Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1

by John Vorholt;Arthur Byron Cover;Alice Henderson

  She was exhausted. All she wanted was to lie down on the cold earth and sleep.

  But if she did that, then she might as well give up and die, and she could not do that. Not while the Despised One was waiting.

  She ran to him, deeper, deeper into the forest until she vanished in the night and Xander woke, returning at last to his own reality. The dream had seemed like a four-hour epic on television, yet he awoke to find he’d only been out for as long as an extended commercial break.

  Upon hearing the full story, an awestruck Willow discovered she was practically speechless—emphasis on practically. “My goodness, do you realize that your dream and the one Giles said he had both took place during the Salem witch trials?”

  “I like to think mine was a little better. Yeah, and maybe they are connected. Even I can see that.”

  “We must find out more.”

  Xander yawned and stretched. “Yeah, I could use a nap. Maybe I’ll dream the next part of the story. Should be easy enough, don’t you think?”

  “I have a better idea. What are you doing tonight?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  I have often wondered,” said the Master aloud—to no one—“what it is like to dream, or to sleep. Is that the essence of humanity?

  “Or perhaps I just want to eat, and drink. True, I have feasted on human flesh and occasionally have even devoured a human soul, but I wonder about real food. Scrambled eggs, for instance. With ketchup and maple syrup on top. Or a Virginia ham. Or perhaps what I really want is a simple cup of tea. If I had a cup of tea, would my cares drift away? After I consolidate my control of the surface, one of my first acts will be to find out. Hey! Minions!”

  The black things who were his minions scurried around his feet. “Master! Master!” they said in squeaky voices, not quite in unison. “Speak, speak! Instruct us, and we shall serve. We ask for nothing more.”

  The Master yawned. “Bring me the spirits!”

  “YES MASTER! RIGHT AWAY MASTER YOU BETCHA MASTER,” they said, then scattered immediately in all directions. A few even disappeared into the walls.

  Moments passed. Or was it hours? The Master decided he didn’t care. When time no longer matters, the amount of it is irrelevant as well.

  The point was the spirits showed up. Alone, without a minion escort, which meant the minions were still looking for them. Typical. Two of the spirits emerged through a wall, another rose up from the floor, and the fourth descended from above. In this form they resembled black semi-transparent shower curtains.

  They hovered and merely listened to the Master’s words; in this form they could do nothing else.

  “The pieces of the puzzle are in place at last,” said the Master. “All the planets, in all the upper and lower dimensional planes, are in proper alignment. The stars are positioned favorably. The fortune reading by candle wax went well, as did the readings by bone dice and tarot card. Only the reading by the spilled entrails of a small rat fared poorly. Even so, the situation is close enough for celestial work.

  “Things could be better on the ground. It would be preferable if everyone involved was an actual reincarnation.

  “But I am satisfied that by influencing the thoughts of four occult chasers, I have brought to Sunnydale”—he shuddered at the mere mention of such an innocuous, happy word—“proper temporary receptacles for you, the four souls who served the Despised One so poorly three hundred years ago. It would have been nice to rely on more proven talent, but you, Heather, have been adequately devious during the séances called by that amateur Church couple. A good beginning, a good beginning for you all.

  “Remember, the entire point of this operation is its predictability. Soon the four of you will have the opportunity to correct the mistake you made more than three hundred years ago. Were you capable of such things, I know you would be thrilled.

  “Now depart. Begone. Skedaddle! You know what to do. And when the time is right, you shall do it, or the suffering you have endured so far shall be but a prelude to the pure hell you existence will become.”

  And they were gone.

  The Master was again alone. In time his minions would return and scurry around his feet, apologizing profusely for yet another failure on their part. It didn’t matter. Soon he would never have to tolerate their ineptness again.

  Buffy had spent the last thirty minutes waiting for Eric Frank and his crew to leave. But they were obviously too stubborn to leave.

  Every once in a while Frank, the anchorman who often went out in the field to conduct the most sensational interviews, knocked on the front door. Each time he stalked back waving his arms about and shouting something at his crew … at the house … at the trees … at anything he happened to see. Maybe he thought someone was really at home and was just refusing to answer the door. But every week on this day Buffy’s mom took an invalid neighbor out for a drive, and Buffy didn’t expect her home for another hour, at least.

  Buffy had seen Charles Fort’s Peculiar World many times, and she’d thought it was pretty stupid every time. Frank’s dim-witted staff must have finally picked up shreds of information and fragments to learn there’d been some funny goings-on in Sunnydale. Paranormal goings-on. And they must have grasped that Buffy was the connecting thread, despite the spell of forgetfulness that had been cast over the town.

  So if Frank interviewed her mom, he would ask her how she felt about her daughter being the Slayer for this generation. Then the footage would be broadcast on syndicated TV for the duration of cable—severely impairing Buffy’s ability to have a normal life.

  Eventually Buffy tried to think of ways to fool the reporters into abandoning their stakeout. She reasoned she could call their cell phones, pretend to be a talent scout from CNN, and send them off on a wild-goose chase. But that required knowing their numbers, which she did not.

  She could get their numbers, but that would require time. Definitely not a good idea.

  Now, if Willow were here, she would whip out her trusty cell and hack into their e-mail in about thirty seconds. Unfortunately, Willow wasn’t here, and she wouldn’t likely be happening by unless Xander happened to drop off the face of the earth.

  Then suddenly things changed. Buffy simply had to go inside to use the nearest available facilities, and she wasn’t going to let a bunch of TV clowns stop her. She figured they wouldn’t get any usable footage on her, not if she walked straight in.

  Besides, not one of their stories on vampires, wasp women, and heap monsters had been remotely accurate. Why should they suddenly start being credible with Buffy Summers?

  Eric Frank stood leaning against the back of the van, huffing and puffing about something, when he suddenly saw Buffy coming. He sprang to life. “Guys! Guys!” he hissed, loud enough for the world to hear. “That’s her kid! Maybe the brat will spill something!”

  Buffy was so stunned she stopped in the middle of the street, forcing an oncoming car to swerve around her. Spill something? she thought. I’m “her kid”—“the brat”? They must be here because they think—ohmigosh!—Mom!

  Like a gigantic mother hen from a Japanese monster movie, Buffy strode boldly up to Frank, stuck her finger in his face, and yelled, “What do you want with Mom? Get out of here! Leave her alone!”

  Eric Frank’s response was deliberate obtuseness. He put his microphone in Buffy’s face. And he looked down that long, slim nose and asked, with snooty politeness, “Good afternoon, young lady. Might I inquire why you are so defensive? Does it have to do with your mother?”

  “Defensive? What do you mean, defensive? Neither one of us has anything to be defensive about!”

  “Ah, so you deny the obvious. So tell me, Miss Summers, what exactly is your mother’s relationship with the supernatural? And why are you covering for her? Don’t you understand she is involved with heinous forces of evil?”

  “What are you talking about? What heinous forces? Look, why don’t you ask her?” Uh-oh. She’d just realized: a) what she’d said, and b) who happen
ed to be recording it for the gratification of millions. She smiled weakly at the crew.

  “We tried to ask her, at the gallery,” Frank explained in insincere tones. “But she refused to speak on the record. And when she spoke off the record, she politely but emphatically suggested our next destination. We think she’s under the influence of the insidious art deco sculpture from the Bronx.”

  “What?”

  “The Moonman. The famous sculpture by the modern Italian master V.V. Vivaldi, who died under mysterious circumstances during the fascist reign of Mussolini. I don’t like it, myself. According to the story, it wound up in Mussolini’s possession, whereupon everything promptly went downhill for the Italian dictator. Of course, he did choose the wrong side during World War Two. Just before he was hanged by his angry subjects, Mussolini blamed his entire downfall on a curse placed on The Moonman by Vivaldi. And he was just the first.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  Frank turned away and then looked at her from the corner of his eye, like a huffy history teacher. “An art speculator snatched the statue from the hands of the American forces right after the war. He died, but not before he sold it to someone else, who died, who sold the statue to someone else, who died, who had willed it to someone else, who died … you get the idea.”

  “So what’s Mom got to do with it?”

  “The point is that a local art gallery, managed by one Joyce Summers, is putting on a tiny exhibition concerning V.V. Vivaldi. This statue is cursed. Everyone who’s owned it, or has been responsible for it, has died, usually before their time. Tell me, Miss, ahem, Buffy. I’ll give you one last chance to come clean to our audience of millions of mild-mannered Americans. Is there something you feel you must share about Joyce Summers’s—your mother’s—extracurricular activities?”

  Buffy bristled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “So you’re confirming your mother is under the insidious influence of Vivaldi’s infamous Moonman?” Frank asked, pushing it.

  “Hey, Frank, why do they call it The Moonman?” the soundman asked snidely.

  “It’s not actually from our moon, is it?” asked the cameraman just as snidely. Buffy got the impression those two’s opinion of the show was about as high as hers.

  “Vivaldi thought it was,” Eric Frank said in exasperated tones.

  “Hey! Why don’t we put it on the show?” asked the soundman, laughing.

  “Are you guys always this wrong about everything?” Buffy demanded, staking her entire credibility on her ability to be as off-base as possible. “I think you are. I’ve seen your show. To be honest, Mr. Frank, it’s pretty preposterous stuff.”

  Eric Frank turned quite pale and glared at his crew, who were laughing at him. “You don’t trust me because of the way my hair looks, right?”

  Buffy tried not to laugh. “Exactly,” she said sympathetically. She pushed her way between Frank and his crew. “I’m sorry, boys, but I really gotta go!”

  The crew laughed some more, but suddenly they spotted something and became totally serious. “Hey, Mr. Murrow,” said the soundman, facetiously referring to a legendary TV newsman from the 1950s. “Over there! In that Hummer!” He pointed toward the huge vehicle. “It’s Rick and Lora Church!”

  “Hmmm. Looks to me like they’re headed toward the gallery,” said Buffy, even though the Churches were actually headed away.

  She’d been counting on the probability that the three strangers to Sunnydale would be too unfamiliar with the streets to recognize that fact—a slight risk that proved justified when all three began loading the gear into the van in a bumbling, comical fashion. Within a few moments a very satisfied Buffy watched the van with the falling frogs logo disappear after the Churches.

  Naturally she was very concerned that Mom had gotten herself involved with a cursed artifact of some sort, and under normal circumstances she would have gone to the gallery immediately. But today circumstances were far from normal. Curses, dreams, and coincidences were running amok in Sunnydale, and she was certain they were connected to Prince Ashton Eisenberg’s Prophecy of the Dual Duels.

  Only one man could help her fathom that connection.

  Rupert Giles. She would have to see him.

  In a few minutes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Giles lay down on a couch in the library and wiped a line of perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief made damp from the number of times he’d used it during the past hour. Buffy and her friends had never seen him this casual before: The buttons of his shirt were undone, he’d kicked off his shoes, and his feet were on a table. Of course, at the moment he had a temperature of a hundred and one, and he had just taken a few aspirin to reduce the fever.

  “We should get you to a hospital,” said Buffy.

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” said Giles. “My illness isn’t medical, or I should say, isn’t scientific in nature. No rational person can help me now.”

  “Thank goodness,” said Xander. “That means we might have a chance.”

  Giles coughed. “All right, the time has come for us to try to get this straight. Three of us—Buffy, Xander, and myself—have had dreams linking us to past lives that all coexisted at the time of the Salem witch trials. We are not necessarily reincarnations, but all these past lives interacted with one another, much as all four of us interact today. The fact we are all having these dreams of the same people, the same events, at the same time is inescapable. There must be some significance, if not reincarnation then some joining of purpose. So let us, for the sake of argument, assume that we are them for right now.”

  “You are a Watcher named Robert Erwin, which stands to reason since you’re a Watcher now,” said Willow. “And Buffy is a Slayer named Samantha Kane.”

  “And I, for reasons I cannot possibly understand,” said Xander, “have been dreaming that I was a woman named Sarah Dinsdale, a tried and convicted witch who just happened to be as guilty as sin.”

  “Furthermore,” said Giles, coughing again, “because you are having the dreams of Sarah Dinsdale, we know the spirit Rick and Lora Church know as Sarah is likely the spirit of an imposter. Because the spirit of Sarah is within you, and can be nowhere else.”

  “So is this spirit in the employ of all the nosy people who’ve been bothering us?” asked Willow.

  “Undoubtedly,” said Giles. “But I suspect the nosy people are unwilling dupes.”

  “Obviously the next step is to learn more about what happened to Sarah Dinsdale,” said Willow.

  Xander stretched and yawned. “Great. I could use a few Z’s. I’ve been told”—he looked at the girls meaningfully—“that I don’t snore.”

  “Your teddy bear talks?” asked Willow.

  “We do not have time to wait for you to dream,” said Giles. “We must … how do you Americans say it? … cut to the quick on this one.”

  “I think you mean ‘cut to the chase,’” said Buffy.

  “Exactly,” said Giles, suppressing another cough. “We must hold a séance. Willow, please retrieve the candles and the holy water from the locked cabinet behind the desk. Xander, on the shelf over there is a book called Séances for Fun and Profit by Rick and Lora Church. We need it. Buffy, I fear I must ask you to get something gross again.”

  Buffy gulped. “Okay.”

  Ten minutes later she returned from the morgue, with a vase filled with someone’s ashes. “I suppose I’ll have to take this back, too, in the morning.”

  “Hopefully, sooner,” said Giles. “Thank you, Buffy. I must say, it always amazes me how you get in and out of these places so quickly.”

  “I could to it,” said Xander, “if she could only show me how she does it.”

  “That’s all right, Xander,” Buffy said dryly. “I’ll be glad to keep on doing it.”

  “I am grateful,” said Giles. “Now, in this book Lora describes the preparations for a do-it-at-home séance. She keeps it simple; the only exotic requirement is this demand for the ashes of the crem
ated. The curtains are drawn? Good. Now we must hold hands.”

  But he began coughing badly as he reached for Buffy and Willow. Everybody waited for him to be done. He sat at the head of the table, with Xander opposite him. The library was dark—Xander had switched off the lights—but for the candles, which were placed on the table to make the points of a pentagram, what Buffy called the occult design of choice. The wax formed the pentagram itself.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Obviously Robert Erwin had been very sick throughout the duration of this event, so obviously I’ll be just as sick.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Xander.

  “Merely that”—cough!—“what happened to our past lives during the event probably has … no, must have some bearing on what happens to us during this one.”

  “I get it,” said Xander. “Like on television. Repeats always end the same.”

  “Once again, your logic is abnormal,” said Giles. “But that is, in a roundabout way, the point.”

  “Well, this is one rerun where the ending’s in doubt,” said Buffy. “Whoever is setting up this repeat action must want a different ending, because there weren’t any questions about a ‘Despised One’ on our history test today.”

  “Even so, if Sarah Dinsdale ends up being burned at the stake, I’m going to allow myself to feel very, very nervous, understand?” said Xander.

  “The witches were hanged, not burned at the stake,” said Giles. “We’re not dealing with total barbarians here. The Puritans were as civilized as anyone else at the time. Furthermore, Sarah Dinsdale’s name is not among the victims. She did not die as a witch.”

  “What happened to her?” asked Xander.

  Giles shrugged. “After her escape, she disappeared. Whatever happened to her, her name is erased from history.”

  “That may be,” said Buffy, “but from what I’ve seen, Corwin and Danforth weren’t above exacting a little street justice.”