living room, reeked of dust and to the touch evoked a dampness earned over time and general neglect. "I miss the hotel. Room service, cable porn." Indeed, the continual staccato of the rain as well as the charcoal of the sky, conspired against any thoughts of going outside without a heavy coat, wellingtons, and an umbrella—and Kenzi did not do rubber boots. She was as disconsolate as an empty bottle of gin and the 'closed' sign of a pub.
"Cable porn?" Lauren didn't bother to look up from the double wide secretary desk on the other side of the library. "And I'm sorry about my condition. It's not like I wanted this to happen to me."
"When you're right, you're right."
While Kenzi had only pretended to be interested in the book whose pages she'd been fanning for nearly a quarter hour, Lauren had been immersed in hers—a first edition of the collected short stories of Colette. It fascinated her that the author had written under a male pseudonym until she came out as a female, a revelation that not only increased her popularity but also spelled the demise of her marriage. A woman, after all, should never be more influential than her husband, or so society had dictated so long ago. Her mind shot to Rainer, smug, imagining him pressing against Bo and doing all sorts of things to her body, things that she should be doing, not him. Bo had never come across as submissive until he came along, Rainer, what an asshole. Shake it off, Lewis. Stop it now.
"You've heard nothing that I've said all day," Kenzi put the book back on the shelf. Their flat, in a former life, had been the top floor of a library. The rooms which they occupied now—two bedrooms, a shared bathroom, the library, a kitchen, and a mahogany-colored room for dining—somehow escaped a 21st century renovation both to its detriment and charm. Flaking wallpaper, irregular heat, talkative pipes, and the faint smell of iron reminded them of the clubhouse. Lauren had found the place online. Strangely, too, that she'd even bothered to look since she the idea of their future barely extended beyond a few hours; leasing a flat intimated commitment, plans, roots—none of which interested her or Kenzi. However, the pictures of the flat lured her in. They never met the owner—the entire exchange, money, keys, short-term lease—happened in virtual territory. It was perfect. No face-to-face meeting. Fewer lies to tell.
Kenzi and Lauren had the entire floor to themselves. The largest room of the flat was the library, complete with floor to ceiling bookshelves and a book ladder that encircled the room on tracks. The flat came fully furnished and thankfully, the beds were roomy and new. For Lauren, it was heaven and she argued it made for a better hideout—they could come and go as they pleased without having to pass through a lobby full of people. Then there had been the night terrors—the real reason they had to find a place of their own. Lauren's ear-splitting dead-of-night screaming fits in her sleep could have roused all of London and brought hotel security to their door on several occasions. Kenzi made up a new lie every time: Spicy Indian. She's on her period. Dementia. Or her favorite, she has no colon. Think about that, Dude. Kenzi would say anything to make Security leave fast so she could go back to take care of Lauren. These harsh dreams were new, and something Lauren dismissed as an emotional side effect of leaving Bo and any hope of a relationship with her, behind.
After they transferred to the flat, Kenzi slept the sleep of the dead. The night terrors weren't the only way Kenzi was stirred awake. Sometimes it was the soft voice of her friend. Get up mouse, Lauren would say, hoping to coax a smile both of them knew would not come. They strolled the little villages dotting the Thames in search of food, nurturing their hunger and the young seeds of friendship. Every night they'd walk and every night would end with at least one of them drunk and both of them in tears. Aren't we a pair, Lauren would say. To which Kenzi would laugh, I'm never getting laid again. That's how it had been for months. This afternoon, with the bracing winds sending thick ripples of water against the windowpanes, the flat felt the opposite of summer. Kenzi had had weeks of soggy weather and wanted to burst from her skin. It was books and books and draperies and books and generous helpings of get me the hell out of here.
"Tell me, Doc, in your professional opinion, which hurts worse: a broken leg or a broken heart?"
Lauren looked up to see Kenzi swinging haphazardly from the library ladder, hanging from one elbow and with one leg threaded onto one of the steps like a monkey. "You keep that up and you'll be our first test case. That thing's pretty old, I'd be careful."
Kenzi propelled herself back and forth against the wall of books. Lauren returned to reading, comforted by the rhythmic squeaking of the wheels on the tracks. "I think," Lauren leaned back in her chair, "that the better question is which takes longer to heal? A fractured leg, all things being equal, will heal eventually. A heart? With all the science and smarts in the world, I don't think a broken heart ever does."
The squeaking stopped. Kenzi felt betrayed, not by Lauren's words but by the beating in her chest, her pulse an insidious reminder that life went on in spite of the horrors one has seen, the bliss one had tasted. Only Lauren understood this with equal intensity. She had lost Nadia and Kenzi had lost Hale. Together, they mourned the loss of Bo—her presence palpable and thick as the dust on the walls.
Lauren heard her friend whisper, "It's like I'm being punished." Kenzi catapulted herself back down the track, palming the spines of books as she orbited the room. "This place reminds me of Trick's study but without all the creepy creepiness."
"Vodka reminds me of Trick with all the creepy creepiness," Lauren sensed a bit of nostalgia in Kenzi's voice and returned it in kind, lifting her eyes to see Kenzi pushing herself to and fro, end to end in the library's expanse, the ladder squeaking and creaking like The Cyclone at Coney Island.
"Hey now, no need to hurt vodka's feelings." Kenzi laid a boot heel on a shelf, bringing the ladder to a halt. She rocked back and forth, flexing her foot against the bookshelf, humming at first softly to herself until her humming became a not-so-subtle message for Lauren to pay attention.
Lauren slammed the book shut emitting a small puff of dust. "Okay, what?" she acquiesced. "What do you need?"
"I want to go out," Kenzi whined.
"Where? Seriously, where? And while we both have plenty to be sad about, I need a night off from drinking my troubles away."
"It's called therapy."
"No, it's called cirrhosis of the liver." Lauren shook her head and started to walk towards her friend who had by now abandoned the ladder for the comfort of the couch. Lauren joined her there. The couch faced the window and the two of them silently watched the rain spill across the glass—silvery, fat, relentless stripes. The beat of their sadness, the symbol of their gloom.
"I agree. We should go out," Lauren said to Kenzi. Both of them sat side by side as if at a movie theater, not breaking focus at the windows before them. "But we should brain up."
"Oh yeah, because that sounds like two tons of fun." Kenzi rolled her eyes.
"We've been killing our brain cells night after night all winter and midway through spring. Let me take you somewhere. Somewhere other than a pub." Lauren turned to Kenzi, hopping from a sitting position to her knees in one swift motion so that she was not only sitting directly in front of Kenzi but almost on top of her.
Kenzi held her palm up. "Hold on there ladyness. We need each other but I don't need you in that way," She waved her hand over her chest and crotch. Lauren punched a fist into the crook between Kenzi's upper arm and her torso. "So what's your plan?"
"Hamlet!" Lauren bounced with glee.
Kenzi dropped backwards as if she were passing out and faked a very loud, very obnoxious snore.
Months earlier
According to the prophecy, the Pyrippus would merge with the unaligned succubus and together, they would devour, consume, and feed from the suffering of the world to rule and reign forever – unless the Pyrippus could be killed before it claimed Bo's body and soul as its own. Massimo had eaten the Origins seed mistakenly believing that it would make him Fae and omnipotent—and maybe had he been Fae, it would have turned out that way; but Massimo was human and incapable of surviving the surge of evil he would unleash by his own thirst for power. When Massimo ate the seed, it opened a portal through which the evil could enter this earthly plane. Massimo the human died the moment the portal cracked opened, sending his body into the underworld for the Pyrippus to enter and take for his own.
"It's like the exorcist," Bo described their situation. "Except Linda Blair looks like a super model compared to this thing, this thing that apparently cannot die." The Pyrippus only intended to assume Massimo's human form once it ascended. While it fought against the small band of Fae sent to destroy it, it presented its true form: an angry, muscular monster that could best be described as a reptilian horse on steroids, complete with horns, a pointed tail, engorged chest, and wings of fire.
The Pyrippus had slain everyone and only Bo, Rainer, and Tamsin were left. The gleam of Tamsin in full Valkyrie armor was breathtaking but now her armor was dimmed and charred by battle. "This is not good," she intoned to Bo. "It's very possible that this is the end. In which case, it's been nice knowing you."
"Do you see that?" Bo pointed to the side of the altar that the Pyrippus had been defending. There lay the figure of a woman, long, with lean slender limbs and waves of hair that came down to at least her shoulders and obscured her face. She was shackled to the floor by a thick collar and chain around her neck. The darkness, smoke, and intense heat made it difficult to keep ones eyes open for too long before they automatically shut in pain, but Bo resisted and blinked several times to get a better sense of the woman splayed across the floor. Bo focused hard: a tattered gown fell close to the woman's body, blood splatters on the hem of her dress. Her arms bare and toned. The hair light in color. She could see the woman's hands trying to push up from the stone floor, her fingers long and elegant. Bo palmed the top of her head in horror at the realization of who this might be. Lauren!
"Bo, you need to focus!" Rainer shouted and jerked her by the elbow. He pointed to the advancing monster whose eyes glowed red with rage. "Remember your purpose, our destiny!"
Destiny. My destiny is with Lauren. Bo turned to Rainer and Tamsin. "This thing needs to die and I need to save Lauren." Before they could stop her, Bo took off running toward the woman on the floor.
Rainer saw the monster turn its head as Bo ran toward its prisoner. In the instant that the Pyrippus focused on Bo, Rainer rushed the underbelly of the monster in an attempt to impale its chest with his sword. The Pyrippus burped a cloud of smoke, the sword barely knicked its hide, and the Pyrippus did not falter in its stride. Instead, raising one of its hooves, it crushed Rainer's chest slowly and painfully, the snap of bone and flesh audible to Tamsin and Bo. Bo halted her sprint as Rainer screamed his last breath. Tamsin, who had been frozen on the spot ready to be barbecued to death, shouted for Bo to run. The monster stepped back slowly from Rainer's body, keeping its eyes on Bo, and arching and raising its haunches, bowed its head, preparing to pounce on one of the two remaining warriors.
"Succubus," the word spilled across the monster's tongue like acid, "Come now," it seethed, "come to me." Its eyes pulsed as it peered directly into Bo's eyes, trapping her in its gaze. She was in its thrall, being pulled toward its snout, moments from being consumed by flame.
Tamsin put all her concentration on Bo and without knowing why, shut her eyes and calmly began to speak to her in her mind channeling the power of an unseen force. She harnessed her full Valkyrie power not to create doubt but to instill serenity.
As Bo neared the Pyrippus, she felt its heat and her body glowed with pain. She cried out, unable to resist the hot force of evil. The distance between them closed; the monster began to grow, its muscles becoming more pronounced, its scales throbbing with mesmerizing pools of color. Bo felt her own body changing, flesh stretching, her body's curves and muscles extending and becoming disfigured. She felt the will to fight, to stand, drain from her and the only way she was able to stay on her feet, she reasoned, was because of the monster's red stare. I am the monster and the monster is in me. This was the goodbye she feared all along. As she was about to take the last step forward she heard Tamsin's voice from within.
"Bo. Put aside your fear. This is what it wants from you. Rage and revenge is what it needs from you. Your lust is its fire. Do not give in, Bo. You are stronger."
"No, Tamsin, I deserve this end, " she answered her, "I am now and have always been a monster."
"We are not defined by the worst we've ever done, Bo."
"That's not true," tears soaked her cheeks. Bo practically felt the monster's heart beating within her chest. "The people I have killed…"
"…and the people you have loved. Remember the love. Trick. Dyson. Hale. Kenzi…me."
Bo's steps slowed.
"Think of her, Bo. Your true love. Her humanity is your shield."
Bo's arms had fallen to her side, her shoulders slumped forward in a look of absolute surrender but Bo had yet to release her hand from her sword. At the sound of Tamsin's final words, Her humanity is your shield, Bo felt her senses sharpen and her mind clear. She struggled against the pain that the monster's rage was sending through her body but with it, flowed something more—a reserve of strength and peace she had known only once before, and that was with Lauren. Bo's eyes shifted from black to blue, then to gold. Some might say that it was love that would slay the beast that day, and they would be right.
As Bo's grip tightened on its hilt, the sword and her arm became as one, glowing with the blinding light of a million suns. The Pyrripus reared its head, inhaling and preparing to incinerate her, rising on its haunches in absolute triumph. What Tamsin saw next would become the stuff of legend. Bo swung the sword of light above her head and the sword sang with the song of her heart, striking the Pyrippus straight through its chest—impaling the indestructible, turning it to dust with the force of true love. The monster shrieked in agony and surprise, yet Bo did not release her grip on the sword, instead plunging it deeper with her arm itself entering the wound. The Pyrripus began to tumble heavily, crashing to the stone floor with Bo pinned between its front legs. Puffs of stone and ash enveloped the hall temporarily blinding Tamsin. She was sure Bo had been crushed and there was nothing she could have done to save her.
Tamsin rushed toward the body of the beast, prying its legs apart to free Bo.
"Hey now," Tamsin whispered when Bo opened her eyes.
"Take me to her."
"Who?" Tamsin brushed the wet hairs from her face.
Bo started to crawl toward the woman chained on the floor. "Lauren!"
Tamsin helped Bo to the longhaired figure on the floor, hidden in shadows but clearly struggling to move in spite of the wide collar around her neck.
"Lauren," Bo cried.
"Try again," the woman in her arms barely eked out, "your brains were always in your boobs."
The woman turned and Bo recognized at once the sauciness, the sarcasm, but not the ancient face she held in her hands. Instead of the smooth pink cheeks of youth, Evony's face was marred by deep crevices, her dark eyes hollow and weak, decaying, her visage a white ruin like the chipped and disfigured pieces found in an archaeological dig. "Evony! How?"
"You care? You got what you wanted. I'm the Queen of the World!" Even in her weakened state she had the bravado to tease the succubus.
Bo lifted Evony gently into her lap. "Here, sit up. Let me help you." Cataracts clouded Evony's eyes, her hair a flat platinum. She wheezed, as if the slightest touch caused her immense pain.
Evony looked up into Bo, expecting pay back. "Ever the victor, how do you do it?"
"You shouldn't be talking," Bo stroked her cheek, observing her timeworn face.
"Sweetie, you shouldn't be breathing."
"Sorry to disappoint you…but Evony, you're—"
"Decrepit? Dying?"
"Deceitful?" Tamsin chimed in.
Evony rolled her eyes to Tamsin. "I deserve that death face." Then, to Bo, "I'm going to do one thing for you, Succubus, this one time, seeing that time is the one thing I now seem to be running out of. I'm going to release you from your burden."
Bo didn't quite understand but intently listened.
"Wanting you dead is all I ever wanted," Evony coughed.
Tamsin cocked her head and smirked, "News flash, not."
Evony ignored her. "Wanting you is all she ever wanted."
Bo perked up. "She? Lauren?"
Evony's eyes dropped and closed heavily. "Not much of a thinker, are you."
"Oh no, Evony, you're not taking a powder. Tell me where she is."
Her pale eyes opened, this time with difficulty. "Nobody in the history of history was ever as brilliant as she was…"
"What do you mean was?"
"Everything I worked for, gone in an hour, a thousand years snuffed out in a single afternoon. I should have known better…but she was soooo–what's the word–tasty." She extended the word, long and sticky like syrup.
"You're not making sense, Evony. What did you do to her?"
"It's not what I did, you Succu-dumbass. She did this to me—she came to me. In my bed. She fucked me and took my powers!"
"Lauren made you human? Is that why you look like this?"
"And some say you're not so smart."
Bo remembered the last time she saw Lauren before she went missing, not returning her calls. This was all for you. Everything that I do is for you, Bo. In order to make this plan work, I had to make you believe it if I was going to get the Morrigan to believe it. Why didn't she listen? Why couldn't she see what Lauren had been trying to do?
Evony seized on her frailty and useless affinity for humans. "Just when I was beginning to get a soft spot for that human doctor…but then I suppose you would know that, given your experience with her between the sheets. Such talent. More so the pity…"
Bo looked to Tamsin. Tamsin wanted her to drop Evony on her head. Bo looked down on the Morrigan. "If you weren't dying, I'd tell you to go fuck yourself."
Tamsin touched Bo on the shoulder. "She's not making sense. Let her go, Bo. She's clearly lost her mind, just look at her." Tamsin tried to pull Bo away, her Valkyrie sense on alert, fearing where Evony was going with this.
"Your precious Dr. Lewis got what she deserved." Droplets of blood stained her pale lips as she spoke. Clumps of grey hair floated to the stone floor and she appeared to slowly be falling asleep.
"Evony! Evony!" Bo shook her.
Evony inhaled deeply and with difficulty, even then, a satisfied smile crossed her lips. She raised her head and continued. "My Massimo. I tried to stop him—wait, no. I didn't."
Bo feared what she would hear next.
"He wanted to please me even after he discovered she turned me into a human," she pushed against Bo's arms with her last bit of life, wheezing and laughing. "Before he ate the Origins seed, Massimo killed her. She's dead, Bo. Your Lauren is dead and you are free from your human lover. Forever!"
Bo's hands tightened around Evony's throat, crushing her windpipe in a blind rage. Tamsin dropped to her knees behind Bo, held onto her upper arms, and rested her forehead on Bo's back. She felt Bo's muscles tense as she gripped Evony's neck.
Her hatred for Bo flickered in Evony's eyes. "I win, Succubus," she gasped, "game over."
Evony's legs stopped kicking and her head dropped to its side. Her gaze froze and her tongue flopped inelegantly from cracked lips. Bo continued to grip at her flesh long after the gurgling from Evony's throat had ceased. Then the sobbing began. Wave after wave of grief crashed into her as violent as any real storm, vicious in its strength and battering everything in its wake, thrashing at Bo's sanity which Tamsin feared might certainly be lost and sinking to the bottom of a black, bottomless sea.
Tamsin pried Bo's fingers from the dead Fae. Evony's head fell back and hit the floor with a loud crack.
"I killed her," Bo sobbed. "I kill everything."
"No, you saved us Bo. You saved us all." Tamsin rocked Bo in her arms as she shook and cried, split open and raw with grief. Bo realized how much Lauren had conceded the day she had walked out of the clubhouse. More than just the argument, she had surrendered her love, her life-and for what? To be stepped over so easily as if she were a dirty penny on the street not worth a second or even a first glance. How had Bo allowed herself to be so careless with the gift of true love? She remembered how Lauren had left, wordlessly and without recrimination. This was all for you, Lauren had said, Everything I do is for you. In this moment and like many before it in the grand scheme of personal revelations in either Fae or human history, Bo understood at last the full meaning behind Lauren's words, the suffering her callousness had caused, and the high price exacted for her arrogance; but like good advice or the best intentions, Bo's realization came too late for it to do her any good.
The very night that Bo had slaughtered the Pyrippus and choked the light from Evony's eyes, Lauren and Kenzi shared a bed in a luxury hotel in London. Without warning and in the thick of night, Lauren began to thrash and shriek, frightening Kenzi out of a deep sleep. Lauren swore her flesh was on fire and that her neck burned with the heat of a dragon's breath. This would be the first of Lauren's unexplained night terrors. The mattress felt like stone. Her ears were infected with screams of the damned. Lauren could not be consoled no matter how long or how tightly Kenzi clung to her. She sobbed until her chest heaved hollow and dry.
"We have to go back," Lauren wept.
Kenzi held her close and felt Lauren's tears soak through her nightshirt. "Shush, honey, it was just a bad dream."
"No, it's not. Please, Kenzi, we made a mistake. Let's go back," she repeated, shivering.
"Why?"
"I don't know—it's, it's a feeling."
"Lauren," Kenzi whispered and rocked her back and forth repeating these words over and over until they became their own private lullaby, "We can't go back. You know we can never go back."
dun-dun-dun. Thanks for taking the time to read this.