Chapter 12

A Mouthful of Ashes

Cynthia was haunting my thoughts, her words played over and over in my mind like that two-reeler mother once took us to. I laid in bed, listening to the faint rumbling of the storm and the skitter-scatter of leaves.

I was restless. My sheets long kicked down the bed away from my sweat sheened legs. Despite the dry heat, the mosquitoes were biting something fierce. The only sounds from inside the building was the occasional clicking of a nurses heels down the corridor.

Buffy wasn't here again. And despite myself I checked under the bed for Cynthia. Of course she wasn't there, and I chastised myself for hoping, for I could still faintly taste the bromide and prune juice still, the drug would be fresh in my veins.

I was thinking about blood on my lips. The taste of ash, of black ink soaking into paper. Of an idealized family of monsters that somehow all loved me, flitting through the woods.

I tried to shut it out, so help me I promise I tried, but the whole mess of thoughts remained. I guess I felt lonesome, and my mind was conjuring them all up. But I felt a failure at even that, for both of my dream guests brought paranoid words and fear with them.

I tried again to cancel out their images, to focus on the satisfying click of the brass puzzle. I guess this is why Dr. Myhnegon set me about it. Something to focus on. And I had to admit enjoying the thrill of a thousand possible futures whizzing through my mind, and the one snapping into place as I selected. It felt solid, real, like progress, like each sigil snapping into place was a footstep on cold, firm earth.

And as much as I wanted Buffy to be real, she wasn't. I had to make a decision. To entertain the irrational imagery my mind conjured, or focus on getting out of here.

I so wanted to get out of here.

I heard the mosquito make another run at my flesh, but I was too tired to swat it. It fell silent as it landed to drink from me. There was no sting, just the silence. And I felt myself slipping into sleep.

Crack. Shift. My skull cracks and grinds fire through my mind.

I am on my knees on the frozen ground. The snow is coated grey with grave ash, and my arms are flecked with dirt and spattered with blood.

"Alice!" Rosalie wails, "please… no… Alice" her voice filled with agony. She is kneeing before me, back arched back as her assailant stands behind her, feet pinning her ankles to the battlefield. I see her face contorted in pain as her head is wrenched back, the silvery cracks appearing at her throat. Mercilessly strong fingers, covered in blackened blood are clamped about her face.

Buffy's hands.

Her scream blended with the metallic screech.

"Stop! Buffy, stop this!" I screamed. And she did, pausing to lock her eyes upon me. Eyes that were as black as oil, black beyond the thirst. Her beautiful lips cracked open into a smile like a corpse grin, fang filled and thick with black foam and grave ash.

She watched me as she wrenched Rosalie's head free. She watched me as my sister's skull crumbled in her hands. She watched me as a huge pillar of soil launched up into the air from the hills behind her, the booming, bellowing roar that arrived on the shockwave, tearing at the battlefield, throwing wolf corpses and ash up into the sky. Three immense tentacles followed, their size defying sanity, snaking up and out of the hellmouth.

Buffy turned to gaze upon the event. Just for a moment. It was all I needed to pull the stake from her boot. To grip it to my chest and throw myself forward onto her. To sink it deep into her heart.

When Buffy turned to look at me again, her terrified eyes were golden once more, and to my horror, I realised the elder god had released her.

Buffy was free.

She crumbled to ash just as the shockwave hit us both.

"Alice, baby?" Willow's voice was reaching me through the darkness, through the thick smoke and death ash. I gasped and opened my eyes. Find time. Find my place.

Willow stroked my face, slender fingers wiping away the… vision? The nightmare? The memory? Where was I? When was I?

"Baby, you're safe. You're back." She whispered, holding me to her. She repeated it softly as I found my bearings.

The cave. Of course. The den of scavenged fabrics woven into the rag tag metal frame that formed our private chamber, our sanctuary. Small, womb like and safe. If I pulled back the fabric I knew beyond would be the wet slate walls of the cave that hid us from the hellscape of our world. From the Turokhan and The Slayers. From her.

She was entwined with me where we lay upon the floor, upon the sleeping bags and furs. We were both naked, the smell of sex and blood filling my nostrils. She kissed my forehead with cold lips.

"I was at the battle again." I said, gasping air. "Rosalie… when…"

"It doesn't make any sense." Willow sighed. "Your visions point backwards now."

"Yeah, well, can't see a future if there isn't one." I sat up, wincing as pain shot up from my scorched, ruined leg. Even after two months, The Scythe wound still hadn't healed. I thought back to before the fall, to the horrific wounds The Volturi guard had suffered at the hands of Faith Lehane. That bitch may have been drunk dry, but the ginger one that followed inherited that cursed weapon. No visions to warn me anymore, no foresight. I was lucky it was just my leg. I strapped on the splint, snapping the bindings in place. "Can't receive messages from the powers that be if they are all dead too."

Willow rolled onto her back, watching me as I got dressed.

"Where are you going?" Willow said.

"I'm hungry. I need to hunt."

"It's only been four hours." she moaned, rubbing her face.

"It's my goddamn wound eating me up" I said, "rats just aren't enough." I snapped a new power cell into The Initiative pulse saw pistol and thumbed the charge button. It gave a high pitched whine that told me it was only half charged. I cursed under my breath. "And before you say it, I am not going there."

"It makes sense. There are still hu-"

"I will not die a monster."

"That's what we are, Alice." Willow growled. "We did this. You and I."

"I did this." I said. "I did."

The image of Buffy's last moments came to me again. The look in her golden eyes as she realised what I had done. The fear. The pain. The regret.

I felt weak again, and the world was spinning, the hellish, burning, bloodless world that I had unleashed. I fell, but Willow had me in her arms, guiding me down to our bed.

"Shhhhhh, it's okay" Willow said, "It's okay."

"No, Willow. Nothing will ever be okay again." I said, with certainty.

Because when I bit my lip, I could taste my blood.

Shift. Crack. Pain.

I gasped lungs full of hot stuffy air laced with disinfectant. I was in the ward again, laying in my twisted bedsheets. Moonlight streamed through the window, bright as a automobile lamps, casting Buffy into silhouette.

Where this Willow girl had been not a moment before, in my dream, Buffy was now. She held me as I sobbed and gasped, soft hushes on her lips. I gathered myself, calming my breaths, gripping the sheets into painful knots.

"You were having a nightmare." Buffy whispered, her sweet breath cooling to my feverish skin.

"No." I said. "I wasn't."

I seized her head and pulled her to me, my kiss hot and greedy. She mewled for a moment in her surprise, but I held the kiss, clutching her face.

A head clutched between claws.

"Alice?" Buffy whispered, her eyes wide with shock. She pulled back from me, and I let her go, staring at my hands. "What are you…? We can't… it's… it's..."

I licked my lips, tasting her kiss. A dark laugh slipped from me. Of course she tasted that way. Of course she did.

"Alice?"

"Fuck me Buffy." I growled. "I want you to fuck me."