Resurrecting Ravana

by Ray Garton

  Buffy made a run for the gates with her heart thudding in her ears. That sound was just distracting enough to keep her from hearing the small sounds above her.

  Their feet hit the ground at the same instant, all five of them. In that same instant, they were on her. She took a blow to the face, a kick in the stomach, and two kidney punches within the space of a second. She managed to get in a kick, a punch, but the kick in the stomach emptied her, and she went down.

  Buffy felt knees pinning her arms and legs painfully to the cobblestones, and a weight fell across her middle. A male face oozed out of the darkness, came close. His dreadlocks fell down around her face. His fangs were moist and dripping.

  “You’ve been a busy little bee,” the vampire rasped.

  Buffy tried to kick, to free an arm, to move, but she could not.

  The vampire closed in on her throat as he said, “I’ve come for the honey.”

  Chapter 8

  GILES AND WILLOW HUNKERED OVER A LARGE, OPEN book on a table. Willow wrote on a yellow legal pad, assembling each piece of the spell she had cast.

  Giles paced across the table from her; his left hand clutched his right wrist behind him, and his right hand clenched into a fist repeatedly.

  He was angry. Willow wasn’t looking at him, but she could feel it. His silence was suddenly more . . . silent than usual. But what would he say if he started talking? Maybe the silence was better.

  Willow felt awful. Giles had told her before to put away the magic unless she consulted him first. And now she was dumping it on him at a very stressful time. But she’d had no choice, because her spell could be the cause of that stressful time.

  The pacing stopped and Willow lifted her head. Giles leaned over the table on his palms and said, “We’ve discussed it before, Willow.” His anger often came out sounding more like frustration, and that was how he sounded. Frustrated. “What were you thinking? Why didn’t you speak to me first?”

  Willow’s voice sounded a bit weak when she spoke, slowly lowering her head. “I wanted it to be something, y’know, special for Oz. Really special. Something —” She cocked her head and lifted a shoulder briefly. “Something only the two of us would know about. I was trying to be romantic.” She raised her head and looked Giles in the eyes. “Now I’m being punished for it.”

  He pulled a chair over and sat on the edge, still leaning forward. “Magic isn’t a thing for romance, Willow. A bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates can’t do any damage like magic can. Roses and chocolates don’t change the weather or wipe out lives or warp time. Willow, I’m begging you, stick to pinned sweaters and ID bracelets, or . . . or whatever it is you young people do these days.”

  Anger. It appeared from nowhere and settled snugly around her lungs, then began to make its way slowly up into her throat. Momentarily confused, she swallowed it, held it back.

  Giles lowered his voice to a tense whisper. “Willow, in doing something for Oz, no matter how loving your intention, you could kill him.”

  “And you couldn’t?” Willow snapped.

  His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “I’m sorry?”

  “You couldn’t kill Oz? Or somebody else? Just as easily as I could?” Her back was stiff and her hand held the pen so tightly her fingers were white. “You could, couldn’t you?”

  Giles shot to his feet. “Absolutely not!” he shouted as his palm crashed down onto the tabletop.

  Willow stood up, too, and her voice rose as she spoke. “It’s because I’m a teenager, isn’t it? You don’t think I can understand it because to you I’m just a kid, and I don’t —”

  “I’ve had years of training and experience. How could you possibly suggest that a teenager could grasp the . . . the . . .”

  They fell silent, didn’t move, and stared at one another. The silence of the library, which just moments earlier had carried a heaviness, suddenly was airy and light.

  Giles bowed his head a moment, adjusted his glasses, then said, “Willow, I am terribly sorry for shouting at you like that.”

  “Oh, no, I shouldn’t have gotten so angry, I’m sor — ”

  “No, no, no, it was wrong of me to shout like that, and I am sorry.”

  “Me, too,” Willow said with a sigh.

  They both took their seats, and Willow started writing again. “I’ll be done with this in just a minute.”

  “Willow, I hope you understand what I was trying to tell you,” Giles said with gentle urgency. “Magic is not something you learn. If you devoted a whole, long life to studying it, it would still confuse and bewilder you. It is not something we do, Willow, it is something we harness, a monstrously powerful force. Each time you cast a spell, you tap it on the back. And you never know what kind of mood it will be in.”

  She kept writing for a few seconds, tapped a period at the end of the last sentence, and looked at Giles. “I know. I should’ve come to you.” She was so drained from the sudden surge of anger between them that her voice was very soft. Willow hoped she sounded sincere, because she was. “And everything you said about magic, I know you’re right. I need to show it more respect.”

  “Possibly. But not before you come to me.”

  Giles was sincere all over the place, but his voice was about to turn into a whine. Willow found it funny and almost laughed, but held it back with a broad but tight smile. “I promise, Giles.” She handed him the legal pad.

  He stood as he took it. “And I hope you understand . . . I hope you believe that I know you could tackle and grasp and overcome anything you put your mind to, teenager or not.”

  “Thank you Giles. But I won’t be able to do any of that stuff if I don’t get home and study so I can go to bed.” Willow stood.

  “Yes, we should move on.” He tucked the legal pad under his arm. “I’ll look over this spell tonight and see if there’s any link.”

  They left the library and went down the hall.

  “Giles, what happened back there, when we got so angry, could that be a thing?”

  Giles lowered his voice to a whisper. “I wondered precisely the same thing, Willow. It was quite . . . odd. A sudden, swift rush of anger that lasted a short time, then dissipated. Is that what you experienced?” He glanced at Willow and she nodded. Giles sighed. “It seems I shall be up with those books later than I thought.”

  The vampire took its time with Buffy, whose attempts to resist all failed. He ran his tongue up her neck to her ear, carefully ran the tips of his fangs down her skin, then lifted his head and peeled his lips back over dark, ridged gums.

  Then it was gone. Something had shot by Buffy’s face, less than an inch from her nose, made solid contact, and the vampire was gone.

  More sounds of harsh, hard contact . . . and the weight on Buffy lessened. She took advantage of it immediately. In a second, she was on her feet and swinging. Her fists and heels met with flesh and bone, and her stake broke vampire hearts.

  Someone fought beside her. Buffy couldn’t see, but she didn’t need to. The movements were too fast and lethal to be just anybody.

  “Stake!” Buffy called, tossing one to Angel.

  He plucked it out of the air, slammed his elbow into a vampire’s face, and the stake into its chest.

  Vampire after vampire disintegrated into explosive bursts of dust, which continued to disintegrate on its way down to the ground, vanishing. More fanged grins and clawed fingers came at them out of the darkness.

  Then, as if they’d reached a silent agreement, the remaining vampires suddenly began to retreat. Buffy and Angel staked the last two, then turned to look all around them, knees slightly bent, arms up and ready.

  The vampires were gone.

  The rain had lightened to a light drizzle, but neither of them knew when; they hadn’t been paying attention to the weather.

  Angel moved close to Buffy and put a hand on her upper arm. “Are you all right?”

  Buffy ran a quick mental check of herself and nodded. “All right, but . . . really tired. Is th
ere a national convention of vampires in town, or something? We’ve got enough as it is around here, but that was like an Elmo sale on Christmas Eve! How many of them were there?”

  Angel shook his head. “There aren’t any more of them than usual. They’re just getting braver.”

  “What?”

  “They’re more active, more . . . agressive.”

  “You think maybe they hired one of those motivational speakers?” Buffy propped a hand on her hip.

  “Don’t you feel it, too? I thought you would.”

  Buffy touched her lower lip to her upper teeth and almost asked, Feel what? Instead, she asked the question of herself, silently, and quickly found some answers in herself.

  Nothing felt right. Nothing she did seemed even adequate. It had been going on for a few days now, as if each day had its own bad mood, and each one was a little worse than the last. Did it have anything to do with her recent feelings toward Willow, feelings ranging from awkwardness to bursts of directionless hostility from nowhere? Possibly. She’d been feeling it without even knowing it.

  “Yes,” she said, “I do.” She told Angel about the slaughtered and eaten cattle, and about the old man who had met the same ugly end.

  “You don’t know what’s doing it?”

  “Not yet. We’re working on it.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s causing this. Maybe they sense it, and it’s agitated them.”

  “Or . . . maybe not. If you hear anything on the vampire grapevine . . .”

  He nodded, and even though it was dark, she could see his smile, because he was so close. His hand moved up to her shoulder and quickened her heartbeat.

  “Should I stick around awhile, in case —”

  Not far from where they stood, a woman screamed. It was a ragged, painful scream that stopped abruptly, but echoed in the night like a ghost.

  Buffy said, “That sounded important.” She hopped up onto a large, boxy gravestone, propelled herself upward, grabbed an oak branch, and swung herself through the air, over the fence, and onto the sidewalk.

  Angel was already there, pointing at a house across the street. “Over there.”

  They ran diagonally across the street to the house, and slowed to a cautious walk in the gravel driveway. It led under an old oak tree and along the side of the house to a rickety-looking carport in the back, which sheltered a small pickup truck.

  “I’ll go around the other side,” Angel whispered. He crossed the unfenced lawn to the far side of the house and disappeared around the corner.

  Buffy walked silently down the long, narrow driveway beside the house. Light came from a window at that end of the house; sound came from it, too — a rhythmic thumping sound. Buffy crouched slightly as she approached the window, careful to keep out of sight from inside.

  Beneath the window, Buffy slowly raised her head until she could see just above the bottom of the sash. It was a tiled room. Bathroom? Nope. Laundry room. Clothes hanging on a rack. A water heater in the corner. The thumping came from a washing machine working on a load of laundry.

  Buffy stood up a little higher. A white wicker clothes hamper lay on its side and its lid lay in the half-open doorway. Beside the hamper was something that did not, at first, make visual sense to Buffy. Strangely neat angles, wet, dripping in some places, and a few inches away on the floor, a meat cleaver, the blade’s shine dulled by a dark half-moon–shaped stain. She gasped with realization.

  The blood-streaked bones were moving, slowly, until the remains slumped to one side. It was settling. It had just happened, the scream was when it started. Whatever had eaten the flesh from those bones had worked fast, and was still close.

  Buffy stood and ran to the back of the house, toward the carport. She jumped the six-foot fence surrounding the backyard, and when her feet hit the grass, she hunkered down, became still, and absorbed her surroundings.

  Quiet except for the hushed breath of the drizzle and the muted thumping of the washer. But there was an aura of activity. Something had just been through that backyard.

  Across the yard, at the corner of the house, something squeaked. Rusted metal and cranky wood complaining together.

  Buffy raced across the yard and found a gate so old and uncared for it was too crooked on its hinges to close properly.

  And something had just gone through it.

  From the gate was a narrow strip of grass that led between the side of the house and the rest of the six-foot fence. To the front yard. And the street.

  Buffy ran along the house to the front yard. Angel was standing on the sidewalk, staring up the street. And children were laughing somewhere.

  When Angel saw Buffy, he waved for her to come quickly.

  “I was running down the side of the house, toward that old gate,” Angel whispered. “And then I heard them. Laughing. They cut across the front yard here and there they went up the street. Still laughing and talking. Like they just got out of a bar.” He pointed.

  They were at the end of the block, waiting for a Don’t Walk sign to change, even though there was no traffic at all, not even the sound of traffic in the distance. Maybe six or seven of them, all about the same height, maybe eight or nine years old. It was impossible to tell if they were all male, female, or mixed.

  “Why didn’t you stop them?” Buffy asked.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I mean . . . they’re children.”

  A little more than halfway across the street, the giggling, laughing children stopped and fell silent in the crosswalk, bathed in the glow of the streetlight on the corner they’d been approaching. They turned, all at once, and stared at Buffy and Angel. The glow from overhead shadowed the top halves of their faces, but their mouths were visible. None of the children were smiling, but their mouths were moving. They were . . . whispering to one another.

  “No,” Buffy said. “They’re not children.”

  She broke into a run, heading straight for them. The children turned and ran away from her, onto the sidewalk, down the side street, and out of sight for a moment. Buffy picked up her pace, hit the sidewalk, followed their path for several yards, then stopped.

  Up ahead, the sidewalk was empty, all the way up to the next streetlight and beyond. They were gone. Hiding in a yard? In a house? Buffy didn’t think so. She suspected they were truly gone.

  Jogging footsteps slapped on the wet sidewalk behind her, and she turned around to see Angel.

  “They weren’t real children,” she said. “Haven’t you ever seen them in the streets on Halloween? They yell a lot, to each other, to strangers. They spew profanity. They threaten to egg-bomb people’s houses. But they don’t walk around laughing all the time like they’re in a Kool-Aid commercial. The things we saw . . . they wanted us to think they were children.”

  “Why?”

  Buffy thought about it a moment. “Because they knew we’d be less likely to harm children,” she said. “Just like you were.”

  Angel shrugged as he looked around, searching for some sign of the small figures they’d seen.

  “C’mon,” Buffy said, walking. “There’s a gas station around the corner up here. I want to call Giles and tell him what happened. He’ll want to know.”

  At the gas station, Buffy entered the phone booth, fed some change to the telephone, and called Giles at home. She told him about the remains she’d seen through the laundry room window, and the laughing children.

  “You think the children did it?” Giles asked.

  “I know they did,” she replied. “They came from the house. Angel saw them. But they weren’t children. I mean, they looked like children, but they disappeared too fast and they were just . . . weird. All kids can be weird but these were just unnatural!”

  “Angel is there with you?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a noticeable pause on Giles’s end.

  “He’s helping me,” Buffy explained. “It’s like a vampire riot out here tonight. Something’s really stirred them up. I mean, they’re
bolder than usual.”

  “Do you think it could have something to do with our problem?” Giles asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “All right. I will see if the presence of these odd children at the site of another killing will help turn up anything in my books. Good work, Buffy. And keep your eyes open. Anything you see could be the clue we need to find out what we’re dealing with. If anything else turns up, don’t hesitate to call me again. I’ll be up late.”

  “Late? What’s late to you? I mean, are we talking Conan O’Brien late, or are we talking that infomercial with the guy in all the ugly sweaters who gets excited by kitchen appliances late?”

  “Er, just anytime of the night or morning, Buffy. Anytime.”

  After Buffy hung up, she and Angel headed for the next cemetery. As they walked, they speculated on the origin and purpose of the children they’d seen, until they heard a car coming up behind them. Normally, Buffy would have paid no attention to it, but it was moving so slowly that it got her attention. She looked over her shoulder.

  A glimmering white limousine cut through the night like a shark through water. It was wet from the rain and beads of water sparkled on the tinted glass. As it passed them, it slowed down even more, nearly coming to a stop.

  She could see no one through the glass, but Buffy sensed eyes watching her closely from inside the car. After a long moment, it picked up a little speed and drove on, turning right at the next corner.

  Something about it bothered Buffy, but she didn’t let on. Instead, she muttered, “Well, there goes the neighborhood,” as she and Angel walked on.

  Chapter 9

  WILLOW WALKED TO SCHOOL UNDER A SKY THE COLOR of steel, a small collapsible umbrella in her bag just in case it started to rain again. She’d hoped to get a ride with Oz, but there’d been no answer at his house. Probably had band practice, she thought, and headed for the library first to see if there had been any news.

  The library was dark and felt empty. Willow turned on a couple of lights, letting the door swing closed behind her.