CHILD of the HUNT

by Christopher Golden

  “I won’t.”

  Lying on the bed, she watched him sling one leg over the sill, and then the other. Then he looked at her one last time, and slid out of sight.

  With wide eyes, Buffy waited anxiously for the dawn.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to be afraid of the dark.

  The dark was supposed to be afraid of her.

  Bernie Sayre was almost asleep when he heard something rummaging in the trash can outside.

  He bolted upright, frightening Simon off his bed, and winced at the pain in his hip at the sudden movement.

  More gingerly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, stepped into his slippers, and grabbed his robe.

  “Okay, now I’m going to get you,” he muttered as he shuffled along, pulling on the robe and belting it. “You just stay there. I’m coming for you now.”

  As quickly as he could, he grabbed his flashlight and headed for the kitchen door, muttering to himself. For two weeks, something had been tormenting him. Going in his trash. Ripping up his letters in the mailbox. Even chewing on the wiring of his house.

  Raccoons, the police said. Varmints. Maybe big rats.

  Vandals, Bernie said. Teenagers. Hoodlums. No raccoon ever ripped up letters.

  No teenager ever chewed on wiring.

  “I’ll show ’em,” Bernie grunted, as he took the three steps from the kitchen door to his backyard.

  Then Bernie Sayre froze.

  On the other side of his yard, a hideous figure dropped over his wooden fence and squatted to catch its balance. It stared straight at him. Its face was like a nightmare, all scarred or burned or maybe it was a mask. Its eyes glowed yellow. Its teeth were large and pointed.

  “You punk kid! You don’t scare me!” Bernie shouted, raising his fist. “I’ve already called the cops, so you can take off your stupid disguise and face me like a man.”

  The figure leaped on him and knocked him flat.

  “Hey, hey wait!” Bernie shouted, flailing. The pain in his hip was unbearable. “Hey!”

  It straddled him and sank its teeth into his neck. The thing was wounded, too, and its blood dripped down onto Bernie’s face. Bernie shrieked in terror and in agony.

  Then he was silent.

  His eyes were wide open.

  But Bernie Sayre saw nothing.

  He did not see the vampire slake its thirst and pull away with satisfaction from the drained corpse.

  He did not see its confused frown as a horde of misshapen green creatures burrowed in the trash can, then dropped to the ground and skittered toward it. They gabbled and pranced, advancing on it hungrily, as it had advanced on the human.

  He did not hear the booming thunder of hooves as a night-black figure on a jet-black stallion swooped down from the midnight sky.

  The shadow put a bolt to a crossbow, as its mount threw back its head and whinnied. Fire erupted from the horse’s nostrils like gas jets.

  The figure let the bolt fly. The projectile slammed directly into the vampire’s chest.

  With a shriek, the vampire exploded into dust.

  The dust settled on Bernie’s open eyes.

  His blank, unseeing eyes.

  Finally. The sky was red with sunrise as Buffy dashed downstairs.

  She threw open the basement door.

  “Roland?” she called, peering into the darkness. She had left the light on. He must have turned it off. She flicked the switch back on and raced down the stairs.

  To her intense relief, he was seated on the air mattress. His back was to her, but he looked fine.

  “Oh, thank God. Did you hear all that stuff last night?” she asked, and thought about trying to explain. But no, Roland was just a runaway. After Giles’s admonishment, the last thing she should be doing was trying to tell someone else about the Hellmouth and its nastier residents . . . and visitors.

  Roland didn’t move a muscle. Now that she thought of it, he hadn’t so much as turned when she’d come thundering down the stairs.

  “Roland?”

  Suddenly worried, Buffy darted around in front of him and crouched down. His eyes were closed, but he seemed almost too still, too silent, to be sleeping. His lips were parted, but he didn’t appear to be breathing. He didn’t move a muscle. He sat completely still, like a statue.

  “Roland?”

  She felt for his pulse and jerked her hand away. There was no pulse, but there was something else: his body was like ice. It was as if he were frozen solid. She thought of the fierce wind, and wondered if this was what you looked like after the Hunt took your soul. If all that was left was skin and—

  “Dirt?” she said, astonished.

  She raised her hand and studied the brown smudges on her fingertips, rubbing them together, judging the texture, staring at it again.

  On Roland’s neck, her fingerprint stood out as if she had dipped her hand in paint.

  Or dirt.

  She peered at him, almost nose to nose.

  He was made of dirt.

  In a clearing in the forest:

  Evil, shimmering into being.

  The soft laughter of the damned, the shrieks of their freshly captured prey.

  The hellhounds battling over the scraps.

  Dogs stopped their barking, lay down, whimpered. Cats arched in fear and hissed at shadows. Babies awoke, inconsolable.

  And the little town that sat upon the mouth of hell started screaming.

  Chapter 8

  BUFFY THREW ON JEANS AND A BLACK BOATNECK BLOUSE while she called each of her friends in turn. So far, so good, and she relaxed enough to pin her hair up with a butterfly clasp. But the hand that held her portable phone began to shake as she said carefully to Mrs. Harris, “So you don’t know if Xander came home last night?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure he did,” Mrs. Harris said in a flat voice. In the background, Good Morning America blared so loudly Buffy could barely hear her.

  “So he might have already left for school?”

  “Yes, he’s probably at school,” Mrs. Harris replied, obviously distracted by the television. “Try him there, Buffy.”

  “Thanks. Uh, some storm last night, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Mrs. Harris. Thanks.”

  Buffy hung up. All accounted for except Xander. And Giles, but he was probably already at the library. She’d catch up with him there.

  Buffy didn’t get to school until the middle of fourth period. It wasn’t until she walked through the door that she realized she had left her books behind. Not that it mattered. After the past twenty-four hours, she knew there was no way she’d be able to pay attention in class, with or without a book.

  Outside, it was a beautiful fall day—sunny and unseasonably warm, even for southern California. Buffy barely noticed. She felt cold. Almost numb. With the students in class, the halls of Sunnydale High were eerily deserted, and it bothered her. Buffy didn’t want to be alone.

  Behind her, there came a sudden clatter, and she turned with a start. Down the corridor, a sophomore she thought she recognized scrambled to pick up the books that had tumbled from his locker. He looked frantically up and down the hall, and Buffy knew from his eyes that he wasn’t supposed to be out of class any more than she was.

  She felt a little less alone, but even colder than before. The noise had been nothing but the rattle of a locker door, the slap of books hitting the linoleum, but her heart was still pounding.

  The Slayer was spooked. No denying that.

  She hated it.

  Buffy picked up her pace, kept her eyes straight ahead, and tried not to recall how pale and gaunt she had looked in the mirror before she’d finally calmed down enough to leave for school. She’d covered Roland with a heavy blanket, but couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  Uh-uh, this was definitely one for the Watcher. Giles would have some idea of what to do. Some kind of answers. Anything would do, at this point. For the last few days, nothing had turn
ed out to be exactly what it seemed, and it had Buffy considerably off balance. Off balance was not at all healthy.

  With a sigh of relief, Buffy reached the swinging double doors of the library and pushed them open with both hands, like a gunslinger entering a saloon. Her boot heels clattered on the tile. She heard him fumbling around inside his small office—probably making tea, she thought.

  “All right, Giles,” she called. “Fill me in. What do I need to know about something called the Wild Hunt? And have you touched base with Xan—”

  Buffy stared expectantly at the door to the office, then blinked in surprise as a gray-haired woman wearing glasses emerged with three hardcover books under one arm.

  “I don’t know how Mr. Giles puts up with that kind of disrespect, young lady,” said the old woman, “but in my day, a student would never have spoken to a teacher like that. Not to mention that you really ought to be doing your own research rather than relying on the kindness of your school librarian.”

  She stared disapprovingly at Buffy.

  “Who are you?” Buffy asked. “Where’s Gi . . . I mean, Mr. Giles?”

  “Mr. Giles has called in sick for the day,” the woman replied. “I’m Mrs. Winston, and once upon a time, I was the librarian here. I’ve been retired seven years now, and I thank the Lord for it. Mr. Giles isn’t exactly the soul of organization, is he?”

  The woman had seemed to relax a moment, but now that stern gaze was back on Buffy.

  “And you, young lady,” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

  Buffy blinked. Couldn’t think of a thing to say. This was the last thing she had expected. Giles never called in sick, with the exception of a few days not long after Jenny Calendar had . . . had died. There were so many things happening in Sunnydale, so many questions running around in her mind, and Buffy didn’t think she could find the answers on her own. She needed Giles.

  Then again, he had gone on patrol in her place several times. Maybe she could switch roles with him again, only this time, in a different way.

  “Uh, actually, I’m working on a research project,” Buffy said, and then flushed a bit. “Like you said, I really should do the work myself, but I really need some of the obscure books Mr. Giles has in his collection. I was hoping he could help me, but maybe you could . . .”

  Mrs. Winston looked scandalized. “Oh, I’m afraid not, my dear,” the woman said in a hushed voice. “Mr. Giles’s things are Mr. Giles’s things, and no one must touch them but him. I’m certain if you come back tomorrow, he’ll be more than happy to assist you. Neat he is not, but Mr. Giles is a very kind man, and he does love books.”

  Buffy sighed, mumbled a thank-you, then turned and pushed out into the hallway. Behind her, she could hear Mrs. Winston saying, “. . . still the library could certainly benefit with a bit more light. It’s so depressing in here.”

  Buffy stood in the whitewashed hallway for several seconds, completely oblivious to the walls festooned with bulletin boards bearing multi-colored messages about everything from anti-smoking campaigns to henna body painting. Most of the lockers had their own color, multiple stickers and temporary tattoos that the custodians had only half-heartedly attempted to remove.

  As she stood there, trying to figure out what to do next, her eyes focused on a poster for the big game on Saturday. Only a few more weeks until homecoming, she thought.

  She wished that she had the luxury of caring.

  But next to the poster for the football game was a flyer for the runaway shelter with a picture of little Timmy on it. She wanted varsity sports to be important in her life, but Buffy’s life was just . . . too real, too soon.

  So, what next, she thought. She could go to Angel’s, though he didn't seem to have much more to offer than warnings and horrific legends the night before— back to his old tricks, her Angel. Well, not her Angel, exactly.

  So, no help there. No help from the mysteriously disappearing Giles. No help from . . .

  It struck Buffy, just for a moment, that Giles might not have called in sick at all. That the principal might simply have assumed he was sick and asked Mrs. Winston to cover for him. Okay, all right, Angel had told her not to look as the Hunt had ridden, but what if Giles had decided to take on the Hunt himself? What if Xander had joined him?

  What if it had taken him and Xander both?

  The chill that had been surrounding her all morning seeped down into Buffy’s bones, even as a fire of anxiety began to burn inside her. Anxiety and a bit of nausea as well.

  Buffy pushed it all away. She was afraid, and not just worried for her friends, without really understanding why. But fear was part of the job. If she was too stupid to be afraid when there was reason to be, she’d have been dead a long time ago. No, she was the Slayer, the Chosen One. Buffy didn’t know exactly what was going on, how it all fit together, but she could feel the malevolence crackling in the air, even with the sun shining outside. Something evil was coming . . . was probably already here.

  Somehow, she would find a way to stop it.

  Just as she had that thought, the school bell began to ring and Buffy winced at the volume, the noise spiking into her head. She prayed for it to rain Advil, but no such miracle. Instead, she was surrounded by hundreds of other students, all on the perilous journey to the cafeteria for lunch.

  Buffy let herself be pulled along by the tide of hungry teens.

  “Please, for my sake, can we not talk about this here?” Cordelia begged, her expression pitiful. Framed by her black hair, her large hazel eyes reminded Buffy of one of those velvet paintings of sad-eyed children. “Aren’t I being courageous enough just being seen with you all in public?”

  Buffy paused. Cordelia maintained her pleading expression. But she definitely did not look like a child, dressed in a flame-red, short-sleeved Angora sweater, black pants, and talk about stacked . . . heels. Buffy glanced around the cafeteria. Despite Cordelia’s ef forts toward hot couture, nobody was paying attention to them. Nobody ever did. But just this once, she didn’t see any harm in being circumspect.

  “I’ll try to behave,” she told Cordy, who nodded in satisfaction, took a quick look around, and then gave her attention back to Buffy.

  Xander—wonderful Xander, wonderfully safe and here with them—was using his fork to pry all of the cheese and bread off the burned crust of his Sicilian pizza. Typical Xander behavior, but Buffy knew him. He was too quiet. Then there were those Giles-like bags under his eyes.

  Willow, too, seemed slightly askew today. They all did. Nobody looked his best, nobody was really laughing.

  “All right, then,” Buffy went on. “As vaguely as we can, what do we know?”

  Willow offered her usual earnest face, though her eyes were not as wide, nor her manner as pleasant as it almost always was. Buffy couldn’t blame her. She herself had been too distracted by other things to pay any attention to the local news this morning, but the entire town was reeling.

  “At least twenty-three people missing overnight,” Willow said somberly. “And . . . and seven confirmed cases of crib death.”

  She looked stricken. Xander put down his fork and blew air out his cheeks.

  “Oh, my God,” Buffy whispered. “The Hunt must have ridden all through Sunnydale.”

  “Mrs. Blake’s little girl . . . she was one of them.” Cordelia had a quaver in her voice Buffy had never heard before, not even when the other girl had been faced with the horror of seeing the corpse of a boy she’d been dating.

  “She had asked me if I could baby-sit sometime,” Cordy added, then looked away, as if searching for anything else to focus on.

  “Mr. Krasilovsky, that old guy at the end of my street? He’s missing,” Xander said. “My parents were in bed, but my dad said something woke him up and he went to the window. He says he was sleepwalking.”

  “God, Xander,” Cordelia whispered. “If Angel was right, and your father saw them, then . . .”

  “Yeah.” Xander nodded, but didn’t
look at any of them. “I checked the window. There’s this big tree right in the middle of it. If you really wanted to see the street, you could. But you’d have to work at it.”

  Cordelia reached over and took his hand, moved closer to him at the table, for once not caring who saw her.

  “It’s so typical,” Cordelia said. “I mean, we have some spooky horse guys snatching people and . . . and killing babies, and no one notices? Everybody goes like, ‘Huh, why am I awake at this hour of the night? Gee, I must be sleepwalking.’ What’s up with that?”

  “Typical Sunnydale denial,” Willow ventured.

  “But was it all luck, like with Xander’s dad not looking?” Buffy asked. “I mean, did the ones who were taken get taken for a reason, or just by chance? And what about Roland? I mean, phantom night riders stealing people away, okay. But how does that turn an abused runaway into a pile of dirt?”

  No response.

  “Willow, hit the computer lab. Get me whatever you can find on the Wild Hunt off the Net.” Buffy paused, focused on Willow more pointedly. “When’s the full moon?”

  “Not until next weekend,” Willow replied. “Don’t worry. Oz is in. I talked to him this morning and he figured we’d be doing something. He had a dentist appointment this afternoon.”

  Xander opened his mouth as if to speak, but all three girls shot him a warning glance, and he thought better of it.

  “Xander, keep trying Giles’s phone whenever you’re free. Otherwise, everybody go to class and meet up at the library after school. If Giles doesn’t show by then, we’ll wait until Mrs. Winston leaves, and then we’ll break in. We need his books.”

  “We need Giles, Buffy,” Xander said. “A lot of those books aren’t even in English. We’re not going to have much luck without him.”

  Buffy took a breath, looked at him.

  “Then we won’t rely on luck.”

  Outside, the sun still shone brightly, but the temperature had begun to drop precipitously. Nearly fifteen degrees in an hour. It was sixty-three degrees now, and still falling.