Oz only nodded at that, taking it in as he watched for the turnoff for Route 17, streetlights flashing across the windshield in syncopated rhythm.
“And this other Slayer, Lucy, couldn’t stop them?” Willow asked, disturbed. “She couldn’t do anything?”
“She was the first Chosen One who was a slacker,” Xander suggested.
“No, actually,” Giles said regretfully. “Lucy Hanover, though short-lived, was quite an effective Slayer.” He paused, weighing his words. “Apparently, the night the Wild Hunt rode through, she disappeared and did not appear again for several weeks. When she returned, she told her Watcher that she had been taken and that she had later escaped by slaying several of the Huntsmen while the Erl King was away from their camp, which she called ‘the Lodge.’”
“But that’s good, right?” Willow asked. “They can be killed.”
“Unfortunately, according to his journal, Lucy’s Watcher thought that the Slayer was lying, though he never knew why,” Giles said, and wondered if his features revealed how deeply distressing he found this information.
“Miss Hanover did, however, confirm that the Erl King is indeed also known as Hern the Hunter, so perhaps we have a bit more to go on,” Giles added.
There was a silence of several seconds as each of them looked to the other. Xander ran out of patience first.
“All right,” he said, and paused. “And now that we’ve exhausted our research angles, we’re going to . . . ?”
“First we must get to the bottom of this situation with Roland,” Giles said. “I’ve never seen a homun culus before. It should be fascinating. When that is done, I suppose we try to find the nest of these dark faerie or the camp of the Wild Hunt.”
“Is that really a smart thing to do?” Willow ventured.
“I don’t see what other choice we have.” Giles wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Guys,” Oz said slowly. “Don’t look now, but . . . man . . . hold on!”
He cut the wheel violently to the right and the van slewed sideways across the road, momentarily tilting on to two wheels. Willow and Xander, in the back of the van, tumbled against each other. The front wheels bumped up over the sidewalk and the fender bent a street sign back to a ninety-degree angle before the van came to a stop.
From beneath the hood came the hiss of several ruptured hoses and who knew what else. The odd ringing of metal on pavement reached the van as a hubcap that had originally been on a Cadillac rolled away and then spun to a halt on the street.
But beyond that, there were other sounds.
Giles had struck his head on the dash, and a small trickle of blood flowed down through his eyebrow and onto the bridge of his nose. He blinked several times, looked up, and through the windshield he saw them.
“Good God,” he whispered, but could not turn away.
Behind him, he heard Willow and Xander muttering and was about to tell them not to look when both of them swore.
“I told you not to look,” Oz said, rubbing his shoulder where the seat belt had cut in.
“Get us out of here!” Giles said.
But it was too late. The Wild Hunt had turned and was coming toward them. The Erl King, Hern the Hunter, led the way. There were at least a dozen horses, perhaps ten bucks, but the way the ground shook beneath them it might have been a herd of buffalo. A panama hat none of them had ever seen before tumbled off a stack of Oz’s things and slid to the floor of the van. The van trembled as if it were caught in an earthquake.
This was worse.
Oz turned the key, there was a grinding sound, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. This is going to cost, he thought absurdly, and then he forgot all about the van. The passenger window shattered, and the rear doors were torn open as if they were made of soggy cardboard.
Fear seemed to wash over the van, to electrify and paralyze all those inside it. But Oz couldn’t afford to freeze. Willow needed him. Then Willow screamed.
That did it.
Oz popped his seat belt, turned and was about to lunge into the backseat. Giles grabbed him by the shoulder and pinned him back to the driver’s seat with one arm, covering Oz’s eyes with the other.
“Did you look?” Giles shouted.
“I saw them!” Oz said angrily, trying to pry him off.
Giles was grabbed from behind.
“But only for a moment, and you turned away!” Giles yelled in desperation. “You paid obeisance, by their rules. You turned your head and did not look.”
Oz tried to say something. He couldn’t see into the back of the van. Xander was cursing and then gave out a shout of pain. Willow shouted for Oz. Giles grunted and his hands dragged against Oz’s body.
“Don’t open your eyes!” Giles said.
What? Oz’s heart nearly stopped. “But Willow . . .”
“If you want to save her, keep your bloody eyes shut!” Giles roared. “Find Angel and Buffy. It’s the only way to save us now!”
Then Giles’s voice was gone. There was shouting, and a horrible smell, and a kind of howling that made even Oz’s skin crawl. He thought he heard Willow calling his name, and he bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed.
Silence now. The van was empty.
Oz growled. “Bastards.”
Cordelia thought for sure that Jamie Anderson was asleep. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open, his head back, and though he wasn’t snoring, the rhythm of his breathing was slow and even. She envied him. Even if she wasn’t so wired after the past couple of days’ weirdness, there was no way she would have been able to sleep. Not here. Cordelia had a hard time going to sleep anywhere but her own bed.
Or a very expensive hotel room, preferably one her parents had paid for, somewhere the real tourist rabble had yet to discover.
Sigh. The thought of clear, ice blue Aegean Sea water gave her pause. She fantasized a moment, and then moved on. For now, there was senior year to think of. After that . . . Cordelia could almost envision a permanent Mediterranean vacation, maybe with Xander as her cabana boy. But for now, there was school, and the tremendously inconvenient Hellmouth.
Meanwhile, she was planted in a reclining leather chair, sipping a mug of tea, and waiting for the cabana boy or Giles to call and tell her what was going on. She wondered if they’d forgotten about her, or if things had simply gotten as chaotic as usual and they hadn’t had a chance to clue her in. If that was the case, Cordy really didn’t mind. Sure, Mr. Anderson had every cable channel ever invented, including one that made Cordelia blush deeply, and sure, all she kept doing was switching from channel to channel trying to find something to hold her attention.
But that was better than battling—or more than likely, running from—the forces of darkness any day of the week.
She clicked over to Nickelodeon, and caught the very beginning of a “first Darrin” episode of Bewitched, a series she and her mother had bonded over while Cordelia was growing up. Sure, it had been canceled back in the Stone Age, but that was what cable was for. Why else was Xander always talking about Scooby Doo?
“You tell ’im, Endora,” Cordy whispered to the TV, as Samantha’s scheming mother tried to get first-Darrin to toe the line. Endora always said exactly what she thought. And she was right, too. Here was this beautiful, smart, funny, captivating woman with magical powers who’d fallen in love with a decent-looking but otherwise totally inept and skinny geek.
Boy, could she relate.
Cordelia had the volume on low because she didn’t want to wake up Mr. Anderson. The window was open, and every once in a while, the sound of a car passing by would drown out the TV, but she didn’t bother to turn it up. She heard the sound of a truck rumbling down the street, and she strained to hear, even though a commercial had come on. The truck was incredibly loud, rumbling, annoying her enough to make her think about actually rising from the chair long enough to close the window. But, no, it would pass.
Only it didn’t.
Her tea mug trembled, was jostled to the edge of
the end table, and then fell over, shattering on the hard wood floor.
Jamie Anderson sat up straight, eyes wide, staring around in confusion. He probably thought it was an earthquake.
Cordelia had already figured out what it wasn’t.
It wasn’t a truck. And it wasn’t an earthquake.
The hounds began to howl and she could even hear some of the horses snorting and whinnying. Someone blew a hunting horn—Cordelia had heard them before when her father had gone fox hunting with a duke or somebody in England. But this was no fox hunt.
“It’s them, isn’t it?” Mr. Anderson asked, staring at her with wide eyes and a sweaty sheen on his forehead, though it was kind of chilly in the apartment.
Cordelia nodded, trying desperately to pretend that she wasn’t terrified. Maybe if she could convince herself, then the drunken officer would believe her as well.
“I think if we just stay here, we should be all right,” she said, hoping she was right. “Giles was pretty clear; there are rules these hunters have to follow. Just stay put. We’ll be all right as long as we don’t look at them.”
The hounds barked and howled as they went by, and the horses’ hooves were like a brutal drum roll on the street outside. They’re passing by right now, Cordelia thought. A few seconds more, and she could actually begin to breathe again. Maybe her heart would start to beat. Maybe she could open her eyes.
At the moment, she had them tightly closed. No need to take chances.
So it wasn’t until she heard a thump and the sound of Jamie Anderson cursing under his breath after barking his shin on the coffee table that she realized he was moving. He was up. He was headed for the window.
He was going to look.
“No!” Cordelia yelled.
She was up from the chair and after him in an instant. He was a big man, much bigger than Cordy, and he knew how to fight. But it was as though every ounce of fight that had ever been in the man was long gone. The wind could have sucked him right out the window, then. As Cordelia lunged after him, he reached for the dingy curtains covering the window that looked down on the street. He never made it. She’d never tackled anybody before, but Cordelia did a fine job of it, locking her hands tightly around his chest and using momentum to tumble the man off his feet.
“What are you doing?” Jamie shouted. “If I look at them, they’ll take me! I’ll still be alive, and I can see Brian! Maybe I can rescue him!”
“You’re just going to get yourself killed,” Cordelia shouted at him. “Trust me when I say that is not the best plan if you want to see your son again. We’ll find another way, all right? If there’s a way to do it, Buffy and Giles will figure it out. Just give them time. Just tonight!”
Jamie looked at her, eyes red and puffy, and he shook his head sheepishly. He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps to apologize, Cordelia thought. But he never managed to come out with those words. From outside, there came a loud wailing like dozens of people crying and shouting in pain and calling for help. The sound of horses was fading, but the cries of the Hunt’s captives still echoed their complaints.
“Do you hear it?” Mr. Anderson asked cautiously, as though afraid Cordelia might not have heard the chorus of agony and fear after all.
But she heard it all too well, and wished she didn’t. For among the screams and shouts and cries, there was a voice Cordelia thought she recognized.
“Xander?” she whispered to the darkness outside the open window.
The thunder of hooves was fading. Cordelia buried her face in her hands, wiping tears from her cheeks.
“Oh, God, Xander.”
“Lions and tigers and bears,” Buffy said in a low voice.
“Oh my.” Angel smiled thinly. He liked surprising her, and he was certain that an affection for The Wizard of Oz wasn’t among the list of things she knew about him for fact.
They hurried as fast as possible, pursuing the dark faerie who had literally stolen Roland out from under their noses at the Faire. That made sense to Buffy. He was a runaway, so the Hunt would want him. But where were the Hunters? And where were the faerie taking him?
It was less than a mile and a half to Route 17 from the fairgrounds. Buffy and Angel, despite their injuries and exhaustion, made it in record time.
There were no cars on the highway at this time of night. Buffy thought they would have to turn east, but Angel was tracking Roland, and instead of turning one way or the other, he simply continued across the highway and dropped down the embankment into a gulley on the other side.
“Not far now,” Angel said quietly.
They stood at the edge of a thick forest, so dark within that it was hard for Buffy to see past the first few trees. Beyond the first few trees, the forest seemed to undulate with a darkness more profound than mere night. Almost as if it were breathing.
“Next we’re going to have talking trees and flying monkeys,” Buffy said dejectedly, wishing they could avoid the creepy, dark forest altogether.
“How about werewolves?” a voice said behind them.
Buffy spun, ready to fight. Up at the edge of Route 17, just where they’d come over the embankment, stood a very human but intense-looking Oz. The tranquility that always seemed to guide him was completely gone. Nothing ever seems to phase Oz, Buffy thought.
At least until now.
Chapter 12
CORDELIA HELD HER HAIR AWAY FROM HER FACE WITH one hand, hung her head over the sink in Mr. Anderson’s bathroom and splashed water on her face. She had cried so hard that her makeup had been completely ruined. Mascara streaks like skid marks had run down her face. After scrabbling through the grimy medicine cabinet, the racks on the inside of the linen closet door, and under the sink—very gross— Cordelia had managed to find one very old, very crusted jar of Pond’s cold cream. No, thanks. She’d pass.
She splashed cold water on her face yet again, then reached for a dry handtowel she’d gotten from the linen closet after she’d shaken it to get the dust out. Cordelia pushed her fingers through her hair, then looked at herself in the mirror. Despite the crying jag she’d been on only minutes ago, her eyes were clear and alert. She wore no makeup. Without a scrunchy to pull her hair up into a ponytail, she was forced to use a rubber band she’d taken from the bathroom doorknob. Of course, she rinsed it well in the sink first. And slathered it with the cold cream to prevent hair damage. Everyone knew regular rubber bands could destroy smooth hair follicles . . .
Mr. Anderson was on the phone in the living room when Cordelia came out of the bathroom. She waited patiently for him to notice her. As soon as he had, he nodded politely and told whomever was on the other line that he would see them in the morning.
“That was Liz DeMarco,” he said as he settled the handpiece back in its cradle. “Her daughter, Connie, has been missing for a while. Liz runs the local runaway shelter. We’re going to have breakfast in the morning. I told her I’d push harder for a special task force at the department. I need to help her, but I can’t tell her, can I?”
Cordelia wasn’t happy with the fact that she had to appear in public—well, in front of him—without any makeup on, but sacrifices had to be made. “Lots of kids, you know, really do run away,” she offered. “Maybe you’ll just find her.”
“I told her I’d go back through my contacts. See if I can turn anything up.”
She sensed that he was desperately seeking some kind of encouragement.
“That’s great,” Cordelia offered, and meant it. “She didn’t mind you calling this late?”
“I called her at the shelter,” Jamie explained. “She almost never goes home until after midnight, or so she says. But that husband of hers . . .”
He cleared his throat as if catching himself saying something he shouldn’t. “Liz told me your friend’s mother is planning a big meeting at the school. Joyce Summers. She wants to try to get the parents more involved with the situation. The runaway situation, I mean.”
Oh, that’ll help just oodles, Cor
delia thought acidly. With great effort, she managed to keep her opinion to herself.
“Liz also said her daughter knew you.”
Cordelia went through her mental photo album of everyone who was anyone at school—plus Xander and his friends, of course, who are now my friends, I guess—shudder—and came up empty.
“Maybe she did,” she said, shrugging. “We probably had a class together.”
“Well, from what Liz said, Connie admired you.”
Cordelia only nodded. No surprise there. It was her responsibility—one she had taken upon herself—to be a role model for other girls.
They sat for a moment in silence. Mr. Anderson looked like he was going to fall back into his depressed mode and she searched for a way to distract him.
“About Brian,” she began.
“Don’t,” Mr. Anderson said, holding up one hand like a traffic cop. “I’m dealing with it as best I can. I’m sorry to have made things more difficult for you. I know Rupert and that girl . . .”
“Buffy.”
“. . . are doing everything they can. I won’t even pretend to understand any of it, but I know you’re right about me . . . getting myself killed. I’ve been a cop for a lot of years, but I’ve never seen anything like this . . . Hunt, or whatever it is. It isn’t something you learn on the job. But I’m smart enough to know it’s way out of my league. Rupert knows about this kind of thing, and . . .”
The man trailed off, seemed to deflate a bit, and sank down on the sofa. “Maybe in the morning, when I’m sober, I’ll get my head together, figure out a way to explain it to the lieutenant enough to get a search going. For now . . . just thank you, I guess.”
Cordelia crossed her arms. “You’re welcome.”
She studied him closely, saw the exhaustion on his face, and read that as a serious intent to get some sleep and not try to do anything stupid until the sun came up.
“I have to go.”
Mr. Anderson blinked. Nodded. “Thanks for staying with me. I’m sure your . . . I’m sure your parents must be worried about you. You should go home.”
CHILD of the HUNT Page 18