Angelus fled.
Tatya chased after the dim bronze figure, the Bandrui chant and shaman song guiding her as he vanished into the far distance. Movement in this reality needed only thought. Tatya drew upon the Bandrui witchery and shamanic wizardry surging through her and closed the gap between her and her quarry in a flash. Yet as she appeared, he winked out of existence.
Fidelma laughed. "He forgets. That's a good sign."
Tatya had forgotten too, but Fidelma showed her the link to Angelus. The connection was strong, but the gold had dulled to pure black, and the rope flamed furious red sparks as Angelus continued striving to defeat her wards without success. But now she knew where Angelus had gone, and she followed the glimpses of him appearing and disappearing as he sped through the trees and flower-filled bushes in his garden of Paradise.
As he passed, trees withered and became gnarled, deformed husks, and flowers faded, their petals turning to dried, desiccated fragments.
"He thinks to gain strength by removing his enchantments," Tatya heard Otakay's regret he couldn't battle the demon alone.
"Pull a branch from that tree," Dhanu, the eldest of the Bandrui, instructed.
Tatya slowed, reaching out and grabbing a small bough from a shriveled oak. The second her fingers touched the wood, it transformed. One end thickened into a handle, the rest smoothed and sharpened, becoming a long pale blade covered in runes and glyphs, shifting and glowing with wizardry.
Of Angelus, there was no sign. He had disappeared.
"You know where he'll go next, Tatya. Remember." Vanse's voice.
The forces streaming through her, the Bandrui hymn and the shamanic chant, spurred her on. She sought Angelus. And she was there, high on that snow-covered mountain ledge, but this time, she was impervious to the arctic winds.
Angelus turned as she blinked into existence behind him.
Power erupted, sizzling along the oaken blade as she leaped at him. Angelus fell, and she was on him. She raised the weapon, but he held her at bay and foiled her efforts to sink the spellbound blade into his chest. Tatya reached through her links to Vanse, the Bandrui, Changing Sky and his spirit guides, for the final intense burst necessary to achieve their goal—and found the connections dead. She'd found his hidden bolt hole because she'd been here before, but her companions could not breach the protective wards. She looked at the knife. The sigils were faint. She was alone with Angelus.
"Did you think I had no contingency?" His laugh shredded her defenses. He jumped up and attacked, but she had her own skills and was on her feet facing him before he struck. They struggled, rocking back and forwards on the narrow ledge, grappling for supremacy.
Angelus wasn't potent enough to prevent her allies' entry for long. She only had to fend him off until they disabled his wards. "How long can you keep them out?" she taunted, pressing harder, her green eyes sparked with gold flecks. The closer the blade came to its target, the more brightly the sigils glowed.
He tightened his grip on her dagger arm, barely able to protect himself.
Tatya pulled ever more deeply on her power, forcing her weapon, inch by inch, nearer his heart. Abruptly, Angelus let go of her other arm and punched her in the face with brutal force. Shaken, she stumbled backward, trying to clear her head, but he pressed his advantage, hitting her again and again and knocking her onto her back. Before she could move, he straddled her, and pinioned her wrists. He smashed the hand holding the knife against the granite beneath them. Over and over, he tried to dislodge it from her grasp, but she kept her hand locked tight around the blade. If she let go, her sacrifice, and that of those fighting with her would be for nothing.
Drawing ever more from within, she concentrated on his heart. He let go of her left wrist, grabbed her hair, and violently banged her head on the ground, stunning her almost unconscious. If his intention was to disrupt her concentration, it was working. Desperately, she struggled to connect with her source. This wasn't supposed to happen. He couldn't win. He mustn't win.
Angelus's demon heat seared her wrists where he pinned her to the ground, his legs on top of hers, immobilized her. Elation dawned in his blue eyes, brilliant with victory as he reinforced their link. He brought his face close and drew back his lips, showing his pearl white, perfect teeth. His fangs emerged, and he bit down on his lower lip.
She stared, mesmerized, as a droplet of dark red blood bloomed. He bent his mouth to hers. She screamed Vanse's name. His was the strongest link, he loved her. Where was he? Angelus's lips touched hers. The bead of blood sank into her mouth, and the world exploded. The blade radiated light; the sacred symbols swirled and shifted as her links blazed to life.
Angelus stared in disbelief as her connection to Vanse, his followers, the primeval Bandrui sorcery and the supernatural shamanic magics of Changing Sky reignited at the very instant of his triumph.
The surrounding rocks shattered. The elements of his construction shrieked as he withdrew the sorcery that held them together. A thousand black splinters punctured his body and face as he fought for survival. Stinking, yellow-green sulfuric fumes seeped through the long thin slashes opening around them. The abyss was close.
She realized if the barriers gave way, he would drag her down to Hell with him. He'd never give her up. If he couldn't have her, no one could.
The one solid place left was the spot where they perched. Dribbling a little of her conjoined power, she held the ledge in place; an unstable tower of safety, jutting above the abyss. Hellish screams rent the air. Attacking from all directions, those Angelus had left behind howled their anticipation at the prospect of their revenge at his return.
His face contorted, black and yellow bleeding into the blue of his eyes. "This is not the end," he snarled, baring his teeth, as he ignored the low thrum of disintegration. Tormented, twisted shapes bulged toward him, trying to haul him through the increasingly fragile barrier.
Tatya pulled even deeper on her power, and Angelus hissed in pain as the knife glowed, silver bright. She shuddered with a fierce joy as Otakay manifested behind Angelus. Shaking off the demon's hold on her wrist, she seized her opportunity, and as the spirit warrior grabbed a fistful of the demon lord's red-gold hair and wrenched his head back, she stabbed upward, plunging the blade deep into Angelus's heart.
Chapter Twenty-Five: When One Door Closes
Tatya stretched, luxuriating in the hot sudsy water and inhaled the soothing scent of lavender. Add bubble baths to the list of unexpected vampire penchants, she reflected, swishing the water with her toes. Thinking of vamps led to Vanse, who hadn't visited her since he’d carried her, half conscious, bruised and battered from the battlefield to his lair. However, she wasn’t sure lair was quite the right word for the suites of lavish accommodation he inhabited. The stereotype of vampires sleeping in coffins buried in deep dark caves clearly didn’t apply here.
She had floated in and out of consciousness since her rescue over two days ago. That morning, the doctor attending her removed the last of the drips attached to her arm and expressed his astonishment at her quick recovery.
She didn't remember a great deal after Angelus sank his fangs into her neck on the platform. Even that one memory brought back nightmares. She'd dreamed of an immense, dismal emptiness where she battled Angelus with skills she didn't know she possessed. She remembered the Bandrui and shaman spirit guides chanting a mantra so potent the words opened an awful slash in the fabric of reality as they expelled Angelus from this world.
The one glimpse she'd had of claws and talons reaching through and dragging a shrieking Angelus through the tear continued to haunt her. That image almost elicited sympathy as those full of rage and envy at his millennia-long escape sought to settle the score at last. But she still had gaps in the sequence of events where the details were unclear.
The Bandrui mantra was another thing that remained with her and she could recall it at will. The ancient spirits of the Bandrui had departed, leaving her bereft of more than their power. She had
difficulty in recalling their features. Fidelma's image merged with Dhanu's and Brigid's until she couldn't tell the difference anymore. Today, she understood they'd been her silent companions since joining with her on an island in ancient Britain, and they had waited, life after life, to be called. They'd left the chant as a parting gift,
"Are you decent?" Corwin shouted, his voice crisp and businesslike outside the bathroom door.
"Give me a second," she shouted back. "Don't leave. Make yourself comfortable."
Tatya was out of the bath, grabbing the humongous, white fluffy cotton towel, and pulling on her jeans and a sweatshirt with more speed than she thought possible. Giving her hair a quick towel dry, she dragged her wild curls back into a hair band and flew out the door.
"Corwin!" She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight.
"Hey! Watch the coffee. Brought you your favorite," he said and handed her a takeout cup, "Large, soy, caramel latte, extra shot. Right?"
She stood back. Both blinked hard. Neither wanted to shed the tears.
"Look at us—two softies, eh?"
"Oh, Corwin!" She took the coffee and planted a loud smacking kiss on his cheek. "It's so good to see you. Why haven't you visited before?" She cradled the warm takeout cup in her hands.
"That's an easy one to answer. Your personal master vampire refused to let anyone come near you until the good doctor decreed you'd recovered enough to have visitors." The Sheriff planted himself in one of the comfortable armchairs, "but as soon as I got the okay, as you can see, I'm here."
Tatya sat in the opposite chair, and curled her feet under her, relishing the hot, bittersweet liquid. "Mmm, this is heaven!"
"How are you? Everyone at the station, and Winona, we're real anxious to know you're okay after everything that, you know… what happened."
She appreciated the implicit inclusion of Aunt Lil and Sean in his question. Corwin understood her. This wasn't just about Angelus.
"I don't remember too much after Vanse put those ties on me."
The truth was, she hadn't come to terms with the loss of her only living relative and her best friend. Since the end of the world crisis had been resolved, her struggle was adjusting to the gaping emptiness the absence of her loved ones left in her life. The space they occupied in her heart would take a lot of filling.
"Well, I had a grandstand view. While Vanse was escorting you up in the elevator, we–Bryson, and his force, Vanse’s vamps, and my people–sprinted up the stairs. You had your plan, Tatya, but we'd made ours too. There was no way we were letting you sacrifice yourself without being prepared to hurt his lot."
"I remember standing on that platform with Angelus when he released the bindings." Her mind skittered away from the memory of how vulnerable and alone she'd been while under Angelus' dominance. "And the next thing, I'm looking up and Vanse is standing over me. I don't think I want to remember the fuzzy part in between."
"Tatya, I've never been so happy to see the cavalry come to the rescue. I've told the man, I mean the vampire, I owe him big time for bringing you out of there alive. He led the charge and lost a fair number of his people too, but when you and Angelus disappeared–"
"Disappeared?"
"Yep. Gone. Don't ask me where, but when you appeared again, it was without Angelus. And those spawns of hell–"
"Spawns of hell? Corwin, your vocabulary's expanded."
"More than my vocabulary's undergone a change," he cracked back. "Listen, girl, let me tell the tale, okay? The bigwigs have brushed the whole situation under the carpet. A gas leak and resultant explosion is the reason given to the public for the evacuation and the mess that was left."
"So, these spawns of hell?" Tatya tried not to smile. Corwin, the hard-nosed sheriff discussing creatures from other dimensions as if they were an everyday occurrence was funny.
"Right. Well, the second you disappeared, Vanse exploded out of the hospital with his vamps, leading the charge to the platform. They can move real fast when they have a mind to, can't they? Anyway, by the time he reaches it, you reappeared. As Murphy's Law would have it, Bryson's reinforcements turned up, too. When you shoved Angelus back to where he came from, his army knew something had happened. Half of them vanished right in front of our eyes. We fought the other half and it wasn't easy, even with Bryson's forces. But we got rid of the rest."
"Wow!" She could tell by the way his mouth thinned and turned down he was having nightmares. "How many did we lose?"
Corwin didn't reply.
"Oh, no! Tell me Bellamy is okay."
"You should have seen him when they assigned him to me, Tat. He was a puffed-up, freshly promoted little so and so, and I was just getting him sorted out." Corwin fished in his pocket, dabbed at his eyes with a crumpled white handkerchief. "He died the way he wanted. Told me once he joined the force 'cause he wanted to be one of the good guys, and he died fighting real evil, face-to-face, and took a fair few with him. He was a brilliant cop and a hero."
"I'm so sorry, Corwin."
They sat silent, remembering the eager deputy Sheriff. The blame for these deaths lay at Angelus's feet, but instead of abandoning her, these men had sacrificed their lives to save her. The guilt hovered, a weight she would have to carry for the rest of her life.
A rap on the door and a bright-eyed young man, dark brown hair sticking up like a brush from a high forehead, poked his head around the door.
"Branton, meet Tatya. Tatya meet Branton." The two nodded at each other.
"There's a call, sir." Branton's voice carried a smooth southern undertone.
Corwin was born and spent his early youth in the south though his accent had softened. Maybe hearing Branton would remind him of better, simpler, times. Corwin stood, stuffing the hankie back in his pocket. "The town's having a memorial service tomorrow to honor those who died."
"I'll be there," she promised.
Tatya was still nursing her coffee when a soft knock at the door brought her back to the present. The link was quiescent, but she knew it was Vanse. She took a deep breath, knowing she'd have to face him sooner or later. "Come in."
Vanse entered, seating himself opposite her. He didn't speak, or activate their connection, but sat, scrutinizing her warily.
An image surfaced. Shrieks and howls, the world disintegrating around her. Then Angelus, his fangs puncturing his lip, leaning close, his blood searing through her veins, and her final call to Vanse. "Thank you, for saving me."
"Yes. Angelus thought he created a haven where his wards were strong enough to prevent anyone from entering, but he forgot you and I are bonded. He also forgot that as my original maker, I was also joined to him. I'm sorry I wasn't quicker."
Tatya shrugged. "He's gone. It doesn't matter." She studied Vanse's expression. His eyes had lost their intense mourning, but she could sense a lingering sadness. "Okay, tell me. What is it? There's something you're not telling me. Spit it out."
He leaned forward to take her hand, but stopped as she shifted back. "Yes, he's gone, but..." he hesitated.
Tatya drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair.
"If I'd been there sooner," he started, but she jumped to her feet.
"Vanse, I'm not a baby, but I will have a screaming tantrum if you don't tell me what is bothering you."
"Please, Tatya, be calm. Sit down. This is a difficult subject."
She perched on the edge of the seat, glaring at the vampire master.
"Angelus has returned to Hell, his rightful home, but when you absorbed his blood, it established a bond that transcends the boundaries between this world and his."
"What are you saying? He can return?"
"That is unlikely, but I cannot say for sure."
"Oh, I'm so glad it's unlikely. I mean, after being beaten nearly to death by a demon lord who arranged the murder of those I loved most," she paused, choking down her grief. "With Bellamy and so many dead, please don't say we have no guarantee?"
"Tatya!" Power seethed in his voice.<
br />
She was aware of what it cost him to hold back and not activate the link, though he had the ability and the desire. Breathe, she told herself, breathe.
"You will not be happy about this, but while we are connected, he cannot return. Together, we are powerful enough to defeat any attempt he might make, but alone, you are vulnerable."
She realized the Bandrui chant hadn't ruptured or breached her link with Vanse, but she'd believed that after they defeated Angelus, when there was no justification to keep the connection between them alive, Vanse would set her free. Her love for him, shared when she thought she would die, had been colored by the remembrance of her past lives. Those memories had awakened as the Bandrui came to life, and now they had gone, subsumed in a layer of her subconscious. That emotion, like the memories of her former lives no longer dominated her mind, and was growing fainter and weakening as dreams do in the daylight.
"My feelings for you haven't changed." He whispered with no hint of glamour, and no effort to persuade her.
Tatya opened and closed her mouth, biting back her words. Opening the link was more than a physical or spoken reciprocation of emotion with Vanse; they became part of each other, separate, yet together. The faintest trace of power trickled through the bond, but she blocked him. She needed to think, to digest the events of recent days, and she needed to grieve. Once she'd done that, she would deal with Vanse, Part of her wanted that intense pleasure of joining with him, and ached to have his arms around her, but not here and not now. "I need to get away for a while," she said, observing his expression change as he withdrew his power.
"Where will you go?"
"I have a good friend I've not seen in a while."
Eva, a roommate from her college days, had extended an anytime-you-want invitation to visit. She lived in a large, rambling house over on the west coast, up near Big Sur. Maybe she would come back and rebuild her aunt's house. She, Sean and Aunt Lil had often sat by the fire imagining the alterations they would make if the business became successful enough. Now, the insurance money would take care of that, but as with this vampire, with whom she shared a complicated, if half-forgotten past, the timing just wasn't right.
Healer's Magic Page 21
