by Nancy Holder
He nodded. Then he added, “Don’t tell Buffy what we’re doing, all right?”
Willow wasn’t happy. “You want me to lie to her? It’s Buffy.”
“Just don’t bring it up,” Angel pressed. “Till we know what’s what.”
“Okay.” That wasn’t lying. Exactly. “It’s probably nothing.”
Angel said sincerely, “That’d be nice.”
* * *
It was Ford’s second day at school. It was great to have him there, and even more great that Buffy didn’t have to hide from him who she really was and what she really did.
And there was her dear friend, Willow, getting a drink at the water fountain. “Will!” Buffy called. “What’s up?”
Willow jerked ramrod straight, choking slightly as she squeaked, “Nothing.”
Whoa, jumpy. Buffy said, “Do you want to hang? We’re cafeteria bound.”
Willow’s eyes skittered right, left. She said, in a jerking, stilted tone, “I’m going to work in the computer lab. On school work that I have. So I cannot hang just now.” She glanced at Ford. “Hi, Ford.”
“Morning,” he replied in his friendly way.
Buffy eyed her best friend. “Okay, Will. Fess up.”
Willow had that headlight/deer thing going. “What?”
“Are you drinking coffee again?” Buffy asked in her best mom voice. “Because we talked about this.”
Willow burst out in a peal of semi-maniacal laughter. As if she needed to elaborate, she explained to Ford, “It makes me jumpy.” Then to both Buffy and Ford, she said, “I have to go. Away.” And off she fled.
Ford said, “Nice girl.”
“There aren’t two of those in the world,” Buffy said, chuckling. She was definitely going to have to talk to Will about decaf.
Then Giles walked up. He looked at Ford, then at Buffy, and said, “Buffy. Ms. Calendar and I are going … somewhere . . . tonight. She’s given me the number of her beeper thingy in case you need me for”—again he glanced at Ford—“study help. Suddenly.”
Buffy lowered her voice and leaned toward her Watcher. “He knows, Giles.”
Giles was clearly taken aback. “What?”
Buffy was actually enjoying this. “Ford knows I’m the Slayer.”
“I know,” Ford put in.
“Oh. Very good. Buffy.” Giles smiled politely at Ford as he began to pull Buffy aside, saying “excuse me,” to Ford. He stood a distance away with her, whispering anxiously, “You aren’t by any chance betraying your secret identity just to impress ah, cute boys, are you?”
She smiled. “I didn’t tell him. He knew.”
“Okay. Right, then.” He considered a moment. Call him Careful Man. “Just remember, if you—”
“Go,” she urged him. “Experience this thing called fun. I’ll try not to have a crisis.”
* * *
Call it a grand tour of the metropolis by night.
Call it fifteen minutes of excruciating boredom, if you’re the Slayer and used to action. Or a nice walk with a friend, if you’re a sixteen-year-old girl who got unfairly expelled from her old school and exiled to this shining planet known as Sunnydale.
“And on your right, once again, the beautiful campus. I think you’ve now seen pretty much everything there is to see in Sunnydale.”
Ford said slowly, “Well, it’s really—”
“Feel free to say, ‘dull.’ ”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Dull’s good.” He added, “Or maybe not so dull. Is that more vampires?”
Then Buffy saw them: two vampires, sneaking toward the administration building.
She nodded. “Must be the weather.”
She pulled some supplies out of her pocket: a cross for Ford and a stake for herself. To her surprise, he pulled a beginner-class stake of his own from his pocket.
“Stick close to me,” she told him.
Together they snuck toward the building, up the stairs, and toward a darkened corner. Buffy scanned left, right. There were no vampires to be seen.
“Maybe they were just passing through,” Ford suggested.
Buffy turned around to answer Ford. “I don’t think so.”
Then a blond female vampire raced up behind Buffy. Buffy punched the vamp in the forehead with her knee, then threw her into a forward roll. The girl vampire lay stunned, but a second, much bigger, vampire flung himself at Buffy and took her up and over the balcony railing.
They landed on the grass and Buffy began to whale on him: a kick to the face, a few good hard punches, and a plain, vanilla staking.
* * *
The blond lay on her back, an actual vampire. Ford bent over her with the cross, pinning her to the ground. Bizarre. Incredible.
Wonderful.
He held the stake against her chest and said in a rush, “You’ve got one chance to live. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let you go.”
* * *
The bigger vamp probably made a bigger dust pile. Who knew? Anyway, having an elsewhere to be, Buffy huffed it up the stairs and found Ford, all alone.
She said, “Where’s the other one?”
Ford was breathing hard, winded. “I killed her.” He coughed. Coughed harder. “I killed her and she just turned to dust. It was amazing.”
Buffy looked at him with new respect.
* * *
Down at the Sunset Grill . . . make that Club.
Xander, Willow, and Angel strode through the industrial section of town like the three somethings, make it Amigos, make it Stooges, make it the Kingston Trio.
Just make it more and more concerned about Buffy as Willow continued to reveal her lack of revelations.
“The only thing I could track down was this address. The Sunset Club. I still didn’t find anything incriminating.”
Angel stated the obvious, so at least he was good for something. “He leaves no paper trail, no records. That’s incriminating enough.”
“Yeah. I’m going to have to go with Dead Boy on that one,” Xander said generously.
Angel was obviously irritated. “Could you not call me that?”
Zing!
They reached a particularly rundown building with a setting sun painted on a sign above the door. Angel knocked on the wide metal door. A little window slid open. Angel said, “We’re friends of Ford’s.”
The head bobbed. The window slid shut.
The door opened.
It was some kind of underground Goth club, as spare as the Bronze, but weird and cold with blue neon lighting. Also, candles. Lots of them, in candlesticks and in candelabra. Probably a fire code violation right there. Everybody was wearing black corsets and lacy, ruffly things, and had dyed their hair ultra-black. They wore makeup that made them look as if they were all dying of tuberculosis. A fetching look. If you were Dr. Kevorkian.
As they stood on the balcony, Willow said anxiously, “Boy, we blend right in.”
Xander called that and raised it a nickel. Willow had on a rainbow-colored sweater and he was in a baggy pastel shirt over a green T-shirt. “In no way do we stick out like sore thumbs.”
“Let’s look around,” Angel said. He did not look like Happy Dead Boy, but his darker clothes blended in better. “You guys check out downstairs.” He did his Angel-thing and glided away.
“Sure thing, Bossy the Cow,” Xander bit off. Willow touched his arm to keep him simmering near room temperature.
The two of them started down the stairs as Angel made his way around the balcony.
Willow, as per usual, was pondering. She said, “Okay, but do they really stick out?”
Xander, as per usual, had not lifted off from the homeworld on the same trajectory. “What?”
“Sore thumbs. Do they stick out? I mean, have you ever seen a thumb and gone, ‘Wow, that baby is sore’?”
Xander regarded her fondly. “You have too many thoughts.”
* * *
From above them on the balcony, Angel checked out the scene. Xander and
Willow took the last step off the metal stairs, to be greeted by a dude standing in front of a coffin.
Xander said to Willow, “Okay. Are you and I noticing a theme here?”
Willow offered, “As in ‘vampires, yay’?”
“That’s the one.”
Speaking of yay, a Wonderbra vampirette hottie stood before them with a fetching smile of welcome on her ruby-red lips. She said, “You guys are newbies. I can tell.”
“Oh, no,” Willow said brightly. “We come here all the time.”
Vampirella looked tolerant. “Don’t be ashamed. It’s cool that you’re open to it. We welcome anyone who’s interested in the Lonely Ones.”
“The Lonely Ones?” Willow repeated.
“Vampires,” Dead Boy said behind them. He was even less happy than earlier in the mission.
Xander explained to the hottie, “Oh. We usually call them the nasty pointy bitey ones.”
“So many people have that misconception,” the girl explained patiently. “But they who walk the night are not interested in harming anyone. They are creatures above us. Exalted.”
“You’re a fool.” Angel’s voice was so harsh that even Xander was thrown by it. Willow, too, judging by her startled expression.
The girl said, hurt, “You don’t have to be so confrontational about it. Other viewpoints than yours may be valid, you know.”
She drifted off, no doubt in search of those who walked the night with a more enlightened point of view. And in Xander’s case at least, better clothes.
“Nice meeting you …” Willow called after her.
Frustrated, Xander frowned at Angel. “You’re really a people person.”
Willow, in her sweet way, seconded that emotion. “Now nobody’s gonna talk to us.”
Angel didn’t let up. He was really pissed off. “I’ve seen enough. And I’ve seen this type before. They’re children, making up bedtime stories about friendly vampires to comfort themselves in the dark.”
Willow pondered, “Is that so bad? I mean, the dark can get pretty dark. Sometimes you need a story.”
Apparently Angel wasn’t feeling like giving points for good intentions. “These people don’t know anything about vampires. What they are, how they live, how they dress…”
Just then, a guy with a ponytail sauntered by in the same reddish brown satin shirt, black pants, and black jacket as Angel’s. Buffy’s number-one guy actually looked embarrassed for a moment as Xander and Willow both gave him a look.
Xander observed, “You know, I love a good diatribe, but I’m still curious why Ford, the bestest friend of the Slayer, is hanging with a bunch of vampire wannabes.”
* * *
They went up the stairs, not realizing that a guy in a ruffled shirt and a sparkly blue cape, known to all who hung at the club as Diego, was listening to nearly every word they said.
* * *
Willow continued, “Something’s up with him.” To Angel, she offered, “You were right about that.”
* * *
It was getting pretty late by the time Buffy, Giles, and Jenny Calendar swept into the library.
Buffy said, “Sorry to beep you guys in the middle of stuff, but this did seem a bit weird.”
“No, you did the right thing,” Giles assured her. “Absolutely.”
Ms. Calendar cocked her head at him and drawled, “You hated it that much?”
“No!” he said quickly. “But vampires on campus … it can have implications, very grave—”
Ms. Calendar pressed, “You could have said something.”
Up against the wall, British Watcher …
“Honestly,” he said sincerely, “I’ve always been interested in monster trucks. I swear.”
Buffy couldn’t believe it. “You took him to monster trucks?”
Ms. Calendar shrugged. “I thought it would be a change.”
Giles nodded. “It was a change.”
“We could have just left,” the techno-pagan pointed out.
“What? And miss the nitro-burning funny cars?” Giles acted very sincere. “Couldn’t have that.”
“Okay,” Buffy interrupted, “could we get back on the vampire tip? These guys were here with a purpose.”
“Yes. And we must ascertain what that purpose is,” Giles agreed, settling down to business as he led the way to the study table.
“Where’s your friend?” Ms. Calendar asked Buffy.
“I sent him home,” Buffy replied.
“Good,” Giles said. “The less he’s mixed up in this, the safer he’ll be.”
Bragging on Ford’s behalf, Buffy announced, “Well, he did bag a vamp his first time out. You gotta give him credit for that…” She picked something up off the table. “Who’s this?”
Ms. Calendar asked, “Is something wrong?”
The photo was faded almost to a complete gray fog. The hair was different, and so was the dress, but the face that peered from it was unmistakable: it was the girl Angel had met in the playground.
“She’s called Drusilla,” Giles informed her. “A sometime paramour of Spike’s. She was killed by an angry mob in Prague.”
She was beautiful. Buffy said, “Well, they don’t make angry mobs like they used to, because this girl’s alive.” It was humiliating, but she had to say it. “I saw her with Angel.”
Giles was surprised. “With Angel?”
“Isn’t he supposed to be a good guy?” Ms. Calendar asked.
The implication sank in. Deep. Buffy said quietly, “Yeah. He is.”
Ms. Calender said, “I think we need to read up on this nice lady.”
Giles sprang into action. He just loved this kind of stuff. “Well, some of my new volumes might be helpful.” He crossed to his office as he said to Buffy and his date, “My own research has—”
Just then a blond vampire bounded out of his office with a thick old book in her hands. She pushed Giles into Buffy. They both tumbled to the floor. Then she leaped first on the table and then to the balcony, disappearing into the stacks. Buffy stared after her as Giles got up.
“You guys okay?” Ms. Calendar asked.
“A book!” Giles cried with indignation. “It took one of my books.”
Ms. Calendar said wryly. “Well, at least someone in this school is reading.”
More bad implications. Buffy said, half to herself, “He said he killed it.” She raised her voice, looking in the direction the vampire had fled. “That’s the vampire Ford said he killed.”
“He lied?” Giles asked her.
He did. Buffy was adrift. “Why?”
CHAPTER 3
In their lair in an abandoned Sunnydale factory Spike could hear Drusilla speaking in her gentle, singsong voice to her little bird in its little cage.
“You sing the sweetest little song,” she cooed at it “Won’t you sing for me? Don’t you love me any more?”
Oh, criminy, not another one.
“Darling,” he said in a jovial but probing voice, as he strode up to her, “I heard a funny thing just now. Lucius tells me that you went out for a hunt the other night.”
She did not turn. Her eyes were on the bird.
The dead bird.
“My tummy was growly,” she said. “And you were out.” She focused her attention on the corpse. “Come on.” She whistled to it. “I will pout if you don’t sing.”
So it was true about the hunting. Had he blood pressure, it would have risen. As it was, Spike tiptoed backward into the subject. “You, uh, run into anyone? Anyone interesting?” She didn’t answer. “Like Angel?”
“Angel,” Drusilla said dreamily.
Spike flashed with anger. Though Angelus had brought him into this life and run with him once like a brother, he hated his sire now. But as he spoke to Drusilla, he tried to stay pleasant. “Yeah. So what might you guys have talked about, then? Old times?” His tone took on an edge. “Childhood pranks? It’s a little off, you two so friendly, him being the enemy and all that…”
&nbs
p; Still she ignored him. There was method to her madness; she always ignored anything she didn’t want to deal with. She cocked her head at the bird and said, “I’ll give you a seed if you sing.”
Spike lost his patience. “The bird’s dead, Dru. You left it in the cage and you didn’t feed it and now it’s all dead. Just like the last one.”
She whimpered, a high, little-girl-lost keening she made whenever she was unhappy and might cry. At once he softened. It was not her fault she was insane.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m a bad, rude man. I just don’t like you going out, that’s all. You are weak.” He picked up her hand and sucked on one of her fingers. “Would you like a new bird? One that’s not dead?”
And she smiled. Up at him. Not up at Angel, or some foggy memory of love lost. At Spike.
The moment was shattered by the callow cry of a young human, exclaiming, “This is so cool! I could really live here.”
Spike spun in its direction, murder on his true, vampiric face. The speaker was a boy who slightly resembled the friend of the Slayer, the mouthy one called Xander.
“Do I have anyone on watch here?” Spike bellowed, furious. “It’s called security, people. Are you all asleep?”
He crossed to the boy and smiled. “Or did we finally find a restaurant that delivers.”
Now Spike’s people began to emerge. One here, one there, moving from the shadows. The kid stood his ground. Spike had to give him that. It was clear he was nervous—and just as clear that he was getting a rush from his fear. Spike had known many humans like that.
Briefly.
“I know who you are,” the boy announced.
Spike retorted testily, “I know who I am, too. So what?”
“I came here looking for you.” So boyish. So eager. So about to be dead. “You are Spike, right? William the Bloody?”
“You’ve got a real death wish.” One of Spike’s minions, a blond vampire named Julia, approached and handed him a book. She looked startled to see the boy. Spike would have to find out why later. “It’s almost interesting.”
Spike opened the book and leafed through it, pleased. It had all kinds of Slayer lore in it.
“Oh, this is great,” he said happily. “This will be very useful.” He kept paging through it, not deigning to look at the boy. “So, how’d you find me?”