Title:                       Temple of Love.

Point of view:         Kat.  Katrina ‘Kat’ Donovan was created by, and is the property of, the creators of the “Nocturnum” website.  Her back-story can be found there under ‘Season One’, although my version of what happened to her in the end is somewhat different to theirs.

Time frame:            During Episode 15 “Black Hole Sun”.

 

 

Temple of Love

 

 

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.  No rhythm of day and night.  I don’t know how often they feed me.  I don’t know how often they bleed me.  I don’t know how long I was unconscious when they first brought me in.  I don’t know how long I was unconscious after I tried to kill myself by ramming my head into the wall.  I don’t know how many times I’d slept before it occurred to me to start counting.  I’ve slept nineteen times since then.

 

So at least three weeks.  Probably a lot longer.  In Hell.  Where time might run differently anyway.

 

I don’t know how much they know about humans.  They probably think I’ll have gone insane by now.  They might slacken up, take less precautions against escape, which would give me a chance - except that there is nowhere to escape to.

 

Perhaps I have gone insane anyway.  I’m certainly seeing things.  But then I’ve had visions before.  All part of this Slayer gig.

 

At first these visions were always the same.  Black chick – I would say African-American, except I don’t think there was anything American about her at all – with dreadlocks and body paint.  I think she was the First Slayer.

 

“Live.  Strive.  Survive.  They will come.”  Hello, cryptic much?  Way to go with the pointless advice.  Except that it helped some.

 

Not a lot.  Even if I wasn’t in Hell this wouldn’t be fun.  But it’s not being locked in a dark chamber - nothing but a bare stone floor, a trickle of water running down one wall, and a hole in the floor for you know what – and having horrible things drain off my blood that’s the worst.

 

It’s the remembering.  Remembering seeing the blood on Loralei’s lips, and crying as I drove the stake through her heart.  Poor Walter, so broken up, so brave, trying to make it to the Hellmouth with the blood streaming from his stomach, dying even as he reached it.  Drake, throwing himself in, and it spitting him back out.  His face and his scream as I threw myself in.

 

“Live.  Strive.  Survive.  They will come.”  How?  The Hellmouth closed behind me.  Sure they could open it, but how could they close it again?  “The life and the soul of a champion” is what the prophecy said.  What the fuck would be the point of opening it to come after me if someone would have to die to close it?  Presumably me anyway.  Jon is no champion.  Champions look before they shoot.  Drake isn’t alive and hasn’t got a soul.  Cyan might be the Pole-dancing Champion of Pennsylvania, but I don’t think that’s the sort of champion ancient prophesies go for.  Anita?  She’d die for me, I know.  Please God don’t let Anita try to give her life for mine.  I love her so much.

 

And if they got in, what good would it do?  So few of us left.  Walter dead.  Me captive.  So many of the enemy, and the deadly secret of this realm as the trump card.  Let’s face it, they’re not coming.

 

Except that’s not what the visions say.  Not the new visions.

 

The strange ones.  The girl on the escalator fighting a hulking demon, carrying a dog and a baby stroller each.  I mean, what the fuck?  The same girl, swatting another girl like a fly, saying to her “So you’re Kennedy the Potential Slayer?  I used to be one of those.”

 

Which would make her the English girl who was Called after I took that overdose, I suppose.

 

But who the fuck is the girl dancing on llamas?  And the other strangers?

 

And the other two who appear with the First Slayer now?

 

The mousy blonde with the heavy-lidded eyes and the slight stammer.  “She c-can open it, you know.  And close it again.  He’ll p-protect her while she d-does it.  Believe in them, Katrina.”

 

The blonde with the scar on her cheek, and the funny jacket like Adam Ant or the English officers in ‘Sharpe’.  “My Draco – our Draco – will not fail you.  Nor will my predecessor.  She owes me money.  Three shillings a day for two years, seven shillings a day for one year.  She will repay by aiding you.”  Who’s Draco, anyway?  “Our Draco”?  She doesn’t mean Drake, does she?  And what’s with the money thing?  Shillings?  That’s like English money in old films, right?  Brief Encounter, A Christmas Carol, yadda yadda yadda?

 

The First Slayer again.  “The time is near.  Soon they will be together.”  She snaps a twig, then another twig, then another and another.  Then she puts a lot of twigs together, tries to snap them, and fails.  Yeah, I know that one.  Don’t see a lot of relevance.  “You are not alone.  Live.  Strive.  Survive.”

 

“Yeah, know that tune too.  I will survive …”.

 

The mousy one again.  “Singing is good.  It k-keeps your spirits up – hey, I’m a spirit g-guide, I know these things – and it does the Richard the Lionheart thing.  B-Blondel.  It’ll help them find you.  You are strong, K-Katrina.  Sing for me.”

 

Great help.  Riddle me crazy, why don’t you?

 

Still, it beats sitting in the dark remembering, waiting for them to come again and either feed me or bleed me.

 

So I sing.

 

What those things will make of it I don’t know, and I could care less.  But I’m not going to sing Gloria Gaynor.  Hello, Goth Chick here!  The Sisters of Mercy, which I first heard as the Gothic Sex covers then got the originals because they were way better and you could actually make out the words.  Drive them mad, make them think I’m crazy, who gives a shit?

 

“Lucretia My Reflection”.  “This Corrosion”.  Bleak, bitter, angry, dark.

 

And “Temple of Love”.  Might have been written for this place, this Slayer life or unlife, this prison in Hell, which I think is some sort of temple anyway.  I sing, and my mind fills in the wall of sound from the guitars and drums.

 

 

With the fire from the fireworks up above me
With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain at hand
You run for cover in the temple of love 
You run for another but still the same
For the wind will blow my name across this land
 
In the temple of love you hide together
Believing pain and fear outside
But someone near you rides the weather
And the tears he cried will rain on walls
As wide as lovers eyes
 
In the temple of love: Shine like thunder
In the temple of love: Cry like rain
In the temple of love: Hear my calling
In the temple of love: Hear my name
 
And the devil in black dress watches over
My guardian angel walks away
Life is short and love is always over in the morning
Black wind come carry me far away
 
With the sunlight died and night above me
With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain inside 
 
You run for cover in the temple of love
You run for another it's all the same
For the wind will blow and throw your walls aside
With the fire from the fireworks up above 
With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain
 
You run for cover in the temple of love
I shine like thunder cry like rain
And the temple grows old and strong
But the wind blows longer cold and long
And the temple of love will fall before
This black wind calls my name to you no more
 
In the black sky thunder sweeping
Underground and over water 
Sounds of crying weeping will not save
Your faith for bricks and dreams for mortar
All your prayers must seem as nothing
Ninety-six below the wave
When stone is dust and only air remains
 
In the temple of love: Shine like thunder
In the temple of love: Cry like rain
In the temple of love: Hear the calling
And the temple of love is falling 
Down

 

(lyrics © the Sisters of Mercy)

 

 

 

FIN

 

 

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