“I would,” Buffy said. “How’s my mom doing?”
“Not too badly so far.” Ms. Calendar glanced toward Joyce. “I made her give up a pair of lace gloves she found at the sale. She told me she had tried them on.”
“And exposed herself to the Hellmouth horror that’s stripping away her skin.” Buffy sighed.
“That’s not your fault,” Ms. Calendar said.
Buffy wasn’t sure that was true. She couldn’t protect everybody from everything all the time, but she had known her mom was coming to the school, and she had promised to help unload the car. If she had been there, maybe her mother would have left immediately and avoided the contamination.
Bobby Farrow walked up. “Here’s that stuff you wanted, Ms. Calendar.” He handed her a small, wide-mouth jar and the key to the computer classroom. He left quickly.
Ms. Calendar gave Buffy the jar. “This is just an ordinary herbal balm. It won’t cure the infection, but it might relieve your mom’s itch.”
Buffy walked over to her mom, trying not to jostle the teenage patients and wishing she could mute the moans and sobs. Few knew the true nature of the enemy, and somehow that made the misery more heart wrenching.
The school nurse and two other healthy teachers had pitched in to staff the sick room. Like her mom, they probably assumed that an official disease-control agency had been contacted and that medical help would arrive soon. They didn’t know their fate was in the hands of a librarian and two teenage girls.
Buffy paused by Michael, who blocked the aisle. He was still in a fetal position and appeared to be asleep, but he didn’t seem to be in pain. She stepped over him.
“Buffy! Sit down.” Her mom patted the empty desk chair beside her.
“Here’s Ms. Calendar’s skin cream.” Buffy held out the jar. When her mother didn’t reach for it, she set it down. “How are you doing?”
“Better than this poor boy.” Joyce’s voice was filled with pity for Karl. His closed eyelids were as depressed as his cheeks, covering empty sockets. “He couldn’t stop crying, and now he’s completely dehydrated.”
Buffy averted her gaze and touched the jar. “This might help your itch.”
“I hope so. I think it’s spreading.” Joyce leaned in, speaking softly. “Ms. Calendar took these beautiful black lace gloves I wanted to buy. Your great-grandmother had a pair just like them.”
“All the sale stuff is probably contaminated,” Buffy explained. That wasn’t a lie. She just didn’t mention the demonic origins part.
“You seem to be okay.” Joyce looked relieved.
“So far,” Buffy said. She hadn’t touched any of the rummage sale donations since last night. “Look, I’ve got to go. I just wanted to make—”
“Go?” Joyce looked surprised. “I thought you’d stay here and help. There aren’t enough staff volunteers, and all these kids are suffering so much.”
“I will be helping, Mom. Just not here.” Buffy knew that sounded lame, but telling the truth wasn’t an option. “Try the cream.”
Joyce picked up the jar, but her fingers were so raw she couldn’t twist the lid off.
“Here, I’ll do that.” Buffy reached out, but her mom pulled the jar back.
“I’ll get it,” Joyce said. “You go on and do whatever it is you think you have to do.”
Buffy stood up, ignoring the hint of accusation in her mother’s tone. The strangling sound of acute respiratory distress diverted their attention.
Ms. Calendar raced over to Mrs. Monroe, the teacher stricken with hives. The woman was covered with masses of purple welts and mounds. She heaved, wheezing and struggling for air.
“The hives are blocking her nose,” the nurse said.
Ms. Calendar tried to force the teacher’s mouth open. “Her mouth is swollen with welts. They’re blocking off her airways!”
The nurse pulled a ballpoint pen out of her pocket. “I’ve never done an emergency tracheotomy before, but—”
Mrs. Monroe gagged and convulsed.
Buffy watched as the nurse tried to drive the pen into the teacher’s bulging flesh. She couldn’t pierce the skin.
“The hives are choking her from the inside,” Ms. Calendar announced with commendable calm. “They’re clogging her throat. There’s nothing we can do.”
“There must be something,” the nurse objected.
“You can stand back,” Ms. Calendar said. “No one must touch her after . . . she’s gone.”
“We can’t just leave her here!” the nurse protested.
“You can if you don’t want to die the same way,” Ms. Calendar said bluntly. “The hives weren’t a threat while she was alive, but chances are they’ll be looking for a new victim after she dies. If so, they’ll move to whoever touches her first.”
The nurse quickly stepped back.
Buffy’s chest constricted as she watched. There wasn’t anything she could do to save the woman either, and it tore her apart.
So I’ll just have to save the day, she thought as she hurried out. Patrolling would restore her sense of being in control, of doing something useful, of fighting back. She turned toward the cafeteria, setting her sights on the six-legged coffee lizard.
Halfway across the corridor, Andrew almost bowled her over. Thrown off balance, Buffy stumbled but stayed on her feet.
Andrew ducked behind her, using her as a shield. “He’s trying to kill me!”
Jonathan barreled down the corridor toward them, cracking the bullwhip and laughing maniacally. As he closed in, he drew the whip back.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Xander sprang to his feet and lunged at Jonathan, intending to tackle and take him down.
Surprisingly faster and more nimble, Jonathan jumped clear. He snapped the whip, striking Xander.
Xander collapsed to his knees, his torso and arms shaking violently.
“Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?” Andrew yelled.
“That’s not simple static buildup,” Buffy observed as Jonathan drew back to hit Xander again.
“Static electricity doesn’t pack a million volts,” Andrew said. “And the shocks get stronger every time Jonathan snaps that whip. He’s working his way up to electrocution.”
“Xander!” Buffy shouted a warning. “Look out!”
“Yeehaw!” Jonathan let the rawhide fly.
Xander came to his senses and scrambled aside, narrowly escaping the lash.
“Stop it, Jonathan!” Buffy was sure the boy’s zealous whip-snappy compulsion was being fueled by another Hellmouth culprit. She didn’t want to hurt the kid, but she couldn’t let his electric reign of terror continue unchecked. “I mean it!”
“I don’t care!” Delirious with power, Jonathan flipped the whip back and snapped it toward her.
Buffy snatched the thong out of the air, breaking the momentum of the lash. However, that didn’t stop the electrical jolt that sizzled through her, zapping every nerve and muscle in her body. Unlike Xander, she had a Slayer’s healing capacity and quickly recovered from the massive shock.
The eel-like critter twined around the dangling strip of thin leather caught Buffy’s attention. She held on to the heavier part of the whip and yanked the handle out of Jonathan’s grasp, wrapping a loop of leather around the base of the eel’s head and pulling on both ends.
The creature uncoiled from the thong and twisted, trying to get away from Buffy’s leather stranglehold. Blue-white electrical bolts and red sparks crackled and spewed out of its round mouth. A series of shocks shot through Buffy’s hands and arms, each one diminishing in intensity. When the eel’s energy was spent, she gave a final tug and severed the blackened head from the elongated body.
For a moment Buffy and the three boys stared at the dead parts on the floor.
“What’s that?” Jonathan asked, bewildered. “Where am I? What’s happening?”
As Buffy started to explain, Andrew grabbed the whip out of her hand.
“Take my advice, Jonathan.” Andrew grinned with evil intent. “Run!”
Jonathan’s big brown eyes got bigger when Andrew snapped the bullwhip. He turned and ran.
“Get him, Andrew!” Rubbing his arms to restore the circulation, Xander watched the boys skid and disappear around a corner. “Are there any more of those living electrical sockets hanging around?”
“Actually, I saw a tiny one come out of the leather and wrap itself around the cracker just before Andrew grabbed the whip. But on the bright side, one down and who knows how many gazillion to go,” Buffy said.
“That many?” Xander looked up and down the corridor as he moved back to the utility room door.
“At least,” Buffy teased. She wanted Xander to stay put. No place in the school was safe from airborne microbes or other too-tiny-to-see pests. But if something larger came down the deserted corridor, he’d have a chance to escape. “And at my current critter-slaying rate, it’ll take a few centuries to kill them all, so wish me good hunting!”
“Centuries?” Xander asked anxiously. “You mean hours, right? Or maybe a couple of days?”
Waving over her shoulder, Buffy ducked into the restroom. Despite her lack of symptoms, she reminded herself that she could be infected with something that took longer to disable its victim. If not, just being in the school put her at risk. Still, she had to proceed as though it was possible to stay vermin-free. Paper towels were handy and might protect her if she had to touch something in the cafeteria.
Before she touched the paper towels, Buffy leaned over to check on Harmony’s condition.
The blond girl was lying on the floor in the stall, but Buffy couldn’t tell how deep the wrinkles had gotten. A lacy network of pink and green fibers grew out of the creases that covered her face. But they won’t be looking for a new host just yet, Buffy thought as she stuffed paper towels in the waistband of her skirt. Harmony was still breathing.
Buffy’s spirits improved as she entered the cafeteria. Throttling the sparkles out of the electric eel made her feel less like a helpless bystander and more like an empowered warrior. That feeling only lasted until she saw a flash of orange zoom past a black orb near Cordelia’s jewelry display. She was hunting animals that acted on flight and fight instincts, not cunning evil intellects with major reps in the underworld. She had been demoted to demonic lizard slayer.
For the moment only, Buffy thought as she used a paper towel to grip the handle of Ms. Calendar’s coffee mug. She didn’t know if cold coffee would work as bait, but it was worth a try.
Buffy moved slowly past the table that held the gallery donations, looking around, under, and behind all the collectibles and antiques. Her gaze swept over the black orb the lizard had darted by, then zipped right back. Most black things had tinges of color or weren’t even black, but shades of very dark browns. The space occupied by the black orb looked like a bottomless hole in the table. She stared at the piece, reminded of the day her dad had taken her to Lancaster to see the stealth fighter fly. The plane was so black, it had created a similar optical illusion, like a hole in the sky. The fascinating darkness of the orb drew her in.
Something sticky touched her arm, snapping Buffy out of her daze. She inhaled slightly but didn’t jerk her hand out from under the little lizard. She had no idea how the beast had climbed up without her noticing.
Only the orange lizard’s back two legs touched her skin. Its middle two feet were stuck to the side of the coffee mug, and the front two feet gripped the rim. It lapped cold coffee with a tiny black tongue. Buffy’s first impulse was to smash the creature. However, she didn’t want to risk being burned by acid blood or poisoned by a toxin that seeped through the skin. Catch and then kill was a more prudent plan.
She glanced at the cloisonné pot someone had wanted for poodle ashes. It had a lid and could contain the lizard until she decided what to do with it. As she reached for the urn, her eyes were drawn back to the black sphere. She remembered how her attention had been absorbed by the darkness, and she forced herself to look away. The orb had to be a Hellmouth hazard too. Its hypnotic effect had certainly proved more dangerous than the lizard with a taste for liquid caffeine.
Since she could bait and catch the lizard again, Buffy wiggled her hand out from under its sticky feet. She expected it to run, but it clamped its back feet to the side of the mug and kept drinking.
Using a fresh paper towel, Buffy picked up the black ball, but she did not look at it. She threw it hard against the wall, and ducked to avoid the fallout. There was no explosion when the piece shattered, and nothing liquid or gaseous was released in the shower of splinters and fragments.
She was, however, astonished that the lizard had not been scared off the coffee mug.
“You won’t sleep a wink tonight,” Buffy quipped. She wished there was a way to get rid of the little guy without killing it. But in her Slayer soul, she knew that wasn’t possible. The lizard didn’t seem to pose a threat, but she couldn’t assume that it was harmless. “It’s the dog-coffin pot for you, I’m afraid.”
As Buffy reached for the urn, the lizard suddenly raised its head. A ridge of collapsed black scales along its back stood straight up. Then it leaped off the table and zoomed away at lizard hyperspeed.
Buffy hesitated. The creature couldn’t have known she was about to trap it . . . or could it? Had it established a psychic link with her the way the kur had with Willow? If so, the connection wasn’t very strong. She had absolutely no desire to chase after it. She had other Hellmouth invaders to track down and eliminate.
“At least I have to try,” Buffy muttered as she started a quick tour of the cafeteria. She didn’t flush out anything that slithered, scampered, or flew, but she caught sight of an orange flash every now and then. Armed with paper towels, she was careful not to touch anything, and she wasn’t exhibiting strange symptoms when she left the sale area and headed down the hall. Every critter that needed a victim had either found one or gone in search of one. There was, she was certain, no chance that pests without hosts would simply die, like 1950s-movie Martians. Sunnydale luck wouldn’t allow such an easy solution.
Having come up empty in the cafeteria, the next likely place to look was the basement, where the contamination had started.
Buffy cautiously eased through the access door. Midway down the stairs, she paused when she heard the staccato beat of many padded feet. Or wings, Buffy realized. She bent over just in time to see a slew of large red bats fly down the wide corridor and disappear around a corner.
Then she noticed the odd, flickering crack in the basement wall. The area around the crack shimmered as a dwarf-size demon squeezed through.
That’s what happens when you have a leaky Hell-mouth barrier, Buffy thought as she studied the new intruder.
The demon was roughly forty inches tall with stubby arms and legs. Splotches of green and black, similar to Xander’s camouflaged vest, mottled its leathery gray skin, and large, black, scaly plates protected its chest and groin. Two tapering horns curved back from a face that reminded Buffy of a pug. The beady eyes were deep set under a ridged brow above a black flattened nose. Twin canine fangs pointed upward from a jutting lower jaw and extended past its upper lip.
Buffy watched, wondering what it wanted. The red bats, like the kur and the orange lizard, were larger than most of the icky things that had escaped the Hell-mouth. Was the ugly guy just another animal only bigger? Or was it smart? Had it come through the barrier out of curiosity? Or did it have a sinister agenda?
Not knowing the answers to so many questions made Buffy nervous, but at least she was on even terms with the dumpy demon. Slayer skills were useless against infectious microbes and caustic fungi. She could hit the new guy.
The demon’s nostrils flared, and a low growl rumbled in its throat.
Buffy felt a familiar tickle on her ankle. She looked down, startled to see the little orange lizard sitting by her shoe. Coincidence or had it followed her? Or had it yanked her psychic chain and led her into an ambush?!
The lizard squeaked, drawing
the newly arrived demon’s attention. When it spied Buffy, it flexed claws and talons that looked sharp enough to pierce muscle. The lizard fled upward when the dwarf demon curled its lip back and roared.
“Take it easy, short stuff.” Buffy eased down the steps, holding the brute’s glittering gaze.
The demon snorted and puffed out its chest.
The instant Buffy’s foot touched the floor, the demon charged. She deftly deflected the attack, grabbing a horn and heaving the demon across the cement corridor into a storeroom door. It quickly regained its feet, glared at her, and grunted.
“Not the talky type, huh?” Buffy braced herself when the demon charged again.
It slammed its heavy head into her midsection, driving her backward. Mindful of the slashing claws, Buffy ducked clear, spun, and kicked, catching the demon under the chin. It yelped and attacked in a frenzy of gnashing teeth and punches. A talon raked her leg, drawing blood. She knew if it got an opening, the demon could easily disembowel her.
“Gutting a Slayer is a definite no-no.” Fighting for her life now, Buffy unleashed the Slayer fury she needed to survive. She flipped the creature onto its back. Within another second, she had a knee on its chest, one hand on its throat, and her other fist raised.
The demon threw a tantrum—roaring, shaking its head, and kicking its feet. Spittle flew from the creased corners of its leathery mouth, but Buffy didn’t loosen her hold. Judging by her adversary’s undisciplined attacks and defensive responses, she was pretty sure it wasn’t high on the demonic evolutionary scale. She punched it in the nose, which seemed to knock it senseless.
As Buffy raised her arm to strike again, someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her off.
“Bad move, Slayer!”
Spike? Pulling free, Buffy whirled and backed up to keep both demons at a distance until she got her bearings. The dwarf demon was still stunned. She unloaded on the vampire.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Buffy demanded.
“The bats ran away from him.” Spike kicked the prone demon’s foot. “Like maybe they were scared.”
Buffy frowned. “So?”
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