Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1

by John Vorholt;Arthur Byron Cover;Alice Henderson

  “You don’t seem exactly broken up about it,” said Buffy.

  “Why should I? Does she not live on in you, after a fashion?”

  “As do you in Xander?” Willow asked Sarah.

  “I stand corrected. The essence of Sarah Dinsdale indeed resides, temporarily, in this being called Alexander Harris, but I would not call it living. Even so, it is superior to being bound by the confines of nonexistence. I suppose you would like to hear, now, what happened after my occult prison disappeared and the four worshippers fled to resume their charades of respectability?”

  “I’m not sure we have time,” said Buffy as an especially loud thunderclap resounded above the school. She noticed that the vase with the ashes inside was trembling, as if it and it alone were caught in an earthquake.

  “I think we’d better get out of here,” said Giles.

  “Can’t I just throw the vase in an open sewer or something, like in the movies?” Buffy asked.

  Giles reached out to touch it, but drew his hand away before he actually did so. “Too hot.”

  “Darn,” said Buffy, “and I’m all out of hand lotion. You’re right. Okay, I’m outtie. Xander? Or should I say, Sarah? Are you with us?”

  “All right, I’ve heard quite enough,” someone said from above them.

  Xander/Sarah was a little slow on the uptake, but the others all turned toward the person just in time to be blinded by a camera flash.

  “MacGovern!” exclaimed Buffy, trying to blink away the spots in her eyes. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to learn that you four are part of a religious cult bent on world domination!” said MacGovern. His face was red and he was breathing hard. Buffy was about to protest when he flashed another picture, this one of Xander.

  “What heinous sorcery is this?” Xander/Sarah cried, backing into a chair and falling down.

  “It’s the science of the fourth estate, young man, er, madam,” replied MacGovern, both defiant and confused. “And now that I have my proof, the entire world will know what’s going on in the Sunnydale High library!”

  “No, you shouldn’t report this!” Giles protested. “If people actually believe you, the media will keep her under constant surveillance!”

  “Summers should have thought of that when she tried to take over the world!” MacGovern replied.

  “Buffy! Quick!” said Willow. “Hit him over the head! Maybe it’ll knock some sense in him!”

  “It’s too late for that!” said MacGovern, trying to get past them to the front door. “Stay away from me. It’s my First Amendment right to be trespassing here!”

  Suddenly the vase exploded. Everyone was engulfed in ashes. Everybody was immediately grossed out, too—everybody except MacGovern, that is. He was inundated with one of the four blue shower-curtain-esque fields of ectoplasm revealed in the aftermath of the explosion. The blue field outlined his body until it was completely absorbed. The others did not notice because they were still grossed out, and because the effect was disguised by the brilliant flashing of another lightning blast striking the school grounds. This time they heard the distinct sound of a wall crumbling.

  “We’ve been undone!” Giles exclaimed, staggering backward onto a couch as if felled by a hammer. Already the perspiration brought on by his fever caused the ashes to run down his face. He looked like a crying clown with too many eyes.

  “What makes you say that?” asked Willow. “Is it your fever?”

  “Has something happened we should know about?” asked Buffy, who was always a little suspicious of Giles’s tendency to withhold information until the last possible moment.

  “I believe so,” said Giles. “Whoever’s manipulating present events to fulfill the Prophecy of the Dual Duels used the mystical forces focused on the vase during our séance to pry open a gateway between the dimensions of the living and the dead.”

  “You know, it always amazes me that you’re able to say so much without taking a breath,” commented Xander.

  If Willow tried to contain her excitement, it was lost on the others. She did restrain herself from throwing her arms around Xander, though just barely. “You’re … yourself again!”

  “Who else?”

  “Time check,” Buffy advised.

  Xander did. He was wearing a cheap wristwatch he had purchased at a hamburger joint. “Hey! It was only eight! Where was I? Oh no, I wasn’t a girl again, was I?”

  “’Fraid so,” said Buffy. “We were about to give you a makeover.”

  “Your identity crisis will have to wait,” said Giles with a cough. Then, nodding toward MacGovern: “We’ve more pressing problems.”

  Xander finally noticed the reporter standing there. “Ah, I don’t think we’re talking to MacGovern anymore.”

  The girls automatically took a few steps back from MacGovern. Giles cringed momentarily. Xander sneezed.

  Holding his flash camera like a weapon, MacGovern breathed heavily and glared at each of the foursome in turn. A noticeable change had come in his posture. He stood straighter, with his shoulders held high. With a shrug he tried to make his jacket appear a better fit—a hopeless effort. He looked down imperiously at them, easy enough to do from the upper level.

  “I know you!” exclaimed Buffy. “You’re Cotton Mather. Where’s your blood?”

  MacGovern/Mather scowled. “I do not know your meaning, sinful one.”

  “The blood that’s supposed to be on your hands!”

  He chuckled. “Oh, very good.” He inspected the reporter’s hands, which at the moment were his own. He appeared to enjoy it. “It is there. These hands are not nearly as clean as MacGovern might wish.”

  “So Mather’s your name, eh?” Xander asked. “What’s your—?”

  MacGovern silenced him with a gesture. “Don’t. You have no idea how many times I heard that phrase in purgatory, where the imagination runs the gamut from A to B.”

  Buffy was unimpressed. “Still a good question.”

  MacGovern/Mather smiled like an angel. “I have returned so I may do my bit, however modest, in unleashing the underworld onto the Earth. It’s time for what’s currently called a hostile takeover.”

  “Come on,” said Xander, “what’s the race of mankind ever done to you?”

  “Exist.”

  “So you’re a little bitter,” said Willow, trying to be helpful, “and you’ve had a bad experience these last three-hundred-plus years. But that’s no reason to have such a negative approach right now.”

  Mather drew himself to his full height and pointed his finger straight toward her nose. “Silence, woman! I am not an open book for you to read.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Buffy quietly. “We already know how you’re going to end.”

  “And you too, unfortunately,” snapped back Mather. “Well, I must retrieve an important ingredient for the upcoming resurrection. Bye!” He gathered his arms before him and dove toward a closed window, intending to smash right through it. He stopped at the last possible second, startled practically out of his wits.

  “The bars are made of metal in these newer buildings,” Giles pointed out. He couldn’t resist a smile, even in his condition.

  “Curses!” Mather exclaimed, and before they could guess his intentions, he leapt over the railing and landed on the table, square in the middle of the pentagram, knocking down two of the candles. Lightning flashed, followed by deafening thunder, and all the lights in the library cut out for several moments, enough time for lightning to flash yet again. Buffy spent the time stamping out the two flames.

  Thus giving Mather the time to jump down and dash out the front door.

  “Next time we have a séance, Giles,” said Buffy, “you should remember to lock the front door from the inside.”

  “Point taken,” said Giles, just before throwing up.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The black raincoat she’d borrowed from Giles was much too big for Buffy, but at least it had a hood and protecte
d her somewhat from the continuous rain. Though she was on the verge of becoming totally out of breath, she continued running toward the gallery, where she hoped to prevent MacGovern/Mather from obtaining V.V. Vivaldi’s Moonman statue.

  She ran through an open shopping center, across a small park, and through a ritzy neighborhood. Normally when she had this great a distance to make across Sunnydale, she broke down and asked Giles for a lift, but right now he was running a temperature of a hundred and four and was taking a cold shower in the boys’ locker room. Xander’s job was to take care of Giles, while Willow was searching the Internet hoping to find some kernel of information about Prince Eisenberg, The Eibon, V.V. Vivaldi, or anything else that might prevent tonight’s events from becoming an absolute rerun of the past.

  Buffy hated prophecies. Especially this one. Normally she didn’t like to admit to herself that she needed help—even when she knew she did—but she had no problem making an exception in this case. It was too bad Angel wasn’t around. He often showed up whenever he was afraid she would get in over her head, but tonight he was nowhere to be seen. She supposed even a conscience-ridden vampire had a social life; that is, if he wasn’t out raiding a blood bank somewhere.

  At least the raincoat was doing its job. Without her boots, though, her feet were soaked and felt wrinkled to a wormlike state by the wet.

  Her Slayer instincts were doing their job too. She knew the Hummer following her belonged to the Churches. They were good at their work too. Every time she took a shortcut or deliberately went down a narrow alley impossible for them to get their Hummer through, they always picked her up a short distance down the line.

  Buffy had the distinct suspicion the Churches might be more heavily involved in this affair than they’d intended. She also wondered if they were aware of the other set of headlights—belonging to a van—following them. Probably. They were undoubtedly used to occasional media attention by now.

  Even so, if she couldn’t prevent The Moonman from being stolen, then her task was to keep the four former worshippers of the Despised One from doing a reprise of their “unsavory” dance. She figured that if she could prevent one major element of the original incident from fitting into its proper place, then the entire prophecy might wash away with the smog and pollen in the storm.

  Buffy was just a half mile from the gallery when she finally spotted MacGovern/Mather. He was drenched. He shambled down the center of the street, which tonight was devoid of traffic thanks to the terrific storm; everybody with a semblance of common sense—or no bodily repossessions—was staying home.

  She was glad to be able to slow down. Her heart was beating so hard that she was surprised he couldn’t hear it, even over the frequent thunder. Still, she edged closer to him, and they were both approximately a hundred yards away from the gallery when Buffy spotted her mother’s car parked outside. Naturally. As if it wasn’t bad enough she was willfully participating in a scenario that may have killed her in a past life, her mom might discover her daughter is secretly a key player in the eternal struggle between good and evil. Can you be grounded for eternal life?

  There was only one thing to do, and that was take the bull by the horns and face the situation.

  “Mather!” she called out.

  MacGovern/Mather stopped and turned. He had been carrying his flash camera the entire time, and it was as drenched as he. Rivulets flowed from the brim of his hat, and his cheap coat clung to his cheap shirt like plastic wrap. “What do you want? Do not think of interfering,” he added, answering his own question.

  “Why? Afraid I’ll die before my time?” said Buffy, trying to maneuver close enough for an effective attack.

  “Doesn’t matter when you die, so long as you do. In fact, should you die before the ceremony, so much the better. Reduces the chance of a complication.”

  “Hmm. It’s nice to know you’re afraid of complications.”

  Mather growled and hurled the flash camera at Buffy. She dodged it with ease and it shattered on the sidewalk, exposing the film. It appeared MacGovern’s luck would be consistent, in the short-term at least. Buffy couldn’t help but laugh.

  Mather’s reaction was unexpected. Mainly because it was MacGovern’s reaction. “Hey, what’s so funny?” he asked indignantly. His imperious posture momentarily deflated, only to resume its unnatural height as he said aloud, “Leave me alone. Stay suppressed like you’re supposed to, and you might live through this night. You, on the other hand”—now he looked at Buffy—“haven’t got a prayer.”

  “Other hand? Sounds to me like you’re having trouble keeping the upper hand.”

  Mather, again firmly in control, looked around at the sleek, modern buildings, then glared directly at Buffy. “We knew how to handle smart-mouthed young vixens in my day.”

  “Burned them at the stake?”

  “We were kinder, gentler executioners; we merely hanged them. The barbarians in Europe, they burned the witches!”

  “I knew that. I just wanted to hear you deny it.” She bent at the knees, bringing forward a branch the size of her arm she’d picked up in the park.

  Mather stepped back. Way back. “I deny anything if it’s a lie.” Lightning flashed behind him, and his shadow cut across the road.

  A few blocks down, a Hummer came to a stop and turned out its lights. Then it came forward.

  “Deny this!” said Buffy. Taking advantage of the distraction, she broke the branch in half—into two pointed stakes—and rolled straight at him, shooting with the force of a bowling ball. Her legs got a little tangled in the raincoat, but otherwise the maneuver went all right.

  Mather laughed. She sprang at him, cocking her right arm to drive the stake into his heart.

  Or where a heart should be.

  Mather dodged the stake with ease. “I once possessed a martial arts master,” he explained while he kicked her in the stomach.

  Buffy managed to deflect most of the blow, but it still delivered quite an impact. She landed on her back, in a manhole up to its rim with water. She rolled out of the way a second before Mather landed on top of her feetfirst. She hit him with the bottom of her foot, at the kneecap. His leg crumbled out from under him, and she kicked him in the face.

  He grabbed her leg, twisted it—thus twisting her—and sent her flying headfirst into the door of a parked Honda. Luckily the door bent easily.

  But she was in the process of standing before she even touched the ground. She turned and threw an underhand stake toward his eye.

  He avoided it, knocking it straight down to the ground, but he fell down, which definitely hadn’t been part of his plan. He grabbed the stake and threw it back at her.

  She caught it.

  “Slay me and you slay MacGovern,” Mather said. “Possession isn’t permanent. Sooner or later I’ll have to return control to MacGovern.”

  Buffy raised her eyebrows. MacGovern/Mather was right. She would have to be more careful.

  “How do I know you’re not lying?” she asked.

  “Maybe my journalist half is talking!” He turned and ran directly toward the gallery.

  Buffy could have caught up with him easily—possessed though he might be, he still had the legs of an old man—but she was momentarily stymied. How should she proceed?

  Her mind was made up when Mather, trying to avoid a huge puddle, brazenly climbed over the hood of Joyce Summers’s parked car.

  Buffy dashed toward him with murderous intent, but she came to an abrupt stop and slipped and fell onto another car the moment she saw her mother coming out of the gallery.

  Mom wasn’t alone. With her was the cleaning lady, Pat, who held a bucket filled with cleaning tools in one hand, and with her other hand balanced a mop over her shoulder. Pat was about four and a half feet tall and weighed nearly 150 pounds; she resembled a fire hydrant.

  “Why, Mrs. Summers, how good it is to make your acquaintance,” said Mather with a definitely smarmy air. He offered to shake her hand.

  “Mister,
are you all right?” Buffy’s mom asked, peering out from under her umbrella. “You look a fright!”

  Buffy watched what happened next in a car mirror. The moment Mather made a false move, the stakes would start to fly!

  “Look a fright?” exclaimed Mather. “I am a fright!”

  He grabbed Mrs. Summers by the wrist and yanked her toward him. She spun into his arms and he held her in a bear hug. It had taken only a second.

  But it was long enough for Buffy to expose herself and cock back her right arm. She had her eye on the nape of his neck.

  Joyce had hers on his foot. She stamped it with the point of her high heel.

  Mather yelled and released her, thus giving Pat the cleaning lady a clear shot with her mop. She caught Mather upside the head and he staggered away from them, toward the stairs leading to the gallery.

  “The gallery is closed, sir,” said Joyce Summers, who had already gotten her cell phone from her pocketbook and was dialing 911.

  “That depends on your perspective,” Mather replied. He had steadied himself by the time he’d reached the top of the stairs, and when he turned toward the front door he broke out into a full run, giving the others the distinct impression he would try to run straight through it. Instead, he veered at the last possible instant and ran straight into a window. No iron bars! Glass and wood shattered as he disappeared into the gallery. A slew of alarms went off, but Mather obviously didn’t care.

  No respect for the human body whatsoever, thought Buffy, moving down the line of parked cars. She had to follow Mather, regardless of whether or not her mother spotted her. Besides, if I live through tonight I can be grounded forever, for all I care. In fact, I could use the rest. But it would be better if her mother didn’t see her. See pulled the hood closer.

  “Shouldn’t we go after him?” asked Pat, raising her voice to be heard.

  “No, leave the heroics to the professionals,” Joyce replied. “Hello? 911? I’d like to report a break-in.”

  Thanks, Mom, thought Buffy as she took advantage of the moment, the darkness, and all the alarms and dashed across the sidewalk with the fleetness of a cat in hunting mode. She realized her dilemma had gotten worse, if that was possible. Now she was faced with the choice of either stopping Mather before the police came or letting him be arrested for attempting to steal the Vivaldi Moonman. Either way, Darryl MacGovern, streetwise but unlucky reporter, would take the rap.