Carnival of Souls
Page 23
The steam and the foulness formed the shape of a horned death’s head, which hovered high into the air and glared down at Buffy.
“It is the Rising,” it told her. “It is not too late to join me. We can start anew.”
She realized it was trying to appeal to her pride. She was amazed.
“No, you can lose, loser,” Buffy said, heaving with exhaustion. “You can end.”
It glared down at her one more time. Then it began to dissipate, fading out against the starry, moonlit sky.
Buffy staggered forward, calling for her mother.
The freak show was gone. Giles, Ms. Calendar, Cordelia, and Willow stared in wonderment at one another. They were standing in the clearing by Blessed Memories Cemetery.
Then they looked down at Xander, who was lying on the grass at Cordelia’s feet, bathed in moonlight and in the strange lights filling the sky.
He opened his eyes.
And Willow and Cordelia both burst into tears.
“Buffy!”
Joyce Summers ran to her daughter in the dark clearing in the forest.
They embraced, hard. Buffy closed her eyes, wincing because she was covering her mother with demon blood.
Only she wasn’t.
There was no demon blood.
Buffy looked around. All trace of the carnival was gone. No rides, no lights, no people, no demons.
She listened.
No calliope.
She looked toward Sunnydale. There was a hazy glow of flames on the horizon.
There was still work to be done, then.
“What’s going on?” Joyce asked, bewildered.
“It’s all right, Mom,” Buffy said.
The two held each other.
Then Xander, Cordelia, Giles, and Ms. Calendar ran toward them.
She looked at Giles.
“Where’s Angel?” she asked.
It’s not a bad way to go, Angel thought, as he beheaded another Shrieker with a sword he had taken from an orc. He was covered with green demon blood, and plenty of wounds of his own.
But I would have liked to say good-bye to Buffy.
The ground shook and he thought, What now?
He wasn’t ready for what he saw: a glowing swarm of oval lights, rising into the sky and arcing across the face of the moon like a phalanx of comets. Darting and shimmering. Dancing and rejoicing.
Souls. Liberated.
Buffy did it.
Angel did something he very rarely did: He smiled.
Around him, his attackers stopped and stared. A trio of albino poisoners spat venom on the sidewalk; as it sizzled, they slunk away, casting anxious glances over their shoulders at Angel, who let them go.
Weapons dropped. Vampires darted back into the shadows.
The fight was over.
There might be some mop-up, but the good guys had won.
She did it, Angel thought again.
But did she survive it?
His answer walked out of the smoke, slowly at first; and then, as Buffy Summers the Vampire Slayer saw him, she ran to him. She whispered, “Angel,” and put her arms around him.
And his soul soared.
Epilogue
It was really over. Giles, Ms. Calendar, and Le Malfaiteur had cast runes, searched for portents. The carnival was gone. The nightmare, ended.
“It’s so weird how no one, like, notices,” Cordelia said, as she admired her new choker. And her pendant. And her earrings. “I mean, saltwater pearls this big are so rare.”
The Yasumi company had richly rewarded Cordelia for foiling a robbery and saving the life of the salesclerk, whom Cordelia had gone back to and untied. She had her picture in the paper, which caused her no end of grief, because she had a scratch on her cheek. Giles told her to wear it proudly, because it was a symbol of her bravery in battle.
“Oh, please,” she had sneered.
“It is remarkable,” Giles said, of the oblivious after-state of the little town still swimming in denial. “I think we are able to remember what happened because of the magicks we used.”
“Or we’re just lucky that way,” Buffy said with a sigh.
He, Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, Xander, and Ms. Calendar were standing in the clearing where the carnival had stood. It was gone now, all trace…and all memory of it. Not a single person beyond their small company had any recollection that Professor Copernicus Caligari’s Traveling Carnival had come to town. As there had never been any permits or articles about it in the paper, there was no proof that it had ever been there.
No one remembered the crazed swath of destruction caused by Astorrith. Giles’s condo was said to have burned down because of a gas leak. While it was being rebuilt, he was staying at a nearby hotel, and Ms. Calendar was helping him shop for new clothes and kitchen things.
Buffy thought he looked great in his new Dockers and loose-fitting sweater. But it was obvious he felt like he wasn’t decently clothed. He kept tugging at everything and muttering under his breath.
But of the carnival of souls: All anyone remembered was a terrible storm, and some deaths. One of them had been the bludgeoning of Anita Palmer, Carl and Mariann Palmer’s mother.
Carl was in custody for the homicide, and under suspicion about his sister’s disappearance.
Giles had promised Buffy he would try to help him get out of it. But she wasn’t sure Carl wanted out. He didn’t recall why he had killed his mother, but he knew that he had.
She felt so sorry for him.
If I can explain it to him, I will, she decided.
Joyce Summers’s memory was also blank. Which made things ever so much easier for the Slayer.
Witness the brand-new kick dress she was wearing!
As for Vaclav…they didn’t know what had happened to him, but they were glad he had helped. They had a moment of silence for him. And then they moved on, just as Sunnydale had.
As for the chaos…no one remembered much of that, either. The dead were buried with reasonable explanations for their passing. Car accidents, mostly. There really weren’t very many—by Sunnydale standards.
Life was back to normal…by Sunnydale standards as well.
“Well, we’d better go to school,” Buffy said to the others.
Giles drove them back. They trooped into the auditorium where they had once died a thousand deaths in a talent show. Giles, almost literally.
They found seats, and settled in. Jenny Calendar sat next to Giles, and they smiled at each other.
The Hahns were there, too, in amazingly nerdy sweaters with moose faces on them. They sat beside each other in the center of an otherwise empty row, the outcasts they had always been…or nearly always.
Principal Snyder came out to a mixed chorus of boos and cheers. Like the others, his face was undamaged. Well, except for its natural appearance.
“How can he not remember that I saved his immortal soul?” Xander kvetched. “That is so unfair.”
Snyder held out his hands for silence. The students all settled down.
“I’m happy to announce the results of our student council fund-raising survey,” he relayed, with an expression that was anything but happy. He actually looked like he was chewing glass.
“We’re going to have a blood drive.” He huffed. Then he threw down the clipboard. “This is idiotic. We’ll have a carnival, just like all the other schools.”
“This is so inappropriate,” Cordelia said. “He has no clue.” Then she brightened. “Ooh, carnival! I’ll be the queen!”
Buffy exchanged weary glances with the others.
Willow said quietly, “You know, even with the lust spell, Angel was never attracted to Cordelia.”
Buffy blushed. “Wow. That’s true.”
“Score one for Dead Guy,” Xander said grumpily.
“Participation will be mandatory,” Snyder went on.
It always is, Buffy thought.
She whispered to Willow, “Anywhere But Here.”
Willow thought. “T
uscany, John Cusack, riding mopeds.”
“Good,” Buffy complimented her.
“Your turn,” Willow said.
Buffy cocked her head. “Graveyard, Angel, smoochies.”
Willow frowned slightly. “That’s not Anywhere But Here, Buffy. That’s here.”
Buffy smiled. “Yeah. It is.”
About the Author
Bestselling author Nancy Holder has published more than sixty books and more than two hundred short stories. She has received four Bram Stoker Awards for fiction from the Horror Writers Association, and her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages. A graduate of the University of California at San Diego, Nancy is currently a writing teacher at the school. She lives in San Diego with her daughter, Belle, and their growing assortment of pets. Please visit her at www.nancyholder.com.
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“I’m the Slayer. Slay-er. Chosen One? She who hangs out a lot in cemeteries? Ask around. Look it up: ‘Slayer comma The.’”
—Buffy, “Doomed”
INTO EVERY GENERATION,
A SLAYER IS BORN
Seven years, 144 episodes, three Slayers, two networks, two vampires with souls(!), two Watchers, three principals, two pigs, one Master, one Mayor, countless potentials: It all adds up to one hit show.
The Watcher’s Guides, Volumes 1–3, are the complete collection of authorized companions to the hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Don’t be caught dead without them!
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Into every generation,
a Slayer is born…
Before there was Buffy, there were other Slayers—called to protect the world from the undead. Led by their Watchers, they have served as our defense—across the globe and throughout history.
In these collections of short stories written by best-selling authors, travel through time to these other Slayers. From France in the fourteenth century to Iowa in the 1980s, the young women have protected the world. Their stories—and legacies—are unforgettable.
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™&©2006 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.