Summary: When an unforeseen evil once again threatens to destroy the world,
Buffy and the gang, along with some unexpected help, join together to
release a reluctant champion from the clutches of hell. But will he be the
prophesized savior or will he destroy them all?
Notes: Contains spoilers from BtVS seasons one through three.
Feedback: Any and all comments are welcome and appreciated.
Chapter Seventeen
"So where is he?" Xander demanded his feet nervously shuffling the ground.
His girlfriend eyed his jumpy antics for several moments, "do you have to go to the bathroom or something?" She finally asked. "Cause this is really one of those times where you should have gone before we left."
"Hush!" Gerrico commanded as Xander opened his mouth to deliver a testy reply.
Buffy gazed at the Elder curiously. The calm, often infuriatingly so, demeanor was practically anything but. The usually stoic mask was replaced with something very much like fear, and even the sparkling blue eyes seemed hooded and dark. "Why'd you change your mind?" She asked softly.
"I didn't," he replied shortly, his eyes cleaving the darkness, searching for something human eyes could never see.
The Slayer mulled that over for several moments, "so you did lie to me," she stated quietly, there were no accusations this time. "You manipulated me to get us all here."
The Elder sighed ruefully as he tore his attention away from the compelling darkness to look down at the young girl by his side. "I never lied to you," he said softly, "but I always knew that this, where we are now, was a very real possibility."
Wide eyed, Buffy looked up at the Elder, mesmerized by the shadows marking the lines of his face, the ancient wisdom in the hooded eyes. "I don't understand," she whispered with a child's uncertainty.
Gerrico nodded, his attention returning to the darkness before him, "the ideal solution would have been for Angel to have been granted his power and then destroyed Cirta with it."
"No muss, no fuss," she whispered.
"But that isn't what happened," Gerrico continued, giving no indication that he even heard her. "I always knew there would be a chance for things to fall apart." The Elder shook his head warily, "there were just too many variables, too many uncertainties, too many things that could have gone wrong. There had to be an alternate solution."
"So this is plan B?" Buffy asked, then smiled ruefully in spite of herself. "God, I hate plan B. Just once I'd like to see a plan A work out."
"Up ahead, can you see it?" Spike hissed urgently, his voice echoing the fears and doubts of all that were assembled to fight.
Buffy peered into the darkness, her senses concentrating, aching to see, to hear anything, then finally there it was. There he was. "Oh God," she moaned as she gazed upon the face of her lover. His beautiful, pale features vivid even in this bleak darkness, his proud, broad shoulders bespoke of a dark might. And his stance, he stood as though he owned the world. Beside him a grim shadow undulated, twisted, splintered the night into a thousand slivers of impending evil. "Cirta," the Slayer whispered with a hitch in her voice as the shadow sensuously wrapped around Angel's powerful body, caressing him with the intimacy of a lover. God, I hate plan B, Buffy thought as her stomach heaved and her mouth filled with gall, I really do.
"Stay close together!" Gerrico commanded his voice reverberating through the churchyard, assuring every thundering heart, each sweaty brow that they were not alone. There was no mirth in his eyes, no hesitation in his stance, he radiated the authority of a man born to lead. "Don't drift apart!" And the makeshift army of mortal enemies and frightened children moved to obey.
Buffy stared helplessly at her pale lover on the hill. Even at this distance his dark eyes seemed to bore directly into her soul wanting, needing. "Slayer, snap out of it!" Spike hissed in her ear, shaking her out of her reverie.
With an effort that left her shaking she tore her gaze away and almost fell to her knees under the weight of the sudden emptiness that engulfed her. "He looks so..."
"Powerful," spike completed in an almost gentle voice. "All the more reason to take the arse down." The pale vampire dared a furious glare at the hill, showering his once beloved sire with murderous thoughts, "him and his little shadow too."
Buffy choked back a half strangled laugh, "well aren't you a regular wicked witch of the west." She took a deep breath missing the look of pure admiration coming from her former mortal enemy, "are you ready, Spike?" She asked, her luminous eyes a mystery.
He looked at her, at his enemy, his ally and always his equal. What a vampire she would have made, he thought wistfully, all that beauty, all that strength preserved forever. "I'm ready, Buffy," he said soberly, his cool hand clasping hers for a moment before letting go.
"Not to ruin a perfectly creepy moment or anything," Xander murmured nervously, "but how do we know when we're supposed to start cursing?"
On the hill, the dark angel raised his hand to point at the heavens. A crackling fork of light burned across the sky, leaving behind a reek of sulfur. Fire danced across the vision of all who watched, filling them with the fear of God.
"Empower me!" Cried out the angel on the hill with a voice that could belong to no man, "fill me so I may return thee to thy rightful place!" A cold, harsh wind began to blow throughout the churchyard, sending shivers down frail human spines. Quickly it grew into a gale, tearing through trees, turning the ground, bringing with it the stench of the grave as it chafed exposed skin like a living thing.
Though her eyes watered from the wind and her ears rang at each clap of thunder, Buffy forced herself to focus on the man on the hill. Something was happening to the shadow by his side, something was causing it to twist and turn violently, to elongate forcefully into a human shape. A female shape.
"Empower me so I may dispose of this rabble that dishonors you!"
"Who does he think he's calling rabble?" Came the insulted demand that Buffy immediately recognized as Cordelia's.
Lightening forked its way down from the sky to blast against the ground in a shower of deadly sparks. Deep beneath their feet, the army ranks could feel the earth groan. Rain began to wash down hard on the forces of humanity as if seeking its destruction. Pinpricks of pain coming from all sides, hunting exposed flesh, sparing no one.
And on the hill the shadow twisted still, transparent no longer as pale features formed within its dark depths, a tall slender body veiled from the world only by translucent darkness that draped from her female form like an ethereal gown.
"I'm thinking this could be that sign you were waiting for," Buffy muttered gruffly her voice nearly lost to the supernatural storm.
"Ed Esperatum, dis mortum," Gerrico called out, his voice carrying impossibly throughout the courtyard, commanding, compelling, demanding they join him.
"And the Slayer's right again," Spike smirked, an odd hitch in his voice, "who'd have thunk it?" Pointing unnecessarily at his dark sire on the hill, he joined his angry voice with the Elder's.
"Don't you just hate it when people won't let you have the last word?" Xander asked wickedly before adding his voice to the rising crescendo.
Buffy glared at him for a moment, "oh yeah," she grumbled, "this is exactly how I pictured dying." With a final breath of acceptance, she too committed herself to the words that would ultimately destroy them all.
"Bow before me!" He commanded. His stance was confident and his broad shoulders bespoke authority, and many would have submitted for simple, human fear of that. But the force of his will also shook those who would have stood tall, who would bow to no man, be he angel or demon. The ground thundered with the echo of a thousand human bodies dropping to their knees, as the weakest of the rebels were broken. So he laughed, contemptuously so, because those that remained standing, those with the fire of battle in their eyes and the cursing of his new lover's body on their lips would prove most challenging. And he laughed, joyously so, because the power that flowed through him, that filled his blood with a fire unlike any he'd felt before, was finally entirely under his control. He felt the earth hum ecstatically beneath his feet, aching to do his bidding. He felt the heavens gape open wildly as a dark vortex swirled above him. He felt the pounding life surrounding him, practically begging to be dominated, to be raped under the brutal force of his will. Drunk with unwholesome power, he laughed.
Buffy cringed at the sound of her lover's laughter as it echoed through the churchyard. She flinched at the pure joy of the sound, the undeniable evil, and yet she went on mouthing the words that bound her to life. Her friends were around her, she knew that without taking her eyes off the dark angel on the hill. They weren't with the fallen.
"Bow before me!" Came the cry, and the earth shook again as simple human strength shattered before a dark god's command.
Buffy felt the strain on her mind deepen, as noxiously sweet cajoling swelled into a powerful demand. Harsh winds blew around her, tearing at her skin, but no gale, no matter how powerful, could cause her limbs to tremble like they did. With horror she realized she wanted to obey, she wanted to fall to her knees before her dark lover and accept his dominance over her mind, her soul, her body.
As if sensing her weakness, a cold, clammy hand caught hold of her own, squeezing it reassuringly. And once again the Chosen One was faced with the truth: she wasn't alone. Blindly, her mouth still mumbling words she barely understood, her face assaulted by cold, unnatural winds, she reached out and grabbed someone's hand, holding on for dear life. The result was astounding, she could feel the resolve returning to her body and the anger seeping back into her mind. Around her people swayed and fell, their lips still mouthing condemning words, but she knew that as long as she was cradled in the hands of humanity she was safe from harm.
Angel's features contorted with mirth as he watched determination return to the rebel ranks. Hands reached out blindly, seeking that fragile human bond even a strong wind could break. "Fools!" He cried out as aching backs straightened resolutely and burning lips screamed defiance. They could keep this up maybe moments longer, but no more. In the end frail human bodies and minds could never stand a chance against one such as he. In the end the ranks of humans and lesser demons would crumble and fall and that would only be the beginning. In the end he would have it all.
He glanced at the tall, dark woman beside him, a mirror image of himself. She'd given him so much and had only asked for him in return. They would have it all.
Slowly, one by one humanity faltered and crumbled to the unforgiving ground. The Slayer could feel the agony spreading through her ranks as her blazing lifeline weakened and fell into despair. They're only human, she thought as hard winds crashed ruthlessly against her tiny frame and unnaturally cold rain soaked her to the bone. We're only human. What use is a mere human against a God?
With cold certainty and grim acceptance she let go of the hands clasping on to her own, separating herself with final determination from those that loved her. This was her fight, she realized bleakly as cries of anguish surrounded her, chipping away at the single voice of determination that had not yet fallen. This was her responsibility from the very beginning, it should never have come to this. This was who she was.
With slow deliberation her mouth stopped forming the words she never understood to close around a single condemning one. One she believed in and had reached on her own, a single word she would give her life to. "ENOUGH!" She cried in a ringing voice that battled fiercely against the thunder and the wind and the rain.
Immediately her gut lurched, her knees began to tremble as her disobedience took its toll and the curse and the God began to wrack havoc on her tiny, useless, human form. She screamed out voicelessly as she felt the curse tearing into her flesh, twisting her apart. Her eyes wide and unseeing as Angel ground into her mind with his own destructive glee. Then, as she begged for madness to take her away, as she gibbered for the pain to stop, as she made promises she couldn't comprehend came the glorious reply.
"ENOUGH!"
She was floating, drifting away on a warm comfortable breeze. Her parents had taken her to visit an aunt in the country and after awhile, sick of the loud, adult voices, she'd drifted away on her own. She'd found a patch of virgin grass and had fallen asleep with the warm, fresh scent of clean earth and grass around her. It was dark when she opened her eyes then to the suddenly unfamiliar stretch of land. She'd shivered as her light summer dress had innocently surrendered to the powerful night and she sniffed as her eyes filled with childish tears. Her father had found her, after what seemed like hours later, curled into a tiny, weeping ball rocking back and forth.
Her eyes brimmed with tears now as memories seeped through her reawakening mind along with the cold and the pain. Her parents were divorced now, and her father hadn't come looking for her in years. There was no one to cradle her in his arms, no one that could make the dark, endless night go away. There was only her, the Slayer. And she was alone.
With strength she never thought she possessed, she pushed herself to her feet taking in her surroundings. All was quiet now, the rain and the wind hushed to an almost gentle existence, the lightning nothing but a mediocre light show high up in the sky. And the voices, for a moment she thought she had lost her hearing as the complete and total silence engulfed her. The people were still there all around her spread across the ground like a living mantle, but they were so quiet, so frozen as they stared up at her and...
"Angel!" She cried out, her voice echoing and distorting, finally drifting into nothing in the churchyard.
"You've come here to destroy me," it wasn't a question. "You've come here with your army and your words to destroy me. Again." There was terrifying contempt in his voice, and unmistakable power lacing the words.
There was no point in lying, she realized, with dark eyes that could see into her heart and read her soul she couldn't lie to him. Not anymore. "I came here to destroy Cirta," her voice sounded pitifully weak, the words fading into nothing as soon as they left her lips. "That means I have to destroy you too." She swallowed hard as he processed what she said, and all the while her mind raced. Why wasn't she dead? She'd stopped mouthing the curse and that alone by all rights should have torn her apart. What happened? Why was everyone so quiet? She didn't dare take her eyes off the dark vampire to look around her, she'd already accepted her own responsibilities.
"She lies," a soft voice hissed behind the anxious Slayer. "She aches to kill you, lover. Her body screams vengeance for all you have done."
Tremors rushed down Buffy's spine as she finally looked upon the face of her enemy. She was beautiful, flawlessly so. With dark sable hair and eyes darker still, pale features that only matched Angel's with their intensity, a tall, yet unmistakably feminine, slender form. She could have been Angel's sister, in fact, the Slayer thought as her eyes narrowed with suspicion, it was more than that. It was as if this woman had been modeled after Angel himself, almost a mirror image of him. "That's not true," her voice felt stronger, more confident as she denied the liar's accusations. "I never wanted to hurt you."
Angel's pale features hardened with disbelief, "why should it matter?" His voice was deceptively calm, controlled, but blue fire crackling around him betrayed his inner turmoil. "You don't love me. You never loved me, anyway."
"Yes, lover," Cirta murmured as her fingers traced his neck, traveled intimately down to his shoulders and chest before settling on a clinging embrace from behind. His hand rested lightly on her pale arm, but his dark, demanding eyes never left Buffy's face.
"I've never stopped loving you!" To her disgust she found herself pleading, begging him to believe her. "I would have given my life if I thought I could have saved you then, and I'd do it now if I could."
"Enough," Cirta's arms tightened sensuously around Angel's neck, a cat demanding attention, "I bore of this, lover. Kill her. Kill them all!"
Pulling fiercely away from his lover's grasp, Angel took a violent step closer to the trembling Slayer, "I don't believe you!" He hissed, his face livid with rage, blue sparks crackling around his body as a living testament to the power he held. "I forgave you for condemning me to centuries of hell almost as soon as I realized what happened. I never blamed you for that!"
She stared at him wide-eyed, what was he saying? How could he have forgiven her for that? "But I never forgave you for not taking my hand!"
She blinked, her mind a confused jumble of thoughts, memories and images all blending together to become one single, blazing moment in time where her agonized lover had thrust out his hand even as the swirling vortex claimed him as its own. "Why didn't you take my hand?"
"Because I couldn't save you!" She cried, her voice ringing through the endless night reaching to the farthest regions of her childhood nightmares, challenging them with her own kind of power. She was human, she was standing before a God, but she would hold her own to the very end. "Because I would have given my life for yours, the world for yours, all of this," she finally turned to look at the faces of her friends, of her peers, "I'd have given for you! If I could. But I couldn't, and I suffered for it, and I wanted to die for it and I went to hell for it because I thought I deserved it! Because I thought I didn't deserve life because of what I did to you, because I thought I didn't deserve love and friendship and sunshine I became you, but it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough and I couldn't redeem myself!" He stared at her as though she had gone insane, but she didn't care. Maybe she was going insane, none of this was making any sense, but this guilt and shame had been buried inside her for too long, it had to come out.
"So I went to hell!" She cried, her voice holding all the horrors she'd witnessed there, all that terrible despair. "I went to hell because you did, I walked like the dead because you did, but none of it made any difference!" It was just the two of them now, no masses of humanity at their feet awaiting death, no demonic presence shunned to the side by her own protege. It was just the two of them. "I wanted to die so badly I nearly did, but that wouldn't have made any difference either, none of it would," she was pleading now, begging for his understanding. "I would have died and the next Slayer would have been called and nothing would have changed, but I couldn't."
"You couldn't what?" He asked softly, tenderly a kind of anxiousness in his eyes.
"I couldn't die just like I couldn't let you live. I'd give everything up for you if I could, but I can't," her voice was calmer now, and she was vaguely aware that her body was trembling, that her face was flushed with tears. "Not the world, not their lives, not even my life. It's just not mine to give, none of it." She looked him in the eyes, sincerity beaming from her very soul, "I'm the Slayer, Angel. It's not what I am, it's who I am and that's the reason behind it all."
They gazed at one another in the complete silence that followed her words, each assessing, deciding, lost in each other's eyes, just as they had been countless times in the past. "Enough!" Cirta cried out, her voice shrilly shattering the silence into a thousand shards of indecision. "You listen to what this human has to say, and she would kill you still in a pathetic heartbeat if she had too."
"I would," the Slayer nodded under her lover's demanding gaze. There was no reason to lie, not anymore.
"She makes excuses for her own decisions," Cirta pushed on, her hand resting lightly on Angel's shoulder once more, making her claim. "She blames her calling for her own judgments, and you," her fingers closed around his powerful arm, forcing him to acknowledge her, "and you will forever be her victim!"
"The thing is," Buffy purred as the realization finally hit her, as the absolute certainty filled her with its formidable strength, "it's not a calling. It was never just a calling," her eyes blazed even as her back straightened. She could feel the familiar righteous indignation fill her body to the very core, returning the strength to her weary limbs. "This," she said, her voice reverberating with power she never dreamed she had, "is who I am!" A slight smile formed on her lips with the realization, this was what the Elder had been trying to tell her all along. What her whole life had been leading to, and she wouldn't change it even if she could.
She stood before them, her lover and her enemy, no long a weak human to be swiped away with the whim of a God. With her eyes blazing righteous anger and her fists clenched with hate, she was a force of nature, a being to be reckoned with. And they all knew it.
"Destroy her!" Cirta screamed, her dark eyes alive with hate and fear, "kill her now, Angelus!"
Slowly, sensuously, deliberately the dark angel turned to face the creature he owed his life to, "I don't think so."
"No," Cirta gasped, backing away from her dark lover. "It can't be, I read your mind. You despised her! You never intended to destroy me!"
Angel smiled, a wicked expression, "problem was, lover," he purred, "you only read the human side, all the doubts, the betrayals, the insecurities. You never touched the demon." His face changed, his beautiful human smile twisting into a bestial snarl, "this," he pointed at his face with hands that were claws, "was a gift to you. A parting gift from hell!"
I have a little present for your lady love...
"No!" The demon woman screamed her face a mask of terror, "I gave you everything!"
"And it still wasn't enough," Angel hissed, his eyes blazing golden fire even as his hand stretched forth to point at his one time lover, "you weren't her. The human side never loved you, and the demon," he laughed, a terrifying sound slashing through the absolute silence, "the demon would never be dominated. Never again!" With a sound like a thunderclap, power rushed from his hand, engulfing the devil woman in a blaze of glory.
"Can you feel it?" He demanded, savagely echoing the question that had recently ruled his life. "Can you feel the power running through your veins? Burning you from the inside out?" He smiled because her agonized scream told him all he needed to know. "It's destroying you! Killing you once and for all!" Her once lovely body was engulfed in the desecrating blue flames now, twisting, and molding, folding in on itself as it surrendered to the powerful flames.
"Children!" She cried out as she crumbled to the unforgiving earth, "rise, take vengeance!" And then, crumbling to ash, she was nothing at all.
Buffy stared horrified at the charred piece of ground that was once her enemy. Her chest heaved and her hands trembled, but still she forced herself to look up at the man who had done the impossible. "What the hell did that mean?" She demanded, her voice squeaking slightly.
Angel, his face beautifully, wonderfully, deceptively human once more, simply shrugged, "I don't..."
A scream cut his words short, one that was at once both familiar, yet much, much louder than she remembered. "Duck!" She managed to scream before the blast threw her to the ground with the force of a bomb. She blinked stupidly, her vision swimming and her ears ringing.
Roughly, Angel grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, "what the hell was that?" He demanded.
She shook her head in effort to clear away the dizziness, "Cirta's minions," she gasped. "They must be," she floundered, "self-destructing," she finally gasped. "If there're any more of them anywhere near here..." Her words were cut short by several screams coming from different directions nearby.
Angel and Buffy stared at each other, their thoughts completely in synch for the first time in a long time, "oh, shit!" They agreed as they threw themselves to the ground as one.
The blast was deafening, roaring in her ears as fire swept over her body, singing her skin. In a distance, somewhere behind the roar in her mind the screaming continued. "Get everyone out of here," she shouted at the vampire by her side. "We've got to get everyone out of here!"
Angel nodded, then ducked slightly as another explosion went off from further away. "Follow me!" He hollered at the stunned masses. No one made any sign of moving, their fear of him and what they had just witnessed greater than any puny explosion. Angel's dark eyes narrowed dangerously, his body crackled with blue flames, "if you want to live," he commanded with a voice that reached them all, "follow me!" This time there was no hesitation as the masses turned to follow their dark leader.
"I'm staying at the rear," Buffy shouted as Angel began making his way out of the city, "I'll make sure everyone gets out all right." He nodded back, her only sign that he had heard her.
"Can't he do something about this?" Willow demanded, having run to Buffy as soon as it was humanly possible. "He's got all this power, can't he do something with it?"
The two girls ducked as another explosion went off much too close for comfort, "I don't know what he can do, Will," she told her wild-eyed friend. She looked back over her shoulder in hopes of catching a glimpse of her dark angel. "I don't know if he does either."
Twisting violently in an effort to make sure that everyone managed to escape the inferno, Buffy spotted a pale vampire herding his mad lover away from harm. "So how does it feel to be on the winning team for once?" She cried out above the crackling flames.
Unable to help himself, Spike stopped and pretended to ponder the answer to that. Golden fire gleamed across his wicked features, adding an air of mischief to his eyes. "Interesting, I'll have to try it again sometime," he shouted back, then turned to gently guide Drusilla out of the burning city.
Buffy glared at him, the fire in her eyes brighter than any flame, "you know that the next time I see you I'll have to kill you."
His laughter mingled with the crackling flames, making her doubt she'd heard anything at all, "I'm counting on that, Slayer," his voice wafted among the flames and the people before disappearing entirely.
Notes: Contains spoilers from BtVS seasons one through three.
Feedback: Any and all comments are welcome and appreciated.
Chapter Seventeen
"So where is he?" Xander demanded his feet nervously shuffling the ground.
His girlfriend eyed his jumpy antics for several moments, "do you have to go to the bathroom or something?" She finally asked. "Cause this is really one of those times where you should have gone before we left."
"Hush!" Gerrico commanded as Xander opened his mouth to deliver a testy reply.
Buffy gazed at the Elder curiously. The calm, often infuriatingly so, demeanor was practically anything but. The usually stoic mask was replaced with something very much like fear, and even the sparkling blue eyes seemed hooded and dark. "Why'd you change your mind?" She asked softly.
"I didn't," he replied shortly, his eyes cleaving the darkness, searching for something human eyes could never see.
The Slayer mulled that over for several moments, "so you did lie to me," she stated quietly, there were no accusations this time. "You manipulated me to get us all here."
The Elder sighed ruefully as he tore his attention away from the compelling darkness to look down at the young girl by his side. "I never lied to you," he said softly, "but I always knew that this, where we are now, was a very real possibility."
Wide eyed, Buffy looked up at the Elder, mesmerized by the shadows marking the lines of his face, the ancient wisdom in the hooded eyes. "I don't understand," she whispered with a child's uncertainty.
Gerrico nodded, his attention returning to the darkness before him, "the ideal solution would have been for Angel to have been granted his power and then destroyed Cirta with it."
"No muss, no fuss," she whispered.
"But that isn't what happened," Gerrico continued, giving no indication that he even heard her. "I always knew there would be a chance for things to fall apart." The Elder shook his head warily, "there were just too many variables, too many uncertainties, too many things that could have gone wrong. There had to be an alternate solution."
"So this is plan B?" Buffy asked, then smiled ruefully in spite of herself. "God, I hate plan B. Just once I'd like to see a plan A work out."
"Up ahead, can you see it?" Spike hissed urgently, his voice echoing the fears and doubts of all that were assembled to fight.
Buffy peered into the darkness, her senses concentrating, aching to see, to hear anything, then finally there it was. There he was. "Oh God," she moaned as she gazed upon the face of her lover. His beautiful, pale features vivid even in this bleak darkness, his proud, broad shoulders bespoke of a dark might. And his stance, he stood as though he owned the world. Beside him a grim shadow undulated, twisted, splintered the night into a thousand slivers of impending evil. "Cirta," the Slayer whispered with a hitch in her voice as the shadow sensuously wrapped around Angel's powerful body, caressing him with the intimacy of a lover. God, I hate plan B, Buffy thought as her stomach heaved and her mouth filled with gall, I really do.
"Stay close together!" Gerrico commanded his voice reverberating through the churchyard, assuring every thundering heart, each sweaty brow that they were not alone. There was no mirth in his eyes, no hesitation in his stance, he radiated the authority of a man born to lead. "Don't drift apart!" And the makeshift army of mortal enemies and frightened children moved to obey.
Buffy stared helplessly at her pale lover on the hill. Even at this distance his dark eyes seemed to bore directly into her soul wanting, needing. "Slayer, snap out of it!" Spike hissed in her ear, shaking her out of her reverie.
With an effort that left her shaking she tore her gaze away and almost fell to her knees under the weight of the sudden emptiness that engulfed her. "He looks so..."
"Powerful," spike completed in an almost gentle voice. "All the more reason to take the arse down." The pale vampire dared a furious glare at the hill, showering his once beloved sire with murderous thoughts, "him and his little shadow too."
Buffy choked back a half strangled laugh, "well aren't you a regular wicked witch of the west." She took a deep breath missing the look of pure admiration coming from her former mortal enemy, "are you ready, Spike?" She asked, her luminous eyes a mystery.
He looked at her, at his enemy, his ally and always his equal. What a vampire she would have made, he thought wistfully, all that beauty, all that strength preserved forever. "I'm ready, Buffy," he said soberly, his cool hand clasping hers for a moment before letting go.
"Not to ruin a perfectly creepy moment or anything," Xander murmured nervously, "but how do we know when we're supposed to start cursing?"
On the hill, the dark angel raised his hand to point at the heavens. A crackling fork of light burned across the sky, leaving behind a reek of sulfur. Fire danced across the vision of all who watched, filling them with the fear of God.
"Empower me!" Cried out the angel on the hill with a voice that could belong to no man, "fill me so I may return thee to thy rightful place!" A cold, harsh wind began to blow throughout the churchyard, sending shivers down frail human spines. Quickly it grew into a gale, tearing through trees, turning the ground, bringing with it the stench of the grave as it chafed exposed skin like a living thing.
Though her eyes watered from the wind and her ears rang at each clap of thunder, Buffy forced herself to focus on the man on the hill. Something was happening to the shadow by his side, something was causing it to twist and turn violently, to elongate forcefully into a human shape. A female shape.
"Empower me so I may dispose of this rabble that dishonors you!"
"Who does he think he's calling rabble?" Came the insulted demand that Buffy immediately recognized as Cordelia's.
Lightening forked its way down from the sky to blast against the ground in a shower of deadly sparks. Deep beneath their feet, the army ranks could feel the earth groan. Rain began to wash down hard on the forces of humanity as if seeking its destruction. Pinpricks of pain coming from all sides, hunting exposed flesh, sparing no one.
And on the hill the shadow twisted still, transparent no longer as pale features formed within its dark depths, a tall slender body veiled from the world only by translucent darkness that draped from her female form like an ethereal gown.
"I'm thinking this could be that sign you were waiting for," Buffy muttered gruffly her voice nearly lost to the supernatural storm.
"Ed Esperatum, dis mortum," Gerrico called out, his voice carrying impossibly throughout the courtyard, commanding, compelling, demanding they join him.
"And the Slayer's right again," Spike smirked, an odd hitch in his voice, "who'd have thunk it?" Pointing unnecessarily at his dark sire on the hill, he joined his angry voice with the Elder's.
"Don't you just hate it when people won't let you have the last word?" Xander asked wickedly before adding his voice to the rising crescendo.
Buffy glared at him for a moment, "oh yeah," she grumbled, "this is exactly how I pictured dying." With a final breath of acceptance, she too committed herself to the words that would ultimately destroy them all.
"Bow before me!" He commanded. His stance was confident and his broad shoulders bespoke authority, and many would have submitted for simple, human fear of that. But the force of his will also shook those who would have stood tall, who would bow to no man, be he angel or demon. The ground thundered with the echo of a thousand human bodies dropping to their knees, as the weakest of the rebels were broken. So he laughed, contemptuously so, because those that remained standing, those with the fire of battle in their eyes and the cursing of his new lover's body on their lips would prove most challenging. And he laughed, joyously so, because the power that flowed through him, that filled his blood with a fire unlike any he'd felt before, was finally entirely under his control. He felt the earth hum ecstatically beneath his feet, aching to do his bidding. He felt the heavens gape open wildly as a dark vortex swirled above him. He felt the pounding life surrounding him, practically begging to be dominated, to be raped under the brutal force of his will. Drunk with unwholesome power, he laughed.
Buffy cringed at the sound of her lover's laughter as it echoed through the churchyard. She flinched at the pure joy of the sound, the undeniable evil, and yet she went on mouthing the words that bound her to life. Her friends were around her, she knew that without taking her eyes off the dark angel on the hill. They weren't with the fallen.
"Bow before me!" Came the cry, and the earth shook again as simple human strength shattered before a dark god's command.
Buffy felt the strain on her mind deepen, as noxiously sweet cajoling swelled into a powerful demand. Harsh winds blew around her, tearing at her skin, but no gale, no matter how powerful, could cause her limbs to tremble like they did. With horror she realized she wanted to obey, she wanted to fall to her knees before her dark lover and accept his dominance over her mind, her soul, her body.
As if sensing her weakness, a cold, clammy hand caught hold of her own, squeezing it reassuringly. And once again the Chosen One was faced with the truth: she wasn't alone. Blindly, her mouth still mumbling words she barely understood, her face assaulted by cold, unnatural winds, she reached out and grabbed someone's hand, holding on for dear life. The result was astounding, she could feel the resolve returning to her body and the anger seeping back into her mind. Around her people swayed and fell, their lips still mouthing condemning words, but she knew that as long as she was cradled in the hands of humanity she was safe from harm.
Angel's features contorted with mirth as he watched determination return to the rebel ranks. Hands reached out blindly, seeking that fragile human bond even a strong wind could break. "Fools!" He cried out as aching backs straightened resolutely and burning lips screamed defiance. They could keep this up maybe moments longer, but no more. In the end frail human bodies and minds could never stand a chance against one such as he. In the end the ranks of humans and lesser demons would crumble and fall and that would only be the beginning. In the end he would have it all.
He glanced at the tall, dark woman beside him, a mirror image of himself. She'd given him so much and had only asked for him in return. They would have it all.
Slowly, one by one humanity faltered and crumbled to the unforgiving ground. The Slayer could feel the agony spreading through her ranks as her blazing lifeline weakened and fell into despair. They're only human, she thought as hard winds crashed ruthlessly against her tiny frame and unnaturally cold rain soaked her to the bone. We're only human. What use is a mere human against a God?
With cold certainty and grim acceptance she let go of the hands clasping on to her own, separating herself with final determination from those that loved her. This was her fight, she realized bleakly as cries of anguish surrounded her, chipping away at the single voice of determination that had not yet fallen. This was her responsibility from the very beginning, it should never have come to this. This was who she was.
With slow deliberation her mouth stopped forming the words she never understood to close around a single condemning one. One she believed in and had reached on her own, a single word she would give her life to. "ENOUGH!" She cried in a ringing voice that battled fiercely against the thunder and the wind and the rain.
Immediately her gut lurched, her knees began to tremble as her disobedience took its toll and the curse and the God began to wrack havoc on her tiny, useless, human form. She screamed out voicelessly as she felt the curse tearing into her flesh, twisting her apart. Her eyes wide and unseeing as Angel ground into her mind with his own destructive glee. Then, as she begged for madness to take her away, as she gibbered for the pain to stop, as she made promises she couldn't comprehend came the glorious reply.
"ENOUGH!"
She was floating, drifting away on a warm comfortable breeze. Her parents had taken her to visit an aunt in the country and after awhile, sick of the loud, adult voices, she'd drifted away on her own. She'd found a patch of virgin grass and had fallen asleep with the warm, fresh scent of clean earth and grass around her. It was dark when she opened her eyes then to the suddenly unfamiliar stretch of land. She'd shivered as her light summer dress had innocently surrendered to the powerful night and she sniffed as her eyes filled with childish tears. Her father had found her, after what seemed like hours later, curled into a tiny, weeping ball rocking back and forth.
Her eyes brimmed with tears now as memories seeped through her reawakening mind along with the cold and the pain. Her parents were divorced now, and her father hadn't come looking for her in years. There was no one to cradle her in his arms, no one that could make the dark, endless night go away. There was only her, the Slayer. And she was alone.
With strength she never thought she possessed, she pushed herself to her feet taking in her surroundings. All was quiet now, the rain and the wind hushed to an almost gentle existence, the lightning nothing but a mediocre light show high up in the sky. And the voices, for a moment she thought she had lost her hearing as the complete and total silence engulfed her. The people were still there all around her spread across the ground like a living mantle, but they were so quiet, so frozen as they stared up at her and...
"Angel!" She cried out, her voice echoing and distorting, finally drifting into nothing in the churchyard.
"You've come here to destroy me," it wasn't a question. "You've come here with your army and your words to destroy me. Again." There was terrifying contempt in his voice, and unmistakable power lacing the words.
There was no point in lying, she realized, with dark eyes that could see into her heart and read her soul she couldn't lie to him. Not anymore. "I came here to destroy Cirta," her voice sounded pitifully weak, the words fading into nothing as soon as they left her lips. "That means I have to destroy you too." She swallowed hard as he processed what she said, and all the while her mind raced. Why wasn't she dead? She'd stopped mouthing the curse and that alone by all rights should have torn her apart. What happened? Why was everyone so quiet? She didn't dare take her eyes off the dark vampire to look around her, she'd already accepted her own responsibilities.
"She lies," a soft voice hissed behind the anxious Slayer. "She aches to kill you, lover. Her body screams vengeance for all you have done."
Tremors rushed down Buffy's spine as she finally looked upon the face of her enemy. She was beautiful, flawlessly so. With dark sable hair and eyes darker still, pale features that only matched Angel's with their intensity, a tall, yet unmistakably feminine, slender form. She could have been Angel's sister, in fact, the Slayer thought as her eyes narrowed with suspicion, it was more than that. It was as if this woman had been modeled after Angel himself, almost a mirror image of him. "That's not true," her voice felt stronger, more confident as she denied the liar's accusations. "I never wanted to hurt you."
Angel's pale features hardened with disbelief, "why should it matter?" His voice was deceptively calm, controlled, but blue fire crackling around him betrayed his inner turmoil. "You don't love me. You never loved me, anyway."
"Yes, lover," Cirta murmured as her fingers traced his neck, traveled intimately down to his shoulders and chest before settling on a clinging embrace from behind. His hand rested lightly on her pale arm, but his dark, demanding eyes never left Buffy's face.
"I've never stopped loving you!" To her disgust she found herself pleading, begging him to believe her. "I would have given my life if I thought I could have saved you then, and I'd do it now if I could."
"Enough," Cirta's arms tightened sensuously around Angel's neck, a cat demanding attention, "I bore of this, lover. Kill her. Kill them all!"
Pulling fiercely away from his lover's grasp, Angel took a violent step closer to the trembling Slayer, "I don't believe you!" He hissed, his face livid with rage, blue sparks crackling around his body as a living testament to the power he held. "I forgave you for condemning me to centuries of hell almost as soon as I realized what happened. I never blamed you for that!"
She stared at him wide-eyed, what was he saying? How could he have forgiven her for that? "But I never forgave you for not taking my hand!"
She blinked, her mind a confused jumble of thoughts, memories and images all blending together to become one single, blazing moment in time where her agonized lover had thrust out his hand even as the swirling vortex claimed him as its own. "Why didn't you take my hand?"
"Because I couldn't save you!" She cried, her voice ringing through the endless night reaching to the farthest regions of her childhood nightmares, challenging them with her own kind of power. She was human, she was standing before a God, but she would hold her own to the very end. "Because I would have given my life for yours, the world for yours, all of this," she finally turned to look at the faces of her friends, of her peers, "I'd have given for you! If I could. But I couldn't, and I suffered for it, and I wanted to die for it and I went to hell for it because I thought I deserved it! Because I thought I didn't deserve life because of what I did to you, because I thought I didn't deserve love and friendship and sunshine I became you, but it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough and I couldn't redeem myself!" He stared at her as though she had gone insane, but she didn't care. Maybe she was going insane, none of this was making any sense, but this guilt and shame had been buried inside her for too long, it had to come out.
"So I went to hell!" She cried, her voice holding all the horrors she'd witnessed there, all that terrible despair. "I went to hell because you did, I walked like the dead because you did, but none of it made any difference!" It was just the two of them now, no masses of humanity at their feet awaiting death, no demonic presence shunned to the side by her own protege. It was just the two of them. "I wanted to die so badly I nearly did, but that wouldn't have made any difference either, none of it would," she was pleading now, begging for his understanding. "I would have died and the next Slayer would have been called and nothing would have changed, but I couldn't."
"You couldn't what?" He asked softly, tenderly a kind of anxiousness in his eyes.
"I couldn't die just like I couldn't let you live. I'd give everything up for you if I could, but I can't," her voice was calmer now, and she was vaguely aware that her body was trembling, that her face was flushed with tears. "Not the world, not their lives, not even my life. It's just not mine to give, none of it." She looked him in the eyes, sincerity beaming from her very soul, "I'm the Slayer, Angel. It's not what I am, it's who I am and that's the reason behind it all."
They gazed at one another in the complete silence that followed her words, each assessing, deciding, lost in each other's eyes, just as they had been countless times in the past. "Enough!" Cirta cried out, her voice shrilly shattering the silence into a thousand shards of indecision. "You listen to what this human has to say, and she would kill you still in a pathetic heartbeat if she had too."
"I would," the Slayer nodded under her lover's demanding gaze. There was no reason to lie, not anymore.
"She makes excuses for her own decisions," Cirta pushed on, her hand resting lightly on Angel's shoulder once more, making her claim. "She blames her calling for her own judgments, and you," her fingers closed around his powerful arm, forcing him to acknowledge her, "and you will forever be her victim!"
"The thing is," Buffy purred as the realization finally hit her, as the absolute certainty filled her with its formidable strength, "it's not a calling. It was never just a calling," her eyes blazed even as her back straightened. She could feel the familiar righteous indignation fill her body to the very core, returning the strength to her weary limbs. "This," she said, her voice reverberating with power she never dreamed she had, "is who I am!" A slight smile formed on her lips with the realization, this was what the Elder had been trying to tell her all along. What her whole life had been leading to, and she wouldn't change it even if she could.
She stood before them, her lover and her enemy, no long a weak human to be swiped away with the whim of a God. With her eyes blazing righteous anger and her fists clenched with hate, she was a force of nature, a being to be reckoned with. And they all knew it.
"Destroy her!" Cirta screamed, her dark eyes alive with hate and fear, "kill her now, Angelus!"
Slowly, sensuously, deliberately the dark angel turned to face the creature he owed his life to, "I don't think so."
"No," Cirta gasped, backing away from her dark lover. "It can't be, I read your mind. You despised her! You never intended to destroy me!"
Angel smiled, a wicked expression, "problem was, lover," he purred, "you only read the human side, all the doubts, the betrayals, the insecurities. You never touched the demon." His face changed, his beautiful human smile twisting into a bestial snarl, "this," he pointed at his face with hands that were claws, "was a gift to you. A parting gift from hell!"
I have a little present for your lady love...
"No!" The demon woman screamed her face a mask of terror, "I gave you everything!"
"And it still wasn't enough," Angel hissed, his eyes blazing golden fire even as his hand stretched forth to point at his one time lover, "you weren't her. The human side never loved you, and the demon," he laughed, a terrifying sound slashing through the absolute silence, "the demon would never be dominated. Never again!" With a sound like a thunderclap, power rushed from his hand, engulfing the devil woman in a blaze of glory.
"Can you feel it?" He demanded, savagely echoing the question that had recently ruled his life. "Can you feel the power running through your veins? Burning you from the inside out?" He smiled because her agonized scream told him all he needed to know. "It's destroying you! Killing you once and for all!" Her once lovely body was engulfed in the desecrating blue flames now, twisting, and molding, folding in on itself as it surrendered to the powerful flames.
"Children!" She cried out as she crumbled to the unforgiving earth, "rise, take vengeance!" And then, crumbling to ash, she was nothing at all.
Buffy stared horrified at the charred piece of ground that was once her enemy. Her chest heaved and her hands trembled, but still she forced herself to look up at the man who had done the impossible. "What the hell did that mean?" She demanded, her voice squeaking slightly.
Angel, his face beautifully, wonderfully, deceptively human once more, simply shrugged, "I don't..."
A scream cut his words short, one that was at once both familiar, yet much, much louder than she remembered. "Duck!" She managed to scream before the blast threw her to the ground with the force of a bomb. She blinked stupidly, her vision swimming and her ears ringing.
Roughly, Angel grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, "what the hell was that?" He demanded.
She shook her head in effort to clear away the dizziness, "Cirta's minions," she gasped. "They must be," she floundered, "self-destructing," she finally gasped. "If there're any more of them anywhere near here..." Her words were cut short by several screams coming from different directions nearby.
Angel and Buffy stared at each other, their thoughts completely in synch for the first time in a long time, "oh, shit!" They agreed as they threw themselves to the ground as one.
The blast was deafening, roaring in her ears as fire swept over her body, singing her skin. In a distance, somewhere behind the roar in her mind the screaming continued. "Get everyone out of here," she shouted at the vampire by her side. "We've got to get everyone out of here!"
Angel nodded, then ducked slightly as another explosion went off from further away. "Follow me!" He hollered at the stunned masses. No one made any sign of moving, their fear of him and what they had just witnessed greater than any puny explosion. Angel's dark eyes narrowed dangerously, his body crackled with blue flames, "if you want to live," he commanded with a voice that reached them all, "follow me!" This time there was no hesitation as the masses turned to follow their dark leader.
"I'm staying at the rear," Buffy shouted as Angel began making his way out of the city, "I'll make sure everyone gets out all right." He nodded back, her only sign that he had heard her.
"Can't he do something about this?" Willow demanded, having run to Buffy as soon as it was humanly possible. "He's got all this power, can't he do something with it?"
The two girls ducked as another explosion went off much too close for comfort, "I don't know what he can do, Will," she told her wild-eyed friend. She looked back over her shoulder in hopes of catching a glimpse of her dark angel. "I don't know if he does either."
Twisting violently in an effort to make sure that everyone managed to escape the inferno, Buffy spotted a pale vampire herding his mad lover away from harm. "So how does it feel to be on the winning team for once?" She cried out above the crackling flames.
Unable to help himself, Spike stopped and pretended to ponder the answer to that. Golden fire gleamed across his wicked features, adding an air of mischief to his eyes. "Interesting, I'll have to try it again sometime," he shouted back, then turned to gently guide Drusilla out of the burning city.
Buffy glared at him, the fire in her eyes brighter than any flame, "you know that the next time I see you I'll have to kill you."
His laughter mingled with the crackling flames, making her doubt she'd heard anything at all, "I'm counting on that, Slayer," his voice wafted among the flames and the people before disappearing entirely.