Chapter 49
Nyx
By the time Caleb had finished killing all those innocent people, Tara wished she were dead, that she had died before now, that she had never met Willow, anything to keep the blood from crusting her hands. Trapped within a tiny box in her own mind, she knew they were not her actions, that she was being used, being forced, all over again. Yet they were her hands, the same hands that washed a patient’s hair, or read a copy of ‘Runaway Jury’ or held Willow’s face as they kissed. Her hands, holding the knife, thrusting into body after body.
Althanea had trusted her. The British witch had come all this way and Tara had been only a burden to her, and now the witch was dead. Tara’s hands. All she prayed was that Althanea knew the truth that Tara would never have hurt her. That Althanea was now with her daughter in heaven.
But even there the war has begun.The killing spree did not stop. Using the stolen gift, Caleb jumped across the ocean, and as soon as Cassandra was dead, Tara could feel the knowledge of the seer filtering into her mind.
Oz. The little man was somehow exactly as she expected him to be, but neither she nor Willow had known how important he was. As the knife twisted inside his body, Tara was very nearly screaming in horror, bashing against the walls of her fleshy prison. When her red-headed lover suddenly teleported into the room, a tidal wave of inexplicable devotion crested through her, underlined with remorse at what her hands were doing through Caleb's bidding. How Tara desired to punch through Caleb's block and get control of her body once more, in time to save Oz, in time to be with Willow, in just enough time to do what they needed to save the world!
Because the world of durians, and kitten abraded couches, and little black rabbits so desperately deserved to be saved.
The act of seeing Willow gave Tara a much-needed shot of hope, and she very nearly broke through Caleb into her own body. While Oz lay dying under the knife, his knowledge swam before her eyes, but Willow intervened before Caleb could get it all. Furious at the intrusion, yet fearful of Willow, Caleb fled before her lover, and Tara exulted in the knowledge that her self-conscious and talkative girlfriend could frighten the Chief Priest of Danzalthar.
How her heart ached to see her girlfriend so ravaged, so tired and forlorn! What must it have been like for Willow to see Tara killing her ex-boyfriend, to see the hands that caressed Willow's body during the night doing such unspeakable and horrifying things? Tara prayed that Oz survived, and that he and her girlfriend knew without a doubt that it wasn't really her.
Tara remained an optimist. For just a moment there, when the shock of seeing Willow was racing through Caleb's mind, Tara almost regained control. It was a small reminder, but it was enough. Tara wasn’t alone, wasn’t really a prisoner. She was part of a team, a powerful team
(a monster fighting team!) So when they tracked down that lovely Russian witch, Tara was ready. Using years of mental skills taught by her mother, Tara was able to punch through the block for moments at a time.
Unfortunate, though, that she still happened to feel whatever her body was feeling in those moments, and that unconsciousness as a prisoner was much the same as unconsciousness otherwise. That girl had the most powerful left hook she had ever seen.
Caleb revived too fast, and Tara was tiring and wounded. Caleb took them back to the vineyard for cleanup and to bandage their broken ribs. There was a moment of panic in the shower when he paused to run his hands over her body, but he was also operating on a tight schedule. The First came to him there in the vineyard, and Tara was taken aback to see Buffy come to such hideous life. Caleb had failed with Oz, Willow had saved him, and now the witch had discovered about Tara’s father.
What about my father?The prison suddenly tightened, and Tara could only watch as they arrived in Sicily. That kindly, sleep sodden man had no chance, and his murder was yet another noose around Tara’s soul.
I will stop you.Concentrating as she’d never concentrated before, Tara withdrew into herself, condensing, burrowing
(I am the Kraken)before exploding outward as hard and as fast as she could.
Caleb fell to the ground in pain, and Tara exulted even as she felt the pain as well. The longer she could keep him here, the more time Willow would have. Caleb seemed able to keep his own mind separate from hers – she could glimpse mere inklings of his plans, not enough to change the course of their destiny.
But then Buffy came and spoke the words that changed Tara’s world. It was obvious who they were speaking of. Her father was dead. She was almost sickened by the wave of relief that washed over her soul, but then she felt a strong pang as she thought of Donny. What would this mean for her blighted brother?
She had no more time for such thoughts. Caleb felt scared and obstinate; emotions so strong she could almost taste them. This Plan B, whatever it was, scared him to death.
“I don’t want to die again,” he whispered after Buffy departed.
(I don’t want your blood anymore. The Seal craves the blood of another.)Her father. They were going to use her father to open the Seal. But now that he was dead
(My father is dead.)they would have to use Caleb instead. There was no time to find another Priest of Danzalthar who was indoctrinated enough and willing to pay the price. Unless Willow found a way to stop them, Tara knew it was her task, as she always knew it would be, to take her father’s place on the seal, and let her blood destroy it forever.
(I am dead.)Willow would hold her on that seal, and with the scythe open up her veins, and they would embrace each other on an expanding pool of blood. Heaven would open the gate for her, and her mother would bring her home.
Oz was alive. He would care for Willow.
And Donny?
(Will he live?)The Seal required more than just the blood of Aranaea, or else even Donny could have been the one to close it. Her whole life had been a preparation for this single ritual; every ounce of pain she had taken, taken, taken from everyone else in order to share her healing magic would be proof of her godhood. From her birth her mother and Aranaea had conspired to give her the worst life imaginable, to deepen her capacity to heal. The capacity to heal was her blood debt, the sacrifice that sanctified her. And it was Willow’s love that kept her from becoming embittered about her role in this life, the role she accepted the day Willow was wheeled into her hospice room.
Tara had known her part to play. She was the lamb. She would be sacrificed upon the altar of the world, to save the world. That day could have been long away; they could have camped near the Seal for years, keeping it from being opened by the unrighteous – there would be no need to close what had not been opened.
With her father’s death, it was now the responsibility of the dark preacher to open the Seal, and Tara could not figure out how to keep him from it. He was inside her – if she opened her veins here and now to kill him, he would merely jump to another host. If he somehow was exorcised from her, she could try to kill him then, but what power had she against him, weak and diseased as she was?
And how to find Willow again when all this madness was said and done? Would destiny bring them together again, at just the right place and time to avert the apocalypse, or would Caleb keep her from her beloved forever?
What a strange confluence of rites was needed to keep the world safe from the Old Ones, from The First. How long had she been upon this path, without even knowing it?
(From my birth.)Donny saved her life once, the night he forced her near a cow. Did he know he was acting on their orders, to preserve her precious blood until the time came for it to be spilled?
(You may not think so, Tara, but I love you! How many sisters do you think I have?) Her mother died. And now her father was dead. Tara would be slain upon the seal to save the world. Could Donny choose to live, or would he drink his sorrows to the grave? Once her brother was dead, either through the long silence of years or the jaundiced agony of a drunkard, the blood of Aranaea would be forever washed away. The secrets of her family would be swallowed in his grave.
Deep in her prison, deep in her thoughts, Tara barely noticed as they materialized in the front room of an abandoned restaurant. The air was stale and thick with dust; the rising sun set the motes ablaze with light. Had she been herself, she would have stopped to appreciate the subtle beauty.
Instead, she walked through a swinging door into the kitchen, the cold air settling on her skin like an icy blanket. Rippling with gooseflesh, Tara watched as she drew closer to the clothed body on the slab, recognizing the preacher. So cold, so still, he looked nearly harmless in his black clothes, the white spot at his throat, but it was easy for Tara to remember whom he really was. From the moment she first saw him inside Willow’s mind, blasting away the tree and imprisoning her, she had known he was far more menacing than he seemed.
More than a preacher
(the long preacher, the dark hand, the silent might)more than a hound of The First, Caleb was evil personified, and she hated being a part of him. Would she ever be able to rid herself of him?
He would not let her live. Why was she here? Was there some magic he was about to perform?
The Bringers in the room, nearly a dozen of them, bowed before her and scurried out of her way. She watched as Caleb touched his inanimate body on the table. “Rack did good work,” he said, tilting the head this way and that. “Can’t even tell that the Slayer split me in two.”
She turned to face the Bringers. “Now y’all understand your orders, right? The minute that I’m renewed, this girl is to be captured and killed. Immediately. Under no circumstances is she to leave this room alive.”
Their star-crossed eyes nodded mutely, and they all drew out their silver daggers. The hiss of the steel leaving the sheaths was loud in the room.
Tara was panicking. There would be no rescue here. No Willow to save the day, no Althanea or even Angel. If she wanted to leave this room alive, she’d have to do it on her own power.
At least she had the knife.
But Caleb pre-empted that as well, withdrawing the knife and placing it firmly in the body’s lifeless hand. He’d use it to kill her the moment he awoke, taking every ounce of her power.
There was no amulet around her neck.
How much of Caleb’s stolen power was hers?
(I am the Kraken.)She was shuffling closer to the body on the table. It actually smelled clean, as if the clothes were freshly laundered. The Bringers closed the circle around her. Doubt swam into Tara’s mind, but it wasn’t her doubt. Caleb was swimming in a sea of fear and dismay and doubt enough to drown him, and he couldn’t keep her from feeling it as well.
The First didn’t always honour its soldiers, or its word. Rack’s dead body testified of it. He had survived his encounter with Willow in the gas station, only to be brought down by Bringer knives at the orders of Buffy/The First. Caleb knew it, and feared it, feared it so deeply that Tara knew it too.
No strawberries for the warlock, or time to enjoy them. Time was ever their enemy.
Especially now.
Her body still firmly under his control, she bent down, closer and closer to his face. In her prison, Tara squirmed with revulsion as she pressed her lips against Caleb’s cold and dead mouth.
Her hands gripped Caleb’s shoulders and she pressed down harder, using her tongue to open Caleb’s mouth. From somewhere deep behind her sternum rose a ball of pure energy; it climbed up her windpipe, scrambled past her throat, invaded her mouth and disappeared into his through their joined lips.
(Nyx.)Tara’s consciousness surged back into her body even as Caleb coughed once. A thousand thoughts clambered for space at this precise moment – did she have Caleb's stolen gifts, where was Willow, why was her father dead, and what of Donny – how odd that she thought of the mouldering wagon wheel, and the smell of her mother's hair.
(Go home!)She didn’t know whose voice commanded her, but she felt nearly compelled to obey. Was she just some tool in the hands of the vacant gods, were they using her without explaining why? How much influence did they have upon her anyway?
(the power of the gods is limited to the power of the vessel)She closed her eyes as the first Bringer knife stabbed her, deep in her left side. The pain was immediate and consuming, but not enough to fell her. Tara called to the magic, and the flood of power that rose through her veins made her inklings clear. She felt another knife, and then two more slam inside her as she went invisible, and the last thing she saw before teleporting away was Caleb’s newly resurrected body rising from the table.
Why was it that she was compelled to go home, the source of all her childhood misery, a place of hidden secrets and ne'er forgotten ills? She was but a child there, powerless, afraid, alone.
(Do you really think so little of yourself?)
No.Her father's fist coming towards her, and she didn't flinch. She would have, once. Not any longer. Under the rays of Willow-light, she had blossomed as a rose. It was only as she experienced true love and devotion that she understood the depth of her task, and the fountains of her courage.
(This time you will be the rabbit. You are my sacrifice to save the world. You are the lamb.) Yet as strong as her heart-ties to Willow, her newly spilt blood cried for home. Could Tara have known that was where the final altercation would be, where all the threads of her life would come together? Her mother, father, brother and girlfriend, all in the same room at last.
Tara instantly landed on a wooden floor, the taste of blood in her mouth. She could see the familiar checked bedspread of her father’s room, could see her brother’s bare feet standing on the floor. She opened her mouth, intending to say something, her blood was flowing too thickly, and the magic was suddenly waning, and she reappeared on the floor just as she screamed. The pain was suddenly a wildfire within her, exploding through all her senses until she could do nothing but scream.
Those screams would haunt her brother to his dying day.
They were not screams of night-terror, thin and shrill, nor screams of movie mill horror on the big screen. They were screams that clambered past blockades of blood in her throat, they gurgled through her punctured lungs, and they hitched in the middle as she desperately tried to breathe in a sea of wet red. Gurgling, choking screams beyond horror, beyond pain.
(Mother!)A Bringer knife was still sticking out of her side. Her fingers curled on the floor as she tried to get up, but the room was swaying like a funhouse. Through eyes blurred with tears, she saw Donny’s feet come closer, walking over the bits of bone and gore that used to make up her father’s head. The rifle hung easily from his hand.
Willow was nowhere to be seen.
Tara lifted her head from the floor, a thin stream of blood running from her mouth. The barrel of the rifle was now directly between her eyes. It seemed to run forever up to his hard blue eyes, as he cocked the safety.
“Is it you?” Donny asked, and the rifle barrel now touched her forehead. Her father had been killed with it less than five minutes ago.
Tara coughed blood; it misted in an arc along the wooden floor. The tiny beads of red caught the timid rays of sun coming through the window, glistening.
Beyond the window would be the willow tree, and the wagon wheel, and the dust of her childhood. The wagon wheel remembered her, and remembered her mother, and would mourn them both. In an age long hence it, too, would finally moulder into the dust, and be glad of it.
The pain had subsided a little. Tara felt thin. The light upon the floor was growing with intensity, with beauty.
“I kissed him,” Tara whispered. “I kissed Caleb.” Her tongue felt heavy and awkward in her mouth, coated with blood and filth. She wished she could die with the taste of Willow on her lips, not this soil.
Her fingertips were cold. Blood soaked the bandage about her ribs, and she almost blessed its warmth.
So this is what dying felt like. So elastic, so thin. Where was the sweetness? Hadn’t they all tasted so sweet before death? Where was the soulfire?
The light growing on the floor trembled and shimmered, almost pulsating.
“Will you live, Donny?” Tara tried to ask. The words may have gotten past the obstruction of blood in her throat. She wasn’t sure.
(I can’t die now!)If only Donny would come closer, she could heal herself. The amulet was gone. Caleb’s stolen magic was hers, too. No doubt her brother thought she was still under Caleb’s thrall. Why wouldn’t he move?
The barrel finally was pulled away from her face, set carefully down on the ground. Tara noticed that her cheek was warm; she had put her face back down on the ground, in a pool of her own blood. Each breath was thin; sucking through her dying lungs. It seemed as if Donny was finally coming closer to her, his hands now on the ground as he knelt by her, his eyes blurry in his tears or hers, but all of this was swallowed by the expanding white light.
There was a wheat field, a broken wagon wheel, and Anna’s golden hair. As children, they had biked along these fields and shared secrets, but never the ones that mattered most.
The sweet taste of nectar filled Tara’s soiled mouth. In the distance, she could hear someone screaming her name. Her body was distant – she could barely feel her arm caught awkwardly underneath her as she was pulled into someone's lap.
It was the gift of Nyx. Tara could have laughed at the irony of it. If only the Bringers hadn’t killed her, not now. Willow had been given a gift from Nyx; no doubt it was to restore her to life after her eventual death upon the Seal. That poor witch from Russia; small wonder Caleb had hunted her so ruthlessly. It was what would bring his body back to life. Rack had done what he could; only the witch’s stolen gift could do the rest.
That witch was dead, even as Tara was dead. Even if Willow could save her now, her fate upon the Seal still awaited her. Even if Caleb could be stopped before opening it, there was her cancerous tumour as well. Any way she looked at it, her future could be summed up in a cold grave. Was there any other god with the power to resurrect her twice?
(Osiris.)Her body was being turned over. Tara saw a flash of Donny’s eyes.
(Too late, Donny.) The highway of light beckoned. She could see the torment of Donny's soulfire behind his eyes. The sweetness flooded her throat, coursed down her veins, stilled and broken. The veil trembled; she could see her mother standing there with open arms. Tara chose.
The elastic snapped.
But heaven was not what it should have been. As had been discovered by the supplicants of the gods, the assault on heaven had already begun.
Only by witnessing the devastation of this one place that should have been safe, been protected, did Tara realize the depth of her role.
Just how many worlds would Tara have saved by becoming the lamb?
Dear friends, see you on Monday with Chapter 50.
Phoenix
