Snowbound

Chapter Eight

Angel woke, naked, on his back, and staring up at a vaulted ceiling of grey stone. His thoughts drifted for a moment but a low chuckle brought his scattered senses together as he turned his head to glare at Giles.

“What have you done?” he said, discovering that he was pinned to the floor at wrists and ankles, spread eagled and open. The bonds were not rope or chain but a thick black substance, oily and slimed, corded and braided in some fashion. It burnt his skin and made him shiver with revulsion.

“It is formed from the runes,” Spike said, his voice laboured and hoarse. Angel dragged his eyes away from Giles and turned to see Spike, positioned as was he, but with a thicker rope across his chest. He tried to reach out to him- their fingertips were mere inches apart - but could not bridge the gap, no matter how he struggled against bonds that tightened spitefully as he fought them. Spike coughed and carried on, “The markings on the floor came alive, like snakes and then –”

“A simple binding spell, no more,” Giles said. “It will hold you in place, no matter how you struggle.”

Footsteps on the stairs signalled Wesley’s arrival, white of face and carrying a silver bowl in hands that shook slightly. Giles smiled, caressing Wesley’s face and looking down into the bowl. “Virgin’s blood...” he said musingly. “Why so prized? Is it not the state in which you enter the world, unearned and unremarkable? Yet so many spells draw strength from it. One would have thought experience and wisdom counted for more than something to be stripped away by one thrust of a cock.”

Wesley’s voice was flat and dull. “Purity is less common that you would think. That a spell may still work with blood from one such as she, proves that magic is literal, no more. The rules can be bent.”

Giles frowned, intrigued, taking the bowl from Wesley and placing it on a table that had been moved into the room. “She was a virgin. I checked myself.”

Wesley shrugged. “But scarcely pure. I’ve no doubt she kept her legs locked tight, but innocence and that one parted company many years before.”

“You opened her as I told you? Took the blood from her while she still breathed?” Giles said, his voice sharp, the question swift and unexpected. “I heard no ... sound. I expected her to scream a little.”

Wesley raised his hand slowly in a clenched fist and uncurled his fingers to expose a palm marred and swollen by a savage bite. “I thought it best that her cries be muffled. I was not sure if all under this roof were yours.”

Giles traced the wound with a finger, standing close, his eyes alight. As Angel and Spike watched, their emotions threatening to overcome them, he licked and mouthed the broken skin until Wesley made a small, soft sound in his throat and fell to his knees.

With a sly look at his captives, Giles ran his fingers through Wesley’s hair, patting him as one would a faithful dog, before stepping away and leaving Wesley kneeling, his face burning now, his eyes hungry.

“Please...” Wesley whispered.

Giles ignored him as though Wesley’s needs were irrelevant and anger rose within Angel, swamping fear. “Who are you? What is your name?” he demanded. “What do you mean to do with us?”

“Three questions and none of them with answers you do not know, except one, and that one I will not answer. I am the demon raised by this one’s ancestor.” The creature within Giles gestured at the body he wore. “I will kill you and your two lovers and use the power I gain to get still more in my world. My name...ah, if that had been fully known here, the spell this one and his grand sire attempted might well have worked. Instead, working from a knowledge incomplete and flawed, they failed to hold me.”

“A gentleman has no need to hide his name,” Spike said scornfully, “and you have no right to the one behind which you hide.”

Angel strove to raise his head to glimpse Wesley. He was kneeling, not reacting in any way to the threat to himself and his friends, and Angel’s heart sank within him.

The creature – it was no longer possible to think of him as Giles for either of them – looked at Spike and Angel with amused contempt. “It is of such importance to you? Then call me Kaltor. It is one of my names after all.”

“Why do you need to kill us?” Angel asked, his voice calm, despite the rage that filled him.

Kaltor grinned, his face twisting and shifting as though his true appearance fought to surface. “You three...mind, spirit, body...when you joined, you never realised the events you set in motion, did you? This one I inhabit did. He gave the boy here books to read, warning him...but could not see the danger himself.”

Spike frowned. He remembered the books; Wesley had shown them to his friends, glowing with pride that Giles had entrusted him with such valuable texts, but Spike had done no more than glance at them. They had been marked in the same language as the bed, as the floor on which he lay, but how they connected each to one another was a mystery to him and, he felt ain,ain, Angel. A part of his brain idly matched himself and his two lovers to the three attributes Kaltor had mentioned and he grinned. Spirit for himself, of course, body for Angel and yes, Wesley was the mind...but it was so much more complex than that.

Kaltor turned to Wesley and motioned him to rise. “Tell them, since they are curious. Tell them all you know.”

Wesley’s eyes glazed over, as though the words of a book were scrolling before them and the room in which he stood was fading. “Sometimes, not often, a child is created who has been gifted with too generous a hand. All humans have the three elements you mentioned; they have them in their purest forms, making them –”

“ets,ets,” whispered Angel, Wesley’s words resonating within him.

“Tempting targets,” Kaltor agreed.

Wesley continued: “The Powers fear for such children and if they can discover them soon enough, while they still grow inside their mother, they split their soul in three, so that instead of one child being born, three are brought forth from different wombs.”

“It’s rare for the three to ever meet,” Kaltor said. “They might go their whole lives apart, but once they know of each other, the attraction is too strong to resist. Whether the three be male, female or both, they will join and when they do the Powers tremble.”

“You’re quite the poet,” Spike sneered. “So we were never supposed to meet? We grew up within mere miles of each other. It was inevitable that we become friends!”

“Perhaps,” Kaltor said, his eyes dark. “As inevitable as it was for Lord and Lady Harris to marry?”

“The earlier lord? The one who first conjured you?” Angel demanded.

Kaltor nodded. “He knew why he was so drawn to the woman, but they never managed to find their third. He wanted me to help him do that.” A cruel smile sproverover the handsome face. “I was only too enchanted to assist, but he discovered my ultimate plans and in the ensuing battle, he died and I was sent back to my world, weakened and near to death.”

“Then we were born,” Wesley said.

Kaltor turned to look at him, searching his face with keen eyes. “Indeed...though I would never have known of you if this one had not begun the ritual and allowed me entrance. I was stronger this time, better prepared; I took his will, set traps for you...”

“You sent the snowstorm that took us to the inn?” Spike asked. “Why?”

“I wanted to see if you could waken the magic that lay locked within the bed, yes. One of you was flawed, damaged. You healed him.”

Angel remembered Wesley’s scarred back and the joy he and Spike had felt as they drew the pain from him, the closeness all three had experienced. A sick hatred that it had been taken from them by this creature possessed him and he strained uselessly against the enchanted ropes that held him pinned, longing to attack.

“And now you will join within my circle, now you will –”

“One last question,” Spike said, his voice less laboured now as he had kept still enough that the bond across his chest had eased slightly. “Why did Giles do all this? Why did he summon you?”

Kaltor looked thoughtful, as if he was debating whether or not to answer the question, and then shrugged. “In part, curiosity and a need for revenge for the death of his grand sire. The rest? Why, love of course. Or did you not see how drawn he was to Wesley? How much of himself he sees in the lad? To Giles, Wesley is the son he never had, never will have, because he lost his own love.” Kaltor sneered. “Weakness and sentimentality were ever weapons for the strong to wield. He thought to truly seal your bond, hoping that you would help Wesley – as you did, and as I, with differing motives, wished also. Wesley uncertain and holding back is no good to me at all.” He turned and ran a hand down Wesley’s face and Spike shuddered as Wesley leant into the caress, eyes blank. “But once you three join and I release him from my hold...once you are at the height of your powers and trapped within my circle...why, then shall I take all that you have to myself and -”

“You talk muchmuch,” Spike said, his voice bored. “A common failing of the lower classes, I’ve found. And I don’t suppose it gets much lower than you.”

Angel closed his eyes in momentary anguish as Spike goaded their captor and then found himself smiling. Spike never changed. He’d faced death too often on the battlefield for it to quell his spirit in any guise, be it French soldier or demon from hell.

Kaltor shrugged, unimpressed. “Spirit...aye, you have it, but without intelligence it is useless. No more of this now; the time approaches.” He turned to Wesley. “Strip. Go to them; awaken them. When I command you, close the circle from within. Do not fail me.”

“Why?” jeered Spike. “What will you do if he does? Kill him? Is that not already your plan?”

“Your friend obeys me because he has no choice,” Kaltor said. “I have his heart within my hand and no, young man, that is not a poetical whimsy. Shall I demonstrate?”

“No!” Angel cried out. “Do not hurt him.” His gaze went to Wesley, who was obediently removing his clothing and placing it tidily against a wall.

Kaltor pursed his lips and shrugged. “If he continues to bend to my will, I shall not.”

“Killing someone doesn’t count as –?”

“Spike,” Angel said, through gritted teeth. “Will you hold your tongue? I swear, when this is over, you and I will have words over how best to school your unruly temper.”

There was no answering retort and Angel turned his head. Spike was looking at him, eyes wide with hurt and lips pressed tightly together. With a surge of self-reproach, Angel cursed his own temper and, ignoring Kaltor’s sneer, he said softly. “I’m sorry,” his guilt not assuaged when Spike’s lips softened into a forgiving smile. Saying the next words stuck in his throat but he forced himself to beg, looking over at their captor. “Release me; just one hand so that I can touch him. Please.”

“You will be able to touch him all you like in a few moments, but until the circle is closed, you will stay bound.” The eyes that examined Angel’s lithe, strong body were cold. “You are burning to be free, are you not? Rid your mind of any hope that you will be able to cross the circle once it traps you.”

“Magic?” Spike asked. “Think you it can hold us against our will?”

Kaltor nodded. “I know it can,” he said, arrogance tinting his words.

Wesley finished undressing and came over to Kaltor who gestured towards the prone figures. “Once you are beside them, I will begin to draw the symbols. It will be for you to finish them from inside the circle. One of you has to close it. Do you understand?” Wesley nodded, his eyes fixed on Kaltor’s face. “You must join, all three of you. You will be taken to a place where that can happen. Do not think to evade this; you cannot.”

“Why?” Angel said. “We are not rutting beasts. Think you that knowing it means our deaths we cannot refrain from –”

Kaltor began to laugh, and Angel’s voice faltered. “But you will not know! To you, ‘twill be as though you do but lie together as on any other night. What reason would you have to resist the charms of those you love so dearly?”

“An illusion...” Spike whispered, his eyes horrified. “You will make us think – ah, you are altogether vile!”

Wesley knelt beside Spike and Angel, his eyes cold as his master’s, no flicker of recognition within their depths. He hesitated a bare moment and then moved to kiss Angel – who flinched away in disgust, growling a warning. Kaltor picked up the bowl of blood and a small brush and began to draw symbols on the floor, symbols that writhed and glowed as they were completed, merging into a solid line of red.

Angel stared up at the ceiling once more as Wesley’s hands, warm and familiar, travelled over his body, willing himself not to respond in any way. Wesley gave up and transferred his attentions to Spike, but with similar results. As difficult as it was to look at features they both loved so well and feel nothing, the emptiness in Wesley’s eyes was repellant to them both.

Any hope that their lack of arousal – and even Wesley seemed disinterested, as though the control under which he was held had left him numb – would frustrate Kaltor’s plans was dismissed when he passed the bowl through to Wesley and made no comment.

Wesley dipped the brush into the cool, sticky puddle of blood and daubed a final symbol. As it began to shift, he cried out, dropping the brush. The bonds that held Spike and Angel had slipped free and coiled around Wesley’s ankles, biting deeply. From his mouth, open and screaming now, poured a cloud of black mist that sank to the floor. As Wesley bent double, coughing and gasping for breath, the mist and the ropes merged and then fled the circle, even as the red symbol Wesley had drawn solidified, closing the circle.

As they watched, with Angel and Spike struggling to r fer feet and moving as one to hold Wesley, the mist poured forth from Giles’ mouth too, leaving him a limp heap on the floor. Coalescing into a hideous form, the darkness solidified and words none listening could comprehend were spoken.

Within the circle, the three felt their senses leave them, as intolerable pain racked their bodies, heat and pressure swirling around them and forcing them out of one place and into another, stripping them of all memory.

They woke, entwined and drowsy, in the bed at the inn.

Angel smiled at his lovers, lying on either side of him, and ran a lazy hand down the supple curve of Spike’s back. “Are you rested now, love?”

“I hope so,” Wesley said, before he could answer, pressing a soft kiss against Angel’s shoulder. “I feel you will both need all your strength.”

“Oh? And why is that?” Spike said, amusement curving his lips as Angel’s free hand tangled in Wesley’s hair, pulling him in for a long kiss. “Or do you think that our advanced age renders us incapable of satisfying you? Because if so –”

The teasing chatter died away as they found other ways to tell of their love. Suspended in dreams, they touched and kissed – and in another world, the demon waited patiently.