by Nancy Holder
It had never occurred to him before how pretty she was. Unlike his father, he had not taken any woman to be his paramour, neither free woman nor slave, but he be damned if his daddy’s gal wasn’t quite the thing.
Cecile would be fine food for the gods.
Her hair, usually caught up in a turban, tumbled in a waterfall of black curls down her back; and she turned her head and smiled at him as if she had expected to see him.
“Bon soir, young master,” she said. Her accented voice was sleek with tones of warm nights and drumbeats, promises and secrets.
“Evenin’, Cecile.” He made as if to tip his hat, which of course he would retrieve tonight before the fire took it. After all, his mother had given him that hat, and he loved her dearly.
He would miss his mother. He would ache for certain members of the family with longing and mourn their passing.
Alas. It can’t be helped.
“Hold on, gal. I’ll walk with you,” he said, his eyes shining eagerly.
She raised her chin slightly, the corners of her mouth raised upward, as if she was trying not to smile. He knew she must be thrilled that he would deign to escort her, a slave, and with him so dressed up and hair slicked back. When he caught up with her, she moved on, her gait stately, like she figured she was really something.
“Mighty fine cloak,” he observed.
“It was a gift.” She shifted the luxurious fabric over her shoulders. “From an admirer.”
They both knew who. “Generous man.”
“Oui.” She grinned at him. “He gives me many presents.”
“Does he. Any man would want to make you happy, he sees you in that cloak,” he drawled.
They locked gazes. Hers was penetrating and almost frightening; he was a little chilled but he kept smiling at her. She wanted him, all right. It was always so easy to tell.
“I know,” she said. Her voice was as smooth as velvet, as soft as the newly falling snow.
Chapter One
Flying to California
Cameron leaned his head against the small, thick pane of glass. In the hold of the private plane, the Gatherer sloshed in its pit. Cameron was its faithful Servant, and according to Cecile, the hour of triumph was at hand. Once the Gatherer consumed both living Slayers, it would rise and walk, as it had yearned to do . . . and Cameron would reign over the human survivors of the glorious new empire with his loving bride, Cecile, at his side.
Finally, a victory over the North. A true victory. His mind cast back . . .
In the haunted mists of Confederate dead . . .
. . . a creature walked. It had no mind, and it had no soul. It had no life, and it had no heart.
Human-shaped, yet knowing nothing of humanity, or mercy, or evil, it was draped in tattered pieces of white cloth, concealing it from anyone unlucky enough to cross its path. The ancient, gauzy fabric swirled around it in a strange, delayed motion like rising smoke. A single piece covered its head like a child’s First Communion veil, shorter in the front and reaching to its shoulder blades—if, indeed, it was made of flesh and bones. Its bandaged feet never touched the ground; as it crossed a puddle, the surface jittered with tension, if not precisely mass or weight.
The spirits in the graves beneath its form remained therefore, undisturbed, except for the anguish that clung to them: the South had fallen, and they had died for nothing. Terrible wounds had killed them; terrible wounds kept them earthbound. All that remained of them was desperate regret. Failure and nature together rotted their corpses, and their heads were thrown back, mouths grimaced open, in a rictus wail of disbelief.
We lost.
The Civil War has ended, and we lost.
All of them had lost. Hundreds of them, thousands; a hundred boneyards, thousands of gray bones in gray uniforms. So many boys and men; they had figured each of them was special; each of them thought, I’m the one that won’t die. It will never happen to me.”
They would be spared, because of their sweethearts, or their mothers, or the good deeds they had done; because they were the only child or the only son or the one who was going to take over the plantation or the family farm. Because they were special, death would not take them. It would take the next soldier over; the point man; the officer who waved his sword over his head.
But death took them all. It made no distinctions. As the Bible says, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.”
Eternity had no favorites.
That was the damnation of it: All they had been was fodder. White boys dying. They had marched. Across fields of fire, they marched. Cannonballs slammed into them and they marched. The Union soldiers shot at them, and they marched.
Johnny fell, and Beau, marching behind him, stepped over his body to fire off a shot; Beau fell, and Hunter took up the slack in the ranks, aiming, firing, crumpling to the blood-soaked earth.
Death is the great equalizer. All men die. There’s nobody spared.
And it’s nothing special to God or the Devil. Makes no never mind. And once you’re dead, you lose everything you ever thought made you different. Up in heaven, the angels are all the same, floating around and singing; and Ol’ Scratch’s imps are, too, prancing around and doing mischief. A sea of white, a sea of red.
Just like on the Earthly battlefield.
Mine eyes have seen no glory.
Just a terrible realization: The graveyards are full of “indispensable” men.
And Cameron, dressed in a fine black suit, spread forth his hands as he stared at the futility this graveyard represented, whispered: “This will never happen to me.”
The collected sighs of phantom rebels rose in a mist to taunt him. The voice of his father, a religious man, warbled in his brain: Why seek ye the living among the dead?
Lucy Hanover would not have so much as an unmarked grave. She would be nothing, once he was done with her.
Savoring that notion, he closed his eyes and held his arms forward. Blue light danced on his skin, then coalesced, forming a sphere that permeated the sky, and the gravestones, and the earth. The sphere hummed and glowed, growing, and the man tipped back his head.
In his outstretched hands, a bizarre box appeared. Made of skin—very special skin, Slayer skin—bones formed the frame. Slayer skulls, ribs, hands. A handprint stretched across the top.
It was heavy, and it was lethal, and if things went as planned, it, or any of the other four Elements, would use it to kill the Slayer.
A slow evil smile traveled over his face.
He pointed at the figure and said, “Of the Four, you are Water. The floodwaters will rise and take this accursed town, and I don’t give a damn if my family’s plantation is destroyed along with it. Find her and kill her.”
There are bonds of all sorts in this world and the others; the creature spoke no English, and it had no mind to think with. But it knew what its creator wanted.
It glided forward and stood. Its veiled face seemed to regard him, taking his measure, although he told himself that that made no sense.
But what if it can? What if it finds me lacking, just like my own daddy did?
For a moment, the magician faltered, frightened out of his wits by what he had conjured from the blackest parts of worlds yet unknown to him, and to every other sorcerer living or dead. Cecile had inspired him to it, and then stood back to see if he could. Some sane portion of his brain urged him to stop now, before it was too late.
But I can’t, he thought. I’m already in too deep. Over my head, in fact.
And others have died in shallower waters than these.
Slayers, too.
He said to the Wanderer, “Find her. Kill her. Wash her flesh from her bones and bring her carcass back to me. I am the Servant, and our Master requires it.”
To his horror, the figure nodded thoughtfully, as if it understood every single word.
And the beautiful Cecile glided to his side and said, “Cameron, you are a wonderful Servant. The Gatherer is pleased.”
And he preened a little for his woman and said, “That’s good, honey. That’s real good.”
* * *
Now Cameron rode in the plane, and as they got closer to their destination, he thought, storms, earthquakes, fires.
Looks like everything’s just fine.
He sat back, smiling.
Life’s good.
Then he got a call on the plane’s air phone:
“Change in plans, mon amour,” Cecile said. “Come to San Diego, oui?”
Chapter Two
Sunnydale
After Angel left, Buffy dreamed:
* * *
The Dark Ones had lied.
The war was raging, and the Yankees were on their way. Sherman was burning everything in his path, stealing the food out of the mouths of little children and doing worse to their mothers.
The South was dying.
Dressed in his Confederate finery, the redheaded, sunburned man whipped his horse as he made his way through the ruined plantation fields of his family’s plantation. The slaves had run off, some to their martyrdom as cannon fodder, put in the first ranks of the Union army to shield the white soldier boys of the North. Others had succumbed to disease, or starvation.
There were no Duvaliers alive, save Cameron. His family’s beautiful house was an abomination, all the loveliness and grace burned away clear to the foundation. The fault of the lying, thieving Dark Ones. The Dark Ones had also poisoned the well, then set fire to the fields. The exquisite oaks that had lined the drive to the house were charred, but they lived.
But there was very little else left alive at Oakhaven.
Only my hatred, he thought, putting the spurs to his horse. And I’ve got enough of that inside me to put the entire North to the flame. I had me a Union boy right here, I’d burn him to death with one look of my eye.
He leaped out of the saddle—no one to take his horse’s reins—and walked to the lovely but modest one-story house he had built on the grounds near the abandoned slave huts.
“Cecile!” he shouted. “Cecile!”
“Now, Buffy, pay attention,” said the woman standing next to Buffy. “Here is the secret: She wrote this book in the Arabias. And then she lured the Second Servant to Jerusalem.”
Cecile appeared, fresh and dewy in one of his mother’s silk gowns, on the threshold of the airy, wood-and-brick structure. It was furnished with the lovely things they had rescued the night Cameron had burned his family to death. Though many of his neighbors had offered to help him rebuild, he had instead requested they put their time and money into outfitting one of the many fine Southern regiments they’d shipped off to war.
That had been Cecile’s suggestion, designed to avert an inquiry. Her strategy had worked. By February of the new year, everyone was distracted with the creation of the Confederate States of America, and the sole surviving Duvalier was left to sift through the ashes.
“Who are you? Why are you showing me these things?”
“I am Mirielle. You don’t know me. But know this: part of my soul was left outside my body after Roger restored me. That is why I went so crazy. The good part was left to float like a butterfly through time and space. This is that part, helping you. Tipping the scales.”
Cecile greeted him with a kiss and brought him inside, to their parlor. They still kept a few house servants, but the grand days were gone. He was grateful to Cecile for sticking by him. Granted, he had given her her freedom, but that didn’t seem to mean much anymore, not with the way things were going in the war.
“Cameron, mon amour,” she said breathlessly. She wore the delighted smile that was the sole joy of his miserable life. Her dark eyes flashed, and she nearly pirouetted as she pulled him into the house. “Something wonderful has happened.”
She lifted up a thick, grimy book. Half the cover was burned away, but the other half was made of leather and studded with jewels. He didn’t know how to read the strange script on the cover, but it was written in gold.
As she watched, he flipped through the pages. It was almost like a memory book, with chunks of writings bound together with silk cords and other things. Though the cover had been burned, the pages were virtually untouched.
“It is Le Livre des Quatres,” she explained. Her eyes glittered. “Can you believe it?”
“Ah. French,” he said, somewhat embarrassed as he ran his fingers along the embossed cover. “I don’t speak French.”
“It’s written in many ancient languages,” she told him. “It’s a journal of a legacy.” She closed her hand over his. “The paper is magickal and cannot be burned. That is how I know it is the real book. My book.”
A vague chill ran down his back. She had never encouraged him to burn down the house, had she? It had been the Dark Ones. Always them.
“Where did you find it?” he asked neutrally.
“In the forest.” She smiled at him, all innocence. “I was looking for herbs and I had this sense . . .” She moved her hands in the air. “I put down my basket and I dug with my bare hands.”
He studied the cover. There was no trace of dirt or mud on it, only ashes.
There was no dirt on her hands or under her nails.
“Come. I will show you.” She wrapped both her hands around one of his and pulled him along. Cameron carried the weighty book against his chest, like a preacher carrying the Bible to his pulpit.
The forest had encroached upon the tumble-down walls that had once guarded the perimeter of the proud Duvalier lands. Like old men’s beards, vines and parasitic mosses hung down from the brick and mortar, sprouting from the cracks.
The woods themselves were thick with pines and lush, loamy undergrowth. Cameron’s boots sank in the damp soil, but Cecile’s dainty slippers barely touched ground.
Cameron was startled to realize that night had fallen. He looked through the ragged sleeves of the branches to observe the moon.
The underbrush was alive with scents and sounds, subdued by the cloak of night. They descended into a gully. The trees grew even more closely together. Trailing vines dotted with white and purple blossoms hung over the branches like wash lines. Something hung from them. Cameron recoiled; they were the heads of dozens of small forest animals and birds in various stages of decomposition.
Between two trees hung a woven straw mat decorated with human handprints in a dark-colored stain.
“Come in,” said a voice.
Cameron followed Cecile as she pulled the straw mat aside.
A half-naked man squatted beside a campfire, stirring a pot of a noxious substance that boiled and popped. The smell took Cameron back to the many nights he had spent in the ice house, praying over his sacrifices until the Dark Ones came to claim them. His heart lurched with sudden recognition:
This man is a Dark One.
His eyes were incredibly light against his skin, which had been weathered and tanned by a merciless sun. He said to Cameron, “Cecile Lafitte has brought you to me, and I honor her in all things.” He spoke with a strange, lilting accent such as some of the slaves had, but he was a white man. With gnarled fingers, he spooned some of the drink into a beaten metal cup, and handed it to Cameron.
Cameron blinked. “I didn’t realize you had a last name,” he said to Cecile.
She and the Dark One began to laugh. Cameron’s grip tightened around the cup. He didn’t know what was so funny, but he knew they were laughing at him. Their laughter moved around him in a spiral, and he fought to keep his balance. The forest seemed to press in on him, then retract, like a huge, breathing entity. He clutched the book tightly, as if it were something that could protect him from harm; somewhere deep inside his mind, he thought, I’ll be damned. I’m crazy as a loon. I’m crazy as they come.
Then that thought faded as Cecile came to him and put her arms around him, kissing him full on the lips. Her eyes gazed into his own and he calmed. When she put her hands on the book and gave it a gentle tug, he let her take it from him.
She handed the book to the
Dark One, who caressed the cover with a loving hand.
“She has a name that never dies,” the Dark One said. “Don’t you know who she is?”
“She is . . . she was our slave,” he stammered, perplexed.
“More the other way around,” the Dark One replied, laughing heartily. “She is the Baroness Lafitte, the Queen of the Voudoun, back in our own land. I’m her descendant, Simon Lafitte. She’s going to make me the new Servant.”
Cameron hunched his shoulders. “That’s my place,” he protested.
“Buffy,” said the woman, “she is playing them all. This apparition, this Dark One, is Simon Lafitte, the voodoo shaman who killed Roger Zabuto. He is part of your dream. Tervokian, Lord Yorke—though he’s out of the running, obviously—and one other—are all in line to assume the role of Servant. She has promised each one that he will be the new Servant. She will betray Cameron very soon. Remember these things.”
“Am I on the Ghost Roads?” Buffy asked. “Is this a trick?”
“Hush,” the woman admonished her, pressing her finger against her lips.
“Who are you? Why are you showing me these things?”
“I am Mirielle. You don’t know me. But know this: part of my soul was left outside my body after Roger restored me. That is why I went so crazy. The good part was left to float like a butterfly through time and space. This is that part, helping you. Tipping the scales.”
Cecile wrapped herself around Cameron, kissing him again, and again, and again.
“No one will ever take your place, Cameron,” she whispered. “No one.”
The forest whirled around him; against his bare skin dark leaves and moist earth pressed like a second skin; snowy frost and the scents of smoke and pine needles filled his lungs.
“Is it not wonderful? Will you help me serve the Gatherer?” she asked him. “The Gatherer will make everything even more wonderful, mon amour.”
“Yes,” he moaned, barely able to focus on what she was saying. He was burning with passion; words and thoughts were nothing to him as he lost himself in his desire for her. “Whatever you want.”
