“Besides an endless supply of bodies, you mean?” Tergazzi said. “What else does she need?”
Giles looked troubled. Buffy watched him closely, and the others all seemed to be drawn to him as well. He was the Watcher. He was supposed to have the explanations. Even the ghost looked to Giles. After all, Lucy was a Slayer, too.
“Sheep,” Giles said bluntly.
He looked up, and his features looked drawn and sickly in the weird light thrown by the flashlights on the ground.
“People without souls wouldn’t die?” Willow asked.
“Some would. Most would just wander around aimlessly,” the Watcher replied. “Sheep.”
At Buffy’s side, Angel tensed. “And Veronique would be the shepherd,” he said. “We better get moving. If we can’t stop her, maybe we can at least take care of this demon before dawn.”
Buffy was about to ask what was so important about dawn, but then she understood. “When the sun comes up —”
“There’ll be shadows,” Willow finished. “Then good. So let’s go,” Tergazzi said. “Or my Queenie will be doing all her talking via the remote here.” He stuck a webbed thumb out at Willow, who glared back.
Angel and Tergazzi went out the front door, with Oz and Willow behind them. Giles hung back with Buffy, who thanked the ghost sincerely. “We owe you, Lucy,” Buffy said. “Will we see you again?”
I would like that very much, Lucy said. I’ll look in on you whenever I can, and if you need me . . .
“We’ll use the Willow-phone,” Buffy said. “Thanks again.”
As Giles said his good-byes, Buffy turned to leave, trying to figure out how they were going to fight the Triumvirate. Even without shadows, it could steal the soul from any living humans just by touching them. When she thought of Lucy’s description of the Hell inside the creature, she shuddered.
Then she stopped and turned.
“What is it?” Giles asked.
Buffy stared at the beautiful, ghostly girl and smiled. “Lucy,” she said. “I have an idea I think you may be able to help us with.”
As I said, I am at your service.
In a clearing at the top of Nob Hill, in the middle of Miller’s Woods, Veronique stood triumphantly atop a smoking pyre of downed trees, flames flickering around her. Draped in black robes, she lifted her face to the brilliant, ice-blue starlight. The moon shimmered a deep azure like the Sea of Crete.
She lifted her arms and chanted the words that would let her manipulate the shadows. Then she drew them down from the night sky. Power sizzled around her, causing a stir among her vampire followers as they prepared for the ritual. The pine forest outside Sunnydale echoed with the shrieks of the human captives as they were bound in a circle around the pyre and marked with fire and blood.
There were five of them now, chained to the ground, including the lover of that loathsome demon, Tergazzi, who had handed the Slayer the writings of de Molay and Toscano the Watcher. Veronique seethed at the thought of the demon’s arrogance — that he could even imagine that she would not learn of his heinous act.
There, too, were the young man and woman who had been favorites of the Slayer. They had been branded with the rest, signs and sigils on their arms and feet, and three cuts made into their chests, to signify the three-headed Triumvirate, which would soon drink their souls, damning them to eternal torment in its own belly. The girl had stopped whimpering and now stared dully around herself. The young man, Xander, continued to struggle, and Veronique promised herself that if the Three-Who-Are-One had sufficient souls to sustain it without consuming his, she would favor Xander with a place at her side.
For souls were necessary to the completion of the ritual. If the Triumvirate did not feast upon human souls when the hatchlings were first rejoined, when the demon itself first trod upon the soil of this world, then the ritual would not succeed. Her master might even die. Veronique could not allow that, for it would mean the end to her power, trapping her forever in this single shell.
The hatchlings had been secured in a box made of iron, and Veronique’s offspring, all vampires of her bloodline as required, now carried it with due reverence to the top of the pyre. As they moved aside, she unlatched the box. Konstantin lifted the heavy lid, and the three heads of Veronique’s lord and master shot upward, raging, snapping at the air.
They had not the cruel intelligence of their true self in this form, but, once rejoined, they would be unstoppable. Their eyes glowed with evil, and they stared with anticipation at Veronique, who rejoiced to see in the irises the power of her master. She clasped her hands across her chest and sank to her knees in obeisance.
Soon, I shall be truly immortal. Staking will do nothing to this body. I will own it forever, and longer than forever.
Veronique clapped her hands over her head. She gestured to Catherine, Konstantin, and a newborn whose name she could not even remember.
“Bring the dead ones,” she cried, “and prepare the pyre.”
She watched with satisfaction as the three departed to a place behind a stand of trees. Each pulled a sort of travois, upon which was placed one or more decomposing human bodies. The smell was like that of a charnel house . . . or the streets of Constantinople, where it had all begun, so long ago. She had endured much; she would savor this night of triumph for centuries, as she had nursed the frustration over her failures.
The bodies were brought to three large stone vessels, baptismal fonts she had defiled, each with multitudes of blood sacrifices. Their pitted interiors were stained with layers of dried blood. Catherine, Konstantin, and the newborn vampire each loaded the remains into the fonts, as Veronique began to chant, in a tongue older than the whispers of demons:
“I curse the air, the earth, the fire, the water.
I curse the breath of man, I curse his soul.
I curse all living beings that are not of Hell.
I shall drink the blood of the last man on Earth.
His garden shall be my place of pestilence.
His cities, my burial grounds.
His children, my forks, my drinking cups.
His race . . . a distant, feeble jest.”
The vampires took up the chant as three of their number picked up jeweled blades. Beside each armed vampire, another knelt, with a bronze bowl positioned beneath the outstretched arms. The vampires with knives sliced open their wrists, and the blood drained into the bowls. Some howled with pain. That was permitted, even encouraged, for according to the ancient writings Veronique had gathered, “They shall howl with rage and agony when the Triumvirate cometh forward. And their souls will be damned to suffer eternity in its bowels.”
The vampires traded places; those who were still bleeding profusely staggered to their knees, while those who had held the bowls now cut themselves. One faltered, hesitating; Veronique narrowed her eyes. When the ritual was complete, that one would die.
Meanwhile, two vampires crushed the human remains in the fonts with large stone pestles, making a vile stew of the rotten viscera and bones. The human sacrifices began fresh screaming at the smell, their panic level rising.
“Anoint the hatchlings,” Veronique commanded.
The vampires who had blended the rotten flesh and organs into a vile paste, now scooped up the mix with more bronze bowls. They carried it up the pyre, which was growing warmer, and smeared the thick matter onto the hatchlings, darting back nervously as the hungry creatures snapped and clacked their teeth and talons at them.
Once they were covered, Veronique chanted again. Her followers, well trained, joined in.
Veronique gave the signal. Konstantin ascended the pyre with a torch in his left hand.
He ignited the hatchlings’ heads, each in turn. They burned like flimsy paper, and the hatchlings began to shriek in agony.
“As from the fires of Hell, it is born!” Veronique shouted.
The flames rose; Veronique leaped off the pyre. The humans, still chained, screamed in terror as the searing fire licked at their
bodies. One of them, an older woman, wailed in agony as her clothes caught ablaze. The boy and girl who were beloved of the Slayer struggled against their bonds.
Veronique laughed.
The pyre ignited in an immense conflagration. A huge fountain of blue fire shot straight into the dark sky. Stars burst; comets soared. The moon dripped with blood.
The trees lining the clearing burst into flame.
From the box, the hatchlings screamed as they burned.
“Behold the inferno, the purifying fire!” Veronique shouted.
The vampires crossed their hands over their chests and knelt in submission. Thirteen, as the ritual demanded, in their appropriate places around the pyre, creating with their own bodies a circle of evil magick and dark possibility. Surrounded by a firestorm, they were quaking with fear. But none of them dared to move.
Let them burn, or not? Veronique thought gleefully. She gazed with delirious joy as the hatchlings were reduced to a thick heap of ash and gore.
I’ll let my master decide.
From the ash, the Triumvirate began to rise.
The forest went up as if it had been touched with an enormous torch.
Queenie, the beloved of Tergazzi, was hidden from Veronique’s sight by a wall of living fire. She could barely see the boy, Xander, and the girl beyond him, but she watched closely. It would not do for the fire to destroy them before the Triumvirate could descend upon them.
If they died first, it would not be able to drink their souls.
Halfway up the side of Nob Hill, Buffy and the others froze as every tree, bush, root, fern, and dry, dead leaf around them began to burn.
Chapter Seventeen
The firestorm raged through the forest.
“Aw, jeez, we’re all gonna die!” Tergazzi cried. “We’ll never save Queenie and your friends now!”
“Hey, Glum,” Buffy said, choking on smoke. “Panicking will not help.”
Tergazzi stared at her a moment, completely freaked. He turned to the others, who were trying to make some kind of forward progress on the fiery path through the burning trees on the hillside.
“Do I look panicked to you?” the weasely demon shrieked, then began to run wildly back and forth on the path, searching for an escape route.
Buffy thought about tackling him, but she needed to concentrate on how to save not only his skin but everyone else’s. It was blazing hot; sweat rolled down her face, and the skin on her arms was beginning to blister. Oz stood with his arms around Willow, jerking her to one side when a towering pine spit sparks and branches that rained down in a shower of intense heat.
Willow’s eyes were closed, and she was chanting. Of late, Willow’s inventory of spells had been growing at a healthy rate, but she was still only a spellcaster. Fortunately, what she seemed best at were spells of protection — which they needed pretty badly right then. Buffy had no idea what Willow could do about their current situation, but just about anything aside from gasoline would improve it. She figured, therefore, that her own best bet was to make sure that Willow didn’t roast to death.
She joined Oz in shielding Willow. Giles, his face scarlet, nodded at her and did the same. Willow stood in a protective huddle, and after a few moments, Giles took up her chant.
Tergazzi was about to run past them, still freaking, when Angel stepped up and grabbed him by the throat.
“Calm. Down.”
“I’m calm,” Tergazzi said obediently.
Angel came up behind Buffy and shielded her from the fire with his own body. She heard him gasping with pain and winced at her apparent lack of ability to do anything more than what she was doing. Slayers were built for action, not passivity, and it galled her that this might be the way she finally went out.
“You know,” Giles said, looking meaningfully at Buffy, “there are a lot of dangers inherent in your plan. But I think it would be a shame if we didn’t get to test it.”
He started coughing violently, his eyes watering from the smoke and heat.
Around them, trees began to collapse and tumble. The earth shook. Buffy looked up the hill past Angel. Past Tergazzi, who followed them meekly, trying not to get burned. Where the trees had fallen, a path of sorts was being cleared through the blaze. She looked back at Willow and wondered if her friend was the cause of what clearly was their only escape route.
But that didn’t matter. Reeling from the heat and the smoke, she broke apart the huddle and, coughing from the smoke, gestured for the others to follow her through the narrow firebreak.
She could only trust that they were behind her as she bounded through the firestorm. She couldn’t risk a single look back, in case she lost her footing; she found herself thinking, If Mom were back there, I would look.
So she looked. And they were all there, even Tergazzi.
* * *
“Oh, God, Xander, do something!” Cordelia shrieked.
I am doing something, he thought. I’m dying. It wasn’t technically accurate, but it might as well be. They had been through so much, and he’d always faced it with humor, not matter how frightened he’d been.
Yet somehow Xander couldn’t think of anything funny to say. Not a single thing.
Damn, he thought. I’m going to die really badly. Screaming and begging for my life. No dignity, and lots of pain.
The begging part hadn’t happened yet, but the pain was already there. The fire was close, but Veronique seemed to be keeping it back somehow. Just far enough so that it didn’t burn them. But the heat . . . Xander’s skin felt tight and much too hot, as if he’d touched a frying pan with his whole body. He thought his hair was getting singed and worried that it would start to burn.
“Cordy,” he grunted.
Then he heard the hunger cries of the Triumvirate above him. The three-headed demon at the top of the burning pyre looked out over the sacrifices laid before it, and it roared, its voice the sound of eagles screaming.
Xander stared at it in horror. He heard Cordelia shrieking, and his own voice joined hers. He could barely feel the pain anymore. The fear was too great. He screamed and screamed, and he didn’t care, not at all. Dignity was very, very low on his list of things to worry about.
Then, suddenly, he had the strong, clear sense that someone was moving underneath him, hands pulling him down below the ground.
You are going to die, said a voice in his mind. Let me in. Give your body over to me.
Xander gasped. I don’t think so!
What choice do you have?
“Xander!” Cordelia shrieked. “The ropes are burning!”
What do I do? he thought.
Let me in, let yourself slip away. It will be like dying, the voice told him.
But I won’t die? Xander asked.
If you would save her, act now, it told him.
Cordelia’s screams were unbearable. Xander’s mind, awash in pain, flashed past words to surrender.
Yes, he thought. Anything.
For just a second, he felt it, filling him up, a presence there with him, a mind . . . and then he was gone. No more pain, no more monsters, no more fire. Only nothing. Cold and gray.
Oblivion.
Cordelia shrieked as her bonds began to burn. Through a haze of pain, her skin blistering, she tried to turn her head, tried to get a look at Xander. She let out a harsh sob of frustration as she realized she had to be hallucinating. He had been tied up, right there beside her, but as she looked, Xander easily snapped his bonds and sat up. Head jerking around, face cold and expressionless, he saw her.
In an instant, he crawled to her and used his bare hands to tear at the thick ropes that were tied around her ankles and wrists, just as the ropes really began to burn. Xander picked her up in his arms and staggered away from the fire.
“Xander,” she groaned, looking up at him. Her eyes widened. His face was slack, his eyes dull. He didn’t even register her presence, though he had just saved her life. If she had to guess what was wrong with him, she would say he was dead.
There was no spark of life anywhere on his face.
A deafening howl buffeted her ears. She cried out, but Xander didn’t even blink. She raised her head to look at the tower of fire and screamed.
From a pile of smoking ashes, a single creature of gleaming scales topped by three brutish, serpentine heads rose from the smoke and towered above the pyre. It stood at least twenty-five feet high, almost above the Hellish inferno of the woods. It threw back its heads, opened its mouths, and blue flame gouted from its jaws into the sky.
As Cordelia watched, dumbstruck, pieces of the sky actually disappeared. In their place, red, gaping wounds formed, and a gory ichor rushed down in streams like waterfalls. Where it hit the fires, enormous gaseous clouds formed, roiled, and expanded. Then they popped, disgorging hideous monsters — skeletal beings dragging pieces of dark purple and black matter that at one time might have been portions of their bodies; strings of eyeballs trailed behind them on the ground as they capered and slid down the pyre, eagerly grabbing at the one of the humans still chained to the ground.
They were people, Cordelia realized. These were human beings once.
The heads and body were covered with talons and spikes, the faces evil and reptilian. Eyes glared at her with a cunning and ferocity so powerful it vibrated through her and deep into the marrow of her soul.
They opened their mouths and spoke one word: Apocalypse.
And then, almost more incredibly, the three heads of the Triumvirate seemed to yawn, and all of it, the Hellish creatures — demons, suffering mortal souls, whatever they might be — the blood and the dark and the blot on the sky, were drawn back inside the creature.
“Oh, my God,” Cordelia whispered. “Oh, my God.”
Standing unharmed atop the pyre, Veronique spread wide her arms. “At last!” she shouted.
Willow opened her eyes and blinked hard. The blazing forest was being sucked upward, and everything with it — rocks, undergrowth, even squirrels and the half-rotten carcass of a coyote. She felt the vacuum tug at her and cried out. “I forbid it! By Hecate and all that is divine to Maia, I forbid it!”
As the hellfires blazed around them, Willow stood her ground and shouted her incantation. Buffy grabbed a burning tree root and held tight, grunting with the pain.
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