Fic: "Demon Sword" (5/5)

[cdybedahl]

Demon Sword (5/5)

Written by Calle Dybedahl

Epilogue

The de la Cruz crypt was, as crypts in Buffy's experience tended to be, worn-down and very dirty. She'd slain a nest of vampires there about a year earlier and their meager belongings still littered the corners of the place.

Just as common as the dirt was the dour chanting in a weird language and the smell of blood and sulfur.

Would it kill them to use something else some time? Some serious Thrash Metal should be demonic enough, you'd think. And there must be something other than sulfur to use for incense.

She stalked through the crypt towards the source of the sounds. As she got closer, the sword started glowing.

Quite a lot.

When she judged that she had only a couple of more corners to turn, its glow was strong enough to cast shadows. She sighed. So much for stealth.

"Slayer," a gravelly voice said from up ahead.

"For example," Buffy said. "They'd be a nice change from all this chanting."

A demon stepped out of the shadows. It wasn't very tall, but easily three times as wide as Buffy and probably ten times as heavy.

"What?" it said.

"Oh, never mind," she said.

She aimed a cut at its neck. It tried to parry. The sword went through the arm, shoulder and neck as if they'd been so much mist. The demon collapsed into a heap and immediately started decomposing into vile-smelling goo.

"Ooh, neat!" Buffy said, looking at the sword.

"Ooh, gross," she groaned, looking at the goo that had just reached her shoes.

She stepped around the puddle as well as she could and walked into the central burial chamber.

In it, six demons where doing some kind of dance around a central fire. As they moved, they were throwing handfuls of blood onto the fire.

"Hey!" Buffy shouted.

The demons stopped. As one, they turned to look at her.

"I don't usually ask nicely," she said. "But I'm in a very good mood today. Stop what you're doing, leave, and I'll let you live."

"Hero," one of the demons growled.

"It has the Sword of Ch'grak," another said.

"It has woken the sword," a third one added.

"Right," Buffy said. "And it just cut down your buddy out there to one-size-fits-all, so you don't want to mess with it."

One of the demons tilted its head a little. It was a bit bigger than the others, and its skin a slightly different shade of blue.

"You have the Sword, and it is woken," it said. "We cannot fight it. Our cause is lost, for this time. But if you think it will bring you happiness, Hero, then you are wrong."

Two of the dancing demons made strange movements with the third and fourth hands, and faded out of visibility. Buffy cut towards where they'd been, just to make sure they hadn't gone invisible.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said. "Whatever."

"There is a curse," the demon said. "One of the women you raped to wake the sword, she would have been your soulmate. Your perfect other half. There would have been happiness. But now her love is twisted. Is dark. Now there will be aught but pain."

She'd learned long ago not to listen to what the demons said about her while she killed them. That sort of activity didn't really incline them towards truth and helpfulness. She jumped over the fire, cut the heads off two of the dancers while she was in the air and landed with the sword extended through the talkative demon's ribcage.

She certainly hadn't raped anybody. They'd all been volunteers. At least as much as Buffy herself had been.

The fire had a strange color. It was too... purple. Or something. She couldn't really put a name to it. It almost hurt her eyes to look at, which was a pretty sure sign that it was no good. She stuck the sword into the center of the fire.

Noise. Fire. A shock like a kick to the stomach, then her back hit the crypt wall.

"Ouch," she said to nobody in particular. If that hadn't ended the ceremony, she didn't want to know what it would take.

She looked around. There were no demons left. The fire had almost gone out, and what was left was properly fire-colored. The sword didn't glow any longer.

All right then.

That had to mean that the threat was eliminated. She hefted the sword onto her shoulder and headed out of the crypt. She'd go over to the library and report to Giles. Then she had an English class, and after that...

After that she had a date with Willow.

She started whistling. Life certainly was good.

Faith sat in a tree in the yard outside Sunnydale High School, looking in. In through a window, into a classroom. The red-headed little bitch was in there. Faith could see her, showing the Xander clown something in her textbook. The red-headed little bitch who Buffy had chosen over her. The weak, mousy little nothing that a Slayer had preferred over another Slayer.

It was unacceptable. Someone would have to pay.

The bell rang. The students left their classrooms like a herd of stampeding elephants. She jumped down from the tree and sauntered over towards the school entrance. Once there, she hung around in the shadows until Willow and Xander came walking down the stairs. She watched as they hugged their goodbyes, and Willow set off towards her home. Discreetly, Faith followed. She played idly with the switchblade in her pocket.

Oh yes, there would be payment in blood.

And then Buffy would be hers, and hers alone.

Comments

[fluffybkitty.livejournal.com]

Really great story and I love the twist. I didn't see it coming, but it makes such cool sense. Plus, also, sweet nod to Faith being Buffy's soulmate and not Willow :)