CHILD of the HUNT

by Christopher Golden

  “I never put that kind of pressure on you, Buffy,” Joyce said, her face flushed from the panic of the past few minutes.

  “I know, Mom, you know what I—”

  “No matter what you think, I never had any grand scheme for you,” her mother went on. “I would have supported anything you wanted to do with your life. Anything. You’re my daughter, Buffy, and I love you. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

  Joyce stared at her intently.

  “You don’t look very happy to me, Buffy.”

  Buffy couldn’t breathe for a moment. She swallowed hard, then stood up and moved back from her mother. She looked at the shattered lamp again. Something crunched under her foot. An antique mirror that had hung on the wall in their old house in L.A.—something Buffy couldn’t ever remember not having in their home, lay on the floor, little more than reflective splinters in a beautiful frame.

  “Mom, I . . .”

  “I know,” Joyce said. “Go. I’ll take care of the door, and the mess.”

  “Mom, stay in the house. Don’t . . . look outside. Promise me.” She clenched her fists. “Mom, promise me!”

  “I . . . promise,” Joyce said dully.

  Buffy moved toward the door. Before she was out of her yard, she was running again, her mother’s words fresh in her mind.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  * * *

  “Jamie, please . . . put the gun down.” Giles held up a hand as if he could reach out and snatch the weapon away. If only that were possible, he thought.

  The police officer held his service revolver against the side of his head, his face contorted with desperation and an eerie attempt at a smile.

  “I’m sorry, Rupert, I can’t do that,” Jamie Anderson said. “This is the only way, don’t you see? You said yourself, these things . . .” For a moment, the man was overwhelmed by emotion and could not speak.

  “After you had that talk with Brian about what he’d seen, I knew you were into this kind of thing. I could never have imagined how deep. But any idiot could have seen that you knew more than you would tell me, Rupert. I’m a cop. Give me a little credit. I thought if I followed you, maybe I could figure out what to do.

  “Somebody had already broken the lock on that door,” Jamie said, and gestured toward the rear door of the library. “I came in and heard you talking about . . . God, this is insane.”

  Giles took a step toward Jamie, but the officer held up a hand to warn him off.

  “Jamie, it’s still possible we might be able to get Brian back,” Giles insisted. “You can’t give up like this.”

  The man chuckled dryly. It was an awful sound, full of cynicism and surrender.

  “You don’t get it, Rupert,” Jamie said. “I heard you. That man with the horns, the Hunter, whatever you called him. He’s got my son. I don’t have a chance in hell of tracking him down, but there is one way I can make him come and get me, isn’t there?”

  Giles blinked several times, then ran a hand through his hair.

  “That’s . . . my God, Jamie, that’s only a legend.”

  “So is this Hunter of yours,” Jamie snapped. “But he was real enough to steal my son from me.”

  Giles glanced at Cordelia, nodded slightly.

  “Please, Mr. Anderson, don’t do this,” she begged. “Mr. Giles is right. You don’t even know if it would work. We’ve gone up against way more nasty guys than this.”

  Jamie narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying.”

  “Excuse me, but, no,” Cordelia said angrily. “I’m not saying we haven’t had our tragedies, okay? All I’m saying is, unless you know for sure that you’re doing the right thing, all killing yourself does is make you a coward. Is that what you want?”

  “Cordelia!” Giles snapped, glaring at her, afraid that she had gone too far.

  “What?” She threw up her hands. “It’s true.”

  Giles watched as Jamie Anderson seemed to physically deflate, as if he had been suspended by some unseen force, and had now been released, only to crumble down into himself. The gun wavered, but did not move completely away from his head.

  “It’s not what Brian would want, Jamie.” Giles spoke slowly, but did not move any closer. The moment was crucial. Anything could happen.

  Which was when the rear door of the library was roughly yanked open, and Xander dove through the door, grabbing at Jamie’s gun with both hands.

  “Xander, no!” Cordelia cried.

  But Xander had already wrested the gun from the man’s hand, leaving Jamie to collapse in a silent mass of grief. After examining the gun for a moment, Xander handed the weapon over to Giles.

  “Try not to hurt anyone with that,” Xander said in a low voice. “Gun, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Then Cordelia pulled him to her, and the students embraced openly, one of the first times Giles had seen them show their affection in public. If the stacks of the library could be considered public.

  “I just got him back,” Jamie said suddenly, his voice tortured and desperate. “I can’t lose him again. I can’t.”

  Giles crouched down in front of the man and managed to get him to make eye contact.

  “Listen to me, old man,” the Watcher said. “There was a time when I might have made a promise to you. I’m not very good with promises anymore. But I will tell you this. If there is a way to save your son, I will find it. We will get Brian home to you.”

  Jamie Anderson searched Giles’s eyes for a moment, then nodded silently.

  Giles looked up at the others. “Cordelia, would you drive Mr. Anderson home, please?” he asked, then pressed on before she could protest. “Xander and I will stay here and continue our research. I’d like you to stay with Jamie and wait to hear from one of us.”

  Cordelia opened her mouth again, then closed it quickly. She raised one eyebrow and looked at him in doubt. Giles hoped she understood what he was asking of her. Not merely to play chauffeur, but to keep this man from falling again into the madness of grief. A part of him railed at the idea of giving her that responsibility, but at the same time, Giles wondered if Cordelia weren’t, of all of them, the best suited for the job.

  After all, she might offer Jamie Anderson her sympathy, but she wasn’t going to coddle him, that was certain. She might be just what was necessary to keep him focused.

  Finally she sighed, and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she huffed. “I just did my nails anyway. Going after evil guys on horses is not good for the manicure.”

  “Thank you,” Giles said, putting real feeling into the words.

  It was apparently lost on Cordelia.

  “The moon’s bright tonight,” Willow said in a voice little more than a whisper.

  “I can feel it.” Oz glanced at her, shrugged a little. The full moon wasn’t until the end of next week, but sometimes the weird attraction he felt toward it was more powerful than others. Tonight, he almost felt as though it were following him. Threatening, somehow.

  He steered the van up the long drive to Angel’s. The huge house seemed to glow in the moonlight. For some reason Oz had the weird sense that there was nobody home. No life inside. But in a way, he supposed that was true.

  They got out of the van and started up the walk toward the front of the house. It had grown very cold, and Oz had given Willow a leather jacket he’d found after rifling through the mess in the back of the van. Oz was freezing, actually, but he didn’t want Willow to feel badly that she was wearing his jacket, so he tried not to shiver. It was fall, sure, but it wasn’t supposed to be this cold.

  Not ever, as far as Oz was concerned.

  As they approached the front door, Willow seemed to hesitate. Oz reached out and took her hand, thinking she was simply anxious about being here, where so much had happened in the past six months. Instead, she frowned and glanced at him.

  “Do you hear anything?” Willow looked around, scanning the area.

  “Like what?” Oz asked, trying to figure out what had
gotten her attention.

  “That’s what I mean,” she said. “I don’t hear anything. Not even crickets. Do you remember how loud the crickets were last time we were up here at night? Now . . . nothing. Isn’t that weird?”

  “Weird,” Oz agreed.

  They looked at each other. Several seconds ticked by, and then, in unison, they shrugged. Willow went up the steps and pounded on the door with the palm of her hand.

  In the eerie silence, they waited, but received no response. Oz began to whistle “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and his eyes started to wander away from the house. There was some overgrown scrubgrass down the drive near where he’d parked the van, and he thought he saw some kind of animal moving down there. He sighed, hoping it wasn’t another skunk. Seemed like the van got sprayed at least once a month.

  Willow pounded on the door again. “Angel! Anybody home?”

  “I don’t think anybody’s home,” Oz said simply. “Maybe it’s too early for him to be up and about. Either that, or he thinks we’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

  Willow looked at him, glanced once more at the door, and they stepped away from the house and began walking down the path toward the van.

  Above them, an explosion of glass.

  “Man, Willow, get back!” Oz shouted, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her along the path.

  Together they turned and looked up, holding their hands up to guard against the shower of broken glass that stabbed the ground where they’d been standing moments before.

  It was Angel.

  He pivoted in the air, roaring with anger, his limbs flailing, and crashed to the ground with a sickening thud. As he rose, they could see the tiny goblin creatures that tore at Angel’s clothes and flesh. Their laughter was horrible as their mouths and talons dug in.

  Dark faerie. They had to be.

  Willow shrieked as more of them tumbled out the window after Angel. Oz was already moving. He pulled out his keys and forced them into Willow’s hand.

  “Get the van!”

  Then, against every instinct, he rushed forward and began grabbing at the little things, flinging them away from Angel. Oz managed to stomp one of them beneath his shoe and it screamed before he felt it give way to fluid and gristle.

  He tried not to think about it.

  “Angel, come on!” he shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  The vampire rounded on him, eyes blazing yellow, fangs distended, and snarled. “Why? The little bastards hurt like hell, but they can’t kill me. I’m not running until I get some payback!”

  Oz cried out as he felt sharp pains in his leg and back simultaneously. He thought about rolling on the ground to crush them, but then realized he would just be an easier target. Instead he ripped the one off his leg, quite painfully, and just rammed his back up against the side of the house, crushing the other behind him. Several of them were on the ground, spreading out, coming toward him as if they were a pack of stalking wolves.

  “Angel!” Oz shouted again.

  The van rumbled over the grass toward them.

  Angel kicked one of the faerie hard from behind, and Oz heard something in it snap as it sailed out over the yard. The other two scattered to avoid a similar fate. Though he was still in vamp-face, Angel seemed to have calmed down somewhat.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just got a bit carried away.”

  Oz howled in pain again and batted away a faerie that had dropped from the window above and landed on his shoulder, claws out.

  “I can see how that might happen.” Oz ran for the van, with Angel close behind. The faerie gave chase at first, but most of them quickly abandoned the idea. One tried to scramble into the van after Angel, but the vampire slid the door shut with all his strength, cutting the thing neatly in half. The part of the tiny corpse on the inside shriveled almost immediately to a dry husk. Oz didn’t like the idea of having to pick it up to remove it later.

  The van bounced over the grass and back onto the driveway. Soon they were rolling back into town and toward the school.

  “Please drive carefully,” Oz asked Willow, who smiled painfully.

  “Where’s Buffy?” Angel asked, his face finally human again.

  “She went back to her house to get Roland. We’re all supposed to meet back at the library,” Willow explained.

  Angel swore. “Stop the van.”

  Buffy crept as silently as she could onto the fairgrounds. There had been a sign by the entrance that the Faire was closed for the night due to illness, and all tickets would be refunded. She doubted that, however. They were going to pack up and run. No question in her mind.

  But they were not leaving here with Roland. She’d thought a lot about Giles’s many theories, and Buffy had decided one thing for certain. Whatever Roland was, he had a soul. There was something in there, something she could see in his eyes. She’d had plenty of experience with the cold empty gaze of the soulless. Roland had a mind and a heart and a soul. She was going to do whatever it took to get him out of here.

  Though most of the fairground was dark and creepy, including the tents and trailers where the troupe lived while camped, she could hear voices coming from up ahead, and there was a flicker of light there. Buffy figured the troupe had gathered around the small dramatic stage where they performed Shakespeare for their customers.

  She came to a long line of stripped wooden stands, which she assumed had been the food stalls. Her back to the wood, Buffy moved slowly toward the stage area. The voices became more distinct, and the light grew brighter. She recognized the booming voice of the actor who played King Richard.

  “Got to be out of here by dawn!” the King bellowed. “Somehow, there are people in this place who know the truth, or at least suspect. No one must ever know that we have Roland with us. And after the riders last night . . . the Hunt is here at last, and we must be gone.”

  A great deal of shouting and murmuring followed, but Buffy could make out very little of it. She was also having difficulty deciphering the King’s words. Obviously they were hiding Roland, but she didn’t understand why. She wished she knew as much of the truth as the big man obviously thought she did. And what did he say about the Hunt . . .

  “You just don’t know how to leave well enough alone, do you, young miss?” a soft voice said behind her.

  Buffy turned with a start, hands up in a defensive stance. A pair of dimly burning green lights crackled in the shadows back the way she’d come. They came closer.

  It was Robin Hood. Or, at least, the member of the troupe who was supposed to represent Robin Hood to the masses. But this was no hero, Buffy thought. No kind of hero she had ever seen. His eyes were too white and his fingers too long, and she thought it odd that she hadn’t noticed that before.

  But how could she fail to notice those fingers now, Buffy thought. Now, when they were surrounded by crackling green fire that swirled like storm clouds about his hands.

  “Magic,” Buffy whispered.

  “Magic indeed,” Robin Hood replied. “There’s a great deal of magic in this place. Magic, and far, far worse. We’ve a lot to do before sunup, my dear, and I sense there’s more to you than meets the eye. You’re an odd one, no doubt. So I’ll give you this chance, pretty. Leave now.”

  “Not without Roland,” Buffy replied sharply.

  “After what Richard went through to acquire that fool, he’ll never let the boy leave. Last chance, girl. Leave now, and don’t turn back, or there’ll be trouble all around.”

  “Trouble and me,” she said wickedly, crossing two fingers of her right hand and holding them up for Robin to see, “we’re like this.”

  “So be it, girl. You’ll be a slave by daybreak. I’ll wager you’ll look especially fine in the costume of a serving wench,” Robin Hood said, eyes narrowing with lust. “Just remember, you had a chance.”

  With that, he lifted his hands and magic began to swirl above them. He chanted, low and guttural, in a language Buffy didn’t even recognize, much less unde
rstand.

  Buffy ran around the other side of the food stalls. They were all closed now, heavy wooden canopies down over the open counters. But also hanging there were the wooden poles that were used to prop them open. Five steps, the earth soft under her heels, and she held a long, thick piece of oak in her hand. There was a soft laugh behind her, and Buffy turned, holding the long pole like a fighting staff.

  Robin Hood was there behind her, the magic no longer flickering above his hands. Instead, it had begun to swirl on the ground, a crackling green dust devil, a three-foot tornado of dark sorcery.

  Inside it, something was beginning to take form. It was monstrous, uglier even than some of the demons Buffy had fought.

  “It will consume you, girl, body and soul,” Robin Hood said. “Your heart will burn and then you will beg to pledge your life to me. I’m not much of a warlock. I nearly had to sell my own soul to learn this spell. But you have no idea how many times it has proven invaluable to me.”

  Buffy took a step back and stared at him. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Especially on date night.”

  She moved to the right, the dust devil followed. A hand had begun to emerge from it. Buffy moved left, and it followed her again.

  “Too late for you to leave, girl, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Robin said, a smug smile turning his face ever more evil in the flickering green light.

  “Not quite,” Buffy muttered.

  She took two steps back, and ran directly at the dust devil, even as a second hand emerged, and a pair of horns to go with them. Using the pole as a spring, Buffy launched herself into the air, rolled into a flip, and landed on both feet directly in front of Robin Hood.

  As he opened his mouth to protest, she brought the staff across his skull hard enough to crack the wood in two. Robin fell to the ground in a heap, without so much as a whimper. Behind her, the dust devil disappeared in a sudden rush of air, as if someone had blown out a candle. She thought she could even smell sulphur left behind.

  “Moron,” Buffy whispered, then turned to look for Roland.