Then gravity reasserted itself. When Willow turned around to face her friends, she was startled to find the ghost of Lucy Hanover hovering beside her.
It is working, Lucy told her. Then the ghost turned to look at Buffy and Giles. But you must hurry. Any moment now, the Triumvirate will have its first souls, and then it will be too late for your friends, and for the rest of the mortal world as well.
“Can’t the lost souls help?” Angel asked, approaching the ghost.
Lucy looked at him carefully. Willow wondered if this was the first time she had realized that he was a vampire.
Haven’t they already helped? the ghost asked. I cried out to all of them, all the spirits of the angry dead, the lost souls who died horribly in these woods and were unwilling or unable to move on. I pleaded for their aid, and they have given it. Not only have they led you to this place, but they are willing to lend themselves to you, to fight the Triumvirate in your stead, as your proxies.
“Can we trust them?” Oz asked suddenly.
Willow looked at him. “Oz?”
“Hell, I wouldn’t trust them,” Tergazzi interrupted.
Willow stared at him. She’d almost forgotten the demon was there, he’d been so quiet, cowering among them.
“Seriously,” he went on. “Think about it. Okay, the Triumvirate can only drink the souls of living humans. So sure, let the spirits of the dead into your body, hoping maybe they can shield your own soul and use your body to fight the thing at the same time.
“Pretty far-fetched to begin with. But I’ll tell ya what’s really crazy: believing those angry ghosts are gonna give up those bodies after they’re done. Hell, they’re pissed off that they’re dead. You think they hung around out here ’cause they liked the scenery?”
A burning tree cracked and collapsed across their path, flames jumping from tree to tree. Willow had spoken every ward, charm, and spell of protection she could think of, but the fire was just too strong.
“This is not the time!” she cried.
It was Giles who asked the question again. He looked at the ghostly girl and lowered his gaze as if in apology. But he asked it. “Can we trust them?”
Lucy looked sad. If you fail here, most of them have loved ones they have left behind. I have explained what the fate of those mortals will be if the Triumvirate drinks their souls. You may trust the lost ones, because it is not you they fight for.
Buffy led the way through the inferno.
The three faces of the Triumvirate glared down at Veronique.
I hunger.
“Yes,” she said triumphantly. “I have brought you mortal souls.”
Xander had broken his bonds and had carried Cordelia in his arms, but he had not gotten far. Several of her vampire brood had risen to block their exit, and the fire blazed high around them. They could not escape.
And there were still the other three, the woman, Queenie, and the two who remained from their attack on the theater. Veronique gestured to the figures on the ground.
Cordelia stood beside Xander now, leaning on him, skin burnt an angry red. She looked up, coughing from the smoke. Her gaze locked with Veronique’s, and the hatred there was . . . exciting.
I should find a way to spare them. The boy is so intelligent and bold. Veronique stared at him. There was something odd about him, about the way that he stood, the slack expression on his face.
From atop the pyre, where she stood in her rightful place beside her master, Veronique began to descend. Even as she did so, she stretched her consciousness out, using magick taught to her by Empress Theodora so long ago. She reached out with that magick and touched him, and found . . . nothing.
He is dead.
She was shocked.
Dead, and yet he walks, but he is not a vampire.
Nothing in her magick had prepared her for this.
The Triumvirate dipped its heads, flames curling from its nostrils, toward Xander.
“No!” Veronique screamed.
This undead-yet-living thing held no mortal soul. If her master tried to drink that soul, Veronique feared that all would be lost.
But the Triumvirate did not know that. All it heard was her scream . . . her command.
Veronique dropped her gaze, knowing that it would be useless to try to explain. The hunger for souls was upon it, the thirst for mortal spirits to torment in the eternal suffering of its gullet. Their suffering would give it even greater power.
She awaited punishment.
A burning tree stood in the middle of their path, and there wasn’t enough room on either side to go around it. Buffy stopped and turned to speak to Willow, who was standing behind her.
Willow’s face was a blank slate; her eyes were unfocused. She was murmuring in a language Buffy didn’t understand; she gestured to Giles and Angel, who came forward, clearly straining to hear over the cacophony of windstorm and earthstorm.
“Protective wards,” Giles shouted. “But she can’t keep it up much longer.”
“I’ll guide her,” Oz said, snaking past Angel and Giles. He laced his fingers through Willow’s. She made no response, completely focused as she was on the spell she was casting.
“Let’s go,” Oz told Buffy.
The Three-Who-Are-One rushed down toward Xander as Veronique shouted again.
“No!”
The enormous demon knocked him down, hard, and lunged for Cordelia. She screamed and dove aside, falling to the ground, shrieking as her hand flattened over a white-hot rock. Her palm sizzled, and she tried to pull her hand away, but she was in such pain she couldn’t remember how to work her body. It lunged for her again.
“Oh, my God!” Cordelia screamed. She fell forward, slamming her chest and face against more superheated rocks. The pain was unbelievable. Every nerve ending in her body was seared, rushing along the synapses to fire the neurons in a confused riot of misinformation; her heart beat too fast, then skipped a beat.
Oh, God, just let me die, she thought wildly.
Another hallucination, she thought, but she couldn’t quite convince herself of that, as Angel raced forward, leaped into the air, and kicked at one of the demon heads.
The creature reared back, then snapped at Angel with its razor-sharp teeth. He punched it in the mouth, shouting in pain and bringing his knuckles back, shredded and bleeding.
“Thanks,” Cordelia muttered, and tried to crawl out of the way. She had never felt so weak and stupidly helpless, which was something she had hated, and hated even more now.
Open your mind, said a papery, whispery voice below her. You must give yourself over.
“Wh — wha —” she stammered.
I have been trying to touch you, but in your pain you could not hear me. Now, open yourself to me, and you will live. For if the demon touches you now, your soul will be damned.
Confused, terrified, Cordelia tried to make sense of it all. She was about to protest, to argue that the demon had touched Xander and Angel, but the voice came again.
Yes. But the vampire is not mortal. And Xander has given his body up to the dead. We protect him, as you must let us protect you. Let me in.
Xander shuffled forward. Cordelia’s mouth dropped open.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Xander?”
Xander stared at her. There was no emotion on his face. He shook his head.
“Let her in,” his mouth said.“To live, you must die.” But the voice that spoke did not belong to Xander.
“No!” she screamed.
But then Angel was in front of her.
“Do it!” he snapped. “It’s the only way!”
Cordelia closed her eyes and wept, and she let the ghost in.
Buffy had dusted three vampires before they even knew she was there. Oz and Willow and Giles and Tergazzi were all moving around the circle as well. The vampires did not expect them at all.
We have the element of surprise, she thought. But then, they have the element of forest fire, and that whole evil thing.
> Still, they were doing what they could. They had thought about getting closer, trying to help Angel against the demon. But the fire was so intense and so widespread that the Triumvirate threw shadows in all directions.
In the middle of the clearing, at the base of the huge burning pyre, Angel beat at the heads of the Three-Who-Are-One with a thick burning tree limb. Xander held a large stone, and he threw it at the demon. Of course, it wasn’t really Xander, only his body. Their attacks weren’t doing much more than buying time.
But time was what they needed.
Even as Buffy watched, Cordelia — who was also no longer herself — tore away the ropes that bound Tergazzi’s girlfriend Queenie and another woman not far from the base of the pyre. Veronique stood behind the demon on the other side and thus far hadn’t seen her.
You go, Cor, Buffy thought. Then she remembered again that it wasn’t really Cordelia, and that preyed on a fear that she dared not voice. The fear that Tergazzi had been right, and the dead would not give up the bodies of her friends when this was done.
“Worry about it after you win, Summers,” she muttered to herself, and then lunged at a fourth vampire.
It saw her coming. That didn’t help it any. A heartbeat later, it was just another cloud of ashes sucked into the inferno.
When she turned again, Lucy Hanover was there.
Well done, the ghost said. You are far more skilled in battle than I ever was.
]“It’s time?” Buffy asked.
Lucy nodded.
Buffy ran into the clearing, dangerously close to where the shadows of the Triumvirate might fall. Cordelia had gotten extremely lucky, but Buffy wasn’t going to leave it to luck. She stayed just out of range. In a moment, the demon would come after her. For a moment, she doubted the whole plan once more. It was her fight, she was the Slayer. She could not bring herself to give up control.
But what choice did she have?
Angel was there. He ran toward her. On the other side of the clearing, silhouetted against the fire, she saw Giles and Tergazzi. Off to her left, Willow and Oz staked the last of Veronique’s vampires and then hustled toward Buffy as well.
In the center of the clearing, above it all, hung the shimmering form of the ghost of Lucy Hanover.
Now! the ghost screamed.
Let me in, a lost soul whispered into Buffy’s mind.
All right, she sighed.
Angel saw Buffy fall to the ground. A moment later, she climbed to her feet once more, powerful but unsteady, and he knew that she had become like Xander and Cordelia, host to a spirit, one of the ghosts that haunted these woods. They were all possessed now, their minds and spirits submerged deep inside their subconscious, their bodies occupied by the angry dead.
He was afraid of what might come of it. Lucy Hanover had been a Slayer in life, but she was a spirit now. She had recruited these ghosts to help defeat the Triumvirate, supposedly to protect their own still-living loved ones. But there were no guarantees.
Angel might have argued the plan, but it had been Buffy’s idea.
“I hope you’re right,” he muttered as he watched the now possessed Oz, Willow, and Giles climb to their feet as well.
“Well, that’s a creepy sight if I’ve ever seen one.”
Angel spun, ready to attack, but it was only Tergazzi. He didn’t have a mortal soul, and Angel was dead, so neither of them was in any but the usual physical danger from the Triumvirate.
The three-headed demon shrieked and dodged its heads at them, and Angel and Tergazzi dove aside.
Maybe I was too quick to discount the physical danger, Angel thought.
Buffy was chilled to the bone, weighed down, and smothered in unending gray oblivion.
Not finished. I wasn’t finished.
I was unfinished.
There were no brilliant white lights; there were no loved ones with outstretched hands waiting for her. The void was without form; there was no one else there; nothing but endless, vacant emptiness. Nothing had any shape or texture, except her immense regret.
I am dead, inside and out, she thought. I’ve . . . stopped.
Veronique watched in horror as the dead Slayer and the others, all somehow animated though without living souls, attacked the Triumvirate. Their attack should have been beneath its notice. Its shadow fell over them all, its heads darted down, fangs flashing, its talons slashed.
They couldn’t hurt it, not really. But they protected themselves. And Veronique knew they would not have to do that for very long.
Her scream of fury and failure rent the darkness, a hard wind fed the fire and then snuffed it out in many places. Scorched trees fell in the forest.
The Triumvirate searched for souls to drink, but there was none to be had. It fought, but it was growing weaker, even disoriented. Confused. Six golden eyes glared at Veronique where she stood, raging helplessly.
Souls! it demanded in utter fury.
Its mouths opened, and it vomited huge streams of black ichor, which doused the blazing pyre.
Elsewhere, the fire stopped spreading. Began to burn low.
The Triumvirate howled, and more of the horrid liquid spewed from its maws. It collapsed in a heap, covered in the dark liquid. Then, beneath that thick tar, things began to move. And they emerged.
The hatchlings.
Veronique shrieked again. She had failed. But this was not like her previous failures, for they were here now, on this world, and Veronique did not know how to send them back.
Good-bye.
Buffy’s eyes fluttered open. The ghost had been as good as its word. She leaped to her feet, feeling somehow more energized than she had been. With a quick glance down at her hands, Buffy saw that somehow her burns did not seem so severe now. She didn’t understand it, but she wasn’t going to argue.
“Buffy!”
She looked over and saw Willow coming toward her, waving. Oz was behind her.
“Behind you!” Oz roared.
Buffy spun and saw one of the hatchlings lumbering toward her, disgusting demon drool slipping from its mouth. It leaped at her, fanged mouth snapping. She spun into a high kick and caught it in the jaw with the heel of her boot. It was turned away, and before it could come at her again, Buffy was on top of it. The demon hatchling was covered in black, sticky slime, and she nearly slid off. Instead, she clamped on tighter, wrapped her arms around its throat from above, and then broke its neck with a loud crack.
The demon crumbled to the ground beneath her.
“Way to go, Buff!” Willow cried, coming up behind her.
Oz gave her a hand up, and Buffy turned to see that one of the remaining hatchlings lay dead, with Xander and Giles still stabbing at it with long, partially burned tree limbs.
The third was on Angel.
“Hey!” Buffy screamed.
She ran for the thing. But she needn’t have worried. From beyond the hatchling, nearly in the fire itself, Tergazzi appeared, roaring a battle cry unlike anything Buffy had ever heard. He grabbed the hatchling from behind and drove his taloned hand through the creature’s back. His hand exploded out the other side, the hatchling’s black, twisted demon heart clutched in his grasp.
“Hello? Eeew!” Cordelia was moaning as Buffy approached. “Who invited him?”
Buffy saw Queenie coming up behind Tergazzi, now that the danger was over. The weasely little demon looked at her.
“I can fight,” he said. “When there’s somethin’ worth fightin’ for.”
“Guys!” Buffy said sharply. “Aren’t we missing something? Where’s Veronique?”
Giles looked aghast. “I thought you’d killed her,” he said.
That snapped them all back into battle mode. Buffy and Angel moved to stand side-by-side, staring around the clearing where the fire was burning down on the blackened trees.
“Maybe she just took off,” Xander suggested. “If I’d had such a wicked ass-whuppin’, I’d beat feet, too.”
“And often do,” Cordelia sniped.
“No,” Willow said, coughing a little from the smoke she’d inhaled. “Look over there.”
They did. Veronique was bent over the corpse of the hatchling Buffy had killed, holding it in her embrace.
And it moved.
“It’s not dead,” Angel snapped.
Buffy was already moving. She ran toward Veronique, and the vampire turned to look at her and screamed.
Veronique had lost her mind, and some small part of her knew it. It was over. Though one of the hatchlings yet lived, it was fast dying. Once again, a Slayer had stolen her destiny. First Angela Martignetti, and now this creature Buffy Summers. But this was worse.
There would be no coming back from this. Veronique had felt it the moment the first hatchling died. Something was different: she was no longer truly immortal. She was trapped now, in this shell, and when she died, as she knew she would, at the hands of the Slayer, she would be dust. Once she had been more than immortal; she had been eternal.
Now she was nothing more astonishing than a vampire.
Shrieking in fury, she ran at the Slayer.
Veronique had lost it. Buffy knew that the moment the vampire lunged at her. She was out of her mind with rage. They had fought enough times that Veronique knew what to expect from her. That focus had made her a formidable opponent.
No longer.
In her fury, she was barely paying attention.
The once-immortal vampire attacked her savagely, fingers curled into talons, and Buffy kicked her in the face. Veronique rose again and leaped into the air. Buffy ducked in with a hard elbow to the gut that drove her back to the dirt.
“Buffy!” Angel said from behind her.
The Slayer turned, for only a second, and Angel slapped a stake into her hand.
Buffy turned on Veronique, stake at the ready.
And Veronique ran, screaming, back to the dying hatchling.
“No!” she cried. “You cannot leave me to this!”
The vampire began to beat the demon thing’s slimy hide. The hatchling glared balefully at its former handmaiden with a half-lidded eye. Then it growled, low and dangerous.
“Oh, master, no,” Veronique whispered, backing up.
Immortal Page 31
