Yay - 1000 posts... only fitting that I save it for my own fic. One landmark that ZAhir can't take from me! (Just kidding Z.)
Here is part 2 kittens... nothing more until Wednesday at the earliest, just so my dear beta reader has a chance to have a life beside this!
Enjoy,
K
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – Backstep II (Part 2)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Limited material from “The Body” is used strictly as background for this fic though these cannot be considered spoilers since I changed the reality – plus it aired ages ago.
Summary: The second Backstep, this time to take us to the defining moment in Tara’s life. The thing that drives her – at least until she gets another purpose later on – but we will get to that. This occurs a few months after Backstep Part One. For the sake of argument say around the time of “Out of Sight Out of Mind” though that is not significant other than that time has passed.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: None – still some time to go yet.
Notes: Just to stress here, Tara is 16 and a bit here… which is why she sounds young… At least I hope she does.
Finally when I wrote The Beginning Cycle I operated under the belief that Tara may have had some younger brothers. The canon source allowed for that – a matter of interpretation. I changed my mind and went with the general consensus. There is just Donny in this fic.
Thanks To: The board moderators and their helpers who recently, even more than usual, have been proving why Pens and Kitten are absolutely the best place to be on the Net… W/T, Buffy or not. They don’t get thanked enough – and they deserve to. Louise, Kerry – be well hun – and Jo Wizpup.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Backstep Part II
By
Katharyn Rosser
“D-Daddy?”
There was no response from inside the dark house. There was not a light, not a candle. No fire in the hearth. No television or radio on. No music. Nothing. The house was completely dead. She took one of the dinner plates she had fixed up before she went to the hospital from the fridge and started to pick at the food with a fork as she walked around, turning some lights on as she went so that the house was just a little less spooky. She hated being alone out here.
The other plates were still there though. The roast meat, the potatoes. Everything was untouched. On every plate. No one had eaten a thing. They always sat down and ate. And even when they didn’t Donny couldn’t resist the rumblings of his stomach for more than few hours at a time.
Had they all gone out, perhaps to the hospital? Grabbed something in town maybe? Unless it was an urgent visit… and they wouldn’t have stooped to wait. That would be one of the only things to interrupt dinner together. That and her own absence.
But he, Daddy, had said that they were not going there today, that her mother needed her rest and that she should not go to the hospital either. Mommy was doing better but not well enough. And for the first time she could remember in a lot of years she had disobeyed him. If she thought back she could still remember the sting from the last time she had done that. But he shouldn’t mind this time. Not for that, surely. And she was a little too old for… No. ‘You’re never too old.’ That was one of favourite sayings. But usually to Donny. She didn’t give him much cause these days.
Had they gone looking for her? Worried she might have had an accident or run into some bad people? She had left a note, telling them where their dinner was and she wasn't that late anyway. She walked back to the kitchen and checked. The note was gone from the message pad. They couldn’t have missed it, everyone knew to check there. It was a big part of how they communicated in this house. She had gone straight from school, and Donny knew she was going anyway. She had made sure to tell him. He wouldn’t have pleaded ignorance and hidden that note just to get her in trouble again? Not when she had been going to the hospital surely…
But he might have. He was getting more and more out of control. Unless he shaped up soon then he was going to be the one to get in trouble – and not just with Daddy. Already the police had been here twice asking where he had been certain nights when there had been trouble in town. And Daddy had told them. He was here officer, with Tara.
And she had nodded because what choice did he give her?
She had lied to the police. And she was sure that they knew it but they didn’t seem to hold it against her. Officer Reynolds had even given her a lift this evening to the hospital. Not a word had been said about Donny, she was just a genuinely nice lady.
Tara absently picked a slice of meat from a plate with her fingers, she’d put the fork down and who was there to tell her off for eating with her fingers? She chewed on it nervously. Was she going to be in trouble? She was home. It wasn't late, it was dark sure but she wasn't past curfew. But then she had disobeyed Daddy. She had gone to the hospital when he had told her not to do that. Her mother though, her mother had been pleased to see her. She had seemed stronger. Better. Maybe it had helped her. That was why she went.
Maybe just a little to feel better herself. It was hard here alone with Daddy and Donny. Sometimes you just needed to give some love and feel some in return. She didn’t get that with them. Daddy was aloof with everyone but her Mom… and Donny he was what her grandfather would have called a bad seed. And he was her older brother. They weren’t supposed to get on.
She made her way through the house again, looking in rooms, even in the special room which would one day, she was promised, be hers. But not yet. It was as empty as the rest of the house. The restraints hanging loose, moving in the slight draft. Had she left the back door open? He wouldn’t be happy if she had, letting the cold in. Though the house was already freezing cold. She hadn’t noticed with her coat on until she had touched the doorknob here.
The house was cold. The house was never cold. Her mother couldn’t abide the cold and even when she wasn't here Daddy kept the house warm and toasty. Ready for her to come back he said. Just in case. ‘What if the hospital send her home and there is a cold house waiting for her?’ She and Donny had learnt to keep the house warm.
The house was cold. That wouldn’t do. He would be angry when he got back and if she didn’t do anything about it then it would be even worse. Even if it wasn't her fault. Failure to act to correct the problem was the sin, not the error that had caused it in the first place. Anyone could make a mistake but if you failed to act to correct it – that was just bone idleness. No excuses.
No sir.
She hurried through the house, wondering just how warm she could get it before they got back. She kinda hoped for a little time… just so it could warm up a bit. Even if she had to be all alone during that time. What they called the front door, which was actually to the rear of the house, was - as she had suspected - wide open. The state had changed their plans and moved the road whilst the house was being built, decades ago. That was why they had an open ‘front’ door at the rear. Which no one ever really used because it went virtually nowhere. It was probably Donny that had left it. He was always doing that. And she was always closing it after him. Correcting the error. Yes sir.
Not only was the door open but the fire had burnt right down in the front room. All the way down to ashes. There was nothing left at all. Wood, she needed wood. She just hoped that Donny had done his chores this morning. If there was no chopped wood then she was going to have to do it and she wasn't very good with an axe – not beyond the first swing anyway. It kept getting stuck. But she would try her best and she could certainly get enough wood to get the fire going, probably just from scraps. She should be okay with those. That was the important thing. Get the house warmed up before they came back. Do your duty for the family Tara and correct the error.
She went out of the front door and over to the shed. There was some already chopped wood thank goodness. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with that. But the barn door was open too. And that was a real no-no. That was where they stabled the horses and if one of the horses got out then Daddy would really get mad. They had to look after the horses. If they couldn’t look after them then they wouldn’t be allowed to have them anymore. Donny… if he had left the door open then… she’d do what? She’d correct the error. Yes sir. What else was she going to do?
But if Marmalade, her horse, or Duke, which was Donny’s had gotten out then there would be nothing she could do. Not until morning and tomorrow was a school day too. Donny would have to go himself to find the horse – or horses. Hopefully before Daddy found out. She didn’t want to be punished for Donny’s mistake. He would be so mad if he found out. She’d shut the doors and even if a horse was gone Daddy might not notice. He had nothing much to do with the barn on a normal day. It was theirs, her’s and Donny’s since their mother’s horse had died two summers ago – but Mommy hadn’t ridden Holst for a long time before that. Neither of them had really been up to it. She was already sick and just went out there to feed and groom the elderly horse. She’d cried for so long when he finally faded away. It hadn’t helped her illness any either. They had never replaced Holst. Maybe if they had and if she had been able to go out… would that have helped her? No she would probably have got a chill. Her chest was weaker even then.
Tara was getting mad, whispering to herself as she crossed the yard towards the barn. Helplessness about her mother’s illness compounded with Donny’s stupidity. There was a faint glow from inside, maybe a lamp somewhere hidden from view. Were they in there? Was that where they were? But doing what? Maybe one of the horses was sick. Please don’t let it be Marmalade. Please.
“Daddy? Donny?” she called out to them, hoping that they were in there, that none of this was her fault and that she really wasn’t all alone out here. She didn’t like to be alone; she just couldn’t help imagining that there were things out in the night waiting for her. Knowing that there were things wasn't any comfort to her at all. Her mother made sure that she knew what was out there – and how you could deal with them. Daddy hadn’t objected to that when she had told Tara. What would work against what, so many things to remember – but she could never do any of that. She was too much of a coward. Donny and Daddy. They would deal with anything that came out of the night to threaten them. That was their role.
She rounded the big barn door and could see that the light was coming from above. The stable doors though, at least they were closed. She picked up a torch from where it hung beside the door and went to check on Marmalade who was moving around a lot. She could hear her in the stall.
The horse had dried saliva all around her mouth and her eyes were still wide, alert. If she had been human Tara would have thought she was shocked. Something… something had upset the horse.
Horses.
Duke in the stall next to her was in the same condition, but with a quick glance they both seemed otherwise all right, thank the goddess.
She stuck her arm over the door towards her horse, expecting her hand to be nuzzled but Marmalade shied away from the hand as if it was holding a burning flame. Violently, back so far that her hindquarters banged into the back of the stable.
Which had not been mucked out.
Neither of them had.
One thing Donny never missed. Never failed to do, even if it was a chore. He never forgot to care for the horses. Never. She did his household chores and he would muck out the horses. He had never complained. He loved it. He taunted her with it whilst she was washing up in the morning – which she did not love quite so much. He wouldn’t forget that job – he valued the horses too much.
Something must have happened, early, to stop that being done. But what? There was no reason for them both to go out… She had just come from the hospital and the chores had not been done all day so they hadn’t been called out to her mother, thank goodness. The house was stone cold. So it wasn't recently they had left either. What were they doing? Where were they?
Looking back on it later she was never sure what it was that drew her up into the hayloft. She couldn’t remember going up there since she had been hiding from Donny when she was seven, spiked her hand on a rusty nail and needed a tetanus shot. Which had really hurt. And then Daddy had punished them both for playing in dangerous places. But something had pulled her to the ladder nonetheless. She just, she thought much later, knew…
Something had drawn her up that ladder and to stick her head through the trapdoor to see… just a bale of hay. What else would it be? It was where they kept the fodder for the horses. Another reason why she let Donny care for the horses. She could barely move a bale, let alone throw it around the hayloft. All she could see shining the torch around. Hay, hay and more hay. Oh look some more hay. But not neat and orderly as Daddy insisted that everything should be. Correct the errors. She couldn’t lift a bale but she could make them a bit neater and tell Donny to sort them out later. When she caught up with him.
When she found them both.
She climbed up through the trapdoor and straightened up. Look around at the mess.
She wouldn’t be telling Donny anything again.
Or Daddy either.
She had found them and sooner than she expected to.
She didn’t have to shine the torch to see them in the dim light. The pale waxy flesh showed very clearly in the murk. So did the tears at their necks which had been ripped open by some sort of animal… or…
Tara screamed.
She kept screaming until she couldn’t anymore because of the pain in her throat then she just groaned and cried.
But no one came because there was no one to hear her and she really was all alone out here.
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They had taken her to the hospital when they came and found her. Not in the ambulance with her Daddy and her brother but in the police car. She had stayed slumped in the hayloft all through the night. Not daring to get up and make the telephone call. Not because of what might be out there but because she couldn’t help thinking that Daddy would be annoyed if she had left him there in the dark. It wasn't until the dawn light had filtered through the dusty glass in the window above the bodies that she had been able to move at all. And after she had seen exactly what had been done to them. It wasn't any animal… not any wild animal anyway.
She had stumbled to the house, found the phone and dialled 911, for some reason she even asked for an ambulance. It had seemed right. She knew that there was no point in asking for an ambulance. None at all. But she had anyway. Then she had told them to send the police too. The police station was much nearer, just on this side of town. The ambulance had to come from further away as the hospital had no emergency room. Then with the police on the fifteen-minute drive out to the farm she had started to get the house in order. When they had finally pulled up she had lit the fire as she intended to do last night, chopped some more wood and started to prepare breakfast for four. What else could she have done? There has to be a routine, Tara. Otherwise how will you know what to do and when. Flights of fancy don’t get things done. Nor does just reacting.
Yes sir.
It hadn’t taken much for one officer that she had never met before, Durkin, to accept a plateful whilst they had waited for the ambulance and the coroner that they called, though she had been aware of Clare Reynolds prodding him and trying to tell him that he shouldn’t. But then even she had accepted a plate when the wait started to drag on and they had no idea what to say to her. Something like this they just had to secure the crime scene. Some other officers would do the investigating and there were no witnesses out here. That meant they just had to eat their breakfast whilst Tara flitted around doing her chores. Eventually they sat her down, fearing she was in shock.
Tara though didn’t need any investigation by the coroner. She knew what had done it. Something, a vampire from what she had always been taught, had come out of the darkness and ripped her Daddy’s and brother’s throats out.
She hadn’t said that to the police of course. They might have known something of the family reputation. Everyone in town knew about the Maclay family. They would have said that she was crazy for saying it. They might have thought that she was anyway. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t answer their questions properly. She just asked them if they wanted more eggs, because wasting good food was a something you should not do. No sir. Somebody is going to eat it, she had found herself saying, and when they refused she did so herself.
Then the sick feeling hit her again and she went and threw up.
Sorry sir.
Vampires. She had never seen one but everyone knew the rules. Out here you had to know the rules. Different creatures, different rules. What was it for vampires? Sunlight, staking, beheading and fire. Silver? She didn’t think so.
No, that was what killed them. Those weren’t the rules. Never invite them in. But they didn’t have to be invited into a barn. It wasn’t a home except to the horses – and that wasn’t the same. Had they been invited in the house? There was no mess. Maybe they couldn’t get in. They had looted the barn but not the house. Why?
They couldn’t get in. She was still alive. Her mother was still alive. It was their home too. So whilst the two of them were still alive they couldn’t get in. So they had to go somewhere else… they were still close by. The police hadn’t found any tyre tracks other than Daddy’s truck – which was still parked up. She could… maybe…
No she couldn’t. Even though the police would never catch them and never be able to do anything about it she could do even less, she was just a Maclay woman and she knew her place. But that place was empty of direction now. There was just the Maclay women left.
And beyond the brain-numbing pain all that she could think as they put her to bed was that if they killed her then it was still alright as they couldn’t get in whilst her mother was alive – and she was getting better. They couldn’t be allowed into the house. That was the family’s place
But who would look after the horses?
And who would tell Mommy?
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Tara saw her third dead body little more than three hours after reaching the hospital and for the next three hours after that she sat talking to it, holding the cooling and stiffening hand. Talking, begging, apologising, even cursing. For some reason the doctors and nurses couldn’t get through the mortuary door, even though it was not locked. Tara didn’t even notice that she was doing it. Eventually they gave up and let her stay in there with her Mother.
Now she really was alone. Who did she have left in the entire world now?
They said it was ‘just’ a complication of the treatment. One doctor had confided however that it might have been the stress of the news of the death of her husband and son. Delivered not by Tara who had begged to leave her own bed to do the deed but instead by some police officer no doubt spouting the same false standardised and trained condolences that he had delivered to her back at the house. She just hoped that it had been Officer Reynolds if it had been anyone.
They just couldn’t wait for her? They just couldn’t have let her deal with it? It was a family matter. There was no bigger family matter. They were still family. They had been anyway… Now she was her own family.
There is just me, she thought.
Your family loves you Tara.
Well who was there left to love her now?
They had killed her mother. Even though she had been safe here. Her presence in the hospital had saved her from Daddy and Donny’s fate, it might even have saved Tara – stopped her from getting home as she normally would have done, before sunset, and ending up there with Daddy and Donny. Dead.
Right now death did not seem too bad at all. It would be some relief from the tight pain that constricted her lungs and ripped into her heart.
They had killed her mother.
The so-very-strong woman enfeebled by an illness. Who had fought the enemy within herself so hard, so bravely even though it must have been easier to just give up, so that she could come back to them. She had never given up on loving them enough to come back, no matter how great the pain that Tara knew she was suffering. It had been getting better. A little better. But not enough.
She had been getting better and now they had killed her anyway. Just as if she had been in that barn too.
They, the police and her doctors, had just made a mistake in telling her.
It was the damned vampires… they had killed her. Just as surely as if they had come in here and ripped her throat out themselves. And now there was no one she could go to. No one she could ask what to do about it. She had to think for herself.
She had to grow up and stop waiting for instructions. There would be no more orders, firm suggestions and requests because there wasn't a single person she respected, loved or really even knew left. She had things to do.
She carefully placed her mother’s cold hand on the table and pulled the sheet tidily over it, bent and kissed her forehead and covered her again, smoothing out the creases in the white sheet, wondering just how they got the sheets so perfectly white, wash after wash.
There was a whole family who required justice and she had the chance to do that.
She hoped.
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She finally tracked them down. They had stayed so close that it hurt her. They were so confident… so superior that they didn’t feel the need to flee the scene of their crime. They had not gone anywhere at all really. A couple of miles west, to the next farm. It had taken her nearly the whole night to find the spell in the volumes she had last seen months ago - those that had been passed down from mother to daughter in this family for nearly two centuries. Longer still to then anchor it in her mother’s pendant, slipping it on to hang at her throat. She didn’t even know that it had worked until she found them and the burning sensation started.
The spell books, the ingredients had never been passed to her. She had just taken them now as her own.
There was no one to pass them to her. Quite likely there never would be anyone for her to pass them to either. There was a plus point at least. And Daddy was not there to stop the passing. Donny was not there to tell tales on her about it. But everyone knew that her mother had been showing her things…
By the Goddess she wished that they were here. That it could all be as it had been. But there was no way for that to happen. No way that she could ever contemplate at least. There were ways of course. But she had learnt her lessons well. There were certain things in magic that you should not do… she was about to try one of them, but that was one thing. There were also things that you should never do. Raisings for one.
The thought had crossed her mind… after.
It had not been too hard to dismiss it. Horrible as it was to have lost her family, it was the way things were and you could not mess around with the forces of life and death. In one way it was even the natural order. Predator and prey. But that cut both ways. And she had seen the illustrations if just what might come back if she had tried that. She had read of what could happen. She had been told what had happened. Before.
Quite likely she would not survive to see another sun set so she had made sure that she had enjoyed last night’s. She had sat with her mother’s books and a lamp on the porch reading as day faded though into dusk and into night. She’d even taken some time to look up at the stars, wondering at the constellations. Were any of them worse places than this world? That would be a bad place indeed. If she had only found the spell more quickly and Thespia had shown her the way to the demons whilst it was still dark then she might not even have made it this long. The delay had, at least, brought her daylight. Daylight was her friend now, along with sharp pieces of wood and fire. The sun not just a giver of life, but for some things certain death. It marked them out as unnatural. She had no reason to fear using her talents, her gifts – or her curse as Daddy would call it – against the unnatural. Against vampires.
If they were darkness and she was opposing them then that made her the shining light of justice. Maybe she wasn't totally convincing herself with that. But what choice did she have? Who else was there to do this round here? If she did not do this thing then no one would and others would die as certain as night follows day.
It would have been more of her family as it turned out.
The vampires were, Thespia had graciously revealed, on the farm of her Uncle Brett. Her father’s brother and she didn’t even know if they knew what had happened. She had never thought to warn them because she had never seen them too much – considering they lived so close and all. Cousin Beth was a regular visitor to their house, though she didn’t get on too well with Donny which made things tricky, but her father’s family seemed to dislike the Maclay’s whose family name he had taken on marrying her mother.
She could guess why and she couldn’t totally blame them. But the petty family differences were irrelevant now. The vampires were on their farm and if the sun set once more, or if they ventured into their own barn then... More death. She couldn’t allow that, not again.
Tara had approached with as much care as she could, years of playing hide and seek with Donny serving her well to move through the long, tall, stalks in the fields with a minimum of disturbance. She could see, from the fence, that her Aunt and Uncle were both in the kitchen. Thank Thespia once more for that. The vampires, she was sure, were in the barn – after all it had worked so far. Carefully she opened her senses up, as she had been taught, and the wave of blackness rolled over her. They were there… but they were not alone.
Beth.
Beth was in there with them and she was very scared.
What could she do? She had planned so many things. She had intended to deliver face to face justice whilst having them tell her why. Why they were here. Why they had chosen that barn. Why they had to kill them… But all of that had depended upon the time, being able to do this as she wanted to… not being driven to try and save another life – and taking the responsibility for that.
How she was going to achieve all of that? She’d never done anything like that. She’d never felt anything like this. She’d never truly hated before, but the hatred of the beasts that they were was feeding off the raw wounds of her bereavement. She had come out here with a couple of sharpened pieces of wood. And there were more than four of them. If she could have had time to think, to plan properly – knowing that – she might have got her Aunt and Uncle out of the farm and then thought about separating the vampires, trying something sensible… having a plan.
A sensible plan. That would have got her killed.
But in the best possible cause. What else did she have left to live for? Her family? Not anyone. All of her friends perhaps. Drawing a blank there too.
Now though there was Beth to think about. No more wondering. No more impractical plans to make them tell her what she wanted to know. She had to act… She could see them now through the barn door. They were about to bite. To feed. To kill. That was what they did.
Her cry distracted them, and probably alerted the people in the house. But there was no time. They just grinned a fang filled grin at her. Help me, mouthed Beth, though she was probably shouting it. The world seemed silent around her as she focussed on other things. The vampires were unconcerned. They could not come out and she could not go in there. They moved towards Beth, moved to bite her.
As Tara looked at Beth all she could see was the face of her mother – they had always looked alike - calling to her, reminding her. Words. Incantations. That was what the image was saying. It sprang to her mind almost unbidden. Certainly, she realised later, she would never have attempted it if she had been anything less than desperate particularly lacking the spell ingredients that would shift the focus from her mind and body to something more… disposable. She completed the phrase and the spell ripped through her mind and crippled her body. She staggered and fell by the fence, the vampires grinning even wider.
Until they realised that they had moved, without taking a step, victim and all, from the safe sun-proof barn and reappeared out in the yard.
Under direct sunlight where it took only a fraction of a second for them to burst into flames.
Tara struggled to lift her head, but it felt as if someone had hammered a spike though it, nailing it to the ground. She forced herself to raise it, her skull and her brain up along that spike. Taking the pain to see them burn as they deserved to burn, screaming in pain before they vanished in a poof of ash… and even that burnt up in the daylight. Evil consumed by the light of justice. She collapsed again, exhausted and hurting in every part of her being.
To see that her cry had indeed alerted the remaining members of her family.
Beth ran back to her parents, Tara could see that from where her head had fallen now next to immobile. Tara could see her shouting, pointing at Tara frantically. They all hurried over to where she lay on the ground. But they seemed reluctant to touch her. They probably thought that she would burn them up too. She almost wanted to laugh, except there was nothing funny. Nothing at all. She heard a female voice hiss “demon.”
“Shut up,” a man said. That must have been Uncle Brett.
She thought she heard Beth say “Look at her eyes. Her eyes.” What was wrong with her eyes apart from the fact, that like every other sense in her body the burned? After I saved their daughter… that? They call me a demon now? Just because I will be… but not yet! She wanted to scream that. Not yet!
But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak in her own defence, if there even was one, to explain what she had done but never to tell them how... She knew that she’d been to a dark place. And that she hadn’t yet come back from there. The pain was good… it was the penalty for her actions, her choices. This time, to save Beth and the rest of them… to get her justice… she would pay that price. But look what it had done to her, leaving her writhing, out of control of her body, in the dirt. She couldn’t even trust herself to cry properly. It hurt, the pain in her head. All over… but most of all in her head. But that was not the worst of it.
Eventually Uncle Brett stopped the debate with a “We can’t leave her there. Whatever she is, she’s only sixteen,” and picked her up and carrying her inside their house, placing her on Beth’s bed. Teen boy-band posters grinned down at her from the walls from the ceiling, bare and shiny chested. By the Goddess could this possibly get any worse? Oh yeah… here came the pain and the grief again. She started to cry.
Uncle Brett handed her a handkerchief, and it seemed like a grand gesture. Tara tried to blow her nose, but the pain exploded in her head as she strained. He took it from her and wiped her eyes, her runny nose for her. “You can stay here until your family, well until they are in the ground. I’ll help you with the arrangements. Then you better scoot. Get out of town. This isn’t the place for you. We’ll watch the farm until you can sell it,” he told her. Between what he and Beth had seen he must know what she had done for them all – especially his daughter. He just didn’t want to admit it, even to himself and his superstitious wife… Aunt Marie had never got on with Tara or her mother. Uncle Brett wasn't going to fight that just for her. And she was too weak to do anything but nod. She would leave. There was nothing here for her now. Nothing but three burials.
But where would she go? What could she do? If she couldn’t stay then she couldn’t finish school. She had liked the learning but hated the people… besides there was still her demon heritage to contend with. Two, three years and she would be just like those vampires anyway. Perhaps it was time to try and redress the balance. To make things a little better, before they got so much worse.
Justice. The idea was a bright spot in the blackness that threatened to consume her. Unwanted, unloved, cast out and hurting inside and out… it was all that she had to cling to.
And somewhere there was something responsible for all this. Something she could seek out.
Justice. She must have said it aloud as Uncle Brett turned back to her and asked what she had said. “Nothing,” she replied to him. Nothing you need to know.
All that she had in the world now was a need for ongoing justice. To know why it had happened and to stop it from happening to anyone else. And her answers were not here. He was right. This wasn't her place. Perhaps it never had been. She had always wanted things that she was not supposed to have.
Happiness.
A life.
Love.
And now all of that was lost to the need for justice. But knowing that couldn’t help her stop crying.
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“The second part of our puzzle Lilah?” Holland asked as Lilah entered the conference room carrying the rarely used project folder. Not that he could read it from that distance. He was just on top of everything that happened in Special Projects. “I believe the appointed day was reached sometime last week, for whatever that is worth.”
“You know prophecy.” Lilah confirmed, agreeing more than just because he was her boss. He had actually taught her about the nature of that predictive force. And showed her what happened when you ignored the proverbial ‘small print.’ As The Master in Sunnydale appeared to have done. Prophecy was, generally speaking, the most unreliable thing that she had come across in this job. That and juries. Of course you could influence a jury – one way or another. And here at Wolfram and Hart they also believed that you could influence prophecy – or at least tinker with the variables.
“Yes. We think so,” Lilah told him as she reviewed the file on this, one of the first projects she had been assigned at the firm. And potentially one of the most important she had been involved with until quite recently. To be given something like this so early… trusting that she would advance far enough to do the project justice, that was a sign of the faith that the practice had in her future. She had no intention of disappointing. The results of disappointment could be… painful.
“We Lilah?” Holland was always keen to test her responses, tighten up her grammar and to gauge her sense of responsibility. It was critical in fact. She had a very responsible role – that would only get more so. He knew she was going to go far.
“Sorry,” she smiled, “I think so. We – I have had reports of a family being killed, by vampires. The only survivor was the daughter who notified the police. The mother who was already in hospital died shortly after being given the news,” she told him, summarising the twenty-page report that had been sent to her office half an hour earlier. She hoped that she had not missed anything critical in scanning it through, but Holland had no more windows available today and he had to know.
“‘And the one shall be left alone by the hand of those who stalk the night,’ very good, very good.” Holland recited from memory.
“Exactly sir,” Lilah replied, impressed at his precise knowledge of the wording of a prophecy they had not even discussed in a several months. Though the mother had not been killed by vampires which the prophecy seemed to indicate. Which was a slight worry. Unless the girl blamed the vampires anyway. Some sort of cancer the medical report had said, but the mother was supposed to be improving. Hopefully the girl would lay the responsibility for the shock at the feet of the undead.
“No reports of any other incidents?” he asked wanting to be certain that this was the one. There could be no doubts allowed.
“None that even remotely fit the profile sir. Random killings and only a few of those.” It had been Halloween after all.
“And is it the one who we expected it to be?” Holland asked.
“Yes sir. That would appear to give us confirmation of the prophecy. It was the girl that you were told to expect it to be. Though I am not sure just how you knew.” That was puzzling Lilah and there was no harm in a little fishing expedition. He would stop her cold if she were going places that she shouldn’t.
Holland had left a note for in the project file, sealed, which she had been instructed to open only on the occurrence of this event. On it was name. The right name.
Holland smiled, clearly not about to give the answer to the question she had asked regarding his methods. It wasn't that he didn’t trust her; it was just that Lilah, especially Lilah, had no need to know about some of the other sources available to Wolfram and Hart. Sources who only ‘talked’ to those in more senior positions. “Excellent. Prophecy can be a tricky thing. What about the reaction?”
“Untrained but effective and extreme,” Lilah told him. “The reports are unclear, our monitors couldn’t get near enough to see much – there was only a day between the event being reported and the reaction. It wasn’t their fault.” He nodded, noting the fact. “But dark magics may well have been involved. That indicates a high degree of control, power. I think that she might be a suitable candidate for our own special projects op-”
“No Lilah. You can’t recruit her. Not yet at least. Maybe. One day.”
“But she is all alone, recently bereaved - this is the ideal time.” This was the optimum moment for recruitment, there might never be a better one. After all what did the girl have left to lose? Allowing her to recover from that – as she eventually would – would only make the recruitment a trickier proposition.
“Yes it is. But so it is written etcetera,” Holland commented with disdain for prophecy that you could only feel dealing with dozens everyday. “Besides she won’t use those magics again. If she does… there will be nothing left - very, very quickly. I would assume it was the bereavement, an extreme situation. We know that she will be in a certain place at a certain time. The strains of that sort of spell casting on such a young mind and body. She’d be dead, or certifiable inside a year.” He examined a fingernail then looked up. “You know that Lilah.”
“Yes sir.” Fair enough. He seemed to think that she would have another chance, and it was not essential to the project anyway. Simply a bonus, and he was definitely right about the magic. They had to hope for a long, slow burn rather than a brief star bright explosion.
“You have the monitors still on her of course?”
“A permanent team is on their way now sir. They will be in place very shortly.” Lilah had been impressed by her choices. Two teams to start with who would observe the girl twenty four hours a day until they were absolutely sure that she was the one. And that she could be of use to the firm.
However long that might take and in whatever form? Best case, she might not even know it until I recruit her, Lilah thought to herself, keeping a tight lid on the speculation
“‘Excellent Lilah, well done. There is to be no interference by the monitors. Whatever happens. Understood? If the girl is in danger of being injured or even killed they are not try to be helpful and interfere…” The way he said helpful showed just what he felt about the sort of help they might provide.
“I have already given them personal instructions.”’ It hadn’t taken much persuasion at all. All the monitors were experienced and more particularly Wolfram and Hart veterans. It would have been more extraordinary to ask them to ensure the girl came to no harm. Besides the order would be in the files – and they knew it. It wouldn’t be her fault and they knew that too. They knew where the blame would fall. They would obey.
“Excellent.” Holland turned back to his work and Lilah knew she was dismissed. As she turned to go however he spoke again. “Oh Lilah?”
“Yes sir?”
“What was that name on the paper again?”
“Maclay sir, Tara Maclay.”
Edited by: xita
at: 6/1/03 11:37:56 am