We’re in the foyer and there’s a door that looks like it’s leading outside that Jaak seems to be taking us towards. I slow down my steps and think over what he just said. Invulnerable. I know what that word means. It means invincible. They used to say that Mr. O’Hare, the cult leader, was invulnerable. He was until Buffy ran him through with her sword.
“Why do I need to be invincible? How?” Jaak takes my hand and keeps walking. He leads us outside of the house and into the backyard. “Why are we going outside?”
“Because I am not sure if the power we are about to exchange will bring this house down. I’d rather not give away our presence if it falls.”
That makes me dig my heels in. “Wait. One more time. The house couldwhat?”
“Fall down. The structure might not be strong enough to withstand the force of the soul-bond,” he says, making a motion that looks like he’s flattening something with his free hand. “What we are about to do will give off an enormous wave of power. The mages will no doubt feel it but at least they will not understand where it comes from.”
The last time a bond happened between us a boulder and a field full of mages blew up. What’s going to happen this time?
I look nervously over my shoulder at the house as we continue walking through the yard and towards the trees. I don’t know how I feel about the house falling down or what’s about to happen to me with the soul-bond Jaak is mentioning but okay. I trust him. Even without the bond or marriage, Jaak has always tried to protect me.
“Is this going to help me save Charlie? Help Buffy?”
“Of course it will, witchling. Even more important than that will be your ability to keep yourself safe,” Jaak presses a gentle hand to my injured arm. “Mortal injuries, the frailty of life and death, none of the failings of a human body will slow you. Therewill be nothing for you to fear once we bond. My power will be yours. If I was at full strength there would be nothing on this mortal plane or in any other that could touch you but a millennia imprisoned has weakened me and I do not trust the Fates to not mete out their punishment through hurting you.”
I don’t like that. The thought that the Fates, or whatever bullshit magical being that hurt Jaak could do it again through me. I look down at where his hand is still on my arm. I hurt myself falling over the carpet today. I’m always on edge and just shy of being scared. My eyes water at the thought that whoever imprisoned Jaak might come back for round two and it would be because of me.
It’s not just my friends I can’t protect from a bunch of song crazy mages. I’m not strong enough to keep Jaak safe from the Fates, and he’s a scary powerful demon.
“So I was right, the Fates are jerks. I won’t let them hurt you through me. There has to be a way to stop them.”
Jaak rubs his thumb across my cheek. “There is a way.” His voice is soft and soothing. He’s trying to keep me calm, so I make myself settle down. “Every bit of my power will be shared between the pair of us, but there is a caveat.”
We’ve crossed the length of the backyard and come to a stop at the tree line. I squint up at Jaak. “What’s the catch?”
“When we battle, and make no mistake wewillbattle, our strength will only come through true surrender. Here,” Jaak taps a finger to my chest and then my temple, “and here. We must become one in every sense of the word. Only then will you be able to access my power.”
I don’t want access to Jaak’s power, I don’t even want to think about taking it for my own safety, but if it means being able to finally protect my friends then I’ll do it.
“Once we do this, you will be my anchor and my sword. When you raise your hand against a foe, so will I. You will be a scourgein this world to any that stand before you. None will be able to go against you. Not without calling hell itself down on them. Do you accept this, Bride of the Hell Maw?”
My breath catches in my throat. This is big bad news but in the best way. I’m going to be the big bad news that comes down on the mages and the cult that think it can make Charlie lose his mind and attack Buffy and my friends.
The choice Jaak is offering me is easy to make.
“I do. I want that.Please.”
In the weeks that have passed since the fall of the old cult and the rise of the new one, I’ve heard a saying over and over again: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I don’t know who said it first or where it comes from but I know they’re right. It does corrupt. I’ve seen it over and over again and a spike of fear rises in my throat.
Is that what’s going to happen with me? Will I turn into a foul and ugly thing, someone out for their own gain because I’ll be the one with the power? My fear only lasts for a second before it cracks and breaks into a million little pieces. Jaak smiles, the morning light making him as beautiful as he was in the moonlight. That’s all it takes, that flash of earnestness and warmth from him to bring me back to earth.
I won’t be evil. I won’t. I won’t be like my parents or the men who forced me to obey.
I’ll be good. I’ll do the right thing.
“Please is not something you need to use when it comes to me. Anything that is mine, is yours, ask me and I would bring down heaven itself for you.” He’s going to kiss me, I know he is from the way he leans in closer. My heart starts to race when he tilts my head up and cards his fingers through my hair. “Take what you will of me, my heart. You only need to ask what you desire and it’s yours.”
I put my hands on his shoulders and offer my mouth to him. Jaak claims my mouth in a kiss so sweet that I forget where I am. My toes curl into the grass beneath me and I lean into my husband. When I open my mouth to him, heat flares between us and the bond from me to him grows heavy and warm on my skin, like a well worn chain. When I tug on his shoulders to bring him closer, Jaak bends low, big body curling over mine so there isn’t an inch of space between us. My body feels alive, my breasts ache and I feel a heat burn inside of me that I’ve never felt before. Jaak stands straight and my feet leave the ground but we never break apart. The longer we kiss the more I can feel the familiar tug at my mind that signaled the start of one of my night terrors. Jaak said they were memories and I believed him before, but now I understand it. His memories come flooding into my mind and there’s so much I don’t understand. The flash of a green pasture with the sound of a woman humming, the chiming of bells in the distance and children laughing, it all vanishes into the blow of a war horn, the sound of battle and screams, the blinding light of an explosion. That battle and so many more flash through my mind faster and faster.
A sword raises in front of me, the light of two suns bearing down, orange and purple, and I realize the sword is mine. It’s in my hand. The side of it flashes and I see myself, but it’s not me. It’s Jaak. It’s his hand that holds the sword, clawed with dark brown fur bleeding into tattooed muscled skin. When I look at the reflection in the sword, its two horns, and fur that I see, a snout pierced with a gold ring and lips drawn back in a snarl. Blood drips down the side of his face, the fur and skin there so bloodied, so dark, I don’t know what color it is. I wouldn’t think it’s him but then I see his eyes. They are the same dark eyes that I know. They look like liquid amber in the dying light of those two suns. This is his true face. Why does he hide it from me? All around the battle rages on. I hear death screams and explosions,the sound of a fortress crumbling and the delighted cheers of the demons at Jaak’s back. Then there’s nothing.
The silence is deafening and it echoes in my ears in a way I well know from years of being locked up as a child but it’s not the basement that I’m in now. I’m not me, I’m Jaak. I’m here with him at the gate of the Hell Maw imprisoned and silent. I don’t know how long we sit there in the dark. Little by little I forget who I am, my own name, the sound of the wind, the way water feels or what a voice sounds like when someone speaks.
I lift my hands to my throat and try to make myself talk but there’s nothing. I’ve forgotten how to do that too. The only thing I have is the darkness, bleak and silent. Until the light comes.
At first it’s just a pinprick in vast nothing in front of me but slowly it grows and the pinprick becomes a line that runs the length of the gate that gradually broadens to let in the world. I press my fingers to the opening and feel the wind tickle my fingertips. The sun warms my skin and it’s that light through only a crack in the wall that reminds me that this is not a dream. It’s real. That there’s a world, life, so much more outside of the never ending darkness.
