“Perhaps I could be of some assistance?” Giles suggested.
After a moment of silence, Oz said, “Really, I think it’ll be all right.”
“Okay, I’m technically sleeping at Willow’s tonight, so I’m probably okay,” Cordelia announced. “But I can’t fit everyone into my car, so who’s in the most trouble?”
“What time is it?” Willow asked, a little distracted as she looked at the night sky.
Angel glanced at the sky as well. “Almost three in the morning,” he said with experience.
“I’m completely screwed,” Xander said with a sigh, pleasantly resigned to his fate.
“I don’t know if I’ll have a home to go to, coming in this late,” Willow said.
Buffy bit her lip at the sadness in both their voices. What they had just experienced was so horrible, so very real, and yet so completely surreal at the same time, that it was hard to readjust to the reality that the rest of the world knew. What was staying out all night compared to stopping a bunch of supernatural beings who preyed on the weak and hopeless and foolhardy?
But try telling that to a parent.
“All right, I’m staying with Buffy tonight,” Cordelia announced.
Buffy blinked, then shrugged, realizing it was the only sensible plan.
“Xander and Willow, I’m taking you guys to the ER. You can tell your folks you were jumped or something, and let’s face it, you need some medical attention anyway. Giles, you could use some too, but that’s your business. You don’t have parents waiting for you at home,” Cordy went on. “Then I’ll come back for the rest of you and get you to Giles’s car.”
“I can make my own way home,” Angel said.
He moved to Buffy, whispered his goodbye, and when she looked for him again, he had gone. When he wanted to, Angel moved like the shadows, even harder to see the more you looked for him.
Oz went to Willow, kissed her lightly. “You going to be all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “They can’t be mad at me for getting beaten up. And even if they don’t buy it, they can only kill me once, right?”
They smiled together, but Willow was plainly worried.
Then Cordelia drove off, and it was just Buffy and Giles and Oz. They sat quietly on the side of the road. Only one vehicle passed them, a tractor trailer, during the half hour they waited for Cordelia to return.
In the car on the way back to her own house, Buffy drifted off to sleep.
When Buffy woke the next morning, she didn’t even remember waking up and going upstairs to bed.
It was just after eight o’clock on Friday night, and Joyce Summers was harried. The gallery hosted a number of events throughout the year, but only one or two as important as this.
This was a reception to introduce the new community liaison to the head of the police department’s new runaway task force, Jamie Anderson. The policeman stood proudly with his son, who clearly had not fared well on the street.
Helping with the reception, a hollow-eyed Liz DeMarco continued to hope, and to pray, that her daughter would come home. She and her husband were divorcing.
Joyce bustled through the gallery, checking on the caterers, making certain her guests had enough wine, chatting with the security guards, and played the smiling diplomat for each and every person who might be able to help the troubled youth of Sunnydale.
It was going to be a long night, and the new black pumps she’d bought were killing her.
“Mom?”
Joyce turned, eyes wide with surprise, and saw Buffy standing behind her in a burgundy slip dress Joyce had never seen before. It was beautiful. She was beautiful.
“Buffy?” Joyce said. “What are you doing here?”
“You asked me to come, remember?” Buffy said wistfully. “Besides, you really look like you could use another pair of hands.”
Joyce smiled, reached out and clasped Buffy’s slender fingers in her own.
“I’m glad you’re here, honey. I am so very, very glad.”
Buffy grinned, rolled her eyes the way daughters do. Then she said, “Me, too.”
About the Authors
Christopher Golden is the best-selling author of the epic dark fantasy series The Shadow Saga, as well as the X-Men trilogy Mutant Empire and the current hardcover Codename Wolverine. With Nancy Holder, he has written several other Buffy projects, including the upcoming Gatekeeper Trilogy. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.
Four-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Nancy Holder has sold thirty-six novels and over two hundred short stories, articles, and essays. She has also sold game-related fiction, and comic books and TV commercials in Japan. Her work has been translated into over two dozen languages. She and Christopher Golden have written four Buffy-related books together, the most recent of which was Blooded. She is the author of Gambler’s Star: The Six Families, book one of a science fiction trilogy for Avon Books, due out in October of 1998. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Wayne, and their daughter, Belle.
The official companion guide to the hit TV series, full of cast photos, interviews, trivia, and behind-the-scenes photos!
The Watcher’s Guide
By Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
Published by Pocket Books
The hellmouth (a.k.a Sunnydale, CA) has drawn vampires, witches, and other demons to its powerful vortex. Now it has also drawn the attention of an ancient sect of Durids—allies in Buffy Summers’ battle against the Undead.
Cloaked in Darkness, wrapped in mystery, the Durids descended on Sunnydale ready to perform new rituals to summon forth a new world order, free from the evil that shapes Buffy’s nights.
But the Slayer’s concerns are more immediate—someone is stalking her friends. Cordelia, Xander, and Oz—all are falling victim to this new spell. And now it’s up to willow and Giles to find the cause, while Buffy stands between the Mouth of Hell and the New Dawn.
Return to Chaos
By Craig Shaw Gardner
Published by Pocket Books
CHILD of the HUNT Page 27