It is Monday, but I don't have any feedback response. I just don't have time. Since I think you'd rather have the update than the response, I'll just go ahead and post the update. I know, I know. You insist.
Chapter 50
Blood Debt
He came to life swiftly, rejoicing in his body, feeling the thrill of blood through his limbs. Noise in the echoing kitchen was distant, faint through the thudding of his heartbeat. Caleb smelled blood, took a deep breath, and coughed even as he smiled.
The sound of a Bringer’s knife in warm flesh was a grace note in the symphony of his astonishing career. The first slam, and Caleb remembered the girl he killed, the girl who had trusted him as a preacher, years dead now. Another ripping noise, and Caleb remembered the hiss of singed flesh of the Potential he had seared with his heated ring, the feeling of her stomach quivering on the edge of his knife as he asked her to take a message to Buffy, the sound of her body striking the road. At the tearing fabric and groaning female voice, Caleb remembered the crunching sound of the Guardian's neck the night he was killed.
Caleb relished all these sounds, harmony and counterpoint alike, a small smile lighting upon his face before he allowed himself to open his eyes and look upon the girl.
But the girl was gone.
Sightless, star-crossed eyes lifted to meet him, their daggers dripping blood in the empty air. Their faces would have held chagrin if they had been capable.
Rage clouded him, filled his every pore with blackness, with energy. It seemed he couldn’t trust anyone to do anything right. Through the cowering mob strode Buffy, but he didn’t see her as the ghost of the Slayer. He saw instead the leering demonic face of The First, his true and only master.
Lifting his head, raising his arms, the lights in the kitchen exploded as the First loomed over him, the great and terrible force to whom he had pledged his life and sanity. “I am your vessel,” Caleb whispered.
With a mighty boom, the power of The First slammed into him, soaking into his skin, traveling along his veins with his blood, filling his every inch with force and magic. Opening his eyes to the sparks along the ceiling from the shattered lights, he felt the crackles of lightning cross his fists. His eyes were dead black pools of maddened hope.
Hope. No longer doubting. His course was clear.
Confirm that blondie was dead. Kill the red-haired witch. Open the seal, and pray that the rewards promised would be given.
Everlasting life. Young women. Enough blood to drown the world.
Were these paltry wishes so wrong?
*****
There had been many nightmarish moments in Willow’s unnoticed career. Close calls, friends dying, monsters and demons and robots, the end of the world seven times (she would always dread the month of June). None of them were remotely as horrible as this.
Her heart an icy ball of fear, acting on the Eye's tempestuous command
(Tara’s father is dead and Tara is dying! If you are going to save any of us, go!)Willow teleported into the tiny attic room moments before Caleb, just enough time to see but not comprehend the devastation around her.
Tara’s father was dead, his head obliterated.
The rifle was cast to the floor, lying in a sticky pool of blood. There was an arc of blood misted on the floor. It caught the rays of sunlight like rubies.
Tara was in Donny's lap, her arm awkwardly caught underneath her, and he was rocking her back and forth, crying. He did not look at Willow, though he must have heard the sob well up in her throat, the sob that clambered past Willow's forsaken lips to pierce the stillness with her grief. He rocked his sister and said to the uncaring air, “I always told her she would rack up the blood debt. I always told her she would eventually have to pay.”
Looking up, his bleary eyes glared at Willow and she nearly staggered back by the amount of malevolence in them. “I wish I had the power to kill you,” he said.
He didn’t need to. Tara was dead, so half of Willow was dead. The rest of her would follow her lover eagerly to the grave.
There was a familiar looking dagger sticking out of Tara’s back, and dark wet holes at her back and sides. The stink of fresh blood was everywhere.
She could have checked Tara’s pulse to be sure, or put her hand near Tara’s mouth to feel the warm exhalation of air, but the stillness said it all. Too many times in her life she had seen dead bodies. They were more than simply inert – the light had gone from them. Willow had never been proficient at reading auras, but that moment she looked at Tara’s dead body, she knew her own heart had been extinguished.
It was all over. Here, in a little room in a farmhouse in California, the war against the First had been lost. It was only a matter of time before the Seal was opened to admit the armies of Turok-Han. She would spend what little remained of her embittered life in a blood feud with them. They would eventually kill her, and the Old Ones would regain this world.
Heaven would fall soon after.
Beljoxa’s Eye would not be safe in his windy dimension. The First would stop at nothing to conquer all worlds, all dimensions. The Eye knew no futures – he would die as everyone else would.
That’s what Tara’s sacrifice would have done. This one small woman would have saved them all, if Willow had made the right choices.
Willow took one step to her love, her light, her life, and came face to face with a grinning, maniacal preacher.
He had appeared with suddenness, the knife in his hand, but Willow was far beyond being surprised. With one smooth movement that Buffy would have been proud of, Willow drew the scythe from her shoulder scabbard and made for his head.
He had lightning reflexes of his own, and jumped clear of the whirling blade, landing behind the bed where Mr. Maclay's body slumped in dead repose. Willow quickly launched a volley of force globes, which the preacher dodged with uncanny ability. Caleb stood in the corner, not even breathing hard, and Willow stalked toward him, the scythe easy and ravenous in her hands.
He glanced toward Willow's fallen angel, inert on the floor with ragged holes in her clothes, at Donny who was making for the discarded rifle on the floor. Willow shot a force globe at the preacher, which he evaded by teleporting to the other corner of the room.
Lifting his hands, his eyes dead black, Willow felt the concussion of air as the preacher sent a shattering bolt of crackling lightning to Tara’s dead body. The force of it sent Donny flying against the wall. Tara’s body was lifted from the floor, crackles of lightning passing from her heels to her head, contorting her body in a bow before she was slammed back into the floor. The force of it would have killed her, had she been alive.
Silence for just a moment, and Willow could see everything. Maclay's dead body on the bed, Donny slumped against the wall, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, a dazed expression on his face. And Tara, still dead, still inert, gone down the pathway to the sun that each of her most loved ones had already taken.
Willow. Doomed to live.
To fight.
(It's a good fight, Buffy. And I want in.)Screaming, roaring, making some banshee of sound that could never express the horror and rage she was feeling, Willow conjured lightning of her own, a web of crackling white light that would sear away his flesh and burn out his eyes. He had his own debt of blood to pay. The light sizzled through the air, as if she were gouging the very space it passed through as it sought
(the long preacher, the dark hand, the silent might, the ruler of this and all other worlds).The preacher didn't move fast enough; the lightning seared bright white around his body before it finally was absorbed by the great black energy that gave him his might and strength. There was the thin smell of burnt clothing, but Willow had no time to exult. Caleb shifted into invisibility, then called out, “Jes makin sure she’s dead! See you at the Seal!”
With that, he was gone. The entire altercation had lasted no more than two minutes. Willow stood there, trembling, staring at the void of space where Caleb was, her body hollowed by emotion, aware of the dead bodies in the periphery of her vision.
One was wearing a black sweater with ragged wet holes, brown hair crusted with blood, the thin scar lines on her face paler even than the paleness of death.
(demon grooves)Donny limped and crawled to the rifle. Trembling fingers picked it up, and for the second time that morning, Willow had a rifle pointed at her heart. After having her back broken by Tawarick, after having the tunnel collapse on her, after catching the fallen amulet a moment too late, after stepping into a pool of Althanea's blood and then narrowly saving Oz's life, having been shot with this very same gun just hours earlier, Donny now had little impact on her. She almost could have wished that Donny could kill her with it, but it was vastly apparent that she couldn't die. The gods and the Watcher's Council both would use her until she was a mere marionette, pinned to the freaking Wheel for all time, doomed to live. Only when her lifeblood and magic were spent would she be sent to Heaven, and could its pleasures save her from her bitterness?
Tara was dead. She had followed Buffy, Xander, and Giles into the grave, from which there was no more returning.
The world was doomed, and Willow's heart with it.
Willow dropped the scythe. It made a hard thunk on the ground. Her feet impossibly heavy, Willow took the two steps to Tara’s side, and Donny begrudgingly moved away, the rifle dangling from his hand.
It was when she touched Tara that her grief exploded.
Rocking the body back and forth, tears streaming down her cheeks, Willow tried to contain her agony, to box it up, save it for another moment when the world didn’t need saving. There was still Caleb to be stopped. There was still Faith who needed the scythe. There was still a world to save, even a world so mundane and pitiful now that Tara wasn’t in it.
Willow couldn't speak, couldn't voice anything past the guilt lining her throat. She had gone to the Eye to get answers, to discover once and for all how to save her most beloved, and what does the Eye do? Tell her riddles!
(You need to trust her. She knows more than you think she does.)Tara had known something. Somehow she had brought Caleb back to life, restored his soul. If only Willow knew how she had done it!
These trivialities filled Willow’s mind, and she let it, otherwise the great yawning void in her soul would have ripped her apart. “I thought you were going to save her,” Donny was saying.
Tara had known.
“Did she say anything...before?” she gulped, touching the thin scars running down Tara’s cheek, brushing the hair away from her ears.
“Before she died, she says she kissed the preacher.”
Memories and images flashed into Willow’s mind and she gasped aloud.
(A time of great despair will come upon you, yet all you must do is remember this. I have her heart, Willow. He cannot touch it.)
(Even after all this, it may not be enough.)
(I am Nyx, the goddess of sleep and death, and the gift I give to you will be secret until the very moment you need it.)
Kiss me, Willow.Not letting her heart leap with joy for she could not bear being wrong again, Willow pulled Tara’s body further onto her lap. Smoothing away the bloodstained hair, Willow bent down and covered Tara’s lips with her own.
It felt wrong, to be kissing those beloved lips without Tara kissing her back. The lips were barely warm. Tara was dead, her lips were dead, and her body was breaking down, as if aching to join the mouldering wagon wheel outside, as if wanting to bond with the dirt of the grave.
A thick coruscating ball of energy seemed to rise from Willow’s pelvic bones, expanding as it traversed her chest, and Willow wept as she felt it lift higher, past her grief-thickened throat, into her soiled mouth, and finally through her lips and into Tara.
Tara, my love, come back to me. I beg you, come back to me.*****
Heaven was darker than Tara imagined. She had no expectations of clouds and cherubs and pearly gates. She wanted heaven to be an extension of earth, the beauties of the world translated and purified. She wanted to have bees among the roses with no fear of being stung. She wanted to see a lion resting with a lamb, to see the elderly with the same joy of life as children.
Instead, heaven was dark.
And multitudes were waiting for her.
Avenues were thronged with the heavenly host, their faces tight and resolute. They watched Tara and her mother from afar, as they walked hand in hand down veiled streets, the sky continuing to darken as if threatened by unknown storms.
The gods were busy; with Buffy's resurrection a hole was made, with Tara's blood the hole would have been sealed.
Tara had no more blood to shed. Heaven will fall.
But the faces that looked out from the crowds held no remonstrance. As Tara walked with her mother, she saw the forms of the newly murdered ones, Cassandra, the witch from Russia, the kindly warlock of Sicily. With their hands lifted they hailed her, their smiles spoke of their forgiveness, their souls replete with knowledge that they still had work to do, a cause to fight for. With their power and the power of all departed ones they would keep heaven a refuge.
Until the demons and the lords of The First Evil would assault this place, and with knives more terrible even than p'achi they would deconstruct the souls of the righteous; riven in pieces there could be no peace. Not even in heaven.
Tara slowly walked among them, knowledge filtering into her mind. That was what she was going to do. That was what she chose to do, that day she stood by Willow's bed, holding her blanketed feet in her soft, caring hands, and said aloud to the heavens, “I choose to.”
Knowledge was no balm to her frenzied soul. Especially when she saw Althanea step forward from the masses, side by side with the girl who could only be her daughter. Tara's throat thickened with grief as she remembered the slickness of the blood on her hands, the feeling of Althanea's heart quivering on the edge of the knife.
With a low cry, she ran to the British witch, who enfolded her in her arms. As Tara began to weep, Althanea smoothed her hair and murmured into her ear, “Ssh, my brave girl.”
But Tara couldn't quite control herself. All her life she had been alone, had hardly ever felt love. To be here, in heaven, surrounded with people who depended on her, who loved her, was more than she could bear. Meanwhile, Althanea was whispering, “Remember what I told you, Tara? It is by loving Willow that you will save the world.”
“How can I save the world if I'm here?”
Her own mother's hand on her back, her mother's eyes looking over Tara's head to meet Althanea's eyes. The British witch nodded, as her mother said, “Not even the poet knows the end from the beginning.”
Tara had heard her mother's favourite expression a thousand times before, but never with such clarity. With perfect insight, Tara remembered the nights her mother was imprisoned in the attic for the false demon within her. She remembered the tortuous night sweats, the incestuous advances of her father. She remembered the fists of her brother, the sting of loneliness and rejection.
And Tara remembered sitting with Willow underneath their tree, Willow's hands blessing her with her devoted touch. She remembered the taste of Willow's lips, the velvety smoothness of her mouth. Tara remembered that she was in love with the woman who was supposed to kill her.
If only Tara could die again!
But now the world will fall. Tara's blood had been spilled in vain, and heaven would fall soon afterwards. It would be here that Tara would fight her final battles, always waiting for the day that her love would return to her through the veil of the grave.
They could have no peace here, even together. The great Seals between the worlds would fracture, and like the Titans of old, the worlds would be overrun with fell beasts and foul demons.
Nyx was not here. If she were, Tara would have begged for her life back, to be given one more chance to save the world she had only recently become a fan of. All those years of wanting to give up her life, and now she would do anything if she could only return to it!
There was an odd tug at her abdomen. Tara looked down, but could see nothing there but the smooth pearly whiteness of her gown, fading into the shadows of the heavenly ground.
The sky continued to darken, the crowd began to disperse. There was another tug, not painful, but it suddenly struck Tara as what it felt like. It felt like when she was kissing Willow, and felt such intense love and devotion pour through her soul that her midsection would ache with joy.
There was a wistful smile on the women's faces. From the distance Tara could hear a faint voice, a call, more in feeling than in words. A question was being asked, and Tara was delighted to give the answer.
Her mother and Althanea stood close by. Another tug, stronger this time, and this time the voice could be clearly heard.
“Tara, my love, come back to me. I beg you, come back to me.”
“It's your choice,” Anna said, a trifle wistfully. “It's always been your choice. You can go back, or you can stay.”
Tara's choice. Anna, Althanea, and heaven. Or earth, Willow, and death by scythe.
Tara chose Willow.
Kissing her mother's cool cheek, squeezing her hand one last time, Tara looked lovingly at Althanea, and then closed her eyes. “Save me, Willow,” she breathed.
As her consciousness faded back into her mortal body, she heard her mother say, “I'll see you soon enough. Remember, not even the poet knows the end from the beginning.”
Not a tug. An irresistible pull, an elastic line, connecting her forever to the person who was waiting on the other side. To her body. To Willow.
Her first breath almost hurt, as if her lungs had forgotten exactly how to breathe. Her arm was crooked awkwardly under her leaden body, and her ears roared. But every moment after that was so exquisite that even heaven could not compare.
For how could heaven compare with Willow’s body, with the touch of her skin? Feeling gangly and desperate, Tara wrapped her arms around Willow, clutching her with ardent intensity. For two seconds, that was enough.
More, Willow, more! One of Tara's hands held Willow's neck as their lips came together, not gentle, not at all! With bruising intensity, Tara crushed her lips to Willow's, as if by feeling of their warmth she could convince herself that she wasn't dead so how could this be heaven? Feeling Willow sob against her face nearly unravelled Tara completely; her lover held her with arms just as tight, with hands just as aching in longing. Tilting her lips, lifting Willow's neck, Tara continued to kiss her beloved on those blessed lips, the corner of her mouth, the rosebud center, ranging all over, learning again exactly what Willow tasted like. A hand gladly slipped inside Willow’s sweater, and she ran her fingers along Willow's back, her other hand still holding Willow's neck, her lips still memorizing the landscape of her lover's soul.
She felt Willow’s tears more profoundly as they continued to kiss, and Tara couldn’t get enough of her. Moving her lips, dipping her tongue inside Willow’s mouth, kissing and kissing and kissing again, Willow’s hands holding her upright, Willow’s breasts so soft against her own.
“Tara, my Tara,” Willow was crying, and Tara felt Willow lift her even higher off the ground, Willow sucking her tongue into her own mouth. The sensations were so intense, Tara thought she would explode.
Yet no matter how often they had shared kisses, this felt different, and it took a moment for Tara to realize why. Willow’s hand running up inside her shirt, encountering no demon grooves, no scabs, and no amulet. They had never kissed without the amulet on before, without Caleb as an unwelcome guest. Willow seemed to realize it the moment she did; they both nearly laughed aloud for the joy of it.
There was no summoning of magic at all. The gift, when it came, seemed directly from the gods.
White light began to spill from their joined bodies, seeping through their skin, shooting from their fingers. A great hand lifted them up, yet they seemed oblivious to it; all that mattered was that they were together, as they should always have been. Like a great tidal wave, the white magic gathered at their toes and rippled upwards, mending tears in clothing, erasing bloodstains.
Locked in their tight embrace a foot above the floor, Tara suddenly gasped, lifting her head away from Willow. The icy heat of the magic had reached her shoulders, was creeping inside her head, and the black knot that was her tumour, the inky purple stain that was her dread disease, they were being washed away in the tide of healing magic that poured through her.
Tara had not known how great a pain she always carried until every ounce of it was gone. For one final moment she seemed to blaze with magic; an unearthly breeze lifting her hair from her shoulders revealed hair turned white as snow.
Tara opened her mouth as if to scream, or to sing, or to articulate something, but nothing could escape her lips. As soon as the snowy tide began, it was over, and the same gentle giant hand seemed to stand them upon the floor. Tara swayed, and would have fallen over if not for Willow’s steadying arms.
Filled with hope, daring to believe, Tara retreated into herself and swiftly built herself her tree. A slight push, and the tree materialized inside her.
Where once it was drooping with vileness, diseased, decayed, and broken, it now stood healed, proud, and whole. Her willow tree, the tree of her body, it was more pure and stronger than it had ever been. Looking at Willow, seeing the expression of wondering hope in her lover’s expression, Tara whispered, “It’s gone. The tumour is gone.”
Wrapped in Willow's arms once more, Tara felt the beating of Willow's heart, felt the softness of her breasts, felt a tidal wave of love pour from her until her very soul seemed to ache with it. For the next few minutes, Tara fell away, knowing nothing except the joy of Willow’s body, the taste of Willow’s skin, the touch of Willow’s hands. Willow’s palm over her heart, her lips upon her throat, this verily was heaven as well.
But when the minutes passed, and the world intruded, as the world often does, Tara remembered that being resurrected once simply wasn’t enough. Another violent death awaited her, and this time there was no surety of victory. The scythe peeked from the floor where Willow had dropped it. It would be the last thing on this world she would ever see.
And this time, the second time, that would be enough. She knew when she quit heaven that she would soon be back – Althanea and Anna would save a place for her there. Having died once by an enemy's hand Tara surmised that it was much better to die by a loved hand. Her blood would be spilled again. It would hurt, again. It would hurt so damn much.
But Willow would be there. Willow would be holding her. And when her last breath failed, it would be with Willow's lips on hers.
Wrapping her fingers about Willow's waist, Tara finally turned to Donny. He was sitting on the floor, his expression dumbstruck, not even turning away from their kisses, their expressions of love. His head had stopped bleeding from where he had been slumped against the wall
(what had really happened here while I was dead?)and blood was crusted on his forehead, bits of bone and gore still flecked his head and shoulders. With a final squeeze, Tara dropped Willow's hand and went to her brother. Touching him softly, aware of his piercing gaze on her, Tara reached inside herself for the magic that was her birthright.
Her gift stood small, alone, unsupported by the titans of magic that Caleb had stolen. Her fingers convulsed on his forehead as she considered this loss, the magical gifts that Willow had in abundance, that Tara had shared for such a brief time, gone so swiftly with the shedding of her blood. Even as she told herself that they could still win, that Willow was still the strong one, a small part of her wished that she could have had the gifts, too, that invisibility and teleportation would have been valuable allies for both of them in the fight that awaited them upon the Seal.
Tara also knew that Willow could have healed Donny in an instant, but her girlfriend hovered behind her, quiet and still, waiting for Tara to finish what she had started.
Sending out the little armies of cells to her brother's body, sucking his pain inside herself, Tara once again felt whole. This was always her task. The blood debt was always hers to pay.
The final debt would be collected upon the stone mountain, half a world away.
Phoenix
To be continued on Thursday with Chapter 51 "Stone Mountain"
by JustSkipIt » Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:22 am 
This chapter was simply amazing. Tara's POV just pulled me in completely. Other than the few glimmers in the last few chapters, I guess I assumed Tara was mostly gone or at least seriously out of commission. Knowing that she was ever-present was certainly bittersweet. On the one hand, she is still an important ally in this whole mess, but you made us feel the agony she was going through at watching her hands violently murder people outside of her own control. I love the steady build you've created toward the climax. Just great! As always, thanks for sharing!
Thank you, you masterful woman, you
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