Title: Blood Line: Yes, Sir 2
Author: Kim, The Manipulative Little Monster
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth so don't sue me.
Archive: Anywhere that wants it
Summary: The sequel to Yes, Sir. Toby is back and it's up to him, Sarah and
Lee to save their son's life.
A/N: Thanks to AM and JL and Kitty for forcing me to write this and thanks to
everyone who voted for me at the Green Awards to give me a reason too.
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Chapter two
Sarah fell to her knees beside her lover, slowly trailing fingers through her hair. "Shush. Shush, baby, he's not gone yet. You need to calm down, okay? He's our son and he loves us. You're his mother. Go to him, him; be near him,; sing to him. He know's knows you're there so pull yourself together for his sake."
Calming fingers moved over Lee's back as the team of nurses slowly started to dissipate, leaving them alone with the doctor. Billy spoke softly, the concern evident in his tone. The sadness and the utter shock. "Lee, want me to call your folks? Phil and your mom should be here."
Sarah shook her head slowly, her eyes filled with pain. Pain, but a slow strength was drawling. "No thanks, Billy. They don't need to hear this over the phone. I'll go get them and some of Lucas's things. He needs familiar stuff now."
Billy nodded, his eyes trailing over the wet clothing that Sarah was impervious to. "Do you want some scrubs to change into? You're soaked, and you can't be getting sick too."
At his words, a chill descended over her, and she looked down slowly. "Yeah, I guess I should. Billy, I need your car."
"Anything you need, Sarah. But there's something else. I should call the CDC in Atlanta about this. I've never seen anything like it."
"Billy, don't. Look, I'll have Philip make the calls to Washington. I have a feeling the Committee will want to deal with this. Just let Lee stay with him until we come back."
"Sure, but she'll need gloves and a gown." At his louder tone, a nurse with owl-spotted scrubs almost lapped leaped into action, running to the room next to Lucas's.
The owls caught Sarah's attention before she walked back over to Lee and wrapped her arms around her. "Baby, I'll be back as soon as I can. Do what ever whatever they tell you, okay. okay? I'm gonna be doing whatever I can."
Lee's voice was a barely there barely-there whisper, reeking of pain and a loss she already felt. "Please hurry, Sarah. I can't loose him, he's my very life." Sarah pressed her lips to Lee's lightly before slowly turning to follow another nurse into with a set of scrubs. She needed to get to Lee's fathers father, he was the only one who could help her now.
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A half an hour The half-hour trip was broken down to less then than five minutes. It must
have been a new record for Sarah and for Billy's brand new Focus. The light's lights in the Buchanon house where all off and, for a moment Sarah felt like she was being watched by a great predator. Something hungry that lays lies in the dark. Lays Lies in wait...
She shivered in the chilled air of spring, feeling the funeral in her heart already forming. She fought as hard as she could to stop the whimper that poured from her lips before she fervently started to press the door bell doorbell. She lost count of the echoing rings before the door was thrown open by Philip Buchanon himself.
His voice was soft and cool as an animal's pelt before he spoke,"Something's happened with Lucas, hasn't it?"
Sarah nodded miserably before he slowly lead led her into the library that served as his office. A chill crept over her spine as she remembered the almost last almost-last time she had stood in this very room. It had been the night that her lover's father had told him the plan to kill her, the man she thought was her brother and the Goblin King. Suddenly she didn't seem as sure that this was the right place to come. But she needed answers.
A tongue trailed over lips before she spoke again. "Lucas has a very high fever; he's burning up, but there's no sweat. His fever should have killed him by now, and yet, it hasn't. Billy said that there's something like a virus in his genetic code. This is something about Toby, isn't it?"
Philip watched as the woman his daughter and grandson loved so much spilled the story with so much misery. He had thought he had more time before it came to this. He thought that he could have found some way to stop it... But it was to too late now, and all he could do was sigh.
"Yes, this is about Toby. What's happening is his natural body changes."
"Body changes? But Toby didn't go through this. I would have remembered, I would have been ready to..."
"To what, Lee? Stop it? Toby didn't need to go through it. Jareth took care of it when you both where in the Labyrinth. Time runs differently there and he speed sped up the transformation."
"Transformation? I don't understand. But Toby was so much younger then Lucas..."
"And you came back so much older then than you left. No, you didn't look it or sound it, and your body didn't change. But your mind did. And Toby's did too. Don't you remember remarking on how much he changed after that?"
And she did remember. She commented on it all the time. To herself anyway. "You're saying that when we cast the spell to keep Toby and Jareth out of our lives, we killed him. This is our fault."
"It's not your fault, Sarah. It's mine. I should have seen this coming. I should have stopped it. And now it's too late. Lucas needs to be exposed to the magic of the Labyrinth. His body and mind is are changing to more Fae then than human. His magic is starting to seep out. Even I can feel it calling to me."
For the moment Sarah felt like she was missing something in that sentence, but then shook it off. Her mind was already working. "Then I'll have to wish him away. Jareth can fix him. Or Toby, depending on who's in charge there."
"I actually don't think either one of them is in charge. I think what you did caused a sort of Mexican standoff over there. Neither one of them can really move against each other. As for wishing him away, it won't work."
"Why wouldn't won't it?" She asked indignantly. "It did before."
"There is are only three ways to get to the Fae kingdoms, Sarah. The first way is the simplest. A spell. But a spell isn't totally dependant on person who's speaking it alone. I could probably say the words a hundred times without the least amount of effect. Anyone in the world could. Would Jareth want them to be overrunning the Labyrinth? Probably not.
"Yes, the spell is the key, but the doorway has to be opened by someone. In your case, it was Jareth. He wanted you to bring Toby to the Underground. He didn't intend on losing. Actually, I believe you are the first person who bet him. But it didn't matter, as long as he had the child in his realm, he could take care of the magic inside of him, to make sure the heir lives to adulthood.
"For as much as he wants the power, if the heir dies then the entire race will die. That's why he simply didn't kill Toby when he had the chance. He can kill him now, now; there's a new heir."
"So if we hadn't stopped him, then Lucas would be okay. And because he can't use magic against us, he can't use it for us either?"
"Right on the nose, Sarah. The magic cannot touch any of you. And Jareth is the only one who can open the door to the Labyrinth. The second and more common way is for a Fae to bewitch a mortal into an already open already-open door and shutting it behind them. Every race in the world has a story of some other wordily otherworldly creature luring mortals to a fate worse then than death.
"The final and most dangerous way is ..." He turned from Sarah and walked to a worn, well-used chair. He lightly touched his fingers to the back and front legs of the chair and Sarah heard a small popping sound. The air in the room seemed to glow darker and the watched feeling from before had invaded upon her once again. Her hands where pressed to her arms as she waited with near breathless anticipation.
Philip pulled out a small worn looking box. The box seemed normal, covered in breaking brown skin that looked like ancient leather. It was stained with something dark, and Sarah's first thought was that it was blood. She shook it off as being ridiculous before she noticed him picking up some older pieces of parchment as well.
He moved towards her, and she instinctively scuttled backwards in the chair. He handed the box to her, careful so that his fingers didn't touch hers.
She wanted to drop the box.
The outside of it felt like leather, but it wasn't right somehow. It felt more...alive then than leather. The air around it seemed almost to crackle with some non-visible power.
She wanted to drop the box.
The stain was thick, much to too thick to be water. It gave off a coppery old smell. Bitter and repugnant. She knew what it was. Old blood.
She wanted to drop the box.
A deep swallow was made as she looked at Lee's father, feeling totally overwhelmed and almost hopeless. A little shake of the box was made and it rattled, sounding almost as if the scurrying of scavengers in a bed of leaves. Her brow furloughed furrowed, and she bite bit her lip as her hands trembled tighter. Something bad was in this box. She knew it.
"Open it." The voice was curt as the command was issued.
She wanted to drop the box and her voice almost broke as she spoke. "No..."
"Open the box, Sarah."
"That's okay, really..."
"Open the box, Sarah! Open it now!"
And by some strange compulsion she did. A gasp was made as she looked at what was inside. At first it seemed more real then than real. It was a small silver circlet, but some part of her told her that it wasn't silver. It seemed to too much alive to be silver. Etchings gleamed over it, and she held the box closer to her eyes.
For a moment she thought she saw a castle hidden in the lines. A castle surrounded by a maze. Sweetness teased her nostrils and she inhaled it deeply. She knew it some how. It puzzled her for a moment, and then she knew it. Hot damn, she knew exactly what it was.
It was magic.
The sweetness was the same tangy musk as she smelt when she was totally captured by the spell in the ballroom.
"Can I....?" Her voice was soft and hesitant. It was odd where as whereas she didn't want to open the box, she couldn't help but wanting to trail her fingers over the ring to see if it was real.
"Go ahead, but don't put it on."
She nodded her acceptance before her fingers slowly moved over the etchings. The castle was gone now, leaving a mass of lines. She looked up for a moment, totally puzzled before Buchanan nodded at her. Her fingers trailed over it again. It wasn't metal. It was to... too... organic for that. Too powerful. This thing had been alive.
She dropped it back in the box and almost cast it across the desk. "What the hell is that thing?"
"It's a ring. A very extraordinary ring called a Carishaim. There are only two like it in the known world. I'm sure there are more somewhere, but they are very rare." He watched her fingers slowly make for it and pick it up again as if to study it. Her fingers roamed the etching, and the maze seemed clear for a minute.
"This isn't metal. What is it?"
"Yes, Fae's don't like metal. They prefer to have natural things about them. What you are holding now was once a piece of a Fae's rib."
The ring was dropped back into the box and Sarah moved her fingers over the bottom of her scrubs. She suddenly felt dirty. "Why do you have one? How did you get it?"
"How I got it doesn't matter. I got it in an effort to kill your Jareth..."
"He sure the fuck isn't my Jareth."
Philip smiled sheepishly, "Sorry about that. What that is a key to the other world. A desperate man or woman's last resort."
"Why? It doesn't seem so bad."
"Let me explain something to you, Sarah Williams. To enter the world of the Fae's uninvited requires you to be wearing something that had been made in a great service of magic. A Fae has to die in order for a Carishaim to be made. It's made from their blood, their bone, and their magic. Their sacrifice.
"This little ring was made by a Fae king. It can take you anywhere in the Labyrinth. Wearing it you cannot be touched by any of the beings..."
"Perfect," she interrupted, "Then I can use it to bring Lucas to the Labyrinth."
"Actually, Sarah, you can't. You could enter the world, but you couldn't bring anyone with you. You can even leave it, maybe. But you would have to have Jareth and Toby return with you. But to use this is very dangerous..."
"What's so damn dangerous about it?" She asked, "I've gone through the Labyrinth before and made it out alright."
"But you didn't 'make it out alright', not really. You broke the spell and got to leave. You wouldn't be able to leave this time. This ring requires a sacrifice to be able to work. A sacrifice equal to what the Fae who made this left. You would never again be able to see your loved ones.
"That's not right. You can see them and hear them, but never touch them or feel them. Sarah, you would simply become a Wieadher. Not human, not Fae, and not magical. To do this would require the death of your body after your work was done. And not only would you have to die, but you would have to be killed by the one who loves you best.
"Your true love.
"You cannot do that to Lee. It would destroy her. To loose lose both Lucas and you would ruin her. And damn her. Not even to save her son can you do this."
Sarah looked at him, her eyes filled with remorse. "I have to do this. I cannot let him die and neither can you or you wouldn't be showing this to me. I know a part of you still hates me, but you wouldn't torment me by telling me this if I couldn't do it. You aren't that cruel."
"Sarah, this isn't even sure. This is only a maybe. Would you use this ring for a maybe?"
"You know I would. I would be Toby's whore if it meant saving my son. Our son, mine and Lee's. Tell me how to make it work."
"Sarah, you can't do this!"
"A drop of blood to start the spell right?" Her hand was pressed through the table, shattering it. Glass jumped over her skin, slicing it slowly. She grabbed the ring before he could stop her and pressed the bleeding cut to it.
His voice was a whoosh as the ring almost exploded into a circle of black light. "Sarah, don't! You're opening gates you cannot possibly understand."
A voice hissed somewhere near her ear, ear. "Do you agree with this, Sarah Williams?"
"I do. Help me save my son."
The ice steamed streamed over her as the ring was pulled onto her finger. She disappeared into it.
Philip pressed his fingers to his temples and spoke softly. "You have no idea what you're into, Sarah. No idea at all."