by Various
“I witnessed their spellcastings myself. There is my word, which stands as proof. And then, there was the transformation of the devil, right before our eyes.”
Angel changed, Wesley thought. Then we’re really for it.
Brother Michael nodded and crossed himself. “You’re right, Brother Joseph,” he murmured uneasily. “I only wish…I wish that something could be done to spare them from the flames.” He added very quietly, “It is such a terrible death.”
“When the imps of Satan are involved, there can be no mercy,” Brother Joseph intoned.
“Amen,” the other two monks intoned.
The door to Fred’s cell opened. Three hooded monks faced her, one holding a cross. All she could see of the three of them were their mouths, turned down in very dour frowns.
“Um, hi,” she said, forcing down all the terror and panic that had welled up inside her ever since they’d been transported here. Her eyes were welling with tears.
Wordlessly, the one with the cross gestured for her to rise. The youngest of the three monks held out a folded piece of white cloth. Uncertainly she took it.
The cross-holding monk said, “You will wear this garment to the burning place.”
Fred had been in the process of unfolding the cloth. It was a very baggy dress. She said, “Sorry,” and began to hand it back. “I don’t think it’s my size.”
“Put it on,” the monk said, “or we will do it for you.”
Angel stood at the front of the cart, the right side of his face blistered, his hands bound, the sign of the cross burned into his forehead. Beside him stood a young girl in a white nun’s habit, and she had been badly tortured. She had sunk to her knees, and she was weeping uncontrollably.
“She’s an Anchoress,” Angel explained to the others. “They wall her up alive, make her give advice to supplicants and prophecy. Most of them went mad.”
“Being walled up,” Cordelia muttered. “That’d do it.”
“Some people theorize that Joan of Arc was an Anchoress,” Angel continued.
“And she died at the stake,” Cordelia recalled, shuddering.
Under cover of darkness, they were taking them to the burning place. Very few onlookers witnessed their procession, though they were surrounded by the armored knights and many men on donkeys or walking, carrying torches. There were probably about fifty, all told.
Cordelia, Gunn, and Fred stood behind Angel and the girl. Wesley had been thrown into the back of the cart, and he was moaning with fever.
Everyone in the tumbrel, including Angel, wore execution garments of pristine white.
Cordelia muttered, “The hell of it is, that girl back inL.A. is probably dead.”
“Maybe we were meant to save this one,” Gunn ventured.
“If you figure out how, let me know,” Cordelia shot back.
Wesley moaned, and Angel glanced anxiously over his shoulder. He tried to tell himself that this was the inevitable outcome of their being transported here; that his change had not sealed their fates. But he couldn’t help the guilt he felt; they’d sprinkled holy water on him, then branded his forehead with a silver cross, and he couldn’t help his transformation. Of course in this time and place, he was considered a demon.
Then again, he was considered a demon in his own time and place, too.
It was the dead of night. Everything had happened so fast. He saw politics at play, swirling around Brother Joseph, who definitely had a grudge against the Anchoress. What little Angel had been able to understand was that she had been having visions of Cordelia, the others, and him, and sharing them only with one trusted monk. And this guy, this Brother Joseph, had been jealous of that.
Also, I think he tried something…and she wouldn’t go for it.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured to her.
“Speak not to me, Satan,” she hissed, through swollen, bruised lips. “I abjure thee!”
He sighed, very sorry, and said to the others, “There’s always a way out, unless we’re dead.”
And then the cart crested a rise, and the rings of Stonehenge appeared. Dozens of torches illuminated the ancient stones, and six tall poles, each of which was seated atop an enormous pyre of wood.
“Thinking dead would be a nice way out about now,” Cordelia grumbled.
Me, too, Angel thought.
And then Cordelia cried out and fell to her knees, caught up in the agony of another vision.
At the same time, the little nun in white began to writhe as well.
Words came jumbled, and the two women spoke them in unison:
“O spiritus Neyilon et Achalas, accipte sacrificum vt Nichil contra me et contra clayem istam… I invoke the key of Pluto to open all locks…valeat sera vbi ista clauis poneteur…”
There was more; Cordelia rattled it off as best she could. Images came fast and furious, in the jump-cut style to which she had grown accustomed.
Stonehenge…Los Angeles…the girl…a Druid guy…chanting…
She saw the guy with the knife very clearly; he was surrounded by a shimmering magickal glow. The girl lay on the altar, and her chest was rising and falling very shallowly.
She’s still alive…
Druid Guy was stomping around shouting, “We were supposed to go through the portal! Not them! Joseph is gonna pay for this!”
Then another image blasted into her mind: It was Brother Joseph standing before a portal, talking to the guys in L.A., beckoning them…
And then Angel was holding her. And Gunn was cradling the Anchoress. Now they were crouching below the field of vision of their guards, and no one stopped to investigate. Maybe they figured the women were swooning in fear.
Cordy said to Angel, “Angel, the Druids in L.A…. they were trying to come here, to this time.”
Farther down on the cart, Wesley was repeating the words she had spoken as if committing them to memory.
“We never had time to wonder why the Druids were performing a ritual. It was to come here.”
She blinked at him. “But we got sent here instead of them.” She nodded as she put the pieces together. “And one of them back there was trying to come through just now, by reciting the spell again.” Catching her breath, she realized something else: “The portal stays open only as long as that girl is alive. When she dies, it’s closed.”
The young nun stared at Cordelia. “Portals—you are speaking of the entrance to Hell!”
Cordelia gave the girl a long look. “You saw it, too.”
“No, no,” the Anchoress moaned. “I saw nothing.”
“Listen,” Cordelia said firmly. “We’re going to die unless you and I work together. Brother Joseph is mixed up in this.”
The girl took a deep breath. Her hands shook. “If you mean to beguile me…”
“No.” Cordelia gave her a gentle smile. “I just want to save you.”
The nun looked up at Angel. “But he…”
“He’s a good guy.”
Angel nodded. “I am.”
“Come on. We don’t have much time,” Cordelia prodded.
The other girl nodded, lowering her head as she gazed at her tortured hands. “I saw that, too,” she said. “What you saw. There are men from another place who wished to come here, but I…I summoned you instead…” She looked stricken.
“I don’t think you summoned anyone,” Angel told her. “I think it was someone else.”
Angel turned his head and looked at the man on the donkey who was leading the procession. He was the tall ugly monk who had been so quick to condemn them all for witchcraft.
“Brother Joseph,” the Anchoress breathed. “He knows.”
Cordelia nodded. “I saw him in my vision too. He set this whole thing up, probably back when he was taking care of you. I think you were having visions before you realized it.”
“He was helping them cross over here.”
“Maybe he was going to come to our time,” Angel suggested. “Open the portal for them, go back through.”
>
“With black magick,” the girl murmured, crossing herself.
“He wanted you silenced, so you couldn’t tell anyone,” Angel told the girl.
“No. He wanted to sacrifice me,” the Anchoress said slowly staring off into space. “That is the rest of the vision. There must be a sacrifice on either end, once they travel through the portals. That girl in the place where you dwell, and I, here.”
“Looks like he may get what he wants,” Gunn bit off.
They had reached the mystical stone circle of Stonehenge.
Perhaps three dozen monks were waiting for Brother Joseph and the cartful of witches at the pyres of Stonehenge. The wood had been slathered with pitch, to make it hot. The burnings would be quick…save for Elizabeth’s. Brother Joseph had promised that the little Anchoress would die more slowly.
So that she will last long enough to make the transfer, Angel realized, as he allowed himself to be tied to his stake. Now that he could see Brother Joseph up-close and personal, the grim determination on the monk’s face was obvious.
One by one, the others were led to their stakes, theirarms tied behind their backs. Even Wesley, who was already half dead with fever, was forced to stand.
Their white garments flapped in the wind; the torches flickered and blazed. Angel could smell that the wood was green; it would not burn quickly even with the pitch. Cordelia, Gunn, Wesley, and Fred were in for hellish deaths…but the Anchoress would take forever to die. She would practically be roasted alive.
Once they were bound to their stakes, the prisoners received the sentence of Holy Mother Church directly from the lips of Brother Joseph, who stood in front of the massed warriors and monks, his cross raised high. He looked insane with triumph.
“For the crime of witchcraft, I abjure thee! May your souls burn in Hell with your lord and master, Satan!” he shouted.
He made the sign of the cross over them, and six monks came forward to touch their torches to the cords of wood.
Cordelia stared wild-eyed down at them.
“Chant…” Wesley managed to rasp.
“Oh, my God!” she shouted, as the fire took hold of the bottom layers of wood. She went blank.
“Chant!” Wesley invoked the words: “O spiritus Neyilon et Achalas, accipte sacrificum vt Nichil contra me et contra clayem istam… I invoke the key of Pluto to open all locks…valeat sera vbi ista clauis poneteur…”
Cordelia took up the chant.
The fires licked at the pyre, at all of their pyres.
The Anchoress joined Cordelia in reciting the spell.
Then Brother Joseph must have heard them above the roar of the flames. He began to shout, “No! Stop! They are calling to Satan!”
Then Fred and Gunn added their voices.
Brother Joseph grabbed the torch of a nearby, startled monk and hurled it at Elizabeth. It arced, then landed in the center of the stack of wood.
Angel joined in the chant last.
The air around Stonehenge shimmered with an ethereal green glow. The bluestones and lintels and sarsens glittered and crackled with magick. As the monks shouted and began to scatter, a vortex formed at the center of the circle, and the Druid leader from Los Angeles tumbled into their midst.
“It’s here,” Cordelia cried. “The portal’s here!”
“And it’s open,” Wesley managed. “Look.”
Beyond the shimmer, Angel could see parts of the recreation of Stonehenge in Griffith Park.
“Hey!” the Druid guy shouted. “I made it. You can go through now!” He came toward the monk, who backed away from him and waved his arms as if to warn him off. Then he froze and pointed to Angel and company. “Those guys tried to stop me!”
“Hush, you fool!” Joseph shouted.
“What’s wrong?” the Druid guy demanded. He looked around. “What’s going on?”
“Brother Joseph?” queried the monk whose torch he had taken. “Are you in league with these fiends?”
“What? No!” Joseph cried. He pointed at the Druid guy. “I know him not! Seize him!”
The monks obeyed; in the ensuing confusion, Angel easily broke the chains and ropes that held him. Then he leaped to Cordelia’s pyre and quickly freed her. There was no way to get her down the bier other than to throw her down bodily, which he did.
“Run to the portal!” he ordered her.
“Not till everyone’s safe!” she shouted back.
She picked up a piece of burning wood and used it as a weapon, keeping the monks at bay.
But then the heavy artillery moved in—the knights in their armor, with swords drawn and maces twirling above their heads.
“Hurry!” Cordelia called frantically to Angel.
Angel freed Gunn next, who took the chance to leap to Fred’s pyre. After Gunn untied Fred, the two of them jumped to the ground. Angel moved on to Wesley, and carried him slung on his back as he reached the ground.
Only the Anchoress was left tied to a stake, and Angel looked up at her just before he prepared to hurtle himself up her pyre—to burn in the attempt, if he had to…
At that moment, the Druid guy and Brother Joseph took up another chant…
The vortex shifted direction; the shimmering became a glowing green strobelight…
Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, and Fred were sucked into the magickal portal. There was a mind-churning moment and then…
…they landed on the ground in Griffith Park.
“No!” Angel yelled angrily, while Cordelia shouted, “Somebody call nine-one-one!”
The sacrificial victim lay on the altar, still bleeding. The amount of blood from her wrist cuts, which had pooled on the grass below her, was astonishing.
Wesley staggered and fell to his knees. Gunn pulled out a cell phone and punched in the number.
“Damn! Gettin’ the fast busy sound,” Gunn shouted. “I’m not gettin’ through.”
“Try again,” Fred urged.
“Angel, we have to go back,” Cordelia said to him. “We have to save that girl. She’s going to burn to death.”
He nodded. “We can try the chant again.”
“No luck,” Gunn announced.
“You and Fred take her and Wesley to the nearest hospital,” Angel told him.
“She’s going into cardiac arrest!” Fred said. “Gunn, do you know CPR?”
Cordelia took a breath and gazed into Angel’s eyes. “If we get it open and go back, and then she dies…”
“We’re stuck there,” he said. “I can go alone.”
She smiled grimly. “Like hell you can.”
Gunn carried the girl to Angel’s convertible, and Fred helped Wesley walk. A good sign that he can walk.
Angel began the chant, and Cordelia caught up. The shimmering returned, and Angel took her hand. She smiled up at him and said, “Here goes nothing.”
They were thrown back to the fourteenth century once more.
And this time, a man stood behind Elizabeth’s stake, trying to untie her while at the same time fighting to keep his long monk’s robe from catching fire. An armored warrior was scrambling up after him, and the Anchoress was screaming. The flames had the hem of her execution robe.
Angel grabbed the sword of the nearest knight and threw it to Cordelia, who took on the nearest monk. Angel wrested a spear away from another warrior and fought his way through the frenzy of monks and fighters. Every face he blurred past spoke of terror and confusion. Then one of them fell back from him, and Angel realized that he had vamped.
He took advantage of their fear to make a path for himself, trying not to kill any of them. A quick glance in Cordelia’s direction reassured him that she was managing to hold her own.
Then Brother Joseph planted himself in Angel’s way. In his hand he held a cross.
Before Angel could dart around him, another monk flanked him. Then another, and another, until there was a solid wall of monks holding crosses.
“Help me!” shouted the monk who was trying to help Elizabeth.
“Angel, we’ve got to get to her!” Cordelia cried.
“She must suffer for her sins,” Brother Joseph cried in ringing tones. “Only then will God spare us the evil that has come among us!”
Then Angel saw the Druid guy off to one side, gagged and held by two warriors. He raced over, yanking him away with ease—no crosses—and dragged him back to stand beside Cordelia.
He pulled off the man’s gag.
“Tell them what’s going on!” Angel demanded.
“He set it up!” the Druid guy said fearfully. “Oh, man! He had this chick who could see things. And then he did all these spells and he found us and it was, like, we were going to switch in the portal and…” He looked anxiously at Angel. “I don’t want to do this. I want to go home.”
Brother Joseph looked pale. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You liar,” Cordelia hissed.
Then she launched herself at Brother Joseph. She still had the sword Angel had thrown to her, and thanks to Angel’s training, she knew how to use it. While she parried and lunged, Angel thrust the Druid guy at the monk and made it to Elizabeth’s pyre.
The fire burned; the heat alone hurt more than he remembered; it seared him to the bone, but he fought on. Scrabbling, stumbling, every part of him in agony, he inched his way to the young girl and the man who was trying to keep her garment from going up in flames, although his own monk’s robe was burning up his back.
Angel batted him out first, then yanked at Elizabeth’s chains and ropes, pulling them apart. The metal was white hot in places. Then he pushed them both off the pyre. The logs tumbled everywhere, igniting the robes of the monks closest to it, and creating a firewall between the escapees and the bad guys.
The three had landed in a heap on the other side of the flaming logs. Then Angel saw a second pair of sandaled feet and looked up into the face of another monk. It was the young one who had accompanied Brother Joseph, the one who had looked so frightened and uncomfortable.
As the knights and monks began to circle around the fire, the young monk tightly held the reins of Brother Joseph’s donkey, his face distorted with fear.
