The third vampire, tall and balding, attacked a car farther down, which allowed the couples in nearer vehicles to attempt escape. However, the other two vampires were too fast for them. For a few heartbeats, there was screaming.
And then there were no heartbeats.
At that instant, Chirayoju stood up and spread its arms. Lightning crackled. The wind shrieked.
It boomed, “Know me as your master!”
The other vampires stopped in their tracks.
“What?” the female cried, and began to rush him.
“Stop!” Chirayoju commanded.
At first his words had no effect. Then it was as if the female vampire were little more than a marionette. She was brought up short as if strings held her back, and Chirayoju reached out to her dead mind, to the demon spirit that lived within, and it was the demon that he controlled. The demon that he enslaved. The demon that he forced to its knees.
“Master,” the girl whispered.
“Hey, man, what’s your deal?” the darker vampire said contemptuously.
Chirayoju turned its gaze on him. Their eyes met, locked. It knew the creature saw a mere girl, and willed him to see the truth behind the mask that was Weeping Willow.
The other vampire’s mouth opened as if in pain—or shock. He knew what it was he saw, now. The vampire remembered death, of course, the time between the loss of his human soul and his resurrection as a vampire. He did not want to face that horrible void again, nor did he relish the even more nightmarish horrors he was promised as he gazed into Chirayoju’s eyes.
Chirayoju stared at each one in turn, pushing its will against theirs. It felt their struggle.
The sky cracked open and rain pelted them. The blood of the victims on the ground mixed with the earth; the mud ran crimson.
Chirayoju singled out the balding vampire and willed him to approach. To kneel. To bare his neck.
“Speak my name,” it commanded.
In a steady voice, the vampire answered, “Lord Chirayoju.”
The moon hung in the trees above the graveyard, casting Angel in a glow of stark white that accentuated his pale skin. His eyes were dark, and as he looked down at Buffy, he touched her cheek with a tentative gesture. His fingers were cold, but his caress warmed her. Her lips were swollen from his kisses.
“In this light, you look like me,” he said softly.
“Like a vampire.” Her voice was louder, bolder. “You avoid saying it, like it was a dirty word.”
His laugh was short and bitter. “You’re the Slayer, Buffy. To you, it is a dirty word.”
Buffy cocked her head and gathered up his hand in both of hers. “Angel, for us to move along, we need to move . . . along.” She stood on tiptoe, raising her mouth toward his. “This ‘hate me, I’m a vampire’ stuff is old territory for us. We’ve been over the worst terrain we could possibly find. I have the map memorized. It’s time to blaze a new trail.”
He looked down at her mouth, and she could tell he was struggling not to kiss her again. Her heart pounded. She could tell he heard the faster rhythm.
He whispered, “You know there’s more to me than we both realized at first.”
“I’ll say.” She put her hand around his neck and urged him closer. “And if I’m not afraid, why should you be?”
“Maybe because I lo—” He turned his head.
She did, too. There was something in the air, something that floated across her and threatened to pull her down, or to put its hand over her mouth and smother her. Something that held hands with death.
“Did you feel that?” she asked. “It was almost like a . . .” She searched for the right words. “Like the air got heavy. Or like a scream in my head.” She frowned. “Something’s wrong.”
Angel nodded slowly. “Something’s very wrong.”
As one, they looked up toward the night sky and all around. Beneath the gravestones and monuments, the dead stayed buried. Through a sheen of clouds, the moon glowed. An owl hooted directly above their heads. All was peaceful. Yet the presentiment of evil lingered like a fog.
“I think I’m getting better at this Slayer thing,” Buffy murmured. “I think something’s up. I think I need to go see Giles.”
Almost unconsciously, Angel draped a protective arm across Buffy’s shoulders. “I think I’ll go with you.”
Together they hurried toward the graveyard gates.
CHAPTER 6
As Friday morning began, Willow was elsewhere.
Some voice from the real world echoed down the long, twisted dream corridor to her elsewhere, and the first real spark of awareness hit her. Music, from a long way off.
Country music.
Computer geek she might be, but Willow Rosenberg did not listen to country music. Oh, sure, she thought Garth Brooks and Shania Twain were cool enough, but that wasn’t you-listen-to-country-music? country music. No, having country music on your alarm clock was just inviting ridicule. And, truth be told, Willow had never needed to send invitations. Uh-uh. The Willow ridicule party was eternal, and everybody crashed.
Except Buffy, and Xander, and Oz, and other people who were the objects of vast amounts of ridicule.
Alarm clock. Usually meaning you’re asleep. Or have been.
Only the warmth of the sun streaming through her bedroom window made Willow realize how cold she was. Cold and aching all over like she’d climbed to the top of Everest for a midnight snack.
Midnight . . . snack. Something weird there. Something she could almost remember.
Then she felt the drool on her chin. Realized she’d been sleeping with her mouth open, even snoring, which wasn’t something she did often, as far as her waking self knew.
Willow’s face crumpled into an expression of disgust as she wiped her chin, realizing at last that she was, indeed, awake. Awake and exhausted and her eyes were burning like she’d been up all night watching infomercials again. Insomnia could make a person do strange things. But no, she hadn’t done anything like that. Couldn’t really remember doing anything last night after coming home sick from school. Except that somehow, she had set her alarm for the dulcet twang of the Grand Ole Opry.
Weird. Weird and disgusting, she thought. How could she ever spend the night with a guy if there was even a chance that he’d see her sleeping with her mouth open with drool on her chin? Uh-uh.
She opened her dry, burning eyes, then gasped and closed them tight as the sun hit her retinas. Willow hissed as a spike of pain shot through her head. She lay a moment, waiting for the pain to pass, assuming it was like the frozen headaches she got when she ate ice cream too fast. But it didn’t pass.
In fact, by the time she crawled out of bed and dragged herself to the shower, Willow’s headache had only grown worse. It wasn’t a pounding ache, the kind where you could feel the blood pumping through your head. It was more like someone had pounded a nail into her skull.
Even after her shower, Willow didn’t feel much better. Her mother called to her from downstairs, but the words didn’t even register. Nor did she pay any attention to what she was putting on except to note that the clothes were clean.
It was while she was sitting on the edge of her bed tying her shoes that she glanced up at the computer on her desk and saw the little green sprout sticking up from her mouse pad. Willow frowned, a decidedly ill-advised action for someone with a headache so bad that her face hurt.
She stood and walked to her desk. Next to her mouse was a small, crooked bonsai tree, the kind that trendy stores in trendy malls sold to people who couldn’t handle the responsibility of a pet to take care of. Gigapets for Boomers, in other words. But this was nothing from a mall. It had long roots still covered with dirt from where it had been torn from the ground.
“Okay, thanks but it’s not my birthday,” Willow mumbled uneasily to her empty room.
How the plant had gotten there, of course, was the big question. With the pain in her head discouraging much contemplation—much thought of any kind, really—t
he only thing she could think of was: maybe Angel?
Running around at night, showing up unannounced at people’s windows. That was kind of vampire-like behavior. At least, Angel-like behavior. But she didn’t think he would do that, unless it was some big surprise for her or something. And, come to think of it, during that whole Angelus thing that nobody really wanted to talk about, she and Buffy had placed a kind of ward over her room to keep him out.
So not Angel. But when she started to consider other options, the nail in her skull turned into a knitting needle. She massaged her forehead, realized she was going to be late for school—as if anyone would notice after a hellish week like this, when Willow Rosenberg and tardiness seemed as inseparable as PB&J. Still, she’d better show up today. Who knew what she had missed this week? Even the days that she had been there, she couldn’t quite remember.
Except for the fact that she’d somehow scored a perfect grade on the pop quiz Mr. Morse gave about their museum visit to the exhibit on the art and culture of ancient Japan. Somehow, through her fugue state, she’d obviously learned something. And if she ever wanted to learn anything again, it was back to school for Willow.
Just before she left, she noticed something beside the uprooted bonsai. It was the disk or coin that had fallen from the hilt of that big sword at the museum on Monday. She’d forgotten to put it back after cutting herself; she’d been too distracted. Then it had made its way into the pocket of her jeans, and later disappeared. Or not, considering that it now sat prominently displayed on top of her computer.
Willow felt a little guilty about it. Maybe she should try to take it back this afternoon? As she reached for it, noting its odd engravings, someone started pounding that knitting needle into her brain with a hammer. Willow forgot all about the coin, turned, and stumbled toward the hallway, feeling suddenly as though she was going to throw up.
Strangely, and with great relief, Willow began to feel better almost immediately. The headache never disappeared entirely, but it receded until it was more of a thumbtack than a nail. It still hurt, but she could live with it. She might even be able to pay attention in class.
As she hurried out the door, her eyes ached from the bright sunlight, and she slipped on a pair of sunglasses she hadn’t worn in months. They weren’t her style.
Before.
* * *
Buffy sat alone at a round table in the cafeteria, math text open in front of her. The Noxema-filled plastic tubes the school dared to call baked stuffed manicotti sat untouched on her tray.
She had told Giles about the weird sensation she had had in the graveyard. He was intrigued but could find no specific reason for it. Even now, she supposed he was researching to see if Curse of the Rat-People Night was looming—which it probably was.
She saw Oz and gave him a wave. He smiled and moved on like he was hunting—ah, make that searching—for something. Or someone. Buffy hoped that someone was someone she knew. Known as Willow.
“Two plus two equals?” a voice asked behind her.
It barely registered. Xander slid into the chair next to her and began ferociously tearing into his plate of tubes with a zeal that might have given one the impression that he thought it was real food. Buffy spared a glance and a bemused frown for his table manners, then looked back at her book.
“Oh, hi, Xander,” Xander said. “Sorry I don’t have time to be sociable, but I’ve done it again. Bad me. I put off studying in favor of more athletic nocturnal activities, and now I’m up crit peek without a shaddle. Again. Oh, woe is me, my tutor Willow has forsaken me.”
Buffy still didn’t look up.
“See, I can tell you’re nervous about the test because instead of your usual choice of beverage, Mango Madness, you’ve gone with the sixteen-ounce chocolate Quik. Major Buffy comfort food. Y’know, if it was food and not drink. Liquid. Beverage thing.”
Buffy still didn’t look up, but she did respond. “Eat your lunch, Xander.”
“Which means, I guess, that you want me to be quiet so you can study for the makeup math test you have in, oh, thirty-two minutes?” Xander inquired.
“Eat your lunch, Xander,” Buffy said again.
“Hey, no problem. I’m shuttin’ up. I’m good at shuttin’ up. Nobody’s better than the X-Man at shuttin’ up.”
“Shut up shuttin’ up,” Buffy drawled in her best Warner Brothers cartoon gangster voice.
Xander grinned broadly. “See. Now haven’t you always wanted to say that?”
“Yes,” Buffy replied, finally looking up and fixing him with an amused but frustrated glare. “Thank you so much. One of my life’s great wishes, really. You’re a prince.”
Willow plopped her tray on the table and slid into a chair. “A prince?” she asked. “Somebody kissed the toad and didn’t tell me? I’m always the last to know.”
Xander and Buffy stared at Willow as she started to dig into the most terrifying meal the school ever served—and they served it once a week—the perversely named vegetarian meatloaf. But it wasn’t her meal choice that had drawn their attention.
“Good God, what happened to you?” Xander asked, bobbing his head toward Willow in that headbobbing, inquisitive way that he had.
Buffy whacked him on the arm.
“Will, are you okay?” he pressed.
“After a week like this, why wouldn’t I be okay?” she snapped. No smile. No sheepish Willowy self-effacing grin.
“Did you get mugged again?” Xander demanded, shifting into the rescuing-the-damsel-in-distress mode that he’d been trying so gamely to perfect. Which explained the tire-changing thing, he decided. He was not Cordelia’s schmuck boy after all. He was her knight in shining armor.
Willow finally looked up at them. Or at least, looked up at them through the black lenses of her sunglasses. Which she had on. Inside the caf, like she thought she was Courtney Love or some other demented denizen of the rich and famous lifestyle universe.
“Huh?” she asked. “No. Not even. In fact, my wrist is totally fine. Healed up real fast.”
“Not really the concern,” Buffy admitted. “It’s more, well, cosmetic. Look, I’m pretty sure you don’t have a hangover, so what’s up with you?”
Cordelia had walked over and pulled up a chair as they were talking, and now she tsk-tsked and tilted her head in her best imitation of a sympathetic friend.
“Willow,” she said kindly. “I think what Buffy is trying not to say is that you look like a two-dollar hooker who hasn’t made it back to her corner of the alley yet.”
Buffy wanted to defend Willow, but for a moment she couldn’t. Because Willow really did look that bad. Her hair was a mess, clean but uncombed and wildly tangled. She had on a lime-green, very fashionable top and purple sweatpants, an offense that should have brought the Fashion SWAT team down on the school the second Willow walked in.
And just when had she walked in? She certainly hadn’t made it in time for first bell. Or even her first class, as far as Buffy knew. And what was up with those sunglasses?
Willow glared at Cordelia, her gaze intense though her eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses.
“How sweet of you to say, Cordelia,” Willow snarled. “Particularly coming from you.”
“Well, excuse me,” Cordy said, flicking her fingers into the air as if she were trying to dry her nail polish. “Aren’t we testy. I was just trying to save you from postapocalyptic embarrassment. See, I always told my therapist that trying to be someone’s friend was just a waste of precious time better spent on self-improvement.”
“Well put,” Xander teased. But of course teasing Cordelia was only fun when she noticed. Which at this moment—sigh, like so many others—she didn’t. Or she didn’t care, which, since it was Xander, was likely.
“You’re right,” Willow told her. “You could use some time on self-improvement, Cordelia. Maybe then people would stop mistaking you for Barbie’s friend Skipper turned crack-ho.”
Buffy smirked. She couldn’t help it. S
he almost burst out laughing, in fact, and probably would have if not for the look on Willow’s face. It wasn’t the triumph she expected to see there—she had, after all, just trounced Cordy in the insult category—but a look of such contempt that for a moment, Buffy thought Willow was going to hiss up a cat fight.
Instead, Will stood up abruptly enough to knock over her chair, then turned and stormed from the cafeteria, leaving her food and her friends behind.
“Wow,” Cordelia said. “What’s gotten into her? Sharpen those claws. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.” She reached for Willow’s tray. “Guess she’s not going to eat her tofu.”
Xander slapped her hand. “Now cut that out!”
Cordy shot him a wounded look, but Buffy barely registered their exchange. She was watching Willow go.
“What is your talk show topic?” Cordelia sneered at Xander.
“Did you look in the mirror and strike yourself blind or something?” Xander snapped at her. “I’ve known Willow my whole life. She’s been my best friend since . . . just since. Something’s obviously really bothering her. She was so un-Willowy. It’d be like you wearing the same outfit to school twice.”
Cordelia blinked. “You think it’s that bad?” she asked worriedly.
“It’s that bad,” Buffy said, and they gave each other “uhoh” looks.
“What do we do?” Xander asked.
“Give her some space, I guess. Try to talk to her, no pressure, and not all together. Ask Giles to talk to her,” Buffy said, rattling off the ideas as they came into her head. “I think maybe getting mugged had more of an impact on Willow than we thought.”
“Like post-traumatic stress disorder or something?” Cordelia asked.
Buffy cast a sidelong glance at her, faced with the realization once again that Cordy wasn’t nearly as thick as she usually seemed. Well, not entirely. Sometimes.
“I’ll talk to her,” Xander said.
“Yeah,” Buffy agreed. “I’ll try to get her to open up too.”
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