They'd never made it this far before.
"Mercury, do you take this god to be your lawfully-wedded husband, to be your true companion in life's journey?"
"I do."
Her heart was thumping as fast as any mortal's, and she was the Maiden of Serenity. They'd never made it this far before!
"Venus, do you take this god to be your lawfully-wedded husband, in joy and in triumph?"
"I do." By samsara!
Luna had gotten cold feet at the last moment-jealousy? surely not-and some Eclipse named Swan was filling in. "Mars, do you take this god to be your lawfully-wedded husband, to guard your back in victory and defeat?"
"I do." They'd never made it this far before! By the titans, she was going to have a stroke!
"Jupiter, do you take this god to be your lawfully-wedded husband, till all things be revealed?"
"I do."
Something had to go wrong. Something had to go wrong. Something- "Saturn, do you take this god to be your lawfully-wedded husband, till death do you part?"
This was it. Saturn always broke it off, and this was her last- "I do."
"Then by the power vested in me, I pronounce you married. You may kiss."
By Gaia! This was...was...
Ignis kissed her, and serenity fled even her.
Chapter 87-Out Flew the Web and Floated Wide
Suddenly Faith wasn't Faith Holtz, raised under the stern but loving guidance of her father Daniel and mother Justine in the living city of Sively Loss. She was Faith Lehane, delinquent daughter of a drunken mom and a vanished deadbeat dad, raised in the slums of South Boston till she'd been stumbled upon by Diana Dormer, her first Watcher.
She was being soundly kissed by her girlfriend(!) Amy Madison, a vile abomination of an action she should be ashamed of and pissed off by. Hell no! It was a good kiss and she returned it with gusto.
Some asshole had torn up her memories and replaced them with lies. Pretty lies, sure, but they'd turned her into one hell of a bitch. She was on a mission to kill a demon witch named Phoebe who...probably was just some chick trying to have a decent life. Wait. No. Scratch that, she'd put Faith flat on her back, then disintegrated Spike with some kind of exorcism chant. Maybe she wasa witch. And a televangelist's assistant. Those dudes were all hypocrites anyway.
That was a lot to realize during a kiss. At least the other girl who'd come out of nowhere was being schooled by Riley and Sam. Sarah. Where was Sarah Holtz? She was supposed to be on this mission as backup. Of course, she was a shapeshifter; she might be a fly on the wall.
Everyone in the room was glaring. Because she was on a televangelist's show. Got it. And Phoebe let fly with a roundhouse kick. Got that too. Faith flung the foot upwards, only for Phoebe to cartwheel over and land on her feet. She was better than any regular mortal ought to be; Faith couldn't make it click.
The doors burst open and vampires poured into the room. "Backup!" Harmony called out cheerily, caste mark burning baleful red on her forehead. "Go get 'em, team! No killing!" Faith's eyes opened wider as she saw Sarah struggling in the grip of four burly vampires. Harmony had all these vamps under her control at once! Faith didn't give a fuck about the nature of her powers, so long as they worked like she wanted-she'd use poison, magic devices, even spells if they'd work for her. She gave Harm a round of applause. The cheerleader was searching all around, though. "Where's blondie-bear?"
Crap. "He just got wiped out, Harm. At least that's what it looked like."
"I sent him back to hell where he belongs," Phoebe growled. She couldn't sound very menacing, though.
Harmony, on the other hand...who said humans didn't have a game face? Her expression twisted with fury, and she hauled Phoebe up by the collar. "We came here to save your butt. Come with us quietly and maybe I won't beat you to a pulp. If he's dead-"
"He's not dead, Harm," Amy said hastily. "She banished him from Earth, okay? We can get him back."
"We'd better get him back," Harmony snapped. "In one piece, too."
She shoved Phoebe in front of her, Sam doubled the arm of Green Fire Girl behind her, and Faith scanned around for any sign of more Holtzes. Nothing. "Time to jet," she told Amy. "Before the rest of my backup shows."
"Oi!" Spike's shout echoed through the crystal columns. "Where the hell'd you put me?"
Only a childish giggle answered. Running feet skittered across the floor. Spike chased after-he should be faster than any normal child-but found himself running in circles.
"Hell, did you say?" called a little girl's voice. "Good guess."
"Olly olly oxen free, Claudia," Spike grumbled. "What kind of hell is this, the Hell of Obnoxious Brats?"
"Oh, that's a good one." There she was, sitting at a table, rolling a little cage about. "My name is Mesekhtet, and this is...was the White Room. Amy's training is coming along nicely."
"Well, Messy," Spike said, settling onto his haunches, "what'd you bring me here for?"
Mesekhtet dropped from the chair and approached him, as he'd hoped. "This is simply a nearby hell dimension. There's no single Malfeas any longer to banish you to. Phoebe sent you here, though I doubt she chose it. Still, it's time we talked. You need to meet my grandpa."
"And who would that be?" Spike said patiently, pretending to gaze about and ignore the girl.
"Not the Ebon Dragon, of course. He's dead. You need to meet Ra."
Spike snorted as she stepped closer. "Hoping you mean the alien from the movie. The other fellow an' I aren't exactly best of friends."
"More than you know," Mesekhtet said, dancing suddenly out of reach again. "But you won't believe me till you meet him."
"Messy, the sun an' me're never gonna get along." He shifted forward, pretending to be uncomfortable.
"Stop calling me Messy," the girl said petulantly. "And don't think you're going to capture me. I'm so far beyond you that-" Something behind her shifted-the cage had tipped over and was rolling off the table. She spun, Spike hurled his left shoe past her head to keep her distracted, and lunged as she continued to spin. Now he was a hair off-balance, but that hardly mattered to a vampire.
Spike slammed into Messy, seized the table leg, and yanked. The leg shattered, the table fell atop her, and he dodged aside as the edge pinned her to the floor. Plates and cups rained down around them, and the cage burst open, releasing a tiny woman who scurried off into the shadows. Eh. Nothing to concern him.
"You'll...be...sor-ry," Messy said. "Not just for inconveniencing me, though that's bad enough. Catherine's escaped, you see. Amy won't be pleased. Now will you please do as I ask?"
"If you tell me-"
"Spike, I'm not remotely concerned by this disruption." She shoved the table away. "It's annoying and no more. I'm asking you to do yourself a favor. Drusilla's life may depend on it, if that means anything to you."
That gave him a turn. But she couldn't fool him. "I miss Dru, but if she's about, she's working with Lilah. And if she's helping Madam President, she's playing with fire and knows it."
"She's human," Messy said. "And I guarantee she's not helping Lilah right now."
"Easy, easy, easy as pie," Drusilla sang, carrying furniture from one side of the Mound of Forsaken Seeds to the other. "All you need do is tease the worlds until they kiss. When they lock lips, locked they will stay until you pull them apart."
"And now what?" the Dowager said, pointing to the Shoat of the Mire. She only ever had one Shoat at a time, which made Drusilla giggle. If she died, the Dowager would make another. "There is more, I'm certain. Tell her what to do."
"Sing, dearie, sing," and Drusilla reached out and tickled the poor child. "If you don't sing, I can't make the pain stop."
"Will it really stop when the world dies?" The Shoat whispered the words with a fragile tremor.
Drusilla fixed her gaze and nodded. "And so I'm here to help your mum find her way where she belongs. Existence and nothing will balance and the world will go out, bang! Like a candle. How does that sound?"
"Lovely," the Shoat of the Mire breathed, her eyes dull and vacant. She sang a simple, lifeless scale. Drusilla bent down and kissed the poor creature on the forehead.
"Try and sing a little more sweetly, baby bird," she teased, and rubbed her back. "It'll make things better. 'Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, medicine go down'-"
The Dowager sneered and stalked away. "When you're ready to teach me something more, call for me. Shoat, the lady is mad, though sometimes useful. You needn't listen to her."
Drusilla made a little tsking sound. "Try again, dearie. 'Just a spoonful of sugar...'"
Soon Shoat was singing along.
Tara gave Willow one final hug. "It's time for you to get moving, sweetie."
"You're sure you can't come with me?" Tears welled up in sunken eyes.
Tara drew a deep breath. "Raksi ruled this place by fear and division. Right now, I'm the only thing keeping the people from tearing each other to pieces. If you somehow needed me to beat the Silver Prince it'd be different, but I'm nothing special as Exalted go, not yet. You're sure you want Green Aurora to stay?"
"I'm hoping some diversity'll teach her manners," Willow said thoughtfully. "If she starts encouraging cannibalism instead, I...you should put her down. There are cultures even more toxic than Raksi's out there, if you can believe that."
Tara narrowed her eyes into a stubborn frown. "I don't-"
"Listen to me," Willow said, trying her resolve face, "her people eat other humans who don't look like them and make it a ritual so their ghosts are enslaved forever and ever. I'm thinking about learning necromancy just to find a way to free them. It's that bad."
Tara had to take a moment to absorb that fully. "Do it," she said at last.
"I know you won't approve, Tare, but I just...wait, what?"
Tara put a hand on each of Willow's shoulders and gripped them hard. "Learn what you need to learn. Short of ending the world...or some other disaster, I guess...learn enough necromancy to free them. Be smart about it. Don't fling it around like a toy. But don't be afraid of just having it."
"I hadn't realized you'd feel that way about it," Willow murmured.
Somehow Tara's shrug conveyed serene self-knowledge rather than confusion. "I've learned a lot, Willow. But even before coming here, I understood that magic is a tool. Sometimes it's a dangerous tool. Sometimes it's a temptation. But you can't stand back and let people suffer because you're afraid."
"Even when it means using dark magic?" Willow was plainly struggling.
"But it's not," Tara said. "And no, I d-don't think I'd have said that before. It is necromancy. But you're not talking about killing people or making them suffer. You're not talking about damaging the world. You're talking about freeing people from slavery. So unless there's some horrible unfair p-price...I d-don't think it's dark magic at all."
She seemed to have given Willow a lot to think about. They kissed, and then Tara watched her fly away in one of Raksi's invented aircraft. Tara turned to Green Aurora. "Report to the fields at the college of agriculture. You're on hard labor. If I hear that you've killed or eaten anyone, I'll execute you personally." The Varajtul opened her mouth to protest. "And if I hear even a rumor that you're teaching your d-disgusting rituals, I'll use them on you."
"You wouldn't dare," Green Aurora began.
"You'd be surprised what I'd d-dare," Tara forced out. "I'm not letting cannibalism take root here after I overthrew Raksi to stop it." Tara fought back tears. Her emotions for Raksi weren't any weaker for having been forced on her, and she hadn't even begun figuring out what to do if Raksi's child was hers. "Go, before I do something to you anyway." The Varajtul went.
Tara turned and re-entered the tower, where Glory was waiting for her. "Stay as long as you want," Tara said, struggling to keep her voice firm, "as long as you follow the rules. Break the rules, and you'll find out just how scary I can be when I've got to." Of course, they'd be finding it out together, but Glory just strolled quickly away. It was the same walk she'd used around Raksi.
Tara went into the elevator, one of the few bits of technology Raksi had kept in working order, and ascended to the top floor. The Keeper manifested before her in its accustomed origami form. "Are you here to peruse the Book of Three Circles once more?" Raksi had made the Keeper allow her access so she could study properly. She nodded. "Do you prefer the first or second volume?"
Tara hesitated. "You didn't let me touch the second volume before."
The Keeper nodded. "Indeed not. You were incapable of using it before. I'm not certain what about you has changed, yet it has."
She almost told him to just let her see the first volume again, but then that'd be sort of hypocritical, wouldn't it? "Let me see volume two."
"Any progress, Mister T?" Faith put speakerphone on. She wanted everyone to hear who was in charge now.
"I must insist-" spluttered Quentin Travers.
"You must answer my question," Faith said firmly. "Any...progress?"
"She's on her way back from Australia right now. She's a Watcher on a field trip with her charge. If you like, I'll give you her number."
"A Watcher, huh?"
"In the old days," T explained, "Potentials who were never called were often married off to senior Council members, or later made secretaries and other such menial positions. You see that changes have been made."
"Yeah, I get it, Mr. T. Call 'er up." Travers gave her Paige's cell, and moments later Faith was connected to a cruise ship off Brisbane. "Paige Maclay?"
"My personal trainer's in the head. I'm Kennedy. Who's calling?"
"New head a' the Council, Faith Lehane. Slayer.Listen up. There's a chopper on the way, take you both t'the nearest airport. From there you fly to L.A." The snot-nosed rich brat-she knew East Coast old money when she heard it-kept trying to get a word in edgewise. "Important Council business. It's about your Watcher-yeah, I know what she is-but if you're flagged as a potential Slayer it can't hurt to have you come in too." She and Kendra had both been caught young, only to Exalt as something else. Faith figured a Potential was a Potential Exalt, maybe written up by destiny somehow. "She makes noise, you tell her to call me back. Got it? Good." Faith hung up.
Now to call in that copter.
"So who are you people anyway?" Phoebe studied the holding cell. It contained a table and four chairs, and not much else but the three dark-haired women, one with a face still pocked from some horrible illness.
"Sisters," that one said, and coughed croupily. "At least that's what they told me. I'm Prudence Maclay. I'm an art dealer."
"Piper Maclay," said the one with the white eyes. Aside from those, she seemed like the healthiest of the three; there was something...ageless about her, and she was definitely pretty. "Fry cook turned fast-food manager. Peak of my career so far. And...I think they think we're superheroes, like them."
Phoebe laughed bitterly. "Phoebe Austine, maiden name Maclay. We're demons, all three of us. I guess they are too. All Maclay women are. That's where the magic comes from."
Piper shuddered visibly, but Prudence gave her head a vehement shake. "That's a lie they tell us to keep us under control. Anyone can do a little magic if they bother learning. Some people can learn more. Like us."
"Because we're demons," Piper said in a faint voice.
"No," Prudence insisted. "Not-"
Piper flung up her hands as if she wanted to shove Prudence away, or maybe strangle her. The table between them shivered with cracks that spread and grew, the gaps between them suffused with queasy grey light, spread until they covered the entire table. With a soundless burst of light, the table puffed into foul-smelling black dust.
Phoebe laughed, a harsh cackling sound even in her own ears. "No, we're definitely the good guys here."
"We're not demons," Prudence stated flatly, persisting in the face of contrary evidence. "That was destructive, but it wasn't evil. You could use that on a gun, or a tumor."
"Okay," Piper said, "then who was the lady with the face full of worms who made me not die? An angel?"
Prudence just stared, and Phoebe smirked at her. Of course she didn't have an answer to that.
"I know the gate. I am the gate. I am the key and guardian of the gate," Dawn said. "I was the Thought of Ea Gso, and I have returned."
SubMachine Gun leapt up and hugged her. "I thought you'd abandoned us! The Herald came and went and we still didn't get to leave!"
"The time is almost here," Dawn explained. "Just not quite yet. And I need to be certain you're ready, okay?"
"We're totally ready!" Multifocal Motor Neuropathy effused. "Is it time yet?"
"I don't think you're understanding her properly," Entertaining Comics warned.
"It's all right," Dawn said. "I see she knows what she needs to know. The rest of you need to verify it for me, though."
"But it is time?" Alternate History asked. "I just want confirmation."
"Yes," Dawn said. "After seven hundred years, the Crusade is about to resume. I'm going to lead the assault myself. Are you ready?"
The roar would have been deafening if she had real ears.