Ghoul Trouble

by John Passarella

  Xander shook his head. “If I had known it was a sleep-over, I would have stocked up.” He coiled his legs and attempted to roll backward, inadvertently slamming his head into the wall. “If that looked like it hurt, it’s because it did.”

  “What were you trying to do?”

  “Something I saw on TV,” Xander said. “Slip the manacles under my legs to get my hands in front of me.”

  “Let me see,” Willow said and examined his manacles and the chain that bound them together. “There’s a problem.”

  “What? I’m not limber enough?”

  “No,” Willow said. “Not enough slack in the chain. Unless you could do one leg at a time.”

  “Definitely not limber enough for that” He sighed. “The ghouls probably watched the same TV shows and made their chains shorter.”

  “They’re sneaky that way,” Willow agreed, dejected.

  “Hey, Will, why don’t you try? You’re smaller than me and, I’m betting, more limber.”

  Just before leaving to perform their final show, the ghouls had decided to manacle Willow’s hands behind her back as well. “There,” Lupa had said. “That should keep both of you out of trouble.” And Xander had replied, “Just not out of ghoul trouble.” Carnie had laughed and said, “You’re cute enough to eat—which is kind of the whole idea.”

  “Okay,” Willow said. “I can be Limber Girl.” She brought her knees up to her chest and rocked back, straining her arms. She tried twice before she stretched far enough to slip the chain under her heels. Standing in triumph, she held her manacled hands up before her. “Voilà!”

  “Great, Will! You did it!”

  “Refresh my memory,” Willow said, the corners of her smile slipping. “What do I do now that my arms are chained in front of me instead of behind me?”

  “When the Nazi guard returns, you jump up and wrap the chain around his neck, rendering him unconscious. Then we take his keys, unlock the chains and one of us, probably me, puts on his uniform—which will be a perfect fit—to catch the other guards by surprise.”

  “You realize there are no Nazi guards?”

  “Yeah, well, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  Willow walked to the board mounted on the wall, examined the ring her collar chain had been passed through.

  “Try to turn it,” Xander suggested.

  “I already tried,” Willow explained. “Before they brought you. Not enough leverage.”

  “What about your secret bag of magic tricks?” Xander asked. “Any good spells for breaking chains? Picking locks?”

  Willow sighed. “I tried a spell on the lock but nothing happened. Oh—but I did figure out how to make the chains rattle on their own.”

  “What good did that do?”

  “Gave me the willies,” Willow remarked with a shiver. “I even tried turning the wall ring magically, but there’s too much resistance. It’s screwed in so tight all I managed was to give myself a splitting headache.”

  “So brute force is called for,” Xander said. He stood on tiptoes next to his ring, reaching awkwardly up with both hands still manacled behind his back. He managed a clumsy grip on the ring but couldn’t budge it. “All we need is a crowbar.”

  Willow looked around. “Fresh out of crowbars.”

  “Damn,” Xander said and slammed his foot into the drywall. “We could probably kick the house down and we’d still be chained to this board.”

  He walked as far as the collar chain would let him roam. Not enough slack to reach the boarded up windows or the door, which hung partially askew from the damaged doorframe. Willow had already sat back down and was staring at the crude manacles. Xander sighed and walked back to join her.

  “If I had a bobby pin I could pick the locks,” Willow said.

  “Really? You could do that?”

  “Well, it doesn’t seem all that hard on TV,” she said and managed a grin.

  “What are we gonna do, Will?”

  “Wait for Buffy,” Willow said.

  Xander sighed. “So much for my fragile male ego,” he said. “Don’t you know it’s my job to rescue the fair damsel from the”—he examined their surroundings, the stained walls, exposed plaster and boarded-up windows—“condemned tower?”

  “You really think so?” Willow said, quirking a smile.

  “Right there on page sixteen of the Chivalry Guide,” Xander said. “Under ‘Rescues and Narrow Escapes.’ ”

  “No,” Willow said. “I mean the part about me—you know—the fair damsel. ‘Fair’ being secret medieval code for pretty.”

  “Right,” Xander said.

  “So you think I’m pretty,” Willow said, lifting her chin.

  “Of course I do, Will,” Xander said.

  “It’s just that, you never really said it, you know, like, ‘Hi, Willow, you know, you’re really pretty.’ ”

  “Some of us chivalrous knights are also tied of tongue,” Xander said.

  “So you think it?” Willow pressed. “Even if you never say it?”

  “Sure, Will, but, us being best buds and all, there are rules and procedures about the not saying of the mushy stuff.”

  “Oh, I understand,” Willow said, looking down at her manacles again. “And it’s not like I don’t have Oz for the saying of the mushy stuff.”

  “Oz is a great guy,” Xander said. “He’s worried sick about you, you know.”

  “Poor Oz,” Willow said. “Wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”

  “We’ve been in worse jams,” Xander said, trying for upbeat “Just don’t ask me to name any right this moment”

  “Thank you, Xander,” Willow said. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great guy too.”

  The room had become darker, the last rays of the sun no longer squeezing through the gaps in the plywood nailed across the windows. Already Willow could barely make out Xander’s face. And with the approach of the new moon, their faint hopes seemed to quiver on the edge of extinction like the coming of the night.

  “Buffy will be hooking up with Angel by now,” Xander said.

  “And Oz,” Willow added. She felt awful knowing Oz was so worried about her, ached with the need to tell him she was okay. Okay, for now. “They’ll find us, Xander. I know they will.”

  Xander nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture in the gathering gloom. Somehow she knew Xander didn’t trust his voice to utter an optimistic thought with any conviction. Willow had her own, unvoiced doubts. Even if Buffy some-how finds us, the ghouls are expecting her. As much as she hated to admit it, the Scooby Gang was in big trouble.

  * * *

  “Angel!” Buffy whispered, alarmed. From a distance, she noticed the doors to the mansion had been damaged. As she moved closer, she saw the large footprint cracked into the surface of the wood, the jagged splinters where the lock had given way. Someone had kicked in die doors. And she was all too afraid she knew who it had been. She stood outside the door, listening for any sound within, but the pounding of her heart was all she heard.

  Placing the side of her palm against the door, she eased it inward just enough to allow her to slip through the gap. Her other hand had already plucked a wooden stake from her backpack. Gloom filled the great room, but the street light that bled through called her attention to the bare windows . . . and the rumpled curtains beneath them.

  A faint groan sounded from across the room, drawing her gaze to the dark shape huddled inside the wide fireplace. “Angel,” Buffy called. A raspy voice called back to her, unintelligible. But recognizable. She rushed to his side, putting the stake back into her bag. Whatever had happened here, it was long over.

  Angel had been curled in a fetal position, knees drawn up to his chest, forearms pressed against his face. Upon hearing her voice, he started to move his arms and legs. His clothing was torn and streaked with blood where it hadn’t been scorched. Wherever his flesh was exposed, it was covered with angry red welts where, she imagined, blisters had formed and already healed. Buffy exa
mined the layout of the room again and realized he must have crawled to this one spot, avoiding the penetrating rays of the sunlight while his body attempted to recover from devastating injuries.

  On the floor near Angel’s feet, almost unnoticed in the gloom, was a playing card. A nine of spades. Solitaire, Buffy thought bitterly. Her vision blurred with the welling of tears. Her fists were clenched so tight they had begun to tremble. She longed to touch Angel, to comfort him, but what could she do for him that his accelerated vampiric healing could not? In a way, she was almost responsible. Angel had been attacked by Solitaire to taunt her, the Slayer.

  “Solitaire,” Angel said.

  “I know,” Buffy replied. “He came here to fight you, using sunlight as a weapon so the odds would be clearly in his favor.” She pressed her face close to him, her blond hair fanning across his reddened face. “Angel, it’s safe now,” she said. “The sun has set.”

  “Not safe”—Angel said, his voice raw—“for you. He’s coming for you next.”

  “I’ll worry about Solitaire later,” Buffy said. “Tell me how I can help you.” But she already knew the answer.

  “Packets,” he said. “Refrigerator.”

  Packets. Of blood. She nodded and went for his sustenance. Even though he had a soul and a conscience, he still had the needs of a vampire. Blood being first and foremost among them.

  She helped him at first, but after a few ounces he sat up and turned his back to her, self-conscious, while he finished the first packet. Buffy retreated to a stuffed armchair, chin on her palms, elbows on her knees while he finished a second packet and a third. Her face was lined only with concern, not the disgust she knew he imagined she felt. They had been through too much together for his blood-thirst to bother her.

  He inhaled deeply and climbed to his feet. Buffy rose to help him as his legs wobbled, but he held out a hand to stop her, using the other hand to grip the mantel. He wanted to prove to her he could take care of himself . . . because he wanted to be there for her.

  “Angel, I—”

  “No,” Angel said. “I’m okay now.”

  “You don’t look—”

  “I’m a vampire, remember,” Angel said. “I heal fast. I’ll be fine. Soon.” He rubbed a spot on his neck that was raw, wincing at the flare of pain. “Besides, it’s night now. He’s lost his advantage.”

  “So it really is true,” Buffy said. “He’s . . . immune to the sun.”

  “Definitely,” Angel responded.

  While Angel composed himself, walking in slow circles to test his bruised and burnt legs, Buffy explained Giles’s discovery that Solitaire and Dies Pedes—the Day Walker—were one and the same vampire.

  Angel shook his head. “I’d heard rumors about a day-walking vampire, hundreds of years ago, but I never believed it Vampires just don’t walk around in the sunlight. I thought it was, for lack of a better term, an urban legend. Just a myth.”

  “To scare the little vampire children?” Buffy said, but Angel wasn’t smiling at her attempt at humor. “All the Watcher books and journals can’t be wrong, can they?”

  Angel shook his head. Images of Solitaire blithely walking through shafts of direct sunlight haunted him. “Whatever he is, he’s dangerous.”

  “Well, it was hardly a fair fight,” Buffy said, indicating the bare windows.

  “Even if we had fought at night,” Angel said. He looked directly at her with that penetrating gaze that could give her shivers for all the right and all the wrong reasons. “Buffy, Solitaire is powerful. Don’t underestimate him.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Angel,” Buffy said, standing up from the chair. “I’ll be more than ready for him when he shows his ugly face, if he ever shows his ugly face. Right now, though, I have to think about Willow and Xander. This is our last chance to track the ghouls back to their lair.”

  “And you want my help.”

  “Of course,” Buffy replied. “But that was before . . . this. You should stay here, get better—”

  “No. I’ll come.”

  Buffy was just as glad to have him close by. If he was close to her, she could protect him. Her friends had fallen into trouble when they were separated from her. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen again. Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it. There, she’d learned something about history, after all. And she recalled reading on a motivational poster in Mrs. Burzak’s office that the Chinese definition of insanity was to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. “Good,” was all she said to Angel.

  He nodded. “What’s the plan?”

  * * *

  Inside the Bronze, Vyxn was performing the second set of the last night of their special engagement Cordelia Chase looked over the excited throng of male concertgoers and shook her head. Never underestimate the male libido, was her first thought. Definitely a two-bib minimum for these droolers, was her second. Though she supposed there was something more at work, if what Buffy, Oz and Giles had told her was true, that the band members really were flesh-eating ghouls with the ability to mesmerize guys.

  Cordelia noticed a few, almost token, girls in the audience, uniformly ignored by their dates, all of whom had eyes only for the four female whatevers on stage. As a former card-carrying member of the Scooby Gang, Cordelia accepted that in Sunnydale coincidence often meant danger and skepticism was best reserved for the foolish or naive. So she was more than willing to not accept Vyxn at face value. Against her better judgment, she found herself participating in the stakeout. While there was still a chance—however small—that Troy was still alive, she should be there ready to help. After all, he’d promised her a screen test. How would it look if she abandoned him the moment things became a little dicey. An ounce of loyalty is worth a ton of referrals.

  Giles had assured her that she would be immune to the power the ghoul’s music had over men. But that just meant she was forced to sit through the sappy love ballads and woman-scorned tunes on their own dubious merit Meanwhile the guys had a free pass, waiting in Oz’s van. Giles had never heard the band himself but feared succumbing to the siren song. Oz had said he still felt a compulsion to hear the band, even knowing what he knew about them. As a vampire, Angel seemed unaffected—the ghouls probably never developed a taste for raw vampire flesh—but he was basically a mess, still a little gimpy from an earlier battle with Super Vampire. So, fine for the guys, but why does little Miss Slayer get to skip the terrible tunes? Buffy should be here suffering right alongside her.

  * * *

  Oz drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his van. It’s almost over, he kept telling himself. Just a little while longer, until the end of Vyxn’s performance, and then he could help rescue Willow. From his driver’s seat he could see Vyxn’s van, fifty yards away but cloaked in deep shadows. Tagging at him was the irrational fear that the rust-colored van would slip away unnoticed or simply vanish like a mirage. So he stared, waiting for the slightest bit of movement.

  Giles tried to think about anything to keep his mind off the itch under his cast, the itch just maddeningly out of reach of the six-inch ruler he’d brought along. He watched the door of the Bronze, wondering when Cordelia would come out to tell them the band was wrapping up its last performance although, from what he’d been told, he expected they would play until eleven o’clock. More out of curiosity than anything else, he wondered what it would be like to listen to Vyxn’s music. Still, he didn’t trust himself enough to sample it. He thought of Ulysses, who had had himself tied to the mast of his ship so he might hear the siren song, yet not succumb to its power. Mostly, Giles prayed for the safety of Willow and Xander. Even though they had become—for want of a better term—Slayerettes of their own choosing, he still felt responsible for them and dared not entertain the thought that it might already be too late.

  If all that weren’t enough, Giles also worried about Buffy’s chances against Solitaire. Angel had clearly had the worst of their battle. Obviously the day-wal
king vampire considered another vampire much more of a worthy opponent than a middle-aged Watcher. Giles supposed he should be grateful that Solitaire considered him harmless. Still, it irked him. Made him question his worth to his Slayer, to Buffy.

  Buffy had been keeping an eye on Angel, worried that he would be too vulnerable to face the ghouls in battle or a return visit from Solitaire. And it was hard for her to keep the concern out of her face every time she looked at him. She spoke softly, to spare his feelings in front of the others. “Angel? Are you up for this?”

  He took the question seriously, nodded slowly. “The bones have knit and the burns are just a little tender. I’m fine, just—sore as hell.”

  “You should know, I guess,” Buffy said. “Since you’ve actually been there.”

  Angel winced and Buffy instantly regretted her flippant remark. She kept trying to make light of his condition to hide her deep concern. Solitaire had come within inches—literally—of killing Angel by exposing him to direct sunlight. Angel still seemed a little wobbly and tentative when he walked, despite his claim that his bones were completely healed. Buffy decided a topic change was in order. “So, any tips for me? Just in case Solitaire finally does come after me and not just the people I care about.”

  “He’s strong,” Angel said. “Incredibly strong. And bold. He uses his advantages for maximum benefit, to tip the odds in his favor.”

  Buffy frowned. “So, in the weaknesses column, I’m marking down a big ‘not applicable’?”

  “Ego,” Angel said.

  “Ego?” Buffy asked. “Meaning, what? I should ask for his autograph before I stake him?”

  “Overconfidence,” Angel explained. “He takes great pride in his superiority.”

  Buffy nodded. “So, the bigger they come . . .”

  “The harder they fall on you,” Oz interjected with a quick backward glance. “Sorry, I—”

  Two explosive impacts rocked the van.

  “The roof!” Angel shouted.

  A dark shape leapt down from the dented roof to the passenger side of die van a moment before a second figure landed on the driver’s side. At the first sign of trouble, Buffy had leaned over the front seat of the van. She looked left and right, then did a double take. “Twins?”