xii. Chapter Eleven

The long silhouette before her seemed to have materialized from nothing, a dark, cloaked shape, stepping fluidly forward, seeming to float like a ghost, like a wreathe of fog. Raven heard no footsteps on the rock-strewn ground. Her breathing was quick and uneven, short gulps of air, the burning of her lungs.

A movement touched the corner of her eye. She turned her head jerkily in that direction. Another figure was coming forward from darkness. Another, and another, and another. They moved with the slow inevitability of a stormhead.

With a shock, Raven realized that the first one was now close enough to touch, was reaching out a hand for her. She saw the movement, slowly, slowly, the splayed moon-white fingers escaping from the wide black hole of the sleeve.

Raven scrambled backward instinctively, pushing herself off the ground with the momentum so that she stood a few feet away, trembling like a leaf. She wrapped her arms around herself defensively. She could not seem to stop trembling.

Something deep inside, beyond reason or memory, was telling her that she ought to be afraid.

"Who are you?" she demanded, trying to pull herself together.

The first figure swayed closer, the elegant white hands gliding up to lower the hood of his dark cloak.

"Don't you know me, daughter of Trigon?"

Raven stared. She took in the crown of white hair, his pale and papery skin, creased with age, his lips turned up in a dangerous smile. Though old, the years had not wasted his body. He was tall, with a look of lean muscle, not feeble in the least. He was like a coiled snake, tense readiness hidden behind languid movements, a tightly held leash of power in wait.

"You're the museum curator," she said, her mind spinning, thinking for some reason, that's not all, that's not all. "Mr. Darber."

He laughed at her, and it was a harsh, joyless sound. His eyes were sharp, seeming to cut through her even from a distance, seeming almost to look straight through her, as if she were made of glass.

"My real name," he told her, his voice smooth and hypnotic, "is Alaric. Now do you remember?"

A sharp, hot pain, and memory burst forth in a confusion of thought.

"Azar has spoken," boomed the elder, in a tone she had never heard him take. He sounded angry, and afraid. "Leave now, Alaric."

"Alaric," mother said distastefully, her nose wrinkling like she was stepping on a bug.

A name murmured in quiet conversations she was not meant to overhear.

In the dark, the glitter of a malevolent gaze.

That's not all, she thought, reaching further, further, in up to her elbow, her shoulder, something elusive and sinuous as smoke teasing her fingertips. Raven reached into her memory, pushing forward, straining and stretching her bones, and come, come, come to me, a fiery snap of tendon, of red muscle, until she could not reach any more. She flinched at that failure, filled to burst with frustration.

Her mind was the one thing that she should have been able to control.

"No? You don't remember?" said Alaric, smiling. Suddenly, he was holding up the red jewel that had been stolen from the museum, that had started the whole chain of events. Her eyes widened at seeing it. "Then this truly is a useful tool. More useful than I had anticipated when I created it."

"…you…?" said Raven, her mind spinning fast, patching together the web from clues and memory, weaving connections into a pattern she had not seen before. She stared at Alaric, coming slowly to understand. "What does it do…?"

"It reacts to a strong will by tapping into that person's power. Essentially, it is a wish-granter."

Like Nathan had told them. She narrowed her eyes.

"How long did it take you to make this?"

His eyes said he knew what she was thinking. "It took nearly six months."

"So long?" she asked. He had been here all this time, and she had not had an inkling. "Why didn't you act sooner?"

"The best moves are made when all the pawns are in place."

That was right, he had taken the position as curator, probably so he could plant the jewel when the time came. That was why the records had been so sloppy. They weren't real.

She remembered that day with Robin in the museum.

"How long ago did he die, if you don't mind my asking?"

"…It's close to six months now…"

"Did you kill him?" she asked, coldly furious, "That man whose job you stole?"

Alaric raised an eyebrow, seeming almost to be affronted. "I, kill him? That man's death was mere chance, a sign that fate is on our side. Child, you misunderstand our purpose here."

"Maybe you should explain it to me," said Raven, more confidently than she felt.

"Words will not be necessary."

The gem glinted in his hand, as brilliantly red as Azarath's sun.

Stars exploded in her eyes, a flood of white hot light, and the deluge of memory.

"They've gone now. You're safe," said the elder, raising the lid of the great cedar chest to let her out.

"Who?" she asked.

"Alaric. And his white guard. They are not allowed here - Azar will hear of this… but I fear nothing will come of it."

"Why not?"

"He would not have dared to come if he thought it was a risk… What am I saying? Do not fret over it. All will be taken care of."

Mother shook her head. "We will not speak of him."

"To protect the city… Alaric's white guard means to destroy Trigon, and those Trigon has touched. He means to destroy you."

"Alaric is a dangerous man, with more power than he ought to have."

"It is not safe here, anymore," said mother, gently.

Raven pushed to the surface, tamping the memories back into place. They stuck out strangely, like freshly turned soil. She felt as if she should be gasping for breath.

Alaric, the white guard, things forever on the periphery of her life, whispers overheard without meaning, always an unseen danger. She had seen him once, on the day of her mother's funeral. She had not known then who he was. Now she could remember the odd look of satisfaction in his eyes. Now she understood that strange blankness at seeing the symbol, Alaric's symbol, on the rubble from the library.

Raven was furious. She didn't know what to do, she was so full of anger. Her body shook with rage.

"You stole my memories," she hissed.

"Yes, that was the purpose of the jewel heist," said Alaric, unimpressed by her outrage.

"Why?"

"We have searched galaxies, rooting out Trigon's seed. That is the only objective of the white guard. You are our only objective. We have no desire for conflict - it seemed the easiest way to lure you out alone, to make you vanish without the smallest trace, was if you did not suspect you were in danger, and to that end, this gem was created."

But now he had restored her memory, and the elder had told her that Alaric was not one to take a risk. He meant to kill her now, had the means to do it, and by his unhurried manner, believed it would not be difficult.

Raven knew that as she was now, she did not stand a chance.

"Of course," Alaric continued, studying the jewel casually, "we did not expect that it would react to your wish. Although it was far more difficult to draw you out, it will certainly be easier to subdue you in your current state."

"My current state?" Raven echoed, trying to think of something that would buy her some time, because that was all she could do. She had to keep him talking. Fortunately, that did not seem overly difficult. "But… I don't have anything of Trigon in me, now. My powers are gone."

"Don't be stupid," said Alaric, scornfully. "Your wish was admirable, but ultimately useless. As Trigon's daughter, he will always be a part of you."

Raven shook her head, wanting to push that truth away. Her teeth were clenched so tight that her jaw ached. Everything in her was rigid. Trigon was not, not ever, a part of her.

"I fought and defeated him," she protested.

Alaric stared at her archly. "Then you are the lesser of two evils. It means nothing."

"Everything I've done… for this city…"

"It doesn't matter what you do, little one. To allow the spawn of Trigon to live would be… simply unforgivable."

"What about you?" said Raven, with an accusing glare. "You destroyed this building, and you used Nathan to get what you wanted - what if he had been arrested? What kind of guard would you be then?"

"You know as well as I do that this was a building slated for demolition." Alaric looked distastefully at the pile of rubble that had been the old library. "It failed as a ploy to distract the Teen Titans, but I did this city a service by destroying it. As for the boy… If you had managed to arrest him, I believe you would have found the charges somewhat slippery, the evidence erroneous. I told you, the best moves…"

He spread his hands. She understood. So, he was not the only one who had taken a position that would be convenient for their planning. No wonder nothing had come of the rendering of Nathan that Robin had sent to the police. And Nathan had told them that one of his professors had mentioned the jewel…

"Why didn't you just steal the jewel yourself?" she asked as it occurred to her.

"Why should I have?" Alaric smiled in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable. Her backbone seemed to shake itself. "Compulsion is such an easy trick. All I had to do was plant the idea in the boy's mind. The beauty of it is that the victim never really knows. I even used it on you, to bring you out here."

Raven felt suddenly very, very cold.

"What?"

The attack on the train. He must have done it then. The impulse to leave had been so strong afterwards, but disturbingly she had not noticed anything unusual. Which thoughts had been hers, and which had been planted? Which feelings were the real ones?

"The thing about compulsion," said Alaric, as idly as a cobra, " as I'm sure you know, is that one must be within the correct range of distance to use it."

Anger came, stealing over her, creeping in like a shadow.

"Are you done stalling for time?" he asked. "Because I'd like to get down to business, and this is really very interesting."

Everything looked as red as fury.

"When one is close enough, as we are now, it is only a matter of applying the correct amount of pressure -"

A sudden jolt of pain left her wide-eyed and gasping for breath.

"- And one can exert even total control over their victim. What do you think of that? All it takes is a little push…"

It was as if her skull had begun to fold inward, crushed like a soda can beneath a tight unyielding pressure. Her limbs began to lose sensation. Her field of vision was slowly darkening.

No, she thought, no, no, no…

Raven grit her teeth and pushed back with all her strength. The effort left her reeling.

"Stay out of my mind," she growled, pouring out the anger in her voice, in her eyes. It seemed to radiate from her like a steam.

For a moment, Alaric looked stunned.

"So you have some defenses left, after all," he chuckled, recovering quickly. "That is quite a spell you're under, isn't it?"

"Shut up," Raven spat, sick of the whole encounter.

He held up the jewel speculatively. "You must have wanted to be free of your powers very badly. It's not powerful enough on its own to do such a thing. What do you think will happen, when it's gone?"

And suddenly the jewel was only dust in his hand.

Raven was too tired and too angry to be shocked. She looked numbly at the remains of the gem, nothing but dust. Then she raised her eyes to Alaric.

"Is that all?" she said bleakly.

"That's all for you," he murmured, smiling.

Again she felt that sharp and heavy pressure, a smothering sensation, filling her mouth and eyes and nostrils and all the bloodways of her body. She resisted the call to sleep. She pushed back with her whole self.

A wind whipped up around them, tugging at her hair and clothing. She resisted, she resisted. Her mind was all she had. The only thing she could truly control. She resisted.

"You can't win," came Alaric's voice from far away. "You're powerless."

I'm powerless, she thought, I lost my powers.

Pressing, pressing, pressing, in her eyes, in her nose, on her tongue and her teeth. There was no use. It was in her lungs. It was in her blood, in her hair, in her fingernails.

She was like nothing. She fell far away from the world of physical sensation. She did not remember closing her eyes, but all of a sudden she was opening them and the world had changed around her. She was no longer standing before the ruins of the old library.

Raven saw mist.

She saw miles and miles of it, calm and diaphanous, seeming somehow to be all colors at once. She knew where she was.

"Welcome back," said a voice as cool and gentle as the mist.

The ghostly figure with her face emerged from the fog. Or rather, she was the fog. She did not so much emerge from it, as become a tangible presence. It was as if the fog had stepped away, and there she was.

"What happened…?" Raven asked, dreading the answer.

"You retreated here," the figure told her. Suddenly, the entire world seemed to shake, seized with vicious tremors. Raven stumbled.

"What was that?"

"You are in danger," said the figure, without any urgency. "Alaric will kill you."

"I know that," she snapped. "He has my body."

"You let him have it."

"No, I didn't," she argued, uselessly.

"You retreated."

"I could never win!"

The space they were in shook roughly once more. Raven lurched to her knees, and the mist swung into eye-level. It was thick around her. Black birds swooped in, red eyes glaring, and surrounded her.

She heard Alaric's voice sailing to her. You can't win. You're powerless.

She could see herself stumble in that crucial moment, could see whatever power she had tapped into slipping away like a thing half-dreamt. She saw herself bursting off of the sidewalk into traffic. She saw herself falling from the thief's board, from the window of Titan's Tower, helpless.

A fluttering of wings all around, and the memories dispersed.

"What can I do?" she whispered to herself, to the mist, to the figure, to the empty space. There was no need to differentiate.

The figure gently extended her hand. Raven took it, and as she did she felt as if she had stepped into sunlight. Warmth flooded over her like a babbling creek, trailing, trailing over her, brushing her skin with the tenderness of fleeting kisses.

When she had risen to her feet she was in a different place. Before her was the huge darkness that slept beyond the fog. She touched a hand to it. As before, it was warm and inviting, calling her to press closer.

The other darkness she had seen, smaller and denser and less alive, was gone.

"That was the memories that were stolen," said the figure, but Raven felt no surprise, as if she had already known it. The figure swept her fingertips along the vast blackness slowly, wistfully like a lover. "Do you know… what this is?"

Raven looked at the dark mass, quivering with life, its vibration resonating to the lowest part of her.

"My powers…" she said, wonderingly. "They're still here…"

She felt as hollow as a drum. She was a vessel for this great thing that was too big and too much for her.

"They are a part of you," the figure told her. "No amount of wishing can change that."

No. Nothing real was ever that simple.

"But… I can't go back," said Raven desperately. "I can't go back to that cage."

"Don't go back," the figure smiled. Raven felt warm and heady, as if she were floating and filled with yellow sunshine. "Move forward."

"What…?"

The figure took her hands. Heat coursed through her at the contact. She could only look about drowsily as the black birds came and swallowed them up.

She saw her mother and her child-self, Arella crouched inelegantly before her, pressing a cool kiss to her forehead, saying softly, "I'll protect you, little bird. Do not fear."

She saw the elder, sealing her inside the cedar chest, where precious things were kept. Later, he said to her, "I want you to be happy."

Just as Beast Boy had said.

"I just want you to be happy. That's all."

She saw herself returning to Azarath in desperation, when Trigon had come, and everything seemed gray and lost. The bronze towers were empty. It had become a city of ghosts, a ruined place. She had felt the burning of the city in her body. Her nerves were on fire. Everything hurt. Arella had been surrounded by doves, had turned to her and said, "you will forever have the love of your people," and she had not believed it.

"It is not safe here, anymore," her mother had said.

"It is not safe for you to stay here any longer," the elder had said.

"It's not safe for you to be out here alone," Beast Boy had said.

In darkness, the figure floated close to her, speaking to the shell of her ear. "Can't you see it? Can't you see what it means?"

"It means I'm weak," said Raven, forgetting to breathe. Her body was still.

"It means they love you. You know this."

She thought of her mother, leaving her first with the monks, and then dying and leaving her forever. She thought of Malchior. She thought of slowly slipping away.

"Don't be afraid."

"I am afraid!" said Raven, her voice breaking. "That's why… that's why I'm always running away…"

Her life had been spent running from Trigon and her fate, from Alaric, from her mother. She had run from all feeling, from self-knowledge, from the guilty desire to be rid of her powers forever. And she had run from Robin, from Starfire and Cyborg, from Beast Boy…

She had only wanted to stop hurting. She had wanted to eliminate pain. But everything else had gone with it.

"Denial is what hurts. It's okay for you to stop running."

A breath of hot air poured over her. She felt light.

"Can you let yourself be happy?"

"I… can try," said Raven, not knowing the voice that was speaking to her. It sounded like…

"Good. Just to be happy… that is the highest thing anyone can aspire to. Don't be afraid of it. Move forward."

Pain touched the edge of awareness, crept in closer, closer, burning through her nerves. Flickering light cut across her vision.

"What's happening?" Raven asked.

"You have to wake up now. You'll die if you don't."

That voice. It sounded like…

"Wake up!"

It sounded like her mother.

Raven fought to open her eyes, struggling through the thick, bleak dark of unconsciousness. Small hands seemed to grab at her and pull her back down, but she pushed, pushed, pushed into waking. Her eyelids fluttered. Her body arched and contorted with pain. She gasped, sucking in air.

She screamed.

She had never felt pain as intensely as she did now. Her whole body ached. Every part of her was screaming, wrapped up with toe-curling, nail-ripping, pulling, grinding, bleeding pain. Make it stop, she thought, again and again, make it stop. Her fingers reached out, grasping uselessly, scrabbling in the dirt. Her eyes clenched shut. Tears leaked out.

"Would you like me to tell you how you're going to die?"

Raven opened her eyes enough to make out Alaric standing over her. Through the pain, his words were slow to register.

"At this moment, your soul is being separated from your body and destroyed. There will be no chance for resurrection, no afterlife. It is as complete a death as one could ask for."

She became aware of the low chanting of a spell in the background. The other robed figures, the members of the white guard, were seated in meditative stance all around her, murmuring the words that were slowly draining her life away.

"You might feel some discomfort… It has always seemed to me to be a painful procedure, when I've put it to use in the past. No, you're not the first. But perhaps it will comfort you in your last moments to know that I was far more merciful to your mother when I killed her."

Raven hooked her gaze on Alaric's face.

Her body twisted with pain. The words themselves seemed almost not to matter. She hated that face. She had never hated anyone as completely as she hated him in that moment. She was on fire, boiling with fury, wanting to rip, wanting to tear into pieces, hating, hating, hating so much she thought it would kill her. She was already dying.

I'll kill you, she thought.

Pain brushed its fingers along the lines of her body, pain that made her bite her lip until the taste of blood, pain that made her want to rip her teeth out.

I'll kill you, I'll killyou, I'llkillyou.

"I'll kill you," Raven muttered, first weakly, then stronger, a wave washing through her, washing through, "I'll kill you!"

"Not," said Alaric, leaning over her, sickeningly smug, "if I kill you first."

Then there was a sudden blast, cut by beams of blue light.

Dust rose up, the chanting stopped for shouts of confusion. The pain bled away, leaving her weak and trembling on the ground.

When the dust faded, she could see that Alaric was still nearby. He looked down at her with disgust.

"The Teen Titans," he said, his voice marked with irritation. "We have no business with them, yet they insiston interfering with yours."

The Titans were here. Raven hadn't thought it possible after all that had happened, but very slowly, lying there in the dirt and rubble, she smiled.

A/N: Wooh… intense :D

Sorry for the bit of lateness. Oddly, I've been somewhat busy.

Anyway, have I ever told you all how wonderful you are? Thanks for the reviews! I love to hear what you think, so please drop me a note, even if it's just a little one, I would really, really appreciate it. Yes. :D