Disclaimer: All characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer belonged to Joss Whedon, while the characters from the world of Anita Blake belong to Laurell K. Hamilton. Also the world of Kindred the Embrace belongs to FOX, Spelling Television Inc, White Wolf or the copyright individual....
“Staring into Olaf’s face, I was cold, cold all the way down to my Nikes.”
(Obsidian Butterfly, page 277, paragraph 7)
Chapter 19
Later that evening after everyone had gone to bed. Jean-Claude found himself alone in his bedroom. He could feel the new day dawning. He noted that he had least one hour before he too would be lost to the world. He rubbed his hand upon and down his arms as if to invite warmth, moving towards the lit fireplace watching the fire flicker, sending shadows throughout the room.
Jean-Claude was wearing his favorite black velvet robe with its fir collar and nothing else. For the first time in long while he was second-guessing himself. He shook his head. As the Master of the City, he had to make some hard choices, but now he’s wondering about his latest choice. Was it going to bite him in the ass? he mused ruefully.
All he could think about, should he had invited Belle Morte to his city? He had spent most of the night negotiating before he had extended an invitation. Normally such negotiation would have gone on for weeks, even months, but he was pressed for time. Who knows when this Summoner would strike? And they needed all the help they could get. How long he stood there in contemplation, he didn’t know. But he was jerked out of his revere by the knock on the door. He sighed. “Come in ma petite.”
“How did you know it was me?” Anita asked as she opened the door to peer around the corner.
Jean-Claude gave her an arch look.
She shook her head, and her dark hair fell to obscure her face a little. “Vampire,” she muttered. “I am not thinking clearly,” she admitted. She stumbled over towards the bed to lay on it. She then turned to her side so she could watch him. She could watch him all day, she mused as the light from the fire caressed his face, giving it and almost ethereal look.. “I didn’t know if you wanted to be with me tonight,” she blurted out.
“I always want to be with you,” Jean-Claude admitted simply. Since the day he met Anita, she had captivated him. Even with her stubbornness, and other less than positive attributes, he would never change anything about her. He moved towards her, stopping at the edge of the bed. “Ma petite.” He didn’t know what else he would have said, but she stopped him with a finger on his lips.
“Shh, shh,” she muttered.
Anita didn’t want anymore recrimination between them. She wasn’t here for that. He had to do what he needed to do. She may not agree with his choice, but she would support him no matter how much it will kill her to be polite to Belle Morte. Part of her wondered if they were powerful enough to stop her, when Belle decided she was getting the worse end of the bargain and try to take over the city. And she will try. This Anita knew as she knows that the sky was blue.
Jean-Claude gazed at her wordlessly.
She put her arms around his neck; he wrapped his arms around her drawing near. The mere touch of his hands sent a warming shiver through her. She took a deep breath and drew his face towards hers and their lips met and the arduer roared and swept them away.
Across town, Buffy stood staring unseeing out the hotel window, her heart beating a mile a minute. It felt as if it would burst. She took a deep breath, breathing in shallow quick gasps, her hand clenching and unclenching. She was unable to control the spasmodic trembling. She pressed her face to the windowpane, feeling the cold of the window beneath her cheek.
She sighed as she stood there for a few minutes, enjoying the soothing of the cold as it touched her heated flesh. Her eyes lit upon the people on the street wandering back on forth.
She wondered what they would do if they know about the evil that awaited them. Probably nothing, she thought dryly. She sighed, knowing that thought was harsh. Some people could not cope with what she had live with daily. She stood there at the window, letting the tension she was feeling slowly washed away as she continue to gaze down at the people. To occupy her mind, Buffy start imagine who some of those people were. Were they doctors, teachers, students etc?
Several feet away, Julian shifted in the bed. Something had awoken him and even before he opened his eyes, he knew that he was alone. But his sense told him Buffy was near. He flung off the covers and padded nude upon the plush carpet towards the window.
“Hey,” he whispered softly moving to take her into his arms. Her head came to rest in the crook of his shoulder and he rubbed his cheek against her hair inhaling her scent of vanilla and honeysuckle. “Mmm,” he murmured.
“Hey yourself,” she answered, snuggling deep into his embrace.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, gently rocking her.
“Can’t sleep,” she admitted as she continued to stare out the window as if she was searching for something.
Julian followed her gaze. “Bad dreams?” he questioned.
“Bad dreams,” she agreed.
“Was it the same one?”
Buffy had been having the same dream on and off for the past several weeks. The dreams were terrifying so much that she couldn’t sleep.
She nodded. “We have to stop this Julian. It cannot go on like this. Too much is at stake.”
“You still don’t see the outcome?” he questioned.
Buffy shook her head. “Bits and pieces,” she admitted. “Everything else is fragmented.”
“It will work out,” he stated.
“I hope so,” she answered, her tone bleak.
Long after Jean-Claude was dead to the world, Anita laid in the bed, unable to sleep. She still haven’t used to him dying on her. In her heart, of hearts she knows that he wasn’t really dead, because she would feel it through the marks, if she concentrate enough. It’s was as if he was in a deep sleep. Even she doesn’t understand what make vampire animate. Was it magic or was it the blood. She doesn’t know, but what she do know right now was that Jean-Claude lay beside here like a corpse.
Part of her wanted to get up and join Micah and others in the other room, but she doesn’t have the energy. She had been dwelling on what Summers’ had said. The first time in a long while she felt scared. She knew what it was like to live with fear, she thought with a shiver, especially living through people testing her and her power. She had live through many things, and for the first time, she don’t think she could live what was about to come.
When she had entered that room tonight, Anita knew she wasn’t just there to assuage the arduer but to seek comfort. And she bet Jean-Claude knows that too. At the moment she needed comfort. Lately, there hasn’t been a lot of things that truly frighten Anita, except one that thing. And that’s the lack of control. Especially the arduer. And losing control of oneself. That’s two things, but whose counting, she thought ruefully bringing the bedcovers closer to her chin. What one does if they fear something? They either confronted it or destroyed it. What’s her choice going to be?
The fire in the fireplace suddenly flickered and sparks flew, sending smoke and ash into the room.
“What the…?”Anita cried startled, jerking up in the bed as she looked over at the fireplace in surprise. The air around her suddenly becomes electrified, crackling with energy. She sucked in a shocked breath while the air become thick and hot. She coughed as she flung aside the bedcovers jumping up out of bed her hands going automatic to where her gun should be.
“Damn,” she snarled to herself, searching anxiously for the threat. She could feel it…it was magic. It permeated the room like an officious perfume. The scent teased her nostrils. It was so harsh, that she stared to choke upon the fragrance.
She gasped, trying to find clean air. But all she smelled was sulfur and damnation, she thought, panic stricken. She could feel the weight of magic pressing on her chest, weighing her down. Her whole body felt numb and stiff. She tried to move the few feet towards the door for help, any help but it was if she her foot was rooted to the floor.
Someone was using magic to paralyze her, Anita thought, her eyes widen in terror at the thought. She open her mouth to shout but what escape was air and soon her throat was raw with unuttered shouts.
Oh God, she cried inwardly as a sensation of hatred and bitterness swept over her. It was evil, she thought with a shudder. She could hear mocking laughter echoed around the chamber. She started to breathe in shallow pants as her senses were on a drugged overload. Suddenly a deep stabbing pain pierced her in her heart. Anita gasped, doubling over with pain. It was intense that her vision blurred and grew dark. Her last thought was as she fell to the carpet floor was one of shocked surprise. ‘I am dying’
It might be a few minutes or one hour, Anita did not know, but just as suddenly, as she was caught up abruptly into a web of black magic she was released from it. Her body arched as power flow through her body sending her in spasmodic fit. She gasped, her breath coming in harsh pants. She slowly sat up with a moan, she felt feeling creping back into her body, little by little. She let out a whimper, as pinprick of blood seemed to rush to her veins.
“Ma petite?” a voice called.
“Jean-Claude?” Anita questioned, her voice almost breathless in surprise as turned towards the bed to see the vampire sitting up. That’s when she knew, he was not the only one. She could feel them, all the vampires. They were awake.
Across town in the Twilight Hotel, Julian had finally gotten Buffy to sleep when she jerked up out of her sleep with a gasp.
“Lissa?” he questioned, concern and worry in both his face and voice.
But Buffy could not respond as she was caught up into a nightmare only she could see. She continued to gasp and her breath came in labored pants as if she was in pain.
“Lissa!” Julian called, now urgently.
Still no responds.
He roughly gathered her up into his arms and shook her, but Buffy lay limply in his arms like a rag doll. Julian eyes swiftly noted the changes had come over her, and his face turned from concern to panic. What’s happening? His wife’s normal golden skin was now chalky gray and her skin had grown cold. It was clammy to the touch.
He shouted for help, gathering her tightly to his chest as if could avert whatever was hurting her psychically.
“Sire?” Balthazar called, as he and the other rushed into the room. “What is it?” he wondered searing the room, with his weapons drawn.
“It’s Lissa,” Julian began, and just as he said her name, he was sucked into what was Buffy’s living nightmare.
Part of Julian knew that he had not physically left the hotel room, but the other part was astonished how everything felt real. But what almost floored him was the presence of evil he felt as he wandered around a room that looked like an old-fashioned dungeon. His shocked eyes took in what seemed to be instruments of torture, display proudly in the room, then to the blood drawn pentagram and the group of people that was undulating in a circle around the pentagram.
The group parted and a robed figure entered the center of the sacred circle. He was holding a baby, Julian thought shocked. A naked baby. His mind couldn’t wrapped it’s self around that thought.
The robed figure held aloft the baby, then he start muttering something, Julian perceived as some language that had probably died out before his time, or it could be mumbo jumbo.
He knew what was coming next, and all he do was watched helplessly as the robed freak…that his word for the Summoner pierced the baby’s heart with a knife.
There was a scream of denial…pain and he was forcibly drawn back into his body. Julian knew as long as he lives, he would always remember that baby’s death.
Julian return to awareness to see he was surrounded by candle, and what amount to a magic barrier, the four vampire bodyguards surrounded the bed, each other them representing a direction: east, west, north and south.
He gave them a quick nod as if to say ‘good job’, then quickly check upon the woman in his arms. His eyes swiftly noted the positive change of pallor as she turned pain filled gaze towards him.
“Baby are you okay?” he asked as he ran his hands over her body, checking for wounds.
Buffy took a deep cleansing breath, then gave a trembling nod. “We have to stop him.”