TITLE: WARLOCK 13/14
AUTHOR: vatwoman
DISCLAIMER: JOSS WHEDON, MUTANT ENEMY AND FOX/UPN OWN EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE ‘BUFFY.’ NO INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. THE CHARACTER OF KOVACS IS MINE.
FEEDBACK: YES PLEASE, TO VATWOMAN@Y...

“How long?” Buffy yelled over the crackle of magicks rending the air around her.

“Fifteen, twenty minutes!” Xander’s voice came from behind her. She’d taken a moment to turn her back on the fight, desperate to check on the progress of the others. They had to find a way to follow Giles through Kovacs’s wards.

“Too long, damnit! It’s taking too long!” The ward, an all encompassing blood-red shield, rippled and wavered before her. “Yes, that! Again!” Triple bolts of white fire hit the shield, poured magicks into it, tunnelling, trying to force the breach that would allow them in. “Come on! Again!”

“Buffy!” The strangled scream was Xander’s. More vamps. More goddamn vamps.

With a cry Buffy threw herself at them ……

…… Angel caught her as she hit the ground. “Can’t … Angel … can’t do anymore … Jenny … help Jenny …” and Willow fainted.

Angel moved to Jenny Calendar’s side ……

…… This was a Slayer’s work – the purity of it was blinding – the enemy known and clear in front of you. Heat surrounded her, filled her. This was bloodlust ……

…… Xander beside her, wielding Giles’s crossbow, hitting more now than he was missing, the man being forged in this fight. Then falling … falling as still as a stone ……

…… And out of the gloom at the end of the street, more vampires; more than she’d ever seen in her whole life. “Angel, I need you!” Side by side, vampire and vampire slayer. “It’s showtime ……”

…… Finally a weakness - a tiny hole that Jenny sensed more than she saw – and she poured her energy into it, trying desperately to ignore the voice in her head <Too little, too late. Too little, too late. Too little ……>

…… A roaring sound and a column of blue-white light shot out through the roof of Kovacs’s house. Everything stopped. Buffy’s ‘What the hell is that?’ seemed to say it for everyone ……

>>>

Sucker-punched.

For Giles, stepping through the door was like stepping into Hell - a vision of red heat and pain. It distracted him and he got sucker-punched. Kovacs, standing there, silhouetted against a spell-formed fire, naked, dripping with the blood of his sacrifice, a terrible rictus grin distorting his face, raised his arms, screamed out the final words of his spell and unleashed a bolt of ire. It struck Giles square in the chest toppling him backwards like a felled tree. He hit the ground and lay there, arms spread-eagled, like some obscene crucifixion. The white-noise buzz of the spell deafened him, not even giving him the consolation of hearing his own breathing and the ripples of energy flowing up and down his body both paralysed and tortured him. The bolts of pain that jolted his heart were agonising.

In the blink of an eye Kovacs had blind-sided him, made him helpless. Made him a spectator of his own downfall.

Kovacs swam into Giles’s field of vision. The magicks running through him were clear to see. Blood ran freely and dripped off him onto the floor where he stood.

Their eyes locked and Kovacs’s grin widened until it seemed to fill his whole face. He stamped down onto Giles’s chest, his heel a hammer. Giles felt ribs crack and his backed arched high as the magick doubled and redoubled the pain. He knew he was screaming, but couldn’t hear himself do so. He saw Kovacs raise his hand and clench his fist, manipulating the power to hold him in that back-breaking position until the black swirls of unconsciousness had all but filled his mind. Then he was released, the cold, hard, floor meeting his body with as much force as if he’d been dropped from a great height.

He tried to close his eyes and found that even that luxury was denied him, but he could blink and did so and found that Kovacs had moved away again for a moment.

His body caught, Giles drew on his mental reserves to drain off the physicalities of Kovacs’s spell and felt a small, bright, clear spot open in his mind. He poured his intellect into it and the sudden clarity was an exquisite pleasure-pain that rushed through his entire being.

The spell was no more than he expected; this part, the precursor to the final stage wherein, his control gone, Kovacs would take his magicks and then kill him. Fighting this … fighting this would be almost impossible. He could unleash his own magicks and destroy Kovacs in a second, but that was the trap waiting for him beneath the pain of the magicks being used on him – they would take his magicks, drag them out of him, and keep dragging them out of him, multiplying their strength until, like a nuclear meltdown, feeding on itself, they detonated.

People will die.

Stealth. He needed stealth – find a way of using the spell against itself. Kovacs was returning, knife in hand, and the buzzing in Giles’s head grew again, pushing away his ability to think <All spells have a rhythm, they resonate; all I have to do is find the right frequency>

Kovacs knelt, straddled him across his thighs. The fingers that brushed his skin as Kovacs unbuttoned his shirt were almost vampire-like in their coldness. His shirt parted and his chest was exposed. Kovacs’s mouth moved, words of a spell falling from his lips, but Giles didn’t need to hear them to know what effect they were having on his body, as his nipples tightened and his cock swelled.

Blood for the binding.

Kovacs took up the knife and cut a single slash downwards through each of Giles’s nipples and Giles screamed again, a terrible soundless thing that he could only hear in his head. The pain gathered itself and rushed to his groin, the magicks transforming it into a sick rush of pleasure that made his cock suddenly impossibly hard.

Blood ran down his chest, mixing with the sweat that was coating him. He felt Kovacs’s hand on his belt, button and then zip. The superheated air around them merely served to feed the heat in his groin when Kovacs pulled down his trousers and shorts. Four cuts to the head of his cock - front, back, left, right – four cuts to honour the cardinal points.

Blood for the binding.

When Kovacs brought his right wrist to his mouth to lick at his own blood, Giles knew that the man had chosen his own body as the vessel in which their blood would be mixed – and shuddered as the hot mouth closed first on one nipple, then the other, drinking him. Moved to his balls, lapping up the blood that had run there, and down the shaft of his cock, and from the cuts in the head. Sucked him.

Cum for the offering.

Giles struggled to find that clear spot once more from where he could launch his counterattack. Tendrils of his power crept out, pushing forward, insubstantial as smoke, seeking the magicks pouring out of the other man <Resonances. Magick is all about tones and pitch and the very rhythms of life itself> His body shuddered, on fire from the arousal that Kovacs had caused in him. It was a pressure beneath his skin, forcing blood from his wounds and, god help him, pre-cum from his cock.

Cum for the offering.

Kovacs pressed his body down onto Giles – cock and balls together – grinding down, slowly moving on him … and Giles knew that it was useless to think that he wouldn’t come from doing this, simply because he hadn’t come from doing this since he was a randy twenty year old and had Ethan in his bed. Kovacs could have masturbated himself and splashed his cum onto Giles and it would have been enough, but Giles understood what this was about: humiliation. Humiliation and the mirroring of what Kovacs had done to Jenny.

He needed to close his eyes and find his peace, but the struggle to do so was exhausting him. Kovacs filled his field of vision, he was all Giles could see. He could feel the other man’s sweat falling on him, biting like acid. He had so little time now, the pressure in his groin was unbearable: if he came it was over.

Kovacs rode him mercilessly; spittle dripping from his open mouth to mix with the other fluids on their bodies. And then with the force of a tidal wave, they came, great gouts of cum shooting from them both.

Kovacs crawled off him and got to his feet, staggering to get his balance. He retreated to the flames and his mistress. His eyes glowed with the residual energy of the spell, his body shuddering through the aftershocks of the most intense orgasm of his life. A smile started on his lips: he was so energised and the magicks burned in him. Magicks … he reached inside himself, searching for the heady strength of the powers he’d taken and found … nothing.

“What …?”

Giles lay unmoving on the ground dazed by both the spell and his orgasm and found awareness creeping up on him; the heat, the unpleasant feeling of semen cooling on his chest and stomach, the smell of blood in the air … and then it was about sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, as sensations flooded back into him … and it was about the familiar pressure deep within his very being. He came out of the spell, laughing.

“What happened?” Giles gasped out, finishing Kovacs’s question. “Work it out yourself.” He rolled over and struggled to his feet, clutching at his damaged ribs.

“What are you doing?” The tone of Kovacs’s voice was one of uncertainty. He moved to circle around Giles, watching him.

“Getting up so I can get dressed.”

“That would seem to be of little point as you are going to be dead in a few minutes.” The smooth threatening tone was back.

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” Giles bent slightly, suppressing as gasp of pain as he did so, and pulled up his trousers and shorts. “Regardless, unlike you, I refuse to carry on this conversation with my dick hanging out. If you’ll excuse me a moment …” He started to gingerly tuck himself back into his clothes. “… so, you were saying something about me being dead?”

“I’m going to kill you!” Kovacs had come around full circle and was in Giles’s face again. Eyes locked the two men stood silent for a moment measuring each other. Then Giles laughed once more.

“Of course you are, but you’re going to have to be careful now, aren’t you? Wounded animal and all that.” As if to reinforce his words he clutched at his chest as a too deep breath caused searing pain to shoot across his torso. “Then there’s the matter of the magicks that you still haven’t managed to take from me: why is that, by the way? The controls have all gone, you must feel that? Spell didn’t work in quite the way it was supposed to, did it? But then you’re a sloppy researcher …” He grimaced again and swallowed heavily, fighting nausea. He could barely breathe never mind speak. “… and you have no natural power of your own, do you? It’s all been taken one way or another, hasn’t it?”

“I have power!” Kovacs eyes had taken on the purple hue of his magicks and Giles recognised that he wasn’t the only wounded animal here. This close their magicks recognised each other, called to each other, demanding to be joined. Both men shuddered.

“No …” Giles, calculating the risk, walked away, turning his back on Kovacs. He was hanging on by a thread. His body felt bloated by the magicks crowding for release under his skin. <… one misstep … one misstep …> The fire drew him and he went to it. Looked into its depths, to see the demon residing there. “… no, Hecate … Hecate is your demon of choice, yes? … Hecate has the power.”

“… I summoned her!”

“Given the proper spell and the proper ingredients, a child of five could do that!” He turned back to Kovacs and his face settled into a sneer. “No, every bit of power that you have has been begged, bought or stolen. You might be decades older than me …” Kovacs started at this, “… but you have no more idea about the nature of real power than that five year old child … and … “ He grimaced again. “… and you’re letting me talk too much.”

The moment was here. Giles took a step forward and gathered himself. “You want my magick? Then take it.” It seeped out of every pore, surrounding him in a bright shimmering cloud. “Take it!” It drew on itself, building, making his skin ripple and his eyes burn. “TAKE IT!”

He threw back his head and the power blasted out of him in a tower of blue-white light … and suddenly he could see the stars and he could feel the stars and letting himself go was everything … that was pulled back almost as soon as it was let go of.

Kovacs fell back … and Giles, burning in the hot fire of his power, his eyes silvered out, did little more than nod his head to trap the other man in a binding field. “Scary isn’t it?” He walked over to Kovacs, circling him now. “And now you’re thinking ‘How did he do that? The spell worked, his control is gone, so how did he do that?’ Do you want to know the answer?” He spoke directly into Kovacs ear and watched him shiver. “Because I’m still alive.”

“I don’t understand …”

“… very sloppy research. This is natural magick, magick that was born in me. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It means that the controls you took were only there to stop it from appearing at inopportune moments. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It means that you forgot about a being’s natural desire to keep together, keep control over, all of its constituent parts: body, soul and, in my case, magicks.” He came around Kovacs so he could look him in the eye once more. “Wrong spell … you really needed one that did everything at once: controls, death, magicks. Try to take my magicks now and … well … so here you are … “ He smiled coldly. “… mine.”

Kovacs started to struggle, chanting the words of a spell as Giles stood by and watched him. “You’re wasting your breath.”

The fire drew him again and Giles returned to it. He stood before it and closed his eyes. A tiny bolt of light left his hand and flowed into the flames. For a moment they took on the colour of silver before settling once more into the fiery red of before. He opened his eyes and stared across the fire. The shrouded blackness of the demon took form on the other side and he faced it, showing no fear.

“You’ve failed your mistress.” Although he spoke to Kovacs, he didn’t take his eyes from the creature before him. “Not really a clever thing to do; believe me, I know. Perhaps you’ve outlived your usefulness to her? If I was her I know I’d be thinking that very thing.”

The demon’s visage wavered before him, flames where it should have eyes. The magicks within him responded, drawn to the power of the creature. His heart pounded and his blood ran cold. He could see his death here, the death of everything …

… unless …

… he released Kovacs with a carelessly thrown thought and a pitying look over his shoulder. “She’s calling for you.”

Unhesitatingly, Kovacs took the few steps necessary to cross the distance to the fire and stepped into the flames. They blackened around him and he smiled as he felt his mistress’s power flow into him.

A bolt of ire, as before, blasted out at Giles from the flames … he dismissed it with a simple gesture … his body vibrated … magicks clamouring for their release … and he was hit again … and again … and again … waves of black-as-pitch power that tore at his very being … and Kovacs was laughing … laughing at him … taunting him … ‘let it go’ … ‘let it go’ … ‘let it go’ … a sing-song voice in his head … and the pressure was building … building … too much … too much <Just let it go>

Giles raised his arms and showed his palms to the ground and the magick drained down out of him, rolling across the floor in a wave of silver. It reached the fire and it was if it had been sucked in by it, base flames first taking on its colour followed by the rest. Kovacs’s laughter resounded around them as he took on the colour of Giles’s magicks. Still the magicks crept across the floor, to the demon itself, where it hissed and rippled around the creature’s feet.

And Giles closed his eyes, letting his mind follow the path of his magicks. <He’ll never control this, he’s too weak. He’s failing you even now> The shrieked “NO!” rang around him. Screams. <He’s failed you in this. He couldn’t begin to understand this power> Pitiful cries of agony and betrayal. <But we understand … don’t we>

And Giles opened his eyes.

The fire writhed black and silver obscuring Kovacs in the impenetrable wall of the enjoined powers and the demon pulsated, grew and shrank, as the power flowed around it.

<He’s too weak. You know he’s too weak. I’m stronger. This is my power. Mine!>

The silver flames spread swallowing the black and the clamour of Kovacs agonised cries tore at Giles. But he had to keep pushing … pushing … pushing.

<Let me show you. Let me show you what this can do>

The demon raised its head and then nodded, a movement so slow that Giles could have lived a lifetime in it …

<God, don’t let me die here>

<Please>

… and he became the magicks, releasing them out into the world as he always knew he’d have to … and the effect was of a cataclysm, a blast of sound deafening in its intensity, and a wave of power that ripped through the air and the earth, erasing all before it …

… and now he finally stood at its centre the demon before him unfettered and this time it was he that nodded, embracing this …

<I have friends …>

… and the power came rushing back on him, drawn to him, and the world around him, black and hot, imploded in a desperate silence.

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