I drop to my knees and hold my up hands.
They're shaking.
Too late I realize that the last thing I ate was Chinese food last night at eight, and that's more than fifteen hours ago now. I reach down and smooth one hand over my stomach, finding that my singlet and outfit are looser than they should be.
I should've listened to Dr. Colibri and the Professor. I should've made sure to eat enough. Now that I'm more powerful than ever, I need more calories than ever to keep my body from burning every bit of energy as it tries to keep all my abilities working.
I reach back for my phone, but then remember it's broken. I wish I'd thought to borrow Jon's. Maybe I can get one from one of the people Pestilence killed, call in the Professor -- and the authorities. Someone's going to have to deal with these bodies, and someone's going to have to clear Pestilence's crap out of the dam. At least it hardened when he died -- I saw it happen. So, as long as the engineers are careful, it won't get into the water supply, provided that they shut off the valves as soon as they realized what was happening.
Normally I'd check -- walk to the edge of the dam and look down, scope out the river -- but there's no way I'm getting to my feet. Instead I turn toward the nearest body and begin carefully crawling in that direction.
That's when my stomach begins to churn and I spit up acidic, stringy bile on the asphalt in front of me. Luckily there isn't much left after this morning; I don't think I could take it. I shuffle on hands and knees away from the disgusting puddle, but lose my balance and fall onto my side.
When I've blinked away the tears, when I can see again, I'm looking up at Death's tall, black-cloaked form.
And I know, without question, that I'm going to die.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
INTERVENTION
+++++
The last thing I hear before my world goes dark is a terrific clang.
The first thing I hear after that is...
Is...
Silence.
No, not silence. Quiet, but not silence. I can hear myself breathing, and I can hear that edge-of-the-ears hum I get sometimes when I meditate. Is this what death is like? I've never been dead; I have no frame of reference.
One thing I do know is that I'm in a bed. It certainly feels like a bed, anyway -- there's a duvet covering me, and my head is on a pillow, and I'm no longer in my costume. The clothes feel like satin, although I've never owned satin pajamas. Never could justify the cost.
I decide that, if there's anyone else here, I can't hear them. And I can't lie here forever. I open my eyes and sit up in the bed.
No one here but me.
If I am dead, then whoever's in charge of the afterlife has made it easy to wake up. The room is blandly-decorated, but still welcoming -- in fact, it looks kind of like every guest room I've ever slept in: a bed, a desk, a lamp, and a dresser. There's no closet, but there is a wardrobe. Everything is made of what looks like heavy, dark wood, and the walls are painted a warm golden-orange. There isn't a window, which is weird, but on the whole I'm not complaining.
I push back the duvet and get to my feet. I'm a little wobbly, but I guess that's to be expected -- I'm still getting my sea legs, so to speak, here in the afterlife. I check the wardrobe -- empty -- and the drawers of the dresser -- also empty -- before taking a good look at myself in the mirror. My eyes aren't glowing, and I realize that I'm not trying to tamp them down. They're just plain brown eyes, same as I was born with. My knees go watery -- I really don't want to have lost my powers again -- and I grab the edge of the dresser to hold myself up. I mean, I guess it makes sense: why would I need my powers in the afterlife?
But if I'm in the afterlife, that means I lost and the Dark King won.
My reflection's eyes start to glisten and then I lose sight of her. I scrape at my face with the back of my hand, wiping away the tears.
I'm dead. Everyone I know is going to die or become a slave. The Dark King is going to call up all his minions and monster from his dimension and turn the world into a paradise for him and his kind.
I hope Buffy and Willow are all right. I hope they don't die of starvation, locked up in my apartment.
My heart turns to lead. I drop to my knees and bury my face in my hands.
And I cry for them. For all of them.
The tears are still coming when I hear the door open. I smear my eyes against the sleeve of the satin pajamas -- they're dark-red, a color I'd never choose for myself; it's amazing the details I pick up at times like these.
But the color starts to make sense when I realize who's at the door.
"War."
He nods. "Come with me."
I push up to my feet, trying not to cower -- I don't think my powers are working right now, and he's one of the Horsemen; he could probably kill me just by thinking hard enough. "Why?" I ask, my voice thick and wet.
"Because you need to eat, and the food's in the kitchen."
I run one hand over my ribs and realize that he's right. I know what I'm supposed to feel like, and that isn't it. But I can't go yet, not without knowing... "What happened?"
"Food first. Then talk."
"But why? Why are you here?"
"Because this is my house," he says, a smile playing around at the edge of his lips.
"Your house?"
"Yes."
"Your house... is heaven? Hell? Purgatory?"
War sighs. "We both know you don't believe in any of those places." He turns. "Just come with me, Andrea."
"That's not my--"
"Yes it is."
Before I can say anything else, he's already out of the doorway. I can hear his heavy footsteps in the hall.
I guess I have no choice. I follow him.
I don't know how long I was unconscious, but judging from the light coming through the windows, it's mid-morning now. So, at least the better part of a day. War motions me to a tall chair at the kitchen island and sets a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in front of me, along with a large glass of orange juice.
I glance down at the food, then back up at him. He's standing on the other side of the island, looking expectantly at me. It's not really the image I expect, either -- he looks almost concerned. He certainly didn't look that way the last time. Oh, he had the thick shock of dark hair and the electric-blue eyes and the Hulk Hogan moustache, and he's still a huge but well-proportioned figure of a man, but all I remember of our last fight is flashes. He clipped my head pretty good with the flat of an enormous sword, and I lost some memories, but I do recall recovering enough to rip the sword out of his hand and, in the same motion, whip it around and chop off his head. I'm not sure how I got to that point, and I may never be, but it's enough to know that I was able to beat him once.
"Eat," he says, when he realizes I'm just sitting there, staring at him. He points one large finger at the plate. "Now."
I suppress a nasty remark -- something on the order of "make me" -- and pick up a piece of bacon. It's just crispy enough, and it's thicker than most people make it. I take a tentative bite.
"See?" he says. "That wasn't so bad."
I don't dignify him with a reply, and I don't pull one of those "smile slowly spreading across the face" things I always see on TV. Instead I just finish the bacon, wipe my fingers on a napkin, and sip the orange juice. "Thank you," I finally say.
"You're welcome."
"Now, why am I here? And where is here, anyway? And am I dead?"
War chuckles. "Eat your breakfast. Then I'll answer your questions."
I eat. It's not a hardship, really. War may be a lot of things, but a bad cook isn't one of them.
"You're not dead," he says. We're still in the kitchen, and he's sitting on one of the other chairs, which he's pulled around to the opposite side of the island. I ate enough for four people, enough to give my powers a good jolt, but all I feel is full -- like when I didn't have the powers and I couldn't control my eating habits. "And you're not powerless, either," he adds in response
to my unasked question. "But here, in this place, you're just a body. No élan vital, no special abilities."
I take a moment to enjoy what War's told me before I say anything. "Where is this place, exactly?"
"The King's Domain."
I nearly drop my glass of juice. I feel the blood drain out of my face. "I'm... in his..."
"Calm yourself, Andrea. You're safe here."
"Safe?" I set the glass down and slide off the chair, pacing to the end of the kitchen and back. "I'm safe? In the very place where the thing that wants to end me -- again! -- spends all its free time?" I eye him a bit crookedly. "Why aren't you trying to kill me, anyway?"
"There'd be no honor in it." He offers a small shrug. "If it's not a fair fight, then why bother?"
"That..." I pause and think. "That makes a lot of sense, actually."
"I know," he says. "And you're safe here, like I said, because this is my house."
"You have a house?"
"To you it looks like a house, because that's what your human mind can perceive. To me it looks..." He smiles, and just for a moment he's the evil creature that I know I'm going to have to kill. "Not like a house at all."
I glance down at my empty plate. "And the food?"
"Better you don't ask."
Oh, lovely. As if my powers aren't enough to make my stomach churn when they sense evil, now I've eaten some weird-ass creature from the depths of Hell -- or whatever this place really is. Awesome.
I swallow hard. "So I'm not dead, and that means the King didn't win. Please tell me he didn't win."
"He didn't win."
"You're not just saying that, right?"
War nods. "Time is different here. Ten of your years is more like a thousand to us."
I nod back. That explains a lot -- like why the King and all of his minions are so pissed-off every time they get a chance to come through. "So really I've been here for... what? How long was I asleep?"
"About a day."
I do the math in my head. "Fifteen minutes or so, then. What's happening back on Earth?" I feel my eyebrows draw downward. "And where are my clothes?"
He doesn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. I'm sure I'm blushing a little, because I just figured out that he saw me naked. It's been a long time since a guy's seen me naked, even if War is technically not a man. Right now he looks like one, which means he has man-parts, which means--
He cuts off my mental babbling. "They were pretty torn-up. A total loss, I'm afraid." He smiles, but doesn't leer, which I appreciate. "You can keep the pajamas, if you like. They're not my size."
That makes me laugh, just a little. "I can't go back in these clothes, though."
"I can make you something else."
"Will it still be clothing when I get back?"
He nods. "Don't worry."
"Thanks, then." I finish the orange juice. "What about my powers? Will they come back too?"
"I don't see why not."
"That's not very reassuring."
"My apologies." War inclines his head at the carafe on the island. "More juice?"
"Please," I say, hoping that it's not really something disgusting that he's tricked my mind into thinking is delicious. I decide to avoid thinking about it. While he pours, I ask the question that's been gnawing at me all this time that I've spent dealing with the smaller issues. "What happened?"
War immediately knows what I'm talking about. He pours himself a glass of juice as well, and it's clearly a stalling tactic. When he finally does speak, he can't seem to look directly at me. "I saved you from Death."
Again I almost drop my glass. "You did what?"
He looks sheepish when he finally meets my eyes. "I was watching the fight with Pestilence, trying to suss out any weaknesses I could exploit when we faced off again." At the undoubtedly-skeptical expression on my face, he says, "I'm supposed to be the incarnation of war, of battle. Why wouldn't I do reconnaissance?"
"Fair enough." My voice is a little hard. "So you saw us fight, and you saw him blow that crap in my eyes."
He nods. "I didn't think you'd have the courage to burn it out the way you did." He sounds impressed. He should be; I will never forget the agony, even if I can't feel it anymore. "Pestilence got overconfident. He always does. You'd think he'd learn."
"Well, like you said, it is a thousand years between battles."
"This is true." War drinks some of his juice. The glass seems very small in his hand. "You came back, and you killed him -- that is, you killed the body he was using as a vessel, which sent him back here--"
"And that brings up another thing: how do you guys go back and forth at will, but when I kill you, you're stuck here?"
The look he gives me is exactly like the one I used to get from the Professor that first year, when I kept peppering him with questions on top of questions. "It takes a lot of power to get from our world to yours. Only a very few of us can come back once we've gone. But nothing you can do in your world can truly kill us -- we can only die here. It takes hundreds of years to recover from the amount of energy we expended to get there."
"So when you send me back...?"
"We'll both be going back. And, afterward, I'm not going to come home. Not until you kill me, or I kill you."
I swallow hard at that and don't say anything for a few seconds. Then: "What happened next? After I killed Pestilence?" I have a thought. "He's not going to come after me here, is he?"
"No," War says. "He won't be corporeal here for at least fifty years. He's the weakest of what you call the Horsemen." He holds up a hand. "Our true name -- the King and the four of us -- you wouldn't be able to pronounce, so don't ask." I didn't realize I was that transparent, but then, War seems to be a pretty intelligent being. "In any case, Death and I saw you win and then he decided it was time to move in for the kill. I disagreed, but he's faster than I am -- that bit of intelligence is free," he adds, his lips quirking. "He was on top of the dam, about to strike you down, when I stopped him."
"That was the noise I heard?"
He nods. "I blocked his scythe with my sword and, while he was off-balance, brought you here." He stops speaking for a moment, his eyes unfocusing, as if he's looking off into the middle distance. When he comes back to the conversation, his face has gone more serious. "We need to get back," he says, his tones suddenly clipped.
"Why? What happened?"
He doesn't answer; he just stands up and comes around the island, hands clenched into fists. "Hey!" I say, slipping into a fighting stance, but he doesn't try to hit me or anything -- good thing, too, because, in my current state, he could probably knock my head off with one punch. I say it again when he scoops me into one arm. "What the hell?"
"Hang on," he says. "And..." He smiles down at me, and it's an incredibly intimate expression. For a flash of a moment, I wonder what it would be like to be with War -- like, with with him. With my powers intact, naturally, because if he's this big, then--
My face flushes almost the color of the pajamas and his smile grows. I can't imagine that he knows what I'm thinking, but I guess it's a possibility. "Here," he says, almost an afterthought, and draws -- literally draws -- a mask onto my face with a tender, calloused fingertip. I imagine it's red, like the pajamas. "Just in case anyone sees you."
"Thank you." My voice is small and quiet, and my heart is thumping, and now is absolutely the most inopportune time in the history of human existence for what's going on all points south, but I forget about that when the world shrinks down to a tiny point and--
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
KILLED BY DEATH
+++++
--and War gently lets me down so I can stand beside him. I'm still wearing the pajamas -- no shoes, though, which always makes me feel vulnerable, but we apparently didn't have time for me to change.
Then I see why, and I don't care anymore. My powers surge through me and I move, fast as I can, tearing off a car door and flinging it like a discus. I don't dare touch Death, not direct
ly, but he's as susceptible to weapons as any of his kind, and the door smashes into his body, knocking him off the side of the dam. A moment later, he splashes into the water and, as I rise into the air, I see a few fish float to the surface, dead.
Death ascends too, dripping water from his black clothes -- shirt, pants, boots, and a hooded cloak that always manages to hide his face -- and streaks toward me. He's frighteningly fast, and it takes everything I have to avoid his outstretched hands. I wish I had a real weapon.
Then I remember the boat docks. I pivot and rocket toward them, Death hot on my heels, and seconds later stick a landing that almost sends me crashing through the wooden planks. In the air he's faster than me, but as I discover, when I'm on the ground I can outrun him. I flash from place to place, looking for--
There!
I get my hands on the boat-hook, holding it like a quarterstaff, and when Death swoops toward me, I'm ready for him; I dance out of the way and whip the hook-end at his legs. It catches him behind the knee and I give it a good twist; there's a sharp snap and Death crashes to the wooden dock. He growls and grabs the hook, breaking it off, and then slips into the water again, this time on purpose.
I consider for a moment how I'm going to fight him now, but my stomach spasms and I drop to my knees, leaning over the side of the dock. I want to curse, but I can't -- most of my breakfast comes out instead. When it's done, I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of the pajamas, just in time for another knifing pain in my abdomen. This time, at least, there's nothing left to throw up.
Death is going to have to wait. Something bad is happening -- something close -- and I need to stop it. I take to the sky, spitting a mouthful of bile into the lake as I ascend, and orient on...
...on the dam.
"Oh, hell."
At some point, War changed his clothing, probably through whatever magic makes him powerful here. Instead of jeans and a t-shirt, he's now wearing blood-red leather armor and holds two swords -- the familiar broadsword from our last fight in his right hand, and a shorter blade in his left. His weapons are clanging and crashing against the Dark King's trident--
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