TITLE: 'Out of Africa' 16/31
AUTHOR: Pythia
E-MAIL: pythia@tiscali.co.uk
DISCLAIMER: The characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy,
Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and
the UPN Television Network. The story is written for the pleasure of the
author and readers, and has no lucrative purpose whatsoever. Please do not
reproduce this story anywhere without the author's consent.
POSTING NOTES: *.* is for emphasis. {.} denotes thought and [.] implies
translation from another language.
"[Better,]" Lilithu decided, although her voice held a hint of angry impatience. Giles wasn't surprised to hear it. She'd been working on the ritual for most of the day, repeating the litany over and over again, trying to impress its intricate phrasing into the dead man's memory. It was clear that corpses - especially magically animated ones - didn't have much in the way of retention skills. The process had been both slow and increasingly frustrating. For everyone concerned.
*He'd* been word perfect in the recitation by the second or third repetition, and by now could practically quote it backwards. He knew which pronunciations would bind and destroy her, which would release her power, and which would simply destroy the staff. He also knew that, once started, the ritual had to be carried through to the bitter end. The litany focused a great deal of power through both staff *and* speaker. If the rite were not properly completed - or, for that matter, if the one conducting it was not able to control what he summoned - then there was a good chance that the raw forces it invoked would consume the wielder of the staff along with the demoness it was designed to destroy.
"They were fearful. Desperate," she'd said, speaking of the priests who'd conspired against her. "Sons of desert jackals most of them. Only one was worthy enough to wield the staff once it was made - and he paid a high price for the theft of my shadow. *Too* high. When the time came to confront me, he no longer had the strength to speak the words through to the end. I was bound - but he failed to destroy me. I survived him. I survived them *all*. Their ambitions have come to nothing - and soon I will be free again."
Learning all of this - learning the ritual and all its dangerous variations - had given the captive Watcher something to focus on. Something other than his appalling situation that was. Each hour that he endured was worse than the last, an intolerable nightmare from which he could not wake and *in* which he could find no refuge. His eyes burned, his vision unrelieved by blink or shift in perspective. His skin itched, his clothing chafed and he could do nothing to discourage the flies and other insects which crawled over him, feeding off putrefying flesh - or else laying eggs so that their offspring could profit from his decay. Lilithu did little to discourage them either; she amused herself by plucking fat bottle flies from among those clustering at the corners of his mouth and eyes - and crunching on them as if they were fat juicy raisins.
"[Again,]" she would command, and the corpse would speak, slurring the words, mastering one phrase, only to omit the next. Hour after interminable hour, the need to move, to express *some* control, hammered at his senses, adding to the torment of his captivity. Finally - *finally* - round about the time when every itch, every featherlight, skittering contact, had become magnified to exquisite, screaming torture, the vampire cried [enough,] and stalked away, into the shadows of her lair. Not that being left alone provided him with any kind of relief from his misery - but the end of the drill, and the fact that even the dim light within the lair was fading, suggested that this part of it, at least, would soon be over.
Giles took the opportunity of silence to mentally step through one of the many meditative techniques he'd acquired during his Watcher's training - and which he'd long since given up trying to teach *Buffy*, since the exercises designed to develop the focus and concentration needed to achieve inner stillness almost always resulted in fits of the giggles from her - and inwardly from *him*, since it was patently clear that she was not yet mature enough to appreciate the benefits of such mental disciplines. He was certainly appreciating them *now*; the process allowed him to refocus his perceptions, reducing some of those nagging, demanding sensations back to more tolerable levels. When he'd been a boy, and reading lurid adventures in the battered hardcovers his uncle had given him as relief from Latin and Greek texts, he'd scoffed at tales of Chinese water tortures and stories of men driven mad by being chained in dungeons filled with crawling spiders. He was beginning to appreciate that those tales had underplayed the cruelty of such enforced restraint - and at least those victims had been left the luxury of being able to *blink*.
"Night comes," Lilithu announced, stalking back into the darkened space with confident authority. "My *kingdom* comes. It is time to leave. [Follow me.]"
Dead muscles flexed, and the corpse stumbled into motion, its steps a shuffling parody of a living man's stride. Giles mentally added motion sickness to his list of afflictions, unable to intervene as his putrefying host staggered after its mistress like a drunken sailor who'd lost his sea legs. The two of them emerged into a larger space, one sculpted with concrete rocks and planted with sparse vegetation. Several curious hyenas slunk across to greet the vampiress and nuzzle at her company. She pushed them away with impatience, and the captive Watcher heaved a mental sigh of relief. Hyenas are carrion eaters, and the body he occupied probably smelt like a banquet to them. He'd had a sudden - and unpleasant - vision of what it might feel like to be torn apart and eaten alive. Well, eaten *dead*, strictly speaking, but he was still alive and be the one to feel it.
"Later," Lilithu was saying, irritatedly. "You may have it later. When I am done."
Relief turned into a cold twist of terror, one that Giles fought down with difficulty. She was talking about the *corpse*. She'd already suggested that she had other plans for him - although he wasn't entirely sure which would be worse; to be taken and turned, used to destroy his friends and betray his calling - or to be trapped, like this, in an eternity of helplessness, subject to whatever torment she devised.
The other inhabitants of the hyena pen did little to encourage him in his choice. There were six of them; bestial, feral creatures, with gleaming red eyes, clawed hands and savage, hungry expressions. Lilithu's children bore little resemblance to the vampires he was familiar with. They were little more than animals, driven by appetite and desire. His heart sank as they moved to cluster round their mistress, growling and whimpering as they fought to attract her favours. *One* would be a challenge, even for a fully trained and experienced Slayer. But *six*?
He hoped - he *seriously* hoped - that Wesley had managed to unravel the mystery of Lilithu's appearance and work out what she was after. If his fellow Watcher had realised that the staff was the key to her defeat - and if he had discovered how to use it - then there was a strong possibility that she could be stopped. Could be defeated.
Otherwise Buffy didn't stand a chance