• Title - The Wish of Three Hearts (Part One: Body and Soul)
• Author name – LonelyTara
• Email Address -
9kodama@gmail.com
• Rating - I'm just gonna go R from here on out...
• Disclaimer - While filled with plenty of angst, tension, and grief, please know this will be a happy fic in the end. Not just because of the rules, but because I love W/T too much to mess a great thing up! Oh, and all this belongs to Joss Whedon et al, I'm just borrowing, please don't sue.
• Feedback-Please, please!
• Summary- This is an AU post season 7. It's been three years since Tara's death. Willow travels to the canyon that was once Sunnydale California to celebrate her lost love's birthday. Willow makes a wish, and everything changes...
• Notes-Thanks to everyone who will read. Some lines from BtVS, S6, Two to Go and Grave.
Chapter Eleven
“Willow?” Giles breathed. He reached out and laid a gentle hand against her cheek. “What’s happened to you?”
She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see the worry, the fear, creasing his brow, wished that she could stop herself from hearing the tremor in his voice, so clear even though the watcher tried to hide it.
Tired, Willow thought.
I’m so tired. Every inch of her burned and ached, she could feel each tendon, muscle, and ligament, the stretch of cartilage, with each breath that she forced in an out of her body. There wasn’t strength for words.
“Is she sleeping?” Dawn’s voice was soft, so high and tearful.
“I don’t know,” Giles replied, moving his hand from Willow’s cheek to run gently down her hair. “The binding will have…weakened her.”
“Is it hurting her?” Buffy asked loudly.
Willow winced. The little slayer sounded angry. She heard her best friend stomping closer.
“She made a face,” Buffy continued accusingly. “Is this Vincent Price shield thing hurting her, Giles?”
“Vincere,” the watcher replied. “I don’t know. I wish I could say I did, but I don’t. This is old magic, Buffy. I’ve never seen any accounts from—”
He trailed off and the Magic Box was quiet for a moment. Willow could hear the hum of the Vincere spell as it shifted and warped, countering her darkness. Finally Buffy spoke again.
“Any accounts from what? From what, Giles?”
“Survivors,” he admitted with a heavy sigh.
“It’s killing her?!” Buffy’s voice cracked as she shouted, “Take it off of her, turn it off, right now.”
“It’s not killing her,” Anya said sharply. “Survivors didn’t write accounts because Vincere was used for dark magic users, to hold them until they could be executed.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Dawn’s voice shook. “Giles, did you come home to kill Willow?”
Willow fluttered her eyes open long enough to get a glimpse of Giles, saw the worn defeat in his face. They drifted closed again under a wave of pure exhaustion, but when he spoke his voice was a perfect echo of his stricken features.
“I’ve come here to help her,” Giles replied softly. “To save her. But if she’s gone to far—”
If I’ve gone too far, Willow thought,
no coming back, then he’ll have to. He’ll have to kill me. A part of her was relieved to know it, to know that there was someone who could stop her if she lost control.
“That’s not gonna happen,” Buffy growled.
“Of course it’s not going to happen,” Xander said, throwing his arms in the air. “Let’s stop with the crazy talk and all the craziness because it’s going to make me—” The dark-haired man broke off and shook his head. “Repetitive apparently. Look,” he said, gesturing between Buffy and Giles. “Let’s just talk this out. I would say sit and talk this out, but there’s only one chair left that isn’t broken.”
“Xander,” Giles said, pushing up his glasses. “I know you want to help, I know you all want to help,” he said, letting his gaze drift over Dawn, Buffy, and Anya, “But I don’t think you understand the severity, the danger, of what’s happening here. With the dark magic Willow has channeled—”
“Wrong,” Anya said flatly.
“Anya, the damage is clear—” Giles began.
Willow felt her lip tremble even as she tried to keep her face neutral. The damage. She was damaged goods now, and maybe this time she would never be mended. Maybe this time she was broken for good. But how would the debt be repaid?
“You say that you’re a smart man, Giles, and usually I agree. But really,” Anya drawled. “Can’t you tell the difference between channeling and invasion? She’s fighting it, fighting that darkness and it’s tearing her to pieces. How can you not see that?”
“There’s some big mojo going on,” Xander said. “When Tara told us that she’d died—”
“What?” Giles’s voice rang through the shop. “You told me Tara was kidnapped. Are you saying that she died, that Willow resurrected her? Tapping into the rite of Osiris again could very well have caused this—”
“All right,” Buffy said, sighing. “I think we need to establish a new rule that we aren’t going to interrupt each other anymore.” She paused. “Except for me interrupting you just then, Giles, that had to happen because you don’t have a clue about what’s going on.”
“Well thank you for bringing order to the chaos,” the watcher replied wryly.
“No interrupting!” Buffy fumed. “Now look, this morning Warren Mears tried to kill me. He shot me. I’m fine,” she said, holding up a hand as her watcher’s eyes widened with concern. “Tara told us, afterwards, that Willow knew what was going to happen and so she changed it, that Willow kept her from getting shot. You can ask a question now,” she said with a wry grin, spotting Giles’s classic look of consternation.
“How did she know?” He asked simply.
“Because,” Buffy said, taking a deep breath. “The first time it happened, Willow couldn't stop it, and Tara died.”
“The first time?” Giles asked. “What do you mean, the first time?”
“It’s the mojo,” Xander insisted. “Some rite.”
“But it’s not dark magic,” Buffy insisted. “Willow stopped it, the rite stopped it from ever happening.”
“We checked and double checked the texts, and definitely not dark magic,” Anya said. She rolled her eyes as Buffy huffed. “Sorry for interrupting with vital supporting data.”
“And the name of this rite?” Giles asked.
Willow forced her eyes open, struggled to turn her head so she could catch Giles’ eye, even as she tried not to feel guilt at the worried stares the rest of the Scoobies turned on her when she moved.
“Ter Sis Animi,” she choked.
“That isn’t possible,” Giles breathed. His footsteps echoed on the tile floor of the Magic Box as he began to pace, staring down at the floor. “That’s a purely legendary ritual.”
“Yeah, cause no legendary stuff around this Hellmouth, nuh-uh,” Buffy grumbled.
“True,” Willow gasped. She felt a tear slip down each cheek; every word she spoke burned her raw throat, but she had to make him understand. “Giles, it’s true.”
The watcher lifted his head and turned to look at her, and the weight of his gaze left Willow feeling totally exposed. There was a hardness there, an anger and suspicion, and she knew its name,
Ripper. He could see her. He could see her guilt and her grief, her darkness, because he lived with his own.
But please see past it, Willow thought as she choked on a sob.
See me Giles. See me.
And then he froze, still staring. He didn’t even blink. Willow could feel a wail building in her, an aching pressure made all the worse because she couldn’t give it voice, just another layer of pressure added to the weight on her chest.
Giles. In the moment she thought it, the watcher’s face transformed. His eyes widened, softened, and the smallest hint of a smile curled his mouth.
“Willow,” Giles said softly.
“Hi Giles,” she breathed.
The rest of the Scoobies watched this exchange in perfect silence. Giles nodded at her and then turned and walked past the counter, trailing his hand along the empty shelves until he came to a row filled with thin hardbound volumes. He ran a slow and careful finger down the spine of each text, lips moving as he murmured to himself. Finally his hand lingered on a book with a cloth cover of faded burgundy. His hand moved over text once, twice, and then he slid the book from the shelf, opened it, and began to read.
After a few minutes of silence, of the watcher lost in the slender book, Xander began to fidget. Before he could move or speak Anya elbowed him in the side, shaking her head. Buffy rolled her eyes at them and Dawn, Dawn almost smiled before she shook her head and went back to staring at her own tightly crossed arms. For a moment, Willow could almost pretend that things we’re normal, that they’d all gathered together to hear the latest bout of exposition. Almost.
She blinked back fresh tears as Giles cleared his throat and began to read aloud.
“Ancient records, fragmented and rife with figments, speak of a rite said to have existed since before time itself was known or measured. This rite they speak of, practiced in more than a dozen cultures, is known now only by its Latin name, Ter Sis Animi,
The Wish of Three Hearts, because its true name has been lost to age and the fallibility of man’s memory.”
Giles took a breath and pushed his glasses up farther on his nose. “It is said that this rite has been lost to the world because the gods no longer walk among man. Those with the power to call forth the rite have dwindled, leaving only myth and lore. It is to memory that the Ter Sis Animi must be consigned.” With that Giles snapped the book closed and looked at them expectantly.
“That was a pleasantly dramatic reading, Giles,” Anya said, nodding her head. “But what did it actually say?
“Those old scribe guys were quite the ramblers.” Xander agreed.
Giles gave a little sigh, gesturing toward the book. “The Ter Sis Animi was a rite that required immense power for its fulfillment, not merely from one being, but from three. We are talking about a power beyond mortal comprehension.”
“So, kind of like the power of a slayer?” Buffy asked.
Giles gaped for a moment but then recovered, slowly closing his mouth and nodding. “I suppose that’s possible, but—”
Dawn stepped up next to her sister with her hands firmly planted on her hips. “And how about the power of a girl who used to be a magical key between dimensions?”
The watcher pulled off his glasses, realized he couldn’t clean them and hold on to his text, and so he slipped them back on again. “And the third?”
Xander walked across the magic box and held his arms out with a flourish. “How about one of the most powerful Wicca in the western hemisphere?”
Giles looked around at them, sighed, and then snapped the book shut. “For an allegedly intelligent man I can be very foolish at times,” he murmured. “Thank you all for making it so painfully obvious.”
“It’s a gift,” Buffy replied.
* * *
In a strange way the darkness had become a gift. As she strained into it, searching for signs of light, of movement, there were occasional burst of swirling color. It was comforting somehow, even though she knew it was just her retina throwing off flares. It distracted her, kept her from being frightened, even though there were so many things to be frightened of. Anya gone. Jonathan too frightened to help her. But the one fear she buried, again and again, was her hands. Tara was afraid to see her hands. After hours of hanging, she wondered what damage had been done because of the restricted blood flow. Pins and needles were beginning to lessen when she moved, and she missed the pain. The thought of never being able to touch Willow with a caress, to feel the red head’s silken skin under her fingertips, it was enough to set her crying, again, but in the dark she could just pretend it wasn’t happening, that she’d just woken up from a terrible dream, instead of living one.
“Wicca, heal thyself,” Tara murmured. She’d tried twice before to levitate, to give her body some relief from the tension on her shoulders and back, only to feel that terrible, raw ache lance through her head. But her fear at the pain of using her overtaxed magic was being overshadowed by her fear of the damage being done to her body.
“Time again,” she whispered. Tara closed her eyes against the pitch-blackness of her prison made a silent prayer to the goddess, for blessing and strength.
Tara made a soft noise, half way between a laugh and a sob, when she felt the crackle, the heat of her power coursing through her body. She focused and rose a few inches in the air, just enough to take the strain of her weight off of her arms. The slightest hiss was the only sign she gave of the pain of blood pounding up her wrists into her hands. After a moment they began to tingle and burn and she cried with relief, slowly and carefully bending and stretching fingers that felt swollen and stiff, taught-skinned.
Still stretching, she let herself relax into the levitation, rising higher so that her shoulders could drop, easing the ache there. There still wasn’t any pain from her magic use, and so Tara decided she would try calling forth a wisp, one of the little sparkles Willow called her Tinkerbelle lights.
Willow, Tara thought. She cast aside her though of Tinkerbelle lights and took a deep, calming breath and focused all her intent on her love. Tara knew if she could just hear Willow’s voice, even for a moment—but when Tara reached out, there was nothing there.
There wasn’t a block in her magic, no striving and failing to reach. There was just nothing. Tara reached with her mind, feeling for any stirrings or echoes that would pulse with the energy of Willow’s mind, would let her know that her love was all right even if she was pushed past the boundary of unconsciousness or sleep. Again, she felt her questing stopped, blocked as surely as if a wall had been set in her path. Where her love should be, waiting to be comforted, to comfort, there was nothing.
“Oh goddess,” Tara groaned against a swiftly rising dread.
Willow. What had happened to Willow? The thought that her lover was lost to her, was…gone, was incomprehensible. Panic squeezed Tara’s chest like a giant fist.
No. She told herself.
Not gone, I would know. She took a deep and shaking breath, trying to find some semblance of calm.
I have to get out of here. I have to get to Willow.
“Light,” she called. A whirling, three-lobed wisp glimmered for a moment, but then flared bright and died, leaving her back in the dark before she had a chance to get any sense of her bearings. Tara felt a stab of pain in her temple and gritted her teeth. “Light,” she repeated.
Another bundle of tiny globes appeared, floating in front of her eyes, leaving her wincing against a soft glow that swirled from gold to blue and back again.
“Follow,” she said softly, willing the light to travel the path of the chain. At her bidding the wisp floated upward, illuminating each fat and rusted link of the chain that held her, drifting up toward the ceiling. The light would show her how the chain was held fast, and once she knew, she would use the magics to break that tie. Pain or no pain, somehow she would get free.
* * *
“And the manual labor situation has been handled?” Warren asked, spinning around in an old office chair.
Jonathan winced at the squeal of rusted metal as the chair turned and turned. Andrew seemed oblivious to the unpleasant sound; sitting perched on a rickety wooden stool, as close as he could be to Warren, just outside the range of the kicks he made as he spun around.
“Check, check, and check,” Andrew replied happily. The blond was clutching a legal pad toward his chest, curled over it intently; going over the list of items they would need for the spell.
The spell. Jonathan grimaced. He could still hear Tara’s voice, the ragged desperation as the woman begged him not to leave her in the dark.
“What’s the matter friend? You don’t look happy.”
Jonathan turned to find the Warren-bot standing right next to him, a grin stretching his features disturbingly. The blond hair on the robot’s head was shifted, leaving an odd swath of too-perfect pink skin exposed.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled.
“Are you sure about that?” Warren asked, dropping his feet to drag himself to a halt. He was smiling too, Jonathan had to repress a shudder—the real Warren’s grin was much more disturbing. “Mr. Handsome over there’s right. You’re looking kind of down in the dumps.”
“I’m just concentrating on the spell,” Jonathan replied, gesturing down to the book in his lap.”
“You do that,” Warren said, nodding. “Everything’s gotta go right the first time, no retries, folks.” He kicked off into a quick spin and clapped his hands together. “Transportation?”
“Again, check,” Andrew beamed. “Two-for-one trip there.” He pointed out the tiny, dust crusted window of the abandoned warehouse’s office space. A large black hearse was parked outside the building. “I still don’t know how a funeral parlor could ever go out of business in Sunnydale.”
“Probably all the morticians dying of ‘spontaneous neck ruptures’,” Jonathan drawled, making finger quotes. “Funerals are a tough business when your customers don’t stay dead.”
“And how are we on the spell components to prep the site?” Warren asked, ignoring Jonathan’s comment.
“We have just the right amount for every ingredient,” Andrew chirruped. “So components should not be an issue.” He drew another check on his notepad.
“Shouldn’t be?” Warren said sharply, slamming his feet to the floor.
“Won’t be,” Andrew corrected quickly, flashing a nervous grin. “Won’t be a problem, not at all.”
Jonathan lowered his eyes back down to the spell book in his hands as Warren nodded grimly and began to spin in his chair again. Jonathan stared at the words on the page but couldn’t bear to read them, trying to stave off his sense of complicity as long as he possibly could.
“And you’re sure you’re ready with your part of the preparations?” Warren asked Andrew. “There won’t be any problems with that spell?”
“I’m totally ready,” Andrew said.
There was a thumping sound and Jonathan looked up. The blond had dropped in notebook and was practically bouncing up and down on his seat. He was grinning, blushing under the broad smile that Warren had trained on him. Jonathan swallowed a groan and rolled his eyes, gazing back down at his book.
“It’s easy,” Andrew continued. “So easy, even Jonathan could do it.” He broke into nasal laughter and Warren gave a deep chuckle.
“What about you, little man?” Warren asked. “You ready to go?”
Jonathan slowly looked up to meet Warren’s eye. “I have it under control,” he replied softly. “But the more I look over it the better off we’ll be, so how about letting me get back to that?”
Warren’s eyes narrowed for a moment but then he just laughed again. “Sure thing, sure thing. You get back to that and I,” he said, spinning toward the monitor behind him. “Will get back to this. Hello, Tara-cam,” he said happily. There was a moment’s silence and then the dark-haired man giggled.
Jonathan froze, praying that he hadn’t heard what he thought he’d heard, a weird, high-pitched, childlike little giggle coming from Warren Mears. There was a pause, and then Warren giggled again. Now he was going from creepy to just down right disturbing. Jonathan kept his eyes glued to the book; he didn’t want to see anything that brought Mears such odd pleasure.
“Would you look at that?” Warren said, bemused.
Andrew gave a little gasp and Jonathan couldn’t resist, he glanced at monitor and saw Tara levitating, clenching and stretching her hands, bending and straightening her arms, as an object that flared bright-white on the night vision cameras rolled down the chain she was fastened to.
“She’s impressive, isn’t she?” Warren asked, moving closer to the monitor screen. “That’s got to hurt like the dickens.”
“Shouldn’t we stop her?” Andrew asked.
“Nah,” Warren said, turning toward the blond with a grin. “Let her tire herself out. It’s not like she’s got enough juice to get anywhere.”
Jonathan held up a shaking hand between Warren and Andrew’s faces, point toward the monitor. “Do you mean like that?”
Tara was floating toward the floor; eyes closed and face flawlessly serene. The bright ball of light had vanished as quickly as it appeared. Jonathan tensed, waiting for the inevitable explosion of temper, the cursing, but to his great surprise, Warren just started laughing again.
“See?” He said joyfully, “I told you she was impressive. Andrew, you keep going with the preparation checklist,” Warren said, standing and patting him on the back. “And Jonathan you keep practicing that spell. I’ll be right back.”
Warren stood and moved over to the desk, rummaging around in the bottom drawer until he made a little noise of triumph and pulled out his hand, clutching a thin wafer of metal that he quickly shoved into this pocket. With that done, the dark-haired man walked out of the room, still laughing. As soon as he was out of sight Andrew slumped down on his stool, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.
I’m glad that Warren thinks this is so funny,” he mumbled.
Jonathan was surprised by the tremor in the boy’s voice. “Can I ask you something, Andrew?” He said it quickly, throwing caution to the wind. “Are you really okay with what Warren is planning to do to Tara?”
At Jonathan’s words Andrew sat up ramrod straight, cramming his fists even more tightly under his arms. “Warren knows what he’s doing. If he wants a toy, he’ll have one.” The tall boy’s voice was vicious, laced with bitterness.
“Is that what you really think this is?” Jonathan asked it softly, kindly. He put his book down on the battered desk next to him and walked over to sit in Warren’s abandoned chair. “You’ve seen how he looks at her. You’ve seen the video feed.”
Jonathan reached out a pressed a button, slowly spinning a knob counter-clockwise until he saw what he was looking for. He hit the button again and there was Warren, snarling into Tara’s face, telling her that she would love him.
“Warren doesn’t want her for a toy. This isn’t another stupid game, Andrew.”
Andrew’s face slowly reddened as he stared at the monitor. He turned to look at Jonathan, teary-eyed. “Shut up,” he said dully.
“We can’t just,” Jonathan protested.
“I said shut up!” Andrew hissed hysterically, wide-eyed. “Just stop talking. You have a spell to read.”
Jonathan opened his mouth to protest, and then slowly shut it again. “Yeah, all right,” he said finally, moving back to his chair. “I freaked for a minute. Its just nerves.” Jonathan picked his book back up and held it in front of his face, closing his eyes against a sudden swell of tears. “I'm sure you’re right, Andrew.”
Hidden behind the book, Jonathan didn’t see Andrew mute the monitor and replay the scene of Warren demanding Tara’s love a second time, then a third.
“I'm right,” the blond man said in a small voice.
* * *
Upon realizing that the Ter Sis Animi had truly been invoked in his lifetime, Giles took the Scoobies back through the events of the day, questioning them again and again. He took in the details of Tara’s survival, Buffy’s healing, and Rack’s attack and defeat at Tara’s hands with nods and more questions, punctuated by stretches of stony silence. Buffy, Xander, and Anya told him about the attack of the Araucaria demon, and Tara’s subsequent kidnapping. When he learned the details of the actions Willow had taken in her former life he went haggard and pale, hands trembling. He hid them in his pockets, but not before the red haired witch saw the physical manifestation of his shock, his disappointment.
“What are you thinking about?” Buffy asked softly.
Willow dreaded his answer. The watcher didn’t answer at first, just stared around the shop, but after a moment he nodded.
“Araucaria sap is a rare and very valuable spell component,” he replied to his slayer. “Anya, you should collect as much of it as you can, we’ll need to store it in airtight containers.”
The vengeance demon gave a happy squeak and grabbed a paper bag from behind the counter, tucking the straps over one hand as she ran around picking up chunks of sap with the other.
Buffy’s mouth fell open. “That’s it? We tell you about the return of a legendary rite, about battles and mayhem and kidnappings, and all you’re worried about is the selling price on some chunks of dried up demon blood?”
When Giles spoke again there was no change in his poster or expression, but his voice sounded tired, sounded old. “Buffy, the blood of the Araucaria demon, when mixed with a few other ingredients, becomes a powerful healing salve. I’m hoping, once we find Tara, she’ll be able to use it to help with Willow’s injuries. It should prevent scarring.”
“Oh,” Buffy’s voice was tiny, barely audible over Anya’s happy humming.
“You should thank Giles, Buffy,” the vengeance demon said, grabbing another chunk of the resin. “Now you don’t have to feel guilty for pulling off so much of Willow’s skin.”
Xander opened his mouth; brow furrowed, but didn’t say a word because Buffy laid a gentle hand on his arm, shaking her head.
“Thank you, Giles,” the slayer said sincerely. “I’m glad we can at least help her with that.”
“Of course,” he replied.
“Have to go,” Willow breathed, watching Xander and Dawn bend to work collecting chunks of amber. They made short work of it. In under a minute Anya was stuffing the remains into a large glass jar with a rubberized seal.
“What Will?” Buffy asked, drawing close.
“Tara,” she croaked. “We have to go.” Her eyes drifted shut, breathing quick and reedy.
“She’s right,” Anya said, walking up to them, wringing her hands. She gave Giles a light slap on the arm. “You distracted me with talk of money and profits watcher man. There’s no time for that. We need to go get Tara.”
“Can we move her?” Buffy whispered, nodding toward Willow.
“The Vincere should hold,” Giles murmured in reply. “We’ll have to take the chance, it would be dangerous to leave her in one place for too long. She might…draw things to her power.”
“Told you,” Anya said smugly.
“Congratulations, Anya,” Buffy said sardonically.
Giles never took his eyes off of Willow, staring intently at her slack face as she hung in the air. There was a tightness around his mouth, his eyes, that Buffy hadn’t seen since Jenny Calendar’s funeral.
“What is it?” She asked, taking his arm and pulling him away from Anya and Willow. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Giles gently extracted his arm from Buffy’s hand. “Don’t we have quite enough to be worried about around here?” He whispered. “Not to mention what Anya says that Mears fellow has planned for poor Tara.”
“But that’s not it, is it?” Buffy insisted. “There’s something else.” He stared at her and she sighed. “I can hear your heart pounding, Rupert Giles.” When she spoke again it was around gritted teeth. “Fess up.”
This time Giles reached out for Buffy’s arm, steering her toward the doorway of the Magic Box. He looked over his shoulder told the others that they’d be right back, and then pulled her outside. They stood there in the dark, watching each other, the approaching sunrise just a purple-grey hint on the horizon.
“The Ter Sis Animi is a more powerful magic than we’ve ever encountered before, Buffy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Giles, we’ve—”
“More powerful than the Master, more powerful than Glory, more powerful even than the rite used to return you to the world,” he interrupted. “This is larger than any of us can imagine.”
“And?” Buffy asked, feeling angry at the fear the watcher was pulling up in her, tightening her chest.
“And, if the Ter Sis Animi will only be fulfilled through the debt Willow told Tara of, if Willow must make an act of contrition for those mistakes, the horrible, desperate acts of that other life, then I’m afraid…” The watcher trailed off, closed his eyes.
“What Giles?” Buffy asked, gripping his arm. “Afraid of what?”
He opened his eyes again, grey and woeful. “I'm afraid she wont’ survive it.”
The little blond stared up at her watcher, mouth hanging open. She snapped it closed, shook her head. “No.” She said firmly.
“Buffy—”
“No,” she repeated. “I won’t let that happen. It won’t happen.”
Buffy turned and fled back into the Magic Box. Giles stood there in the darkness, alone, and then sighed and followed after.
* * *
By the time Tara’s feet touched the warehouse floor little needle flares of pain were snaking up the back of her head. She staggered as she ended the levitation, legs rubbery, wincing at the rattle of the chain dragging up through the rafters on the ceiling.
Just the hands, she thought. If she could just open the shackles, then she would be free.
Tara called on her magic ignoring the pain that came with it, because it would be worth it in the end. But before she could begin to work her will, there was a footstep and hands snaked out of the darkness, grabbing her wrists. She whimpered as blood pounded painfully in her hands.
“Aw, did I hurt you, baby?” Warren snapped on a headlamp and leaned out of the darkness, face twisted with amusement. “Or maybe I scared you?” He squeezed her aching arms again and laughed when she bit back a groan. “A little bit of both then?”
Tara pulled away from him, but Mears held fast. He pushed back the shackles as far as they would go up her arm, and she felt cool metal, heard the snap and click, as he closed handcuffs around her, biting into her swollen wrists.
“Very impressive recovery time on the magic use,” he said thoughtfully, giving the cuffs a little tug. “I was surprised how far you got with the chains. And perfect timing too—it saved me having to crank you down.”
She felt his hands move over the shackles and then the chains that had been weighing on her arms slipped away, falling to the floor with a clang. Before Tara had time to react, Mears used the handcuffs to jerk her forward.
“It’s time to go,” he said giddily. “We have places to be.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she growled, pulling back against his grip on the handcuffs.
“It wasn’t a request,” he said, voice cold.
Tara didn’t see his fist moving out of the dark until it was too late to avoid it, wincing as he struck the side of her head.
“And just to make sure you behave—”
The hand he’d struck her with flattened, she could feel something trapped between his palm and her cheek, a cool metal disk that he pressed into the bottom of her jaw.
She cried out at the feeling tiny splinters of metal digging into her skin, of fire crawling up into the bone, moving sluggishly up the side of her face toward her eye.
“You like that?” He asked, she shuddered as he ran a finger around the edge where the strange metallic object adhered to her skin. “I made it just for you. If you try to do magic, that’ll jolt you with enough electricity to knock you right on your ass.”
Tara closed her eyes and whimpered, the burning was in her eye socket now—it felt like her optic nerve was being chewed.
“Too many of those shocks and you’ll start dropping IQ points, and we don’t want that, do we? No we don’t.”
She felt warmth on the side of her face and jerked her head. Mears was trying to pat her, trying to comfort her. She shuddered again uncontrollably, completely repulsed.
When Tara opened her eyes again she caught the anger fading from his face, but when he noticed her watching he smiled brightly.
“It’s okay, that’s okay,” he said, soothingly. “Soon you’ll be the perfect girl. You’re gonna love it.” He laughed. “You’ll love everything I tell you to, including me.” Mears stared at her for a moment, still grinning, and then shook his head. “Oh,” he said thoughtfully, reaching into his pocket with his free hand. “And if you try to run—”
Warren pulled out a gun, pressed the cold metal of the barrel to Tara’s temple. “I will shoot you, right in the head. Let’s see your witch bitch bring you back from that.” He tapped the barrel against her skin with each word he spoke, and then dropped it down to his side. “Yeah.”
Tara stumbled as Mears started walking, dragging her after him. He was pulling her toward a distant doorway, hazy with grey light. For the first time since she’d woken, hanging, Tara wished she could just stay in the dark.
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