VISITORS

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “That’s a very good question, Willow,” Giles said. “Actually, I’m not sure. But legend has it that it emits some manner of high-pitched music that takes control of the human body.”

  “So,” Willow said reasonably, “all you have to do is not listen, right?”

  “It’s not quite that simple . . .” Giles began to say, then stopped. “Or . . . perhaps it is!”

  “The Oddy-something!” Buffy cried. “You know, that old book they made into a movie?”

  “Ah, the wonders of a modern education. The Odyssey, indeed.”

  “Well, there was something in it, you know. The hero wanted to hear those singers, but it was too dangerous because they, like, lured people to them. And ate them, or something. So he . . .”

  “Precisely,” Giles said. “It is dangerous, though.”

  Buffy shrugged. “Hey, you know what they always say in the movies: ‘Danger’ is my middle name!”

  “Yes, well, too often ‘In’ is their first name,” Giles retorted, and went to get himself more tea before anyone could reply.

  CHAPTER 13

  “I could learn to hate this town,” Ethan Rayne muttered, a little out of breath. No, more than a little. And, curse it all, this jacket was never going to be the same.

  He glanced warily over his shoulder . . .

  Blast! There they were again, no less than four really ugly, really angry-looking vampires. Construction workers in life, judging from the muscling still on them and the way one of them had nearly torn the sleeve off Ethan’s jacket. Easily as a child ripping tissue wrapping off a present.

  With a shudder, Ethan ducked out of the alley, onto Sunnydale’s main street for perhaps five seconds, then just as quickly darted into another alley, swearing silently all the while. It wasn’t as though he’d actually been up to anything reprehensible! No, he had been minding his own business, doing nothing more terrible than trying to track down the mysterious creature he had discovered in this forsaken town. Nothing wrong with that, surely? Simple curiosity, and all that?

  Curiosity killed the cat, Ethan reminded himself, then snorted. Must have been a singularly stupid feline.

  Unfortunately, while he’d been investigating, he had surprised, and been surprised by, that cursedly determined pack of vampires who were chasing after him now, obviously in the mood for an early dinner.

  His plans having absolutely nothing to do with becoming the main course at a vampire feast, Ethan had done—and, blast the lot of them, was still doing—the only intelligent thing. He had fled, hoping that the vampires didn’t know more of the town’s backways than he did.

  Uh-oh. A fence up ahead. Hadn’t been there the last time he’d cut through this way. Ridiculous to put up a fence in an alley, particularly when someone really, really might need to put on a burst of speed.

  Ethan took a deep breath, leaped, grabbed the top of the fence with both hands, and scrambled over, landing with a jolt on the other side. Breathless, he caught his balance and raced on, dashing about a corner—then stopped, listening . . .

  Silence.

  He glanced warily back around the corner. No one . . . He waited a moment more. Still no one.

  “At last!”

  Ethan stepped out of the alley, back onto the main street of Sunnydale’s downtown, which, at this hour, was nearly deserted. A car full of teenagers drove by, windows open and music blaring. He winced.

  “Maybe they’ll do for appetizers, instead of me.”

  Whether through luck or some remnant of good fortune smiling down on him, he really did seem to have outdistanced his pursuers.

  Most of them. To Ethan’s horror, two vampires, evidently the only ones who had been able to make it over that fence, raced out of the alley, then stopped, heads turning fiercely left, right.

  They couldn’t scent him, could they? Slipping into the narrow protection of a storefront doorway, Ethan held his breath, willing himself to be as unnoticeable as possible.

  “Left,” one vampire growled suddenly.

  Ethan dared not even let out a sigh of relief. He stood frozen as they ran off, away from him, and kept going. Just to be on the safe side, he waited until they totally were out of sight before stepping back out onto the street.

  “Idiots. You’d think they’d have better hunting instincts than that.”

  Not, of course, that he was complaining. But he did have to wonder if any vampire had starved to death from ineptitude.

  Ethan dusted himself off as best he could and did his best to tuck the torn jacket sleeve back in place, then checked his watch under the light of the nearest streetlamp.

  Nine-thirty. The Slayer should be starting her patrol right about now.

  “Which makes life much easier for me.”

  No more vampire surprises, for one thing. For another . . . Rupert knew that the creature, whatever it was, was in town. So the dear Ripper was bound to have his Slayer tracking it, trying to make sure that the creature was declawed and harmless.

  “And so, all I need do is track her in turn.” Ethan grinned. “And—ta-da—I find the creature myself.”

  Granted, he had no real reason to want the creature, whatever it might turn out to be. That much work for an uncertain result wasn’t his style at all. Except, of course, for the fact that it interested him and just might be useful.

  And, of course, for the fact that his very being in town annoyed Rupert.

  Ethan’s grin widened. Two very good reasons for doing anything: curiosity—and petty revenge.

  “Here, vampy,” Buffy called into the night as she stalked, not really expecting an answer. “Here, vampy vampy vampy.”

  Nope. Nothing. The entire night had been dead, slayagewise. For all the action she was seeing, she could just as well have stayed home with some boring textbook. Or gone over to the Bronze and heard the lamer bands, who had mercifully all been scheduled for early in the evening. So far, the entire vampire population of Sunnydale seemed to be lying low.

  Buffy had brought up the weirdness factor with her Watcher once again this afternoon, but once again Giles had just muttered the usual bit about not letting her guard down, no matter what lulls might occur. And he’d once again shot down her theory, that the korred was causing it, because a korred shouldn’t have much influence on a demon.

  “But it’s not like Giles hasn’t been wrong before.”

  Ugly thought. Watchers were supposed to have all the answers.

  “Yeah, and Slayers are supposed to follow orders and not have a social life, and . . . I’ll take him not having all the answers.”

  And Giles had added a sort of half-suggestion, something to do with magnetic forces or surges in the earth or the Hellmouth. In other words, something perfectly . . . well, one couldn’t apply “normal” here. Just say that even the Hellmouth might have a down cycle and leave it at that.

  Whoa. Suddenly she felt, she knew, that something was behind her. All her muscles went tense, but Buffy pretended not to be reacting at all. Staking vamps was always nice, but this was what she was really hunting tonight—the korred. In the end, that was all their korred-extermination ideas had boiled down to—her luring the thing to the outskirts of town and then dumping it. Giles figured that once she got it away from the Hellmouth itself, it would get bored, and just wander away back to wherever it came from. Back to sucking off tree rats and the occasional larger animal.

  “Just as a bear goes back to berries and roots,” Giles had said, “when living prey isn’t available.”

  “When they don’t have people food to munch on,” Buffy had retorted.

  Buffy still wasn’t convinced getting rid of the korred would be that easy, but killing it seemed a severe long shot. Not one of Giles’s books—and he had a lot—mentioned a surefire way to kill a korred.

  “They’re like the cockroaches of supernatural critters,” Buffy muttered.

  So, lure and ditch. And hope it got the message and went home.

  “Which would be a good thing.
’Cause the only dancing I want to do is tonight at the Bronze, when the Dingoes kick some serious musical butt.”

  She turned around.

  Cordelia stopped short in the middle of the side-walk. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “No, really promise me. This is important, Xander.”

  Xander sighed, slinging his arm around Cordelia’s shoulders. “I promise. No geek dancing whatsoever tonight. I shall be totally geek-dance free. I will limit myself to the moves you have personally preapproved. I will not forget myself, I will not do happy feet, I will not shame, embarrass, or otherwise humiliate you in front of the collected school population.”

  Cordelia sighed. “I don’t know why I even bother. You’ll get on the dance floor and all your geek genes will just take over.”

  She snuggled closer under his arm, since there was no one around to see them. “It’s lucky for you nobody really expects you to dance well.”

  “Yay, lucky me.” Glancing at his watch, Xander made a face. “And late me. Late both of us. The Dingoes were supposed to go on at 9:45, and I promised Will that we’d be there to cheer them on. There’s no way we’re going to make it in time.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. But it’s not my fault that someone dressed to clash with my outfit. Didn’t I tell you to check in with me before getting dressed? And by the time we got here, all the good parking spaces were taken, and I had to park wa-a-ay away, so that I don’t even know if my car will still be there when this is all over—”

  “Shhh . . .”

  “Don’t shhh me! Your dancing we can overlook, but outfits are—”

  “Cordelia, shut up! Did you hear that?”

  Cordelia stopped. “No, what? What did you hear?”

  Xander shook his head, dropping his arm from around Cordelia and turning slowly. They were still a couple of blocks from the Bronze, well into the part of town that the Sunnydale Chamber of Commerce didn’t put on their friendly little brochures or up on the web page. It might not have been impressive by Los Angeles’ standards, but the row of empty warehouses and storefronts could wig a person out even if one didn’t know what normally skulked around after dark.

  And if one did . . .

  “Got a stake handy?”

  Cordelia had already pulled a can of pepper spray from her bag. “Give me credit, Harris. Like I’m going out at night in Sunnydale without protection?”

  Since the summer spent subbing for the Slayer, they had all gotten better about carrying stakes and crosses—or at least a can of spray. They weren’t much better at using them, but at least they had a fighting chance now when the Slayer wasn’t around.

  “So what’s with the waiting?” Cordelia whispered after a few seconds. “If there’s something out there, why doesn’t it attack already? I swear—”

  “There! Listen. Do you hear it now?”

  Cordelia listened, trying to filter out the noise of the cars on the main road a couple of blocks over, and the muted bass coming through the concrete block walls of the Bronze.

  “Yeah. Like humming, kind of. That’s weird—” She stopped, her brain working half a step quicker than Xander’s. “Oh no . . .”

  Xander realized the truth just then, his eyes widening in horror as the humming grew louder. “Oh yes. Cordy, cover your ears! Run!”

  But it was already far too late for that.

  CHAPTER 14

  Ethan Rayne stopped short, staring at the two figures dimly lit by the streetlamp half a block ahead. Now, that is odd. Even for Sunnyhell. For one quick second, he’d thought that they were messing around, or perhaps trying to be romantic, dancing in the moonlight. If you could call that dancing. But there was nothing even remotely romantic about those gyrations. It was, in fact, almost as though . . .

  As though they were being somehow forced to dance. And, Ethan realized sharply, it was not being done for some typically stupid teenager rationale, such as an initiation rite or a dare. No, he knew the smell of magic when it was in the air, and it was heavy here. The victims had no choice about this.

  And, more to the point, whatever was making them dance was nothing human.

  A quick survey of the area showed him that the creature holding them captive was, from its size and—he sniffed the air—aroma, most likely the creature he had been looking for.

  Ethan quickly squashed the foolish impulse to go closer to investigate. Anything strong enough to catch two teenagers like that was doubtlessly strong enough to catch any adult within reach as well. I won’t dance, don’t ask me, he thought, and decided that he could see just as clearly from a distance. Yes, and make more leisurely plans about what—

  Well, now, look who else is here! Ethan hastily slid backward into a shadow. The Slayer, who had been in front of him a block and a wrong turn ago, passed right by him, apparently oblivious to mere mortal bystanders. In her casual skirt and top, she could have been any young girl walking home from a date.

  Any young girl, he amended his thought, who carries a virtual arsenal against the undead. Two stakes were tucked into her waistband, and another one was strapped to the side of her left boot, like some gunslinger’s holster. And he would guess that what he could see was only the tip of the iceberg. So to speak.

  But if her weapons were dangerous, the irritation in her voice was lethal. Ethan was only thankful it wasn’t directed at him. Entertained by the running monologue she was having with herself, he followed, perhaps a little closer than he should have for self-preservation’s sake, in order to better eaves-drop.

  And watch what was surely just about to happen.

  Ten pounds on the Slayer, he thought to himself. Fifteen if she knows those poor idiots the thing has trapped.

  “You so owe me, Giles,” Buffy fumed. “’Cause this has been one totally wasted night. I mean, it follows me for what, a week? And then when I want it—nowhere to be found. Proof positive, should it be required, that the mad giggler is defnitely of the male variety.”

  Her boots made flat slapping noises on the pavement, echoing from one end of the street to the other. She had gotten to know this part of town like the back of her hand. The Bronze was just a couple of blocks over, but the rest of the area verged on abandoned. Prime vamp hunting grounds, since people who hung here tended to not cause a fuss if they up and disappeared. On a normal Sunnydale night, she could stake two, three, easy just on one pass.

  Tonight? She had been on patrol for hours and hadn’t seen anything even remotely supernatural. No vamps, no stalker—not even that chicken thing, the basi-whatever, that had Giles so interested. It was starting to irk. And it was especially irksome, considering that she had seriously missed most of the Battle of the Bands by now.

  “It’s not like I mind it when saving the world trashes my social life,” she said, practicing her rant before she tried it out on Giles tomorrow. “But when there’s no world saveage, then it becomes seriously unfine. And furthermore—”

  The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose, and goose bumps formed along the bare skin of her arms.

  “Okay. That’s a little more like it.”

  Pulling a stake out, in case it was just a vamp or two with lousy timing, she moved around the corner, keeping her back to the faded-brick wall of the building.

  But what she saw, illuminated by a streetlight that somehow hadn’t burned out or been smashed, was not vampirish.

  That didn’t mean it wasn’t ugly.

  Well, sure, Xander had never been one of the great dancers of all times—but this was, like, the Ultimate Geek in Action, arms flailing wildly, legs kicking, stomping like he was trying to wipe out a whole army of ants. For a second, Buffy thought that maybe he was being deliberately dorky, like maybe trying to get Cordy to laugh.

  But the expression on her friend’s face wasn’t the normal having-fun-getting-funky grin Xander usually wore. And Cordelia was definitely not in the mood for laughs. She was dancing, too, and managing to move with a little more grace, but tears of fe
ar and exhaustion ran down her face. Her eye makeup had smeared too, and there was no way Cordelia, even a Cordelia possessed by a demon, wouldn’t have fixed that by now.

  Unless, of course, she and Xander couldn’t stop.

  “Oh, great,” Buffy muttered, realizing what was going on. “How’d you get ahead of me?”

  Still in the shadows, Buffy scanned the street behind her two friends. There. Yes! The korred. Had to be. Red eyes, goat feet, dark spikey hair sticking out all over the stocky body and skinny legs, just like the picture Willow had shown her.

  It was butt ugly. And getting way too much enjoyment from watching Xander and Cordelia twist like marionettes handled by someone with Tourette’s.

  “Yep, gotta be an evil whatwhosit. Nothing on the side of good could watch that without cringing.”

  Pushing away from the wall, Buffy did the Slayer thing. Which opened, natch, with her traditional battle cry:

  “Hey, Nair-impaired! What’s with the dance party?”

  Okay, so it lacked the impact of Xena’s weird yodel thing. But Buffy hadn’t had time to prepare anything specific to korreds. And besides, it worked. Mister ugly swung around to face her, and Xander and Cordy fell like somebody cut their strings, collapsing into a sweaty, panting pile.

  The two of them leaned helplessly against each other, trying to catch their breath. Xander managed to lift his head up enough to see Buffy, and made like he was trying to give her a cheery wave. But he obviously couldn’t even raise his hand.

  “Hey . . . Buffster,” he said, taking in a huge gasp of air.

  “Thank God . . . you got here.” Cordelia was struggling not to be so uncool as to pant. “I broke a heel . . . dancing to that . . . stupid thing!”

  But Buffy was too busy sizing up her new opponent to pay any real attention.

  “Come on,” she taunted it, “I’m what you’re interested in, right? Well, come and take a piece of me. If you think you can!”

  The korred grinned evilly at the Slayer, showing disgustingly yellow teeth, and giggled madly.