BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
ODIUM
CHAPTER NINE: JUGGERNAUT
The car ground to a halt, its tyres crunching loudly in the loose gravel that surrounded the old building. Buffy clambered out, carefully handling the sports bag that contained Odium. She didn't want to touch it again, not after what she had felt the last time she'd laid her hands on it. Behind her, Marcus killed the engine and clambered out of the car. He slammed the door loudly and stared up at the smelting plant.
"I'd just like to go on record as saying that I think this is a very bad idea." He said as he watched the smoke drift gently from the enormous chimneystacks.
"Noted." Said Buffy, taking the cell phone from her pocket and dialling the number of the Magic Box. "But we don't really have much of a choice do we." Marcus didn't answer. Buffy listened to the quiet ring tone of the phone. It was cut short mid ring by a sharp click as someone answered the phone
"Hello?" Xander's voice was cautious and guarded.
"Xand, it's me. We're at the plant and ready to go." She could almost picture Xander nodding as the others waited with baited breath back at the store.
"Understood." Said Xander, "We'll get started here." She was about to hang up the phone when he spoke again.
"Buffy?"
"Yeah?"
"Be careful in there." She smiled slightly. It was good to know her friends still cared when she went into these situations. They'd been through that many but rather than become jaded and cynical, they still had a lot of the edge they'd possessed at the beginning.
"Thanks Xand, and keep an eye on Willow. This spell could be dangerous for her if it goes wrong."
"Don't worry about us Buff. Just get Dawn back safe okay."
"Okay. Good luck.
"You too." With that, the phone clicked down. There was a moment's silence before the droning dial tone kicked in. It was a silence that seemed to stretch on forever to Buffy. She took one last look back at the distant lights of Sunnydale and let out a long sigh. She turned to Marcus.
"Let's go."
*****
Xander hung up the phone and turned to the others. They were all staring at him expectantly. God he wished he hadn't been the one to answer the phone. It made him feel like the guy you always saw on cop programs. The one who had to stand awkwardly on some innocent families front door step, uneasily twisting his hat back and forth in his hands before delivering the bad news. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself a little.
"She's ready." He said, in what he hoped was an even, confident tone. "We should get started." Gibson glanced around them all.
"Are you all sure that this is a good idea?" Surprisingly Spike was the first one to answer.
"No." he said, "but then again, it never is with this bunch. You've just got to learn to roll with the punches, and pray some bastard doesn't flatten you. Now let's get to work."
They hurriedly set up the spell, Xander lighting the candles and herbs required, before lighting his own tied together bundle of incense sticks and waving them through the air in the rhythmic motion Willow had shown him earlier. Across from him, Giles cracked open the large leather bound volume containing a series of Latin incantations. Willow settled herself cross-legged in front of the burning candles and incense, the sheets of computer print out that Jenny Calendar had paid for with her life clutched tightly between her fingers. Spike paced agitatedly around the table, pausing every once in a while to stare uncomprehendingly at the tableau before him.
"Now you're sure this isn't going to mess up and I'm not going wind up moping around, writing awful poetry and pining after a love I can never have right? You're fixing King up with the soul right?" Xander shot him a look.
"Would you shut UP!" he hissed. "And what's all this poetry gunk you're spouting on about." Spike flushed slightly, quite the achievement for a man with no circulation.
"Never mind Harris." He said and resumed his agitated pacing. Xander glanced at Giles.
"Maybe we should do him while we're at it." He suggested. Giles just glared at him. Feeling slightly embarrassed, Xander resumed his incense wafting.
"Okay then," said Willow, "let's begin." She grasped a set of ivory chips marked with a series of symbols and cast them over the table, next to the burning incense.
"Quad parditum est invenator." Giles intoned in Latin.
"Not dead, nor not of the living," Willow began to chant in a dull monotone, "spirits of the interregnum I call."
"And so it begins." Gibson whispered under his breath.
*****
Buffy's feet sounded out loudly as she made her way across the high gantries of the smelting plant. Beneath her, she could see huge cauldrons of molten steel glowing faintly through a haze of steam and smoke that hung in the air. She already knew why the place was still running instead of being shut down for the night. They'd only gone a few steps into the building when they found the bodies of the workers. From their pale, bloodless faces and punctured arteries, it looked like King had been feeding well since he chose the place as a lair. She shuddered uneasily at the thought of those men, huddled together in a corner, waiting to see which of them the monster chose to feed off next.
Despite the noise of the machinery, the place felt silent to Buffy. A dark quiet that seemed to seep into her and make her feel dread at her very core. The stillness of everything simply wasn't natural. She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts.
"Any sign?" asked Marcus at her shoulder. She turned and gazed up into his grey eyes, those eyes that looked so tired, so full of weariness. She couldn't imagine what it must be like for Marcus, to carry the weight of perfect memory from the moment he was born. It was almost overwhelming to think about. Suddenly she felt awfully grateful to have him at her side. There were far worse partners in crime she could have ended up with. Spike immediately sprung to mind, but if she were brutally honest with herself, even Spike would be better than being here alone.
"I can't see him." She said, straining her eyes to see into the thickening clouds of steam that were wafting across the gantry.
"Oh but I can see you Slayer." She whirled around to face back the way she had come. King was stood there. How had he moved up so silently? Even her softest footfalls had clanged loudly against the metal grating of the gantry.
"Where's my sister!" she demanded, trying her best to hide the unease she could feel building within her. The anger she had faced him with at the house had subsided long ago, leaving only a creeping sense of dread at facing him again. He smiled slightly and stepped a little to the left, reaching behind his back and yanking a struggling Dawn into full view.
"Such a talkative girl this one." He said, gently stroking her flowing brown hair. Dawn closed her eyes, gritting her teeth against the fear she was obviously fighting. Buffy's heart immediately went out to her. She hadn't asked to be brought into this. It had all been Kings doing.
"Let her go." She said simply, the instincts she felt to protect her sister strengthening her fading resolve. His smile split his face further.
"You know how much I would love to oblige Slayer, but you still have my sword. Now I suggest you give me back what is mine, or else…." He grabbed Dawn up by the scruff of the neck the same way Buffy would a cat, dangling her over the gantry so that she was suspended above one of the huge cauldrons of molten metal. "….we see if fear really does lend your kind wings." Slowly Buffy bent, dropping the sports bag to the gantry with a muffled thud of metal against metal. She unzipped the bag, dipping her hand inside and drawing out the long black bladed broadsword that was Odium. The moment her fingers wrapped around the hilt, she felt a wave of sadness sweep over her. The feelings of loss and despair nearly brought her to tears as they battered her senses. It wasn't like before where they had simply nagged at the back of her mind. Now they haunted her every thought, threatening to overcome her and drive her to her knees in abject misery.
Kings eyes lit up at the sight of the black blade, a strange satisfaction Buffy had never seen in him before filled those dark brown orbs as he gazed longingly at his long lost sword.
"Give it to me…." He said, slowly moving Dawn so her feet dangled safely over the gantry once more. "….and I'll let the girl go." Never taking her eyes of the ancient vampire, Buffy placed the sword on the floor, feeling the same sense of grudging as her fingers unwrapped themselves from around the hilt. Straightening, she placed her foot against the sword and slid it across the gantry with a loud scraping sound.
King barely paid Dawn any attention as he flung her at Buffy. He stooped low, sweeping the sword up and twirling it in his hand as if getting a feel for the sword once again.
"At last!" he hissed. Buffy grabbed Dawn up from where she had fallen and hugged her tightly.
"I'm so glad you're safe." She whispered into her sister's ear, fighting back the tears of joy she could feel welling up inside of her. "I was so scared he would do something to you." Dawn hugged her back equally tightly.
"I'm fine Buffy, now let's get out of here before he changes his mind and tries to make a snack out of us." Buffy closed her eyes tightly and squeezed her even tighter before pushing her back at arms length.
"Dawn, listen to me." She said, her voice turning stony and no nonsense. "This is Marcus," she motioned at him where he stood carefully observing King.
"He's going to get you out of here and back to the Magic Box where all the others are waiting." Dawn frowned, the confusion evident on her face.
"But what about you?" she asked. Suddenly a look of understanding flashed across her face.
"You're not coming are you?" Buffy shook her head.
"I've got…." She stared over Dawn's shoulder at the vampire as he swung the sword, testing its weight. "….business to attend to." She finished. Dawn clenched her jaw tightly and set her shoulders in a way that reminded Buffy of the stern pose their mom had always adopted when she didn't want any nonsense from either of them.
"I'm not leaving you alone here with that." She nodded in the direction of King. Buffy's eyes narrowed. Dawn could be so stubborn at times.
"I'm not giving you a choice in the matter. You're going with Marcus and you're going now." Right on cue, Marcus stepped over and took Dawn, gently but firmly by the wrist and hauled her off down the gantry.
"Don't worry about your sister." Buffy heard him whisper to Dawn. "She can take of herself just fine." She gave him a thankful smile before turning, stony faced to glare at King.
The vampire who had watched the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and drank the blood of his own kind turned from practicing with his sword to watch her. A cold smile spread slowly across his face.
"So Slayer, are you learning yet?" Buffy smiled back coyly, pushing the dread she felt at facing him deep down into the pit of her stomach.
"Oh not yet." She replied. Quickly, she crouched low, her hand plunging back into the sports bag and withdrawing a sword almost the size of Odium. Its blade flashed wickedly in what little light there was. "But then what can I say. I was always a slow study." King hefted his own sword, his feet sliding forward as he readied himself to attack.
"I don't know Slayer." He said, eyeing the sword with a look of dark knowing. "I think you're learning just fine." And with that he launched himself at her.
*****
Xander's arm ached from waving the bundled sticks of incense through the air and the stench was beginning to get on his nerves. The whole ritual was taking a lot longer than he expected and seemed to be taking its toll on everyone involved, especially Willow, who had begun to drift. Her words were sporadic and forced, the earlier rhythm she had adopted falling away to be replaced by stuttered and jarring sentences. She was struggling against something that Xander didn't understand but the outcome of the battle was already obvious. Willow was losing.
"Gods bind… him." She swallowed hard, as if choking back bile. "Cast his heart from the… the… evil realm." With each sentence, her voice and breathing became more laboured.
"We've got to do something!" Xander hissed. "She's losing control."
"There's nothing we can do." Said Giles, watching Willow through eyes filled with restraint. He wanted to try and help her too. Xander could feel it. "If we were to interrupt the spell, we'd have to begin again, and I don't think Willow has the strength for that, nor Buffy the time." Xander stood silently, waving the incense through the air.
"Then I guess all we can do now is wait." He said.
*****
Buffy's sword rang loudly, sending vicious vibrations down through her arms as she turned aside another thrust by King. Her arms ached from the fighting, and she could feel exhaustion setting in. She'd forgotten how fast he was. King slipped through her guard like greased lightning, raining down blow after blow on hapless defences. Since the battle had begun she'd been slowly driven across the gantry, her sword ringing with each attack King made.
She brought her sword up to block another attack. She overextended her thrust and reacted too slowly as his arm snaked out to grasp her tightly by the wrist. With a feral snarl, he bent her arm round behind her back, leaving her no choice but twist with it or have her bones snapped like twigs. Suddenly, Odium was at her throat and he twisted her wrist, sending her own weapon clanging loudly down through a hole in the gantry.
"Do you feel it yet Slayer?" King hissed in her ear. "Do you feel the blood racing in your veins? I know you do! Why? Because I can feel it myself."
"You can't feel anything!" she snapped back. "Your deader than Marcus! You traded in everything worth living for just so you could exist that little bit longer!"
"You judge me too quickly Slayer." He whispered at her ear. She heard the sickening crunching as bones changed orientation and flesh tightened and twisted. She didn't even need to look to see what his face had changed to. "After all, you've never felt what it is to be one of us!" With a hiss he span her round to face him.
"But that doesn't mean you haven't thought about it. I can see it in you Slayer, the same way I've seen it in countless others over the centuries. You want to know what it is we exist for! Why we live the way we do!" She felt Odium press lightly against her stomach, as he leaned closer, his fangs brushing her neck.
"We live for this moment." He whispered so quietly she could barely hear him. "We live for the hunt and the kill." there was a brief pause. "Just like you."
"I'm not like you!" Buffy snarled vehemently. "I don't kill! I Slay!"
"No real difference Slayer. Only difference is what you do it to." Buffy clenched her teeth as she felt the anger boiling up inside her. She wasn't like him, this thing, this monster that had preyed for generations on the innocent and the weak. This creature that had butchered even his own kind when they failed to prove themselves to him. She was not like King!
"I." She said from behind her gritted teeth, each word a separate sentence. "Am. Not. Like. You!" by the final word, her voice had risen to a scream of rage, and she lashed out with a vicious backhand that sent King reeling.
"Now your learning!" he bellowed and hurled himself at her, Odium swinging out in a wide arc. With a scream of fury, Buffy's leg shot out, catching Kings sword hand with a vicious crack that sent Odium sailing through the air and over the edge of the gantry. For a moment King stood dumbstruck as the sword sailed from his grip. Then the realisation struck him.
"No!" he roared, leaping for the sword, but even with his lightning fast movement he was too slow. The sword plummeted down out of his reach to disappear with a sizzling hiss into one of the huge cauldrons of molten steel. King stood for a moment his arm dangling limp, fingers still outstretched to snatch at sword that no longer existed. For the briefest of moments, Buffy watched with amazement as the ancient and powerful vampire shook with sadness.
"Soonan." He sobbed, a lone tear trickling down his cheek, before tumbling end over end down through the air to sizzle quietly as it followed Odium into oblivion. Suddenly King whipped around, his eyes burning with hatred for her.
"You!" he snarled, all trace of humanity vanishing from his eyes as a beast more terrible than anything she had ever faced stared down at her. He seemed to grow in height, his whole body trembling with unadulterated fury. "You will pay for that Slayer. You debt has extended beyond pain, beyond death! I will make you regret the day fate chose you to stand against me!"
"What's the matter King?" said Buffy with a levity she certainly didn't feel. "Did I break your toy? Did you lose all your special powers?" King stared at her.
"Powers?" he said. "That sword had no powers save the power it held over my heart. It was all I had left of her Slayer. All I had left of my beloved!" he leapt forward, not even giving Buffy a chance to react as he wrapped his fingers around her throat and hoisted her clean off the ground and into the air.
"I am done with you Slayer! I am done teaching you!" he hissed as his fingers tightened, choking the air from her lungs "Now have you learned Slayer, have you learned what it is to be a King!" he finished in a brutal roar. Drawing his arm back, he hurled her down the gantry. Buffy sailed through the air as if in flight, gasping for air as she flew. As the gantry rushed up to meet her, she felt something jagged and plunge agonisingly into the soft flesh just beneath her ribs. Opening her mouth, Buffy screamed in agony.
*****
Xander watched as Willow struggled further into the spell. Her breathing was laboured and coming in ragged gasps, sweat pouring from her brow as she clutched tightly at the pages. Her eyes seemed to be drifting in and out of focus and she was visibly swaying as if some sort of dizziness was assaulting her. Xander could feel the blood draining from his face as he watched her suffer.
"Return, I… I… I call on… y… you." She threw her head back and gasped, her whole body shaking with violent convulsions.
"Giles!" Xander snapped. "It's killing her! We've got to stop this now!" Giles stared from Xander to Willow and back again, seemingly torn between his duty to Buffy and his love for the thrashing witch.
"Giles!" Xander yelled. Slowly Giles began to close the book that rested on the table in front of him.
"Wait!" Gibson's voice was sharp and commanding. "Don't stop. Keep going." Xander stared at him in disbelief.
"What did you say?" he demanded.
"I said keep going!" Gibson yelled. Xander jumped slightly at the surprising volume of the Watchers voice. Hurriedly Gibson made his way over to where Willow was still writhing on the table. He leapt onto the table, folding his legs beneath him and reaching out to her. Gently, he took her hand and lifted it.
"Do you hear me Willow?" he asked. "If you can, then I'm begging you, let me in, let me take away the pain and the suffering, let me take it from you and make it a part of me." He flattened out her hand so that her fingers were outstretched, then he placed his own hand into hers, lifting it so that her fingers tightened, intertwining with his own.
"Let your pain become my pain." He continued. "Let my strength become your strength!" A loud clap of thunder sounded through the store and suddenly, a bright flash lanced out from between their fingers. Gibson was thrown back visibly by the blast, hurling him off the table to the floor where he began to writhe in agony. Xander stared dumb founded at Willow. Her face was full of colour again; her whole body straight and tense with unseen energy while her breathing was even and tempered again. Suddenly her eyes flashed open and Xander recoiled at what he saw there. It wasn't Willow staring out from behind those eyes. It was something else, something old.
"Tayimplore douomnae nouegnora chestar rougamentae!" She chanted steadily. Xander glanced over at where Gibson lay, writhing on the floor. Spike was kneeling at his side, his iron grip holding the watcher as still as he could manage.
"What are you staring at me for?" he demanded. "Get waving that bloody incense, or do I have to come over there and do it for you?" Xander abruptly turned away and went back to waving the incense, both frightened and fascinated at the same time by the terrifying things unfolding around him.
*****
The pain was incredible, a white-hot pain that seared through her whole being, yelling at her to scream until there was nothing left of her lungs to scream with. With agonising slowness she began to pull herself off the jagged remains of the gantry rail she'd landed on. The feeling of the cold metal twisting inside her made her want to be sick. With loud gasp, she pulled herself free, immediately bringing her hand up to clutch tightly at the wound. Gingerly she clambered to her feet, biting back a cry of agony as a searing jolt of pain rushed from the wound up through her whole body. She could feel the warmth of the blood seeping between her fingers, slowly she tried to hobble away from the direction she knew King was in.
"C'mon guys." She winced. Even muttering hurt. "How much longer can it take?" then she heard him, his deep gravely voice carrying through the chillingly still air.
"Slayer!" he roared. "I know you're out there. I can smell your blood. It's fresh and warm. You know you won't get far nursing a wound like that. Suddenly there he was, striding through the clouds of steam toward her like some unstoppable juggernaut. His fury had been bitten back, now a tense anger that raged silently beneath the surface. For the first time she could remember in years, Buffy felt total despair wash over her. What if the spell hadn't worked? What if it couldn't work on a vampire like King? She had been so stupid to chance her life on such a risky plan. But then life was all about taking risks. At least hers was at any rate. Risk taking and risky decisions, that was the way a Slayer lived. And now here she was faced with another one. Should she turn and do what she was born to do, fight this unholy monstrosity from beyond the grave, or should she take the option anyone else could do. For the first time in her life Buffy took the option everyone else would do. She ran.
She didn't get very far. King was on her after just a few steps, his breath cooling the back of her heated neck. Without care or finesse he yanked her round to face him, his eyes boring deeply into hers. There was something there she hadn't seen before, but something she knew had always been there. At the back of Kings eyes there shone a deep despair and sense of loss, the same thing she had felt in Odium.
"And now Slayer, I will finally put you out of your misery. But before I drain you dryer than the Sahara, have you any last requests? I am after all, a noble being." Buffy stared at him for a moment then laughed.
"Noble! You?" she laughed again. "You're pathetic King. You're a coward who chose to simply exist rather than to accept death!"
"Me! A coward!" King roared. "DO I LOOK LIKE A COWARD TO YOU?" His incredible bellow practically shook the whole gantry.
"Why else would you cherish that sword? The only link you have to keep you from a death that terrifies you and a life that you left behind." With a snarl of fury King dug his hand into her fresh wound, eliciting a cry of pain from Buffy.
"That sword that you so callously destroyed," he hissed darkly, "was the only thing I have truly cherished for the past three thousand years! It was all I had left of her, soaked in my own blood and bound to me in a way you could never imagine!" His face twisted violently, fangs extending further than she had ever seen on a vampire, his brow plunging further, slanting his eyes upward making him almost bat like in appearance.
"And now Slayer," he snarled, licking his lips with a strangely sinuous tongue, "I see if you taste as good as I remember!" He leaned close toward her neck. Buffy closed her eyes.
*****
Clouds of incense drifted through the air, as the candlelight sent shadows in the corners of the Magic Box whirling. Xander continued to vainly wave his long since burned out bundle of sticks, vainly thinking it still mattered to the spell. He could feel it now. The energy flowing all around him, in him, through him, all flowing toward the crystal Orb of Thesela that sat, nestled in the middle of a plush rosy cushion like a large round egg. Behind him, Gibson continued to writhe in agony, jaws biting down hard on a stake Spike had wedged there to prevent him from biting off his tongue. Giles was watching as well, equally fascinated, as the mystical energies gathering around them were bent and contorted to Willow's will.
"ATZAFEER!" She chanted at the top of her voice. "ATZAFEER! AHCUM! AHCUM!" Suddenly the Orb burst into life, the strange otherworldly suspension at its centre bursting outward in a blaze of light. There was howl as an invisible wind rushed out from vanishing Orb. It hurtled through Willow, roaring and howling as it tore free of her and hurtled off into the ether.
*****
All Buffy heard was King gasp in shock before he dropped her to the floor. She opened her eyes to see him staggering backward, his normally brown eyes glowing with a strange otherworldly light. He gasped again as something else seemed to ram into him, throwing him further back across the gantry to slam heavily against the railing. It groaned under his weight for a brief instant before buckling. To Buffy, moments seemed to stretch on into hours as King teetered on the edge of the gantry. Then, slowly, gravity began to assert itself. Without a sound, King toppled backward off the gantry and out of sight, his fall accompanied moments later by a distant sounding thud. Clutching at her wound Buffy rolled over onto her back. God she was tired. Then she blacked out.
"Buffy?" the voice sounded distant to her, but strangely familiar. "Buffy? Are you alright?" Slowly she tried to move. Everything felt hazy to her, like she was floating on a distant cloud and only the voices were barely reaching her.
"Buffy?" the voice said again. She moved her mouth but no sound came out. She tried again, her dry lips cracking slightly as he formed the word.
"Dawn?" she said.
"Yeah Buffy, it's me. I'm here with you. You're going to be alright." Gradually, Buffy opened her eyes. Dawn was staring down at her, large blue eyes staring concernedly down on her. Cautiously she sat up, a shoot of pain from the wound in her side sending her hand grasping at it. Suddenly a memory flashed into her mind.
"King?" she asked. "The vampire who kidnapped you, is he around anywhere?" Dawn glanced around before looking back at her and shaking her head.
"I haven't seen him, but your friend Marcus said he was going to look." Buffy glanced over at the hole in gantry handrail.
"Dawn, can you give me a hand getting up?" she asked. "There's something I need to check."
"Sure." Said Dawn, slipping her arm under Buffy's and around her sister's chest. Carefully, the two of them picked their way across the gantry to the edge of hole. With Dawn's help, Buffy leaned forward and stared down into the smelting plant. The remains of the handrail King had fallen through lay in a twisted heap on the ground below, tiny slivers of metal glinting duly in the light from the smelting cauldrons. There was no sign of King anywhere.
"C'mon." said Buffy evenly. "Let's get out of here."
