Chapter 14: The Ritual
Author's thanks at end.
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'A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride –
A mystery and a dream,
Should my early life seem:
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit has not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of the earth inherit
That vision of my spirit,
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul.'
- 'Imitation', Edgar Allen Poe
X
The clouds swirled, gushed and contracted in endless formations, transforming the leaden sky into a stormy ocean of black and grey. Black night covered the old church even though it was no more than early evening, and the heavy raindrops were painted in silvery tones as they were caught by the dancing, wobbling rays cast by the flash light.
The water had transformed the stone-laid passage to the church into a slippery, slimy sprained-ankle trap, the flat stones being half-lost in wild-growing vegetation that sprawled negligently across the path.
'Could this get any more of a cliché?' Xander shouted through the distant rumble of approaching thunder. He sounded exasperated and more than a little frustrated and Wesley could hardly blame him. None of them answered, all too busy carrying the specific apparatus and ingredients that were necessities in performing the ritual.
Wesley felt a strange pang of anticipation. There was no room for mistakes or minor miscalculations this time. No second try. And since this appeared to become a night of clichés – it was all or nothing, so to speak.
The front of the church rose before him, towering above his head like a lone giant among the pine trees to stand silhouetted against the blues, blacks and greys of the raging sky. Grass grew among the cracks in the marble stones of the front-porch and many coloured shards of glass littered the stone-steps that led to the front doors; the sorry remains of the high windows' glass mosaics.
Wesley dropped the box he held in his arms and mud spattered around it. Pulling his trench-coat tighter around his chest, he drew the lids aside, taking out a long knife whose sleek blade curved graciously from the hilt. Giles and Xander had paused beside him and were hurriedly dragging the lids off their boxes, the cardboard quickly saturating with the water. Willow stood behind him, her spell book underneath her jacket.
Wesley, still in a crouch, turned slightly so he was directly before the church and facing north. Using his free hand he brushed the dry needles aside and began to pull the grass up by hand.
When he was satisfied, he transferred the knife from his left hand to his right and reached into the box to produce a small phial containing a thick, dark liquid, which he placed carefully beside him. Standing, he looked to the north and extending his left hand, he drew the blade across his palm, sharp pain shooting through his arm as it pierced the skin. Extending his arm, he clenched his fist, allowing a few drops of blood to meet the waterlogged ground.
'Odin, krigeres konge, slagenes Gud' he muttered, sinking back into a crouch. 'Odin, King of Warriors,' he thrust the blade of the knife into the ground, drawing a deep ridge in the soil, north to south. 'God of Battle,' west to east, 'Master of Sleipnir – take thy sacrifice,' grabbing the phial in his left hand he emptied the horse-blood into the cross-formed trench, and the thick liquid disappeared into the soil, leaving the rainwater behind, like oil floating upon the surface of the ocean's waters. 'And grant him peace!' Immediately, a white light began to burn beneath the bottom of the trench, the otherworldly radiance shining through the soil, as had it been nothing but a thin layer of brown fabric.
Wesley scrambled to his feet and took a hasty step backwards.
Bemused, Spike glared at him. 'And what does that do?'
Wesley did not answer.
'What now?' Xander's voice was hoarse, betraying his apprehension.
'Now,' Wesley said, turning to the girl who stood pale with strands of red hair plastering to her face. 'Now, it's Willow's turn.'
'What do I do?' She met his eyes, determination etched into her every feature.
He stepper closer until they were shoulder to shoulder, allowing him to point to the particular phrase in the spell book she held in her hand.
'Read loud and clear,' he said through the rain, 'don't rush any of the words or I won't be able to follow you on the ground.'
'The portal has not yet been opened?' Giles had to yell and his voice was still hard to hear through the noise of the falling water.
'Not fully,' Wesley answered, stepping around the cross-shaped trench so he stood facing the others. 'I wanted Willow to be ready to utter the binding spell before I attempted to open the gate. This will construct an incorporeal shield, or filter, between the worlds that should trap the demons of this purgatorial world and make them physically incapable of passing. Otherwise, the sheer force of the immeasurable amount of energy being released by this - this artificial bridge we intend to construct between dimensions, would render us completely and utterly incapable of preventing any of the demonic spirits that may reside there of coming forth.' He paused upon seeing Xander's expression. 'Well, to cut a long story short -'
'Yeah, well,' Spike said resignedly. 'That's too late now.'
'No – no, we get it, we're cool,' Willow said.
'Good,' Wesley said and pulled out a small spell book from his vest pocket. 'Then here we go.'
x
'I can't see him anymore.'
Angel twisted in his seat to study his rear-view mirror. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'He'll come.'
Buffy pulled hard at the wheel and the vehicle danced around yet another corner at improbable speed. 'How can you be so sure?'
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Angel look at her. She did not meet his eyes. First and foremost because, taking your eyes off the road when you are going at fifty miles per hour through the winding streets of Rome, featured on her Things Not to Do list.
Along with going on patrol without a wooden stake and kissing him again.
'He'll come,' Angel repeated, 'because he has no other choice. Wesley and Willow are doing a Summoning spell that should draw him there. Literally.'
'Sounds fun.'
He gave her a weird look. Through the darkness and the rain that lashed against her windshield, the massive, black outline of the abandoned church loomed closer, its façade illuminated in an eerie, ghostly-white light.
'We're here,' she said and pulled the car over.
The motor had not yet died when Angel spoke again. 'Do you have a jacket or something?'
Buffy looked down her colourful summer blouse.
'No. If you didn't notice, the whole Abandon Ship strategy happened rather too quickly for me to drop by the wardrobe for a quick change.'
He did not answer but simply took his own leather jacket off and handed it to her. 'Take this.'
'Why?'
'It's raining and you'll get cold.'
'You can take it.'
He did not flinch. She took the jacket.
And half of a minute later, she was very happy she had done so. The water fell upon her in cascades from the leaden sky, and she would have been soaked to the skin before she was halfway across the graveyard that played front garden to the church. Now, she would probably reach the building before she resembled a jumble of drenched rags, she thought glumly.
Old and worn gravestones littered the muddy ground; some had overturned and had become buried in wild growing vegetation. Through the noise of the falling rain, Buffy noticed that Angel's rhythm was wrong. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that he was limping, hardly putting his weight on his right leg.
'What's wrong?'
He looked at her. The rain had soaked his hair and it fell down before his forehead in uncharacteristic fashion. 'I'm fine.'
Somehow she seriously doubted that, but realizing that the time and setting was hardly perfect for a bit of doctoring, she turned back to her walking.
The others stood around a cross-shaped trench, the pallid silvery-white light that rose from it falling across their faces, carving the hollows around their eyes and cheeks deeply to leave them with a sinisterly skull-like appearance. By some supernatural force, the rainwater seemed to shun the mark carved in the dark soil, the droplets of water never touching the misty light.
Giles turned upon hearing them approach. 'Oh, Buffy. Good. Is – is he here?'
'Somewhere,' Buffy answered and paused beside the old Watcher to stare at the trench. 'That it?'
'No,' Wesley simply said. Willow proceeded with her soft chanting. Xander gave her an uncertain wave and she stared at him, which made him stop.
Suddenly Spike was beside her, and the vampire pushed the hilt of a sword between her fingers. 'Might wanna hold unto this, pet.'
He handed Angel a weapon too, this time in silence.
Wesley said a couple of words in a language she did not understand and Willow fell silent.
A sudden, hollow boom sounded from somewhere beyond the church's borders, and Buffy felt her heart skip a beat. She listened intently, but no other sound came.
For a moment only the hushing noise of the dying rain mixed with the slight whisper of the pine trees, when the wind pulled at the heavy boughs. Buffy tried in vain to slow her panting breathing which rushed in her ears, drowning out all other sounds. She shot Angel a nervous glance and he returned it, apprehension and uncertainty burning in his dark eyes.
Behind her, Spike shifted his weight uncomfortably. 'That was a fizz and a tickle. Doesn't look like the bloody donkey intends to show, though.'
Wesley had opened his mouth to reply when a racket erupted at the far end of the old building. Buffy turned her head to see the glass-mosaics of the window above the altar explode in a waterfall of many-coloured droplets of glass. As the shards of bright glass rained down over the stone altar, Helhesten's hooves met the ground with a hollow thump that resonated between the stone walls, the echo distorted by the thundering drum as the demon took off towards them.
'Looks pretty corporeal, doesn't it?' Spike furrowed his brows. 'Will this still work, then?'
'It better,' Wesley mumbled through clenched teeth.
A shadow of black smoke gushed underneath it, followed it across the stone-floor and its body melted into the darkness, only the eye sockets burning with a pallid gleam.
'Now!' Wesley yelled, and Buffy imitated Angel as he raised his sword before him, his fingers curling tighter around the hilt. A sharp 'chuck' sounded as Spike drove the knife into the soil, and the sound of rushing water or air rose, melting together with the combined mumblings of Wesley and Willow doing their individual spell-work. Buffy could feel the heat of the spell slam against her back, as though she was standing before an open oven and feeling the scorching heat that gushed from it. A blinding white light erupted behind her, throwing her own black shadow upon the ground at her feet, its head brushing against the lowest step of the marble stairs. A ripple ran through the soil and it had hardly subdued before the ground began to tremble underneath her feet; slowly, gently at first but soon the movement was so powerful she had to take a drunken sideways step to maintain her balance.
'Don't move!' Wesley's voice immediately bellowed, and Buffy was about to snap back when the world exploded in light and all sounds and smells died. She felt Angel's hand upon her arm but did not know whether her eyes were open or shut, there was only the white light which flooded her mind and cut off the world.
The world returned slowly and Buffy gradually became aware that it was not raining anymore. She also noticed her eyes were closed and she forced them open. Angel's fingers loosened and he released her arm, careful not to look at her as he did so.
The church and graveyard had been enveloped in a shimmering, indistinct orb of silvery light, and it was the only thing that was left of the world. Beyond the ethereal wall was only darkness. Beyond it, the world had been swallowed by nothingness.
Her blood thundered in her ears, and Angel caught her eyes. She knew he had sensed her distress. Between the heavy wooden doors of the church, hardly more than ten metres away, stood Helhesten. Where it hooves met the marble, the stone was scorched and blackened by the heat it was giving off. It tossed its head and long strands of black mane lashed around it; a hoarse snort escaped its missing nostrils and mist danced briefly before it for only to melt away into the night air.
Trusting Angel to watch her back, Buffy cast a short glance over her shoulder. No white light shot upward from the cross-shaped trench. Now, it appeared rather boundless, a never-ending blackness carved into the ground, and black fog swirled lazily from it. Willow was squeezing the spell book so tightly in her hands that her knuckles had gone ghostly white. Beside her, Giles and Xander stood staring at Helhesten with remarkably similar expressions on their faces and at the north point of the cross, Spike straightened his legs, pulling the knife from the ground as he did so. Wesley had begun speaking again, in Latin this time.
'Ab initio ad finem.' From the beginning to the end.
'Abyssus abyssum invocat.' Hell calls hell.
'Monstrum horrendum, informe, cui lumen ademptum.' A monster frightful, formless, with sight removed.
'Ignifera.
'Ignigena.
'Ignipotens.'
Fire-bearing, born of fire, ruler of fire.
'In articulo mortis abyssus abyssum invocat.' At the point of death, hell calls hell.
'Ab origine ad finem.' From the origin to infinity.
'Amen.' So be it.
'Amen!' So be it!
The last word was shouted into the night and as if by command, a ray of white light shot upward from the middle of the cross, dashing towards the dark sky, but upon connecting with the mythical shield a hissing and spitting of electricity sounded, and the light rippled along the shimmering surface in every direction.
Buffy glanced at Wesley, who seemed much too occupied with staring bemusedly at the ray of light to notice her. 'Please tell me it's supposed to do that!'
The white light travelled across the orb and met the ground and for a short moment nothing happened.
Helhesten screamed at them, a stench of rotten flesh slamming against them as the skeletal jaws were clenched apart. It took a wobbling step sideways, its movement hindered by the otherworldly light cast by the binding-spell's shield.
Beside her, Angel gave a strange shake of his head and further back, Spike was slamming his palm repeatedly against his temple.
'Shut up,' he whispered. 'Shut up...'
'Buffy. Angel. Get out of the way.' The fact that Giles sounded like he was telling them to move slowly to prevent a snake from striking struck Buffy as mordantly apt. Their situation considered.
She took a careful step backward and Helhesten's face lashed around to hers. Remembering to jam her eyelids down just before their eyes met, she continued to back blindly until she felt Giles' hand upon her shoulder. A wordless whispering had begun in her head, like the wind playing among the trees' leaves in autumn.
A hollow gurgle erupted deep in the trench, and out of the corner of her eye Buffy noticed, she was not the only one who was staring. The ray of light contracted and slowly melted away, shadows of ghostly figures rising arduously from the darkness of the trench for only to evaporate into the darkness once more.
Helhesten's piercing, otherworldly scream filled the night, reverberating between the walls of the insubstantial orb, and Buffy turned her head so quickly she felt her neck cringe. The demon was tossing its head in fury as it body was dragged towards the portal by the spell, and upon lowering her eyes Buffy saw the furrows its hooves had left in the wet soil.
Spike was now hammering his hand openly against his head and Angel's eyes had become distant.
Xander, Willow and Giles, and much to Buffy's dismay, herself, hurried backwards and Wesley followed slowly, murmuring incantations until his voice was no more than a steady stream of unintelligible words and jumbled phrases.
Angel stepped aside to allow Helhesten full frontal view of its ride to hell. He could hardly pretend he was feeling particularly sad about it. The demon saw the portal glide nearer and it screamed again; rising unto its hind legs it lashed after Angel, Spike, the approaching darkness, and slowly the scream turned from being a shrill, demonic cry to the hoarse, high-pitched grunt of panicking horse. Inside Angel's head the voice was whispering again.
'...Don't you see?...
'Why won't you see?...
'Do you not like what you see?...
'...You live a dream...a futile hope...a lie...'
Angel blinked and bit hard down upon his lower lip, the pain bringing him back to the present.
As Helhesten stood balancing the spell kept drawing it nearer, and it threw its weight backwards as though it believed that it could free its body from the grip that steadily closed around it. It kicked and screamed and tossed its head, whilst Wesley's chanting grew more and more prominent.
'It's not gonna bloody work!' Spike yelled.
Angel doubted, too. Despite using magic that was stronger than any of them had ever experimented with before, it was simply not enough to trap this thing.
'Maybe this is the time for the 'best brute force in the field'!' he shouted back.
From the opposite side of Helhesten's track, Spike smirked at him.
'That's still gettin' you in a knot? Well, if you wanna go and push the soddin' thing to kingdom come, be my guest. Not too enthusiastic myself, actually.'
Helhesten was a good ten metres from the edge of the ditch, and it struggled to regain its footing; its hooves slipped repeatedly in the mud, but it stubbornly kept pushing away, working against the spell and Angel noticed how it fought to catch Wesley's eyes.
'Well,' he tightened his grip on the sword. 'We'll just have to do it this way then.'
A horse's strength lies in its hindquarters, and so he did not aim for the head or the body, but for the hindlegs. The blade sliced through dead tendons and muscle and had reached the bone before the demon registered what was happening. Its head lashed around to his with a scream, and in a flurry of movement and physical force it propelled itself towards him and was a mere metre from him, when Spike's sword met the side of its face. In the midst of its attack, it changed tactic, its jaws clasping shut about Spike's arm instead and with a violent toss of its head, it sent the vampire's body flying to the opposite end of the graveyard.
Angel jumped forward but the demon dodged his blow and he flung himself to the ground to avoid its swinging skull. Rolling aside so its hoof met nothing but soil, Angel leapt to his feet but realized too late that he was a beat too slow, and Helhesten's skull sent him flying into a nearby monument, the stone crumbling at the impact. It charged at him but staggered sideways mid-stride, as the bullets struck its face. Angel hurriedly got to his feet, feeling the skin around his forehead stretch as he morphed, and glowered at Wes, who was busy reloading his gun.
'Thank you so much for taking the time to place a silencer on your gun!' he snarled in frustration.
Wesley frowned at him. 'We can't wake the entire neighbourhood,' he said.
'No,' Angel grumbled sarcastically, dodging the demon's next blow. 'We couldn't have that.'
In one fluid movement, he flung himself to the ground, one hand closing around the sword's smooth hilt and the other picking up a large rock, a sorry remain of the former monument, which he hurled into the demon's face. It hissed and spluttered in anger and Angel took advantage of its momentary distraction to plunge the blade into Helhesten's emaciated neck.
And that was when his mind betrayed him. His brain was so busy with working out how many times he had done that to realize that maybe he should have moved. Helhesten's teeth dug into his arm and suddenly Angel realized he was hurtling towards the portal, dragged along by the demon's firm grip around his lower arm. He kicked it across the face but the jaws remained locked.
'Always, always doubting, dreaming, fearing...'
Somewhere, Buffy was screaming but the world was only a blur of colour and sound; only Helhesten's nightmarish face leered at him, as he yanked the sword free and brought the weapon against the skull again and again, its white eyes burning in the darkness.
'You see? There is no redemption, no hope, no life for those deemed unworthy of it. What do you have left to fight for?'
The ground rushed under Angel's feet and as the portal glided nearer, it widened, swallowing the world around it.
'There is no light for those condemned to darkness, Angel. You know it. It's a short walk to daylight, but one you will never make.'
And suddenly Helhesten's form slipped across the edge of the boundless chasm that opened before him, the scurry of movement and the whispering voice muting immediately, as though someone had turned the sound off or he had gone deaf. The white light glimmered brighter than before in its empty eye sockets, and Angel realised it was never going to let go.
Of course, cutting your own hand off is never nice, but when it came down to either that or going to hell to spend eternity with a demon, he really did not like that much in the first place, Angel knew what he preferred. He swung the sword towards his own limb and was prepared for the pain he knew would follow, when he felt a sharp tug at the back of his neck and his arm was pulled forcefully from Helhesten's grasp. His body slammed hard against the ground and sound and feeling returned.
Ruffled voices cut through the circling mist of his befuddled brain, and he realized it was raining.
Hey, we've already done this! a small voice screamed at the back of his mind and Angel smiled, eyes still closed. Déjà vu. A fault in the Matrix.
Or maybe not. He was pretty certain Wes had not been there then.
And Spike had certainly not.
He opened his eyes. The insubstantial orb had disappeared and he was staring into a dark, stormy sky, heavy droplets of rain striking his face.
Dark and stormy. Gee, these guys really did come with a manual.
The ground shook with running footsteps. 'Angel!' Buffy slumped down beside him, strands of blonde hair plastered across her cheek and his leather jacket soaked by the rain. She ran a hand down the side of his face and smiled in relief. 'How' you feeling?'
He smiled back and raised both of his hands before his face, wiggling his fingers. 'Good,' he answered, remembering with mortification to shift into his human visage. 'And intact.'
She looked slightly puzzled by this. 'I've heard mud is good for the skin, but I don't really know whether that goes for leather jackets as well...you might wanna -'
Angel got to his feet. They all stared at him.
'What happened?'
Wesley was staring hypnotically at the spot of bare earth where the portal had been only seconds before, and it was Buffy who answered. 'I think the whole 'sending-demon-to-Hell' deal was quite close to become a rather personal experience for you.'
Spike was lighting a cigarette. 'Yeah, mate, you were about to go all 'goodbye Dorothy' on us.'
'So I stabbed the demon in the last possible moment – behold: no sword –' Buffy waved her empty hands at him. '- and you dump out of nowhere just as the portal closes.'
Ignoring the fact that it still did not make perfect sense, Angel's glance swept over the sorrow, rain-drenched party. 'But you're all okay?'
Willow was clutching her spell book feverishly and Xander was pale and abnormally silent. Giles had his glasses off and were cleaning them, apparently oblivious to the fact that it was raining and that his efforts really did not make a difference. Wesley shifted his glance to allow it to rest on Angel.
'We're all fine,' he said. 'We shouldn't be but -'
'Hey!' Buffy stared at him. 'Give it a break with the guilt trip, will you?'
The former Watcher smiled at her and did not answer.
'So – we c-can go back now?' Willow bit her lower lip in uncertainty. 'Home, I mean. Or well, Giles' home anyway.'
'Yes,' the older man answered. 'For the moment at least.'
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Author's notes: The last chapter coming up where I will try to tie up the loose ends. But please tell me what you thought of this :-)
Author's thanks: To all of my wonderful, brilliant reviewers :-)
Nimwen (Thank you so much! I love Poe as well.) UberWicca (Thank you sooo much! And the Buffy/Angel bits were hard to write, complicated with all the stuff they have incorporated into the series which needed credible explanation. God, I'm going to do a Buffy s.2 fic next! That can't be as hard on a poor BA writer, can it? Glad you liked the Spike-bits, by the way. I really love writing him! Oh, and Wes does look nice with a gun, doesn't he!) Wesfan1234 (Thank you so much!! I'm glad you think this is improving – the worst is always loosing ones readers at the end :-) Well, let me know what you thought of this!) spangelover (Best stories? Wow. Thanks so much!) Omar Mahmood (I know! I can't understand why there's so many Spuffy's around. Kinda sad really, considering just how wrong it is. Not surprising that we have so many divorce cases. People obviously doesn't know what is good for them :-) AngelicDreams (Climax here. Hope you liked it!) Gwenyer (Thanks so much for your review! Always nice to know you're still reading and liking :-) shahid (Thanks so much!! Hope you liked the Wes bits in this!!) Ares (Hi there :-) Thanks so much for your review, hope I didn't let you down!) Tariq (Thanks as always! Great to still have you here :-) Stephanierb (Hope I didn't let it all down in the final minute! Still, thanks so much for your review!) Edgechick816 (Hi again! I was afraid I'd lost you. I seem to be quite good at that...never liked Kennedy much either, a bit like how I can't stand Dawn. I guess that means she will be next! Well, thanks so much for reviewing!)
And all the rest!! Thanks so much for helping me break the one hundred reviews mark and making this a better story in the process.