Ma'at

The second Slayer had found her people by the time I and mine arrived. The journey from Cairo has been acceptable. Certainly not so irritating as Angelus’ travels have no doubt been. When I arrive, there is general pandemonium about what to do, and the Slayer is dropping from exhaustion caused by blood loss. I draw her and the Watcher to one side, and they tell me the essential points of the tale. The rest can wait. Angelus has slain the godling, but the godling’s Pack are loose. I doubted him, I really did, and now I feel a soaring pride in his achievement. But that, too, must wait. The Pack must be exterminated. Then comes the sting in the tail. Angelus is badly hurt and Faith fears for his life.

It takes only minutes to organise the pursuit. Most of our fit forces are demons, and they are in any case the best suited to hunting this Pack. All the humans will go to the fortress with supplies and medicines, together with the three Norags, who have good battlefield medical skills, in the charge of Thomaso and myself. Estevan is already up there, waiting to show us the way. I have two childer with me, Françoise and Emilia. They will coordinate from here the paired teams of vampires who have set off in search of the pack. Everyone has weapons and each pair has a cell phone. First to find them will call for the rest, and – let the slaughter commence. They set off for the hunt, about thirty of them. Sekhmet has gone with them. She will be needed more there than in the fortress, I think. And I will see whether my worst fears have been realised.

The rest of us set off for the climb. Faith is at the end of her endurance, but insists on returning with us, and so I carry her. That surprises a lot of people, although I do not see why it should. Her slayer healing abilities will kick in during the ascent, and she may be useful. Estevan meets us near the top. He had seen the Pack set off earlier, from the shelter of his cave, and his information is relayed to Françoise. Then we enter the fortress.

I can smell the dead and dying from outside the place, but it is like a charnel house inside. Naked men and women are doing their best to save the wounded, comforting the dying and moving the dead. Angelus has broken the spell, then. I was sure he could do it. Almost sure. I prefer to forget that scene I made in front of the Watcher.

Those with me want to help but, by tacit agreement, the Watcher and I keep them close to us, until we see how our own are fixed. I follow the scent trail for both of them into the enormous hall, larger by far than mine. Dwarfed at one end, in front of a set of huge pillars, and a grotesquely oversized day bed, are the two that I seek. Buffy is kneeling on the cold stone of the floor, and Angelus is lying naked and supine, his head cradled in her lap, his limbs sprawled loosely in apparent unconsciousness. He is badly hurt. The only reason I can be certain that he is actually alive is because he is here at all. He looks dead. Deader. But at least he isn’t dust.

Next to them, quite dead, is the were-god that he came to slay. The reek of its blood is utterly nauseating, rank and oily. I am afraid to think that he might have drunk some of it.

I understand straight away that the others with me cannot help, and so I send them to do what they can for the others in this terrible place. The Watcher stays, a disapproving presence at my shoulder, casting a disturbing shadow over the couple on the floor. Within a few moments, though, his presence is quite forgotten. I kneel down beside Angelus. The Slayer does not know who I am, of course, but I know her. Angelus and I have shared her in his blood. I would recognise her anywhere.

“Slayer. I am Aurelius. Can you hold his head up a little?”

She looks surprised, but doesn’t question. I think she knows what I am going to do. I roll up my sleeve, ready to press my wrist to his fangs, and I gesture to the pooled blood on the floor.

“Did he drink any of that?”

“Pints of it. As much as he could, I think.”

May all the powers of the universe have pity on us! I haven’t enough blood in my body to wash that much of this poison away. Still, we must do what we can. I try to make him drink. He shows the first signs of awareness since I entered the room, shaking his head a little, and trying to resist me. Buffy tries to hold him still.

I push my wrist against his mouth again, and this time he tries to say something. It’s very faint, but clear to me.

“Not…yet.”

Not yet. What does he mean, not yet? Why?

“Slayer. Use the link. Find out what he is doing.”

“What..?”

“He said ‘Not yet’. He is doing something. As his mate, you have the link with him. Quickly, now. Use it. Find out what he is doing.”

She is confused. She looks so young and lost that I can see how she completely ensnared Angel. Angelus’ obsession is harder to understand, but no less real for that. But has he not explained to her about the link? I shall beat the boy unmercifully if he lives!

“Open yourself to him. Feel him, as you feel the sun on your face, welcome him, as you welcome the cooling breeze on your body.”

“I’m sorry, yes, of course. I know how to do that.”

She closes her eyes, and remains still, a small smile playing on her lips. Exhausted, ashen from blood loss, she is still utterly beautiful. I missed it before, because of the worry she wore on her face for her injured mate, but there is a strength in her, a power that will bear her through any defeat. I see now that Angelus could never resist her.

She gives a gasp, and her eyes fly open.

“He’s holding them. He’s using the power of Fenrix’s blood to hold the pack together and in one place until they can be killed. They’re too far away, or he’s too weak, for him to recall them, but he’s holding them!”

Sonofabitch! That’s my boy!

We don’t know where they are, but they can’t have gone too far. There is only one thing to do, and so we do that. We wait. Two things. I tell the Watcher to fetch some bandages and I bind up Angelus’ wounds while his mate comforts him. Then we wait.

Whilst we wait, I dip my finger experimentally in the dark, viscous ichor that passes for blood in this godling. It is caustic, and little strips of skin start to peel away. As quickly as I wipe it off, she sees me, and there is an unfathomable look in her eyes. She can’t fool me, though. I know what it is. She’s wondering whom to sacrifice, if push comes to shove. Those humans who will die to this Pack if it isn’t exterminated down to the last member? Or him?

And we wait.

Gradually, the tumult around us eases. I will need to hear the story to be certain of the details, but my reading of the scents and sounds tells me that the human werewolves are, on the whole, ready to throw themselves at the feet of the saviour who has rescued them from thrall, despite the terrible price paid, the lives lost to the alien demons. Few of the humans were here willingly. All had been brought in the way that Angelus is now holding the Pack: by the imperative in their blood. And when Angelus took over that imperative, they were released. The Pack tore into these defenceless, restored humans, before running headlong from this place in a bid to escape their new clan leader. But you cannot run from your blood, and it is that which rules them.

The dead are taken away to the coolness of the dungeon area; the wounded are treated as best we can. There are few of those. Generally, you either escaped the Pack – or not.

Someone has had the wit to phone down to those few left at the base. They will find somewhere suitable in the nearest town and steal sufficient clothing for the restored human weres. It may not be pretty but it will be here before dawn.

The Watcher has given up his vigil and gone to find his other charges, confident that, for the moment at least, Buffy will take no harm from me. Still the Slayer and I wait. We are silent. There will be a time for talking, but it is not now. In any case, she is lost in her thoughts, kneeling there, with her mate’s head in her lap, and his hand clenched tightly in hers. She has a lot of soul searching to do, I expect. Or perhaps she is lost in the link. Yes. I think that is where she is. And I am ready to ignore his wishes, ready to give him blood if I feel that he is in too much danger. I think I’m close to that when, at last, it is over.

Both of them give something suspiciously like a sob, and then Angelus starts to heave and retch. As our first real task together, the Slayer and I hold him on all fours, whilst she instructs me to do something I haven’t had to do in a very long time. I stick my fingers down his throat. The gag reflex is still working very, very well.

When he is done, there is a pool of black ichor beneath him, heavily streaked with red. Membranous pieces of flesh, large and small, float on the surface.

“We need water.”

She nods, and sprints off to see what she can find, whilst I nurse my bitten fingers and hold him up, out of that reeking puddle.

When we have him rinsed out, and he has vomited up that black blood and a large part of his stomach lining – and I have more bitten fingers – I feed him. The Slayer watches me with absolute fascination, and no fear or disgust. That pleases me, although I should expect no less. I don’t give him too much – that might make him vomit again and would weaken me: not desirable in this current fragile alliance. What I give will be sufficient, though. Now he needs time to sleep and heal. I pick him up and together his mate and I hunt for a suitable place. Eventually we find a room that might have been used by the ascetics as a communal room. There is still a table, and several large couches, slightly mildewy and definitely stale, but better than anything we have so far found. We lay him down on the least noisome. She has brought his clothes, and together we get them on him. When we have finished, she says that she will tell the others where we are.

“Thank you,” she says, simply. I can tell that she means it, though.

“You are welcome. I am pleased that you and he still…” I pause, unsure how to finish that sentence, but I wish her to know that I do not disapprove of his relationship with her.

She nods. She understands. idn’idn’t expect to be grateful to him for fighting the good fight. And to you and your people. If those things had spread out, I don’t know how many humans would have been killed before we could stop them.”

What to tell her? I decide on what I believe Angelus would tell her. The truth.

“He didn’t do it for that, my dear. They were in his territory, in possession of something that was his, and he could not permit that. I simply helped one of my Masters.”

She gives me a withering look, and goes off to seek the others. I pull up a chair next to my charge, and wonder which offence she will punish me the most for: my lack of charity with respect to Angelus’ motives, or that ill-advised ‘my dear’. No. There could never be any doubt that Angelus would be obsessed with her.

The others come in, in dribs and drabs. The witches are exhausted, having spent all their energies healing the wounded. Their smiles are contented, though. They may have seen some terrible things, but they have saved many lives.

They all help themselves to the supplies that have been brought up from our base and sit, weary but elated, around that shabby table. I know them all, now. There is the Slayer, of course, with her court of Giles, Willow and Tara; Faith, Ezrafel, Estevan and Thomaso from Angelus’ court, with the three Norags; and Wesley and Gunn from Angel’s family. What will happen to those two, I wonder, now that Angel is noe? e? Surprisingly, we are joined by two werewolves, who are introduced as Oz and Nina. I recognise Oz. Angelus’ blood carries a very, very faint tang of his scent.

They are all conscious of my presence, but I will give them their due. There is no fear haunting that rather dismal room. As their hunger and thirst becomes assuaged, the Watcher turns to Buffy.

“What happened, Buffy?”

She doesn’t tell them everything, that much is clear. She and Faith share secret glances that are secret only to some of us in this room. I, and the other demons here, can smell Angelus all over Buffy and Faith. It’s very interesting, but entirely to be expected. Three hot-blooded warriors, the night before a life-threatening battle? The only surprise is that they were allowed to spend the night together – and that the Slayer permitted another to couple with her mate. It’s good that she has learned to do that. As much as he may be devoted to her, Angelus will not, cannot be faithful. His family also requires his attentions.

I will exact all the details from these two later, but for now, haltingly, she tells of the bargain made. She uses only the vaguest terms, enough to make them understand that they would have had a critical part to play if Angelus had not defeated Fenrix. After all, the life of a Slayer is fraught with danger. She may need them to be the cavalry again, and they must learn that neither the Slayer nor the Master of Sunnydale will give up their lives easily, or in a fit of bravado, if they have forces that can come to their aid. They will do what needs to be done to endure, to wait for rescue.

Then she tells of the battle, and I am proud of him. All three of them, if truth be told.

There is a certain understandable smugness from Angelus’ people, but the Watcher looks very sour indeed. Now is the time when he should tell what he knows. I am sure of that, although I don’t know why. He has prevaricated for far too long. There will never be another time. If he fails now, we will be on the wrong path. Memories of the Underworld will remain, will colour future behaviour, and every step taken will carry us further away from Ma’at and closer to our extinction. I shake off the fey moment with some difficulty. It is my responsibility to bring him to a sense of his duty.

“Watcher.”

He cannot ignore my presence now. He looks at me and I gaze back at him, my entire being radiating reproach. He holds that gaze for long moments, but Sekhmet has always been a much more formidable exponent of the art of outstaring than he is, and he quickly sinks his head into his hands. He knows what he must do. Still, he stays silent.

“Watcher. You must speak. Had you done so immediately, you would have spoken only to the Slayer. Now the balance has been disturbed further. In order to right it, you must speak in front of all these. That is your sacrifice, the price necessary to restore Ma’at. Do it.”

It’s like speaking to a dog, you know. It isn’t the words you say, it’s the intonation in your voice.

Still he remains silent, but there is a change in him. He is marshalling his thoughts and words now. That is good, and I do not speak again. The others are looking from him to me. Buffy is, as you would expect, completely mystified, and is about to speak when Willow clasps her hand, silencing her. The Slayer looks to her friend and Willow shakes her head. When Giles is composed, he tells a tale that astounds everyone there. That includes me, and you can take it from me that it needs a very great deal to astound me after all these years.

“Buffy, when you fought Glory, and dived off the tower into the portal, Angelus leaped after you. He couldn’t catch you until you had passed through the portal, and when he did, you were dead. He broke almost every bone in his body on landing, but he insisted that Willow and Tara send him after you, into the Underworld. Even if he couldn’t bring you back, which was his intention, he wanted to make his peace with you, to beg your forgiveness for killing Spike and for torturing you. Unbeknown to him, Willow and Tara planted part of my consciousness into his mind, to act as a lifeline to guide one or both of you back out. They meant to put a small, unaware part of me into him, but unfortunately, we were all a bit pressed and they made a mistake. My full consciousness was planted right in the centre of his.”

If the Slayer looks shocked, the Witches are appalled at what they have unwittingly done. Everyone else is dumbfounded. I suspect that things will get worse.

He goes on to tell of the Underworld, of the black cliffs, of the search for her soul, of the bargain with the dark creature that Angelus could contend for the Slayer’leaslease, of his efforts to bring back Jenny as well, for Giles’ sake. He tells of the dark creature making Angelus choose between returning the Slayer to life, or returning from the Underworld himself, and how it was no choice at all. It could only ever be her. Of Angelus’ fight with almost every demon he or Angel had ever killed, and his courage and prowess, but also of his inability to vanquish them completely until Angel had joined with him (‘Together you are strong’). And he tells of their return, Orpheus leading Eurydice, and the joy in Angelus’ heart when he was allowed to go with her. He tells of the dark creature, charging the Watcher himself to tell the Slayer what had happened, because Angelus would be unable to.

Everyone is rapt in his tale. It is an epic one. Some of them wish to disbelieve, unwilling to equate the level of sacrifice with the creature they think they know. But they cannot. They begin to understand that even demons are not one-dimensional beings, that we are at least as complex as humans, even though we occupy the opposite end of the spiritual continuum. Tonight, something is born amongst the humans. Something weak and fragile. Something that can be strangled at birth, by any of us. Grudging respect. Not liking, not even close. But respect. If it can be nurtured, it will do very well for now.

“Giles. How could you keep this from me? You *knew* this had happened. How could you not tell me? How many of the deaths in Sunnydale have been down to you? How could you…?”

I don’t know her, but even I can tell that she’s working up to a rant, and a possible split with the Watcher. There are, indeed, deaths on his hands, but I can see why he did not do differently. Then there is a faint stirring next to me.

“Buffy…”

His voice is weak, but coherent. He is awake. How much has he heard, I wonder? And what difference will the Watcher’s narrative make? I don’t know.

She comes over to him. I doubt that, for the moment, anyone in that room has the power of movement left to them, except her. She crouches by him.

“Thank you.” Her voice is soft, full of renewed love.

And then I know that he went into the underworld for her, and came back out with her, and the rest is forgotten. The spell of the Underworld is restored. She must know that much too, because she is kneeling next to him, holding his hand and kissing him in a way that everyone in this room is just going to have to get used to.

*************

We have been back in Sunnydale for a few days now, and I’m pretty well recovered. I’ve lost half my minions to The Pack, but I can soon make more. Instead of returning here with us, Aurelius had a call from Japheth, and went to Los Angeles. He’s come here now, though, and will spend a few days before returning to Cairo. He says he wants to get to know people, and that’s made a number of them uneasy. Wes and Gunn are here for a visit, too. The Soul chose well. I can use them, if they stay.

I’ve been out taking care of business, and Aurelius has just arrived. He has Japheth with him, and someone else. As I enter the mansion, it occurs to me that, with all the coming and going, I might need to get an extension built. I’m certainly going to set about remodelling the place. My people did some of the essential work while I was… gone… for a couple of years, but there’s a hell of a lot to do. I want somewhere fit for the leading demon I intend to be; and somewhere fit for my mate to live.

Aurelius and Japheth are waiting for me in my hall. It’s Aurelius who speaks first.

“Angelus, we come to make you an apology.”

Oh? Then Japheth chips in.

“My family recovered the last of Palestrina’s missing bones, but we did not manage to do it without loss.”

Oh, again?

“Ahmed was lost to us. Dusted. I am sorry. I come to make reparation for his loss.”

I am disappointed. I had looked forward to Ahmed’s return. He was a very tasty dish indeed. You need to understand that there will never be another mate for me other than Buffy, and no one else will ever share Buffy’s bed. That I cannot tolerate. However, I have…other…needs and even a Slayer will not have the stamina to keep up with me. In any event, sex is used differently in vampire families than human families. For you, sex is about reproduction, and nttertter how you wrap it about with pleasurable experience, most of you see anything else as abnormal. For us, there is no possibility of reproduction by sex, and sex is used to exert dominance, to show status, to punish, to reward, to teach, to bond and to simply enjoy. Gender is no issue at all, for us.

I regret not being able to school Ahmed. I regret not having his sloe-eyed beauty to decorate the mansion, and his simple guile to amuse me. Still, there are forms to observe.

“It is no matter. I can make another.” Perhaps. I suspect that Buffy may have something to say about me making new childer. Still, this is my house, and I shall do as I please.

“I have something as compensation for you. The people who had the bone were the people who killed Ahmed. I have taken the one who actually delivered the fatal blow, and turned him, as a gift to you. You will be able to bond him, if you wish, or destroy him as you see fit.”

I’m very interested now. I feel much more… benign… since Buffy and I reconciled, but I do love S & M and I don’t want to introduce my mate to too much of that too quickly. There’s always Drusilla, of course, but another toy would be gratifying. Take the edge off me so I don’t damage Buffy – well, not more than she wants, anyway. I wonder what sort of toy they have chosen for me, and whether he can ever live up to Ahmed’s promise.

“Let me see him.”

Japheth nods, and walks over to open one of the doors. He calls to someone who comes into the room and stands for inspection.

Well, well, well. They have made a spectacularly good choice. He looks more than somewhat green. I think he knows that a little retribution is coming. A lot of retribution, actually.

“Hello, Lindsey.”

Perhaps there is justice in the cosmos. No, not justice. Balance. What would Aurelius call it? Ma’at.

Okay, so I can be shallow. Sue me.

**************

As The Lady walks through the black cliffs, she sheds the outer appearance that she adopted for him, the borrowed features falling away one by one, the flesh fading, until she is her own self. She finds a chamber, newly appeared, waiting for her. The crystalline walls here are different to those we have seen before. They are a rich midnight blue, spangled with snowflakes and stars, huge clusters of them moving in a stately dance across the firmament, in patterns that might fascinate a child. When she leaves the chamber, a crystalline shape, a potential, a power, waits in one of the many niches. It is alone. It is the first. Perhaps it is dreaming, whatever *it* is. As she drew it from her body, she marvelled at its beauty, a thing of light and dark, the union of the Slayer, the Soul and the Demon, enabled by her, in perfect Ma’at. She knew it must be so, and she is pleased.

Her lovers have waited for her. She joins them, and twines her arms through theirs. It is time for her to renew her vows with them, to let them cleanse the touch of another – no matter how beloved – from her flesh. First, though, there must be agreement.

“I shall go to him every Lady Day. You will make sure there is enough left over in the balance?”

The other two grimace at what that means for the soul they must torment. They are terrible, each in their own way. But they have never been as terrible as she. They both make the same response.

“Yes, Lady.”

She smiles, and the moment passes. She knows a time and a place that they all love, a time of moonlight and sheltering trees, a place of gently rippling waters and soft, yielding grass. She takes them there and they stay, freed of the cares of the world, for a little time.


THE END
29 May 2004


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