Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1

by John Vorholt;Arthur Byron Cover;Alice Henderson

  “Let’s stay on our guard,” she told Giles. “I have a bad feeling.”

  Dr. Henderson raised his eyebrows, and Buffy added, “About the cheese. I have a bad feeling about the cheese. It may have gone bad.”

  “Of course,” Giles answered. “When you’re up to it, we’ll discuss it with Agatha.”

  Buffy sat up. “I’m up to it now.”

  Dr. Henderson placed his hands on his hips. “I’m afraid I must differ, Miss Summers. You must rest, at least for one more night. You can’t walk on that leg yet. In fact, I advise you not to walk on that leg for several weeks. But I can see you’re a determined young woman, so I only advise you not to push yourself. You came very close to death, young lady.”

  Buffy nodded, then shook his hand. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” He packed up the rest of his kit, gauze, needles, and thread, and placed everything into a worn black leather satchel. “And now I must return to the field hospital and see to the new arrivals. Miss Summers.” He kissed her hand and made a short bow, then turned and shook hands with Giles.

  When he exited the room, Giles shut the door behind him. “It’s been close, Buffy. I thought we might lose you.”

  “Well, here I am. And we need to be ready for those vamps.” Not for the first time, Buffy felt grateful that vampires couldn’t break into houses. They needed an invitation from the people living there. That meant they didn’t have to fortify doors or windows. The vamps would have to wait for them to wander outside, and that gave her time to heal and devise a plan with Agatha.

  An hour later Buffy wore a clean pair of trousers and a freshly washed shirt. She sat in the kitchen, sipping tea with cream and sugar from a delicate china cup. Of all the time jumps, this had been the most brutal, and it felt strange to be drinking tea from an elegant tea set.

  Agatha’s farmhouse stood on one hundred and thirty acres of Tennessee oak-hickory forest, with pastures for her cows, horses, and chickens. Most of the animals had been requisitioned by the Union army, but she still had enough for eggs and milk, and they’d left her two horses. Large glass windows overlooked green fields and trees just getting their spring leaves. In the distance, a ridgeline was dotted white with blooming shadbush and dogwood trees. Several redbud trees bloomed purple-pink just outside the yard.

  Agatha sat across from her, wearing a plaid day dress complete with hoop skirts. Her long hair, perfectly coiffed, was swept up and held in place by a silver comb. She wore a cameo pin at the neckline of her dress.

  Giles and the others had explained to her where they’d come from and why. At first she hadn’t believed them, but eventually she’d grown to trust them. Three days had passed since Buffy was shot, and the Battle of Shiloh was over. Grant had won, driving the Confederate soldiers down south, back to Corinth, Mississippi. For now, the field hospital worked around the clock to help the wounded, but more than twenty thousand soldiers had been injured or killed.

  The sun, hanging low on the horizon, gleamed in through the windows, giving the illusion of a normal spring day, in which no war was being fought.

  Agatha smiled at her over the rim of her teacup.

  “Do you live here alone?” Buffy asked her.

  “My father lives here too. He’s fighting right now. Since he left, my Watcher comes by every day. He bought a little place over that ridge.” She pointed to the ridge dotted with white trees. “I haven’t seen my father for six months, though his name hasn’t been on any of the casualty lists. I check frequently at the field hospital.” She sipped her tea, looking out over the yard. “I pray for his return every day.”

  Buffy wasn’t sure what to say, so she continued drinking the tea, postponing the need to say something. When she’d drunk the entire cup, she said, “I can’t imagine what that must be like.”

  Agatha put her cup down gently, the china rattling against the saucer. “It’s hard. I lost my mother when I was a child. Scarlet fever. Sometimes the pain never seems to end.”

  “I know,” Buffy said, thinking of all the killing and death she’d witnessed firsthand, wrought by both the undead and now human warfare.

  “We’ll never lead normal lives,” Agatha said distantly. “You and I. We’ll always be different. While some young women are courted and attend balls, you and I will be fighting vampires in the mud and musty, abandoned barns. It’s all we have.” The sadness in Agatha’s voice pressed in on Buffy.

  She set her cup down. “It’s not all we have,” Buffy told her. “We have people who love us. Our parents. Our Watchers. Our friends.” She thought of Angel, of how much she missed him, especially now, separated by more than a hundred and thirty years. It occurred to her that he was alive, even now. He’d be in Europe, but the thought that she could cross the Atlantic at that instant and see him hit her powerfully. Then she remembered that he wouldn’t be the sweet man she knew, brave and generous. He’d be Angelus, one of the most feared and evil vampires ever to stalk the earth. In 1898 he’d killed the young gypsy girl, and her family had cursed him forever by returning the human soul to his soulless body. Since then, he’d wandered in self-perpetuating torment, grieving the terrible deeds Angelus had wrought on the innocent. But now, in 1862, that redemption of Angel was more than thirty years away, and she never wanted to meet the evil Angelus.

  “That may be, but people talk. I haven’t been invited to a party or a ball since I started fighting vampires.”

  Buffy knew what she meant. While she definitely had her share of nights dancing at the Bronze, boys weren’t exactly beating down her door to go out with her. There was Owen, who had almost gotten killed on the first date. And Xander, who’d practically torn her throat out while possessed by a hyena demon. And then Angel, who was all doom and gloom, this omen and that omen, and gee, hope you survive tonight because the Master is rising. But it just wasn’t the same as good, old-fashioned romance. Whatever happened to seeing a movie? Or eating in a nice restaurant? With Angel it was always fights in garbage-strewn alleys and smoochies in the graveyard. What was wrong with her life?

  She smiled at Agatha. This was what she’d missed when meeting the other Slayers: the commiseration. There they’d been, people who really could have understood how she felt about being a Slayer, and she’d been unable to speak with them. “I’m glad you speak English,” she told Agatha.

  The Slayer smiled, puzzled. “What?”

  Just then Giles, Willow, and Xander entered through the kitchen door. They carried pails of milk and eggs. Xander wore overalls, and his cut looked much better.

  “Guys,” Buffy told them, “the farmer outfits were just a disguise. You don’t actually have to be them.”

  “Very funny,” Xander said. “Laugh all you like. But do you know how hard it is to milk a cow? It doesn’t just come out like in the movies. You have to work at it. Tease it out. It’s hard.”

  “Sounds like you have another girlfriend,” she told him.

  “Ha-ha,” Xander retorted mirthlessly.

  “And, Will, did you have to coax those eggs from the chickens?” Buffy asked.

  “Nope. They just laid them and I picked them up.”

  “Next time you get the cow,” Xander told her.

  Giles set the pail of milk on the kitchen table and smiled at Buffy. “It’s good to see you up and around.”

  “Any sign of our friends yet?”

  Willow spoke up. “Nope. But I thought I caught the shadow of something creeping around outside last night. Could have been one of them.”

  Buffy looked over her shoulder, toward the west. The sun continued to dip lower. It would be dark in another two hours, and they’d have to be ready then.

  After a dinner of fried eggs, biscuits, and gravy, they sat around next to the fire. The sun sank below the horizon. As Buffy sat in a rocking chair, her injured leg propped up on a footstool, she stared into the flames. Already her wound had vastly improved, compliments of supernatural Slayer healing rate.

  The back door squeaked
open, and everyone but Agatha spun around in their seats, anticipating an attack. Instead, a brown-haired man in a fancy suit walked through the door and shut it behind himself.

  “Evening,” he said, his face showing surprise at their presence.

  “Niles Hallowell,” Agatha said, “I’d like you to meet four extraordinary people.” She introduced all of them, saving Buffy for last. “And this,” she said, gesturing at Buffy, “is Buffy Summers. She’s a Slayer.”

  “Impossible!” said Niles.

  “Niles is my Watcher,” Agatha explained.

  Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Your Watcher is named Niles? Gee, Giles, you have a lot in common already. Niles. Giles.”

  “Yes, very amusing,” he muttered.

  “There cannot be more than two living Slayers,” Niles went on, unrelenting.

  Giles stood up and shook the man’s hand. “We aren’t from this time period. We’ve traveled from the future in order stop a team of assassins from murdering Agatha before her natural death.”

  “Ooo-weeeee-ooooo,” Xander said, then did his best rendition of the Twilight Zone theme. Agatha and Niles stared at him blankly, as if he’d gone mad. “Oh, right. 1862.”

  Niles said nothing.

  “I don’t think I like the sound of all this,” said Agatha. “It’s frightening. You all know when I’m allotted to die, and it gives me the creeps.”

  “Hey, you say ‘creeps’ back here? Cool! Slang is old.”

  Agatha raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I didn’t mean you were old, just that slang dates back further than …” Xander trailed off before he made things worse.

  “We’re here to stop you from dying before your natural time,” Buffy told her. “What’s worse, knowing that we are aware of the year of your natural death, or dying younger than that?”

  Agatha turned away, staring into the fire.

  Buffy felt bad. She knew that Agatha didn’t die that much further into the future. But if she died in the next few days, a different Slayer would be activated instead of the one who should be. Some powerful Slayers came after Agatha’s time, including Lucy Hanover, who roamed the Ghost Roads, helping lost souls. Would that be true of Buffy, too? Would the Slayers after her be powerful and heroic?

  She thought of Agatha’s wishes to attend balls and meet “a handsome gentleman,” as she’d put it. She probably wouldn’t have the chance. Would Buffy’s life be the same too? Were all Slayers destined for short lives and misery? She gritted her teeth. At least Agatha would have all the time coming to her. No two-bit assassins would rob her of that as long as Buffy was alive.

  “Just a moment.” Niles cut into her thoughts. “I need some time to assimilate this information. I must have details if we’re to trust you.”

  “Of course,” Giles told him.

  While Niles listened intently, Buffy and the others told him about Lucien and the time magick. They briefed him on the plot to kill Slayers before their natural deaths in order to disrupt the Slayer time line. Niles asked why they would go to these great lengths, and Buffy explained about the Master and his ascension. Frequently Giles shushed her when she gave away more than he thought was needed. He was quite paranoid about messing up the time line. He warned them repeatedly not to talk of historical events, inventions, or persons of future importance, including those related to the outcome of the Civil War. As if Buffy knew all that, anyway. She knew the North won, but aside from Giles’s briefing of the Battle of Shiloh, that was about all she knew.

  At last Niles understood. “And we have seen no sign of these devils?”

  “No,” Agatha told him, “though I killed a lot of vampires on the battlefield. They could have been among them.”

  “I think we’ve got at least one more to worry about,” Buffy said, thinking of Victor. “Maybe more.”

  “Perhaps I should stay here for tonight,” the Watcher offered.

  “That would be wise,” Giles said. “If they’ve been watching the house, then by now I’m sure they’ve learned you are Agatha’s Watcher. If you left now, they could take you hostage, demanding that Agatha give herself up.”

  “That would be unfortunate,” Niles conceded, fixing Giles with an annoyed glance.

  And here Buffy had thought they’d get along famously.

  “And now, Agatha, I need to have a word with you in private,” Niles said.

  Agatha nodded, rising from her chair. “If you will excuse me,” she said. She looked pointedly at Xander and Giles, who looked back blankly. Then Giles suddenly stood up, pulling Xander up by the arm. Agatha nodded courteously and left the room with her Watcher. The kitchen door swung shut behind them.

  “What was that all about?” Xander said after they’d gone. He rubbed his arm and sat down again.

  “We’re supposed to rise when a lady stands up,” Giles told him, taking his seat as well.

  “How quaint,” Willow said.

  Buffy stood up, and on autopilot, so did Giles and Xander. “You don’t have to do that,” she told them. “I want to go listen at the door.”

  “Buffy, don’t!” Willow told her. “You should respect their privacy.”

  “This guy is off, somehow. He’s seething with anger. Didn’t any of you guys feel that?”

  Giles tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “Well, yes, now that you mention it.”

  With the help of a cane, Buffy crept to the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the living room. She pushed it open just a crack. In the center of the room stood Watcher and Slayer.

  “Did you give thought to what I said earlier?” Niles asked Agatha quietly, merely a whisper in the big house.

  “Of course, Niles, but I have to do my part,” she answered, just as quietly.

  “A Slayer does not have time to be a spy.”

  “But without my help, the Union would have suffered even heavier losses.”

  Niles pointed vaguely out the window. “That world out there, that fight, is between two political parties. You fight a greater battle for justice between two worlds, evil and good. That’s the war that needs you, Agatha. This human war will wage on tirelessly with or without your help.”

  Agatha turned away from him, her face full of sorrow. “But where do I draw the line between good and evil? Surely humanity causes its share of evil.” She turned back to him. “Beyond that window lie thousands of wounded or dead soldiers. If a spy like me had delivered word of the surprise attack, some of those casualties could have been avoided.”

  Niles crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. “I won’t have it. It’s too risky. If you were found out by Confederate scouts, you would be shot or lynched. You’re too important to risk by taking part in this god-awful war.”

  She pointed an accusing finger at his chest. “This war is ravaging my homeland, Niles. It’s easier for you to remain distant to it. You are British, and your home is secure. I can’t ignore battles taking place in the very fields surrounding my land.”

  “I don’t expect you to ignore it, Agatha. I merely want you to adhere to your duties as the Slayer.”

  “And I will!” she said, her voice slightly raised. “I will do both.” She crossed her arms too, her chin raised defiantly. “Now don’t talk to me again of this matter. You are my Watcher, and I listen to your counsel in all things having to do with the slaying of vampires. But I will not turn my back on my country, even if you request it.”

  Then Agatha spun on her heels and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

  Niles sighed in exasperation, then flung himself down in a nearby chair. He brought one hand to his face, resting his forehead there. Buffy backed slowly into the kitchen, careful not to trip on her injured leg.

  “Did you guys hear all that?” she whispered.

  “Only some of it,” Willow said. “She’s a spy?”

  Buffy nodded, making her way back to the chair. She sat down with some difficulty and propped her leg up again on the footstool.

  A few moments l
ater Agatha returned to the kitchen. She smoothed her skirts and forced a smile. “I apologize for my rudeness as a hostess,” she said. “But we had a matter to attend to.”

  Agatha had just finished her sentence when a Molotov cocktail sailed through a window, shattering it. The flaming bottle of whiskey skittered across the floor. Instantly the window curtains went up in flames. Then another crashed through a different window. Niles cried out in surprise, bursting through the swinging door. The living room was on fire, the windows there shattered.

  Three more flaming bottles crashed through the remaining windows, spreading fire in their wake. Buffy and the others leaped up as a wall of flame sealed off the back door. She leaned on the cane, rushing to the front door. A sideboard full of china roared with fire, flames spreading to the door itself.

  One cocktail had landed on the stairs leading to the upper floor, and the dry wood erupted instantly, blocking off the route entirely.

  They were trapped, and Buffy’s world filled with fire.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Buffy! This way!” Xander’s voice cut through the chaos. “There’s a basement entrance that’s still clear!”

  Buffy ran into the front room with the others close behind. Down a narrow hallway stood an open door. Xander waved her forward. She reached him, and he turned and raced down a set of rickety wooden steps into the waiting darkness of the cellar.

  Buffy followed closely, the two Watchers, Agatha, and Willow piling up in the doorway above. The smell of dank earth filled Buffy’s nose as she hobbled across the dirt floor, following Xander. He reached another, shorter set of steps on the opposite end of the cellar. Flickering light gleamed through the high windows of the basement, shedding some light on the scene. At the top of the short flight of stairs, two double doors tilted at an angle. He went to them and flung them open quickly. The way out was clear. No flames flickered nearby.