Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1

by John Vorholt;Arthur Byron Cover;Alice Henderson

  “No thanks,” said Buffy, taking the notebook. “I was just under the delusion that if I kept a few private thoughts to myself, I’d have an actual private life someday. Guess I should have known better.”

  “You are the Slayer for this generation,” said Giles, in all seriousness. “A private life is out of the question. And as the current Watcher, I should know.”

  “Giles, you need to get out more,” Buffy said. Then she looked at the cover photo on the notebook. “Who’s gramps?”

  “That’s Sigmund Freud,” said Giles in his best you-should-already-know-this-too tone. “I thought his example as a pioneer in the exploration of the human mind might be inspirational.”

  “Oh yeah. He had a thing about cigars, didn’t he?” Buffy handed the notebook back to Giles. “That’s okay. I think I can find my own inspiration.”

  “As you wish,” said Giles coolly.

  When Buffy got home, she found her Mom unpacking a box. “New shipment?” she asked.

  “Look at these! They’ll fit in perfectly with the new show.” Buffy’s mom held up a notebook. The photo on the front was of a sculpture of a man composed of squares and rectangles. “This is the great sculptor V.V. Vivaldi’s masterpiece The Moonman.”

  “Cool!” said Buffy, admiring it. “I just so happen to need a new notebook.”

  “Then it’s yours. But tell people they can see the original at the gallery.”

  Before she went to sleep, Buffy dutifully put the notebook and a pen on the nightstand beside her bed. She was out like a light the moment she put head to pillow. Her sleep was deep, deeper and colder than any she’d previously known.

  When she awoke, she discovered she’d already written down her dream.

  The images themselves creeped her out. There was a pulpit lying in a heap, as if smashed by a giant club. Maggots swirled around the feet of a guru whose face had been seriously rearranged. Graves burst open with blasts of lightning, young women danced in the moonlight, and people or things passed by on the wind, only to go nuts and attack her.

  Okay, so they weren’t exactly the sort of dreams she’d thought she’d be having, but they were interesting, and they sort of made sense if you happened to be a Slayer.

  But one image had struck her as being out of place—not really the sort of thing she’d associate with being Buffy Summers, a modern Slayer—but there it was: the moon, with a huge meteor heading directly for it!

  Every morning she wrote down her dreams from the night before. After about a month she reread what she’d written to see if anything struck her as noteworthy.

  She was surprised to find that while some of the images were indeed random—as you’d expect in a dream—others had an internal chronological order.

  The story in the dreams began through the image-distorted eyes of a little girl learning how to sew with her hands and how to cook using a huge fireplace in the kitchen. Soon she learned how to gather chestnuts and berries from the woods, and how to grind wheat for bread. When she grew older, she took to preparing the meat. Evidently she’d taken rather well to that chore, because there were a lot of images from the girl’s point of view like plucking geese and chickens and cleaning fish.

  Eventually the girl reached adolescence. While the other young women were being courted by the eligible young men of whatever village this happened to be, Buffy dreamed of taking over the household hunting chores. She sensed a tragedy had happened to the head of the household that had necessitated this, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Her dreamself could use an ax and a knife, and a flintlock rifle whose powder had to be lit with a match before she could fire it. She was a good shot, and Buffy dreamed of bringing down turkeys at a hundred and fifty yards as well as geese and duck on the wing. She was also adept with the bow and arrow, and used them not only for hunting but for fishing as well.

  There were images of people interspersed with all this sewing, cooking, and hunting. Buffy had no idea who they might be, though it was reasonable to assume they were friends and family.

  Around the time the girl was fifteen, the nature of the images began to change. Violently. Indians killed most of the friends and family she’d glimpsed in previous dreams, and those images were interspersed with images of herself killing Indians in return. And, as time passed in the dream, of killing all sorts of abominations. Vampires. Zombies. Demons disguised as Quakers, Indians, or British aristocrats. Stuff that struck Buffy as being rather usual. Only the time period was different.

  One night, without warning, the dream became a single coherent narrative. It began with Buffy’s dreamself in the middle of the square in a strange village on a starry night. Patches of ice-hard snow were on the ground. The clean, neat square was illuminated by a series of oil lamps. At one end stood a huge wooden church, its position in relation to the shops and offices designating it as the most important place in the community.

  In the center of the square was a gallows. A group of angry men in plain black suits pushed a young man wearing a cleric’s collar toward the steps leading up to the hangman’s noose. A few of the men carried old-fashioned flintlock rifles, the kind where the powder and bullet were loaded separately. Occasionally, when the young man wasn’t moving fast enough, they prodded him with the rifle barrels.

  Buffy looked down. Her dreamself sat astride a horse; across the saddle lay her flintlock, loaded and ready for bear. A muscle twitched in her wrist. She calculated how fast she could reload, and how many men she might shoot if they rushed her.

  She sighed; such an approach was not worthy of the righteous. She fired her flintlock. Into the air.

  Some of the men gasped, others denounced her or shook their fists, but none made a move toward her. Her hands and powderbag were a blur as she reloaded faster than any had ever imagined possible.

  She pointed the weapon directly at the man at the forefront. “Forgive me, gentlemen, I usually refrain from interfering with matters of justice—”

  The man was large and fat, but clearly possessed great confidence and personal power. He looked up at her defiantly. Behind his brave smile, however, lay profound fear, though whether it was directed at Buffy’s dreamself or at the situation in general was a little hard to tell. “Samantha Kane. I might have known. You are tardy once again.”

  “I was delayed.”

  “By the presence of evil, I presume?”

  Samantha Kane shrugged. “What is evil in your eyes, sir, is not necessarily evil in mine.”

  She lowered her flintlock and got off her horse. The crowd of men whispered furtively among themselves. Samantha Kane did not care. She knew they thought her unusual. Women in this day and age did not ride horseback, they did not travel alone, they were not marksmen, and they never, never were feared by common rabble. Such women would have been accused of witchcraft, found guilty regardless of the mitigating circumstances, and hanged.

  Yet no one dared accuse Samantha Kane of witchcraft. Her reputation precluded that. “It is good to see you, Judge Danforth, though I wish the circumstances were more pleasant.”

  “Circumstances are never pleasant in these perilous times, Goodwoman Kane. You are well?” He looked at her kindly, the fear in his eyes replaced by a great weariness.

  “I am well. And you, my friend?” Samantha regarded this Judge Danforth as an ally, though she still harbored suspicions about him.

  “Well enough to carry out my sad duties. This poor wretch has just been pronounced guilty of practicing the rites of a warlock and of consorting with a witch. The sentence is to be carried out immediately.”

  “Immediately?”

  Danforth shrugged and frowned. “Normally those found guilty of consorting with the devil are given twenty-four hours to contemplate the error of their ways and ask for forgiveness, in the hope that their soul may be redeemed. But this wretch”—the judge sneered—“was a protégé of mine. I had high hopes that he would one day become a righteous leader of the community and would save many souls. It saddens
me greatly to see how far he has fallen.”

  Samantha looked the “wretch” in the eye. They were golden, sensitive eyes, and she found herself liking them.

  “Your name, sir,” Samantha demanded.

  He regarded her coldly. “I am the Right Reverend John Goodman. And you are Samantha Kane, the witch hunter.”

  “Among other things.” She noted his clothing was filthy as a result of his imprisonment, but he still wore the white collar of the clergy despite his fallen status. His face was bruised and his long red hair was matted. She supposed he was holding up pretty well for a man who was about to be hanged.

  “You people,” Samantha said to the crowd, and especially to a man pouring whale oil over the wood, “just wait.”

  “Why?” sneered one, who obviously thought her no different from the rest of the witches.

  Samantha grabbed him by the frills of his waistcoat, pulled his face close to hers, and growled softly, “Because it is not a good night to die.” She released him, then looked around. “Your ‘warlock’ can die tomorrow night just as easily.”

  Judge Danforth took her by the arm and drew her gently away from Goodman and the crowd. “Are you defending this man?” he asked patiently. “This devil worshipper?”

  “I know I missed Goodman’s accusation and trial because I was away dispatching abominations in New York,” said Samantha, flashing on an image of the natives rising from their burial grounds to attack a town meeting, “but I have reason to suspect you and the others have been duped. I would know more.”

  Shocked, Danforth said, “First, Goodman denounced a woman as a witch. Second, after we debated the evidence and came to our decision to try the woman, he was nowhere to be found. He only reappeared after she’d been found guilty and was scheduled to be punished. Third, soon after he visited her in the witch dungeon, she made good her escape. The witch is still at large. What more evidence is needed to conclude he is in league with the devil?”

  “How righteous is the tribunal who sanctions the execution of an innocent man?” Samantha shot back. “I would know more!”

  “For instance?” Danforth asked.

  “Was this witch accused on his word alone? Or are there others who believe this woman in league with the devil?”

  Danforth’s mouth curled up. He nodded to a man Samantha recognized as Sheriff Corwin, who in turn nodded to the man Samantha had pushed around. “Bring out the girls,” said Sheriff Corwin, “bring them out immediately and show her the devil is not in New York, nor Williamsburg, nor any other place people believe him to be. It is 1692, and the devil is here in Salem.”

  Salem in 1692! Buffy almost jolted awake. This past Slayer had operated smack in the midst of the witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts. It was one of the most notorious incidents in early American colonial history. Buffy had learned a lot about it from renting horror films.

  The man Samantha had pushed around glared at her. “This is your fault, woman. You deny me justice.”

  “If what you want is just, it will not be denied,” Samantha replied. “Now please, sir, do as you have been asked.”

  “This is Joseph Putnam,” said Judge Danforth. “His daughter Heather is one of the girls he must fetch to satisfy your curiosity. Go, man, and let us do what must be done.”

  He went. Samantha barely noticed. “It is not mere curiosity that causes me to question your wisdom.”

  “Though that is certainly true in part.”

  “Yes.”

  Samantha and the men waited in silence. Fireflies flew everywhere, reflecting in the eyes of the angry crowd. Goodman stood calmly, unmoving, looking at her. A breeze ruffled his long hair. Samantha was impressed by his bravery. She felt that under different circumstances, they might have been friends.

  She saw no reason why she should not fight for his survival. After all, was she not charged with protecting the innocent as well as eradicating abominations?

  “He is the one!” cried out a young girl hysterically. “He is the one responsible for my delirium!” The material and workmanship of the girl’s dress marked her as a member of a wealthy merchant family, yet the sleeves were tattered and many stitches were torn. The girl’s eyes were wild, and fresh red scratches marred her ivory complexion.

  Samantha recognized her as Heather Putnam. She noted the tips of Heather’s fingers were bloody; the girl had injured herself, an indication of contamination by the devil himself if ever there was one.

  Back in the present, Buffy ascribed her condition to hysteria, pure and simple.

  Heather and two others approximately the same age and in the same general condition were bound at the waist by a single rope. Putnam and four other men were required to hold the rope in order to drag them in the desired direction. Having brought them this far, the men were now obliged to hold the girls in their place to prevent them from lunging at Reverend Goodman and, presumably, scratching out his eyes.

  Putnam’s mind was not on his job. He stared mournfully at his daughter and occasionally wiped a tear from his eye.

  Danforth shook his head in pity at the girls. Goodman, on the other hand, muttered a prayer for them. The men in the crowd regarded them with horror.

  “He is responsible! He is the one!” the girls said. “He is responsible!”

  “I thought you said the slave woman was responsible for your condition,” Danforth protested.

  The girls got very quiet. Heather frowned, deep in thought. The other two pointedly looked at her, as if silently asking for direction. Heather nodded. Then, almost in unison, they proclaimed, “The slave is responsible too! Tituba is the one! Tituba is the one!”

  “Do you see?” Danforth calmly asked Samantha. “They are all quite mad. And very easily confused. Each and every one. Obviously the work of the devil.”

  Samantha’s sharp retort formed in Buffy’s mind, but the dreamworld of the past was suddenly obliterated in a flash of red light, and Buffy realized, with a groan, that she had fallen out of bed.

  “Buffy!” shouted her mother from down the hall. “Are you all right?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Buffy began her morning ritual of tai chi exercises at the first sign of dawn. She tried not to think about her dream. What had seemed so supremely exciting now seemed vaguely unnatural. Obviously the best thing to do would be to relax, so she could face the day with a clear head.

  That decided, Buffy checked out her appearance in the mirror on her dresser. And practically fainted: There was a bruise the size of Kansas on her forehead.

  Later, at breakfast, Mom was preoccupied with advertising the V.V. Vivaldi exhibition at the gallery (which she was sure would bring in a lot of business), but she did find time to make it clear—for the umpteenth time—that Buffy’s pretty skin wasn’t going to keep its pure, youthful quality too long if she kept banging it up all the time.

  Buffy shrugged, absently tossing her butter knife into the open dishwasher.

  The dishwasher happened to be across the kitchen. The butter knife had sailed through the air end-over-end and landed handle up.

  It was followed in quick succession by the rest of Buffy’s silverware. Each piece landed perfectly in the rack. Buffy paused, twirling her steak knife in one hand like it was a baton.

  Mom sat there silent and slack-jawed. “Buffy—?”

  Buffy remembered she had an audience. “It’s, ah, something we’ve been learning in Home Ec.” She threw the steak knife.

  And missed. Completely.

  It landed in the sink. Buffy picked up her glass and moved toward the dishwasher.

  “Ah, wait a minute there!” interrupted Mom. “Why not do the rest the old-fashioned way.”

  “Oh, we never throw the dinnerware.”

  Her mother looked relieved.

  “Not until next semester.”

  Buffy walked to school under a cloud. She’d been so distracted by the dream that she’d gotten sloppy and let her mother see something that reminded her of when Buffy had burned down
the school gym—a big no-no in the mother’s manual. Mom had said a thousand times that if she caught Buffy doing anything that smacked of that kind of trouble again, she would ground her indefinitely.

  Buffy believed her. She didn’t want to have to explain to Giles that she couldn’t save the world from a wave of enraged soul-eaters because she was chained to her bedpost.

  The only silver lining in her cloud was the knowledge that soon she could confide to Willow about the dream. She wanted to tell Willow first because Giles would just try to explain it all away with facts and theories, and something about the experience was simply too fantastic for that. Buffy didn’t want to spoil it yet.

  The only problem, as it turned out, was Xander, who knew their schedules better than they did and hence did not miss an opportunity when it came to finding one of them. Today he simply would not go away when Buffy and Willow made it clear his presence wasn’t welcome at the moment.

  Consequently, Buffy was probably harsher than necessary when she finally told him to get lost.

  “Why?” Xander asked. “We always study in the library together.”

  Giles cleared his throat but refrained from looking up from the massive, dusty tome he’d been studying since they’d come in.

  “You too—out!” Buffy pleaded. “Willow and I need to be alone.”

  “We do?” said Willow.

  “Yeah, You know, girl stuff: hair, nails …”

  “Clothes, boys,” Willow quickly added.

  Giles closed the book and said with mock resignation, “Come along, Xander, I guess even a Vampire Slayer needs a private moment once in a while. Besides, this will give us a chance to discuss certain astrological portents we need researched.”

  “Right now?”

  “Why dally where we’re not wanted?”

  “I’ll want a complete report later!” said Xander over his shoulder as Giles led him away.

  “He must think you want to confide in me about your personal life,” Willow whispered, barely containing her excitement. “Is it about boys? You do want to talk about boys, don’t you?” She was visibly crestfallen when Buffy, who suddenly had second thoughts, countered with: