Blooded

by Christopher Golden

  Tonight I shall go out hunting. Someone must, and she is in no condition for it. In truth, I undertake it only so that she will not fret so. I am for myself, selfishly, much afrighted. I am only a Watcher, though at this moment I would I were more.

  February 13, 1817

  I feel that we are in a race. As the doctor predicted, Justine has taken a turn for the worse. Her face is ashen and her chest rises and falls as if she is perpetually gasping for breath. And yet, an hour ago she opened her eyes, smiled like an excited little girl, and asked, through her pitifully cracked lips, “What have you discovered now? Are we still on the trail?”

  Either she is being brave for me, or else she remains as captivated by the search for the legend of the Lost Slayer as I. Through a lengthy volume of Chinese lore called Emperor Taizu’s Book, we have found this:

  It is true that in the first place, demons owned this world. They lost it in a grand battle with the Emperor, and fight to this day to take it back again.

  This is precisely what Watchers and Slayers are taught to believe! Although, of course, we believe that it was not a battle with a Chinese Emperor which caused the forces of darkness to lose their control over the world. But what is significant is that according to our unnamed translator, these words were written in A.D. 971!

  February 28

  My girl is dead. In the moment that I saw the light go from her eyes, I clutched the bedpost and cried aloud, “Truly, I knew not it would be this difficult!” For though I have steeled myself for this moment, I was—and remain—unprepared.

  They are coming to help me wash and dress her poor body. To the churchyard we shall go on the morrow. I cannot bear this. I am in a state of agony. Whatever shall I do with my days and nights?

  The answer lies in the scrolls and parchments. For her last words to me were, “Promise me you’ll solve the mystery.”

  And so I shall.

  Oh, Justine!

  January 6, 1818

  It is a year since Justine’s defeat in battle. I am glad to say that her successor found her murderers and dispatched them as a personal favor to me. I went to the churchyard to tell Justine of our side’s victory.

  At the least, I am not as useless as I had believed I would become. I am someone honored among the Watchers, for I was Justine’s Watcher, and she was much admired. And as I continue unraveling the legend of the Lost Slayer, others have begun sending me pieces of information they have unearthed. In some cases, this includes entire volumes!

  To wit, I have just opened a packet from a colleague at the new University in Ghent. It concerns a certain Japanese legend about a god, or goddess, named Sanno. This Sanno was also called the Mountain King, and he or she was the patron deity of Mount Hiei in Japan. Part of the legend concerns a Chinese vampire who vowed to devour the Japanese emperor. Sanno saved the emperor by dispatching the vampire with a magickal sword through the heart.

  My colleague writes, “Could this Sanno be your Lost Slayer?” I have no idea. If Sanno was female, perhaps she is!

  March 18, 1819

  How delightful! I have just received a copy of my book, Oriental Magick Spells as Collected by Claire Silver, a Watcher.

  Privately printed by one of our own, there are five copies now circulating among my fellow Watchers. It is a comfort to me to be of use to my fellows, for though it has been over a year since my Justine left me, I feel the loss of her as deeply as though it were yesterday. I visit her grave daily, telling her of the progress I have made.

  Though I have now discerned that Sanno was not the Slayer, as he was male, yet pursuit of that knowledge led me to investigate and record many fascinating and useful Oriental spells, contained now in my very own published work! I will take it to show Justine this afternoon.

  Giles looked up from the book. “Damn,” he said.

  Cordelia blinked. “What?”

  “I have the feeling that’s the volume we’re really after. Her book of spells.” He checked the other book he had with him, flipping through the pages. He shook his head. “This is quite useless. It appears she married and had children. This is about their travels in Switzerland.”

  “How thrilling,” Cordelia said ironically.

  As if he seconded that emotion, Xander snored loudly in his hospital bed. Cordelia rolled her eyes.

  “He doesn’t usually snore,” she offered, then blushed and stammered, “or so his, um, sister says.”

  Giles had never heard of a sister of Xander’s before, but whether or not Cordelia was an expert on his, ah, nocturnal habits was quite beyond the scope of the matter at hand. Anxiously, he glanced at the phone.

  “If only Buffy would check in,” he said.

  Cordelia waved her hands at him. “You go back to the library and get the book, and I’ll wait here in case she calls.”

  “Mmm. All right.” He rose and spared an extra moment to gaze at Xander. “Youth is remarkably resilient,” he murmured. Then he read Cordelia’s blank stare and said, “The color’s already returning to his cheeks.”

  “It’s blood,” she said bluntly, indicating an empty blood bag hooked into an IV in Xander’s arm. “The nurse told me that was the last bag just when you were getting to the part about Lord Brian.”

  “Byron,” Giles corrected automatically, then sighed. “Yes, Lord Brian indeed. Quite right.”

  “Go get the book,” she urged.

  He sighed. “I suppose I must. But do take care.”

  He left his books there and hurried out of the room.

  Cordelia was a little shaken. All that talk about the Slayer dying . . . eeuu. It creeped her out. It must really creep out Giles. And Buffy, too, of course.

  She rubbed her arms, suddenly cold. Xander might have died, if Buffy hadn’t insisted they go look for him. That creeped her out worst of all.

  About five minutes later, the phone rang. Cordelia picked it up.

  “Oh, hi, Harmony,” she said. “No, I’m still stuck here, can you believe it? His mother had to go pick up someone somewhere or something. Well, yes, he had a pretty nasty, ah, fall. A sale? I’m missing a sale? You’re on your cell? Go to the petites right now. Go! If that leather jacket is marked down, you have to buy it for me. Of course I’ll pay you back!”

  CHAPTER 13

  The hospital phone was still busy. Xander must have a lot of worried relatives, or else maybe someone had knocked it off the hook.

  Buffy sighed and got back in Cordelia’s car.

  The golden glow of the sinking sun glared against the windshield as Buffy braked the car in front of the building where Angel lived. She grabbed her Slayer’s bag, hopped out, and scrambled down the stairs to pound on the door. It was the last place she could think of where Willow might be hiding out. Angel would have taken her in if she really needed a place—if he didn’t know what else had happened.

  Or maybe even if he did. Angel was a surprising person . . . make that vampire . . . make that person . . .

  But when the heavy door scraped the floor as it opened, and she saw the bleary-eyed face of the dead man she loved, she knew she was out of luck again. Whatever Willow was going through, Buffy somehow knew that her chances of helping Willow were draining away with the last rays of the sun. She had maybe twenty minutes, and they might as well be twenty seconds. Or two.

  “Sorry to wake you,” she mumbled as she pushed past Angel into his dimly lit apartment and dropped her bag to the floor. She had long since grown used to the eclectic furnishings there, but it seemed as though each time she visited, she saw something new. Well, something old, but new to her.

  Not this time. This time, everything seemed all too familiar.

  “Buffy, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Willow,” she whispered. Then she filled him in on everything that had happened up until that moment.

  Buffy’s eyes welled up as he came to her and tilted her head so she could lay it against his chest, a chest where she would never hear a heart beating. They’d been through so much tog
ether, suffered so much, and yet still she loved him. What else could she do? Love was like that.

  “What’s this shrine you found at her house?” Angel asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was in such a rush that Giles and I didn’t even have a chance to go over it. And I can’t seem to locate him or even talk to him. I guess I should’ve hung around the hospital, for all the good I’m doing Willow.”

  She sighed. “I guess I’ll go back there.”

  “Can I see the things you took?” he asked.

  Buffy reached for her bag, unzipped it, and pulled out the note first.

  “Origami,” Angel said. “An Asian art form.”

  She nodded. “I knew it was a word like that. All I could think of was rigatoni.”

  She showed him the disk on the chain around her neck.

  He shook his head. “No idea what that is.”

  The withered little plant.

  “Hmm,” Angel murmured, and Buffy glanced up sharply to see if he realized how much he sounded like Giles. Apparently not.

  “Looks like a bonsai tree,” he said finally. “But it’s been dead a while.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” Buffy asked.

  “I’ve traveled a lot,” Angel replied.

  “I never get to go anywhere,” Buffy said, half-mocking herself.

  Angel kissed her, then, deeply and with a kind of gentle sympathy. “I’m sorry all this is happening,” he whispered. “I wish I could be more help, but I’ve never heard of anything like it before. If Willow is a vampire—we don’t know that, but if she is—she shouldn’t be up and around during the day.” He half-smiled. “Vampires don’t go to school, Buffy.”

  Buffy stared at him.

  “What did you say?” she demanded.

  “I said . . .”

  “Vampires don’t go to school!” Buffy shouted. “Angel, that’s it!”

  He stared at her, stupefied.

  “The things on Willow’s desk aren’t exactly the kind of souvenirs she would keep,” Buffy said quickly. “Whatever, whoever she is now . . . that’s who put those things there. I’ve been wasting my time looking in all the places Willow might go. She’s changed now . . .”

  The thought threw Buffy for a moment, stealing some of the joy of her realization. Her face became grim and her mind determined. “Origami. That dead bonsai tree was ripped from the ground.” She slapped her forehead. “The Chia Pet garden! That’s what it reminded me of.”

  Hastily, she explained about the Japanese friendship garden exhibit. “The real garden is still in Sunnydale,” she said. “It may have some kind of weird connection to the one in Kobe. So maybe there’s some extra vortex thingie there or something. And Willow as vampire is drawn there.”

  “Well, there aren’t many other places in Sunnydale where you can get a bonsai tree,” Angel said, nodding.

  “In L.A. you can buy them at the mall,” Buffy said, almost sadly. Suddenly she missed her old, normal life more than she ever had before. She was tired of all the weirdness. It seemed that the moment she thought she’d adjusted to her role as the Slayer, something came along to change it. Up the stakes.

  So to speak.

  Angel glanced at the window.

  Buffy said, “There are about eighteen more minutes of daylight left.” She took a breath. “When you’re the Slayer, eighteen minutes can be a lifetime.”

  Angel nodded. “Go. I’ll come after you the second the sun goes down.”

  She kissed him lightly on the lips and looked away quickly so he wouldn’t see her fear and worry. “See you soon.”

  “I’ll hurry,” he promised, but Buffy was already out the door and bounding up the steps.

  A tiny slice of the sun was still visible on the horizon as she got into Cordelia’s car. The sky was a garish pink on one end, and a deep, almost ghostly blue on the other.

  Buffy put the car in gear, praying she wouldn’t get stopped.

  The disk clanked against the metal chain as if it were a time bomb sequenced for countdown.

  * * *

  Giles returned huffing and puffing with a leather book in his arms just as Xander closed the bathroom door and walked all by himself back to his bed.

  The Watcher actually stumbled over his own feet and said, “Xander, what are you doing up?” Then, before Xander could answer, he glanced at Cordelia and said, “Has Buffy called?”

  “Oops,” Cordelia said, looking guilty. “I mean, no.”

  Xander looked curiosly at his little lustbuddy and wondered what that oops was about, but concentrated instead on Giles.

  “Cor says you went off to get another book,” he said, bobbing his head at that thing called libro by some—the ones who took Spanish—in Giles’s arms.

  “Um? Oh, yes. Yes.” Giles was actually smiling. “It’s just that I’m so delighted to see you up and about. Although I’m sure you’re supposed to remain in bed.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “He didn’t like the bedpan,” Cordelia offered helpfully.

  “Thank you, Nurse Chase,” Xander huffed, rolling his eyes. She did the same, and it looked like another fine evening with the Dueling Banjos except that they had more important things to talk about.

  “The book,” he urged Giles.

  “The book,” Giles concurred, and his smile grew. “As one might say, bingo.”

  Xander sat down and rubbed his hands. “Then bingo it is. And please read-o.”

  “Yes.”

  Giles read.

  “In early Japan, executions were carried out by means of either strangulation or immolation, that is to say, burning. The spilling of blood revolted the fastidious Japanese mind. However, with the arrival of Buddhism, seppuku became the favored method, the victim voluntarily inserting a sword blade into his abdomen and slicing his bowels, thus causing a copious amount of bleeding (and, one must add, however indelicately, pain of a truly unimaginable sort). If at all possible, the head of the condemned was summarily cut off with another sword in order to spare him further agony. However, to be decapitated without first freeing one’s soul from the body (for the Japanese believed that the soul resides within the abdomen) was truly a dishonor.”

  “And we couldn’t have that,” Xander quipped.

  “Be quiet,” Cordelia snapped. “Giles, keep reading. Please,” she added sweetly.

  “Further regarding the ritual Magic of Ancient Japan, it is considered possible to imprison a Spirit inside an inanimate object. One then says of the Spirit that it is ‘bound’ and that the Object is ‘alive.’ Thus, one says of a Bell into which a Spirit has been bound, Suzu ga imasu, rather than Suzu ga arimasu. Imasu being the verb for things that are alive, while arimasu is used for the things which are not.

  “In various versions of the legend of Sanno the Mountain King, we read that his Sword is a living thing, which leads one to assume a Spirit had been bound into it. Blood is prominently mentioned, specifically, the blooding of his enemy. The story regarding Sanno’s victorious battle with the evil Vampire Chirayoju generally includes the line, and Chirayoju was blooded, and thus vanquished.”

  “So it got out when Willow cut herself?” Xander said, staring hard at Giles.

  Giles returned his gaze. “It would appear so.”

  Xander ran his hands through his hair. “Listen, Giles, whatever happens, I’m not letting anyone put a stake through Willow. No way.”

  “Well, what I’ve been pondering is the uniqueness of this case,” Giles began, and Xander wondered how many trails they were scheduled to meander down before they reached Giles’s point. Because he had already reached his own conclusion: he’d lock Willow up like Oz—only, just for the rest of her natural life, instead of three nights a week—before he would ever allow her to be harmed.

  “Yes, the pondering thing,” Xander said, weary, pain-ridden, and very anxious.

  Giles completely missed his impatience, or else was being very British and very polite about pretending not
to notice it. “It seems to me that if the demon was extracted from one form, perhaps it can be done again.”

  “Okay, trap the vampire ghost. Got it,” Xander said. “And we do that by . . . ?”

  Giles smiled grimly. It was times like these he wished he was back in the land of tea, crumpets, and baked beans for breakfast. “I suppose we’ll find that out after Cordelia and I have broken into the museum and had another look at that sword.”

  Fighting vertigo, Xander sat up. “Cordy, I never thought I’d say these words to you, but help me finish getting dressed.”

  “And I never thought I’d say this,” Cordelia shot back, “but no way.” She held her hand out to Giles. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Xander protested.

  Giles shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry, Xander, but you’ve got to stay here and get well.” He gestured to the phone. “Besides, Buffy may call.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Xander said, to Giles’s surprise. “You’re right. You two run along.” He folded his hands and made a show of climbing back into bed. “I’m sitting here obediently, healing away. That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Well, good,” Giles said uncertainly.

  * * *

  As soon as they were out of range, Xander threw back his wafer-thin hospital blanket and climbed awkwardly out of bed. The room spun for a shorter period of time than the last time, and he figured that meant he was ready to put on his Robin cape.

  He shuffled once more toward the little closet containing his clothes—his admittedly disgusting, blood-caked duds—and opted for his jeans and a scrub top he found hanging in his bathroom. Used? Covered with ebola virus?

  Then it occurred to him to look for some scrub pants.

  In a few minutes, he looked like Dr. Greene on ER after he’d been mugged. He strolled out of the hospital and followed behind two hotties in outfits similar to his own. As they neared the parking lot, he made a show of groaning and turning back around.