Kittens, I'll reply later ... when I'm not trying to cough up a lung. But meanwhile, the hugely overdue next part.
All disclaimers apply.
Part 5.
Willow was a dead weight in Tara's arms, her flight from consciousness having dropped the redhead back in her lover's arms. But for a change, Tara's thoughts weren't on the woman with whom she shared her life. They were on the twitching, shambolic form of their dead son, who had apparently recently crawled out of his own grave.
Tara couldn't look away from him, couldn't tear her eyes away from the grotesque horror he'd become. All the Scoobies dealt with the dead on a regular basis, but they were typically vampires, and vampires didn't rot. And whatever Timothy was now, he decidedly did.
And that single, unblinking eye, disconcertingly fixed on Willow and herself, was creeping Tara out.
When she finally managed to find her voice, Tara discovered that she had no idea what to say. “You ... I ... but ...”
Something wet and unidentifiable fell from a gaping wound in Timothy's side, hitting the floor with a splot, and Tara gagged. Without a single word of explanation, Timothy lurched around and tottered towards the twitching demon who whose head was still embedded in the wall. As he pulled it free in a small shower of plaster, the demon groaned.
It's still alive, Tara realized with a gasp.
Timothy let his captive sag to their knees before he tore the demon's mask off. It proved reluctant to come off, and when it did, it left the demon's face with a wet, sucking noise. Tara only caught the faintest of glimpses of the demon's face before Timothy moved to block her view, but what she saw of it left a sour taste in her mouth.
She was beyond surprised by what happened next; Timothy bent over and kissed the demon full on the mouth. It wasn't some quick peck though. No, Timothy was kissing the demon as if he trying to consume it whole, one hand clasping either side of his prey's head. The captive demon twitched in his grasp.
A groggy groan came from one side as Xander half roused himself from unconsciousness, and his voice followed soon after as he caught sight of what Timothy was doing. “Why are we watching undead gay porn?” he mumbled in confusion before slipping back under.
The demon's twitching grew more pronounced as each second passed, until it's limbs were drumming against the wall as if it were suffering an epileptic fit. Timothy began to draw his head back, revealing a spiraling funnel of wispy, blinding light linking their mouths together.
As the demon's paroxysms reached their peak, the light began to dim, flickering and pulsing like a heartbeat. As it died away, the demon gave one final prolonged shudder, and as Timothy released it, the demon flopped backwards with the loose-limbed manner possessed only by the dead.
Rearing upright, Timothy threw his head back and sighed lustfully, like a starving man after a good meal. As he spun back around and stalked back over to Tara, there was no more trace of the physical infirmities that had earlier plagued him, but other than that there was no change. His body was still that of a rotting corpse.
“ ... Better,” he rasped in the familiar tone that still haunted Tara's dreams, as he crouched down in front of her. That single remaining eye fixed on her face, virtually nailing her in place.
“Now ... where was I?” mused Timothy, tilting his head to one side.
“You ... you ... you're dead ..” Tara stammered, eyes wide.
“Oh, very well spotted, Tara,” he drawled lazily. “What was it that gave it away? The especially piquant bouquet I've been gifted with? Or perhaps it's the fact that my face is rotting off!” Skeletal fingers twitched, fighting the subconscious desire to curl into fists.
“Be that as it may, mother dearest, but that's not the most urgent query presently niggling at me. No, that august privilege belongs to this particular question; by what act of spectacular idiocy did you think it was a good idea to BRING ... ME ... BACK!”
Tara recoiled at the sheer vehemence and venom in his voice, wincing as the back of her head bumped into the wall behind her. To one side, Dawn struggled to rise to her feet, but the aftereffects of the demons device left her exceedingly unbalanced.
“Leave her alone, you ...” Dawn's protest devolved into a yelp as her legs betrayed her and pitched her to the ground.
“Oh look,” Timothy taunted, a tattered shred of decaying flesh falling from his lips. “Someone's spiked the punch. Do us all a favor, Little Miss Whiny, and shut up.” His attention shot right back to Tara. “And you, answer the damnable question!”
Now it was Giles' turn to try. “Timothy, none of us ...” he began, but he was ruthlessly cut off as Timothy rounded viciously on him.
“Shove it, Ripper! You haven't the power to light a candle without a ritual to hold your dainty little hand, so I rather think raising the dead is far beyond you! No. This is them!” Timothy jabbed an accusatory finger in Tara's face “It has to be them! It's always them!”
Tara's mouth opened to deny his accusation, but only a strangled squawk came out as Timothy lunged at her, lipless teeth gnashing inches from her nose. He grabbed her by the forearms, one hand cool and hard, the other clammy and slimy with decay.
“Why couldn't you just let me go? What do I have to do to get you to hate me?!” Timothy paused, mid diatribe. “Or did I succeed too well? Is that it? Did the clever little witches discover what ... this -” he glanced down as his own wasted body, “- means to the subject? Is this living hell my new punishment? Well? Answer me, damn it!”
A gasp slipped from Tara's lips as his hands tightened on her forearms, and a bone talon sliced open her skin. Heads snapping down, Timothy saw a rivulet of blood trickle over his fingers, and recoiled as if stung. He scrabbled backwards on hands and knees until his back slammed into the wall, eyes fixated on Tara's blood as if he was a vampire instead of ... whatever he was.
“Make it stop,” whimpered Timothy, his acerbic bluster giving way to naked self-loathing. “Please Mother, put me back. Kill me.”
Tara's breath caught in her throat, and she had to try several times before she could manage to respond. “Timothy ... we didn't do this to you.” She hesitated briefly. “We can't undo what we didn't do in the first place.”
Her son stared at her, unblinking, for several moments before he bowed his head. “Then I truly am damned, all over again.”
“So be it.” That single terrible eye burned balefully in a face thankfully hidden by shadow and the fall of lank, filthy hair. “So, mother ... what did you do to earn the ire of the Renai?”
Tara blinked. “Who?” she asked blankly.
**********
Krassic of the Renai dropped to one knee, head bowed, before the shining figure of his lord and master. The golden-skilled demon briefly laid a languid hand upon his servant's brow in acknowledgment, and gestured for Krassic to rise.
“Where are your fellows, Krassic?” queried the demon in a deceptively mild voice as he settled back upon his throne.
Krassic's jaw clenched, and he raised up his left forearm to slant across his chest. The sleeve of his robe fell back to reveal the matte black of the greave protecting the lower section of his limb. Emblazoned on this greave were three runes in glowing red, and below this were another two smaller runes in yellow.
“They have fallen, my lord,” admitted Krassic.
The face of Krassic's lord tightened minutely. “They fell in battle? With who? Was it ...?”
“I ... do not know, my lord. Lykonus ordered me to return with our prisoner, so .... I was not there when my brothers fell.”
Eyes that seemed wrought from pure gold slid past Krassic to where the two Lessers stood, one of them awkwardly cradling Chloe's unconscious body. An eyebrow like a silver filament inched upwards on a smooth, high, golden forehead.
“A ... prisoner? I dispatch you to bring me the Nameless, and you bring me a human child of the wrong gender? Might I imagine that there is an especially inventive tale behind this event?”
“Sire, all of our magics tell us that this child is the Nameless,” replied Krassic. “There are some inexplicable inconsistencies ... beyond the obvious, that is, but there can be no mistake.”
The golden demon smiled in sad, gentle amusement. “You say that because you do not know the depths of deception and trickery of which the Nameless is capable. This is but another ruse to weaken your numbers and leave your brothers vulnerable to attack.”
“That cannot be, sire,” Krassic argued. “I had the Lessers cross the rift with the prisoner first, and took a second reading before I departed the human world. Our spells are specifically crafted to recognize the Nameless' presence, and while he might be capable of evading some, even the Nameless could fool them all. At best, all he could do is mask his exact position.”
“And once this child was beyond the event horizon of the rift ...” began the golden demon.
“There was no trace of the Nameless,” finished Krassic. “The only way he could avoid it completely ... would be if he were dead!”
The golden demon rose from his throne and swept majestically towards where Chloe was being held by the Lesser. Looking down at her cherubic face, he gently traced one long finger along her jawline.
“What is your secret, little one?” he whispered. “What is your link to the man that ruined my world?”
**********
“The Renai?” repeated Giles. “They are, I assume, our uninvited guests? I'm not familiar with the species.” He sounded vaguely disappointed in himself.
A mocking grin that was all yellowed teeth and no lips formed in the darkness shrouding Timothy's head. “They aren't a species, Ripper. The Renai are a warrior society; the military elite of Hyriault.”
“Hyriault?” Dawn interjected snidely. “You mean that place you went to get all evil and vein-y? The home of Asshole U?”
“That's not the way I would have put it ... but yes,” drawled Timothy. “Maybe you should visit, Dawn. With a bit of practice, I'm sure that you could hone your abilities until you could split a man's skull at fifty paces with a single whine!”
“I do not whine!” Dawn indignantly snapped.
“She whined,” taunted Timothy.
“Stop it!” Tara shouted, her voice shrill with panic. “Just ... stop it!” She focused her eyes intently on Timothy's face, silently grateful for the shadows that conceal his ravaged features. “Tell me, where did they take my daughter?!”
Timothy blinked, cocked his head to one side, and pointed. “She's right there.”
Tara's head turned so fast she risked self-induced whiplash. “Not Katie! Chloe!”
“Who?” Timothy replied blankly.
“Chloe! Our daughter! Our natural daughter!”
An eyebrow like a scraggly scrap of fur slid upwards on the corrupted flesh of Timothy's face. “You had another kid? How long have I been in the ground?”
It was Tara's turn to blink in confusion now, until she realized the problem. Timothy was unaware that he ... that his other self was a girl. Something must have shown on Tara's face, for Timothy's jaw dropped. “Are you trying to tell me I'm a girl?!”
“What's wrong with being a girl!” interrupted Dawn, her tone belligerent, as if she were purposefully trying to pick a fight. Timothy half turned, no-doubt a cutting reply on his lips, but Tara cut them both off.
“Stop it!” she ordered, fear and anger battling for control of her voice. “Timothy ... please. Help us. Help me. Do you know where my daughter is?”
“No,” grunted Timothy without ceremony, blunt and merciless as the fall of a hammer, and Tara's heart fell with that single word. “But I bet I can find her.” He lurched upright. “Those that are still asleep ... wake their asses up. We might need the bodies.”
Tara looked down at Willow, still passed out in her arms. “Ummm ... how?”
Timothy rolled his one good eye, limped over to the table on which all the food had been laid out on, and returned carrying a bowl full of punch. Tara eyed him nervously, and was about to ask what he was planning ... when he upended the bowl right on top of Willow's head, soaking both women. The redhead reared upright, spluttering and indignant, dripping with punch, and with small chunks of fruit in her hair.
Then she noticed Timothy lurking above her like a creature out of a nightmare, and gave a little shriek.
“Up at at 'em, mother dearest,” Timothy rasped, his permanently toothy grin even wider than usual. “The game is afoot.”
**********
By the time they arrived at the park, Timothy's grin was still present, but only by virtue of the fact that without lips he was unable to scowl. On one side of his face, the tattered fragments of his leathery skin and corrupted flesh had been roughly torn away, leaving bone to gleam in the moonlight.
The culprit of this impromptu plastic surgery was still trying to clean the last traces of decaying tissue from her fist ... without much success, a fact that Timothy seemed to take a perverse kind of pleasure in. Buffy had proven surprisingly stubborn to wake, but when she had, it had been to find Timothy looming over her, shouting insults. Her reaction had been understandably violent.
“I wake up with a zombie standing over me, and I'm gonna hit it,” she muttered beneath her breath, sullenly. “It's what I do; it's my raisin entree!”
Willow opened her mouth to correct Buffy, but Tara beat her to the punch. “That's raison d'être, Buffy,” she noted softly. “But it's okay, Buffy. Nobody blames you.” Timothy snorted contemptuously, but Willow fixed her partner with a proud grin.
“Check out my girl, all with the big brain!” she crowed, bringing a blush to Tara's cheeks. “I didn't know you spoke French!”
“I don't, but ...”
At the head of their little column, Timothy abruptly jerked to a halt and spun around. Finding herself on the verge of a head-on collision, Willow recoiled and nearly fell.
“Since I'm somewhat hard-pressed to see how the ability to speak French is pertinent information in our current endevour, do you think we might perhaps focus on that task at hand?” he snidely hissed. “Or have you decided your daughter's rescue is not worth the full weight of your attention?”
“Hey!” protested Xander, poking Timothy in the chest with a rigid index finger. “Don't you get all uppity ...” His voice trailed off in disgust as his finger sank into Timothy's flesh up to the first knuckle.
Looking down, Timothy crooked an eyebrow and stared steadily at Xander. For his part, all Xander seemed capable of doing was making tiny grunting noises in the back of his throat. “Were you planning on keeping that there?” drawled Timothy.
With a full-body shudder, Xander sprang backwards, flailing wildly with his offending arm as if he remove the tactile memory of Timothy's rotten flesh by virtue of frenzied movement alone. Except for Anya, the rest of the Scoobies drew back; none of them wanted to chance coming into contact with Xander's contaminated finger.
Anya however, leaned forward to take a closer look at the wound in Timothy's chest. “You know, you really should be a lot drier after being dead for two years,” she pointed out, turning to Xander. “What did it feel like?”
Her earnest question earned her a series of peculiar looks from the other Scoobies, and Anya shifted uncomfortably beneath their gaze. “What?”
With a long suffering sigh, Timothy turned his back and stalked away, the rest of the Scoobies scurrying to catch up. It was a simple task, for Timothy stopped again only a handful of steps later.
“What now?” Buffy grumbled suspiciously. “Is there a pebble in your shoe?”
“If by that you mean that we're here, then yes.”
“What?” blurted Willow, “We're here? How do you know? Where's Chloe?”
Rolling his eyes, Timothy looked down. Following his gaze, Willow found a broad patch of scorched grass in the shape of an oval with a perfectly flat base. “Oh.”
“The portal to Hyriault did that?” asked Tara, aghast.
“No,” Timothy replied. “The ambient heat from Hyriault did that. This portal has no physical influence upon the world. It is simply ... a doorway.”
“Then where is it?” urged Willow. “And more importantly, where's my daughter!”
“The answer to both these questions is the one and the same,” came Timothy's answer. “Gone.”
Tara whispered a desperate denial. “No ...”
Timothy shrugged, as if none of this meant a damn thing to him. “Congratulations, mothers. Your only child is lost and alone. In Hell itself.”
To be continued.
_________________ That’s right: In order to make this event LESS popular, the female activists take off their tops and jog in front of onlookers. - Scott Adams, regarding the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.
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