“Does it hurt?” She asked and scowled to forestall the all-too-familiar grin. It didn’t work, of course, as Jamie smirked down at her, insufferably understanding amusement glinting in deceptively innocent blue eyes.
“Yep.” he confirmed blithely. “See, what they do is heat the knife before they cut you. To disinfect it, you understand. And it cauterizes the wound.”
Dawn was looking at him, a panicky look entering her pale face.
“Otherwise – gangrene.“ Maddrox continued ruthlessly. “I mean we still have some people die from shock, ‘cuz the pain is so bad but that’s life.” He sighed and then bent to whisper conspiratorially into her ear. “The smell is the worst though. I never knew human flesh when burned smells just like—- Ow!” The smack was clearly audible in the confines of the street, the sound echoing briefly, bouncing off the stone walls of decaying buildings.
“What was that for?” Jaime demanded, gingerly rubbing the back of his head.
“Bein’ a dick.” Remy explained mildly.
“Oh.” Jaime considered that for a second than shrugged. “That’s fair.”
Dawn was looking up at Gambit, a somewhat pleading note entering her voice. “He’s lying like a big liar guy, right?”
“Qui.” Remy nodded, his lips quivering. “A big liar guy.”
Jaime sniffed. “Like most geniuses I’m misunderstood within my lifetime. Or to put it another way. “ He struck a dignified pose, arms crossed across the chest. “When I die you’ll all be sorry!” After a second’s deliberation, he decided that the statement would not be taken seriously unless he stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry at the Cajun X-man.
“Don’t be takin’ that there out ‘less you intend to use it, mon ami.”
“Hey. Enough with the gay innuendo. You’re not my type anyway. And I’m too using it. I’m wagging at you. See?” Jamie carefully demonstrated what he meant. “Wag. Wag. Wag.”
“Hey!” Dawn kicked Jamie’s shin with all the viciousness of an impatient seventeen-year-old and as the young mutant yelped in pain and clutched his foot, she turned to Gambit. “So it doesn’t really hurt, right?”
Carefully sidestepping a hopping and cursing Jamie, Remy ruffled Dawn’s hair affectionately. “A bit. Like a paper cut.”
“Oh.” Dawn unconsciously brought her hand up to her mouth and bit into her fingernail, thinking. She started slightly when Gambit firmly took her hand and moved it away. “What? Oh. Leggo.” She pulled on a errant lock of her hair, anxiously winding it through her fingers. “But there’ll be no hot knives, right? Or branding of any kind?”
“Non. “ She was pretty sure Gambit was laughing at her behind his shades. “Y’safe, petite. Trust me.”
“Yeah,” Dawn sniffed skeptically at the suggestion. “Right.”
Gambit snorted and now she was sure he was laughing at her. She threw a considering look toward his shin and he held up a warning finger at her. “Ey now, petite. No rough stuff.”
“Hah.”
Jamie appeared to have recovered from her malicious blow and was once again determined to jump into any conversation in his immediate vicinity. She’d have to hit him harder next time.
“Big bad Boss is scared of little bitty Daw—- Don’t hit me, any more! It hurts!”
Dawn stared at him flatly, unsmilingly and he raised his hands in warding gesture. “I’ll be good.”
Remy’s eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly, and Jamie glared at him warningly. “You shut up.” He shivered suddenly, the glower fading slightly as he glanced around briefly and pulled his coat tighter about himself. “God, I hate this place.”
Dawn glanced at their surroundings and had to admit that Jamie had a point. It had been two Shifts since Oz had found them and they were still walking through abandoned streets, cracked pavement pressing at the soles of her boots. The first city had been ugly, drab, the square boxes of the buildings depressingly monotonous. She had been glad to leave it. She had thought the second one was Venice. Now? Who knew.
In her mind time was splintered, boundaries glazed over and sometimes it seemed that for days now they had walked through the City. Same, giant, empty metropolis sprawling across the Shifts, too big even for them to break. It made her feel small.
She did not pay attention, lost in thought and so when Spike was suddenly right there, blue eyes lost and sad, she faltered in surprise, but he did not look at her at all. Only at the cracked pavement of the street and he smiled. “The grass is screaming.” He noted in a conversational tone and chuckled lightly.
“Oh fuck. “ Jamie said and stepped back, paling. “Oh fuck. Boss, he’s off again!”
And then Spike’s fist whipped out and caught him squarely on the chin.
The fight was brief and violent, and Dawn expected, waited, dreaded for the moment when Spike’s demon would come out but it never did. Not as he slammed Methos’s head into the wooden wheel or he threw Remy over his shoulder into Saul. He kept smiling and saying nothing even as the wolf leapt at him, fangs bared in a savage snarl. He simply grunted as Faith brought the Gambit’s staff dully against his skull and than he crumpled wordlessly at Dawn’s feet.
She stood there, shocked and numb, for seconds or maybe days before Remy’s voice snapped out in command, jerking her back.
“Get him in the wagon and get the ring off and .. y’know. The stuff’s in the back.” Gambit tongued his split lip and spat, grimacing. “Merde. Saul, how far?”
“We’re almost there, aluf.”
“You take the reins. Faith, Maddrox – get the Old Man and get inside with them. Keep an eye.” He snapped his fingers suddenly before her face and frowned. “Not now, petite. Let’s make time. The night, she’s comin’.”
“But what –“
“Later.” The tone brooked no arguments and she shut up.
***
They walked another half hour maybe, through wide boulevards and winding alleyways, her eyes drawn, despite herself, to the red-brown spot on the wheel where Methos’s head... She would not think about it. Wouldn’t. There was a reason, an explanation. All she had to do was concentrate on walking and not looking at the slowly turning wheel. Walking. She could do that.
The stop caught her by surprise and she almost hit Remy’s back before she caught her step. The Cajun was a bleary shape in the evening’s silky gloom.
“Are we there?”
“Qui.” Remy whistled sharply and gestured at Saul. “This is Tem’s.” He did not look at her, raising his voice only to bite out “Get him inside.”
“Y’could help, you know.” Methos ground out as he stumbled out of the wagon, holding Spike’s shoulders. Behind him Jamie nodded, glaring poisonously at the Cajun.
“Rank Hath Its Privileges, mes amis.” And Remy grinned at the wan looking Faith who was watching Spike with an almost helpless expression on her face. “’Hollow eyes…’ Dawn thought, but the thought was fleeting, inconsequential, dying seconds before its birth as her eyes found the manacles on the vampire’s hands. Faith was looking at them as well, she noted absently, the dull realization coming as if from a great distance.
“He’ll be all right, princess.” Remy said softly and Faith nodded, swallowed and followed after Jamie into the building.
“I’ll settle the beastie.” Saul pulled on the reins and the wheels turned and turned and blurred and her eyes were itching and something wet and cold was in her palm.
The world slammed back into focus as she blinked, tears falling away and Remy was gone. There was something wet in her palm.
‘Probably inside,’ she thought dimly and blinked again, ‘I should get inside, Spike is there.’ There was something wet in her palm.
She looked down and pale green wise eyes looked back at her Ruv’s muzzle cold and wet against her skin.
He would not wake up.
He lay peacefully, the manacles hidden by the folded leather duster. He did not even look dead, merely pale, the wan face accented by the black half-mask. He looked asleep, resting.
He would not wake up. And it was starting to scare her.
“Dawnie.” Jamie’s hand rested lightly on her shoulder and almost unconsciously she lowered her head until her cheek touched the tanned fingers. “Hey, kid. It’s going to be all right. Honest.”
He sounded worried. For her or Spike? she wondered briefly and stopped as she saw the cup being placed carefully on the floor next to her. “Tea? Tem’s got the best.”
Her eyes closed seemingly of their own will and she heard him sigh and the rustle of clothes as he sat next to her. His hand somehow still securely caught between her shoulder and her cheek. Embarrassing.
She did not let go. He coughed. “He’s a good guy Tem is. And his place is always stocked. He’s ready. For whatever. Most saraimen are but he’s the best.” He sounded uncertain, unsure, talking just to fill the silence. “I don’t know if I could do it, myself. To be bonded with a place. Everytime the Shifts come, he’s gotta start over. Last time we were by, only the heartstone survived. Tem was pale and grim and just kept digging through the rubble. We helped of course. But I couldn’t do it. Start over and over like that.”
The sounds trailed off and neither of them stepped in to take up the fading thread of words.
They sat in silence for a while. Dawn, him and Spike. Faith drowning in exhausted sleep on the low bed in the adjacent room. The rest and the proprietor whom she still had not met were nowhere to be seen.
She broke the silence first, but refused to open her eyes. “Tell me.” Simply and he answered instantly as if he was just waiting for her to ask.
“It’s the ring.” He stopped and corrected himself less certainly. “We’re pretty sure, it’s Amara that’s doing it to him. It wasn’t made by goodness or for it after all. I... we think it’s driving him insane.”
“Why doesn’t he take it the fuck off then?!” Her voice almost broke, she did not mean to raise it, she was so tired. Unfair. Stupid. Life.
Silence. She knew the answer anyway.
How long would a vampire last in the Shifts without the ring? One unlucky day, the sun instead of night...
She would not cry again. Distraction. That what she needed. Buffy always said so. Something to take her mind off things. But she was too tired for make-work.
“Tell me about the scars.”
***
“Sorry.” Tem shrugged, “They haven’t been through here. Been quiet. Except for the blind witch a few days back not a lot of traffic. You should try the Kurultai.”
Remy grimaced. “I guess we’ll have to.”
“Sorry.” Gambit glanced at Saul and shrugged, drawing his hand lightly across his face as if clearing it of the cobwebs. “Not your fault, homme.”
He tsked softly and summoned his grin, turning back to the owner of the caravan-sarai. “So. Where is Borte-khatun?”
Tem was still hammering away at the red-hot piece of iron on the anvil, ropy muscles moving like snakes under the tanned skin as his arms rose and fell with almost hypnotic rhythm. “Left.”
The short and sullen reply brought unexpected levity to the small room as even Methos grinned weakly, the damp towel still pressed against his head. “Again?”
“Shut up.” The almond slanted eyes glared brief murder at the three men, looking strikingly appropriate on the flat Mongol face and beneath the unkempt and matted reddish hair, damp with sweat.
Remy swallowed his mirth and gestured sternly to the grinning Saul before addressing their thirty-something squat host. “I’m sure she’ll be back, Tem. She take Juchi wit’ her this time?”
“No.” The monosyllabic answer sounded as moody as previous replies but the rhythm of the falling hammers faltered slightly and Remy’s lips quirked.
Behind him the Immortal contributed sourly, his amusement almost imperceptible. “There you go then. You know Borte, Tem. When she’s serious about it she’ll not be running. Just slit your throat and take over the biz.”
Unexpected and blinding like the Northern Lights, Temujin’s smile gleamed in the scalding darkness of the cramped smithy. “True.”
***
She’s falling asleep, she realizes dimly. Somewhere there is Jamie’s even voice. Talking. Somewhere there is Faith’s soft breathing. Somewhere there are measured sounds of metal striking metal.
She doesn’t hear them. Not really. It’s all melding together, the smells from the kitchen, the sounds and the words. The words spilling into something else, elongating, changing colors, tasting real.
She treads the line between the real and the dream and Jaime’s quiet words live.
She walks with them, the wheels of the wagons sinking in the mud. The rain lets off, dying into a soft, warm drizzle. She remembers what Jamie saw.
They stayed in the trenches, talking softly around the fires, throwing disinterested glances at the passing caravan. Their guns gripped with tired familiarity. Mud and dirt and grime clinging to everything but guns clean and deadly. And the swords.
Not one had thrown away the swords. Bronze and sharp and out of place. Trenches around the Ilios, trenches around Troy.
Trojans and Acheans bound by hate and time, among the madness of the worlds only enemies remaining familiar. Finding each other time and again after the Shifts would offer them the mercy of loss and parting. Clinging to the only pattern they have known from before the Gods went mad.
The small caravan and the web of trenches threading through the plain. Trenches around the Ilios, trenches around Troy.
Words dropped unwarily, frayed tempers flaring and snapping.
Blood. Crimson diamonds gleaming in the mud.
Fear. Excited, barely controlled but there as they rush them. Too many. Too many and he’s about to die.
Shift. Sudden savage wrench as always and the world is screaming in a blinding flash of agony, defying understanding.
And suddenly he’s alone, even more alone and he can’t feel the comfort of his tribe behind him, only the shimmering wall of madness splitting the universe once more.
He fractures, separates, divides himself and pulls the lips back in a wordless laugh, because that’s how the Boss would go, and comes to meet them.
Fear. The tangy taste of it in his mouth and his doubles dying.
The hand on his shoulder. Gripping, insistent, stubborn, tugging, saving. The gleam of the familiar gem on the middle finger.
Methos grinning and pawing ground, running, leaping into the Shift. Crouched, hands outstretched, bird of prey swooping, screeching, screaming out of the sky for the kill. There with him. Not alone. Not alone.
The Shift. Wrong. Doesn’t feel the same. Too long. Why. Wrongness. The pull and he sees the universe fall in on itself and out again, oh god hurt, pain, no, hand on the shoulder still, not alone.
"Saul!" The scream. Pain. Like him. Not him. With him. The gleaming ring and something’s burning. Oh god, it hurts. Pain.
"Fuck!" Fumbling the pouch open, spilling dried bones strewing them over ground, the rugged priest, his shaman, friend muttering words of power and screaming them into the Shift. And leaping up.
Pain.
Burning. Something’s burning.
Pain.
Saul. Praying-dancing-grinning-laughing-shouting-the-secret-words. Holding the Shift in place and bleeding and screaming and singing, wild hair flying, the staff whirling.
Blood.
Pain.
Burning
Understanding and it slips away.
Stumbles, falls through, the grass, fresh grass, smell of it like liquid fire filling lungs. Alive, and other side, the wagons, friends, relief, fear, blood, excitement, pain.
Something’s burning. Something’s burn... Someone.
Dawn’s asleep and not. She listens, she remembers the ruin that minutes earlier was the gleaming pale marble of Spike’s face.
Remy’s shades opaque and hiding all the world. “Guess the jewel doesn’t work under two suns at once.”
Guilt. Shame.
Pain.
And later more as he tries to divide and call his doubles and only manages four and coughs the blood onto fresh smelling grass.
Darkness. New life.
Somewhere Jaime swallows, the only break in even, flowing, horrifying tale. She hears dimly, she listens, she’s not asleep.
***
Dawn sat, hugging Oz. Her face hidden by hair and fur, nuzzling his neck, hiding behind his warm breath and the wet, lolling tongue.
Jamie was somewhere in the room but quiet. The strange foggy memory of words spoken and something shared was fragile and fading already as half-forgotten dream.
The coarse gray fur tickled against her bare arms and she burrowed her face deeper, watching Remy lean over the immobile Spike.
“Well,” The kapetain sighed and bared the sinewy arm. “Here goes.”
She winced in sympathetic pain as the bright metal slid across the skin and pushed upward, hungry for the air.
“We're one blood you and I,” Remy whispered, and the blood fell heavily, striking the vampire’s lips, splattering across his mouth. “We're tribe. Come back to us.”
Something made the air heavy for a long moment and someone - that might have been her - gasped but in the end when Spike’s eyelids trembled and slip open, she was almost not surprised at all.
From the dark corner Jamie glowered. “About time. I ain’t getting the firewood alone. All shall suffer with me. Oh yes! None shall get away through clear fakery!” He sniffed and got up. “Anything to weasel out of the honest day’s work, I swear.”
Spike’s teeth flashed and the tension melted out of the room.
“I may yet faint.” Methos drawled. “Have you heard the one about pot calling the kettle black?”
“I have no idea what you are insinuating.” Jamie informed him haughtily and with the tatters of his dignity wrapped around him made for the door.
“You were always kind of slow,” the Immortal agreed and followed Jamie out.
Bright even teeth gripped the end of the white gauze and pulled, ripping it. Remy sniffed, grinning down at the vampire. “Ah. Tem’s cooking already.”
“Oh, bollocks. I was better off comatose.”
Tying off the bandage Gambit snorted. “Get off your lazy ass and make yourself presentable.” The red-black eyes slid critically across Spike’s prone from. “As much as possible at least. We’ve company for dinner. And it’s a nice night. I think we’ll take it outside.”
The company turned out to be a longhaired and clearly stoned youth with kind brown eyes and a chain-smoking Englishman in the rumpled suit whom Remy introduced as Pete.
The night was nice. The warm and breezy summer evening, stars shining like a broken pearl necklace above and the fire built against the drying, dying bush was eating with joyful ferocity through broken crates, newspapers and the rest.
Methos was still hissing at Jamie somewhere in the darkness, the latter biting back.
“Well what I was supposed to do?”
“Well for starters NOT USE MY DAMN SWORD TO CHOP FIREWOOD!”
“Do you know how tough those old crates are?!”
“I will kill you know. For the good of all mankind.”
The younger stranger laughed, leaning easily against the Englishman, the brown hair falling in his eyes. “ I like you people. I’ll have to remember this place.”
Pete snorted sardonically and spat out his cigarette into the fire, “You’ll be lucky if you still remember your name tomorrow, Josh. You’re flying higher than the bloody MIR.”
Josh chuckled, brown eyes gleaming with the reflection of the fire. “You’re just jealous I didn’t share.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Joshua grinned again and glanced at Saul, his smile dimming for a second but returning in force as he winked at Dawn. “Pretty far from California, huh?”
“Yeah.” From his tee shirt the Beatles looked back at her, the lettrs curved around the rips in his worn jeans. She squinted making out three... no, four words that made no sense to her and shrugged. ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin,’ she thought. ‘Sounds pretty.’
“Where you headin’?”
Pete looked up at Remy’s question, lips pursed in an acid smirk. “I was thinking theRiviera myself. But the kid here, he has a hankering for Acapulco.”
“Don’t listen to him.” The same lazy smile was still playing across Josh’s lips, as if he was listening to some music only he could hear. “He’s all bitter ‘cos we met his ex a few Shifts back. He’s so sensitive.”
“You dozy shower of shit, you...”
While Pete sputtered in indignation and imprecations, Josh nodded at grinning Gambit. “We met this blind girl not far from here, she told us about this place.”
“That girl was at least twice your age, you arrogant prick.”
Ignoring Pete, the kid glanced back at the stone building behind them. "This is the tribes' place right? One of your sarais? Nice digs. Strong Wards. Will keep out most of the nasties lurking out there, if I’m guessing right.”
In the darkness Temujin bowed slightly, biting into the rabbit’s leg.
“Not good enough to keep the Shifts out though.”
Saul chuckled at that and from behind him Jamie quipped. “Well as can be plainly seen from his stew Tem is not quite the Almighty yet.”
Josh laughed out loud. Temujin growled softly and Jamie added hastily. “It’s just a matter of time though, I’m sure.”
“Don’t have to be a God.” Pete noted lazily and sipped from the bottle Spike passed along the circle. “Oh, nice…”
“Thanks.”
“What do you mean?”
Methos smiled humorlessly, at Dawn’s quiet question, hawkish face swimming out of the darkness for a brief moment. “Fairy tales of the infamous Oasis again, is what he means.”
“No tales,“ the Englishman said calmly and took another swig.
Josh spread his arms in apologetic gesture. “Actually he’s telling the truth.”
“Riiight,“ Jamie drawled out, irony undisguised. “And they grow gold on trees there, and food falls from the sky and the talking bees serve them their dinner.”
Pete glowered at him and the younger mutant grinned back, unrepentant. “Hey, that’s the way I heard it. But no. Seriously. I believe you. I do. Anything’s possible in the Shifts after all. Why, once I saw Kris Kringle chasing some kid through Atlanta with an axe. And then Shakespeare sped past in a red sleigh being pulled by one thousand monkeys. And they were typing King Lear at the same time.”
“You’re an idiot.” Pete declared flatly.
“But at least I’m pretty.” Jamie countered affably. “And believe in personal hygiene.”
“I dunno,” Faith’s quiet voice forestalled the starting argument as she narrowed her eyes in thought. “The way I heard it Mikey’s clan got real close once. And Vic met a couple of people from there even.”
Spike snorted and she bristled. “Vic wouldn’t lie.”
“He wouldn’t, “ Remy agreed. “But ever since the Sundering he’s not exactly the same, chere. None of the Zefiro are. Losing most of your tribe does something to a body, neh?”
“What about Mikey, then?”
Spike voice carried just far enough. “He’s Irish, pet.”
Pete grinned and toasted him silently with half-empty bottle. Josh and Remy rolled their eyes in perfect unison.
The night dragged on, but no one really felt tired. Sleep seemed strangely inconsequential before the prospect of quiet conversation by the dying fire.
“... oh it’s great.” Jamie, she was pretty sure was nodding his head. And if she had to guess she’d say had a dreamy look in his eyes. “Man, Dawnie. I envy you. First time at Kurultai. Dude.”
She shifted sleepily. “I thought you said we were going to a festival?”
“Same difference.” Jamie waved his hand dismissively. “Festival, Kulultai, Kris, Bazaar...” his eyes slid slyly toward Methos. “The Gathering.”
The Immortal snorted softly, but didn’t reply, intent on what Pete was saying.
Jamie didn’t mind, closing his eyes and sighing in languid anticipation. “...it’s all the same thing. Most of everybody gonna be there. It’s gonna be great!”
He continued to talk, gesticulating and explaining but Dawn found herself willing to tune out the words themselves and simply listen to the voices, pulled back only by the changing tones, inflections altered.
“...purpose is important.” Pete insisted stubbornly. “It’s the point.”
Methos shrugged and threw another branch onto the fire. “I disagree. Some walk to find. Some walk to walk away. But some simply walk to walk. Purpose, in the end, is simply a rationalization.”
“The world is but a vale of tears and we are but a dream within a dream?” Josh asked softly.
Methos chuckled softly in reply. “How very Shinto of you.”
“A depressing way to look at the world.”
“I prefer to call myself adult.” Methos shrugged. “Besides I think I’m optimistic.”
Jamie snickered and Methos glanced at him, eyebrow quirking. “Within limits of course.”
Pete grinned suddenly and nudged his friend. “What?”
“I think he’d like it, Josh.”
“Wh—- Ah! Hah. Yeah.” A slender hand came up in fluid motion, gathering his long hair into a sloppy ponytail and then Josh reached behind, rooting for a moment until finally he found his guitar.
“All right.” From Jamie’s sitting place there was a rustle and suddenly a small flame as he slowly waved his lighter above his head, grinning. “Bon Jovi! Bon Jovi!”
“Shuddup.” Faith elbowed him. “Lemme listen.”
Josh tried a chord, winced and tightened a string before attempting it again and nodding in satisfaction. He grinned at Methos. “I’m but an extremely talented amateur so… cut me some slack, all right?”
Pete sighed in exasperation and lit another cigarette. “Would you quit blathering and bloody sing already? Attention slut.”
Josh smiled and touched the strings.
And then there was silence as none were willing to break the magic.
And on the morning the pair was gone, leaving not a trace behind accept the memory of the words and simple tune in the warm darkness above the cooling embers.
***
Turn around, go back down, back the way you came,
Can't you see that flash of fire ten times brighter than the day?
And behold a mighty city broken in the dust again,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.
Turn around, go back down, back the way you came,
Babylon is laid to waste, Egypt's buried in her shame,
The mighty men are all beaten down, their kings are fallen in the ways,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.
Turn around, go back down, back the way you came,
Terror is on every side, lo our leaders are dismayed.
For those who place their faith in fire, their faith in fire shall be
repaid,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.
Turn around, go back down, back the way you came,
And shout a warning unto the nation that the sword of God is raised.
Yes, Babylon, that mighty city, rich in treasures, wide in fame,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.
The meek shall cause your tower to fall, make a new pyre of flame,
Oh you who dwell on many waters, rich in treasures, wide in fame.
you bow unto your God of gold, your pride of might shall be a shame,
For only God can lead His people back unto the Earth again.
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.
A Holy mountain be restored, and mercy on that people, that people.
***