Chapter One
The North Pole
The blizzard was upon the forest full force now, but still she trudged on through snow that piled to her waist. The icy winds whipped at the child's blonde hair, puffy face, and small body, but still she continued, the dragon perched atop her shoulder her only company. She knew he was out here somewhere, watching her even now and barely holding back his laughter. She knew he could be on her at any time, and that the sensible thing to do would be to turn around and run back home.
Not that home provided any kind of safety. Oh, no, he was even there, constantly taunting her and making threats behind her parents' backs. Why could they not see him for the monster he really was? Why did they refuse to believe her, especially when she told the truth? No one believed her any more. No one but Blue and Jack and Mark.
Mark. He was the reason she was out there and the reason why she must persist. She had to find him. Find him and save him from her uncle. She knew he had had to have come this way and been attacked. That's why he hadn't been in school today and why he'd never gotten back home last night. His mother thought that she'd done something to him, but at least her parents believed her when she'd sworn she hadn't.
Of course, even then the looks they'd given her told her they didn't trust her. They hadn't for a long time now, and she feared they never would again. All because of him. All because her own uncle had attacked her and she'd tried to tell her parents, Santa, any one who would listen, what had happened. But nobody had believed her except for Jack, who was never around, and Mark, who had surprised her last night.
She had to find him. Crystal trudged on through the howling wind until, at last, the woods broke into a familiar clearing. She'd stopped in the entrance, the memories flashing through her young mind making her tremble and shake. She blinked, shielded her face from the falling snow with a gloved hand, and still had to strain to be able to see through the thick whiteness that consumed the air.
There! There in the middle! There he was! But why was he laying face down in the snow? "Mark!" The wind must have whipped her words away for he didn't budge. "MARK!" she yelled again, but still he showed no sign of hearing her.
She called him again. She headed toward him this time, half-stumbling, half-running in the tremendous snowfall. Her foot hit against something hard that had been buried in the snow, and Crystal fell into the snow. She turned to see what had tripped her and found herself staring into a pair of eyes. Her breath died in her throat as she stared into Mark's eyes, eyes that were set in a frozen head that had become detached from its body!
Her heart hammered in her ears. Mark was dead! But if he was here, what had she seen up ahead? The rest of his body or . . . something . . . something else? With her heart beating as loudly as a tidal wave, Crystal turned her head back to look. In that movement, her world changed. She was no longer a child but now an adult . . . an adult whose fear grew even greater at the new sight she was met with.
Lorne lay just inches away in the snow. The green color had drained away from his skin, leaving him a pale corpse. His horns had been ripped out of his head, and the only color on his being was the crimson red of his blood that covered him, the snow beneath him, and the bright colors of his ripped attire. His hand reached out toward her, his fingers ending only an inch away from her long, blonde hair.
"L-L-L-L-L-L--" Her voice shook so badly that she could not even get his name out. Laughter stirred amongst the trees, and she looked frantically around only to find more bodies. Angel, with Cordelia nestled beside him, Blue, Cindy, Elvira, Jack, Brendan, Prue, Xena . . . They were all there. Every one of them who had dared to stand beside her was there in the blood-soaked snow, and every one of them was dead!
Crystal's tears ran like frozen rain down her trembling face, and her whole body shook as she burst out screaming. Her scream mingled with others'.
Somewhere in the Caribbean
Terrified, ice blue eyes shot open at the sound of screams. The noon-day sun beat down upon her face, and she turned away, blinking in the harsh rays as she tried to shake the dream from her mind and make sense of her surroundings. Lorne was all right. He had to be, and so did the others. Her family was fine. By some miracle, they'd made it through last night. They had to have!
Crystal tried to move on her side and turn her back to the sun in order to be able to see better, but she found her arms trapped by her sides and something crunched as she struggled to move. Crystal's heart froze in her throat at the familiar sound. Snow! She looked quickly around. Snow was everywhere!
She shoved her way through the embankment and struggled to her knees in a near-panic. Snow was everywhere, but it shouldn't even be there! This could only mean one thing! Where were Lorne, her babies, and Angel? And who was screaming? What were they screaming, any way?
Crystal had to make herself pause in order to listen, and then she wished she hadn't. A stricken man's voice wailed out for another called Derek. A Latina screamed out repeatedly in Spanish for some one called Willow. Willow, the new, red-headed Witch Crys had met last night, the one who was Angel's friend. Crystal looked toward each voice to find the people kneeling and shaking in the snow, tears running down both their faces.
Hurried Spanish words brought Crys' attention to another stranger. This Latina was older, had a fuller head of ebony hair, and was not crying. Instead, she was racing in and out amongst bodies, many of which Crystal recognized, a few of which she did not know, and too many of whom she knew were there because of her.
She could hear other voices, as well. Father Kurt Wagner was quickly praying in fervent German while a feminine voice whimpered out names like Trent, Carlos, and Andrew. Crystal didn't recognize any of the four but knew that they must have been hurt because of her, just as the others all had. A couple of dogs barked, cats mewled, and a chilling howl erupted from a wolf. Crystal didn't know if it was Brendan, Wolf, or another, but she did not hear any of her three animals amongst the chaos. Nowhere did she hear or see her babies, Lorne, Angel, or even Cordelia.
Her body quivering from head to toe with fear, Crystal forced herself to stand. She was only vaguely aware of the blue light that sparkled from between her breasts. In the back of her mind, she knew that Jack was trying to contact her, but she ignored him. She didn't want to talk to him right now. She didn't want to talk to any of the others who she could see and hear, either. All she wanted to do was to find Lorne and her children. She cared deeply for Angel and was greatly concerned for him, too, but Lorne and her babies came first.
Crystal began to make her way through the chaos, stumbling over and around bodies and taking quick note of each one. She passed a pair of thick, dark brown boots sticking out of an embankment; Autolycus, who seemed to be covered in scratches and bites, as though a cat had torn into him and ripped her claws through one end and out the other; Wesley, who appeared to be a little fatter than she remembered him being; and a dog who was busily sniffing the ground and who she did not recognize until he turned his familiar, brown eyes upon her and barked. She hurried along without answering; she didn't want to face Morph's questions right now.
She passed Faith, who was barely covered by the thin shreds of Dawson's shirt and whose left leg and neck seemed to lay at odd angles in the blood-covered snow. She continued by a brown and white cat, a crab, and a couple of tiger cubs, all who lay limply upon the ground, before a new voice met her ears. "Have you seen them?"
Crystal looked up at the speaker, her brow furrowed and tears in her eyes. She shook her head, not knowing who Jasmine was looking for.
"Simon," Jasmine answered as though it were the most obvious answer in all the world. "And the kids. Julian. Sarah. I woke up, and they were gone." Her thin shoulders shrugged. "I guess they wanted to play Hide and Seek, but I've been looking and looking and looking and I just can't find them anywhere. Have you seen them?" she asked again.
Crystal shook her head mutely. She didn't have the heart to tell the poor woman that they were probably dead nor the courage to admit out loud to her that this was all her fault. Instead, she continued on past a donkey's large, rear end that stuck out from an embankment and Elvira, who lay, naked and not breathing with the sun baking her pale skin.
Crystal continued her search, shaking constantly more as her fear that she either would not find her loved ones or would find them dead grew and grew. Lorne's name was on the tip of her tongue, yet she could not find her voice to call to him. She did, however, manage to gasp out and nearly screamed as she saw the head of an Oriental woman rolling along the snow. She jumped as another howl broke out then and quickened her pace even more.
She had to find Lorne. She had to find her babies. And Angel. And Lorne. And they had to be all right. They had to be! Then, finally, Crystal found a sign of her children. A gray, bushy tail stuck out of the bottom of an embankment of snow, and Crys knew immediately that that tail belonged to Elvira.
Her heart pounded even louder as she began working feverishly to shovel the snow away with her bare hands. Would she find Elvira alive at the bottom of this pile of snow? Would she find Elvira at all, or was her tail the only thing that was left?
She worked at a swift pace, her Elemental powers helping to control the snow, until finally she shoved the rest of the snow off. There, in a heap, were her children. She gently pushed Cindy off, checking the lioness for signs of life as she did so, and then just as gently pushed Elvira off to the other side. Blue lay before her then, where he'd been smushed down into the snow by his unconscious sisters' heavy weights.
Crystal reached down and was checking the intricate bones of the little dragon's wings for any sign of breakage when the sun glinted upon something green. Her attention immediately turned to it. She brushed the snow away from it and discovered first a finger and then a hand. Setting Blue to the side and falling to her knees in the snow, Crystal swiftly worked to uncover Lorne.
Though his right hand had kept its color, the rest of Lorne's body had not fared as well. His fine clothes were ripped to near shreds, and his green skin was so pale that it could barely even be called green. The hole at his neck, where the Vampiress had drank his blood the night before, had reopened, and his blood had ran down his body before drying. Crystal trembled as she checked him for breathing. He was just barely exhaling and weakly inhaling, but, thank Gods, he was alive!
Crys sat back hard on her heels as she stared at Lorne and the shape he was in. Her gaze slowly moved from him to her babies, and then out to where the blonde man and Latina girl wailed for their lost loved ones. So much chaos . . . So much pain . . . So much death . . . All because of her.
A sob rose in her throat, but she forced it down. She had to find Angel. He probably wasn't too far, but the real question was whether he was still undead. She looked around, picked a snowbank, and used her powers to throw the snow off without leaving Lorne and her furbabies. Moving aside the pile of snow did not reveal anything, but Crystal's gut told her to keep going.
She had to remove five more feet before she found Angel, and then it was all she could do to keep from joining the screamers as he, too, appeared to be next to death's door. He was the palest she'd ever seen him, paler, indeed, than any Vampire she'd ever seen. The color of his skin contrasted against the snow almost as greatly as white against black. Crystal knew there was no way to check to make sure her brother was still undead for certain, but if he wasn't dust, there might still be a chance.
The only way she could possibly know for sure would be to awaken him, but ever since awakening and realizing what she'd allowed to happen, Crystal had known she would not wake Angel, Lorne, or any of the others once she'd found them. She couldn't, because if she did, they would talk her out of doing exactly what she knew she had to do . . . what she should have already done . . . the one thing that would have kept them safe from all this insanity. She should have left them in the beginning instead of allowing them to persuade her to stay.
Crystal's gaze dropped back down to Lorne. She saw that he was beginning to bleed again and that the snowfall was also increasing as flakes fell upon his handsome face. His color was starting to slowly return, but Crystal knew he needed help, help that she neither needed nor wanted where she was going, help that she would have always preferred to give to him rather than keep for herself even if she'd needed it.
She found her voice at last. "Lorne." She took off her necklace and carefully draped it over his neck. The snowflake began to glow immediately. "Forgive me, my love," she whispered as she bent forward and pressed a kiss to the spot between his red horns.
"I love you," she told him. "I know you're not going to believe it any more when you wake up and find me gone. You won't think I love you when I break my word to you, and I understand that. But I do. I love you," she persisted, "and I always will."
Her gaze moved from Lorne to Angel, to each of her children in turn, and then back again to Lorne. "I love you all, and I always will." She would have liked to have tasted the sweet nectar of his lips one last time but knew that doing so would make it even harder to leave. With a deep sigh of regret, she stood. Ice immediately started growing underneath her feet, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when a calm, quiet voice spoke up from behind her.
"You're leaving them."
Crystal wasn't sure if the statement was a question or merely an observation, but she turned to face the other woman, her shoulders squared. She would not let the Vampiress stop her from leaving. The only ones who could possibly stop her were unconscious, and she had to get away before they woke up for she did not have the heart to fight them yet also knew that it would take that in order to leave if they were awake. "I am . . . Delvira?" she guessed.
Her answer was a curt nod. "I understand," she continued speaking calmly, her black eyes focused on Crystal's gaze. "I would if I were you, too. But do you really think it such a good idea to leave your necklace with Lorne? You may want to give him something, but without that, he will know exactly where you are."
Crystal called upon all her courage to keep Delvira's steady gaze and keep her voice even. "I want him to. If he knows where I'm at, he'll come after me instead of continuing here."
"So you want to lead him away from us?"
Crys nodded. "I should have already," she said, batting down her tears. "I shouldn't have let this happen."
She was surprised when Delvira did not try to argue with her. "Where are you headed?"
Crys tensed. "Why?"
"I could help you get there faster, if you've an idea?"
Crystal sighed. "I promised Lorne, Angel, and the others that I would try to talk to some one who they believed might help." She shook her head, her long, blonde hair shimmering down her back. "I know he won't. I know it's fruitless, but then so is everything else. At least, if I go to him before taking on . . . my uncle one last time, I will have kept one promise to them."
"Yet you can not keep the other."
"No! I wish I could, but can't you see! Don't you see what my being here, my being with Lorne and Angel and everybody else here, has caused! This is all my fault!"
"You are hardly to blame for the Piratesses -- "
"No," Crys broke her off, "I'm not! But I am to blame for him coming after everybody! We would have been okay! We would have survived the Piratesses and every one, or nearly every one, been all right if only he hadn't come after us, but he did because of me!"
Her heated exclamations stirred Lorne and her babies. Lorne murmured her name, and Crystal froze, her eyes snatching back to him and her babies. Blue's wings shifted and Cindy growled, but it was Elvira whose eyes opened. Crystal's own eyes flew open in panic as Elvira looked at her, blinked, yawned, and looked at her again. "I'm sorry, baby," Crys told her.
Elvira knew instantly what that statement meant. Her fur set on end, and her eyes shot wide. Before she could raise her voice in a howl to alert the rest of their family, however, Crystal lowered her body temperature as well as the others'. The wolf promptly fell out again, and Crys turned back to Delvira with a questioning look.
"You don't have to knock me out," Delvira told her. "I . . . Do not take this the wrong way, but I believe you're doing right."
Crystal's jaw slackened in surprise, and her mouth nearly fell open. Did some one finally understand why she had to be alone, why she did not deserve, and could not have, those who loved her?
"I, too, have family who would kill any one I am close to. Or would have," Delvira corrected herself as Helvira did finally appear to have been killed. "I know what it's like to be drawn to some one so badly it hurts physically but to know you can't be with them because being with them would put their life in jeopardy."
"I tried to leave Jareth after Helvira surfaced, but he wouldn't let me. If I had left him, though, what happened to him last night . . . It . . . It never would have happened." Her black eyes shone with tears. "That's why I understand -- now."
"I'd also like to help."
"You can't help."
"Actually, I can without putting myself in danger."
Crystal's brow furrowed, and her eyebrows pulled down in suspicious questioning. "How?"
"I can make you a portal," Delvira offered. Her pale hand rose to stop Crystal from speaking as the blonde's mouth flew open. Crys gave her a chance to explain, though she thought her mind was already made up. "Think about it. We don't know how close he is right now. We've got no way to know. He could be almost upon us again."
Seeing that she had Crystal thinking about what she was saying, Delvira quickly continued. "If I make you a portal, you'll show up at the North Pole a lot faster."
"How's faster going to . . . ?" Crystal's voice trailed off as understanding struck her. "The faster I get there, the sooner he senses my location has changed. The sooner he knows I'm no longer here, the quicker he changes direction. The quicker he changes direction, the less likely he is to come here!"
Delvira was already nodding. "Precisely!"
Crystal's ice blue eyes narrowed in on the Vampiress. "But I can't have the others knowing where I went. If they know, they'll come after me."
"They won't know. I promise you," Delvira told Crys, looking into her eyes, "I will not tell them anything of our conversation or that I encountered you or that I even know you survived." Delvira took a step closer to the Elemental, her black eyes boring into the blonde's eyes. "I promise," she repeated, "and you can trust me to keep that promise."
Crystal's head swam, and she shook herself, knowing that the emotional strain of all that had happened was trying to take its toll on her and that she could not allow that to happen . . . not until the others were safe with her at the North Pole and Frostbite was headed her way instead of theirs. "All right," she spoke at last. "Do it. Please."
Delvira nodded. "I only need one thing."
"Name it."
"A dagger."
Crystal formed one out of ice and gave it to the Vampiress. Delvira turned and, holding the make-shift athame high in the sky, began to carve an invisible doorway while speaking in a dead tongue. It took only a second before Crystal could see where the doorway was beginning to take visible, glowing shape. A couple minutes passed with Delvira working quickly, and then the portal was made and Delvira was handing her the dagger.
"Thank you," Crystal told the other woman. She waved the dagger back at Delvira. "Keep it, and use it to close the portal as soon as I'm through."
"I promise I will," Delvira replied, and Crys' head again swam. "Now you must go."
"I must," she agreed, shaking herself and allowing her gaze to trail back to Lorne and her babies. The pain of leaving her family forever was so great that her heart felt not only heavy but dead in her aching chest. She sniffed, pressing her lips together to silence a sob she knew would awaken them, and sent an icy breeze to caress Lorne's lips, Elvira's and Cindy's fur coats, and Blue's leathery scales. "I'm so sorry," she thought aloud, "and I love you all."
Looking back to Delvira, she told her, "Remember to close it as soon as I'm through and, no matter what, don't let them follow me."
"I will and won't; I promise." Her voice was unwavering. "Go now, and good luck."
Good luck? Crys thought. How could the woman possibly be wishing her good luck? That was something she hadn't had since she'd been four and something she'd never have again, something that she couldn't have. She turned again to look at Lorne, her children, and Angel and found herself shaking. She wanted so desperately to run back to them, but she knew she could not. Now, in life, as they had in her dream, her tears fell like frozen rain, and she shook like a leaf as she entered the portal.
The very second Crystal vanished into the portal, Delvira turned back to Angel and Lorne. With the ice dagger clutched in hand, she raced forward . . .
To Be Continued . . .