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DISCLAIMER: I'm not affliated with the television
show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Joss Whedon, FOX,
Mutant Enemy, or Warner Brothers. I'm not receiving
compensation for writing this story. Authors notes: This isn't beta read, so expect lots of mistakes. We don't have the new episodes of Buffy yet, so in my universe, none of Faith or Buffy returning happened. I will continue in other stories coming up soon, in the same vein.. even though we're getting the new Buffy on Thursday. There is a new slayer, and I'm responsible for her. ********************************************* "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." Ps 23. *** Sunnydale cemetery by night. Thumb prints of tombstones juttered up from the ground below, inscribed with epitaphs of the fallen and beloved. A lone figure stands within the shadows, alone and without direction. Once upon a time, this baleful place would reverberate her senses, evoke inside her a passion and destiny she felt with everything she was, but now it lay dormant in her path. Gone. Forgotten. Stepping over fallen branches strewn over the path, she wished she could convey the compulsion she had to stay regardless of the powers stripped from her. She carefully threaded her way to the doors of the abandoned church and scrutinized her environment. Seeing no immediate threat, or impression of it, she then entered with tentative steps, every nerve standing on end. She hesitated on the threshold, one delicate dusky hand grasping the door as if it held her fate - her exoneration. And in a way, it did. With all those that would come to this place, she pondered their reasons. The Bishop in Sunday redemption - trying to impart morals before dinner time. The local business man who is trying to open a casino. A young tourist interested in architecture or a girl who's just been given the news she has cancer. Shelter from the rain, from someone and something. A place of confessions. A place for a wedding ceremony. A funeral. Lives that touched and continue to touch this place, and many like it. Under many names of sanctuary, they held the same thing. Absolution. With a decisive push off the stone wall, she entered the chamber, eyes straining in the semi-darkness for a glimpse at the Deus she had come to see, to love, to worship and to loathe. No longer seeking the death of her enemy, but her own. *** He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. **** She walked from the arch doors down the center isle, her head turning from side to side, seeking the dangers only a precious few knew lay in wait. She turned slightly at the front to a grimly lit window on the side and looked up at it for a long time. Behind the cobwebs was a jumble of colored glass that depicted the dark majesty of Gethsemane, and in the center of the trees and flowers was the image of a beseeching Messiah dressed in a long flowing robe, his pale hands outstretched to an approaching Judas dressed the same, but coins falling from his hand like a bloody dagger.. 30 pieces of silver. She didn't think that her price could have been so simple as bloodthirsty revenge... but it was. Angelus. Gods, even the name was a seed of deep rooted bitterness to her. Had she given up her senses to honor a friend, when she didn't kill him the first time? Or the second? She had taken this brief gift of immortality out of yearning and incensed culpability for the events following her death, only to be denied. The first Slayer, Buffy, had already dispatched her forboding boyfriend to the hell he so richly deserved... the same one that she was now intended? She didn't want to think about it. She paced the floor in short bursts of agitation, agonizing to find her place in this new world. She allowed herself to feel a little of the bitterness at what was taken. Her parents, a life other than destiny and to know she was a woman instead of this stone sentinel always on guard, always with duty. A little bitterness gave way to the flood, and the dam gave way to the miasma of increasing regrets. *** He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. *** Immortality. Desired by man, since the first death. Not knowing what evil she was, she couldn't return to her watcher or the life she knew. She had to stay away... but for him. Angelus, the one she had sought with everything inside that remained of her fading vampire senses. Now, she came to face him only to face herself instead. To the others, she remembered little of them, but that was secondary to the vow she had made. Revenge had been an empty gesture. Although the memory of Angelus' lair, the great Gothic mansion exploding in upon itself - warmed her a little... she still remained. And if not for revenge only, she was given life - then why? She dropped heavily on one of the front pews, suddenly exhausted. The remains of the last year replaying in her mind. *** Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,..." *** The Horrors of death, were irrelevant compared to the terror of rebirth. Being entombed was a poisoness awakening. There wasn't a night, she didn't relive it. The darkness and wretched mire had closed her inside its sinister womb, trapping the body in a morbid paralysis. Multiplying screams and desperate pleas, had struggled from her throat, to whatever God or Goddess that could hear her. She had prayed could hear her. None had come to save their beloved. None remembered. This the life and death of a Slayer immortal. It was days before the earth submitted to her clawing and having no other choice, she bit into the earth and swallowed. Her body trembled at the horrors wrought inside her, but none that could vanquish the name she had carried to her deathbed. Angelus. Hellmouth, Sunnydale was in for one hell of a reunion. *** "...I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." *** Not that she forgave herself. She had gone to Angels lair only to find that Buffy had finally put the demon where he belonged. Nothing remained whole or unbroken. The rampage doing a lot to quell the fury, but nothing to the sorrow she felt at being cast aside. Buffy had honored her with taking up her own destiny and then running from it. Part of her wished that she was there with her now, someone to lean on. To help her.. die? Not that she hadn't thought of that either It was a beautiful funeral pyre, homage to those that watched in fascination and horror. The blood sienna dawn was only enhanced by the fire claiming the once vampire lair of the fallen prince - Angelus. She stood amongst it, the flames quickly given a life of their own. She could have walked away, but in the end, she had no where else to go. Throwing open her arms she welcomed the embers and screaming inferno. No forgiveness. No mercy. *** Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. *** Was she the enemy? She didn't feel it.. could that be illusion? The once vampire Slayer walked haltingly up to the statue, impervious to her presence. She stared at him darkly, her mask of icy imperviousness crumbled to reveal the young confused woman that she remained inside, regardless of the momentous destiny she bore quietly. In her mind, she addressed the downcast figure. "Where are you now dat I need you most?" She accused, forcing herself to remain standing, even though her legs struggled to hold her up. "Where is de brimstone and de fire?," she quietly announced, her voice husky - strained and rough. "dat evil should not enter your temple and live? I am here, am I not?" "WHY am I here?", she asked more of herself than any one else. She laid the facts straight in her mind and sighed deeply. "I find dat I can no longer muster de spirit for battle. I feel dat I may someday endanger de lives of my watcher, and dose I have been entrusted ta protect. And I cannot let dat happen." She was greeted with silence. There the bitter truth. "You don't believe I want to die.. you tink I still want revenge, want anger and hate? Is that it?" Hearing no response, like the nights she made deals with him before, she continued on bitterly. "Is it.... Is it proof you need? Is dat it?" She ripped the coat she wore down the middle, exposing the skin over the heart. Angry purplish bruises covered most of it. "After I crawled my way from de grave, de only evil I created was da one inside deep regret. See? This is de faith you ask??... I would rather die than be de evil I had so long hunted." She pulled her sleeves up, revealing angry slash marks on her wrists. "Dis testament too, and dis.." she lifted her chin and exposed the throat, burned with a rope mark, "..and dis," lifting her shirt, she turned to show her back to unseeing eyes. Several bullet holes still able to be seen. A police barrage did nothing to slay. She was immortal. Her dark eyes turned back to the still and cold figure on the cross, beseeching him like he was to Judas depicted on the stained glass window. "What more do you want from me? What have I left ta give?" she responded equally decisively. She spun away, afraid of the anwser. *** Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me..... *** She waited a few more seconds before whorling to face the crucifix, eyes blazing. Tonight, neither one of them were prepared for the emotional tumult that sent her tumbling down at last into the abyss of agony long contained. She came closer, etching out the details in the face. The lowercast eyes, the jawline set and the sacrifices she knew of too well, only to be betrayed at the end. "Where are you now dat I need you most?" His silence seemed to condemn her. *We shall be remembered, in spite of ourselves.* "You didn't, did you?" She took a moment to step away pained by the betrayal she herself would commit. Taking the hilt beneth her trenchcoat, she revealed the blade hiding there. "Consider -" She whorled around, the blade striking and glittering in the darkness like a scepter of death. In one foul sweep, she extended her position to punch her weight behind the downward cut lay waste to the statue. "...yourself -" Plaster EXPLODED into the air, the sound of something heavy falling to, then rolling a short way to the floor. She faced away, not daring to take in the sight... fearing what she might see in herself at that moment. "...reminded." *** all the days of my life.. *** Fighting all the demons she invoked, she stumbled her way forward a few steps before staggering to her feet. She forceably made herself immune to emotion - it was her way to survive what she had just done, and would continue to do. The headaches began again, fierce and inescapable. Blood poured from her nose and mouth.. choking her where she stood. Only her eyes held the true horror of what she had done. Her expression was blank, her eyes never leaving the front wall leading out. Fighting against a wave of revulsion, she dropped the sword and composed herself enough to walk back from whence she came. As she reached the door, her head dropped into her hands. She was so tired, that she didn't see the figure in black slide through one of the doors and come to stand beside her. *** and I will dwell.. *** The old rough hewn door swung on its rusty hinges and closed quietly behind him, leaving the silence of the cathedral to its dusty ebb. Only the headless statue, testament of the anger bestowed in her quest to die, up to the time that she found absolution in the arms of angry God. *** ..in the house *** Her wish for the Angel of Death was still in her mind, as his hand touched her shoulder and her dark eyes starred helplessly into brown. ** of the Lord *** He took a few minutes to drink in the Jamaican beauty and smiled tenderly, which failed to reach his eyes. She took the memory of them with her, as she fell over the edge of the dark abyss - into oblivion. "Kendra." *** Forever. *** End part one << Back Next >> |