"Cordy!" Xander said, his voice filling with panic, "What—"
"Stand back," another voice said; young, and female, but not familiar.
"Wilfred," Harmony said, her voice faded by distance, "I won't let ..."
Struggling to ignore her agonies, Cordelia opened her eyes.
Four people were leaning over her, blurred silhouettes unrecognisable to her failing sight.
That didn't matter though; they'd rescued her from the pit, proof enough they were friends, even if she hadn't recognised Xander's voice.
Better still, they must have already defeated the horror. They wouldn't be wasting any time on her if that creature was still a threat. They'd be too busy fighting to stay alive, and Harmony would be miles away.
"Don't worry," Agatha said gently. "Dame Mar—"
"Sanare. Sana es," the other voice said, and the pain vanished.
The four silhouettes snapped into focus; Xander, Giles, Agatha, and a girl, about Cordelia's age, with long red hair, down to her waist.
Blushing slightly, Xander and Giles looked away.
The strange girl was also wearing a leather duster with 'This is a disguise.' embroidered in rainbow letters on its breast. Combing that with her casual use of magic, there could be no doubt who she really was.
"Dame Margo— " Cordelia said as she sat up, then hesitated. "What's happened to my clothes?"
"They rotted, loosely speaking," Margo said. "Agatha, fetch Mistress Cordelia a blanket. While your soul provides you with some minimal protection against the ergovoric aura of Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch, that protection does not fully extend to your clothes. Against lesser—"
"Margo," Xander said, and Cordelia tensed. "Can't you magic her up some clothes?"
"Magic is less than suitable for such work," Margo said, the faintest hint of discomfort in her voice. "I could summon clothes from my own wardrobe, but ..."
Cordelia stopped listening. She didn't need to know about the problems of magicking clothes; she did need to know why Margo had stopped insisting on her title. Unexplained shifts in the social dynamic were far more important than fashion, and rescuing her mom from the pit more important still.
"Margo," Cordelia said, tentatively testing the waters, "I mean Dame, my—"
"You do not have to call me that," Margo said flatly. "After extensive discussion with my colleagues it has been decided I should make greater allowances for your unfamiliarity with the standards of polite society.
Cordelia smiled. This must be the enforced humility Sarah had been talking about, neither convincing nor an adequate penalty for Margo's mistakes, but it might make her slightly easier to live with.
"Margo," Cordelia said, more confidently, "did you get my mom out too?"
She probably hadn't, since Cordelia had neither seen nor heard any sign of her mom, but she might have, and giving Margo anything like a direct order was probably still a really bad idea.
"No," Margo said. "Magic generally requires some semblance of a connection with the target, hence the common use of hair and blood. I had nothing so concrete of yours but we are bound in other ways, you and I, bound by the oldest laws, bound by the bread we have broken together, the battles we have fought together—"
Not good news, but Margo didn't have much time left to take advantage of it.
"—On those bindings I called to summon you here. I have no such mystic link with your mother, nor the strength to summon her by name alone."
"There—" Cordelia began.
"Now that you are here," Margo went on, "I can use the bonds of blood and love between mother and daughter to pull her out."
"Do it," Cordelia said.
"The summons will be most powerful if you speak the key words," Margo said, "while I—"
Cordelia's hands were tingling.
"What?" Xander said. "What's wrong?"
Cordelia looked down at her hands, again speckled with unnatural rot, then accusingly at Margo.
"Cessa," Margo said, frowning. "There might—"
Cordelia winced as the speckles raced up her arms and her hands went numb, now no more than lumps of rotting flesh.
"Cessa," Margo said, her eyes glowing bright, then pointed. "Hoc non erit. Veto idem. Dum ero idem non erit."
A stream of rainbow light poured from her finger, wrapping Cordelia in an iridescent shroud, but where her skin was already dappled with decay, the light did not touch.
Xander half-turned, then stopped himself. "What's wrong now?"
"I started rotting again," Cordelia said, staring at her left arm, "but Margo stopped it.
"Only temporarily," Margo said, her voice strained. "It would seem I addressed only the symptom, not the cause."
"Address the cause," Cordelia said sharply, carefully avoiding Margo's glare. "Stop the rot."
Even in Sunnydale, people would notice someone glowing like a rainbow, not all of them, but enough to be inconvenient.
"Dame Margo will," Agatha said, returning with a large grey blanket. "Do not doubt her."
"Strictly speaking, this is not rot," Giles said. "Rot is life born out of death, unwholesome life, but life nonetheless. This ..."
Listening to Giles's impromptu lecture, Cordelia smiled. He was obviously trying to distract Xander and herself from her troubles, but if he thought a lecture might work he clearly didn't know them very well, yet. Only Willow could be distracted that way; Xander required different methods.
"I'm not hearing any magic," Xander said, interrupting Giles. "Why—"
"I was studying Mistress Cordelia's aura, Mr Alexander," Margo said. "It is permeated with that of Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch.
"What's Latin for 'Bad aura, go away?'" Xander said, shrugging.
"Mala aura mea would be an adequate translation," Margo said, "but it will not be quite that simple."
"What must we do?" Giles immediately said, half a second ahead of Xander.
"There's nothing you can do," Margo said, "short of self—sacrifice."
Xander and Giles looked at each other, their faces unreadable in the dark.
"There is an alternative," Margo said, "though it is not without peril."
"The Cup?" Giles said tentatively. "Are you sure that is necessary, Dame Margo? If each of us sacrificed—"
"—an hand, it might still prove insufficient, Mr Giles."
"What peril?" Cordelia said warily, "What cup?"
Margo's lip twitched in the faintest of approving smiles.
Cordelia knew, of course, and no one here would be surprised by that, but Giles would be surprised if he found out Xander knew she already knew. He'd get suspicious, further complicating Cordelia's life.
No, if Cordelia decided to tell Giles any part of the truth about her arrangements with Margo, she wouldn't do it in the middle of a crisis, or with Margo herself listening. She'd wait for some quiet day, when Margo was long gone.
"Big magic cup," Xander said quickly, before the watchers could get into lecture mode. "Does water magic. Giles was really impressed by it."
"Nice," Cordelia said, then went back to the important point. "What peril?"
"The records of its use are scarce," Margo said, "but it is a vessel of godlike power. You cannot expect to be touched by it and remain unmarked."
"Like you?" Xander said. "What peril?"
"I am a student of the higher arcanum, Mr Alexander," Margo said. "Mistress Cordelia is not. She will be marked."
"How?" Cordelia said.
"Will she get cool powers?" Xander added, a smile in his voice.
"This is not a comic," Margo said sharply. "It is not impossible that you could acquire a mystical affinity with the oceans, Mistress Cordelia, but taking any advantage of that would be liable to require decades of arcane training. The price of your healing would come due somewhat sooner."
Two bad choices then, but why hurry to choose? Delay a little, and they should be able to find a better option.
"Do you freely consent to the use of the Cup of Albion on yourself?" Margo said.
"Why not send Giles and your aides to the library," Cordelia suggested. "You can keep me alive while they find a safer solution."
"We do not have time for that," Margo said. "Soon, Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch will rise."
"What!" Cordelia snapped. "You haven't k—"
"Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch has not walked this world since before the old ones fell," Margo said. "After so long a wait it will hardly cavil at a few hours more. Rather, if it is like most of its kin, it will spend the time preparing a suitable entrance for itself."
"How long?" Cordelia said, bracing herself for bad news.
Margo shrugged. "Perhaps at moonset, perhaps at local midnight, perhaps at the rising of Algol."
"How long," Cordelia repeated, hoping for a more useful answer, "and who is Pucher—"
"Call it Fein Dahlk," Giles said.
That name Cordelia remembered; the father of the fathers of ghouls, and major bad news.
"It will rise tonight," Margo said. "So the new prophecies tell us. I cannot be more precise."
"Why is Harmony still here?" Cordelia said, moving to the second most important question. Harmony should be at a safe distance, not within earshot.
"Margo thinks this might be your friends' fault," Xander said sourly. "You could have just taken names and addresses."
"Memory is fallible," Margo said. "The wards on this block should have held even if the hellmouth opened, yet they were shattered, not long after those girls arrived. If we are to find out why we have to interrogate them now or risk their forgetting vital evidence."
"They wouldn't do anything like that," Cordelia said firmly.
"So Harmony has claimed, most vehemently," Margo said, "but you are both forgetting our enemies would not require their consent. It would have been sufficient to trick one of them into carrying a portable hellmouth."
"But—" Cordelia began, then hesitated. Harmony would be able to protect their friends from Wilfred, if he stepped over the line; Cordelia had more urgent problems. "Use the cup."
"Are you sure?" Margo asked. "You may experience some discomfort."
Cordelia nodded. She couldn't ask anyone to sacrifice themselves for her, or start cutting bits off, and she needed to be healed before Fein Dahlk rose.
"Very well," Margo said, pulling the Cup out of her—
—apparently pulling it out of her duster, but everything Margo was wearing was illusion. Cordelia couldn't let herself forget that; forgot how to tell reality from illusion, slip into thinking of Margo as what she seemed, and she'd be in serious trouble.
"Brace yourself," Margo said, then hesitated. "I dare not expose you to the full power of the Cup when less might suffice. The potential consequences are too grave for that. Threefold repetition should be able to compensate for the reduced power."
Cordelia frowned uncertainly. She didn't want—
"Tenebris, calice quam maximo—" Margo said, dipping her fingers in the Cup.
"—impero ut fugias—"
Margo lifted her right hand, glistening in the dim light, and held it over Cordelia.
"—Cordelia sanetur."
A single drop of water fell from Margo's outstretched hand and Cordelia convulsed, every pinprick of decay ablaze with agony.
Cordelia bit her lip, struggling not to scream. She wasn't some pathetic little damsel, good only for screaming and being rescued; she was Cordelia Chase and she could take anything.
Eventually the pain stopped.
Cordelia looked at her arms, still riddled with rot, then sourly at Margo. "Your spell doesn't seem to have had much effect."
"Not yet," Margo mouthed, frowning slightly. "I will open the gates wider, despite the risk."
Again Margo dipped her fingers in the cup. "Tenebris, votis quam maximo—"
"Is it working?" Xander asked, still keeping his back to her.
"—impero ut fugias—"
"The Cup of Albion can raise the dead to true life," Giles said softly. "It will work."
"—Cordelia sanetur."
A scattering of drops fell from Margo's outstretched hand, and the pain returned, worse than before.
Under Cordelia's skin, shadows writhed, slowly shrinking, and as they shrunk they grew darker, windows into the void.
The pain stopped, but the rot remained.
"I may have been overcautious," Margo said, smiling apologetically, then more loudly, "If you can hear me, cover your ears, for I must speak a god's true name. Not you, Mistress Cordelia."
Giles immediately slammed his hands over his ears, Xander following suit a second later, after Giles had nudged him.
"Tenebris," Margo said, upending the Cup, "Nomine quam augustissimo, impero ut fugias. Cordelia sanetur."
The shadows shuddered under the torrent of healing waters, filling Cordelia with their agony, but they did not shrink or fade.
Then Margo spoke a Name, a Name that sounded like the laughter of children playing on a golden beach, like birds singing to greet the dawn, yet sweeter than either. It was the sound of new beginnings, of hope rekindled, of an end to all despair. It was the promise of spring.
Around Cordelia the world vanished, and with it all pain.
She was standing in a verdant meadow now, amidst a sea of flowers. Over her head the Cup floated, still pouring its waters over her, and opposite her sat Another, Her dress greener than the meadow, Her hair more golden than the sun.
Her hands were busy, spinning wool into thread, and though Her face seemed girlishly young, Her eyes were wells of wisdom, deeper than the oceans.
She could only be a god.
Cordelia froze, remembering some of the legends she had heard, and would hear. One wrong word and she might get to spend the next hundred years chained to a mountain, with a eagle ripping out her liver every morning. Worse, if the god really liked her, She might turn into a giant spider, and force Herself on Cordelia.
Hastily suppressing that image, Cordelia looked more closely at the god, hoping to spot some clue that would let her know what was safe.
After a moment, Cordelia frowned.
The Maiden's dress was speckled with mould, Her hands a maze of pale scars, and Her face was stiff with pain. Round Her feet the grass was still green but not far away it was withered, as if by untimely frost, and outside that circle lay a grey wasteland, a place of dust and shadows, barren of all life, and in those shadows, veiled by the dust, were shapes dimly seen, pressing ever inwards.
The symbolism was obvious, and unwelcome. Defeating an enemy that could scar the very gods would not be easy, even for Cordelia.
Still, Buffy was a good slayer, and Giles had enough books to answer any question. Together they should be able to win this battle, foiling Omega's current plot, and return Sunnydale to normal, by hellmouth standards. It would be difficult, maybe the hardest thing Cordelia had ever done, but she could do it, with a little help from Buffy and friends.
Winning the war would be harder, but Omega had to be destroyed, at any cost. While it existed, nowhere would be safe for her.
Obviously, Cordelia couldn't kill it herself, even if there were ways for her to gain sufficient power by the time she had learnt to wield it she would no longer be recognisable, but she could help Buffy kill it.
She would have to, as best she could. Do any less and she might lose everything.
The Maiden looked at Cordelia, and Cordelia understood.
Without hesitation, Cordelia nodded, accepting the bargain.
The world returned. The pain did not.
"Blanket," Cordelia said, standing up.
Agatha tossed her the blanket, and two safety pins.
"It worked?" Xander said.
"It worked," Cordelia said, securing the blanket with the pins. "You can look now."
"At what price?" Giles said, then looked at Margo. "I am not entirely convinced that such desperate measures were strictly necessary, Dame Margo. Would not a sevenfold repetition of the second line of your improvised invocation have been sufficient?"
"It would, Mr Giles," Margo said, "if all we were concerned about was the survival of Mistress Cordelia's body, but the survival of her mind was no less important. Even I would struggle to endure the levels of agony you so blithely talk of subjecting Mistress Cordelia to; she would have succumbed to madness before the fifth repetition."
"Not," Giles said, "if the pain were shared with a willing partner, Dame Margo. It would have been trivial for you to create a psychic link between Cordelia and me, enabling—"
"It doesn't matter now," Cordelia said, interrupting while Giles was ahead, then looked at Margo. "Get my mom out."
"I will," Margo said, "after deciding on appropriate safety precautions. Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch's ergovoric aura is already more potent than the records suggested, and growing stronger by the minute, yet we must reach into it to rescue your mother. There is a distinct possibility the aura will be able to surge up the channel of my magic, and taint both our souls."
"OK," Cordelia said reluctantly, not wanting to go through another healing.
"Don't worry," Agatha said. "Your mother, together with many of your neighbours, is probably being held suspended on the edge of death. Fein Dahlk will want to devour her soul, and it can't do that until it has passed the threshold."
Cordelia glared at Agatha, trying not to think about her mom, alone in the dark, abandoned by her daughter. "I am not worried."
"Did you get any cool powers?" Xander said quickly, smiling. "You don't look any different."
"No," Cordelia said, looking round. She couldn't see her house, or any piles of rubble where it had been, but it couldn't be that far away. Margo would want to be on the spot when Fein Dahlk rose.
"You know what price you paid?" Giles said.
Cordelia nodded. A park, surrounded by large houses, and there were two monkey puzzle trees together; it had to be the park diagonally across from her block, just a few hundred yards down the hill.
"What was the price?" Giles said, adjusting his glasses. "If it's too onerous, there may be ways to share the burden."
Cordelia shrugged. "I'll have to obey the sea seven times, or I get to haunt the waves forever."
She wouldn't have to do any suicidal or evil though, and the sea wouldn't ask for more than she could give, so that part of the bargain would only be an occasional inconvenience.
"Those were the exact words?" Giles said warily.
"There were no words," Cordelia said.
"Then how—" Xander began.
"Mr Alexander, it seems we have found another area where Mr Giles has failed to properly educate you," Agatha said. "Many gods consider words beneath them. They prefer to place their thoughts directly into their interlocutor's minds."
"Slept through elementary theology, did you?" Giles said, looking scornfully at Agatha. "It is not that they won't speak but that they can't. The thoughts of such powers are often too vast to be crammed into human words."
Before Agatha could reply, Giles turned back to Cordelia. "What about the Maiden? What geas did she place on you?"
"To face every challenge," Cordelia said, "approximately, but I won't have to do anything stupid. Drinking cyanide isn't a challenge; it's suicide."
Other facets of that half of the bargain might cause more problems, but it beat being dead and Giles might be able to help her renegotiate, later.
"And what did you get?" Giles asked, glancing meaningfully at Agatha.
"I got to live," Cordelia said.
"You didn't ask for anything else?" Agatha said, too casually.
"I've heard the stories about the people who did that," Cordelia said. "I didn't want snake hair."
"Have you heard the stories about the people who didn't?" Giles said.
"No," Cordelia said warily, and Agatha smiled at Giles. "Why?"
"You should," Margo said, "but not tonight, and not where Mr Alexander can hear. Now, if you're ready, I believe we are almost ready to begin the attempt to summon your mother. You will need to stand in front of me, and hold this."
Margo gave Cordelia a piece of paper, six lines of Latin neatly handwritten on it. "The main spell is in Sumerian, which I suppose you have not yet been taught."
"Slaying the undead," Giles said, "has a slightly higher priority than learning languages not spoken since before Troy fell, Dame Margo."
"Therefore," Margo said, completely ignoring Giles, "I will give you a gentle nudge when you need to speak your part. Do remember to pronounce all the letters. First though, I must summon a suitable defence. You might want to keep your distance for this. About ten feet should be safe."
Cordelia quickly backed away, stopping twenty feet from Margo then, once Giles was close enough, showed him the paper. "OK?"
Giles nodded. "She wouldn't stoop that low."
Margo held the Cup out in front of her. "Custodes prisca, votis vos arcesso. Custodite et nos es urbem."
"Necromancy," Giles said, staring intently at the Cup.
Two streams of rainbow light rose from the Cup, twisting round each other.
"But that's black magic," Xander said. "Isn't it? Zombies and stuff."
Three feet above the cup, the streams diverged, one heading off round the block, one circling round Cordelia, and the others.
"Normally," Giles said offhandedly, glaring at Margo, "but I'm sure Dame Margo will not accidentally summon an army of flesh eating zombies."
Away from the cup the streams expanded, glowing shapes just visible within them.
"How comforting," Cordelia said dryly, trying to catch Giles's attention. "What is she doing?"
The shapes were recognisable now; people, dressed in clothes from every age of history, from every continent of the world.
"She has summoned the spirits of watchers past to guard us," Giles said, his voice laden with disgust. "She should have let them rest in peace."
A samurai drifted past, saluting them with his sword.
Nearby, someone whimpered, and Cordelia turned.
Aura and the others were huddled together just inside the inner circle, staring aghast at the spirits, while Harmony and Wilfred struggled to reassure them.
Cordelia took one step towards her friends, then hesitated. Rescuing her mom was more important, so she had to stay near Margo, and if she went down there Harmony would start arguing, which would only get the other girls more upset.
"Aggie," one of the ghosts said, looming out of the circle.
Agatha beamed, her eyes shining with joy. "Dad!"
"Rupert," another ghost said, a grey-haired woman in fifties clothes. "You have done well."
"Gran," Giles said, smiling, then scowled at Margo. "How dare she—"
"I want to be here," Giles's gran said. "I swore to serve while life endures, and it endures still."
"That oath means while your life endures," Giles said. "You should be enjoying—"
"Some interpret it thus," his gran said, "and prove themselves lesser men. It will be your choice, of course. In the instant of your death you may choose to dwell in bliss while the living suffer, or you may dedicate your soul anew to the eternal battle, as I did. I'm sure you will make the right choice, when your time comes."
"You didn't talk like that when you were alive," Giles said. "You always said—"
"The dead see more clearly," his gran said. "Margo is wrong about many things, but she does understand duty."
"Barely," Agatha's dad sneered, "or she would not encourage your rapscallion in his indulgence of these parvenus but then she is no better herself."
As the two ghosts glared, frost condensing in the air between them, Cordelia groaned. What did it take to stop watchers arguing with each other?
"What did you say about my beloved grandson, Henry Broadhurst," Giles's gran snapped.
Xander winced.
"He is not the greatest of watchers," Henry said, "but then his family have only been watchers for five generations. My family have been watchers since the reign of Athelstan. Naturally, we have a greater understanding of the vocation—"
"And yet," Giles's gran said, "in all those generations you have not one watcher of any great distinction. We need only look at your daughter, Margo's lackey, to see how little family history means."
"What do you mean by that?" Henry said, radiating cold fury.
"Um," Xander said, pointing up the hill. "Big evil monster, that way. Shouldn't you be fighting it, not each other."
"Hasn't young Rupert told you yet?" Henry said. "I wonder why."
Giles sighed. "I have. The aura that afflicted Cordelia is in certain respects the demonic equivalent of body odour, though the parallel is not exact. It is interesting to note—"
"You can explain that another time, Rupert," his gran said. "We only have a few minutes left before battle is joined. The important point is that Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch itself is not yet physically present in our world, though it is sufficiently powerful to cast a long shadow before it, a shadow in itself more dangerous than many demons. Furthermore, we spirits are not strong enough to attack Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch and win. We can only shield you, and this town, from the side-effects when it contends with the Cup."
"Are you ready, Mistress Cordelia?" Margo said. "The circle is complete."
Cordelia quickly walked over to join Margo, glancing uncertainly at the ghosts, many of them chatting with their neighbours.
There were thousands of them, packed seven deep round the inner circle, and maybe millions more in the outer circle, protecting Sunnydale. Even a single ghost would be a match for demons, as Harmony had been, and these were watchers, many with magical training. If their discussions got too vigorous, there'd be nothing left for the horror to kill.
"Remember," Margo said, "all the c's are hard. Speak your lines on my prompt."
Cordelia nodded, staring hopefully up the hill. Would her mom just appear at her feet, or would she come flying though the air?
Margo placed both hands on Cordelia's shoulders, and began chanting.
Cordelia's skin tingled pleasantly, warmth radiating out from Margo's hands.
Margo squeezed Cordelia's right shoulder.
"Mater," Cordelia said, one of the few words in the spell she recognised, "sanguis tui sanguinis sum, corpus tui corporis, puella tui pectoris."
Without thought Cordelia pointed, sparks flickering along her arm. Her mom was that way, as surely as water was wet.
Margo chanted another few dozen syllables, then squeezed Cordelia's shoulder again.
"Propter sanguinem quem communicant," Cordelia said, and beneath her skin her blood began to glow, "pont struatur trans noctis barathrum."
Cordelia looked at her hand, the translucent flesh a thin veil over ruby rivers, and smiled. Soon her mom would be safe, soon.
In front of Cordelia the ghosts wobbled, shaken by some unseen blow, but they did not fall and their lines remained firm.
Margo speeded up her chant.
Memories of her mom drifted across Cordelia's mind, of shopping trips together and family vacations, of her mom's face, maggots crawling in her eyes as-
"No," Margo shouted, her voice a army in full charge, and the world filled with rainbow light.
Cordelia blinked, rubbing her bruised side, and looked around.
She'd been thrown twenty feet across the circle, a dozen yards from Margo. Why?
"You OK?" Xander said, rushing to help her up.
Margo lay sprawled on the ground, her cheek resting in a pool of vomit, while Agatha knelt over her, clear evidence something had gone wrong. Fein Dahlk must have struck back, despite the protective circle.
"I'm sorry," Giles said softly. "Dame Margo failed."
Cordelia glared at the ghosts. "What went wrong? You were supposed—"
"Margo had to use the bonds that tie mother and child," Giles's gran said, "but those bonds run through realms barred to the dead. Margo made of them a bridge, and across that bridge the shadow of Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch stormed, perverting your memories of your mother."
"But in your mind it gained no purchase," Henry said, "and your body remains free from its taint. For that small comfort you may thank us."
As Xander opened his mouth, Giles's gran smiled.
"You need not worry," she said. "In the battle to come Margo will not need to expose herself thus to cast her spells. The sight of Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch will be connection enough for her then, and against attacks that come through that channel we can defend rather more effectively."
Margo stood up, the vomit stains fading away. "I'm sorry, Mistress Cordelia. I have failed you."
"If I meditate, Fein Dahlk won't be able to get in my mind, right?" Cordelia said. "We've got to try again, while there is still time."
"It is too late," Margo said. "We have not trained you well enough to shield your mind against Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch, and it is stronger than we feared."
"Then think of something else," Cordelia said firmly, then looked at Giles. "There must be something you can do. What about the Cup?"
"It is too late," Margo said, "and she is mired too deep. There is nothing I can do, no hope I can offer. I have failed you."
Cordelia stopped listening. Her mom was doomed. Abandoned by her daughter, she would die alone, and in torment.
It wasn't Cordelia's fault, she had tried her hardest to keep her mom her alive, but—
No, she hadn't. She could have asked the Maiden for help. She should have, whatever the cost.
Even if the price had been her own life, it would have been worth it, death was not the end, but no, she had selfishly thought only of her own safety.
And there were other things she could have done, other ways in which she had failed her mom.
Her death would not be solely Cordelia's fault, of course, Fein Dahlk had a larger share of the blame, but it was undeniably partly Cordelia's fault.
Because of her, her mom would die alone in a pit of bones, her fragile sanity shattered by the horror that would soon kill her. She would die, and Cordelia would never see her again, in this life or the next.
Cordelia's mom would die, and she would never see her again. They'd never go shopping together again, never giggle over old photos or argue about Cordelia's boyfriends. Her mom would never see her wedding, never see her grandchild. She had been killed before her time, and Cordelia would never see her again. Never.
"It's OK," Xander muttered, gently patting Cordelia on the back. "You've got us."
Confused, Cordelia looked down, at a patch of damp cloth just under her cheek, covering—
Cordelia hurriedly stepped back, away from Xander. Stand that close to him, dressed only in a blanket, and he would think inappropriate thoughts, since he was male, and she was beautiful.
Xander smiled gently. "You—"
"That did not happen," Cordelia said firmly, with a glare calculated to kill off any false impressions Xander might have gained.
Giles glanced at Xander, who nodded.
"Mistress Cordelia," Wilfred said.
"Yes?" Cordelia said, turning her glare on him, defying him to offer her comfort. Letting him know her vulnerabilities would be a near fatal mistake, giving him too much leverage over her in the long years ahead, but it had only been a momentary lapse, so a display of iron self—control should be enough to outweigh it.
"May I offer you all our most sincere regrets over—"
"It wasn't Margo's fault," Cordelia said graciously, not solely Margo's fault. "My mom was an embarrassment, and half-mad."
Which meant absolutely nothing. Cordelia would still grieve for her, but not here, surrounded by unfriendly eyes, with a demon about to rise. No, she would wait until she was alone, and safe, then quietly mourn her mom in a way that no one could use against her.
"I don't believe you've met my Aunt Cora," Wilfred said, his initial hesitation barely perceptible.
"Nice necklace," Cordelia said, glancing at the ghost hovering by his side, a short woman in a flowery dress and a shapeless hat. "Have you finished interrogating my other friends?"
"As you can see," Cora said, pointing down the hill, at the far edge of the circle—
Cordelia looked. Aura, and the others, all lay unmoving on the grass, only Harmony remaining upright, alone with her sorrow.
"—we have put them to sleep," Cora said, "temporarily, for their own good, all except Harmony. All the children of this town have iron in their souls but that one has steel in hers."
"If only there were more like her," Giles's gran said, "and like these brave children. The world will have much need of their like before its end."
"There are watchers enough," Henry said, "but not the time needed to season these youths."
"How soon?" Giles said, looking suspiciously at Henry.
"A year, no more," Henry said, shrugging.
"Another prophecy?" Giles muttered, then smiled at his gran. "What's the loophole?"
"This doom you may not evade," the ghosts chorused, a myriad spectral voices speaking as one. "This world shall perish before April comes again."
Cordelia smiled. "Two loopholes."
"Some battles cannot be won," Henry said. "This world is doomed. In the face of that certain defeat, we will see your true worth. Do you do good because it is right, or merely because you believed it to be the winning side?"
"There is always hope," Giles said, and Xander nodded.
"The King with all the night at heel is come from realms of mourning," Cora said, her voice sombre. "His armies drink the rivers dry, their wings befoul the air, and they that stand shall die for naught, and home there's no returning."
Giles glared at her. "Should we then sit down and comb our hair?"
Cordelia scowled at Giles. Just because she understood the importance of proper hair care—
—but Giles wouldn't do that, not with the Bodsworths listening. It must be some English proverb.
"What of the trumpet that shall never sound retreat," Giles said, ignoring Cordelia. "What—"
"It lies trampled in the mud," his Gran said. "That power has lain besieged in its last redoubt for centuries now."
Giles paled, then began cleaning his glasses. "I have summoned its wrath to my hand this past week."
"Glorious beyond all measure it once was," his gran said. "Terribly bright it remains, even in these, its twilight hours. It shall never die, but its light shall soon be denied us."
"Cheerful, aren't you," Xander said, smiling. "Just what we need before a fight."
"Those who place their faith in false hopes too often falter when their hopes fail them," Henry said. "True men need no such crutch. Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose, more proud the spirit as our power lessens! Mind shall not falter nor mood waver, though doom shall come and dark conquer."
"I am glad to see that death does not dull ones memory for the classics, Broadhurst," Giles said icily. "Shouldn't you be preparing for the fight?"
"We are," Cora said. "The dead are not bound by the limits of the flesh."
"If doom inescapable troubles you," Henry said, "you are unworthy of your oaths. It would wager it does not trouble Margo, for all her unnumbered faults."
Margo looked up from her preparations. "My late colleague overstates his case. Clearly, even death has not taught him the virtues of moderation, or of silence."
"Margo—"
"Your prophecy is old news," Margo said, silencing Henry. "I made my peace with it long ago, but putting off the inevitable is the essence of life. I will not deny myself all hope. Even should this world perish, mankind may rise from the ashes of defeat, but the world shall not perish this year. With the wisdom of the watchers guiding her the slayer shall forestall doom, as she has so many times before."
Reassuring, and Margo's phrasing suggested a third loophole in the ghosts' prophecy.
"Margo," Henry said, then hesitated.
Up the hill, above the ruins of Cordelia's house, the sky darkened, becoming a pillar of shadow, piercing the clouds.
Margo held the Cup out in front of her.
Bones erupted from the ruins, rising high above the houses, a fountain of death.
"What's she waiting for?" Xander muttered.
As a second fountain erupted, a myriad skeletons flung into the night, the first changed.
"Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch now shapes its body from the bones of those its worshippers slew," Giles's Gran said. "Margo must wait until it is committed before she can strike, for until then it will not truly be in our world."
The first fountain's new shape was recognisable now, a head the size of a small house mounted on a neck rising hundreds of feet into the air.
More mouths opened in that bone-white neck, only a few feet across; leech-mouths, sucking endlessly at the air.
Margo smiled as the fifth head took shape. "Lacrimae caeli hoc monstrum quam turpissimum a terra abluant."
"Premature," Henry said, as the heavens opened. "Only the hand has yet emerged."
The rain bounced down, great curtains of water, soaking Cordelia to the skin.
"That is sufficient," Giles's gran said. "To wait for more would be hubris."
The rain quickened, drowning the grass in a sea of mud, flowing swiftly down the hill.
Giles didn't seem to notice, but he was English.
His T-shirt plastered to his skin, Xander wrung the water from his hair, a futile gesture, then looked at Giles. "Let me guess. Fein Dahlk is afraid of water."
"No," Henry said, as Cordelia sank ankle deep into the mud, "but this is holy water."
"It's not working," Cordelia said; Fein Dahlk was not bursting into flame, and the pillar of shadow round it was slowly expanding, "but we're getting wet."
Giles's gran smiled, and the rain stopped, inside the circle.
"It is working," she said. "It will prevent us from being distracted by lesser menaces, and it may cause Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch some small discomfort."
Cordelia plucked at her sopping wet blanket. "What about us?"
"Concern with—" Henry began.
"Dry us out," Giles said. "That does not look much like a hand."
"Look again," Cora said, banishing the mud and water with an idle gesture. "Does it not appear familiar in shape?"
Giles smiled. "There is the not so small matter of size."
"Fulmina," Margo said, her finger tracing the Cup's rim, and the sky blazed with lightning, bolt after bolt hammering down on Fein Dahlk's heads.
Dazzled, Cordelia looked away.
"The First opened the gates of Proteus to the Old Ones," Cora said, once the thunder had died away, "then—"
"The details of that are not immediately relevant," Giles's gran said. "That is the hand of Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch, exactly as was prophesied."
Cordelia turn to look.
Four of the heads were aligned along a gentle arc, like her own fingers, with the fifth, shorter, head in front, and slightly to one side.
None of them showed any sign whatsoever of the lightning storm.
"That's a hand?" Xander said, his eyes widening. "How big is Fein Dahlk?"
The heads whistled, low and doleful, and five jets of black flame streaked towards Margo.
"Big," Henry said. "All the Old Ones waxed gargantuan during their descent into demonhood but Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch appears to have grown larger still during its long exile."
The flames splashed against the outermost rank of ghosts.
"Not a metaphor, then," Wilfred said, almost to himself. "I'm not entirely we want to see the rest of it."
Three of the ghosts were burning now, only three of the myriad thousands, but that was three more than there should have been.
"Such is the way of prophecies," Cora said. "The metaphorical proves literal; the literal, metaphorical."
One of the ghosts managed to beat out the fires in her sarong, but the other two vanished, consumed in the flames.
As the ghost in the sarong nursed her injured hand — injured? How could ghosts get hurt? — the others nearby tried to pull her back, off the front line, but she refused to move.
Margo looked uncertainly at the ghosts, then stared thoughtfully into the depths of the Cup.
Giles looked questioningly at his gran, who smiled wanly.
"Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch is an eater of souls," she said. "Tonight we, the dead, risk oblivion that the oblivious living may remain safe."
"What!" Giles shouted, face purpling. "She cannot ask that of you. It—"
"I could ask no less of myself," his gran said. "I shall never forsake my duty, no matter what the cost."
"Nor," Henry said, "would we be any safer had we taken the cowards' part. In pride the web eternal has been rent. Soon the lords of hell shall learn despair. The dark sun shall rise to shadow the brightest star and time dance to the beat of the fool. So this world shall perish, but Omega shall not be sated. It shall storm the very gates of paradise and naught shall stand against it. The dead shall die once more, and the gods shall follow them, marching into oblivion's fetid maw."
"Another prophecy?" Cordelia said, faking a yawn. There would be a way to evade it. There always was, and if there wasn't, she would make one.
"An abbreviated paraphrase of a passage from the Al Azif," Giles's gran said. "It is not so much as prophecy as a manifesto."
"The Al Azif is centuries old," Giles said. "It has been invalidated by the new prophecies."
Margo turned to face the west.
"It remains Omega's will that those words shall come to pass," Cora said, "and there are few who can gainsay it, even in part."
"There are none," Henry said.
"Dei marinos," Margo said. "Calice quam maximo vos arcesso. Nobis succurrite."
Nothing happened.
"If you would bind the fool, Henry Broadhurst," Giles's gran said, contemptuously, "you are even more foolish than I imagined."
"Madam," Agatha said hotly. "My dad is not a fool."
Cora shrugged. "That doom shall come to pass, somewhere, somewhen. But it need not be here, Henry, nor now, not in its entirety. That this world shall perish is certain, that we dead shall perish with it seems inescapable, but the brightest star need not once more fall, and beyond the circles of this world hope shall yet remain evergreen."
"A fool's hope," Henry sneered.
"What was that spell?" Cordelia asked, hoping the chance to show off would distract the watchers from their quarrels.
Frowning, Giles looked westwards. "She has asked the gods of the sea for help."
"Not asked," his gran said. "Demanded."
"I would not put it quite that strongly," Henry said. "The interaction of Cup and gods is a fascinating subject, with many intricacies. You may recall—"
"Doesn't seem have worked," Cordelia said dryly.
Cora smiled. "From the ocean help comes, as fast as a horse can run."
Then it would be two minutes yet; the sea was nearly a mile away.
Fein Dahlk hummed, a wordless dirge, and the shadow round it swelled, sweeping over the nearest houses.
"Beyond the circles of this world," Giles said, looking at Cora, "are only the demon dimensions. This is the centre, the best of all worlds, least touched by Omega. If it were to perish, how could any hope survive?"
The houses shimmered and were gone, only dust remaining, drifting up the hill.
"To destroy this world is not to destroy the universe that holds it," Wilfred said. "Arrangements have been made."
Agatha nodded. "I have seen the list. While the board make the Old One's victory Pyrrhic, their aides, and other council members, shall shepherd the chosen through hidden ways to a new Earth, elsewhere."
As one, Fein Dahlk's heads all looked up, then bent inwards.
"Ve—" Margo began.
Overhead, the clouds were ripped from the sky, sucked into Fein Dahlk's many mouths.
"—to," Margo said, too late.
So the holy rain had been bothering Fein Dahlk, but not enough.
"Mostly academics, of course," Wilfred added, "but also the better artists and authors, those with true talent. No politicians, though. We do not need their sort."
Then Wilfred shrugged. "We will need a few thousand young women too, to equalise the gender ratio and ensure a second generation, but they need no special qualification. We will just grab some from the streets of Cambridge."
Lost for words, Cordelia glared furiously at Wilfred. That plan was not acceptable.
"At best, a stopgap measure," Henry said dismissively, "and against the doom that comes, it will be of no avail. This entire universe, and all the multitudinous dimensions that surround it, shall perish before April comes again."
"Es non," Margo said, pointing, and a ball of rainbow flame engulfed Fein Dahlk's nearest head.
"So it shall," Giles's gran said, "yet hope shall survive."
"How?" Giles said. "Where?"
"This universe is vast," his gran said, "your teachers told you, a trillion trillion galaxies scattered across the vault of heaven, and around are arrayed a myriad other dimensions, each no less vast, and beyond them lies only the void, out of which Omega came ravening long ago. Now all the dimensions save this lie under its shadow, and the worlds they hold are the abode of demons, rightly called hells by mortal man."
Margo frowned in concentration, clenching her fist, and the flames spread down Fein Dahlk's neck.
Giles nodded. "That is what I was taught. Are you saying they were wrong?"
Xander looked sideways at Cordelia, pretending to conceal a yawn.
Cordelia nodded. If she were reunited with a long dead relative, she wouldn't ask them for a lecture on cosmology, or anything else, but watchers had strange priorities.
The flames died away, leaving Fein Dahlk unmarked, but the watchers paid no attention.
They'd noticed, their suppressed winces were proof enough of that, but apparently they would rather learn stuff than watch a fight, even with their lives at stake, either that, or they were just trying to impress each other by showing how calm they could stay in a crisis, and hoping someone else would blink first.
Well, it would not be Cordelia.
"Not precisely wrong," Giles's gran said. "This world is as they told you, but though it is all that is, it is not all that can be. Rather, it is but one twig on the tree of alternities, and that tree but one tree in a forest without end, and beyond that forest, who knows? Omega is a blight on the entire forest, a threat to worlds beyond imagining, but there are places deeper in the forest its malice has yet only lightly touched, places where the dark holds little fear."
Fein Dahlk's heads all whipped round to face the west, leaning as far forwards as they could.
Its shadow swept over three trees, dust on the wind, slowly advancing towards the inner circle.
"When the dark rises round them, they too shall fall," Henry said. "We must fight on regardless, though all hope fails us."
"A fine principle," Cora said, "but hope has not yet failed us yet. We need not borrow trouble."
From out of the west came a drumming, as of surf beating on the cliffs.
Cordelia squinted, struggling to see through the two circles of ghosts. Something was definitely moving out there, something large.
Then it leapt through the outer circle, and Cordelia froze in shocked delight.
Its body was the rich blue of a tropical sea, shimmering under a cloudless sky, the muscles bunching under its skin the ocean swell; its mane, the white foam of the waves, breaking on a moonlit shore; its eyes, pearls, lit from within by silver fire, and its horn was a spiral of golden sand.
It was a unicorn, beauty and innocence given form, shaped from the waters of the earth by the lords of the sea to answer to Margo's call.
It was also the size of an elephant.
"Small, isn't it?" Xander said. "Barely a mouthful."
From all five heads jetted black flame, shrouding the unicorn in shadow.
Overhead the stars shone down, glinting a dull blood-red.
Red? Since when?
Cordelia nudged Giles, pointing upwards.
Giles watched the flames rage a moment longer, then looked up. "Ah, yes. Of course. We'll not be able to see the stars much longer."
Henry nodded. "Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch's aura saps the energy of all things within its shadows, even light itself."
Cora smiled. "Thus, your earlier ailment. Your flesh dissolved into a chemical soup, and Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch drank the energy released, loosely speaking. The details of the mechanism are really quite interesting."
"Not when you are on the receiving end," Cordelia said.
"In any event," Henry said, "it makes Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch rather difficult to kill, for it can drain energy from the very magics used against it."
The flames died away, leaving a scar down the unicorn's left flank, a scar the sickly green of stagnant waters filled with foul weeds and fouler creatures.
The unicorn's horn glowed briefly, and it was healed.
"There are limits to even its appetite," Giles's gran said, "and the Cup of Albion can surpass them. If all else failed Margo will stuff raw magic down its gullets until it explodes, literally."
The unicorn lowered its horn, and charged.
"We'd lose LA," Giles protested.
The unicorn dodged a lunging head, aiming for the base of the nearest neck.
"Better LA than the world," Cora said.
Technically, yes, but that was not a choice Cordelia ever wanted to have to make.
"Better neither," Xander said.
The unicorn speared Fein Dahlk with its horn, then retreated a few step, leaving a small hole pulsing with the horn's golden light.
Fein Dahlk screamed, its necks writhing in agony, then blasted the unicorn with another burst of black flame.
Giles's gran smiled. "Near-ultimate healing powers do not mix well with their antithesis."
"Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch has not yet shown its full," Cora hesitated, smiling, "hand. Unlike many of its kin, it has wisdom enough to know the value of keeping something in reserve."
"Nor has Margo has yet unleashed the Cup of Albion's full might," Giles's gran said.
"She should have," Henry said, "but—"
"She is unaccustomed to wielding such power." Giles's gran said. "Fortunately, for once she is listening to her colleagues' advice, and practising restraint."
Good advice, most of the time, but Margo was being too cautious. What she'd done so far clearly wasn't enough to more than annoy Fein Dahlk so she should escalate.
Of course, if Margo's colleagues on the board had forced a promise out of her after the earlier incidents, she wouldn't be able to escalate.
"If she was not," Giles's gran went on, "if she had kicked the floodgates fully open rather than slowly easing them ajar, then tsunami would already be hammering this coast."
Now that was a good reason for caution.
The unicorn galloped out of the flames, its horn glowing as it healed itself, then wheeled and leapt at Fein Dahlk, slashing a golden line across its shortest neck.
Henry shrugged. "Perhaps, and perhaps she is merely weak. In any event, this is a useful dress rehearsal for the battles that shall come, before the world perishes."
Fein Dahlk's shadow crawled across the grass, leaving behind a blasted plain, riven by deep cracks.
Xander looked at Henry. "Can't you say anything cheerful? Tell us something good that's going to happen."
Cora smiled. "Your soul echoes to the laughter of the bells. Of your future even the eyes of the dead can see nothing plainly."
Margo dipped one finger in the Cup, then lifted it to her lips and whispered. "Caligines salubres quinque."
A moment later five wisps of mist appeared, travelling away from Margo, towards Fein Dahlk.
"Yet some thing's are clear," Giles's gran said. "Your destiny is tied with Cordelia's, and with your absent friend, who now runs wild with the slayer."
Exchanging puzzled looks, Wilfred and Agatha began quietly talking to each other.
The wisps were larger now, over ten feet across and still mist was condensing around them.
"What bells?" Xander said quickly.
"The laughter of one that says not 'Kismet', that heeds not fate," Cora said.
Henry scowled. "This lad is hardly Godfrey at the gate."
"Great," Xander said. "More riddles."
Giles whispered something to Xander, hopefully an explanation.
The five mists wrapped themselves round Fein Dahlk's heads, thickening into fog.
While it was distracted, the unicorn attacked.
"Nor is he yet Tamerlane, come again," Cora said. "He may yet choose right."
"More history," Giles said quietly, looking at Xander.
Black flames danced across pale skin, burning away the fog, and the earth trembled.
Cora smiled. "To answer your question more clearly would be hubris at which even the gods would balk."
"The sensible gods anyway," Giles's gran said, "few as they are. The witch answered your question with truth disguised as lie wrapped in a semblance of truth; no more dare we tell you."
Fein Dahlk spat black lightning, ebon bolts that smashed into the wall of ghosts, obliterating them by the dozen, but the survivors shuffled round, filling up the gaps.
"And me?" Cordelia said casually, not looking away from the battle. Anything the ghosts told her would probably be grim, and couched in riddles, but even the smallest hint might help her stop more things going wrong.
Fein Dahlk was pockmarked with scars now, some fresh, some healing, and Margo was looking thoughtfully into the Cup, presumably planning her next spell.
"Your future is clouded by his presence in it," Henry said, "but this much is clear: in the year that is to come you will know little joy, and that tinged by much sorrow. Ever downward your life shall spiral, and all that you loved you shall lose."
In front of Margo the ghosts linked hands as Fein Dahlk's shadow reached them.
"For a time," Cora said, "until after your choice is made, for good or ill. Then you may find some semblance of joy while the world burns around you."
The shadow hesitated, then surged forwards.
A few ghosts fell back, their light dimmed, but the rest held firm.
"Perhaps," Henry said. "The omens are clouded, but one thing is certain. This world shall perish before April comes again. What joy can be found in the face of certain defeat?"
The shadow split, oozing round the sides of the circle.
Most people seem to manage," Giles's gran said, then looked at Cordelia. "For you, the next year will be a study in suffering, true, but when the world perishes you will not perish with it. You three children of the hellmouth will pass beyond the circles of this world. Into those far realms we dead cannot see, nor can we read the words of destiny graven on your souls, but it may be that you will find peace there, and happiness. I can offer you no greater cheer."
Cordelia smiled. She wasn't going to lose, of course. Together with Buffy and her friends she would stop whatever doom the ghosts saw coming, destroy omega, and then live a long and happy life. Still, the ghost's words would be comforting to remember if she ever had a really bad day. Even if she could see no hope of winning, at least she'd know she'd survive, in some form.
She might have to spend eternity as a ghost, but that would still be better than having her soul destroyed.
Ebon lightning crawled over Fein Dahlk's skin, its scars fast healing.
"... something we can do?" Xander said.
"No," Henry said. "This is one of the Old Ones, admittedly only of middling rank, but still far beyond your power to harm."
Cordelia nodded. Having to watch helplessly never felt good, it was much better when things were under her control, and doing nothing was also tickling the edges of her bargain with the Maiden, but there was nothing she could do.
At least she had Xander and Giles to talk to. Harmony was all alone.
Cordelia glanced at her, still standing guard over the sleeping bodies of her other friends, and sighed.
None of them should have been here. None of them should ever have been anywhere near a demon. They should all have remained untouched by the hellmouth, as they had in the original history, but Cordelia had failed them.
Harmony, the real Harmony, was the worst off, trapped in the morgue with a horde of demon ghosts, but the others were suffering too now.
They had come to visit her, seeking reassurance after the fake Harmony had pointed out the unavoidable minor oddities in her recent behaviour, and she had abandoned them, leaving them alone in a collapsing house, making no effort to protect them from Wilfred or the ghosts.
That was no way to repay friendship.
Nor would their problems end when this night did. They might manage to repress the memories, but its shadows would haunt their nightmares, and their image of Cordelia would be forever tainted.
Nothing like this must be allowed to happen to them again.
Margo looked thoughtfully at the unicorn. "Dei marinos, calice quam maximo impero ut propugnatori vestro des plus potestatis."
The unicorn reared up, hooves pawing the air, then further up, its body dissolving into sea spray.
"Wait," Giles said as Xander looked at him.
The sea spray spiralled upwards, a waterspout reaching high into the air.
A hundred feet above Fein Dahlk's highest head it flowed into a new shape, a swan glowing with silver light.
How could Cordelia keep Aura and the rest safe though? She had thought merely keeping the weird stuff secret would be enough to keep them safe, but that clearly wasn't going to be enough, this time round.
The swan dived at Fein Dahlk, the beating of its wings like the roar of the waves.
This time Cordelia was not on the edge of the weirdness, easily able to flit between two worlds.
The swan hit Fein Dahlk like a tidal wave, slamming the head back, almost to the ground.
This time Cordelia had deliberately put herself near the centre of the weirdness. She'd had to or she would have been complicit in the deaths she failed to prevent, and it had also left her well placed to punish Xander for his betrayal. Nothing too drastic, of course, she might need him to save her life one day, and he hadn't actually done anything yet.
The unicorn was back, dancing atop Fein Dahlk's middle head, its horn glowing golden as it warded off the ebon flames licking at its feet.
Xander smiled.
"Celebrations would be somewhat premature at this point," Henry said.
Cracks spread across Fein Dahlk's head, radiating out from the dancing hooves.
"How about now?" Xander said.
The head crumbled under the repeated blows, great chunks of undead flesh falling away, swiftly dissolving into a rain of human bones.
"No," Henry said.
Xander glanced conspiratorially at Giles's gran. "Was he like this when he was alive."
Fein Dahlk's other heads weaved through the air, tracing out a complex pattern.
"Mr Alexander," Agatha said, "my—"
"I only met him twice," Giles's gran said, ignoring Agatha, "his party was not welcome at my table, but I did hear that—"
Fein Dahlk's shadow surged forwards, racing where it had crawled, swiftly filling the space between the twin circles of ghosts.
Under its touch the ground disintegrated. Soil, concrete, sewers, bedrock; all became but dust, sucked into Fein Dahlk's many mouths.
Inside the sheltering circle, all was still.
With the ground gone, Cordelia could more clearly see what had lain beneath her block, a sea of bones half a mile wide, its depth unguessable, the legacy of the Delapores.
Xander stared, his mouth moving silently.
Out of that obscene sea, Fein Dahlk's hand rose, now fully visible, a fanged mouth fifty yards across dominating its palm. There were tentacles rimming that mouth, where lips should have been, and many other mouths festooning the palm, each under normal circumstances fearsome, but all pointless decoration next to a mouth that could swallow a whale whole.
A blue flash, and overhead new stars appeared, most clustered thickly in a single river of light, stretching from horizon to horizon, a few, isolated pinpricks in the dark.
"What happened?" Cordelia said, looking at Giles.
"Why?" Xander said. "Why would anyone worship that?"
"Perhaps because they wanted to be eaten first," Giles's gran suggested. "That is how it normally starts."
Around Fein Dahlk's wrist the bones were moving, slowly spiralling inwards.
"Mass elemental transmutation?" Giles said uncertainly, "but what about the air?"
Xander looked at Giles's gran, silently demanding an explanation.
"Some people," she said, "do not cope well with the prospect of ultimate defeat. Rather than struggle against the fall of endless night they rush embrace the lesser evil."
Between one heartbeat and the next, Fein Dahlk's middle head reappeared, completely undamaged.
Cora nodded at Giles. "You need not worry. Devouring the air would have silenced it, and no demon would do that to itself."
"That," Xander said firmly, jabbing his finger at the pit, "is not a lesser evil."
"That," Giles's gran said, "will have come later. Being eaten by Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch is slightly better than living under the rule of the Old Ones, in much the way that Alaska is slightly warmer than the deep Antarctic, so fools worship it, and pride themselves on being able to make hard choices."
Henry nodded. "At first, they may have found the necessary rites repugnant but, after a few years of Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch caressing their souls, they would have come to enjoy them, elaborating on them for their private pleasure. Brought up amidst such evil, subsequent generations would ever fallen ever deeper into depravity, becoming as foul as any demon."
Xander stared at Henry, who shrugged. "It is a common pattern, if not always on quite this scale."
The swan circled Fein Dahlk's heads, then dived into the pit.
Cordelia glanced at Cora, then back at Giles. "What happened to the ground? Are we going to fall in there next?"
"If you were going to you would already have done so," Cora said. "The rocks beneath you were devoured too but we, the dead, are keeping you afloat. You will not fall unless we perish."
Cordelia was not reassured.
Nor, judging by the way he was looking suspiciously at the ground, was Xander.
"Fein Dahlk drained the energy from all matter within his aura," Giles said, "to fuel his magics, incidentally transmuting it all to iron dust."
Which it could only do once. The Cup's power was inexhaustible, so Margo should be able to win a battle of attrition, if it came to that.
Looking like a bolt of white lightning, the swan struck Fein Dahlk's palm, destroying one of the mouth tentacles.
The others wrapped round the swan, pulling it into the cental maw.
Cora smiled. "Rather ambitious, even for Fein Dahlk. "
Giles nodded. "As for the sky, those are not the normal stars.
Margo looked uncertainly into the Cup.
"They are dead stars," Henry said, pointing skywards, "their internal fires spent. We see now the corpse light of their last days, the dying scream of matter spiralling into oblivion."
Giles smiled. "He means pulsars and black holes. Fein Dahlk's aura is sapping so much energy from light that gamma rays have become visible, an interesting phenomenon. There are many astronomers who would give their right arms to see this."
Harmony took two steps towards Cordelia, and the others, then stopped and turned her back on them.
"Harmony?" Cordelia said tentatively.
"Stay away from me," Harmony said, her voice perfectly controlled. "Do your weird stuff, and leave me alone."
Cordelia sighed. There would be no helping Harmony while she was in that mood.
In fact, it might be best to avoid her for a few days, give her some time to calm down and think about the good Cordelia was doing, although—
"Do we look like astronomers, Mr Giles," Wilfred said sharply. "Your priorities—"
"If we never looked up in wonder at the stars," Henry said, "we would not be human. If you do not understand that, you prove once again that you are not good enough for my daughter."
Cordelia inwardly groaned. Verbal jousting could be fun, and maybe a distraction from worry, but not if it got personal.
Then Henry glanced sideways at Giles. "And your terminology lacks poetry. How can you expect your slayer to be inspired by such banal language?"
Henry was a fool; good with books, perhaps, but hopeless with people, and not worth Cordelia's time.
While Giles and his gran advanced on Henry, clearly intent on re-educating him, Cordelia turned her attention to more important matters; her attention, but not her eyes. The watchers might be able to blithely ignore Fein Dahlk, trusting the ghosts to protect them, but Cordelia couldn't, and Margo too needed watching.
Avoiding Harmony would also mean avoiding the other girls, giving Harmony ample opportunity to poison their minds against her, and—
Gwen whimpered in her sleep.
But was that necessarily a bad thing? Let Harmony get her way and the girls would avoid her, bad for Cordelia's public image, but better than having anymore of them follow Cordelia into trouble, as the real Harmony had done.
White mist poured out of Fein Dahlk's every mouth.
Fein Dahlk howled, its voice painfully loud.
It would be easy enough to counter whatever Harmony said, later, when the weirdness level was lower, and Cordelia had had a chance to work out how to successfully balance two lives, but for now, it might be a worthwhile sacrifice.
Xander lightly patted Cordelia on the shoulder, murmuring reassurances.
The last of the mist rejoined the water spout.
There would be an enormous downside of course, the loss of her social standing, and all that would follow, but she'd put up with that once before, and keeping the girls alive was important. No one else must be allowed to die because of the changes she had made.
Margo nodded to herself, then dipped one finger in the Cup.
Besides, it would be a strictly temporary measure. She'd need a couple of weeks to sort out the current crises, maybe a few months, to take care of Omega, but after that she'd easily be able to move back into her old life, while keeping the best of the new.
Still, even as a temporary measure, it would feel a lot like accepting defeat. She'd need to think about this a lot more, preferably somewhere slightly calmer than the front lines of a major fight.
Margo sketched a pattern on her forehead with the damp finger, then—
The ground lurched, sending Cordelia stumbling sideways.
"This is not a good time to jog my elbow," Margo said, looking sharply at the ghosts.
A moment's lightness, and a ball of writhing shadows roared overhead, spitting bolts of ebon lightning.
Fein Dahlk's hand rose—
No. The hand wasn't moving. They were, darting around Fein Dahlk's hand on a lump of rock, held aloft by ghosts—
The rock dodged sharply right.
Another ball of shadows zoomed past on the left, its lightnings destroying several ghosts.
"Taking a direct hit would be inadvisable," one of the ghosts near Margo said, "but I would suggest you should not let the resulting minor inconvenience delay you."
The waterspout slammed into Fein Dahlk, lightning crackling along its flanks.
Carefully bracing herself, Margo dipped her finger back in the cup.
Fein Dahlk spat another shadow ball at the waterspout, ripping it apart, but now there were fresh scars on its palm and three of the mouth-tentacles were hanging limply.
Margo quickly sketched a pattern on her forehead, then spoke three words, rolling strings of vowels with barely a consonant between them.
Water sprayed out of the cup, splitting into three streams that wound around Margo, wrapping her in a shimmering net.
In answer Fein Dahlk hummed in five-part harmony, its dirge filled with strange dissonances, and around it the shadows roiled.
Mist seeped from Margo's skin, obscuring her figure, and around her the air filled with rainbow light, an ever-changing cavalcade of colour, swiftly growing brighter.
"Did you remember to bring the popcorn, this time," Wilfred said, smiling at Agatha, the quaver in his voice barely audible.
Outside the circle, shapes congealed from the shadows, a flock of dark birds, vultures maybe, but their heads looked odd.
Agatha smiled back at her husband, her hand reaching out to him. "I wasn't expecting a third act this evening. Think this will be as spectacular as the first two?"
The birds dived on the swan, which dissolved into mist, engulfing them all.
"More so, I should think," Wilfred said, "now that the gloves are off."
"Busy night?" Xander said, smiling at Wilfred.
There was nothing visible of Margo now, only a swirling mist ablaze with light.
Wilfred shrugged. "I've had busier."
Other shapes formed from the shadows; some, natural creatures, warped into monstrosity, others—
Cordelia blinked, trying to make sense of the shapes.
"Don't" Giles's gran said. "They are the dreams of Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch given form. To see them too clearly is to see into its mind, not exactly desirable."
A rainbow beam lanced out of the mist, fully five yards across, around it spiralling seven smaller beams, each a different colour.
At first Fein Dahlk's flesh boiled away under that glorious light, but then shadows oozed out of its many mouths, shadows the rainbow could not touch, and they crawled into the beam, up along the beam, approaching Margo.
The mist slid backwards, its light dimming, and the beam wavered.
"Numquam tradam," Margo said, her voice racked by pain.
The beam steadied, but fully half its length was shadow now, carved from night and wrapped in ebon lightnings.
"Mental arm wrestling," Giles said. "The essence of all magical combat."
Fein Dahlk's heads, its fingers, began weaving another spell.
"Margo," the ghosts chorused, "Pkhrxng Fshlfn Dhlkbch calls upon its master, upon the Ebon Maw. You must accept the risk, and open the floodgates wider."
Margo began to sing, her voice the music of the waves.
Fein Dahlk's dreams flocked around the circle, attacking the ghosts, and their battle cries were as the sounds of death.
The ghosts shouted defiance in a myriad tongues, spectral weapons appearing in their hands, and threw themselves into the fight, all except three.
The ground shuddered beneath Cordelia's feet, struck from below.
From above, lightning rained down, bouncing off some invisible roof, but every bolt was coming closer than the last before the ghosts could ward it off.
Around the circle the waterspout rose up, sending Fein Dahlk's twisted dreams tumbling, but more pressed in, larger and burning with unholy fire, shadowy flames no water could quench.
Outside the circle the shadows writhed in patterns that hurt the eye, and beyond those tenebrous veils could dimly be seen the distant hint of a deeper darkness, filled with hunger and endless malice, a darkness such as Cordelia had seen only once before.
Where the rainbow beam met devouring shadow things were getting really strange.
The three ghosts remaining, Cora, Henry, and Giles's gran, looked at each other, then nodded.
"Time to sleep," Giles's gran said.
"I am not entirely conv—" Wilfred began.
"Your senses are windows on your soul," Cora said. "Through them the forces battling without may gain entry."
"They will," Henry said. "You are all strong in mind and will, but you are not strong enough."
"Maybe not," Giles's gran said. "It is a risk we dare not take. Asleep, you will be safer, and should the worst come to pass sleeping we can take you through the realms of the dead, upon which the living may not gaze."
Xander looked uncertainly at Giles. "W—"
"Sleep," the three ghosts said, "and may your dreams not be troubled."
Cordelia yawned. "I—"
"Sleep," all the ghosts chorused.
Cordelia slept.