VISITORS

by Laura Anne Gilman

  But Oz just shrugged again. “Why? We lose, we win. Equal stuff either way.”

  “That’s so mature of you,” Willow said admiringly.

  Yeah. Right. Mature. The rest of Dingoes, Buffy noticed, weren’t managing the mature thing so well.

  “Missed the chord,” Devon muttered with malicious satisfaction.

  “Yeah,” another member snickered, “and drummer’s not in sync; he’s throwing them all off.”

  “It’s your stupid voice that’s throwing everyone off,” a guy snarled at him, and Buffy turned.

  This guy had to be a lead singer. Mr. Macho, all fake black leather and fake silver chains.

  “Boys will be boys,” Buffy said in Willow’s ear, watching the posturing with the practiced eye of a trained fighter.

  Sure enough, the Dingo he’d confronted took the bait, standing up and trying to loom over the other guy. “Maybe it’s your lack of talent making all the noise.”

  Both guys were on their feet now, obviously looking for a chance to butt heads, and others were starting to get up as well.

  “Eeeeep.” That came from Willow, who was looking around, her big eyes even wider. “Fight. Bad thing.”

  “Whoa.” Oz got casually to his feet, moving between the two guys. “Not worth it.”

  That got scowls from both sides. “Not worth what?” someone yelled.

  Oz shrugged. “Giving the town council an excuse to shut this place down. They only need one.”

  Buffy hastily backed him up. “Snyder thinks the Bronze is a ‘den of iniquity’ anyhow. He thinks we’re all plotting in here to ruin his perfect-attendance scheme.”

  That got a laugh from everyone who’d ever run into the principal. Willow gave Buffy a quick grin. “Sounded just like him.”

  “I know. Scary, isn’t it?”

  Oz was saying something to the rest of his band. With reluctant shrugs and glances over their shoulders, they moved off. And after a few seconds of muscle twitching, the other band members sat back down again, too.

  Xander glanced at Buffy. “Battle of the Bands. You got that right.”

  Buffy sighed. As if she didn’t have enough with the Midnight Giggler and a Slayer’s nightly—and nonpaying—job, now she had to wonder if the one real teenage part of her life was going to get shut down for extreme violence and conduct unbecoming upper-middle-class children.

  The first guy to start a fight in here, she decided, is really, really going to be sorry.

  The small motel room had seen better decades. “Dingy” would have been a polite way of describing it: peeling yellowed paint, worn curtains pulled against one dirty window, a carpet of some nondescript color and material, and the smell of mildew hanging heavy in the air. But the front desk took cash and didn’t even bother asking for names, which made it perfect for Ethan Rayne’s purposes.

  At the moment, he was seated on the narrow bed, having pulled the sheets off and tossed them into a corner. Legs crossed, he contemplated the several small piles of herbs on plastic sheets in front of him with calculating satisfaction. Herbal magics weren’t his strong point, but needs must . . .

  “Valarian, for calming,” he said, “clover, for softening the will, and marjoram to entice. Maybe something for a good mood—no, best not. You never know what a good mood will do to creatures. Might make it hungry.”

  A few quick sightings had been enough to confirm his suspicion that his quarry, whatever it was, was lower on the magical food chain than he, himself. With the right ingredients, Ethan was sure he could create a spell to both lure the creature to him and, more important, make it docile to his commands. Or at least agreeable to them. With magical creatures, it was always best to try bribes before coercion. Less chance of irritating something with a long memory.

  Of course, Ethan thought with a momentary chill, I also run the risk of inviting in something I don’t want. A very real risk in this town, where assumptions could get one hurt.

  Right. Once he had the details of the spell settled, he would need to find a perfect place. Neutral territory, where he could make a hasty retreat if needed. That was, after all, how he’d survived all these years. Planning for every possible outcome.

  Ethan looked at his watch, then plucked a pinch from each pile and mixed it with a handful of dry brown dirt, then carefully placed the entire mess in a small square of unbleached muslin, wrapping it securely. Getting to his feet and reaching for his jacket, he deliberately misquoted, “If ’twere done at all, ’twere best done before midnight,” and left.

  The white van with the red cross painted on the side drove out of the darkness and pulled up to the emergency room door, caught in the glare of the overhead lights. Blood bank delivery night, right on schedule.

  “You’d think they’d learn by now,” Buffy muttered from where she stood, watching. “Try to vary the times a little. Maybe not broadcast when they’re coming in? But no, they’ve gotta run like clockwork, no matter how many shipments they lose.”

  Although, she was pleased to note, they hadn’t lost many since she came to town.

  Not that the vamps didn’t keep trying. And there they were, right on schedule, too.

  The trick here was to stay in the shadows while staking the vamps before the vamps got the techs or before anyone who happened to be looking out a hospital window saw a blond teen stabbing a man—a man-shaped thing, anyhow—who promptly turned to dust.

  No one ever said the job was going to be easy!

  Buffy snuck up on a vamp, one who’d been a solid, almost-square-shaped woman when she’d been alive, and tapped her on the shoulder. The vamp turned around with a snarl.

  “Candygram,” Buffy said, and struck.

  One down.

  Another two were coming in behind her. She stood, weight on the balls of her feet, knees slightly bent, waiting for—now. Buffy whirled, lunged at one vamp with stake in outstretched hand, making him stagger back, then kicked the other hard enough to make him stagger back. She staked the first before he could recover his balance, sensed the other looming up behind her, ducked under his grasping arm, and stabbed back and up—

  Two more down. Any more?

  Nope. Light load tonight. That’d make Giles feel better—he was following up on some lead or another, but he really hated her doing this part of the job alone.

  Although what he thought he could do, really . . .

  Oh well. He wouldn’t be Giles if he didn’t fret. But that was done, and in record time, too. She’d be able to make it to the cemetery in time to see if—

  Then Buffy felt that all too familiar prickling at the back of her neck and heard that all too familiar giggle. She dove into the shadows, stake clenched in her fist, trying to locate the source of the sound. And as she hunted, Buffy could swear it wasn’t a true giggle anymore. It was just one short step from being a snarl. Almost as though the Midnight Giggler was finally growing tired of just watching.

  “Yeah. I’m snarling, too. Let’s have this out, stupid, okay? Just one little fight, winner takes all.”

  Nothing. Suddenly even the eerie prickling at the back of her neck was gone.

  “Coward,” Buffy muttered.

  Yeah, but cowards usually went on to beat up on someone weaker than themselves. Great. Just great.

  The korred stood in the deep shadows, shivering. It wasn’t cold; it didn’t mind a little damp edge to the air. Something was pulling at it, something prickling along its nerves, a pull, a call, a whisper, making it restless—

  And hungry.

  The korred shivered again, its hair moving with a life of its own, reddish brown in the uncertain light. Yes, it still was drawn to that one young human girl who glimmered with strength. But . . . it would not even try to snare her. Not yet. Not till it had enhanced its own strength. Not until it had fed.

  It sniffed the air, then wrinkled its nose in disgust. These humans insisted on covering the earth with hard surfaces and filling the air with harsh smells. Their houses stood each by each, wit
h mere squares of green guarded by silly little fences. Trees were fenced in, too, each separate from the next, giving the korred little room in which to hide. Yet it needed little room; shadow was enough, and this neatly trimmed row of bushes . . .

  There!

  It crouched low to the ground, hidden behind the bushes, waiting with a predator’s patience. A girl was approaching, arms full of packages and walking with the casual ease of prey that has not a hint it’s being stalked. The korred had never seen this young human before, but that didn’t matter. The glow in her was fresh and full of energy, and the korred drew back its hard-skinned lips in a pleased grimace. It followed her for a time, silent as the shadows, until at last they left the straight rows of houses—with their possible human observers—and came out onto a wider square of grass.

  No witnesses here. Straightening soundlessly, still shrouded in shadow, the korred began the softest hint of melody. The girl stopped, frowning, listening to the music she could almost hear. She stirred, the faintest of dance steps. Another. It almost had her, almost—

  “Hey! Karen, wait up!”

  The korred started, melody faltering for an instant, too dazed by the sudden interruption to move. But then, with a silent snarl of fury, it sank back into hiding. It could have snared one or even two humans. But here came a herd of young humans, laughing and chattering—yes, and one of them was carrying a black box blaring its own music, which hurt the korred’s sensitive ears.

  As the raging korred watched, he saw the girl laughing with the others, all of them unaware of how close she’d come to her death.

  The korred hissed, a low and angry sound. It had been foolish in coming this far into the town. True, there were fewer humans in the secluded places— but a wise hunter did not hunt the prey so close to the prey’s own lair!

  Foolish. But not defeated.

  This time, the prey escaped.

  Soon enough, another would not.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sunday, tranquil Sunday. A little slice of tranquility is nice, Buffy thought. Particularly when her sleep, when she’d finally gotten to sleep, had been full of dreams of giggling shadows—with sharp, glinting fangs. Once, she’d even gotten out of bed and prowled around outside, sure she’d felt the warning prickling of danger, but there’d been nothing menacing out there.

  And the day so far had been actually normal.

  As normal as Sunnydale got. Buffy glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty. Still plenty of time before she had to start her Sunday evening patrol. In the meantime . . .

  In the meantime, we have a greater enemy to face. The weekly sorting of the laundry.

  “Whites, there. Delicates, over here,” and she threw a Lycra bodysuit on the bed, to join a small pile of hand-washables, “and hot water stuff over to you.”

  Her mother caught the pair of pants with one hand, dropping it into the pile growing by the door. “Nice to see you haven’t lost all touch with your domestic side.”

  “Hah. Why can’t we just pile all this into the car and drop it off at the dry cleaners? Xander says that’s what his mom does. Of course, the way Xander dresses, maybe that’s not such a good idea either. It might all be an evil plot on the part of the dry cleaners . . .”

  Joyce Summers hesitated a moment. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

  Buffy sighed, looking up at her mother with affection. “Yes, Mom. Joke. As far as I know, dry cleaners are just part of the evil conspiracy to take our money, nothing else.”

  “Oh. I just wanted to make sure.”

  Coming farther into the room, carefully stepping over piles of dirty clothing, her mother sat on the edge of the bed and stitched a desperately cheerful smile onto her face.

  Uh-oh, Buffy thought. That meant Slaying stuff. It was still new, this Knowing-About-Buffy thing, and neither of them had figured out how to start conversations about it without a lot of dancing around the subject.

  “So, Buffy.” Judging from her mom’s equally cheerful voice, she was going to try to nonchalant it out. Well, points for trying something new. “How was, um, the slaying last night?”

  Buffy glanced at her, not sure what was safest to say. “Quiet,” she said at last. “Made sure the hospital got its deliveries. No trouble. Then, well, I spent most of the night going over math proofs again with Willow. She’s just like this little logic machine.”

  “That’s true. That’s really true. Quite a bright young woman, Willow. I’m sure she’ll be able to name her own price when she graduates from college.”

  “Yeah. I bet.”

  What Buffy wasn’t about to tell her mother was that the tutoring session had gone on outside the morgue, while they waited for an out-of-town businessman to rise. That was one guy who wasn’t going to have to file an expense report ever again.

  After that, she had done one last swing through the graveyard, just to make sure nobody was partying without permission. But there hadn’t been another vamp in sight. Saturday night vamp holiday.

  A holiday. Sure. With someone getting his, her, or its fun out of watching her. Stalker’s Delight: Slayer to go. At least there hadn’t been any more of those stupid giggles since that giggle-snarl at the hospital. It must have figured that it was being way too obvious. The local radio station, with its news of sports and weather, hadn’t slipped in any bits about any sudden deaths.

  “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re taking your homework so seriously,” Joyce continued, “to study on a Saturday night. You do realize that you have a lot to catch up on.”

  Oh, rub it in a little, why don’t you, Mom?

  With that one last little prod, her mother stood, the conversation, thankfully, over. But then she stopped, thinking back over what Buffy had said.

  “Ah, Buffy? ‘Quiet,’ you said. Is that . . . normal?”

  “Mom.” Buffy had to laugh. “‘Normal’ and Sunnydale don’t really go hand in hand, if you hadn’t noticed.” She hesitated, wanting to tell her mother about her stalker. But one look at Joyce’s face, the dark shadows under her eyes that had never really gone away since the events of last summer, and Buffy couldn’t do it. She and Giles had told her mom a lot—but there were some things it just wouldn’t help any to share. And it probably would hurt. “I’m sorry, Mom. There just isn’t anything else I can tell you.”

  Joyce didn’t try to argue. She nodded, then her hand reached out to stroke the top of Buffy’s head, and the Slayer leaned into that touch for just a second. A nice, normal, too-fast-for-a-Kodak-Moment instant between mother and daughter.

  Then her mom was gone, leaving her with a pile of whites and colors and a sharp little inside-the-mind sort of pain.

  The korred stalked lightly after its prey, the blades of grass barely bending under its goat feet, following the so-intriguing human, trying to ignore the prickling pulling at it, rousing its hunger anew. It could so easily lose itself in thoughts of silly, helpless humans who would writhe and twitch and dance dance dance . . .

  Would it be able to snare this one human as well? Would it feed on her essence as it fled her body?

  Not yet, not yet. It had still to puzzle out what was so different about her . . .

  But then it stopped short, alert and tense, listening, sniffing the air . . . yes. There was someone else out here this night as well, not truly human, someone who might spoil all the fun.

  With one last look, it faded into the darkness.

  The night was cool and damp, so late that the moon had set a long time ago, and there was that almost gray on the horizon. Almost dawn, in fact. Buffy hesitated, wondering why she was still hunting when any self-respecting vamp would have long ago called it a night. All right, so she’d stopped by Will’s for a while. But it hadn’t been that long.

  As for the Giggling Stranger . . . not a sign of him, her, or it, either, which might mean—she didn’t know what it might mean. Hopefully, that the critter had gotten bored and gone away. Also hopefully, that the critter hadn’t decided to go and catch itself some human
prey . . .

  “Nope. Not going there. Don’t think about what you can’t help. Think about the good parts.

  “Right. The good parts. Like . . .”

  Okay, so there was the advantage of weekend slayage, getting to do the sleep-in thing. Always a plus. Any other pluses?

  Buffy thought for a moment. “Nope. That’s about it.”

  And since it was currently Sunday night—well, Monday morning—she didn’t even have that to look forward to. Made one thankful for lazy Sunday-afternoon naps . . .

  The scritch of shoe leather on pavement made her whirl around, but even as she was raising a stake, she recognized the figure in the shadows. And her heart gave a great leap.

  Ohgodohgod . . .

  “Angel.” That came out normally. “Didn’t expect to see you around here.”

  Good. Her voice was staying nicely cool. Not unfriendly, but not welcoming either. You could frost glass with the cool. But if he felt it, it was totally inside. Outside, he was Cryptic Guy again.

  “There’s something in town,” he said without any sort of greeting. “Something new. Or rather, something very old. It doesn’t belong here. Might be trouble.”

  “Late-breaking news; already known.” Buffy lifted one shoulder in as casual a shrug as she could manage. “Don’t worry, we’re on it.”

  The cool was slipping. Trying to joke, Buffy added, “You know, the job description said ‘vampire’ slayer. Think I can sue for misrepresentation? But then, Giles would get bored without these fun little research parties. Him and Willow. And Cordelia. She’s starting to scare me. Do you know, she actually knew what a ghoul was? Someone needs to tell her that knowing all that stuff’s bad for the complexion, or something. And I’m babbling, so I’ll stop now.”

  He fell into step beside her, matching her stride. But a careful distance remained between them. They both noticed it. Neither one moved closer.

  Neither one moved further away.

  “We can handle this,” she said, finally. “Me and the gang, that is. We’ve gotten pretty good at this. And it’s not quite on the same level as saving the world. At least, Giles doesn’t think so. Yet.”