by Ray Garton
They began to giggle, then laugh as they stared up at her.
They’re not children! she reminded herself. Now . . . hold that thought.
Buffy spun around, kicked a leg up, and fell to the floor with a gasp when her foot connected with nothing. They were gone. Just gone.
She got to her feet and stood tense, ready, because she knew they weren’t really gone. They hadn’t gone by her. Her skin prickled with the feeling of being watched. She knew they weren’t children, but whatever they were, she would have felt them go by. She looked all around Miss Gasteyer’s remains at the places where the children had been standing.
In the dark corner, the cinder-block wall rippled like the surface of a pond. The gray metal shelves did the same. No, that wasn’t it . . . those things hadn’t actually rippled. But something had moved.
There was a rush of movement in the air around her and colors and shadows blurred and blended like spilled drinks. Something bumped into Buffy on her right side, her left side, and she spun around twice before stopping to listen.
Footsteps ran through the basement, and children giggled. The sounds were getting farther away very quickly. Buffy ran after them, back around the shelves and past the desks and chalkboards and endless boxes, over the coiled-up hose without incident this time, and to the stairs.
She’d seen nothing coming back through the basement, hadn’t even felt their presence. And she didn’t feel it now as she stood at the foot of the stairs, looking around. Without waiting another second, she ran up the stairs and nearly pulled the already-broken door to the hall off its hinges on her way out.
There were several students standing around outside the door, talking quietly. Buffy looked in both directions for any sign of the . . . What are they?
Creatures, critters, beasties, monsters, whatever, Buffy thought. They’re all under the same umbrella, and in the same Hellmouth town, of course.
Buffy rushed to her left, toward the front of the building, looking for any sign of them. They were gone. And yet Buffy didn’t feel they were gone. She stopped suddenly and ran a hand through her hair, frowning as she thought about those other students she’d seen outside the basement door.
Who were they? she asked herself. Did they look familiar? I . . . I can’t even remember their faces now.
She spun around and ran back the way she’d come.
How did they get away so fast? she thought. Did I really see them? She knew she’d seen them. The fact that they were such a blurry memory convinced her of that. That was how they remained un seen . . . whatever they were.
As she ran down the main hall, Buffy looked around corners, peered into rooms and offices, but they weren’t there. She ran back to the staircase and went up to the second floor to search for them. But she knew they were gone. She could no longer feel their presence. She returned to the stairs to head back down.
“Miss Summers.”
Buffy froze on the fourth step down and turned around slowly.
Principal Snyder stood in the hall, hands joined behind him. He was wearing that reptilian look on his face: thin, tightly pressed lips pulled back into something that was supposed to be a smile; tiny, deep-set eyes staring flatly at her through glasses, all taking up surprisingly little room on that enormous, shiny head.
The vice principal, secretary, and two guidance counselors stood behind him, with worried looks on their faces. The secretary was crying.
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” he said, “this is the wrong building for physical education.”
“Yeah, well, I’m in a hurry, that’s all,” she replied.
“In a hurry to your next class, I hope.” He took a few slow steps toward her, stopping at the very top of the staircase until he was looking down on her. “I’m waiting for the police to arrive, but I would hate to learn at the end of next week you had failed any of your quarterly exams. I would feel somewhat responsible for not doing my part. Such as requiring you to repeat senior year.”
The bell rang, ending lunch.
“Gotta run,” Buffy said abruptly. “Don’t wanna be late for class.” Not! she thought.
He just stood there, watching her.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Buffy turned away and hurried down the stairs. Snyder would love to see her flunk any or all of her exams. He’d eat it up like dessert. That started a nagging worry in her head. She hadn’t studied as much as she needed to, and she’d missed some classes. And right now, she was about to miss, or at least be late for, another one. She needed those classes and more study time, but she didn’t have time to stress over it.
Buffy needed to get to Giles and tell him what she’d just seen.
Chapter 11
THE CAFETERIA WAS QUICKLY CLEARED OUT AND THE police were called. Eyewitnesses were questioned in empty classrooms, including Willow, while Mrs. Truman’s body was taken out to the coroner’s van parked at the foot of the school’s front steps. Willow told the officer everything she’d seen. It didn’t take very long, but it felt like forever. Time had slowed to a crawl after Willow had seen that fork buried in Mrs. Truman’s throat. It was vivid, but at the same time, it didn’t seem real; it felt more like a sharp memory of something she’d seen in a movie a long time ago.
Snyder had reluctantly canceled classes for the rest of the day, and as soon as questioning was over, it was okay to go home. Willow felt nauseated as she went down the hall, hugging her books to her chest, head bowed. A door opened to her left, but she paid no attention to it until she heard Mila’s voice.
“Are you all right, Willow?” she asked as she went from her office doorway to Willow’s side.
Willow’s eyebrows slowly raised high above her eyes in an expression of sadness and confusion. “Not now. But I will be.”
Mila shook her head slowly, frowning at nothing in particular just to Willow’s left. “Such a horrible thing. And I was just talking to them this morning. They seemed fine. No unusual behavior, no tension. And then . . . that happened.” She shook her head again, then met Willow’s eyes. “Have they found Miss Gasteyer yet?”
“Not that I’ve heard. There are still a lot of police here. I heard one say that her car is still in the parking lot.”
Mila put a hand on Willow’s shoulder and squeezed. “Listen, Willow, if you need to talk, don’t hesitate to let me know. More counselors will be brought in tomorrow to meet with students, but you don’t have to wait till then. You can call me anytime. I’m in the book.”
“Thank you, Mila. I appreciate it.”
“Hey.”
Willow turned to see Oz approaching her with a couple of books tucked under his arm. He stopped beside her.
“Were you just questioned, too?” Willow asked.
Oz nodded his head. “You on your way out?”
“Yep.” Willow turned to Mila, thanked her again, said goodbye, then she and Oz began walking together.
“Getting down with the faculty is a pretty serious offense,” Oz offered in his low-key nonjudgmental way.
Willow heard him, but didn’t reply. Instead, she whispered, as if to herself, “I don’t know how Buffy deals with it.”
“With what?” “I don’t know, the . . . y’know, the killing. The death. Or maybe . . . the undeath. In her line of work, I mean.
I guess it’s different with vampires and demons. I mean, I’ve staked vampires and, no, it wasn’t like seeing this. When I stepped into the cafeteria and saw that happening, it was like I couldn’t scream loud enough. I couldn’t scream at all. I’m still sick to my stomach. I guess Miss Gasteyer just . . . I don’t know, just snapped. Mila said they were fine this morning. I saw them and they were both smiling.”
“Do you think this has something to do with Buffy and all the other strange stuff?”
“Oh, I don’t know if it does or not. Do you think so?”
He nodded. “Two teachers who were right with each other get in a brawl? Fork in the throat? It’s got Buffy written all over it.�
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Willow thought about it a moment. “You’re right. I was so messed up from seeing it happen, it never even occurred to me to think about what it meant. Have you been to the library to see Giles?”
Oz shook his head.
“Then let’s go. I wanna hear what he thinks of this.”
They turned around and headed back the way they’d come.
“The Rakshasa,” Giles said, sliding his glasses up his nose. He held a large, heavy book open on his arm; the edges of the cover were worn by age and use. “Often called Night Wanderers.”
“That’s a new one on me,” Buffy said. There was interest in her voice, but weariness, as well.
“I’ve heard of them, but never dealt with them. They never occurred to me until just a little while ago.”
When Buffy had arrived at the library several minutes ago, the halls outside had been eerily quiet. People were being gathered by the police to give their eyewitness accounts. Everybody who wasn’t being questioned was wandering around in a kind of sickened daze, some laughing nervously, others whispering the details of the killing to one another as if they were telling dirty jokes.
She’d found Giles reading in his office and told him everything that had just happened, thoroughly but quickly.
Xander and Cordelia had arrived at the library a few minutes after Buffy, and had taken seats at the first table they came to.
“We figured when the weird stuff starts hitting the fan,” Xander said, “this is probably the best place to be.”
“You’re the one who wanted to come here,” Cordelia corrected him. “I wanted to go shopping.”
Giles had brought his book out of his office. Buffy had been pacing when Giles paged through it to find a certain passage, but she’d stopped and faced him when he said the word “Rakshasa.” She’d never heard of it before, but something about it made chips of ice skitter down her spine.
“What — or who — are they, Giles?” Buffy asked. “These Rak . . . Rak . . . shasta?”
“The Rakshasa,” Giles repeated.
Xander said, “Sounds like a some new dance that would get old after about a week.”
“There are many different kinds,” Giles said. “Countless, really. Here.” He began to read from the book. “ ‘They thrive on violence, division, and chaos. They take great delight in the brutal destruction of loving relationships, turning husband against wife, brother against sister, parent against child, friend against friend. They enjoy hiding in churches and turning people, particularly the clergy, away from their spiritual beliefs. When their work goes well, death is the result, with the Rakshasa eating the survivors. They also eat horses and cattle.’”
“Cattle,” Buffy said, her eyes widening. “So the hellhounds on wheels were just . . . a coincidence?”
Giles nodded, then continued reading. “‘The Rakshasa are shapeshifters and can assume any shape. Although not fond of great height, there is no limit to the Rakshasa’s ability to mimic. One particular breed of Rakshasha, called the Pisacas, actually nests in a town’s water supply and makes the locals waste away to skeletons ever so slowly, one person at a time.’”
“Shapeshifters!” Buffy exclaimed. “That’s what those rugrats in the basement were. They . . . it’s like they camouflaged themselves to blend in with the shelves and the cinder-block wall and they were right in front of me and I just couldn’t quite see them.”
“How many were there?” Xander asked nervously.
She walked over to the table and sat down with them. “It was weird. No matter how hard I tried, I just . . . couldn’t . . . tell.” Her right fist was clenched, frustration whitening the knuckles.
“Buffy, it’s quite obviously not your fault,” Giles said before reading more from the book. “ ‘The Rakshasa will use their shapeshifting abilities to attract food, hide from danger, or toy with humans. They are very intelligent, with an equally intelligent, if twisted, sense of humor. They draw strength as well as pleasure from the mayhem and chaos they create.’”
“How do we stop them?” Buffy asked.
Giles walked over to the table and set the heavy book down. “I only found this volume shortly before you arrived. I haven’t gotten to dispelling and disarming techniques yet.”
Buffy stood up and walked slowly around the table. “Why were those things down in the basement?” she asked, more to herself than to the others.
“Perhaps they saw Miss Gasteyer go down and followed her,” Giles suggested.
Buffy nodded, thinking of the blurry teenagers she’d passed just outside the basement door. But the basement door had slammed only once, and Buffy had been only a few seconds behind Miss Gasteyer. Once the art teacher had gone through that door, no one else had gone in or come out until Buffy followed her. She stopped nodding and shook her head.
“Unless they can go through walls and doors,” Buffy said, “they were already in that basement when Miss Gasteyer went down there.”
Giles cocked his head. “Are you saying they were. . . waiting for her?”
“I don’t know,” Buffy said, throwing up her arms. “You’re the one with the books, Giles. I just do the heavy lifting.”
“Nonsense, Buffy. You’re the Slayer. It is important for you to be able to think ahead of the problem and anticipate the next move of your adversary.” He stepped closer to Buffy and closed the large book on the table. His voice was not quite stern, but there was urgency behind his words. “Your job is to extinguish these creatures and others like them, Buffy, but as you know, they seldom call ahead and make appointments with you so you can do that. You must use every resource at your disposal, including knowledge. The more you know about your adversary, the more powerful you are against it.”
“Okay, then,” Buffy said, folding her arms, “tell me what else I need to know.”
Giles blinked several times. “Well, as I said, I haven’t read much yet, you see, so I don’t know —”
Buffy shrugged and said, “A lecture wasted.” “But there are things I can tell you.” Giles went to the front desk and came back with the local paper. He put it on the table and pointed at it, as if it were guilty. “I read the story on Miriam Webber.” He turned to Buffy. “She’s the woman whose remains you saw through that window. The blade on the floor beside her had just been used by Miss Webber to kill one Miss Lena Tesich. Miss Tesich was in many pieces, and the cleaver carried Miss Webber’s fingerprints alone.”
“What did they have to say about Miss Webber’s remains?” Buffy asked.
“Although Miss Webber is the prime suspect, the remains in her house have not yet been conclusively identified.”
“So why are you so sure they are her remains?” Xander asked.
Next to Xander, Cordelia delicately filed her nails. “Because Miss Webber and Miss Tesich have been friends since childhood,” Giles said.
Buffy’s neck felt stiff and she let her head roll around in a few slow circles as she massaged the back of her neck with her right hand. “You getting enough sleep, Giles? You’re not staying up all hours watching BBC America on cable, are you?”
“Tom Niles and Delbert Kepley had known each other since they moved into neighboring houses more than forty years ago,” Giles went on. “During that time, they and their wives were very close friends.”
“Miss Gasteyer and Mrs. Truman were best friends in college, and quite by coincidence ended up here, where they have worked together for almost twenty years without so much as a disagreement.”
“Just like the book says.” Buffy put it together. “They like to turn friends against each other and . . . then eat.”
“That’s what tipped me off to the Rakshasa,” Giles said. “And it’s valuable information, Buffy. You’ve just gone from knowing nothing about your adversary to knowing something that could enable you to prevent another killing. Or perhaps more.”
“That’s not really going to help,” Buffy said, “until I know how they work, how they do whatever it is they do.”
“They come from the mythology of the Hindu religion,” Giles said.
Xander frowned. “You mean, Hindu as in . . . India?”
“Well, the religion itself,” Giles said as he shrugged one shoulder, “is practiced all over the world, but yes, it originates in India.”
Xander and Cordelia looked at one other for a moment, their eyes locked.
“What is it?” Buffy asked them.
Xander looked sheepish all of a sudden.
“Well, I was thinking, um . . .” He turned to Cordelia, who rolled her eyes.
“He’s talking about Ms. Daruwalla, the new guidance counselor,” Cordelia said. She sounded as if she were explaining a dumb joke. “She’s from India.”
“What about her?” Buffy asked.
“Well, Willow’s been spending a lot of time with her lately,” Xander said nervously. “At least, it seems that way. I’ve seen them together a couple times. Willow came out of her office once, then Ms. Daruwalla came into the cafeteria today to give her that present.”
“Present?” Giles asked. “What present?”
“I don’t know, some little thing to wear around her neck, some kind of . . .” His nervousness faded and suddenly he looked genuinely concerned. “Some kind of . . . Indian god.”
“Which Indian god?” Giles asked. The arm holding the closed book stiffened and pressed it closer to his side.
Xander slumped into his chair a bit. “I don’t know,” he said. “Really. I wouldn’t know an Indian god from a Beanie Baby.”
“It was carved by her brother, I think she said,” Cordelia said quietly, more involved in her nails than the discussion.
Giles was paying no attention to them. He had the book open again and his eyes moved back and forth over the pages. “Whose brother?” he asked.