With a karate cry, she punched the creature in its thick, furry neck, causing it to yelp with pain. Keeping on the offensive, Buffy kept punching and kicking until she propelled the beast away from her, then she rolled to her feet and dove out the door.
When she looked up from the ground, she saw four pairs of legs surrounding her. Rough hands grabbed her and dragged her to her feet, and Buffy recognized most of the carnies: Lonnie, Hopscotch, Rose, and the guy who ran the basketball booth. She looked worriedly behind her, but the ferocious beast that had attacked her was nowhere in sight.
Rose, however, looked really ticked off. “That’s twice today you’ve broken into my trailer!”
With a swift motion, Rose swung her fist and buried it in Buffy’s midsection. After the fight with the beast, she was tired. As the air rushed out of Buffy’s lungs, she slumped to the ground—she was such dead weight that the three guys couldn’t hold her up. They dropped her into the dust. For several seconds, Buffy could do nothing but gasp for air.
“And you!” Rose said accusingly. “You’re supposed to be protecting my place. What happened?”
From the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Rose addressing a four-legged creature standing well inside the doorway of her trailer. It wasn’t a mystery beast, it was a big black dog—husky, like a rottweiler. She had been attacked by a watchdog, not a watchmonster.
“He did his job,” Buffy groaned. “He caught me by surprise.”
“What is your problem, anyway?” Lonnie muttered, turning her over with the point of his boot. “What are you looking for, besides trouble?”
“My boyfriend—,” Buffy answered, hoping they would believe her.
“That’s bull!” Rose snapped. “He’s not here, and you know it. You were snooping around again.”
“What should we do with her?” Hopscotch asked, pushing painfully on her shoulder.
Lonnie knelt down so that his eyes were level with Buffy’s. “Listen to me, you little snoop. You stay away from us, starting right now, or you’ll never see your friends again.”
Buffy glared at him, knowing he could probably make good on that threat. She thought about trying to escape, but she wasn’t in any condition to put up much of a fight. “Why don’t you go chase your tail? Or scratch your fleas?” she asked. “We have enough trouble in this town without your kind.”
“And what is our kind?” Lonnie asked with a sneer. It was as if he was daring her to say what she suspected about them. Well, Buffy wasn’t going to fall into that trap. She was gathering information, not giving it out.
“Listen, call the police on me if you want,” Buffy said defiantly. “If you’re not going to do that, turn me loose.”
Lonnie smiled, looking again like the charming ladies’ man she had met the night before. “Buffy—that’s your name, right? You know, Buffy, I think you got us all wrong. We’re just young kids, not long out of school, just trying to make a living and see some of the world. As for Willow and Xander, why don’t you relax and let them have some fun? They’re here of their own free will.”
“Is that important?” Buffy asked.
Lonnie scowled and rose to his feet. “I don’t know what we should do with her. Maybe we should lock her up somewhere until … after.”
“Watch her, she’s awfully strong,” Rose warned with a knowing glance at Buffy. She shoved her dog back into the trailer and tried to lock the door. “She broke my lock clean off.”
“I’ve got a safe place for her,” Hopscotch suggested. “The big tool chest in the utility rig. She should just about fit.”
“I don’t want to be kidnapped!” Buffy said, pretending to struggle. She started at Rose. “Just let me go home—you can have my stupid boyfriend!”
Rose chuckled. “Thanks. I’ve already got him. And I have big plans for him too.”
Lonnie looked at Hopscotch and nodded. Buffy should have reacted quicker, but she was still trying to get her wind back. She didn’t see the wrench in Hopscotch’s hand until it came flying through the air, cracking onto the back of her head.
As blackness and pain engulfed her senses, Buffy slumped face-first into the dirt.
Giles paced in front of his car, wondering what had become of Buffy. Had she been caught inside the trailer? Had they called the police on her? Now he felt guilty about giving the signal and running off, but he had only been following her orders. She was the Slayer—always risking her life in order to keep other people safe. He feared that someday that policy might backfire on her.
He checked his watch and saw that it had been twenty minutes since he had left Buffy inside the trailer. She had said they would meet at his car, but that presupposed that both of them were coming. Buffy was obviously not coming, at least not quickly.
A young couple walked by, and they glanced at him suspiciously, as if thinking: What is this middle-aged guy in a tie doing hanging out in the parking lot of a carnival? Giles smiled reassuringly at them, and they hurried along their way. Maybe I should be more inconspicuous, he decided. He unlocked the door of his car and climbed behind the steering wheel.
But ten minutes of sitting in the car only made him more nervous than before. He didn’t like sitting in the car, because he couldn’t see anything. What if Buffy forgot where the car was parked? What if she’s wandering around, looking for it?
Giles jumped out and started pacing in front of his car again. He scanned the swirling lights of the carnival for any sign of the perky teenager. Every other teenager in town seemed to be in attendance at the gaudy attractions, but not Buffy.
After a few minutes, Giles took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat off his neck. As he did, he surveyed the dark hills behind the vacant lot, and he saw something even more disturbing. The full moon had just started to rise, and it glowed bloodred in the night sky.
Coyote Moon!
Even though they had no real proof of the existence of werecoyotes or a plot to resurrect Spurs Hardaway, the sight of the moon filled Giles with dread. Bold and bright, it seemed to challenge the very lights of the carnival. By midnight, it would be fully risen in the night sky, and it would be bone white. Giles found it hard to watch the red moon without thinking that evil was abroad on this hot summer’s night.
Now forty minutes had passed since he had left Buffy inside the trailer, and that was more than enough time to wait for her. Giles resolved to disobey orders and go look for her, starting with Rose’s trailer.
Two minutes later, he was once again in the shadows behind the midway, stalking Rose’s darkened trailer. Nothing appeared amiss—it looked exactly as he had left it. As if he owned the place, Giles walked briskly to the door and tried the handle. The lock was broken, but the door had been wired shut with a metal clothes hanger.
Without warning, something large crashed against the door on the other side, barking and growling ferociously. Giles staggered away from the trailer, nearly falling into the dirt, as the beast inside continued to growl and carry on. Whatever is in there, he thought, it isn’t human, and it isn’t Buffy!
He looked around, worried that the loud barking would surely draw a crowd. No one came to investigate, but still he scurried away, feeling cowardly and helpless.
Back on the brightly lit midway, Giles wandered for a while, looking for Buffy, Willow, or Xander. All he saw were the callow youths of Sunnydale and the creepy youths who ran the carnival. He did pass two uniformed police officers, who were drinking coffee and eating huge cinnamon rolls, but what could he tell them?
Excuse me, officer, one of my students has disappeared while breaking into a locked trailer, looking for proof of werecoyotes.
No, Buffy had gotten herself into whatever trouble she had gotten herself into, and she would have to get herself out. Giles tried to tell himself that she was the Slayer—she would know what to do. But these weren’t garden-variety vampires, such as those she had fought dozens of times—these were sorcerers, shape-shifters! They were potentially more powerful than vampir
es.
Giles kept walking through the carnival, determined not to leave until he found Buffy.
Buffy awoke with a massive headache clamped to her skull like a baby alien. Either she was in total darkness or she was blind. When she squirmed painfully, trying to work out the kinks, she discovered that she was trapped inside a thick metal box about two feet by four feet.
As terror overcame her, Buffy tried to struggle and shout. She didn’t get far, because her hands were tied behind her back and her mouth was taped shut. About all she could do was kick her feet against the sides of the box, which seemed as solid as a steel coffin.
Buffy kicked and kicked, until she was gasping for breath. She stopped, thinking that she had to be careful or she would use up all the air in this small enclosure. Buffy smelled oil and grease, which she assumed were all over her clothes and hair by now. Great! Now I’ll need a pro-vitamin mud treatment to even begin to restore my hair. Of course, that wouldn’t matter much if she died in this metal crypt.
Worse yet, she had failed Giles, Willow, Xander, and all the other local kids who were in danger. She had failed to stop the werecoyotes, who were now free to have a coming-out party for Spurs Hardaway. That dog in the trailer—it might not have been a dog at all but a man wearing a dog skin! With this scary gang of skinwalkers, there was no telling what was real and what wasn’t.
She began kicking ferociously on the side of the box as she squirmed to free herself. All of this frenzied activity made her throbbing headache worse, but she wasn’t going to just lie here and die—
Bang! Bang! came two loud raps on the wall of her prison. “Quiet down in there!” a muffled voice shouted.
Buffy stopped thrashing, but she continued to work quietly on the ropes binding her wrists. Unfortunately, she had been tied up by strong people who knew their way around ropes and knots. In her awkward position, she couldn’t exert much force on the ropes, and she couldn’t budge them.
With her lips, tongue, and teeth, Buffy began to work on the tape spread across her mouth. She had always wondered whether her tongue had extraordinary strength too, and apparently it did. Very slowly, she worked the tape down from her upper lip until she had a small gap through which she could talk.
“Let me out of here!” she yelled.
The banging came again. “Shut up in there!”
“No!”
A moment later, the lid of the box opened, and the silhouette of a man looked down at her. “Listen,” he hissed, “I could fix you so that you’ll never talk again! All it takes is a little snip-snip on your tongue. But if you promise not to yell and cause a ruckus, I’ll take off the gag. Believe it or not, missy, I want to talk to you.”
Buffy recognized the voice—she was pretty sure it was Hopscotch. She wasn’t in much of a position to bargain, so she nodded and mumbled, “Okay, I’ll keep quiet.”
He lowered the lid, plunging her back into darkness. She had no reason to trust the old carny, but there had been a weird desperation in his voice, as if he, too, needed help. At least, by opening the top of the box, he had let some much-needed fresh air into the box and her lungs. The fresh air even helped clear her headache a little bit.
To her relief, the top of the box opened again a few minutes later. This time, Hopscotch had a flashlight, which he shined into her face. She closed her eyes and didn’t see his big hand coming down to her mouth until he ripped the tape off her lips. Buffy yelped.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Yeah, thanks. Now I won’t have to wax my mustache for a while.”
“Hey, nobody forced you to snoop around.”
Buffy sighed. “I shouldn’t have broken into that trailer, I know it now—but love makes you do silly things! Why don’t you just let me go, and we’ll forget all about that, and the fact that you kidnapped me?”
“Are you really just a lovesick teenager?” Hopscotch asked with a suspicious glint in his eye.
Some instinct told Buffy not to lie. “No,” she answered. “I mean, Xander is a friend of mine, but I’m more worried about his life than his love life.”
“You’re smart,” Hopscotch said with respect. “You see things. I remember you from that first night—there was something about you.”
“You don’t mean that first night when we met here, do you?” Buffy asked.
“No, when I met you on the street, when I was running with the pack. The others think all humans are worthless fools, but not me. After all, we were once human.”
Bingo! she thought. “You guys are werecoyotes—skinwalkers.”
Hopscotch chuckled. “Hoo-boy, you got it all figured out! We’ve been roaming this country for a century now, and nobody’s guessed our game until you came along. You can fight, too. I still got bruises from where you kicked me the other night. So what’s your story, missy?”
“Since we’re friends now, why don’t you let me out of here? Then we can sit around and have a regular conversation.”
He shoved the flashlight in her face. “Tell me what you are, or I’ll shut you up permanently.”
“Okay,” Buffy said, wincing from the light. “I’m a … a witch! I run this town, and I don’t want any competition.”
Hopscotch roared with laughter. “I knew it! I knew you were one of us. Like the freaks always say, ‘One of us! One of us!’”
“Yeah, I’m a freak like you,” Buffy agreed. “So why are you here? And what has it got to do with Spurs Hardaway?”
“Can’t put anything over on you,” the old carny said, his eyes lighting up. “Did you know that tonight is the Coyote Moon?” He looked as if he was going to howl in excitement.
“Listen, I don’t really care what you do as long as it doesn’t harm other people.”
Hopscotch frowned. “As a witch, you should know that sometimes you can’t avoid that. If we’re going to bring Spurs Hardaway back from the dead, we need a blood sacrifice, and lots of it.”
“Preferably young and pure,” Buffy said.
“Yeah,” the old carny agreed. “That’s the general idea. Luckily, you can still find some in a small town like this. It’s best when they come of their own free will.”
“Okay,” Buffy said. “I’ll forget I ever heard about this stuff. Just get me out of this box.”
“You’re lying.” Hopscotch sneered. “You won’t let us kill a bunch of your friends so we can raise the meanest, evilest skinwalker who ever lived.”
“Okay, maybe not,” Buffy conceded, thinking furiously. Now I know their plan for sure. She suddenly realized that this conversation wasn’t an accident—Hopscotch wasn’t just lonely for a little company.
“Listen,” she said. “Either you’re one of those bad guys who likes to brag, or you don’t really want Spurs Hardaway raised from the dead.”
His voice took on a hard edge. “Do you know what it’s like to live for a hundred years in a seedy road show?”
“No. Unless high school counts.”
“It’s pitiful,” the old carny muttered. “No home, no family, no good food, no good mattress, no bathtubs.”
“No manicures,” Buffy said.
But Hopscotch wasn’t finished. “There’s nothin’ but grease, gas fumes, and ten thousand towns, each one more boring than the last!” He snorted a laugh. “For the ones who have stayed young, there’s fun in making whoopee with the locals, but I gave that up a long time ago. I’m a hundred and seventy-five years old!”
“You don’t look a day over a hundred,” Buffy insisted.
His wrinkled face looked wistful. “Now the only fun I have is when I put on my skin and run with the pack. Sometimes I think I should just run off and stay a coyote. I’m really tired of fixing that stupid Ferris wheel.”
“I bet. But won’t things get better after Spurs comes back?”
“Not for me.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I’m the one who shot him dead.”
“Oh, bummer,” Buffy said. “And he knows this tidbit?”
“Right. Then you might as well get me out of here,” Buffy insisted, “because we’re partners now.”
A look of doubt flashed across Hopscotch’s craggy features, and Buffy feared that he would slam the lid on her prison, leaving her to die. Finally, he reached down and hauled her out with strong hands and arms.
When he set her on her feet, she got her first good look at her surroundings. She was in the van area of a large equipment truck, with tools, spools of cable, electronic gear, and other stuff strapped to the walls. She had actually been stored in a large metal tool chest welded to the floor. The grimy tools from the chest were now in a pile at her feet.
The only light came from a naked bulb over their heads. The only way out was the closed door at the back of the truck, and the old carny stood between her and that door. In his hand was his favorite weapon, a massive wrench that Buffy knew only too well.
“Don’t try nothin’,” Hopscotch warned.
“I’m still tied up,” she said, motioning to her hands behind her back.
“And you’re gonna stay that way.”
Buffy sat on a spool of electrical cable and stretched her stiff legs. “It must’ve taken some guts to kill Spurs Hardaway. Why did you do it?”
The old man scowled. “Because we were doing all the work, keeping his Wild West show on the road, and he was taking all the money! He was hardly paying us enough to live on and to feed the livestock.
“I’d been with Spurs since his first rodeo, in 1858, and I didn’t want to kill him. But he could be a mean old coot. I always had that silver bullet in my Derringer, just in case he didn’t see reason.” Hopscotch shook his head sadly. “He didn’t see reason.” The old man trailed off in thought.
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