Chapter 6: The Price
Illyria faced the Valkyrie with her offer. The death-maiden said nothing, and after many long moments still looked as if she was struggling to accept or even absorb it. Her silence was disconcerting, making the demoness feel as if her motives were being sifted.
"Don't think I do this only for him," she threw out with her usual stoic superiority. "It is an advantage to me as well."
Whether or not that was true Adele could not discern, but she saw well enough the thick veneer of pride the demon-goddess had painted over it. Finally she spoke, though still searching for appropriate words. "What you offer is… commendable," she acknowledged, knowing as she said it that it wasn't quite right. A life of lies—commendable? And yet the gesture was, in its way, for all the selfishness that lingered below the surface. Commendable was too weak a word for it, looked on in that way. "But it cannot work."
Illyria's head snapped up, sending blue pigment shooting through the strands of her hair and tinting the outlines of her face. "Why?" she demanded, herself again, rising and curling her body over Wesley's as a feral look leapt wildly into her features. She looked ready to pounce—her back stretched out long and arched—as if she were an animal protecting a kill. Adele looked at her and remembered countless women from every age, up to their elbows in drying blood, growling and weeping over the slain bodies of their lovers as if daring anyone away from touching them. She could see herself, so many years before, crouching over the murdered form of her last sister with the same fierce madness rimming her eyes. The last of their number to die had been the youngest and most gentle of all of them—a sweet-singing darling who had hated the battlefield and held each dying hero in her lap to comfort him as he left the world. Every Valkyrie had sworn to protect her, their most beloved… and it had been Adele who was left with the weight of their failure. The girl's name—Radgridr—had meant peace, but that had meant little to the demon warlord who butchered her.[1]
Yes, Adele could understand. She understood so well but knew that if she responded with too soft a heart, she yet might meet her end with Illyria's fist through her face.
Though one of things she had not seen, looking at the mourning ex-goddess, was Illyria as the monster she had been, all those millions of years ago. So much remained, but to see her like this...
"I… might have done this for you," she replied, torn between sympathy and the knowledge that a plan of deception—however well intended—could not be right. "If I could. But it can't work. He would know the deception, and so nothing would change with his soul."
"Think of it, Illyria," she persuaded, moving towards the suffering goddess with palms open. "Winifred's mother, who knew nothing of you, could sense the difference when you acted as Fred. Would Wesley see less? She was his soul mate, Illyria. He would know."
'I won't accept a lie.'
"And he would hate me for it," Illyria intoned darkly, her mind turned so inward that she took no offense at the Valkyrie's use of her name. She stared away into nothing as if she could see the truth there, and then let that truth seep into her. Of course he would know, no matter what she did. Her desire to see him brought to life again was muddling thoughts that once would have been clear.
"Perhaps. He might understand what you tried to do… but it would hurt him."
"He would hate me," Illyria repeated, her voice scraping like ground glass in her throat.
'Never. You—like this—it sickens me.'
'Don't be her. Don't ever be her.'
He would despise her and she knew it. Then she would fume and storm at his ingratitude but do nothing in retaliation. They would both drink of misery.
"What I offer would not be enough." Her stare was blank but not empty.
"No, it would not give back what was taken from him," the Valkyrie assented, drawing an immediate black look.
"What I took from him," Illyria corrected harshly. She could sense a new emotion—a guarded sympathy—radiating from the death-maiden, and she wanted none of it. Sympathy, she had found, was an indicator of common experience, and of using that experience for counsel. Those who required such comfort were weak, and she would never claim weakness. But tired-- she suddenly felt so tired, and she turned her head down to Wesley. The words she spoke then were so low that Adele was not certain whose ears they were meant for—if anyone's.
"I would not have taken Fred for my shell had I known."
She did not explain further, explain what she now knew: how fragile the shell had turned out to be, how hard Fred's loved ones had fought her for it. How taking this shell had killed Wesley... Forgetting herself, she pressed one finger to his face, but the thick glove-armor she wore blocked all sensation. She felt nothing at all that way, but inside she felt regret. She did not think she felt guilt, an emotion which she did not understand. Angel languished in guilt, which made little sense to her. Had he not done his crimes as a soulless vampire, to whom killing is nature? Likewise she had not chosen her shell, not even the new species she would be born into. The idea of becoming human was detestable; she had not wished it. And if she had, what would that have been to her? In her day, humans had been as insects were in this one—slugs that crept upon the earth—and killed without conscience.
But regret she truly felt, over so much. "I'm no longer certain I would have come back into the world at all," she added. Not like this. Not as things were now.
She was looking down into Wesley's face-- speaking to him, speaking to herself—aware that the Valkyrie could hear as well but doing nothing to shield her words. She'd revealed similar thoughts to Drogyn not so long before, and he'd had the same status as this death-chooser— one who should be an enemy but for whom her desire to fight had left her. Perhaps it was that they were all—the three of them—old, old beings.
Her gaze turned downward as it was, she did not see the Valkyrie's own eyes leap with new fire as the admission left her mouth. For the first time, the maiden would engage, not simply defend. Now there was something that she wanted, and she did not wait to tell what it was.
"Then give Fred back, Illyria."
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Adele had been expecting a violent affront, but it didn't come. The demoness rose to her feet but there was no indignant lash of threats or fists.
She couldn't know that Illyria had already thought of all this.
"It's not possible," the ex-goddess informed her, a weary imperiousness returning to her voice. It was an insult, after all, to imply that she would do such a thing for a mere human, and she could not let that insult go utterly unrecognized.
'You seek to save what's rotted through. I am bound to this carcass, this I could not change even if I cared to.'
"I am bound to this shell—to Fred. Do you not think I would have left it already if I could? To find a demon body more capable of expressing my glory and containing my strength?" Her unblinking gaze turned aside. "One whose existence would not be so... complicated."
It came to her then that this Valkyrie may be able to extract her from the shell, doing what she herself could not. Even so, it made little difference. Without her essence, Fred's body—what was left of it—would collapse like the empty corpse it was, or if it did not it would at the least be useless. It was filled now with Illyria's own crystalline function system, modified to fit her human form but still uniquely her. Though she bled human blood and could sense human touch, inside she was alien.
Those were mere trivialities, anyhow, to what was important. The crux of the matter was that there was nothing left of Fred to fill the shell with-- nothing but the electrical impulses that activated her memories and that elusive something that she could not name. Everything else was destroyed, of that Illyria was assured.
But Adele had no intention of drawing out Illyria's essence, and neither would any sorcerer or witch in the world do so. The problem lay in exposing the essence. There was no telling but that the essence might again take on a parasitic nature once released—and become airborne. Countless numbers of people and creatures alike could die in unnamable pain as Illyria ripped into them and took residence, and it would start with the extractor. Adele, unlike some of the Valkyrie number, could not read the future to see if this would be so. She could not risk it.
But there was another way, though much more difficult.
"I do not mean that you should give back the shell," she explained. "That I can provide."
The statement was full of assurance, but in truth she was not certain at all that she could accomplish what she claimed—to make an exact copy not only of Winifred's outer shell, but her mind's contents with it. While possible, it was far beyond the usual extent of her strength, and after channeling Illyria's power mere hours before she was near exhaustion. She'd learned the skill on the fields of war, restoring heroes too gravely wounded to continue in their own bodies but desperately needed to assure victory. It had been so long, and she was weary, but she knew she had to try before this web of life and death she and Illyria were weaving went any further.
"This will not hurt you," she told the demoness, and began the song that was needed. The stale air about Illyria trembled and she tensed. The song stopped, only for an instant, as Adele explained further. "This will make the new shell."
The air at once was disturbed at the sound of the song, running in shimmering-blue liquid waves behind the point of the Valkyrie's spear. She drew it in a wide arc over Illyria, who hissed and looked to attack until she realized no pain sounded alarm in her body. It felt only oddly stretched, as painless sparking fingers of electricity found their way into each cell and fibre and tiny chromosome of her being. Those fingers tugged and searched, finding all that was Fred, then drew away with their duplicates of information. Her eyes widened and pupils shrank as she watched similar lines of hot blue energy arc and curve from her head—each spark containing infinite trains of sounds, sights, recollections, knowledge. Memories. Illyria knew she was seeing those very impulses that had connected her to her shell, just as she had once called them to the surface with a spark between her fingers. She would not allow them to be stolen from her, but when she quickly searched her own mind she found that they had not been thieved away at all. The lines of electricity she saw were copies, exact copies.
Beside her now, ever growing in a swirling mass, was a human form, connected to her own with the millions of spidery energy-veins. Illyria looked into the biting–bright glare and could see bones assembling, long and light and looking nearly bird-hollow. In their protective cage she could discern the beginnings of human organs, ones which she herself did not need and that had liquefied in Fred's body during the hollowing-out. How was it that they could be re-made now? She did not understand (though Winifred would have) about DNA and the blueprints for life it held, but that made the process all the more remarkable. It was impressive to her, this power. She could not deny that if she wished to. This Valkyrie maiden had strength beyond what Illyria had credited her with.
That strength of Adele's was quickly draining away, the process taxing her almost beyond endurance. She clutched onto her now ground-planted spear, not just trembling but shaking convulsively in an effort to remain on her feet. Her eyelids trembled too over tightly-closed eyelids. All her effort had to go to her song— and still she sang, though the tune was nearly lost amid shuddering intakes of breath. She was weakening fast now, but she had to keep singing just a moment longer...
With a lung-burning gasp the song stopped. It was done.
She dropped, stumbling against her spear's long handle, just as the form of Winifred Burkle—perfect and perfectly inanimate-- fell crumpled at Illyria's feet.
The demoness stared hard at this form that Wesley had so desired. It was dressed as it had been at her death, and just as then no breath of life flowed or heartbeat sounded. The body was in every way Fred's, every line and plane identical to the most minute and unseen details-- from the flecks of color in the now-closed eyes, to the scar over one shoulder where a grappling hook had torn through during a demon fight. Inside were organs just like those Fred had before, only new, and they would function the same. The metabolism would still be blindingly fast, and the fingernails would still grow (as she had thought) agonizingly slowly. If this body ever had life again and one day reproduced, the child would carry her traits. Spike or Angel, were they present, would know its scent as hers, and Fred herself would not have been able to tell the difference between the new and the old.
All that was nothing compared to the intricacies of the new mind. It contained everything it had before and some it hadn't—the newly-released memories of a boy called Connor. The most complex of physics equations were there, as were the very briefest of recollections. Habits, quirks, speech patterns... everything restored. This mind could bring up the comforting book-sterile scent of the community library where Fred had spent so many hours as a child, and recall the outfit she had worn on her first proud day of school. It would know that she liked sharp cheddar for her tacos, not mild. It would remember Pylea and still feel the metallic tang of rising panic on her tongue. It could call up the feeling of every kiss she and Wesley had shared, and hurt with the remembrance and heartbreak and loss.
And yet— for all its perfection in mind and form, it had no more life—and little more humanity—than the cold tile floor it lay upon.
Illyria still stood staring, cold and unmoving as the body itself. In her time she had seen and done great feats, but the powers of the Old Ones lay primarily in conquest. They took life, not gave it. This was foreign to her. She heard the scrape of the Valkyrie's spear and turned to see the maiden pulling herself up.
"You are failing," she observed then, relying on her usual blunt tactics to shield her conflicted thoughts.
"I'll live," Adele said through lungs that sounded air-starved. A vaguely ironic look crossed her features, and she found herself attempting humor for the first time in... well, longer than she could even recall. It was difficult to laugh very often when your only company was the dead. "You could have caught it."
If Illyria appreciated the attempt she didn't acknowledge it—though she had rarely been of a humorous disposition herself. She turned her head to one side, eyes boring intensely. "This contains her mind—her memories?"
"Yes. Everything that was in her mind before is there."
"And a soul... to replace the one that was destroyed? You created this as well?" She couldn't hide a tinge of respect in her tone. She'd thought Valkyries to be takers of souls only, and for that she had scorned them. To create a soul would take a high amount of strength and power, if not the highest. Though Old Ones were far superior to Valkyries in her mind, that sort of power demanded at least worthy recognition.
"No," Adele answered quickly, vehemently. "That is far beyond my ability and my authority, and even if I could, the soul created would not be hers."
She meant to say more, but Illyria bit off her words. "Then how is it that this is Fred, more than what I offered?" It was not a question but a demand. Had not Wesley told her that it was a soul that made humans what they were?
"It isn't Fred, without her soul. But her soul only needs to be retrieved, and that I can do."
"Her soul was destroyed. How is it that you don't know this?" Illyria challenged, respect lost in exchange for condescension. "It was consumed along with the rest of her by the fires of my resurrection." The demoness sounded nearly proud of this destructive power, and Adele wondered if she was, despite all she'd said so recently to the contrary. Illyria nearly always sounded proud and she was full of covering lies; it could be difficult to tell when it was affected.
"Human bodies are weak, but souls aren't so susceptible. They cannot be destroyed—not by any force in this world or any other. A soul is the one thing that is truly eternal."
"No," Illyria countered immediately, but it was softly said and she could not hide a sudden confusion. She tipped her head, disturbed by this new information. Nothing could withstand the birthing force of a great Old One. This was known, an absolute truth among her kind. Her former Qwa Ha'Xahn had said this as well. He would not have lied to her.
Seeing that there was no other way, Adele moved forward, still leaning on her weapon. "Listen," the she instructed solemnly, stepping towards the troubled goddess and raising her hand to hover over the armored chestplate that covered the center of her essence. Illyria's instinct was to snap the hand off without a thought, but she stopped and tipped her head again at the first sounds emanating from deep within her. They quickly rose above the half-breathed song of the Valkyrie, who was doing little more than chanting the words; there was barely a melody to string them together. Her outstretched hand was trembling-- Illyria thought from her exhaustion-- until she saw that the hand was jerking backward in shocking spasms, repelled by the force of essence it read.
The clamour within rose and it was terrible—terrifying—like the din of battle with its howling and gnashing and crunching of bones and weapons. There was no clarity, no words recognizable at all—just a shrieking, boiling twist of emotions and loss. Illyria moved her head in fractions as if trying to follow the sounds, her movements jerky and vaguely birdlike. She could not understand the message of her own essence.
It was frightening, and though Adele was not afraid she was not sure if she could hold on. This reading of souls and essences was as effortless to her as breathing in normal circumstances, but this was not normal and she was already over-extended. There was some evil in Illyria's essence, but more than that a tortured darkness, wandering and lost. But she knew, if she could just hold on, that there was more there, and that was what Illyria must hear...
And then there it was, feeling to the Valkyrie that she had just plunged her hand through a cold shadow and into the sunlight. It stopped its pained twitching as the freeing lightness that was good washed over. This voice that came now was so quiet compared to the yawning maw that was Illyria's tormented essence, but it was clear and soft and very strong. It was not calm, but besieged—a force that pressed to be heard. These words couldn't be understood either, not surrounded as they were, but neither were they drowned out.
Illyria knew at once that it was Fred, and, for the first time, a shadow of fear dashed across her face. The Valkyrie recognized it, bringing an explanation. She had sung sufficiently to let the reading hold—for now.
"Yes, Illyria—she's been there all the time...she cried out the day we tried to stop you from rising." She headed off the flare of Illyria's temper with a firm admission. "Yes, I tried to help her. You know what I am, and what I do."
"You failed," Illyria countered, but there was little malice behind it, only her usual directness. This conflict in her essence was far more important than continuing to hurt the death-chooser.
"Yes," the Valkyrie admitted, and Illyria knew she had struck a vulnerable place. "But not entirely. Her soul, her spirit—everything that is her still remains but for her shell, and she's trapped within you as surely as you are trapped within her. Oh, she doesn't exist as she once did-- but she's aware of all you experience and all you feel... and she'd not idle. From the first she's been exerting influence. Just a whisper at first, but now..." She paused, singing once again to prolong the spell and to observe the demoness. The goddess still absorbed the wild sounds of her essence with an equally wild look—a look that nearly bordered on helpless. The song trailed off, words beginning again.
"You're stronger and so she could not stop you from taking her over, but still she has power—more since your own powers were depleted. Why do you think you never conquered? Your army was gone and your world changed. But I knew you as you were, and that would never have stopped you. You would have raised a new army and made the world as you liked it—or tried. You threatened to kill but did not. Even your jailer, Drogyn. Once you would have gutted him without so much as a thought, but instead you protected him."
At last she finished it all, quietly. "Her soul stayed your hand all these times. It kept you from returning to what you were."
'You are moral. A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane—empty, but for the force of his gale.'
So that was it. She was no longer empty.
Fred had been within her all along—fighting when she should have perished. Winifred had not been much of a fighter... not like the others, not in a battle. The memories told her that, and Wesley said it as well, one night when she came to him with the question. 'Tell me of Fred,' she had asked, and though at first he had cursed her—the words soaked in alcohol poison—the curses soon changed to meet her request. He'd gone on for longer than Illyria had cared to listen, the words unable to come out quickly enough to meet his thoughts. He'd talked of how he loved her, and at the time those sentiments had made Illyria's throat feel sour with sickening distaste. And he'd talked of her great courage, shown again and again but mostly at her death. A hero, he'd called her, and now Illyria thought that she probably was. Heroism had little to recommend it, to her way of thinking. Only death.
'A superhero. And this is my power. To not let them take me! Not me!'
She had taken Fred, but now she knew that Fred had taken her right back. Such a small hold she had, but any hold at all was insupportable.
Or perhaps the hold wasn't so small as it seemed.
In that brief moment of accord, it happened. The two voices—one low and ageless, one sweet but strong—joined, and words came out with a message that echoed in the corridors with a palpable crush of sorrow.
"My Wesley. I love you. Oh, my love..."
Illyria's eyes widened to the whites, her blue lips jerking back to bare her teeth. She lashed out at once like a steel-trapped animal, snatching the Valkyrie's wrist away with such force the bones nearly snapped. The voices stopped at once.
"If I allow you to take this soul, you will restore Fred... and then Wesley?" she demanded fiercely.
"Yes," Adele answered evenly over the pain, and the demoness released her wrist. "If Fred is restored, Wesley can live again."
"Take it!" voice rising so far above her usual emotionless tone that the sound skittered and bounced over the dank walls of the room. "I want nothing to do with this soul; get it out of me!" Without it, she would be free of these loathsome emotions and the influence of this moral human spirit over her. It was too intolerable even to think of, that something so insignificant should have such sway, but it was truth and could not be avoided. With the soul removed, Illyria could forget this and once again know what she was—the god-king Illyria, not a half-human who wept in grief. She would not have her powers, but at least she would be what she was.
'I am my power.'
'This fate is worse than death.'
No-- it would eat her alive, having the knowledge of all that she was but unable to express it. It was hateful to think of, but if she were forced to live with human limitations, perhaps it was better that a part of her was human inside as well. She might not be able to bear it otherwise.
And with this soul removed... would she love Wesley any longer? Would she save him, only to never know why?
But what had love mattered to her, before today?
Was this only Fred speaking again, or was it her? Fred's love only, or her own? She nearly screamed in frustration, feeling as if she wanted to rend her mind to pieces.
She shuddered when she realized that she wanted the love to be hers, no matter where it had come from. And that wanting was enough to make it hers. Illyria's. Her love. Her Wesley. She might lose it. Even if she did not, she would lose him to Fred the moment she awoke in her new body. Either way she lost. There was nothing she could gain from this at all.
What had moments before seemed an advantage—giving back this soul that plagued her—now showed itself truly.
"I will lose him if I do this," she thought aloud, uncaring by now that the Valkyrie recognized her feelings. Her struggle with herself was far too great to be concerning herself with the death-maiden's perceptions. "And the knowledge of what I was will torture me." She looked up. "This is a sacrifice. Once sacrifices were offered to me, and now I must make one myself."
Adele sensed her resignation and knew, amazingly, that Illyria meant to go through with it. "Yes, but it will be a greater sacrifice than this."
She did not like what she must say next, but there was no turning back.
"If I take Fred's soul from you, I will be taking out what is good—loosening every restraint. You know of Angel and Angelus; and so it would be with you. There would be nothing to stop you from becoming the Illyria I knew during your reign—a bringer of destruction, bent on conquest and with no sense of good and evil. Even without your powers you would try to conquer, and you would kill—that is certain. I cannot allow that Illyria to run rampant in the world. Even with the chance that I am wrong in this I cannot risk it, because I'm too weak to stop you should I be proved right."
"If you wish me to restore Wesley... I will have to kill you first. That is the only way."
[1] Radgridr is the actual name of one of the Valkyries, and means "Counsel of Peace" in Anglo-Saxon. (The name would look better if I could figure out how to do the AS characters in Word. So would the name "Adele," which should have an umlaut over the middle 'e.') She was not the youngest of the Valkyries that I know of; that was dramatic license. However, it is true that some Valkyries were more peaceful or battle-loving than others, and some had different functions in the troop.