Chapter Text
"I don't want to be that person who points out the obvious," Vicki said in a supremely unrepentant tone, "but whether Eleanor's alive or not, your last rescue attempt didn't exactly go well."
"And that one was our problem," Chidi said, "since Kamilah's your sister. I'm not sure this should be our lookout at all."
For a moment, Tahani saw red. "She got taken with me! I'm the Slayer! This is my job!"
She only realized she'd been manipulated when she saw Chidi's slight smile, the approval in his expression. "Yes, well done, you've nagged me into caring," she said. "But Eleanor might be dead. And all I saw was -" A corpse. It'd been horrible, deliberately so, Tahani thought. "She's really powerful," Tahani said. "And I don't know what she'd want with Eleanor."
"Wow," Vicki said. "Seriously?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Vicki snorted. "Okay, yeah, sure. Pull the other one."
"No, seriously," Chidi said. "No one here understands what you're trying to say."
"I thought you'd all just gone along with it, so it wouldn't be weird. I figured she'd asked you to."
"Seriously, what are you talking about?" Tahani said. "Eleanor's just some random asshole. The problem is that the necromancer knows she's -" Important to me. Yikes. "- close to a Slayer."
Vicki rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh. Let me assure you, Eleanor of the Oaks, three thousand year old vampire of legendary power, is not 'some random asshole'."
"Oh, my God," Chidi said faintly.
"What does that mean?" Vicki's words sank in. "Wait, three thousand years old? That can't be true."
"I assure you, it is," Vicki said. "That's also the last time I was in your stinking dimension, and she's just like I remember. Well, angstier."
"She acts like an adolescent!"
"Yeah, like I said," Vicki said. "Angst."
"That can't be true," Tahani said again. She'd repeat it until Vicki admitted she was lying. She was right, she knew. She had to be.
"Tahani," Chidi said. "It might be."
"Might be? That's no way to talk about someone who's had her fingers in your -"
"How do you know?" Tahani said, before Vicki could finish and traumatize her permanently.
Chidi made a face, but said, "Eleanor of the Oaks is a well known character in Slayer mythology. She tried to kill two slayers for invading her territory in Hungary way back in 1100."
"Eleven hundred."
"She was pretty old by then, already known to us."
"Did they...I mean. Her territory?"
"Absorbed into Győr some time ago. She evaded capture."
Tahani knew the history of the Slayers well enough to be familiar with the old, somewhat more warlike ways. It still sent a shiver through her to think of one of her predecessors driving an innocent woman out -
No, not an innocent woman! A vampire. An evil, murderous vampire. "I thought vampires that old got all, you know." She waved at the face to indicate deformed ugliness. "Weird."
"Like the Master, you mean? Sometimes they do. Eleanor of the Oaks was rumored to be a witch, and she avoided a lot of the darker stuff the Master was known for."
"Avoids," Tahani said. "Present tense. She's alive, and we're going to get her back."
"I should really back away from this," Vicki said, staring into space. "Like, no dick is worth this. No offense, Chidi."
"Don't worry, I very much agree."
"I could call my sister, she's probably still got a sweet job as a torturer. They still torture people, right?"
"Um," Tahani said. "It's against the Geneva convention."
"Ha! Humans. I love you." She finally looked down, then, her gaze passing between Chidi and Tahani. "Oh, look at that face. That longing, the naked pain." She touched Chidi's cheek.
Tahani did her best not to gag, but honestly: how ridiculous. Chidi wasn't even crying.
"All right, you pulled my arm," Vicki said. "I'm on Team Rescue, or whatever."
She only saw it for a moment before Chidi locked his expression down: a cheery, contented fondness, affection that extended beyond Vicki's transparent attempts to portray this as a torrid, sex-only affair.
Oh, Tahani thought. Oh. Her chest felt oddly constricted. Yet of course she was happy for Chidi. Of course. He deserved to be happy, even if the thought sent a poisonous thought through her, whispering in a tone that vaguely resembled Eleanor's voice: no one deserved to be happy, not really. The world didn't hand out happiness in exchange for good deeds.
No, Tahani thought, pushing back at the invisible toxin. Chidi deserved happiness! He really did.
The universe, or Eleanor, or her own conscience, provided no answer. So she forced a smile and tuned back into the conversation.
"- want to tell your sister?"
"Sorry?"
Chidi gave her the Look of a teacher who knew when his student wasn't listening. "Do you want to tell your sister to fly back home?"
"She's determined to see it through." And Tahani felt a kneejerk kind of defensiveness at the idea that she might not. Sisterly loyalty, now that was really new.
"If she finds out we're dealing with at least once ancient witch who's also a vampire, she might change her mind."
"He's saying get out so I can sit on his dick," Vicki said.
"This is my room!" Tahani howled. But Vicki was taking her bra off, and while Chidi's sense of duty and decorum hadn't entirely deserted him, it clearly wasn't as strong as it could be.
Demons! They ruined everything. Tahani stomped out, trying not to feel too grateful for the momentary distraction from whether or not Eleanor was even still alive.
She found Kamilah sitting on her bed, legs crossed, meditating. There was no doubt as to her activity; she was tediously obvious about it, wearing flowy silks and crossing her legs, holding her fingers at an affected angle. Tahani poked her and said, "Don't pretend I'm just a mote of dust in your mind, or anything. I know you can hear me."
Kamilah cracked one eye open. "Eleanor's been taken."
Her room shared a wall with Tahani's own; there was no reason to assume clairvoyance had led her to that conclusion. "So she has."
"By...the necromancer."
"Whose identity and location remain secret, yes. Chidi says I'm to -"
"Try to send me back to London. I know." Kamilah closed her eye. "I won't do it."
"That's what I said."
"I know."
"You're not making this very easy!"
"I know that, too." Kamilah sighed, then opened both eyes. "Tahani, I can't leave. I'm tangled up in this. If she can kidnap an ancient vampire, she can dispose of me, too."
"Okay, now I know you were eavesdropping."
Once, Tahani had flown into a fury to see the kind of smile Kamilah wore now, sly and self-satisfied. It barely signified just then. "Magically, though."
"That's impressive." She was a little surprised to realize she meant it. "So you're going to stay and help?"
"If you'll have me."
And oh, she meant that, and it hurt. Neither of them had been raised to abandon family. Tahani had done more of the abandonment than she really wanted to admit. "Of course."
Kamilah rose with enviable grace - and Tahani, naturally, did envy it. But for once, the envy was distant to other, more urgent emotions. Like - oh, God. Eleanor had been taken. Eleanor might be dead!
"Tahani? Tahani," Kamilah said with no minor urgency.
And then Tahani appalled them both by bursting into tears.
"There, there," Kamilah said, awkwardly poking Tahani's shoulder. "I don't...is this...? Don't cry. Please, really, it's very - ah. There, there."
"I thought she was - she could've been a friend!" More than a friend. No, that wasn't a thought to share. "And now she's probably dead, or being tor - tor - tortured!"
"It's unlikely she's dead this early on," Kamilah said, which of course wasn't comforting at all. "And she's smart, anyway, and - what's that on your wrist?"
Much too late, Tahani realized that the wounds Eleanor had left - and that she herself had made - weren't quite healed. Vampire bite marks were distinctive, and there was no pretending this one had any other origin. "It's not what it looks like."
"We can leave her to the necromancer, then," Kamilah said in a high, furious voice. "I can see she deserves it."
"Are you being protective?"
"I'm capable of it, you know, Tahani."
"That's not the point!" She had to focus. "Something attacked - I should have realized it was a trap. I offered her my blood, because she was bleeding out after protecting me."
"You're the Slayer." Patent disbelief, now. "You don't need protecting."
It would have been utterly ridiculous for that to hurt her, so Tahani didn't let it. She said, "From this, I did, apparently. But it wasn't coercion. I offered."
"Moon and stars," Kamilah said. "You love her."
"I - what! That's preposterous. I don't - I wouldn't - she might be dead!"
"You can love the dead."
Tahani didn't say the first three insensitive things that came to mind at that. Instead, she shook her head. "We don't have time for this. I don't even know how we're going to find her."
"Ah," Kamilah said. Her eyes gleamed with subterfuge, then, and Tahani felt concern curl around her. "Now, see, about that. You've given us an opportunity."
-
Blood magic.
Tahani knew what the Watcher's Council would say, were any of them to lower themselves to come to Atlanta in person. They'd screech and wail about probably threaten all four of them with death or imprisonment. The Council liked to play at somber generational responsibility, but Tahani had grown up in the finest schools Europe had to offer: she knew buttoned-down hysteria when she saw it.
Fortunately for them and fortunately for the Council's collective blood pressure readings, they did this work alone. Or, rather, Kamilah did the work. She set up the circle and ordered Chidi and Vicki to stay out of it. She had to re-open Tahani's wound to smear a few drops of blood on a quartz crystal, but after that she didn't so much as glance at Tahani as she finished her preparations, burning herbs and sprinkling grave dirt around. Finally, she settled in the center of her magical circle, opened a book, closed her eyes -
Ignored Vicki's derisive snort -
And began to chant.
Kamilah had learned Latin in school. Tahani had meant to, but it had fallen by the wayside as she'd grown older. She felt a boob, standing there and watching her sister work. The crystal beginning to glow was a welcome distraction from that old, too-familiar feeling of itchy inadequacy.
Kamilah opened her eyes. For a moment they were utterly black. Then she blinked and said, "She's north of here, in a town called Mardle Beach."
"Myrtle Beach," Vicki said. "I killed, like, six CEOs in that town."
"It's an area known to the Council as possessing high levels of demonic activity." Chidi nodded. "And it's by a large body of water, which of course a necromancer would find useful."
"Any witch would." Kamilah smiled. It looked more like baring her teeth.
Tahani cleared her throat. "Right, then," she said, trying to sound both upbeat and in charge - which she was! She was the Slayer! "Shall we drive there, or do you think the Council will spring for a flight?"
"Drive," Kamilah said.
"I'm actually not sure we should tell the Council we're doing this."
"Chidi!" Tahani put a hand to her chest, feeling as though a horse had kicked her. "You're advocating lying? To authority figures?"
It could have passed for a joke, perhaps, but she didn't mean it as one and knew Chidi was aware of that. He said, "To get someone important back. You've already lost too much," and every word pressed into Tahani's chest like a block of stone.
Kamilah and Vicki, she noticed, weren't looking at them anymore.
Three years ago he never would've done this. Tahani could have raged at him and he would have been immovable. She'd been worrying lately that Vicki had changed him; perhaps she'd ignored the ways she herself had done so.
"Thank you," she said. "I suppose we'll drive."
"Great, 'cause I stole a car yesterday, and the owner won't be filing a police report anytime soon," Vicki said.
Tahani groaned, Chidi winced, and they all dispersed to pack.
Myrtle Beach was as distracting and sleazy as Vicki had promised. Tahani found herself perversely glad for it: every tourist trap theatre and culturally appropriative store they passed sparked a moment of feeling, revulsion or annoyance or fascination, that distracted her from her awareness of how much time had passed since the necromancer had taken Eleanor. Kamilah had been of the opinion that the extra time driving wouldn't imperil her; "Either she's being kept alive for a reason or she's already dead," she'd said, and Tahani had itched to slap her but known she'd been right. Consequently, it had been nearly twenty hours by the time they pulled into the parking lot of the hotel that Kamilah pointed them to.
Or, more accurately, motel. "A Holiday Inn on the beach for a necromancer?" Tahani said. "Seriously?"
Kamilah shrugged and held up her quartz. It gleamed bright white, the light broken only by smears of Tahani's blood. "No accounting for taste."
"Enough rich bitch bullshit," Vicki said. "Let's get this over with."
Chidi cleared his throat. "Reconnaissance might be a good idea, at this stage."
"I'm unremarkably human," Kamilah said. "I could go."
"Tahani?" Chidi said.
She realized then that they were all looking at her. Oh, Vicki looked about as inclined to follow her orders as she might be to open up an orphanage and swear her life to pacifism, but still, she held back. Slayers had always been meant to be leaders, but before the Sunnydale cataclysm, Tahani had never been meant to be a leader. The magic probably would had passed her over, had it passed merely from one girl to another. She was keenly aware of that.
And yet. She was still, in this moment, a Slayer. The Slayer, at least municipally.
"I'll go," she said. "Alone. You all will stay out here, waiting for my successful exit. If I don't make it, then attack. I want Vicki at the front; she can absorb the most damage."
The sea breeze ruffled Kamilah's hair as she nodded. The scent of old Italian food drifted in from the Olive Garden across the street.
"Right." She had no more to say. "I suppose we'd better do this, then."
A Holiday Inn was not exactly fortified against reconnaissance. She got in easily. Kamilah had given her the crystal, which glowed more and more insistently as she made her way towards the far end of the hotel, facing the beach.
She tried not to think of Eleanor. She tried, specifically, not to think of what she might do, if she found the necromancer and Eleanor had been dusted.
When she got to the sixth floor, the crystal began to vibrate. It glowed so brightly that Tahani had to tuck it in her pocket. The building's floor plan was a simple, boring rectangle, with closed doors. Anything could be behind them.
Please, Tahani thought, please let Eleanor be in here somewhere.
She paced down the hall first, then doubled back. At first her Slayer sense lay dormant, but then her eyes drifted down to a sliver of light under Room 781, and she felt the tingling in the back of her neck - barely there, a whisper of a sense, but a sense nonetheless. There was a vampire behind that door.
Reconnaissance. She should go back and tell Chidi, go in with backup.
But what if Eleanor was in there? What if she was dying?
She lifted the crystal out of her pocket and said, very quietly, "Kamilah, if you can hear me: room 781." She dropped it back in her pocket and squared her shoulders.
The door opened. A woman stood there, young and white, eyes glinting with malice. "Tahani. Slayer. So glad you could make it."
Tahani pulled a knife. The woman didn't look surprised, didn't even look worried; she held up a hand and said, "Not so fast, dear. If you hurt me, she dies."
Tahani knew what she'd see even before the necromancer stepped aside. Eleanor hung in the center of the room, illuminated by magic - and protected, too, for the blinds were open and morning sunshine streamed in, glinting off the ocean.
"She'd go up like so much tinder if I dropped this spell," the necromancer said. "The very old, you know, are quite sensitive to sunlight."
Eleanor had tracked her down by hiding under a blanket. She couldn't be that sensitive.
"Cat got your tongue?"
Tahani had to clear her throat before she could be confident of speaking without also squeaking. "I'm just not sure what you want me to say."
"Beg me for her life," said the necromancer with terrible precision.
Tahani's heart didn't stop. But it - skipped, perhaps, and for a moment she was back at the charity benefit, young and utterly ignorant of how easy it was to pull a spine from a human body. "Why? Just tell me why."
"You love her." The necromancer shrugged in a single elegant movement. "And I loathe her, so I think it would be funny."
"Why do you loathe her?"
"What do you think you stand to gain by keeping me talking?"
Chidi and Vicki might run in. Then again, they might not.
The necromancer laughed softly. "No one is coming to save you, Tahani. I'd have thought you'd be used to that by now."
Tahani opened her mouth to argue, or shout for help, or - something. She'd never know what she intended to do, because in the time it took her to take a breath, the necromancer cast a spell.
It slid over her skin like oil on a puddle, and suffocated her at least as effectively. Her feet lifted in the air; she couldn't move to fight it as the spell rendered her supine, moving her over right next to Eleanor.
Eleanor. What kind of spell worked on a Slayer and a vampire exactly the same?
"The sort worked with incredible power, my dear," said the necromancer.
The world went dark.
-
"...just saying, it totally counts as a margarita, even if there's blood in it." Eleanor looked over at Tahani, who'd appeared at the bar next to her. "Hey there, gorgeous. What's a hot little thing like you doing in a place like this?"
Tahani blinked and took a moment to absorb it all: they were at some kind of demonic dive bar, resplendent with fake palm trees and vampires even more clearly drunk than Eleanor was. And then of course there was Eleanor, looking rougher than she had before, exhausted and sallow even by vampire standards.
Oh, yes, and drunk. Very, very drunk.
"I said, what's a hot little piece of very human ass like you doing in a dive like this?" Eleanor waved at the bartender, who plunked a margarita in front of Tahani.
"I'm not that human," Tahani said, and took a sip.
Eleanor eyed her lecherously. "Yeah, I bet."
"Also, we know each other. Or we should, anyway." Tahani hadn't known this kind of bar existed in Atlanta. Were they in Atlanta? They were here for...Kamilah, something to do with Kamilah. Tahani frowned at her drink as the details escaped her. Maybe being a Slayer meant you went senile early?
"I definitely don't know you. Wow. Believe me when I say I'd remember someone like you."
"Yes, well." She shouldn't be flattered by that kind of statement, she knew. She just couldn't...quite...recall why. "Your face is familiar to me."
"Maybe we met in a dream," Eleanor said, and winked.
Oh dear. Tahani really wanted to do something about that wink. More specifically, she wanted to grab Eleanor by the hair, force her mouth down, and fuck her until she begged.
She was quite certain she said none of that out loud, but Eleanor laughed in boisterous delight anyway. "I like you," Eleanor said. Her eyes locked with Tahani's, and - oh, Tahani thought. She looked quite compelling, Eleanor, alive and alight with interest that Tahani could now realize she'd never seen in Eleanor's eyes before.
Before. She'd been busy. She was -
Holding Eleanor's hand as she pulled Tahani back into a VIP room, offering her throat to Eleanor and gasping when Eleanor bypassed it in favor of nipping at Tahani's collarbone, playing with her tits.
It was so good, almost impossibly good. But Tahani's mind skittered away from that as soon as she'd thought it. It wasn't too good, it was perfect; Eleanor was here and hers, staring at her with love and respect in her eyes, pressing a thumb against Tahani's clit -
Wait. Love and respect?
Tahani, whispered her sister. Remember.
At first her only thought was irritation: how dare Kamilah try to boss her around here, as she was having sex with an alcoholic vampire of her vague acquaintance! Then sense caught up with her, and she remembered the necromancer, Eleanor's coma, and her own extremely tenuous existence.
She'd have hoped to be immediately jolted out of her trance, if she had thought about it. She would have been sorely disappointed. The moment a shred of awareness came to her mind, it was obliterated by screaming, horrific pain. The necromancer knew her mental state, and was punishing her.
It took her a moment to realize Eleanor was fighting her. "We had a deal!" Eleanor screamed. She'd backed away from Tahani; she stood braced against the far wall of the false VIP room, staring at the ceiling with fury in her expression. "Torturing my - torturing the Slayer was not part of it!"
"She broke the rules," said a terrible, distorted, disembodied voice.
"Fuck the rules!" Eleanor shouted.
Bad move, Tahani could've told her. They were immediately launched back into the maelstrom.
-
"Ugh, I can't believe I let you pick out these ridiculous Pottery Barn curtains." Eleanor took a sip of her mimosa. "It's so cute in here, I want to barf."
Tahani looked at the curtains. They were covered in flowers and birds, fluttering in the breeze and letting in dappled sunshine. Outside, their clothes were hanging to dry; she'd have to remember to take them in before the afternoon, she thought, and pricked the perfectly poached egg on her plate. "I like them," she said.
She did. The filtered sun lit up Eleanor's hair perfectly.
"Oh, whatever. This is good, though." Eleanor waved a triangle of yolk-soaked toast. "Soon you'll have me gardening."
Tahani couldn't help but smile. "You've been quite easy to domesticate."
"Ha fucking ha. You'll say that until I tell Gertie down the street to shove her oxygen tank straight up her ass."
It was such a crass thing to say, yet Tahani found herself laughing anyway. She loved when Eleanor got like this, all sharp and arch, purely to amuse Tahani. The hostility that Tahani remembered from her early acquaintance with Eleanor had mostly faded over time, leaving only a wit that Tahani found both attractive and amusing.
"We're trapped here," Eleanor said, and for a moment flames licked over her cheek.
Tahani blinked. "Sorry?"
"I said, I'm stuck here." She tapped her toast. "You made way too much food, dude."
"I'm not a dude."
"I just like making you go all English." Eleanor smiled.
Tahani smiled back, but a thread of nervousness had lodged itself in her. She blinked - and for a moment saw Eleanor's face, rotting, worms crawling out of her eye sockets.
"Tahani!" Eleanor's hands on Tahani's wrists made her realize she'd jumped up, backing away from the vision. But when she focused again it was only Eleanor standing in front of her, face and - oh God - eyes intact.
"What's going on with you?" Eleanor said.
"You're not..." She looked down at Eleanor. Breath, life. This wasn't right. Eleanor was a vampire, she couldn't be here. And that warm concern in her eyes, while flattering, was nothing like what the Eleanor Tahani knew would look like.
And Eleanor, her Eleanor, was not strong enough to hold Tahani like this. Tahani herself was a Slayer.
Everything about this was wrong.
Tahani broke fake-Eleanor's grip, throwing her across the room. The sunlight turned dark immediately, and wind howled through the open windows. The too-perfect curtains snapped menacingly, and the thing that wasn't Eleanor smiled, its eyes rolling back in its head.
"What tipped you off?"
"Why should I tell you?" Tahani retorted. She grabbed the table, testing her strength.
The necromancer cannot hold you if you do not let her, Kamilah whispered in her mind.
Right, then. Tahani knew she could've thrown the table in real life. The knowledge gave her strength; she felt it run through her veins, incalculable. She lifted the table and threw it straight at the fake Eleanor.
Hold her, Kamilah whispered. I've almost got her.
"How'd you do it?" Tahani said. She advanced on the necromancer, whirled when she disappeared, grabbed a kitchen knife and threw it. She disappeared again, of course, but more slowly this time, reappearing a few feet away.
So much stolen life, she had. So much stolen time. But Tahani would not tolerate her theft any longer.
She leaped forward and, when the necromancer disappeared, twisted her body, kicking off the wall and grabbing at empty air. Right before her fingers closed on nothing, the necromancer appeared in the empty space. They went crashing to the floor. Worms and beetles crawled out of the necromancer's body, attacking Tahani - but this was a dream, and Tahani felt no confusion this time, no hesitation. She got her hands around the necromancer's neck and squeezed.
"Bitch," the necromancer hissed.
"Likewise," Tahani said, and concentrated.
Magic gathered in the room. She felt it against her neck, under her fingers. Don't let up, Kamilah said. I can't draw her out, otherwise.
The imaginary world faded around them. Tahani didn't allow her grip to slacken, not even when the hotel room reappeared and she discovered, as she inhaled the newly salty air, that she really was holding onto a semi-rotting corpse.
"I was going to jump soon anyway," the necromancer said. "Maybe I'll put myself into your love, and drink your blood once I'm done."
Lightning flashed outside - and then jumped inside. Kamilah. Tahani braced herself, glaring down at the necromancer.
"What's wrong?" the necromancer said. "Worm got your tongue?"
A beetle landed on her hair. Oh God, she'd always hated bugs - but that was the point of this. She would not give in. She would not give in. She would not -
The door behind her burst open. Vicki shouted, "Bedtime, bitch!"
Chidi said, "That's inappropriate."
And in Tahani's mind, Kamilah roared, BEGONE.
The magic swirled all around them, locking onto the necromancer. Tahani punched her once, then twice, then kicked her across the room, past Eleanor's still-unconscious floating body.
She could tell the moment it worked, because the necromancer screamed, and her body began to liquefy, a disgusting process that Tahani couldn't quite look away from. Then every bit of the body disappeared, and Eleanor dropped to the floor.
"Tahani," Chidi said, "are you -"
"Wait," Tahani said. "I'm fine, I -" she half-hopped, half-crawled over to Eleanor. The necromancer had weakened her somehow: it took effort to roll Eleanor's body over.
How could you test for life in a vampire? She looked up at Vicki. "Can you - is she alive?"
"She's a vampire, so no," Vicki said. "But no. I can't tell."
"Tahani," Chidi said again, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"No." She barely recognized her own voice; it felt as though she'd pulled it from the depths of fury that she hadn't even realized she carried. "She's going to be okay. She has to be."
"I know." Chidi held out his other hand. A small pocketknife rested in his palm. "I'm pretty sure this is one way to wake her up."
"Kinky," Vicki said.
Tahani ignored her, taking the knife and cutting her own wrist, hovering it over Eleanor's face. When she didn't so much as twitch, Tahani pressed Eleanor's jaw open and let her blood drip directly into Eleanor's mouth.
Nothing for one, two, three horrible breaths. And then...
Eleanor coughed, arched her back, moaned, and latched onto Tahani's wrist.
It wasn't as sexual this time. Tahani was desperately afraid, for one, and also Chidi stood not a meter away. But it was something, electrifying her and filling her with impossible relief as Eleanor leaned back and, finally, opened her eyes.
"You came," she said, eyes flickering between the three of them. "That was very, very stupid."
"The necromancer's dead."
"You sure about that? She's powerful. From -"
"Centuries ago, yes, she told me," Tahani said. "We killed her. Myself and Kamilah."
"Teamwork. Nice." Eleanor tried to sit up; when her elbows buckled, Tahani was there to catch her, hauling her upright and holding her close.
For safety. Obviously.
"She separated us," Eleanor said, glancing at Tahani. "I guess you'll want a report on that."
Chidi nodded. "If you feel up to giving it, that would be very helpful. The Council had no idea this person existed, which for a magic user of her caliber is a concern."
"Thank you," Eleanor said. "All of you."
"I'm just here for the strippers," Vicki said. "Speaking of which, Chidi, are we done here? Please say yes. There's this place by the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum that I want to try."
Tahani closed her eyes, counted to ten, and opened them again. Chidi looked decidedly chagrined, but also...caught. Amused.
Well. Tahani could feel her blood singing with need; her wrist still tingled from Eleanor's touch. She could hardly throw stones in the 'seduced by evil' category. "Go," she said. "Let Kamilah know we've done it. I can get Eleanor back to our hotel."
"It's daylight," Eleanor said.
"Afternoon," Tahani said. "We'll work something out." She didn't want to actually tell any of them that she needed time alone with Eleanor, but she suspected Chidi realized it anyway; he gave her one of his 'we'll talk about this later' looks, then led Vicki out of the room.
"That's so much to take in," Eleanor said. "Do you think he lets her tie him up? Historically, that's what she's into."
"I don't know, and I don't want to know." Tahani surveyed the room. For all that the necromancer had been a disgusting rotting corpse, the room itself had been kept clean. She didn't see any body parts or vials of blood or anything.
"She was very tidy," Eleanor said, as though she could still read Tahani's mind. "You won't find anything in the drawers, either."
It took a moment for the implications to sink in. "She kept you awake."
"For part of it. She wanted me to know it was her. Once I started figuring out her game, though, she had to put me under." Eleanor smiled brittlely. "Don't want your pet vampire to escape before you've finished sucking her life force from her."
Tahani couldn't help herself then. She reached out because she felt she had to, touched Eleanor's face with shaking fingers. When Eleanor didn't move away, she leaned in; when Eleanor didn't make a crude joke, she brought their lips together.
If she'd thought about it, she would have anticipated a desperate, crude kind of kiss, appropriate for two people who'd almost died. Instead, they both moved slowly, carefully. Tahani could feel Eleanor thrumming with power; her Slayer-sense was going nuts, screaming at her her that there was a vampire in the room. None of that mattered as much as the way Eleanor carefully stroked her hair, the ease with which she lowered Tahani to the floor. They traded slow, wet kisses, lazily open-mouthed, dizzyingly good barely-there touches anywhere they could reach.
By the time they pulled away from each other, Tahani's heart was pounding desperately. Eleanor said, "Not that I wouldn't love to get this bitch back by fucking in her hotel room, but -"
"Morbid," Tahani said. "Very, very morbid."
"I was going to say, there's definitely not a dildo here," Eleanor said. "But that other thing too." She leaned down and kissed Tahani again, harder this time: a promise, not a benediction. "Let's go."
-
In the end they fucked against the wall, wild, desperate, then again in bed. Tahani got Eleanor bent over, on her hands and knees, begging for more as Tahani fingered her, screaming into a pillow when Tahani fucked her. When they collapsed on the bed, Tahani slick with sweat, Eleanor boneless and sated, Tahani couldn't think of a single thing to say.
So she kept quiet. She stroked Eleanor's hair, and when she needed to, she slept.
The next several days were too full of work to think about the future. The Council, upon learning of the necromancer's existence, insisted on flying several employees out for a full forensic examination of the hotel room, as well as interviews of Tahani and Eleanor. Tahani only just managed to talk Eleanor out of lying to them, and in the process embarrassed herself. She said, "If you want to be with me, you're going to have to get used to talking to them," and Eleanor had stared at her in disbelief until Tahani'd all but run away.
And then of course there was Kamilah. She and Tahani were very successfully Not Talking About It, until the night when Tahani found Kamilah screaming in her adjoining hotel room. Then, she'd stood guard over her, and felt something akin to sisterly love when her presence made Kamilah actually sleep.
Everything was complicated and exhausting. Such was the life of a Slayer. She didn't see Eleanor again for days. When she finally got some spare time, she went to ask Chidi if he knew where she'd gone, only to find Vicki there instead. "Chidi's off going over some test results. Your necromancer left quite the magical signature behind, apparently."
"Have you seen Eleanor?"
"Oh, yeah, she split town so she wouldn't have to talk to the Watchers."
Tahani felt her mouth fall open. She clapped her hands to it, fighting back the tears that suddenly, violently threatened to erupt.
"Whoa, whoa, okay, I was kidding. Jeez. She's still here, she's with Chidi, giving them background on the necromancer. And herself, I think. She must seriously love you if she's doing that, revealing herself after all these centuries."
Tahani had spent quite a lot of time these past few days feeling ill used and betrayed. It had been almost as bad as when she'd first been called, when she spent hours resenting her destiny and trying, and failing, to hold onto her other life.
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "I don't see why you'd care."
"I'm old as balls. I like when people surprise me." Vicki shrugged. "I have her number. I can tell her you're looking for her."
It hadn't even occurred to Tahani that Eleanor might be waiting for her to reach out. "Yes. Please do."
"Cool. Now scram, unless you wanna do molly with me? Chidi won't be back for hours."
Tahani thought she did an all right job at concealing her horror at Vicki's choices. Back in her room, alone, she did what exercise she could in the small space, then meditated.
The scent of death, the terror of a shifting, magically constructed world - no.
Eleanor's smile, Eleanor's scent. A future of fighting, yes, but not alone. She'd never get the Pottery Barn curtains, but she would get the real Eleanor, her Eleanor.
Hopefully.
She managed to sink into meditation eventually, wrapping what calm she could around herself. She listened to her own breath, then the sounds of the hotel, then the distant noises of the ocean. Her heartbeat slowed and her breathing evened out.
"Wow, you're nippin' out."
What did it say about her that hearing those words sent a surge of affection through her? She opened her eyes to see Eleanor leaning against the door frame, looking considerably healthier than Tahani had last seen her.
"Vicki told me you were looking for me. About time."
Tahani attempted to say hello. All that came out was a kind of sad croak.
"Uh-huh." Eleanor meandered into the room, doing a loose circuit, looking at the walls and the nightside table - looking, Tahani realized, for any indication that the room wasn't real.
"I've been having trouble sleeping," she managed to say. "But I'm pretty sure this is the real world."
Eleanor's dismissive tut didn't quite manage to be convincing. "Sure. So." She turned back to Tahani. "Here I am."
"I'm in love with you."
Oh dear. Oh, oh dear. That wasn't what she'd intended to say at all. She'd meant to build up to it, ask Eleanor out to dinner, take her back here...fabricate a reason for her to travel with them, then maybe in a year or two work her way up to actually saying it.
Eleanor took one look at her and laughed. "No, but seriously. If you want to bone down, you can just say it."
Tahani felt like she might be sick. "I really did mean it, though."
Eleanor stared at her, expression wiped clean. She whirled around and examined the room again, glaring at the walls before shouting, "This isn't funny! When I get out of here, I'm going to find whatever you left behind and rip it to pieces!"
"It's really me." Tahani stood, walking towards Eleanor before she could think better of it. "I mean, really and truly. You can forget about the love thing. I don't care." She did. She was only a coward, and the panicked look on Eleanor's face made her think that Eleanor might bolt at any moment.
Eleanor laughed, high and almost unhinged-sounding. "You can't have it both ways, fake-Tahani. Either you care, because you're in love with me, or you're just another bullshit facsimile - and you should know you can't drive me crazy by now, you callous bitch."
By now? How many times had the necromancer tried? But Tahani couldn't waste time right now with wondering about such things. If Eleanor left, Tahani felt desperately sure she'd never see her again: Eleanor would bolt, and the shaky whatever-it-was that lay between them would amount to nothing. Maybe Eleanor would have a drink in Tahani's honor when a vampire finally managed to take her out.
Tahani had never been brave. When she'd had her previous, normal life, she'd felt her heart jump in her throat a hundred times an hour, whether she was introducing her good friend Beyoncé to her other good friend Paul, or standing on a stage auctioning off time with her sister, or watching her quarterly fundraising totals come back from the accountant. She'd always opted for the safe option, and becoming a Slayer hadn't changed that. She ducked away from danger. She always tried to find the less suicidal option. Chidi had given her diaries of Slayers who'd gone out in impossible blazes of glory; Tahani couldn't identify with any of them. She'd nearly run away from her destiny so many times.
This was smaller, technically. If Tahani ran away from Eleanor, the world wouldn't end. It only felt like it might.
"I'm real," Tahani said. "And I do care. I just think I'd settle for almost anything, if it was enough to convince you to stay."
Eleanor wavered. Only for a second, barely a blink of an eye's worth, but Tahani saw it. "That just makes you pathetic."
"Maybe." Tahani stepped forward. When Eleanor didn't back up again, she did it again, bringing them toe to toe. "For you, you see. Maybe." And she kissed her.
It was slow this time. Eleanor's hand shook against Tahani's face, and for a moment Tahani braced herself, waiting for some form of violence. But none came. Eleanor stepped back against the hotel wall, and Tahani followed, tilting Eleanor's head back, kissing her deeply. She felt cool to the touch, odd and nervy, absolutely perfect. When she pushed Eleanor's blouse aside, Eleanor snorted a laugh and pulled her shirt off entirely.
She wasn't wearing a bra. She was so beautiful that Tahani could only stare for a moment. When Eleanor said, "I can do this myself, you know," and cupped her breasts in both hands, Tahani couldn't help it: she kissed her, too hard, bruising them both in her desperation.
"Oh, God," Eleanor said. She muttered something then - Tahani didn't understand the language, and didn't much care. She got the gist of it from the way Eleanor ground her hips into Tahani. She was still moving slowly, much more careful than any time they'd done this before, but there was nothing casual or hesitant in the way she curled her fingers into Tahani's jaw.
There was something so reckless about this. She tugged Eleanor's hair and almost lost her coherency when Eleanor gasped in response, going weak against her. "Yes," she hissed. She didn't quite shift, didn't vamp out, but there was something there - intense and feral, needier than Tahani had ever seen her.
"Drop to your knees," Tahani said in a low voice that she scarcely recognized.
Eleanor obeyed immediately, beautifully, bowing her head and pulling Tahani's pants down. She had scarcely any room, against a wall as she was, but she made it work. She slipped her fingers inside Tahani, kissed her thigh, scraped with blunt human teeth until the thought of something more, sharper, made Tahani cry out.
And, God, she could barely think. She splayed a hand on the wall and delegated her physical responses to whatever part of her mind usually kept her alive during a fight.
She'd never thought about what vampires could accomplish before, not needing to breathe. Deep sea diving, perhaps. Exploring abandoned mines. And then this, Eleanor pressing her tongue against Tahani's clit, sucking and licking as though she'd never tire.
Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she'd keep going until Tahani wept, until she begged, back away and take her over the edge over and over until she couldn't even think.
"Atta girl," Eleanor muttered, digging sharp nails into the back of Tahani's thighs.
She went over the edge with a shudder, liquid heat running down her spine. She could feel herself fluttering around Eleanor's hand, but it wasn't enough, damn it, so she hauled Eleanor up and all but threw her in the bed.
She covered Eleanor's laugh with her mouth, tasting herself against briefly sharp incisors. That was Eleanor losing control. It should have terrified her; instead, she rolled them, getting Eleanor on top of her, disheveled and gorgeous.
And of course it was partially because Eleanor was letting her, but Tahani found it easy to lift Eleanor up, to bring her down on Tahani's own fingers. She was easy to stretch, wet and ready, and when Tahani curled her fingers, Eleanor moaned.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck me," she said, moving her hips, playing with her own tits. She practically glowed in the weak yellow security lights, and - weird kink, Tahani told herself, but there it was: she was so beautiful, and Tahani wanted to see her come.
She turned her head and bit Eleanor's leg, fucking her fingers into Eleanor so hard she almost lifted her off the bed. She had good instincts, it seemed, because Eleanor came violently, so slick that Tahani's fingers were soaked, clenching around her, unbelievably tight.
She'd had plans. They fell by the wayside. Eleanor sank down and kissed her messily, and when Tahani saw that she'd changed, saw her fangs -
"Sorry," Eleanor said.
"You're not."
Eleanor grinned. It looked ghoulish and, oh, fine: incredibly dear. "I'm not."
"Bite me."
"Ha, you first."
Damn it! "No," Tahani said, "I meant -" She put a hand behind Eleanor's head, guiding it down to her neck, tilting her own jaw back so there was more room. "Please."
"Seriously? I completely lost control before. You really want me to?"
"I trust you." It was true, even if she was also just so turned on she could barely think. "I want...I don't want to remember before. Plus, Chidi told me all about how old you are; don't pretend you can't control yourself, in normal circumstances."
"Yeah, these aren't exactly what I'd call normal circumstances." She'd noticed the way Tahani was rubbing herself, then, quick and desperate, fumbling with how badly she wanted it. "Fuck. Okay. Yeah. Fuck, yeah."
A lick, tawdry, and then her fangs slid into Tahani's neck.
She knew about the historical explanation, the enzymes that produced the euphoria, all the boring stuff. There was that. But it was also - Eleanor moaned into her neck, holding onto her, not so firmly that she couldn't break away, but enough that Tahani felt it. It was better than when she'd fed Eleanor to save her life. Her head spun, and she felt herself getting wetter, aching, so slick she could barely keep strong enough pressure up. She bucked around her own fingers, moaned into the open air as Eleanor drank. It was dizzying, terrifying, this trust and this sharing, and when Eleanor leaned back and began licking the wound closed, she embarrassed herself completely by coming, long and loud, moaning Eleanor's name.
"Jesus, that's some kinky shit," Eleanor said as Tahani struggled to catch her breath.
"Oh, shut up," she managed to say.
"Well, that's not gonna happen. Seriously, I had no idea Slayers could get down like that."
"And you didn't even go all scary."
"That was mostly the jealousy talking, that first time. And the crazed near-death bloodlust shit." Eleanor nuzzled her neck. "Though, I feel like I could run a fucking marathon right now. That's potent stuff."
Tahani felt rather the opposite. She reached out, fumbling until she could grab Eleanor's shoulder, rolling them so that she could spoon her. "Nap."
"Tahani -"
"Shhhhh," Tahani said. She was rapidly dropping off; she felt warm and comfortable and she had absolutely no desire to talk. She pulled a sheet over them both. "Shhhhh."
"Fuck's sake," Eleanor muttered. But she didn't so much as wiggle, and Tahani fell asleep moments later.
-
"Oh my god, put a top on!"
"Augh," Tahani said, pulling the sheet up over herself and Eleanor. "You've learned altogether too much magic."
The floating vortex that held Kamilah's face glared at her. "Yes, well, I didn't think you'd be in your skivvies."
"We're free-ballin' it, man," Eleanor mumbled from her spot on the far end of the bed. "There's nothing but skin under here."
"Charming," Kamilah said dryly - but for once, she sounded a bit amused. "We're needed in Winnipeg."
"Winnipeg? Ugh, not even Vancouver? What on Earth for?"
"Excuse me," Chidi said, and crowded into the vortex. "Tahani. Eleanor. Congratulations."
Eleanor grunted and theatrically snored. She definitely wasn't asleep; Tahani had to bite back an impolitic smile. "Thank you," she said. "Winnipeg?"
"A Slayer who should've been called with all the others has just been activated," Chidi said. "It's lighting up every seer in the Western Hemisphere - including the demonic ones. I've booked us a flight in three hours."
Tahani glanced over at Eleanor.
"Stop being a moron, he bought me a ticket too," Eleanor said without opening her eyes.
"I did," Chidi said. "And, uh, Vicki as well."
"We're a team now," Kamilah said.
"Right." Tahani could barely process it, but when she turned the idea over in her mind...
She didn't hate it. "We'll be right down."
"Do cover your neck, though," Kamilah said, and cut the connection.
Tahani put a hand up to her neck, feeling the light scabs, and laughed.