by Mel Odom
“Yes,” Willow answered.
“Do you know what they are?”
“Some of them,” Willow said. No way am I getting into my interest in witchcraft at this point. Jia Li’s already freaked. “None of them are illegal, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that,” Jia Li said softly.
“It might be better if the candle were put back.”
Wordlessly, Jia Li returned the candle to its hiding place.
Willow took the faded photograph out gently, feeling the frailty it had. She turned it over and examined the man in the picture.
The photograph was sepia-toned, indicating that it was a hundred years or more old. The man looked thin, dressed in black pants, work boots, and a white shirt that looked a couple sizes too large for him. He wore an uncertain and nervous smile beneath longish dark hair. He stood near a mule-drawn wagon in front of a ramshackle building whose sign announced SUNNYDALE GENERAL STORE. The road was heavily rutted beneath the horses’ hooves.
“I thought at first this was your grandfather,” Willow said. “But it isn’t, is it?”
“No.” Jia Li stood close, staring at the picture perplexingly. “This is a picture of my ancestor. The one who died over here.”
“Mei-Kao Rong,” Willow said, looking into the young face.
“How did you know that?”
“I heard his name mentioned at the graveyard,” Willow reminded. “And I saw the gravestone. You seem surprised to see this picture.”
“We thought it was lost,” Jia Li said. “It was in the things my mother got after my grandfather died. She had copies of the picture made and passed out to my father’s sisters and brother, but she thought the original had been lost during the move here. I can’t believe Lok didn’t tell them he had it.”
“Your mother’s father had it?” Willow asked, putting the family connections together.
“Yes.”
“Why would your mother’s father have this picture? Mei-Kao Rong was one of your father’s ancestors, not your mother’s.”
Jia Li studied the picture with renewed curiosity. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone thought to ask.”
“The picture must mean a lot to Lok.” Willow replaced the photograph in the chest. “What do you know about Mei-Kao Rong?”
“Only that he died here in a terrible accident in the mines,” Jia Li replied. “His grave lies empty because they never found the body. There were other men who were killed at the same time.”
“Do you know who they were?”
“No. I only know this from stories my father’s family has told. There are letters that Mei-Kao wrote and sent back to his family, but only a few of those.”
“Can you get copies of those letters?”
“Yes. But why would we need them?”
“I don’t know.” Willow replaced the photograph in the chest. “I’m just working on the assumption that more information—instead of less—is a good thing.” She closed the chest and returned it to the drawer, hiding it away as Lok had hidden it.
Even with hiding it, though, Willow knew it wasn’t going to hide all the things she believed Lok was tampering with. The image of the corpse stumbling from the earthen wall, then smashing the pick through Lok’s head filled her mind again. She shivered.
“Are you all right?” Jia Li asked.
“Yeah,” Willow said. “Just thought I had to sneeze.”
The phone in the living room rang. Jia Li excused herself and went to answer it.
Willow looked around the room, trying to find anything else that called out to her.
“Do you talk to shadows, too?” one of the younger Rong boys asked.
Willow glanced at him nervously. “Why would you ask that?”
“Don’t know,” the boy mumbled, yawning. “You’ve got that look in your eyes the way Lok does sometimes.”
Jia Li returned to the room looking a little afraid. “That was the Sunnydale Police Department. They have Lok. He’s been arrested.”
Xander watched in disbelief as the black-clad swordswoman leveled the flintlock pistol only a couple of inches from his head. Heart pounding, he turned to see what she was aiming at, spotting the Asian youth with the green and white hair coming up on him from behind.
The swordswoman squeezed the trigger deliberately as the Asian gang member tried to lift his machine pistol. The flintlock’s hammer struck the frizzen and detonated, gray smoke trailing from the flash pan, then exploding from the muzzle as the ball hurtled through the barrel.
The ball struck the gang member between the eyes and shattered, creating a cloud of brilliantly glowing green dust. During the short time he’d become Army Guy, Xander had learned about frangible ammo—bullets designed to come apart on impact to stun rather than kill— and he guessed the ball was a frangible round of some type, though he’d never seen any with a green cloud.
At first, the Asian youth hadn’t been that upset about being shot between the eyes and had only stumbled back. But he backed hurriedly away from the green fog that formed, spewing from the neat, round hole in his head. The gassy cloud followed him though, and curled into his nose, mouth, and ears. Tremors started shaking him immediately, driving him down to his knees as he lost motor control. In the next instant, he collapsed and fell forward, becoming a disgusting pile of green glop that leaked across the basketball court.
Xander glanced up at the swordswoman, torn between fear and fascination.
She slid the pistol back into a holster at her back. Xander saw the second pistol butt on the other side now. Before he could move, she swept her sword up under his chin, resting the keen edge against his Adam’s apple.
Xander worked hard not to swallow, thinking he’d probably cut his own throat if he moved. He showed her his open hands, hearing the slap of feet closing in on them from behind. “I come in peace,” he whispered.
A faint smile touched the swordswoman’s lips and turned her entirely gorgeous in Xander’s eyes.
Why is it all the really cool chicks not only have bewitching powers over me, Xander wondered, but they can also kick my ass?
The swordswoman came closer to him and he smelled the flowers in her hair. The sword never wavered from his throat, but somehow it didn’t seem so important as he looked into her golden hazel eyes.
“You smell,” she whispered in curiously accented English, “mostly human.”
“I am human,” Xander assured her self-consciously. “And that off-odor is just because I’ve been playing basketball. Oh yeah, earlier tonight I killed a vampire with trash I found in an alley. Normally, I’m really a very hygienic guy. I floss. I wash. I even pick up my own underwear and socks.” At least once a week.
She pushed him, bringing her empty hand across to plant against his chest. It made her arm muscles pump up nicely, Xander noticed. And he also noticed that the necklace she wore had two colors, blue and white, and was in two pieces in a yin/yang design. Suddenly, two seemed like an awfully familiar number. Everything wonderful came in pairs. Eyes, ears, necklace pieces, shoulders, and those rounded—
Then he was falling backward an instant before bullets chopped the air where he’d been standing.
The swordswoman leaped up and seemed to take flight. The long panels attached to her sleeves trailed after her, fluttering on the breeze and making her seem larger and faster than she was. The sword flashed, splintering moonlight as she flipped through the air, touched down, then hurled herself to the side and flipped again. The gang member tried to target her, triggering short bursts that struck the chain link fence.
When the swordswoman landed again, she was within reach of the gunner. Her arm flicked out, flipping the broadsword like it was weightless. The blade swept the man’s head from his shoulders in a spray of blood, then she flipped away again. One of the other gang members opened up, blasting the headless corpse as it dropped.
Still incredibly aware of where the blade had been touching his throat, Xander got up a
nd scrambled over to the gloppy remains of the gang member the swordswoman had shot. Insects crawled through the green glop and Xander didn’t think they’d just gathered there. One quick grab made the machine pistol on the ground his. He stayed down, clearing the pistol’s action and coming to a prone position on his elbows, the weapon extended before him.
Loomis the vampire closed on the swordswoman, but she snapped her left arm in his direction. Loomis stumbled back with a slim wooden stake through his heart, falling backward and turning to dust before he hit the basketball court.
The swordswoman was already in motion, running toward one of the gang members. The three surviving vampires fought with the gang members, staggered by the rounds they fired. The swordswoman ran toward one of the gang members as he fired, getting his attention, then jumping high into the air.
The gang member fired, accidentally hitting one of his own people and knocking him down in a spray of blood. Apparently not all of the Asians had green glop flowing through their veins.
Xander aimed at the gang member’s legs and squeezed the trigger, intent on just wounding the guy. The machine pistol jerked in Xander’s hands, then went silent.
The gang member glanced down at his bloodied legs and torn pants, then up at Xander. If there was pain from the wounds, the guy wasn’t showing it. He whipped his weapon around and aimed point-blank at Xander.
Chapter 11
HE’S NOT HUMAN, XANDER TOLD HIMSELF AS HE LOOKED at the grinning gang member pointing the machine pistol at him, and this is definitely not good. He pushed himself to his feet, knowing there was no way the gang member could miss. The swordswoman landed only a few feet away, touching down lightly as a bird. She swapped hands with the sword and pulled the second flintlock pistol from behind her back. She dragged the hammer back as she brought the pistol up, curled her finger over the trigger and fired immediately.
The ball slammed through the gang member’s forehead, unleashing another green cloud. Vapor tendrils seeped into the gang member’s head through his ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. He squeezed the machine pistol’s trigger but the hard metal passed right through his now-gelatinous finger.
“No!” he shouted, but a bilious green spray came out with his voice as his liquid knees collapsed under him. By the time his head hit the basketball court, it spread into mush like an overripe melon. The stench of ripe decay filled the immediate area.
God, that’s disgusting! Xander looked up at the swordswoman as she calmly reholstered her weapon.
Two gang members turned on her and raised their weapons. The swordswoman threw her arms high into the air and followed them, tucking her knees into her chest, going so high Xander knew her boots had to be spring-loaded.
Unable to stand by and watch the woman be shot down, Xander ran at the two men from the side. He threw himself at them as a stream of emptied brass erupted from the automatic weapons. Xander hit the first man hard, driving both of them back into the second man standing nearby. They all went down in a tumbling heap.
Knowing the two gang members would turn on him immediately, Xander scrambled to get free of the other man’s arms and legs. One of the men grabbed Xander by the shirtfront and rolled him over onto his back, coming up on his knees. He head-butted Xander in the nose, bringing tears to Xander’s eyes. The other gang member reloaded his weapon and shoved the barrel toward Xander’s head.
Even through his blurred vision, Xander saw the swordswoman turn in the air, almost looking like she was floating, her black silk dress flaring out behind her. Her hand and forearm flipped forward sharply.
A meaty smack drew Xander’s attention to the man with the pistol pointed at his head. A spike suddenly jutted from the gang member’s left eye, sending him backward screeching in pain. Another spike caught the second gang member in the forehead, crunching home. The gang member dropped lifelessly across Xander’s stomach. They’d been human.
The swordswoman landed and crossed the distance at a dead run, twirling her blade over so it pointed down. She thrust it into the wounded man’s chest, piercing his heart, then twisted the blade before freeing it.
“Be careful,” she whispered to Xander, then she was moving, and a hail of bullets tore through the air where she’d been.
Xander pushed the corpse off of him, totally amazed at the whirlwind of destruction the swordswoman had become. None of the gang members or the surviving vampires dared take their eyes from her. Three other gang members with green and white striped hair ran in through the courtyard gate, attacking from the swordswoman’s left.
The swordswoman hesitated only a split second. Then she grabbed the sword hilt in both hands and charged the first of the new arrivals. She leaped and kicked the pistol from his hand, at the same time putting her other foot in the man’s chest to drive him back, and used the change in momentum to loop into an aerial roll. She slashed down with the sword, splitting the second gang member’s skull before he could get away. She landed slightly off-balance, delaying her sidestroke at the third man.
The gang member leaped over her blow, revealing unnatural quickness and strength himself. He caught hold of the tall chain link fence, hooking the fingers of one hand through the mesh and catching toeholds. He swung his pistol back around, firing immediately. Bullets tore chunks from the basketball court and ricocheted to the other side.
The swordswoman dodged to one side, staggered for a moment like she’d been hit. She struck the pistol from the gang member’s hand with her blade with a metallic shriek.
The gang member was already in motion the instant he lost his weapon. He dodged away from her second attempt and crawled across the chain link fence with a fluid grace that reminded Xander of an insect.
Springing lithely, the swordswoman pursued the man. She planted a foot on the fence nearly eight feet up and leaped at the gang member. Fast as she was, though, the gang member moved even more quickly. The sword’s keen edge missed him by inches as he scuttled higher, then jumped from the fence, tucking into a back flip with a half-twist that put him within reach of his weapon.
Xander grabbed the machine pistol in front of him and thrust it at the man, squeezing the trigger immediately. The bullets hammered the man but he remained fixed on his target.
The swordswoman released her hold on the fence and bounded outward, gaining distance from the fence as if it were a trampoline. She turned in midair as her attacker’s gunfire drove sparks from the chain link fence. She landed in a crouch, a wisp of black material hanging from her right hand. She placed something into the cloth loop with her left hand, then whipped it in a circle over her head. Even as the gang member turned on her, she flipped the sling forward.
The gang member’s head rocked back, driven by the green ball that slammed into his chin. The cloud the impact released swarmed up around his head at once, choking him down. He was porridge slipping through his own clothes before he stumbled back two steps.
The swordswoman recovered her weapon and gazed steely-eyed across the basketball court. The two vampire girls and the one surviving guy dropped the drained corpses of the last two gang members. Blood shone on their fangs and lips.
The swordswoman faced them down silently. For a moment Xander thought they might actually attack her. He dropped the empty pistol and grabbed the stake the young woman had used to kill Loomis the vampire, then stood at her side—out of immediate sword’s reach.
She acknowledged him with a small smile, but her face remained hard.
“Next time,” the male vampire promised Xander fiercely, “you’ll get yours.”
“Oh yeah,” Xander replied, “you can just—just take a number, you orthodontist’s nightmare!” Now that really sounded catchy, he told himself sourly.
The vampire guy followed the two girls, streaking toward the fence on the other side of the court. “And you’ll need a bigger toothpick.”
“I’ve got bigger toothpicks,” Xander said. “Plenty of them. Whole boxfuls.” He glanced at the young swordswoman, who seemed to
be smiling at him. And that was just so much more brilliant. He groaned to himself. Then tried to smile. “I’m still working on witty repartee.”
“Xander!”
Turning, Xander saw Giles at the court fence near the street.
“We need to get out of here,” the Watcher called. “Now. Before the police arrive.”
“I’ll be with you in just a minute,” Xander promised. He dusted himself off and turned back to the swordswoman. Only she was gone. He scanned the basketball court quickly and spotted her near the gang member she’d kicked when attacking the three latest arrivals.
The gang member was groggy, barely able to rise to his knees. His eyes widened when he saw the swordswoman closing on him. He grabbed for his dropped weapon, but her sword slashed against his throat, neatly slicing his chin so that blood dripped down the blade. The gang member froze.
The swordswoman put her face close to the gang member’s. “Tell your master to stay away, that the ones he seeks are protected.” She spoke in a low voice that was cold and threatening.
“He will kill you.”
“Death has never scared me,” the swordswoman replied. She lifted her sword, making him tilt his head back into an uncomfortable position so that his blood ran down his neck. “Tell your master to stay away, or I will be his fate. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” the man croaked.
“I pay for this message with your life.” The swordswoman drew back, taking the blade from the man’s throat. Effortlessly, she spun and kicked the man in the side of the head, stretching him out unconscious. She lifted her bloodstained blade and inspected it for a moment, watching as the metal soaked up the crimson fluid. She turned and walked toward the dark end of the basketball court.
“Xander,” Giles called again, and this time police sirens could be heard in the distance, though they actually sounded like they were going away from the park.
Xander ignored the Watcher and took off after the swordswoman. Although she walked, he had to trot to keep up. “Who are you?”