Chapter 14

In Memoriam

His laughter crawled over my skin, dissolving any resistance on contact. Something broke loose within me and I started to shiver and convulse; a long gasp left my lips, strangled and strained. I couldn't move. Couldn't turn. Wouldn't.

The thing wearing Buffy's face tilted her head to better observe me breaking, A look of mock pity on her lips. She was richly rewarded, as my defiance fled me, bled from my body and left me mewling in my terror. She slinked forward until her face was mere inches from me, and I could see the glossy red lips glinting in the shafts of moonlight.

"Last chance, Alice".

Angelus' laughter echoed through the darkened eves of the tiny chapel, surrounding me, crushing me inwards.

Please, please, I begged my shattering mind, anywhere but here.

Crack, shift, no map no compass.

Mercy.

Buffy hummed deep and throaty as she lay by my side among the ferns. Her fingers trembled against my flesh as the deer's life blood coursed through her. The air was still and silent, all musky-spicy with leaf litter and blood.

I opened my eyes and turned my head to take in her beatific expression, her lips still ruby from the kill. I could see the finest pale hairs on her velvet cheek glinting opalescent in the sunlight, and traced my eyes down the soft mound of her cheek as it glowed gracefully down to her chin. Her pale flesh mirrored the green and gold of the forest, and she seemed in that instant to be part of it all, a creature of nature at peace in its unfathomable beauty and horror.

Perfect lips curl back against mine as I kissed her bloody mouth, and the sweet taste makes me sigh. Life and love, fluid and yet eternal.

Crimson eyes open to me, this close, they are nebulas of every shade of red, growing richer as life force flows through her, dilating to take me in.

"Alice." She whispered, and I felt her caress against my cheek. "My Alice."

Her eyes widened and I followed her gaze to her hand. A beam of sunlight had broken through the ever present clouds. As her hand shimmered and split the light into a thousand million diamonds, she laughed, and any shame I had for turning her fell away.

"Yours. Always." I reply.

His punch sounds like a gunshot as it hit my jaw, and the world turns into a moonlit blur. The foul water swallows me, and I strike my skull upon the chapel flagstone beneath.

Huge, powerful hands grabbed at my clothes and wrenched me upwards, and I gasp and splutter out filthy black water.

"You robbed me." Angelus screams at my face, that accursed wicked smile nowhere to be seen for the first time. "She was mine! She was mine!" I rolled my eyes to see the grounds keeper standing defiantly by the statue.

Had he… bitten me? My throat felt on fire, stinging sharp, kinda like that time I was a child of four I fell through that glass window. Stitches never stung like this though, and the split lip from the punch don't hurt nowhere near as much. My mind flicked about, this way and that, making no sense. Not like a vision. Not like… oh my, I can't move. Why can't I move?

"It was perfect, you fool. She was to be my masterpiece!"

I hit the water again all heavy, couldn't gasp, couldn't breathe. I feel the slimey cold water filling my mouth and throat and... Oh please. No. I am shaking like a fit, and everything is getting hot, real hot, like they are boiling the water.

Oh please, please, please, save me. This is your house, ain't it? Save me.

Save me.

I know I was wicked…

I know I was…

I take it all back…

I…

I…

I...

I am floating in the darkness when the pain finally died away. Weightless, without need or breath or want. Is this heaven? Or hell?

Was I in hell when everything was fire and my nerves screamed? Is this what happens after? Did hell burn me up and spit out what is left like a blackened match stick. All I could sense was that I was here, alone. He is gone, like the pain. No more torment. No more suffering. Just me and my thoughts floating in the dark.

Thank you. Thank you. You had mercy on me.

But… it is coming again. Rising inside of me, a burning, a need. But different. I want… I want… I have to… what?

Wait, I am moving, pressing against… walls? My fingers were there, feeling… something? Yes, I have fingers in this place, hands and… I feel a softness between them… like soil but warm or… something like if… nothing was a something. I have fingers and I am thinking? There is an up. I was completely aware there is an up above me.

I am thirsty… a burning thirst like none I have ever… I need… I have to get out of here. I… I can push up, up and up and up, I have to, have to, I need, I need, hungry, so, so… my hand is free. Yes, just a little more, so, so thirsty….

He is waiting for me in the dark, smiling as I claw myself free of the dirt. I hate him, I hate him, I… smell, oh.

What is that?

It smells… what is that… I need.

I see her. The shape of a child, but not human, surely? Not a person. She doesn't smell like a child she… smells like heaven and I need to… I… just need to end this hell… I...

Oh.

Oh.

So good. So… so good. Yes. Yes. Heaven. This is heaven, surely. Surely. Nothing tastes this good, nothing so satisfying and I feel so alive and amazing and strong, this is…

My eyes focused, my mind cleared. The moon above said I was in the darkness yet it seemed like day. Around me the forest glimmered and teemed with life, clicking of bugs and the rasp of fur on burrow walls. The scents danced through my mind, fuller and bolder, screaming the names of a hundred flowers and animals and one scent above all.

Angelus watched me as I sniffed the air like a beast. The smile on his lips turned my stomach, and I felt a growl rise in me, savage and inhuman.

"What have you done to me?" I said, my words muffled by the teeth in my mouth.

"Me?" He said in mock innocence. "Why, I just arranged a family reunion, s'all" he said in that musical irish lilt.

I looked down into the lifeless eyes of my sister.

I looked down to see what I had done to my Cynthia.