(no subject)
The Slayers' Academy, formerly the Watchers' Academy, has always had magical protection of various kinds, spells of ward and guard, some passively preventative, some dangerous or even lethal if triggered. It's only in relatively recent years that these have been supplemented with an additional level of protection, in the form of a state-of-the-art electronic security system.
The sorcerous and the technological protection share one profound flaw: they are both designed primarily to prevent intrusion from outside.
-----
It was in that last interview back in June that she finally brought up the recurring dreams, violent and frightening and back almost every night. At the time, she'd only thought of them as a sign that the strain was starting to get to her; she expected sympathy, maybe, or armchair psychoanalysis -- what do you think it means that you saw yourself as hundreds of other women, what do you think the violence represents.
She hadn't expected shock, or quiet fury. Or the ensuing explanation.
-----
It's close to two in the morning, and the figure in dark sweatshirt and pants moves silently through the hallway. There's still people awake in the dorms, and in the library -- there's almost always someone awake in the library -- but not here, in the building that houses the classrooms and the lecture hall and the gym.
And the main armory.
-----
"I'm sorry you had to go through this. I'm sorry I didn't think to ask you. And you couldn't have known to ask me. No wonder you've been on edge."
"I don't ... ask you what?"
"Ask me what might be causing these dreams." Emma's tone was grim. "Or who."
-----
They've all seen the Scythe. Part of the endless training, yes, but more importantly part of the indoctrination. Like the horror show with the werewolf and the rumored final-exam fight against captured vampires.
Like the dreams.
The day Mr. Giles trooped them all down to look at and hold the fabled weapon, all the new girls who'd arrived in the past two months, she took careful note of the way. She's asked questions since, careful to sound no more than curious, careful to examine the answers for traps.
-----
"The Watchers' Council employs a handful of practicioners of magic. Seers, mostly, the better to find zhirelin before they've even manifested. And, sometimes, the better to reach them before they can be found."
She stared in horrifed fascination at Emma, at those dark eyes smoldering with controlled anger.
"They send the girls these dreams. Of fighting demons. Usually the zhirel doesn't even remember the dreams upon waking -- but it means when the Watcher shows up to tell her all about her destiny, it sounds familiar. Leading the girl to believe she's recognizing it because it's the truth, instead of subconscious propaganda."
-----
The armory's in levels: training weapons on the ground floor behind the gym, standard weapons on the first level down, rare weapons below that. She moves silent as a ghost between racks of padded quarterstaves, hard rubber stakes, weighted bamboo swords, wooden axes. Her heart's thumping like a triphammer, but the fear's curiously distant.
At the door, she reaches into her pocket for the spare key from Sarge's locker. If he's noticed its absence since he got back, he hasn't said anything yet -- at least not where she's heard -- but it's only a matter of time. It has to be tonight.
The key turns smoothly in the lock, and she slips through without a sound.
-----
Her own voice sounded thin and strained in her ears. "Are you telling me they can ... brainwash me? Control my mind?"
Emma shook her head. "Just the opposite. They'd love to be able to control your minds. Since they can't do that, they use cheap stage-hypnosis tricks like this to try to influence you without you knowing it."
"How can they even do that, though?"
The older woman gave her a long measuring look before answering. "You want to know?"
-----
The first and second levels down are doors opening off the stairwell. She brushes past them, counting seconds under her breath. One hand trails down the banister; the other clenches and releases, clenches and releases, in nervous tension.
The door at the bottom of the stairwell isn't locked. It doesn't need to be; there's only one thing in this room, and it can only be removed by a Slayer.
By a zhirel.
-----
Half a dozen drawings and two motion-blurred photos; lists of known facts, hearsay, and conjecture. Her eyes were riveted by one photograph in particular: a dark-haired young woman lunging forward at full extension, the glossy red axe-blade at one end of her weapon biting into the neck of her hapless opponent.
"They call it the Scythe." Emma's voice flexed with irony and distaste. "I don't know if that's supposed to be a Grim Reaper image or what, but it ties right into the Slayer myth they're pushing so hard. This weapon isn't a myth, though. We've got documented incidents of its use -- a lot more of them in the past year and a half. Sometime around then, it was made the focus of a very powerful spell to tie all the zhirelin together. And whoever holds that focus ... can touch all their minds."
The red blade seemed to glow. "This is how they're finding us? Sending us the dreams?"
"It's what I'd bet on," said Emma. "It's pretty powerful, too. Look at you -- this is only a picture of the real thing, and you can't take your eyes off it."
Heat rose in her cheeks, blotchy and shameful, and she pushed the picture away.
-----
The memory heats her face again as she steps closer to the slab of stone and the weapon embedded in it. It seems to glow in the dim light, even more than in the picture; it seems to whistle through the air just standing still. Beauty and power and violent death, racecar-red, lipstick-red, red like berries or blood.
Every line of it pulls at her, calls to her, whispers in the voice she knows from her dreams: don't just stand there, girl -- pick me up and let's kill something.
You know you want to.
It's powerful. It's sickening.
-----
"You've been contacted by the Council, haven't you."
She looked up in quick alarm, but found Emma's gaze on her calm and steady, with no sign of the sharpness that had been in the words. Or maybe it hadn't been there at all; maybe she'd imagined it. Guilty conscience.
"That may not be a bad thing. May be useful, even. Especially if you've given them the impression you might be interested in their, ah, program." One manicured finger tapped the desk. "And especially if they don't know you've got the true story by now."
She swallowed again. "Useful how?"
-----
Her hand closes on the Scythe's handle and the feeling flows up through her arm, eager, seductive, possessive. The lightest tug upward and it comes loose from the stone.
It wants to be used. She can feel that in every muscle, every nerve: it wants to be used, and it's trying to make her want to use it.
(you like that idea, huh? you want to party with us?)
No, she tells it silently, vehemently. You don't get me. You don't get any of us, not for much longer.
Beth turns for the door, weapon in hand, moving fast now. Up the stairs, and out to grab her bag from where she hid it last night, and half a mile from there to the clearing she marked last week, and the helicopter should be waiting.
The sorcerous and the technological protection share one profound flaw: they are both designed primarily to prevent intrusion from outside.
-----
It was in that last interview back in June that she finally brought up the recurring dreams, violent and frightening and back almost every night. At the time, she'd only thought of them as a sign that the strain was starting to get to her; she expected sympathy, maybe, or armchair psychoanalysis -- what do you think it means that you saw yourself as hundreds of other women, what do you think the violence represents.
She hadn't expected shock, or quiet fury. Or the ensuing explanation.
-----
It's close to two in the morning, and the figure in dark sweatshirt and pants moves silently through the hallway. There's still people awake in the dorms, and in the library -- there's almost always someone awake in the library -- but not here, in the building that houses the classrooms and the lecture hall and the gym.
And the main armory.
-----
"I'm sorry you had to go through this. I'm sorry I didn't think to ask you. And you couldn't have known to ask me. No wonder you've been on edge."
"I don't ... ask you what?"
"Ask me what might be causing these dreams." Emma's tone was grim. "Or who."
-----
They've all seen the Scythe. Part of the endless training, yes, but more importantly part of the indoctrination. Like the horror show with the werewolf and the rumored final-exam fight against captured vampires.
Like the dreams.
The day Mr. Giles trooped them all down to look at and hold the fabled weapon, all the new girls who'd arrived in the past two months, she took careful note of the way. She's asked questions since, careful to sound no more than curious, careful to examine the answers for traps.
-----
"The Watchers' Council employs a handful of practicioners of magic. Seers, mostly, the better to find zhirelin before they've even manifested. And, sometimes, the better to reach them before they can be found."
She stared in horrifed fascination at Emma, at those dark eyes smoldering with controlled anger.
"They send the girls these dreams. Of fighting demons. Usually the zhirel doesn't even remember the dreams upon waking -- but it means when the Watcher shows up to tell her all about her destiny, it sounds familiar. Leading the girl to believe she's recognizing it because it's the truth, instead of subconscious propaganda."
-----
The armory's in levels: training weapons on the ground floor behind the gym, standard weapons on the first level down, rare weapons below that. She moves silent as a ghost between racks of padded quarterstaves, hard rubber stakes, weighted bamboo swords, wooden axes. Her heart's thumping like a triphammer, but the fear's curiously distant.
At the door, she reaches into her pocket for the spare key from Sarge's locker. If he's noticed its absence since he got back, he hasn't said anything yet -- at least not where she's heard -- but it's only a matter of time. It has to be tonight.
The key turns smoothly in the lock, and she slips through without a sound.
-----
Her own voice sounded thin and strained in her ears. "Are you telling me they can ... brainwash me? Control my mind?"
Emma shook her head. "Just the opposite. They'd love to be able to control your minds. Since they can't do that, they use cheap stage-hypnosis tricks like this to try to influence you without you knowing it."
"How can they even do that, though?"
The older woman gave her a long measuring look before answering. "You want to know?"
-----
The first and second levels down are doors opening off the stairwell. She brushes past them, counting seconds under her breath. One hand trails down the banister; the other clenches and releases, clenches and releases, in nervous tension.
The door at the bottom of the stairwell isn't locked. It doesn't need to be; there's only one thing in this room, and it can only be removed by a Slayer.
By a zhirel.
-----
Half a dozen drawings and two motion-blurred photos; lists of known facts, hearsay, and conjecture. Her eyes were riveted by one photograph in particular: a dark-haired young woman lunging forward at full extension, the glossy red axe-blade at one end of her weapon biting into the neck of her hapless opponent.
"They call it the Scythe." Emma's voice flexed with irony and distaste. "I don't know if that's supposed to be a Grim Reaper image or what, but it ties right into the Slayer myth they're pushing so hard. This weapon isn't a myth, though. We've got documented incidents of its use -- a lot more of them in the past year and a half. Sometime around then, it was made the focus of a very powerful spell to tie all the zhirelin together. And whoever holds that focus ... can touch all their minds."
The red blade seemed to glow. "This is how they're finding us? Sending us the dreams?"
"It's what I'd bet on," said Emma. "It's pretty powerful, too. Look at you -- this is only a picture of the real thing, and you can't take your eyes off it."
Heat rose in her cheeks, blotchy and shameful, and she pushed the picture away.
-----
The memory heats her face again as she steps closer to the slab of stone and the weapon embedded in it. It seems to glow in the dim light, even more than in the picture; it seems to whistle through the air just standing still. Beauty and power and violent death, racecar-red, lipstick-red, red like berries or blood.
Every line of it pulls at her, calls to her, whispers in the voice she knows from her dreams: don't just stand there, girl -- pick me up and let's kill something.
You know you want to.
It's powerful. It's sickening.
-----
"You've been contacted by the Council, haven't you."
She looked up in quick alarm, but found Emma's gaze on her calm and steady, with no sign of the sharpness that had been in the words. Or maybe it hadn't been there at all; maybe she'd imagined it. Guilty conscience.
"That may not be a bad thing. May be useful, even. Especially if you've given them the impression you might be interested in their, ah, program." One manicured finger tapped the desk. "And especially if they don't know you've got the true story by now."
She swallowed again. "Useful how?"
-----
Her hand closes on the Scythe's handle and the feeling flows up through her arm, eager, seductive, possessive. The lightest tug upward and it comes loose from the stone.
It wants to be used. She can feel that in every muscle, every nerve: it wants to be used, and it's trying to make her want to use it.
(you like that idea, huh? you want to party with us?)
No, she tells it silently, vehemently. You don't get me. You don't get any of us, not for much longer.
Beth turns for the door, weapon in hand, moving fast now. Up the stairs, and out to grab her bag from where she hid it last night, and half a mile from there to the clearing she marked last week, and the helicopter should be waiting.