Angela stumbled and regained her human form, collapsing against the pillar in the abandoned church. Sunlight danced crazily through dusty motes, as the tall golden woman clutched at her throat, and came away with blood.
"What's happening?" she demanded, trying to catch her breath, through a throat that felt as if it had been sliced to ribbons, but was whole and smooth, despite its grisly choker. "Alex...!" The necromancer crawled forward a few paces, still on her knees, skirt tattered now, as well as bloodstained. She reached her hand out and touched the wall, pressing her hand to a certain place and sending her power through it. Tombs opened up, and bones danced, forming a new archway, that led somewhere else than a dusty ruined church, to a forest deep in rich greens.
* * *
"That's SO gross...." Purgatory hissed as he watched Alex die, gushing blood on the floor, for the eighth or ninth time.
Silver sighed, and spoke.
"I can't get Angela on the phone... maybe she's out for the day or something? I left her a ton of messages, so hopefully she can get here before things get worse."
Wylde, 'Tory and Luke looked up from their blood clean-up. Each one scowled at the argent-haired hunter.
"HOW can it be worse?"
* * *
Alex flew past the line of sight, alive and whole, as the ghostly Maven stalked in, and pummeled him some more. Fear blinding his eyes, Alex got to his feet, and ran for all he was worth. Towards Haven.
By the time Angela stepped out of the archway, Alex had returned, looking nearly mad with fear, like he was fully aware of what was going on about him, but the few scant moments between his re-appearance and Maven's attack were too few for him to do much about what had happened to him.
Angela watched in horrified shock as this repeated again, and again.
"Alex!" she cried and threw herself at Maven, forgetting for an instant that it wasn't real, except to them, and cracking her head on a tree. "Ow," she moaned, and looked in the direction the shades had come from. "Oh god," she whispered. "What am I going to do?"
Alex reappeared, and had enough time to look at Angela, fearfully, then run again. He didn't know what to do, and it showed. The remains of the spell he'd cast lay scattered about the circle of stones, the book lay open near where Alex reformed each time, as if he was now tied to it, instead of his grave, or her.
Angela got back to her feet, and moved forward, slowly, towards the space in the trees that he kept appearing from. Maven ran through her again, and she winced, doubling over.
"Bitch feels sickening. Though it is odd to see her without wolven ears." She entered the ring of stones, and knelt down before the book, which she picked up, and looked over. There was a faint ectoplasmic stain on one page.
So that was the page she read. Alex reformed beside her and she felt him enough to look up. He broke from his pattern just long enough to mouth her name, before the fear took over his face, and he ran.
Alex was scared, but he was hoping Angela could at least get the Maven part of this loop gone, and maybe that alone would break it. This was starting to get more frightening, and maddening. There were only so many times one could handle dieing over and over.
Angela frantically flipped through the pages, scenting them for the faint musty scent of white roses and death.
"What spell was it!" she yelped, next cycle through. "What did you do to yourself!?"
Alex was helpless to say, or even do anything, he could move his hand a fraction differently every cycle, but not enough to signal anything. And his consciousness was disappearing. It got harder and harder to remember anything. He was turning into a haunt. Angela screamed.
It echoed through the woods and through Haven, it even was heard faintly in Highgate. It reverberated through Alex, and solidified his memories. For now, he was himself again. He reached out his hand to touch Angela - and there was a faint contact, warm skin against warm skin. She jerked her damp face up to look at him, before the memory of murder caught up with him, and he ran again.
"This isn't my magic Alex," she whispered. "I don't understand any of this. I'm trying, I really am, but this is all incants and elixirs and I don't understand!"
Alex knew someone who WOULD know... he had a scant few seconds the next cycle, and scratched a name in the dirt before he ran this time. Aspen.
"Oh, and he did so much good last time," muttered Angela. "He may know incants, but he knows shit about the dead! I can't even ask you how this happened or why!" She struggled to understand what Alex had done as he continued running. At last, she simply closed her eyes and drew into herself. She couldn't understand this magic. The edges were starting to make sense, because of all the studying she'd been doing - oh if only Alex had waited. She gathered power in her hand to try and touch the phantoms, to trip Maven, and give Alex a chance to get away, to break the cycle. But it didn't work. And deep within in her, a germ of an idea appeared, and began to grow, spreading coldness through her limbs like an angry specter. Tears began to drip down her face and onto the book as she remembered her mistake, and how sad Alex became every time she turned to someone else.
"You cannot come to me, and you would never let me go to you," she said, tears dripping down her cheeks. "I'd go to you if you let me. I'd let you go if that's what you truly wanted. But I can't see my life without you Alex." She clutched her chest. "Oh please god Alex, hear me!"
'I hear you!' he screamed silently as he ran, stumbling over the same rocks for the thousandth time. 'I just wish I could tell you!'
"I'll do anything I can to bring you to me, in any way." She chewed on her thumb. "But there's only one thing I can think to do, and I'm afraid. If that's what it will take, then I will do it!" she said, coming to a silent decision. "I give up my years. I give up my mind, my fox form, my powers. I give up the ability to see the dead, that you might live. I give up control, and whatever it is that rushed me to maturity. I give up my memories of why I do this. Because without you, none of it matters." Molten gold eyes closed, and wind whipped her hair around her face. The cycle broke as Alex felt power, raw, strong, and familiar, rushing into him like a tidal wave, firming his skin, and tearing down the last wall behind him and the real world.
* * *
Beneath Angela's bed, Griffin smiled faintly, then faded, stiffening, his eyes closed completely.
* * *
Righly stopped his pruning in the garden, and blinked back tears he didn't understand why he'd been crying. Something pulled at his soul, and zombie-like, he stepped out of Richard's castle, and walked towards Haven.
* * *
Eric looked up from tuning his fiddle, tears in his eyes, and a strange dark taste in his mouth. The mournful tune he played rivaled anything of Cupid's musics... and drifted out, and on into the twilight. The music seemed to move closer to Haven, but then, it was true, since Eric was headed that way, playing a heart wrenching funeral march.
* * *
Calanthe stood up, and wobbled on his feet. The burst of lost necromantic power shook him like no wraithly hand could. He whispered a name, and made his way swiftly to Haven.
* * *
Angela's rippling form faded like a ghost.
"ANGELA! NO!" Suddenly fully solid, the young mage reached forward, and grabbed at her, trying to keep her from fading away. Much to his surprise, his fingers encountered flesh, and when his eyes cleared, he saw he had a death grip on the shoulders of a young girl, no more than seven years old, wearing a school uniform in a dark forest green. Her hair was the same burnished gold color of Angela's as well as her eyes, and her skin the same off gold.
"No," he said, softly, tears starting of their own accord.
"Mister," she said, confused. "Look out!"
He turned around to see the specter of Maven standing above them, almost as solid as he was, knife upraised.
"NO!" he screamed, and reached for the power inside himself. The flames he called banished the phantom, and left him and the girl alone in the woods. Tears continued to drip down his face.
"Mister, are you okay?" asked the little girl, Angela.
"Alex," he whispered. "My name is Alex." And he rocked back and forth. This was his fault. The light that had shone in the back of his mind for all the long years he'd known her was gone.
"Why are you crying."
"Because I think I've lost something. And I don't know if I'm ever going to get it back."
"Was it important?"
"The most important thing in the world."
"Can I help you find it?"
"I don't know."
"Is this it?" she asked, picking up the spell book and offering it to him.
"No, that's just trash," he said, and ripped it apart, binding from binding and the pages into shreds. It had given him the spell, and her the idea. He never wanted to see it again. She blinked at him in shock, but then looked around again.
"What about this?" she asked, holding up a small golden ring. Alex looked at it for the longest time, then smiled weakly.
"Keep it," he whispered.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Thank you! It's so pretty!"
"You live at Haven, right?" he asked, trying not to let her know how badly his heart was breaking up inside. "I'll take you back home to Silver and Vivian."
"Thank you!" she said brightly again, a sweet little child. "I'm really tiered."
"It's alright," he said, "I can carry you," She put up her arms, and he lifted the petite child to his hip.
