by Mel Odom
“Why is Mei-Kao Rong not in his grave?” Jia Li asked after a moment more.
“The mining company just closed the mine,” Willow replied. “They left all of them buried there.”
“Then what is Lok doing here?”
“I don’t know.” But Willow was afraid she really did know. The flute and the candle Lok had made had been dead giveaways.
“Where was the mine?” Jia Li asked.
She’s starting to put it together too, Willow realized. “Not far from here.”
Chanting reached their ears, a lilting singsong that sounded thin and strained and frantic.
Willow switched off the flashlight at the mouth of the next passageway. Shadows covered the way, but she thought she could see well enough to continue. She glanced over her shoulder at Jia Li.
The wavering light streaming from the cavern below highlighted Jia Li’s face, making her appear ghostly.
Or maybe, Willow decided, I’m just prepared for ghosts. “We don’t know what Lok will do if he finds us here,” she reminded.
Jia Li nodded. “I know.”
“If he wigs out, we’ve got to go. At least we know where to find him.”
“Yes.”
“I need you to know I mean that,” Willow said.
Jia Li took her by the hand. “I’m scared of him, too, Willow. Can’t you see that in me?” Her eyes held a wet gleam.
“Yes,” Willow said.
“But I need to know what he is doing here. It might help.”
Willow nodded. “Okay. We’ll get a little closer.” Slowly, she turned and crawled farther down the passageway. She spotted a concave ledge to the right, almost buried in the shadows on that side. As she crawled toward it, having to duck under the low ceiling, Lok’s voice grew louder. At first she thought it was because he was speaking more forcefully, then she realized it was the structure of the concave area that amplified his voice. She hunkered down behind a boulder that was three times larger than she.
Jia Li slid in beside her.
From her vantage point, Willow had a good view of Lok. He kneeled, his arms spread out before him, palms toward the earthen wall. A patio torch was stuck into the ground beside him but instead of the fuel reservoir, the candle Jia Li had found hidden in the closet burned there.
“He’s praying to the guei,” Jia Li whispered. “Calling on them to come to him.”
Though Willow couldn’t understand the words, she understood the intent. Sensitive as she was to magic and spells, she felt the power growing around her. It was a force, savage and primeval and tainted with darkness.
It is tainted with selfishness, the voice whispered into Willow’s mind. Part of that selfish need comes from Lok himself, because the young are always selfish, and always most selfish as they step through the threshold of adulthood. The guei feed on Lok’s need, and he feeds on them in turn. They fulfill a darkness inside him that he was born with.
What am I supposed to do? Willow asked. This is way out of my league.
For the moment, young Willow, you can only watch. There are things you must learn before doing can begin.
Waiting really bites, Willow thought, then realized she probably didn’t have a private thought to herself. Oooops. Sorry.
Maintain vigilance. Lok is in grave danger. His spell will be too weak to control that which he calls forth. You will need to aid him.
Hands shaking, Willow reached into her bag of herbs and took out a few leaves of burdock root. She readied a protection chant in her mind, saying it under her breath.
By strong and persevering Earth, mother to the First and our home,
By quick and warlike Fire, stolen and seduced that we might light the way against those who would harm us,
By Water moving swift and still, which cleanses and makes us whole again,
By Air’s sweet breath and gentle caress, which nurtures us and lifts us up,
I call upon you as a sister to the moon,
As one of those who would seek understanding rather than destruction,
As one who both knows how to give love and take it,
As one who is in need.
Take my strength and love,
Take my knowledge,
Take that within me that is always at rest and never still,
Take the breath I take and share and give to the next.
Come to me now, spirits of protection.
Willow felt the power grow within her, lost in a semitrance for the moment, barely aware of Jia Li staring at her. She turned to the girl, feeling light-headed, like she was on laughing gas from a dentist’s office. All uncertainty and fear was gone from her. She was calm, collected.
“It’s okay,” she told Jia Li. “I know what I’m doing.”
Abruptly, the candle in the patio torch fizzled, creating a miniature nova that turned all light within the cave green.
It’s started, the voice said.
Willow knew. She felt the power of Lok’s spell thrumming inside her, vibrating her flesh as winds suddenly whipped to life inside the cave, becoming a dervish that took on the flesh of sand and small rock. The dervish banged repeatedly against the cavern walls, sounding like a trickling stream.
With a final cry, Lok shoved his hands out toward the earthen wall. Just as it had in Willow’s vision, the wall shattered, bursting out in great chunks, only this time the trapped smell of decades-old death erupted into the room. Just as in Willow’s vision, the corpse stepped out from the wreckage of the wall, the mining pick clasped in its skeletal hands.
Willow! the voice cried loudly. You must help!
The shambling mockery of death gazed around for a moment, then spotted Lok. Lok still had his hands raised, and the candle burned bright green, the flame jerking and wavering against the whirling dervish.
The corpse moved jerkily toward Lok, raising the pick high above its head.
“No!” Jia Li shouted, pushing herself up and running toward her brother. “No!” She tripped and fell, skidding across the rocks and down the incline, initiating a small avalanche.
Willow raised her hands, holding her palms up in supplication, concentrating on the two people in the corpse’s path. She scattered the powdered burdock root into the winds that seethed inside the cave.
Spirits of protection,
Heed my plea.
Circle once, circle twice, circle thrice,
Protect those whom I would protect.
Willow shoved her palms toward the corpse and felt the gathered power empty from her body. The force she summoned slammed into the corpse, hammering it back against the wall just as it started to bring the pick down. The rusty point missed Lok’s head only by inches.
Jia Li pushed herself up and ran to Lok. Lok maintained his kneeling position, staring hard at the unmoving corpse. His sister threw her arms around him, holding him tight, talking to him rapidly in Chinese, smoothing his scarlet-tipped hair like she would a child.
Feeling totally and completely drained, Willow slumped, unable to find the strength to get to her feet. She gazed into the hole the shambling corpse had come from, spotting the tunnel that lay beyond. The candlelight changed from green to weak yellow again. The wind died away.
And in the fluttering candlelight, Willow saw the withered bodies of the other men who had been buried in the mining accident that had taken Mei-Kao Rong’s life. She listened for the voice inside her head, even called out to it, but there was no response. Are we done here? she wondered.
Head still swimming, she tried to push herself up. Her knees trembled and barely took her weight. She didn’t dare move so soon.
Harsh voices gave her only a moment’s warning before she heard feet pounding down the passageway. At first Willow thought it might be Buffy or Xander. Then she spotted the Black Wind gang members entering the cave with machine pistols and flashlights in their hands.
Willow froze against the boulder, hoping it was enough to hide her. Two of the gang members grabbed Lok roughly, binding his han
ds behind his back with tape. Lok offered no resistance, but Jia Li fought them. One of the gang members screamed at her and she stood up to him, yelling at him. The gang member backhanded her, dropping her, unconscious, to the floor.
Willow started to go forward out of reflex.
No. The voice sounded far away and extremely weakened. Not time. Waaaiiittt . . . The voice faded completely, nothing but dead air.
Which maybe, Willow had to admit, isn’t a completely bad comparison. She hid in the shadows, hardly daring to breathe. And as she sat there, the Black Wind gang members set to work.
One of them brought out a box of lawn and leaf-size garbage bags and they began piling the bodies of the dead miners into them. That intrigued Willow, because the Black Wind gang members didn’t really strike her as totally dedicated to neat-freakishness.
* * *
Zhiyong stared at Buffy across the short length of machine pistol that separated them. The extra twenty feet from actual barrel to bad guy didn’t matter to the man, Buffy knew.
“Wait,” Zhiyong ordered the demons around him. They froze in place, their weapons still trained on Buffy.
Buffy didn’t move, knowing Angel had her back covered. “Okay, we’ve got one of those moments going here,” she said. “I guess we can start talking or start shooting. Which would you rather do?”
“You,” Zhiyong said, “would shoot me?”
“Fully automatic weapon,” Buffy responded. “I guess there’s a chance I could miss. Or maybe I’ll only shoot off the big pieces and you’ll live. I’m not exactly Gun Girl. Of course, you could ask yourself if I’ve actually got any bullets in the bullet thingy. I mean, maybe this pile of glop here at my feet that used to be one of your demons shot up all the bullets before I punched his ticket.”
Zhiyong made a point of glancing around the bulletriddled hallway. “A lot of bullets have been fired.”
Buffy kicked a metallic object embedded in the glop that used to be a demon. The object skidded across the hallway carpet, thudding to a stop against Zhiyong’s shoe. “Empty bullet thingy. Maybe I got him just after he reloaded.”
“I guess,” Angel said quietly, “it boils down to how lucky you believe you are, Zhiyong. Standing here in this doorway, I have to wonder if you’ve got any other demons making tracks this way, hoping to take us from behind.”
That one, Buffy admitted to herself, I had not thought of.
“Or maybe one of the other demons will happen to pop in at a really bad moment,” Angel continued, “not knowing you’re already engaged in an awkward moment. Either situation will get you killed. From where I’m standing, you smell really human.”
Buffy watched the shipping magnate, knowing that getting one-upped was really bothering him. Zhiyong wasn’t used to getting beaten. Or even stalemated. His face radiated pure attitude.
The sudden, strident ringing of the cell phone startled them all.
“Excuse me,” Zhiyong said, opening his jacket widely so Buffy could see he didn’t have a weapon underneath. He unclipped the digital cell phone from his belt. He opened it and spoke briefly. Looking very pleased, he folded the phone closed and put it away. He gazed at Buffy. “My life in exchange for yours.”
Buffy waited, thinking. She badly wanted to know more about Zhiyong and what he was doing in Sunnydale. “Don’t you have one of those speeches to make?”
“What speeches?”
“The ones where you kind of laugh at everybody and tell us how your nefarious, evil plans can’t be stopped. Especially the part where you detail everything that you’re doing.”
Zhiyong smiled and shook his head. “You Americans and your TV. Always thinking you have to have all the answers.”
“Not really,” Buffy said. “Just like some majorly cluetype ones.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” he repeated. “I am not a villain. I am a man seeking compensatory satisfaction for investments I’ve made. A businessman.”
“Greed,” Buffy said, “is one of the seven deadly sins. That’s kind of a criteria for bad guyness.”
“And that makes me the villain?” Zhiyong seemed genuinely amused. “By your definition perhaps, Ms. Summers. And perhaps by the definition of Joseph Campbell. But not by my definition.” He paused. “Now I must be going or you must start shooting.”
“Going,” Angel said quietly.
But Buffy couldn’t simply leave, not with Zhiyong smugly thinking he’d won. And the man did think that because she saw it in his eyes. “This town,” she stated, “is mine. I live here. I protect it and take care of it. I’m not going to allow you to hurt it anymore.”
Zhiyong lifted an amused eyebrow. “This town isn’t big enough for the both of us?”
“Works for me,” Buffy declared.
“You have until dawn, Ms. Summers. Then everything here you will lose. I trust that’s properly a clue that you were looking for.”
“Okay,” Buffy said. “Deadlines are a good thing to know when there are evil plans.”
“Curious, isn’t it?” Zhiyong asked. “Have you ever wondered how they came to be called deadlines? It seems a most apt expression in your language.”
Okay, so he gets the last word, Buffy fumed, because I can’t think of something properly heroically threatening. She backed through the doorway, following Angel, keeping the machine pistol leveled.
Angel paused at the railing. “If we go down the stairs we’re going to be slowed. They could chase us, maybe catch us before we hit the street.”
“Okay,” Buffy said, glancing over the railing. “It’s only three stories. We can jump. You go first.” She held up the machine pistol. “I’m Cover Your Ass Girl at the moment.”
“Right. Hurry.” Angel leaped over the railing and dropped like a stone. His duster fluttered around him, then he landed three stories below and rolled out of the way.
Taking a deep breath, knowing she’d done incredible things since becoming the Slayer, Buffy swung over the railing and dropped as well. She didn’t know if the sudden thumping she heard was the sound of demon feet slapping carpet or only her heart going speed metal on her.
Buffy landed hard in the stairwell, bending her knees to take up some of the shock, letting her strength and constitution take care of her. She rolled to lessen the impact and in case any of the demons decided to jump as well.
“Hey!” a voice called. “Over here, you two. They’re not going to just let you walk out of here after bracing Zhiyong like that.”
Chapter 22
BUFFY GLANCED OVER HER SHOULDER. A big man filled the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. He looked like he was in his forties, with shortcropped black hair just starting to get peppered with gray at the temples. His face was squared-off and blunt, showing four or five days’ growth of whiskers. He wore jeans, motorcycle boots, and a sleeveless navy blue sweatshirt crossed by a double-holster shoulder rig. He had a .45 semiautomatic pistol in each hand.
Footsteps pounded down from above as Zhiyong’s minions gave chase.
“Damn,” the man growled, “I’da known you guys wanted to wait and party with these freaks, I’da brought a cake. You wanna make an escape, or what?”
Buffy glanced at Angel. The man stood in the only doorway out of the stairwell. She looked back at him. “And you would be?”
“Art Sledge. The private eye you guys said you came up here to see as an excuse to get into the building.” Sledge gestured up the stairwell with one of the pistols.
Then a demon dropped through the stairwell and landed with a loud smack against the floor in front of Buffy. Sledge fired both pistols at once. Both bullets caught the demon in the head and knocked him backward.
“Let’s go,” Angel said.
Another demon landed beside the first. He swept his hands out at Buffy and snared her shoulder.
Twisting immediately, Buffy shrugged out of the fierce grip. She seized the demon’s wrist and yanked. Bone snapped in her grip but she didn’t
let go. When she tugged, the demon fell over her hip. A heartbeat after the demon landed flat on his back, the Slayer snap-kicked the demon in the head, popping the skull free of the spine. The demon puddled at once.
Buffy sprinted for the doorway as Sledge fired another round farther up the stairs.
Bullets chewed into the walls at the bottom of the stairwell. Noise and plaster dust filled the small enclosure.
Angel paused to open the emergency fire hose compartment and spill the hose out into the stairwell. He turned the water on and the high pressure turned the hose into a writhing battering ram.
Sledge led the way toward the other end of the hallway, yelling at people who had dared stick their faces out of their offices. “I’ve got a car outside.”
Buffy looked behind as Angel bolted from the stairwell. The firehose danced inside the small area, battering demons aside as if they were nothing. She paused, then grabbed one of the vending machines from a nearby nook. Setting herself and using all her Slayer strength, she yanked the vending machine from the wall and sent it scooting across the floor toward the stairwell door. The vending machine caught one of the demons trying to leave the room and knocked him back inside.
Angel waited for her, but Sledge hadn’t slowed at all. Buffy ran, catching up to the private eye swiftly despite the fact that the guy was pretty fast in his own right.
Sledge raced across the small parking lot outside and toward a thirty-year-old Cadillac convertible that had seen better days. It was gunmetal gray for the most part, but there were big patches of sea mist green that masked rusted areas.
“Get in!” Sledge bellowed.
Buffy halted at the side of the car, really wondering what the empty drink cans and Doritos bags might be masking. Then a handful of bullets sprayed across the back of the Cadillac. She leaped over the side and landed in the passenger seat as Sledge crawled in behind the wheel. Angel vaulted into the backseat.