Part 100 is below... but first.
Zahir - Glad you liked it. THis really was cleanup of everything, all the loose ends, that I left hanging before.
I think there is a sense of Realism (in the political sense) to what the Council is doing, that prevents them from being idealistic. Ideally a Watsher would not need the Council... but then who trains the Watcher's. I see the Council as ultimately clinging to the one thing they do, which is to ensure that the Slayer has a Watcher and they think this gives them the right, power to do what they want.
I wouldn't like to say that VW proved that vampires can change behaviour - she proved that they can be distracted by something they want more. VW never stopped being what she was. Nor IMHO did Spike with that chip, but it is an discussion for another place.
Thanks,
Nicole - Glad you liked it and glad you found a wow. I like Wow. No loose ends in this story... except those that come in the next three parts. *cough*
And my wow now... this helped you? I am glad that it did... It is a thing of contrasts this fic. It is dark for so long that when the love and life comes along (for like 20% of the |"screen" time) it seems that much better. Neat trick!
Thankyou.
Part 100 is below... fic now finishes in 103 as the story is broken into smaller sections.
Katharyn
****************
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Natural Beauty (Part 100)
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.
Summary: Tara finds something… or does something find her?
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: T/W naturally
Notes: Okay… so this part was long enough for you guys to get another without me doing anything more to it. This fic now ends in Part 103 rather than 102. I expect there will be questions so I will see you in the thread later.
Thanks To: The beta readers and those who offered opinions. I always thank them but this is the last time I am making a special point of it as we wind up. Jo – who carried me through 75 parts of this before she was forced by circumstances to hand over the torch. I miss you, you know. Kerry – who took that torch and ran with it and to be fair had it from Part 1-4 herself before those pesky circumstances. Xita who was perhaps the second person to know what was going on, after Kerry and some way before me, and rendered opinions where needed. They were always the right ones. Chewster who stepped in with a few idea reviews from time to time. MariaComet who talked me out of some things, suggested others and even did a chat with me about the dreaded “S” word.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Natural Beauty
By
Katharyn Rosser
Words had been hard to find. Mr Giles had… he’d started, perhaps, to understand her reasoning – such as it was. And she was starting to understand the degree of his own guilt. It was something that… it was something that they shared if she was honest with herself. Guilt without direct blame. And maybe the fact that the other was feeling, guilty too made it easier for both of them?
And he wasn't blaming Willow… her Willow. The Willow she’d always been in love with. The words though – it was tough to know what to say. Darkness had fallen and that was the way that she knew Sunnydale the best. By night. Black. Dark. Dinner had been largely silent. Willow had tried her best to engage her in conversation. Jenny had tried her best to get her husband to speak up too.
Then those two had swapped over and that hadn’t been too successful either.
Neither of them had felt much like talking. Something they had in common there then. They might be starting to understand each other, but Mr Giles wasn’t quite ready to forgive – nor was Tara quite ready to be forgiven. Maybe the same was true of him. Maybe his silence was because he wasn't ready to be forgiven either.
She’d picked up her coat and suggested that she and Willow take a walk. Willow had wanted to go and see Ira again – though maybe she’d forgotten that in all of Tara’s troubles. Tara hadn’t forgotten. Willow was at the forefront of her mind. She always was. What was best for Willow, best for them, came first.
Jenny had made her promise that they’d come back though. It had long since been agreed that they’d spend the night there. Okay, so Jenny hadn’t actually known about ‘they’ as such… about Willow… not explicitly about Willow. But there was the sofa bed… where Faith had used to sleep. Jenny had promised to make it up and though Mr Giles had made a tiny ‘clucking’ sound he hadn’t opposed the idea. Not even on the grounds it had been Faith’s place in their home.
And so she’d walked Willow over to her father’s house. Nothing had come out of the night to trouble them apart from a couple of ‘merry’ office workers piling out of a bar. Exuberance in Sunnydale, who’d have guessed at that happening?
You did it Faith. You made it a place where people can party.Both Willow and Ira had asked her to stay, but Tara knew that she needed to give them time together. There would be time enough for that later – years and years to get to know Willow’s dad.
They say that family’s important Tara, you know like the one big thing - I wouldn’t know, but they say it.Yeah Faith, it really is.
She’d promised to go and collect Willow afterwards though. She could have left her there with her Dad, but she didn’t want to sleep alone tonight and… well Willow’s old bed, aside from being all dusty, was a little small for both of them. She didn’t want to be alone tonight at all and neither did Willow.
More than that, Willow and her father needed the time alone together. Just as Mr Giles and Jenny did… which was why she’d simply started walking and without even realising it she’d slipped into one of her old patrol routes. If she’d really wanted to find a vampire she’d have gone to a cemetery or to Willy’s. Without the pendant she really shouldn’t have been out here… but as she’d turned left into an alley she’d spotted someone lurking and she’d just known. She hadn’t needed anything to burn her throat.
Vampire.
Vampire following someone else.
-----------------------
This wasn’t quite what he’d intended when he’d followed Tara out of the apartment, and if Jenny had known that he was actually ‘tailing’ the two young women then she would have stopped him as only she could. Instead of admitting to that he was ‘going to the store.’
There were, of course, much nearer stores to where they lived than anything in this neighbourhood.
He needed to be both alone and to be seeing what Tara Maclay was doing. Back in Sunnydale… she could well have contained her power until now, but might she start using it again now that she was here? If she did… then he couldn’t allow her near Jenny or Faith. Not with the magic – as inherently unstable as that was. If there was anyone who knew how dangerous magic could be it was he.
He and Jenny had barely survived the return of the demon Eygon. Other people had died and some, like Ethan, like cockroaches had managed to prosper. Ultimately it had been just another day on the Hellmouth though. It was simply a good thing that he’d told Jenny about Eygon long before that and she knew why he couldn’t use magic anymore. As Tara had confided, long ago, to Faith – there was a darkness in magic. She faced it every time she used it. He’d been there. He knew.
Awareness of that darkness was the key – if only he and Ethan had been so aware of it all those years ago… then the darkness might never have claimed some of its victims. Tara was evidently afraid of that darkness – she had been for a long time – yet she must still have been using the magic then. Knowing about it and yet willing to take the risk… and he’d allowed her to do that in collaboration with Faith because it was helping their cause – helping Sunnydale.
And it had seemed to be Tara’s cause.
But…
To bring back a human from a vampire. That took magic that he couldn’t fathom. Power that he hadn’t believed would ever be accessible to those in this reality. At the very least there would have to be a crossing of dimension or timelines. Or something. He supposed that Tara had reached into the past and to do that she would have needed magic.
Magic far more powerful than she’d ever used before, at least as far as he could tell, and once she’d got a taste of that sort of power… the darkness wouldn’t let her go. Never.
Which was why he’d followed her. And now he was wandering the streets wondering where she was. There was no organised vampire clan here in Sunnydale anymore. There was no Mayor – but there were random individual dangers to be faced. Faced without the benefit of a stake or a sword.
Oh, well done Giles.
Because he was sure that he was being both watched and followed. Oh, and he’d just run into a wall. No more alley.
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Tara was sure that… damn it.
The vampire had cornered its target. She knew that the alley ended in sheer wall, but it was a dead end that was around a tight corner. There would be no line of sight for her – though it had been a while since she’d tried a long distance staking… She was out of practice and she only had the one, habitual, stake anyway. No room for error. There was very little space to move in there too. Staking by hand would be risky. She carried on forwards, hoping that the target would make a break past the vampire and give her a better chance to save a life without losing one.
What the hell was the vampire’s victim doing down here anyway? Sunnydale might be better but what the hell was that person playing at? There were certain things you didn’t do in this town and walking down dark dead-end alleys was one of them. There were worse things than vampires out here... but vampires were bad enough for starters.
She held the stake tightly, doubting that she was going to get to use it as she wanted to. It felt strange there. It had been so long – without any sort of reason to use a stake. To even hold one. She’d even got to the point where she wondered about getting rid of that last one. She’d got herself a new bag, one that wasn’t as accessible as she’d always carried before…
As she’d always had to carry.
She’d managed to stop carrying her most precious possessions around with her, but not the stake. Every time she’d thought that she might put it in a draw or throw it on a fire she’d hesitated, worried what might happen if... And now, ‘if’ was really happening again, and it turned out that it was a damn good job that she had been reluctant and kept it after all. There was a time when she would have been able to improvise, pull some clever magic trick out of thin air or be confident enough in her capabilities to entice the vampire into coming after her instead. That time wasn’t this time. Right now she wasn't even sure how she was going to deal with this vampire before anyone, including herself, got hurt.
She didn’t want to screw up and let the darkness in. She didn’t want to screw up and let that person in the alley die. She didn’t want to screw up and leave Willow all alone.
She couldn’t screw up… not anymore. It was more than just her.
The vampire had to be surprised by her presence though, she needed the surprise - even if that meant letting its victim be at risk for a little longer. To help that person at all… she was risking their life by taking it steadily. That was the sort of decision that she hadn’t even realised that she was making before, not on the actual hunt. Now she recognised it though and she hated it.
She hated the fact that she had to be afraid of dying and losing what she now had to live for. The person that she loved. She was so afraid of losing Willow… so afraid. And she hated that.
She hated it even more when a cry rang out into the night.
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Wrong way. He’d gone the wrong damn way. He’d never made an effort to really learn the streets of Sunnydale the way that he’d insisted that Faith should have come to know them – and he really should have done. It would have stopped Tara from eluding him.
She’d eluded him without even trying to.
And now someone was crying out. Damn it all he had to move faster or else someone was going to die. Where the hell was Larry when he needed him?
Oh yes he’d ‘banned’ his friend from helping him and insisted that he had a summer break. The first one any of them had really had in the last five years. Good show.
He ran back towards the street that he’d branched off, following the shout. It didn’t seem to have come from far away at all, though the echoes down these narrow side streets could be deceptive. Could he have just taken the one wrong turn?
He nearly ran into a blonde haired woman as he exited the alleyway and ran across the street. He stumbled and dropped the stake that he’d been fumbling in his jacket pocket for. The cross skidded across the asphalt and came to rest against the opposite wall. “T- Oh I’m terribly sorry.” It wasn't Tara at all. “I’m just…” he scrabbled for the cross – more confident in its ability to repel a vampire than in his ability to actually stake one.
“On your way to pitch your tent at the church fete?” she suggested with a smile.
The stake and the cross. Surely she was joking with him? Though they might not often admit it, the people of Sunnydale were, by now, quite aware of what they’d lived in the midst of.
She bent over and the hair hid her face momentarily before she straightened and tossed the stake over to him with a good deal more grace than he caught it with.
“Ahh, yes… quite.” If she didn’t know then it wasn't the time to explain it to her. Better a young lady was simply off the streets at this time of night – even if it was still early. “I would suggest you… Sorry no time to chat. Sorry.” He retrieved the cross and ran on, finishing the apology if only to himself. “Someone’s going to die,” he murmured.
He didn’t even look back at her.
She didn’t head home.
-----------------------
“Someone’s going to die,” he said as he ran away from her.
“We can only hope so Rupert. We can only hope.” She turned and skipped down the street until she came to the next overhead fire escape. She knew who he was of course. She’d known that for a long, long time – even as he’d been arriving in Sunnydale. “But not you… not tonight anyway. I want you to be around for the show… and I want you to be around when I eat your daughter.”
He didn’t hear her of course, he was long gone.
He wouldn’t see her again until it was far too late. It would be months and months probably until she had what she needed, but in the meantime… she would see him. Him, and anyone else who threatened her. She’d be watching. The days of rushing in were gone. This time… things were going to be done right.
From a standing jump she propelled herself up to the fire escape, pushed off against it and landing on the roof in one movement. Then she paralleled his path, but along the rooftops. She was curious… not only about what had cried out but also what he was going to do about it.
More than that… there might be something worth recruiting to the cause down there.
It was never, ever over.
The Master had taught her that. The Master had taught her many things but it had taken his death to show her the value of so many other lessons.
---------------------------------
There really was nothing for it.
Tara stepped around the corner and the vampire wasn’t aware that she was there… at least not until she crushed some glass under her shoe and it grated harshly against the ground. Stupid… there had been a time that she would have sneaked up by holding herself up above the ground. Literally walking on air.
But she was…
Afraid…
Nervous…
And…
She was in trouble. Her eyes flicked to the vampires intended victim and she realised that she knew that older woman, but she didn’t have any time to think about that because she also knew that the vampire had heard her. He turned almost in place and when he’d looked her up and down he started to smile.
At least he didn’t know who she was. Slayers… they always knew Slayers. But her – so very few of them had ever figured her out.
Slayers.
Faith.
“I always did prefer lamb to mutton.” His hand flicked out and caught the older woman behind him in the temple and she collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Tara said nothing. She winced at the blow, but she couldn’t think about it now. She had to think about getting out of this alive and she had to go and pick Willow up soon… and she couldn’t…
She just couldn’t do what she had done before. She held the stake up and the demon looked at it, then it looked back at her and for some reason it didn’t fear her at all. A stake usually gave a vampire a slight pause – it made them think or at least wonder if they were in danger, but after he’d looked into her eyes he didn’t have any fear of her at all.
It could see that she was afraid… She didn’t want to lose Willow, but if she kept thinking like this she would… or Willow would lose her.
“I’m all done with the chase… lets keep this simple,” he told her as he tucked in his shirt and straightened his tie. “I’m going to eat you little girl.”
The quality of the threats never got any better… and once she would have just staked him where he stood. There really was nothing to stop her from doing that except… Tara held the stake in the palm of her hand, ready. She could… she could do it…except…
The magic.
It would open a door.
Reopen a door. If she did that.
There had been spells since she’d left Sunnydale, but if she used the magic for this just once more… when would she be able to stop herself again? Last time it had taken killing the vampire that had worn the face of the woman she loved… What this time? Willow herself? Would that be what it took to stop?
The darkness wouldn’t have to threaten her… If she did this again, proved to herself that she could ‘do good’ in this way, then how could she ever stop after that? The darkness would just be… there. She would be, like before, doing good things – but it would be there… and she
would become a part of it.
Her future.
She knew it and she couldn’t choose it. Not when the way out… the price was always so high. The cost could be… there was only one thing that it could be. Last time it had given her something wonderful… but it hadn’t been the magic that had done that. It had been
despite the magic.
If it happened again…
No.
The stake twitched as it lay in her palm and the vampire took a step forward.
It was her last chance… she did it now – let the magic back in and saved them – or she abandoned it instead. And if she let it back in then she still risked losing. And if she lost this fight then she lost
Willow and she wasn’t prepared…
But if she let the magic back in though she still might lose Willow. She would be back in the life that she’d needed to leave behind. She couldn’t take that again… skirting the lines of good and bad. Of light and dark. Grey and dark. Not and be able to be what Willow wanted her to be… herself and not some dark shadow.
People could die.
She didn’t know what to do.
Except she did know. She had to put a little faith, finally, in fate.
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She didn’t know what the little girl was doing.
Stake him already. She didn’t recognise him and that meant that he wasn’t worthy of all that she had to offer – and demand. Only those of the Order would be fit for her gift. Or those that she brought into the Order… and death.
Still he might get a free meal and kill someone that had eluded that fate for far, far too long now. She didn’t like to read too much anymore, but Tara Maclay had made very interesting reading indeed. Tortured souls were no fun unless you were the one inflicting the torture and the girl had done that entirely to herself.
The Maclay girl was younger than the vampire who was watching her appeared to be, but she carried herself as if she was older. In hard times the vampire had been forced to feed from the old and the sick. Even the plague ridden. There wouldn’t be an easier kill than the death that Tara Maclay was about to suffer… not unless she did something very quickly. Interesting reading perhaps – definitely overrated on present evidence.
Oh dear. There the stake went. Spinning across the alley as the attacker struck her hand. There had been something about levitation spells or something. She hadn’t paid much attention to that part of the file, having no intention of fighting Tara Maclay. There was no need for that at all. She knew much better than that now – her mistakes were of the past. It was time for caution, introspection and… librarians.
She rolled her eyes as the man who had run into her in the street finally located the source of the cry.
Tara Maclay hadn’t uttered a sound though.
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He’d seen the stake go flying and he’d seen Tara get grabbed by the vampire – and it was only then that she started to fight back – but she wasn't using the magic that he’d been afraid of. Maybe it was too late for that, maybe the vampire was too close.
But Jenny would kill him if he let anything happen to Tara. Besides there was more than that at issue. Tara was out here, when it was nothing to do with her and she could – should – have walked away instead of trying to save someone.
Or even just investigating the problem.
He’d seen her eliminate four vampires in less than ten seconds; she shouldn’t have had any trouble with this single one – even if she was feeling out of practice. Something was making her hold back and though she was now, finally, fighting it -there was no way that she was going to win. He doubted that he would have won – there was a reason why Slayers had much greater strength.
They needed it.
Slayers. Faith.
She’d let Faith die and he only had to hold back for a second or two and the situation would be mirrored. She, and the threat that he’d sincerely believed in, would be gone. He’d also have a better chance to kill the vampire whilst it was feeding and oblivious to anything else. It would almost be a good act coming from the bad… A greater certainty of that vampire never hurting anyone again.
It was a choice a little like the one which she’d faced. Like the one he hadn’t realised he was forcing on her when he’d sent Faith after her. And suddenly he understood her a little better. And he knew what he had to do.
He stepped forward and thrust the cross into its face.
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The vampire stank of stale blood and in defiance of the requirements of its nature, it had breathed that stench over her as she’d been struggling with it. It was like, subconsciously, it was taunting her with what it was going to do to her. With the fact that all she would soon be was a stink in a demon’s mouth.
Rule Four: When you’re close enough to smell them you’re
too close.
She’d waited too long and now she was going to die… She was going to lose Willow because there was something that she couldn’t do. She couldn’t go back to that dark place. Even when using it had been for good, brighter, it had still been dark. It was, after all, the Dark Magics that she was contemplating.
I’m sorry Willow. I won’t be by to pick you up. She’d fight but she knew that she’d lose this now. Hard as she pushed against the demon, as much as she wriggled and struggled it was bringing its fangs inexorably closer.
And having made that choice the magic accepted it. Utterly.
Something changed.
She’d been here before and she’d got out of it, but somehow she knew that even if she decided she did want to do a spell now, the magic would punish for her decision her by withholding itself from her. It would seek out others to find a way into the world. She’d felt the tingle of anticipation in her as it had assumed that she would use it to kill the bad thing and that she would take herself back into that life… freeing the magic each and every night. Even to do good.
That was what it wanted… to be loose in the world. She’d resisted the temptation before… but even though she’d kept it on a short leash it had still found its way out through her.
But when she’d failed to decide… No, she’d chosen to say ‘no,’ that tingle had disappeared. The magic had never deserted her before. And now it had… It had lost patience and somehow that felt better. It wasn't pressing at her. Pushing her to do things that she really didn’t want to do.
It was like she was free.
There was a hand on her neck, pushing her head to one side ready for the bite and then there was another on her shoulder, wrenching her back from that fate. Something else rushed past her face and the vampire recoiled with a snarl that she recognised.
A cross. Someone, a man by the look of the hand, had pushed a cross into its face.
He, whoever he was, had saved her life and stopped Willow from having to grieve.
She was already off balance from being pulled back, but the vampire’s flailing arm shoved her into the wall and she fell to the ground, seeing at last who her benefactor was. Mr Giles. He was here and he’d…
He needn’t have if he hadn’t wanted to. No one would ever have known if he’d allowed the vampire to fulfil the mission that he’d sent Faith on those many months ago. But he’d helped her.
And now he was holding the vampire off with the cross. “Get up, get her and get out of here,” he shouted to her. She started to pick herself up but was kicked in the leg by the vampire.
“Stay put sweetie,” the vampire suggested to her. “I’ll be right back for you and the old lady.”
Mr Giles advanced again and drove it further back until it was up against the wall, then he looked at her. He looked at her and their eyes met. She knew what was about to happen. Rule number one was ‘come back alive.’ Rule number two made Rule number one possible. That was what Mr Zabuto had told her in New York.
Rule number two. ‘Never take your eyes of them – if you do you’ll fail at rule number one and that will make me tetchy.’
She’d smiled then, as Mr Zabuto had told her that in his own inimitable fashion. She wasn't smiling as she thought about him now though, and the rule, for the first time in months. As if in slow motion she saw the vampire take a swipe at Mr Giles. It avoided the cross by ducking the outstretched arm. Something in Mr Giles, must have alerted him as he compensated by pressing the cross where the vampires face had been.
Past tense. It wasn't there anymore.
Instead his hand rammed into the brick wall and Tara heard the metal cross clank against the stone. She heard him gasp and she heard him groan as the vampire brought a fist up and punched hard into his stomach.
To Mr Giles it would’ve been too fast to see. To Tara it was too slow to bear – he was getting hurt, for her. Again.
Things were going wrong, she’d made them go wrong. Another error
and the magic had deserted her. She couldn’t feel the darkness pressing at her. She’d been about to lose her life because she couldn’t bring herself to take that step again and now instead she might be about to get her saviour killed. All of them. All three of them. Mr Giles had come to save her, and he needed saving. Just as she’d come to save someone and they still needed saving.
And the magic had left… it wasn’t tingling and offering itself. It had always been offering itself before… and now that it was gone she felt…
Free. She was free of it.
Unfortunately ‘free’ wasn't going to get her anywhere if they were all dead. She needed her stake. Or his stake. Someone’s damn stake before he got pummelled and eventually killed. Willow… Jenny… Faith…
Willow.
Tara scrambled to her feet and looked for the stake, she couldn’t see it – though she really, really needed it. Still, the vampire was striking Mr Giles, but that seemed, to her, to be in slow motion. Just as getting up had been. She’d… she’d altered her perceptions before to be able to…
React to things.
That perception was a magic thing though. It was a product of the magic and nothing else. So… if the magic had left her, then what was going… on? How was she able to see things happening like this? The magic was still there, it was just that the darkness wasn’t. It wasn’t offering or pressing itself on her. It was just…
Something was there and it wasn't anything that she’d known before. Neither offering nor asking her to do anything. Just…
There.
And while she couldn’t feel it… she
could hear it. In her head.
She held out her hand, unsure where the stake was, and
wanted it. The wood was a natural thing. It had come from a tree and the tree had been growing. She could… if she thought about the feel of that stake in her hand, feel the tree it had come from. It’s connection to the earth. She could see the roots that had stretched into the ground. She could feel the exchange of moisture and nutrients from the soil to the tree and she could feel how those had built the trunk that had become the stake.
She knew the stake…
She knew it at every level. She knew how many growing seasons it had been through before the wood had come to her. She knew about the knot that had formed around a nail which had been driven into the trunk. She just knew it.
And when she knew it… she could call to it. She could look for it… just for it.
When it snapped into her hand she hadn’t pulled it to her with the magic as she would once have done… she’d just
wanted it. And because it was a part of nature… it had come to her. It was there and if a tree had ever had a desire… or a destiny then she knew it. She started to facilitate it.
The magic that had been in her might have gone away… but… it had been the wrong kind of magic. That was always why it had felt wrong to her. She’d always known that it was… not bad in itself but definitely, well, alien to this world.
There was another kind of magic though. The magic that people saw in the world around them every single day. The magic that formed and bound it. In some ways it wasn't even really magic – though it was easier to think of it in those terms. There was nature – and nature didn’t like the unnatural anymore than she did.
Nature was her ally. It didn’t want to use her, it didn’t want to be freed by being used because it was the very definition of freedom. If anything… it was harder to use, and yet it was instantly there for her.
She stood up and looked the vampire. Maybe it was somehow aware of her because she’d changed. Maybe it was just… It didn’t matter how. But the vampire was no longer attacking Mr Giles. She didn’t know what it saw when it looked at her, but something scared it. It cocky attitude was gone. It wanted nothing more than to get away from them – and a few moments ago she would have let it run.
Hers wasn't the only voice now though.
No not a voice.
Not a whisper.
It was a song inside her. There were no words. It was calls of animals, birds. The rubbing of a cricket’s legs. The mewl of a kitten. It was the thrum of a hummingbird’s wings. It was the soft of air whispering though long grass.
She’d never really listened to the song before. She’d heard it but she’d never
listened. It had always been drowned out by the whispers until now.
It was a song that was all about love.
It was the song that she had last heard with her mother.
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Rupert Giles hit the opposite wall of the alley hard, fortunately not head first. That would have been rather embarrassing – the rescuer being knocked senseless within seconds of wading into the fight. Maybe now Tara would find the ability that she’d had before and save their lives. He wasn’t sure where the cross was, though he was pretty sure that his stake had rolled under the fence.
Marvellous.
Rule number three: Keep a grip on your weapon.
Of course… he might have dropped it anyway when… whatever it was, had started.
As a Watcher and as a former user of the black arts… some very black arts indeed… he was well aware of the nature of magic. And what… he didn’t feel that what he was seeing was magic at all.
Tara was stood there. She was still Tara. She still had the concern for others that, he realised, she’d always had. She had interposed herself between the vampire and its original intended victim. That had moved her closer to the demon – but she seemed entirely unconcerned by proximity.
And why should she be concerned? Something very strange was happening and whilst it might be a handy distraction from his being beaten black and blue by a vampire, it was also something that just felt…
There was nothing that even suggested that it was magic. Magic always had a feel. Once a person knew what it was, that sensation was unmistakable. But this…
She’d found her stake from somewhere. Maybe it was his instead. It really didn’t matter at all because as he looked on the stake was… well it was growing. Elongating, stretching, sprouting, budding and branching. Except of course that wasn’t possible, and even if it had been then it certainly wouldn’t have happened as quickly as this. It stretched out and drove tendrils down to the ground. Those shattered the asphalt in a way that should have taken years of pressure from a well established root system – and even then from below.
It was growing.
It had planted itself and stood then, still growing. Not quite free, for Tara’s hand was still wrapped around the stake, but that dead piece of wood was a living part of the tree now.
The vampire gawped at her, and Rupert supposed that his own reaction was not a lot different. If she was capable of magic then why hadn’t she just staked the vampire – then or now?
Because, obviously, there was something more happening here. There was surprise in her eyes, at least when he could tear his own eyes from the development of a tree that hadn’t been there less than what? Five second before maybe? He watched as it rooted itself and grew towards a sun that wasn't even there, the canopy that it formed high over the tops of the buildings that formed the alley they were in.
So…
What was the point of that?
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Tara looked up at the tree. She now had a small branch in her hand, the area that she was holding curiously smooth. Still the stake, her hand wrapped around it and she could… she could just put it away. It would still be in her hand, but why would she need to bother?
The vampire looked at her. She looked at the vampire.
“Done with the landscaping?” he asked her but it was obviously false bravado.
She hadn’t done anything at all. The song had been singing and things had just sort of happened. All she had done, perhaps, was to facilitate it. Nature had taken care of itself and… well she somehow knew that now nature was going to take care of her. She’d given and now she was going to receive.
If it had been a horror film then maybe the vampire would have been surrounded by scratching branches. Stabbed by them perhaps? Or the roots could spring from the ground and enfold it in a deadly grasp.
Trouble was that this was wasn't a film. Nature would work as nature would work.
Just faster.
Much, much faster.
The ground started to shake as the tree continued to grow. Not just the ground. The wall, which the older woman that the vampire had followed was leaning against, cracked first, then the ground started to heave as first the moisture was probably sucked out of it, compressing it. Then the roots must have stretched outwards, inundating the whole area. Cracks continued to form in the asphalt and roots rose from the ground than sank back again ruining the surface until finally the new tree found what it was seeking.
She knew what it wanted.
And she could see when it found it. The crack was visible, right under the vampire and loud. The water seeped up and the ground started to shake. A hundred years of growth in a few seconds had split the earth. The continuing movement and swelling… Tara could feel the soil shift into tiny, moving, particles and within a few more seconds, even as the vampire realised that it needed to move, it found itself sinking into ground which was suddenly treacherous and without footing.
Tara glanced around – unafraid to disobey the second rule again because this time she was doing precisely nothing. This wasn’t her – except in as much as she’d allowed it to happen and work through her.
The last time she’d allowed something to happen…
This time allowing it would save lives. Hers, Mr Giles and Lizzie’s. They were both safe at the periphery of the area that was now cloaked in near darkness, being under the shade of the tree. It wasn’t too dark that she couldn’t see the vampire struggling, already sucked downwards to its knees and slipping into the ground still further.
A creature that had probably fought its way out of a grave once upon a time, returning to that place.
Tara let go of the stake and ran her fingers over the bark by the side of that part of the new tree. In response it rippled and the growth of tough outer layer didn’t surprise her, not after what she’d seen. Her stake was enclosed with the branch and the vampire was seriously worried now.
After a minute of struggles and threats it was now pleading for its existence.
It was too late though. Tara could feel the tree… the tree was affecting the creatures, the insects, microbes and bacteria that formed its eco-systems. Generations came and went in the blink of an eye down there, and to sustain themselves those little creatures started to perform their very natural processes on the dead flesh that the tree was providing them with. As it sank the vampire was being eaten away.
Decomposition was what should have happened to the body that the demon had claimed, ultimately nature wanted all its children back as a part of the world. The vampire, past screaming as it was in past its neck now, slipped beneath the soil and Tara felt the tree absorb the chemicals and nutrients it needed for its vastly accelerated life cycle from the newly fertilised ground. Blossoms formed and flowered. Seedlings fell to the broken ground in the shadow of the tree and might not have survived but…
For the tree two or three hundred years passed in those few minutes, and even when the vampire had vanished and become a part of nature once more no one moved. No one spoke. They just looked at a part of the natural world that would, obviously, never be blessed with the kiss of daylight. But as the leaves started to fall around them Tara knew that the stake had met its destiny… it had been meant to be a part of a mighty tree.
A tree that was fading and dying as fast as it had established itself and risen from the ground. They all moved back as branches fell towards the grip of gravity once more and the exposed earth was covered with the decaying leaf litter as well as the more substantial trunk and heavy branches. Fungus took a grip and performed its natural function as the accelerated creatures raced across it. It was like a time-lapse picture from a nature program.
As fast as it had appeared and claimed this place as part of the natural world the tree was gone, returned to the earth but whilst the effect of nature, or the magic – whatever it was - still held a grip, those fallen seeds had established themselves and three sturdy saplings had emerged already rooted in ground that was fertilised enough for one of them to prosper for the centuries that the other tree must have lived through – at least to whatever perception it had of itself.
They would see sun though.
Tara bent and picked up the suddenly revealed stake again, looked at it in wonder. There wasn’t a sign of the buds that had formed on it. Not a mark that hadn’t been there before…
“Couldn’t you just have staked it?” Mr Giles asked her and she had no idea what to say to him.
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If I want a little pussy, I got my own to play with.
Chance in
Chance.------------------------
I love Jenny in this chapter 
. Did I mention I liked Jenny is this update yet ??
at: 11/10/02 8:49:08 pm
, because Kerry basically summed up so well how/why Tara embraced (became "free") through the nature of magick, by denying the dark magick (the door slammed shut for good, as the whispers are finally silenced). And I must say these lines ("It was a song inside her. There were no words. It was calls of animals, birds. The rubbing of cricket's legs. The mewl of a kitten. It was the thrum of a hummingbird's wings. It was the soft of air whispering through the grass. She'd never really listened to the song before. She'd heard it but never listened. It was always been drowned out by the whispers until now. It was a song that was all about love. It was the song that she heard last with her mother."), really resonated with me, sigh such a beautiful way to convey the Tara of the "Now/as a "they" has the support/love to embrace the nature of magick (as opposed to the "heyday" of the past where vengeance led Tara down the path of "gray turning to dark").