*****

Part 7

So, there they were, back in the crypt with Robbie looking both of them over appraisingly. “Yer not getting on too well, are ye? The two of ye, I mean.”

“I don’t know why it matters, Ghostboy. Oh, and there’s been something that I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why are you involved anyway?” Xander asked, feeling scared and annoyed and any number of other confusing emotions that he refused to name.

“Ach.” Robbie looked like he wanted to spit but controlled himself. “A son’s love fer his father.” 

“You’re lying and being vague.” Xander wasn’t surprised. “But let’s try this one, who or what was it that came out of the circle last night after I left?”

“That‘s easier. It was another spirit; the third in your cursed, bloody little triad. The one who will find and possess a willing body in this time and this place and burn you, again.”

Xander wanted a full explanation of that statement, but judging from the closed look on Robbie’s face, knew he wasn’t going to get anything more out of the man who claimed to be his son. “Fine. Get on with it.”

Robbie looked at him for a moment, as if judging something, and then spoke. “Reach across the star and grab William’s hands.”

Xander flinched a little and Spike saw it. There was an uncomfortable second where Xander nettled with his fear of the vampire’s touch before he reached out and clasped the cold hands in his. Spike opened his eyes in mild surprise but didn’t say anything, merely rested his hands within Xander’s larger ones and waited for Robbie to work his magic on them.

The last time it had been cold. The air had been sweet and sharp with the invigorating chill, but not this time. Xander had never felt such bone-breaking, blood-freezing cold. It took his breath away and left behind a tearing, burning in his lungs. Then there was the smell, the smell of smoke and animals and humans clinging to him and to the clothes that he wore. There was no feeling of comfort, no feeling of safety, this time. Xander was falling into fear and pain.
 
 

~*~*~

Scotland, 1662. The Height of the Witch Burnings.
 
 

Night was falling and Alexander could see his breath and that of his horse’s ghosting in the snowy air. He had had too much to drink, and with the ale in his head and the pain in his limbs it was an effort to stay astride, but he knew he had to make it home, and soon. Once there he could not rest, though. He must collect Robbie and his few possessions and ride on. North. He had family there that they could hide with, family that had not heard of his troubles. He swayed a bit and caught himself on his horse’s mane. First, he had to get home.

He knew he had been gone too long; it had been days since Thomas the Vicar, the witch hunter, had locked him in a stinking cell and set about breaking him. He had held out for perhaps a day, no longer. Thomas’ silken voice had crept into his mind through the pain of his beaten body, taunting him about his unnatural life with William. The taunts combined with harsh threats to Robbie’s life had broken him. Thomas had seen into his soul, found all of his fears and doubts, drawn them out of him and played with them like a cat before the kill. He rationalized with himself, though, even now, that he had had no choice. He had to save his son. He hadn’t been able to save his wife, sweet, innocent Anne, but he could save their son. 

Thomas had known about Anne. He had known about the deep well of guilt that Alexander harbored for her death. He had known that she had killed herself because her husband, the man she loved, had loved another man, and a warlock at that. Tears flowed down Alexander’s face as he thought of Anne and William and froze there against his wind-burned skin.

The ride seemed to last forever and yet it was over all too soon, and he was staring at the dark windows of his thatched cottage. No smoke rose from the chimney, and a shiver of apprehension made its way down his spine as he tried to grasp what these signs of desertion meant. Walking into the house he felt colder than he had outside. Shaking the snow from his plaid and his hair he called for his son, “Robbie? Where are ye lad? We’ve got to go now, son.”

There was a cough behind him and Alexander whirled, snatching his knife out of his boot as he did. There, in the shadows by the cold hearth, stood the one person that he had not wanted, expected, or hoped to ever see again. The other man appeared relaxed and unaffected by the weather as he leaned against the stone of the hearth. “What are ye doin’ here, William?” Alexander’s voice was hoarse from the wind and from the drink.

“It’s no matter. It’s clear that ye weren’t expectin’ me. The real question is, though, what have you been doin’, Alex?” William’s voice was low and calm, but tension simmered just under the surface.

“I was just out. In the town. Where is my son?” Alexander backed slowly toward the door as he spoke. He wasn’t fast enough. The door slammed shut behind him with a wave of William’s hand, and he knew that he was trapped.

“Don’t worry about your boy.” William shrugged the matter aside. “I’ll ask you again, though, what have you been doin’ this night and the day before?”

“I told ye, William, I was just out. That’s all.”

William tensed. “Liar.” The cold hearth suddenly blazed with fire, illuminating William’s long blond hair and red-rimmed, blue eyes. He cocked his head suddenly, his fine features still with concentration. “D’ye hear that? The mob?” And Alexander did. He had been listening for it himself. William continued conversationally, “There’s been some trouble lately. People in the village, the vicar, they’ve been sayin’ things about us. About me in particular.” He lifted his hand in front of the fire as if to warm it before a flick of his wrist sent one of the two chairs in the room flying into the wall. Shards of wood from the chair hit Alexander’s hand, knocking the knife away. “Accusations like that can cause no end of pain to a person, Alex.” 

Alexander could only nod; his throat had gone dry and his pulse pounded in his ears. He was terrified and shamefully aroused by William’s unusually blatant show of power.

William continued, never moving from beside the roaring hearth, “And while all of this is going on, while our lives, my life, hangs in the balance, you disappear. For days now.” Then he did move, stalking Alexander quietly across the small room until he was within feet of the taller man. “How much did you sell my life away for? Was it just in return for your own or did they, did Thomas, offer you something more?” His voice rose to a shout. “How much Alexander? How much is my life worth to you? My love?”

Alexander, gathering the tattered remains of his courage, stepped closer to the enraged warlock and hissed, “I never loved you, a mic an diabhoil. ”

There was dead silence in the cottage with only the dim glow in the southern sky through the open window to tell them that the mob was still on its way.

The blond seemed to glimmer, then, with energy and his eyes went from blue to black. “Ye betray me and then ye deny me.” It was said quietly but with utter finality. For several moments the warlock simply looked at his lover with an empty gaze before sniffing in disdain. “And while you’re waiting for them to come for me you spend your time rutting on some pox-ridden whore! I can smell her stench all over ye.” He turned his back on Alexander in dismissal. “It’s no matter. You‘ll never be rid of what you are. I know it, our godly vicar, Thomas, knows it.” His tone was almost conversational. “Ye didn’t think that Thomas was just going to let you go, did ye?” He paused and Alexander didn’t respond. “Oh, ye did. I see. Even after he had you tortured and threatened your son, ye thought that he’d let you go if you gave me to him. Ye didn‘t trust me to take care of the both of ye.” He shook his head, deeply saddened.

Without warning the small table lurched across the floor and hit Alexander in the gut, knocking the wind out him. As he lay across it, gasping for breath, William turned once again to face him and moved slowly to stand beside him, placing one preternaturally strong hand on the back of Alex‘s neck before intoning his curse. “For your weakness ye will suffer the fate that ye planned for me. When the mob arrives and finds me gone they will happily accept you as a substitute.” Here William’s voice hitched as if just for a moment he felt grief beneath his anger. “And it’s not just this once, Alex. Ye will burn in every one of your lives on this very night until you freely admit that you were wrong and until you truly understand what you have lost and what you have destroyed through your weakness.”

By Air and Earth

By Water and Fire

So be you bound

As I desire

Beyond death and through life

By three and by nine

Your power I bind

As I desire

To die by fire, to live in Hell

‘Till thine faith be proved

‘Till thine love run true

As I desire
 
 

Alexander gurgled under the stranglehold on his neck. He wanted to speak but it was something of a relief that William had taken that option from him; it was as it should be. He was not surprised to feel his plaid and shirt being shoved up over his back and his skin bared by William’s other hand. 

William spoke and his voice resonated with power. “Be still.” He removed his hand from Alexander’s neck but the dark haired man remained immobile and unable to catch his breath. He heard the warlock pick up the knife that he had dropped earlier and then felt the warmth of the other man leaning against his trembling legs. “I seal this curse to ye with my blood…” William murmured as Alexander felt something warm begin to dribble across his back. It was William’s blood from a deep cut on his wrist. Alexander knew, he had seen this all before. It was this power of William’s, the power over life and death and nature that crossed even into the afterlife that had always left him breathless with passion and terror and it was that fear, mixed with shame for the passion, that had led him to this place.

The warlock’s touch was gentle on Alexander’s back as he traced the necessary arcane symbols in blood onto his bare skin.

The bloody hand returned to hold Alexander’s neck as the spell that bound him was released. Blood covered his face as he struggled, and trickled into his mouth, choking him. His thrashing about and coughing only lasted for a moment as he was beginning to see sparkles of light behind his closed eyelids and knew that consciousness was slipping away. 

William loosened his chokehold and shook Alexander’s head, hitting it against the table. “Stay awake, love.” His voice was almost tender and Alexander responded, opening his eyes and drawing deep, painful breaths between wrenching coughs. The breathing process was interrupted once again, however, when he felt one of William’s blood soaked fingers prodding at his nether entrance.

“Sguir,” Alexander cried hoarsely. “Not like this. Never. No.”

“Not like what, mo gradh?” William’s tone was curious, belying pain and grief as he removed his fingers and pushed his bloody cock deep within the writhing man on the table.

Alex couldn’t speak any longer. The only sounds in the hut were the crackle of the fire and his rough, anguished screams as his body tore apart under the warlock’s assault. 

It didn’t take long to finish. William climaxed after several brutal thrusts with a grunt and a short, sobbing cry.

When it was over the warlock stood back from the table, wiping his hands and flaccid member on Alexander’s fur coat. He left the shivering, sobbing man exposed and noted with distraction the hungry way the flames already seemed to reach for his dark lover from the hearth. 

The mob was not far and William knew that he had to leave. The light from their torches had turned the low-hanging sky an angry red. As he saw the warlock turning for the door, Alexander managed to ask, in a broken, whispery voice, about his son.

William lifted one shoulder. “He’s safe already. I’ll care for him. I always have, haven’t I? Ever since Anne died. Ye were a poor excuse for a father.” The blond turned back to look at the man on the table. “You can rest easy knowing Robbie won’t meet yer fate. At least ye’ll have that.” He knelt, then, and looked in Alexander‘s swollen brown eyes, the eyes of the man who had been his friend and his lover for over a decade and who had, perhaps inevitably, become his betrayer. “I must go now, m‘annsachd, and know that I do with sadness.” There were tears at the corner of his luminescent blue eyes as he leaned forward and pressed heated lips to Alexander’s. Even beaten and facing death Alexander responded hungrily to William’s familiar, magical touch, arching into the other man’s strong, pale hands.

William lingered over him a moment, trailing kisses from his lips to each of his eyes before rising to his feet. He had nothing to say and Alexander was silenced by a sob caught in his throat. With a last touch to Alexander’s dark hair the warlock simply walked out the door and disappeared into the swirling snow leaving his one love to face his death at the stake. He didn’t hear Alexander’s whisper. “Goodbye mo airgeadach, mo chride.”

Alexander died that night, Samhain, a victim of the mob and of the vengeance of Thomas the Vicar, a man who had both feared and lusted after the dark-haired lover of the warlock, William.

In the smoky, snowy dawn, when the sun was rising and shedding light on the dismal, gray earth beneath it, William slipped into the village and took Alexander’s remains with him to be buried, on unhallowed ground, near the sea cliff where they had sat together often and spoke about life, love and the stars.

Before he began to cover the body in the fresh turned dirt, William spoke the last spell of his life, a variation of the curse that had bound Alexander to burn through all of his lives. William bound himself to Alexander, to live, unknowing, with his lover throughout eternity until they came together in love again.

As Robbie sat astride their horse and watched the warlock bury his father, he swore to himself that he would find a way to break the terrible curse that William had laid on the two of them, if it took him beyond the grave.

Be-spiderwebbed and glazed in frost

He wears death beautifully

More stunning now than in his life

On a bed of autumn leaves

Into his eyes and quite surprised

I whispered don’t you leave

Sing macabre songs and we’ll dance ‘till dawn

On All Hallows Eve

*****
tbc.
 

Note on Gaelic terms: 

a mic an diabhoil- “You son of the Devil.” 

Sguir- “Stop” 

mo gradh- “My dear” 

m‘annsachd- “My best beloved” 

mo airgeadach, mo chride- “My silver one, my heart.”

Authors Note: In the years between 1563 and 1736 at least 1,500 people were executed for the crime of witchcraft in Scotland. There were three intense witch-hunts during this time, the last being between the years 1660 and 1663. 300 people were executed in this three-year period. Admittedly most were women, however, there were men among that number. Documents survive that record 3 men executed in the village of Forfar.

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