by Nancy Holder
“Catch you later, Buffy. And think about tonight. Should be fun!” Xander babbled before saying more quietly to Cordelia, “Sweetie, how many times do we have to talk about quiet, inside thoughts?”
For the moment, Buffy decided to let it go. Truth was, Cordelia had a point. And much as she hated to admit it, she’d often wondered herself how important it was to be a good student, given the life expectancy of the average Slayer.
• • •
“So, basically, they get all tweaked just because they weren’t into queens?”
Ah, Buffy.
Angelus couldn’t help but adore the way her mind worked. In fact, the subject had occupied most of his waking and sleeping hours for the better part of the past several weeks. This evening, as he perched outside her bedroom window observing her study session and her new tutor, Angelus fought the temptation to swoop inside and literally drink it in. Of course, that would have been impossible, given the fact that he no longer had an invitation to enter Buffy’s home, though Angelus doubted that minor obstacle would stop him for long. After a moment he forced himself to focus again on Buffy’s conversation.
“No. They liked queens. They usually came with kings as kind of a matched set. But they didn’t like the idea that the queen would actually inherit the kingdom.”
Then there was Todd.
Angelus didn’t know Todd. He didn’t get the impression that Buffy knew him very well either. But, clearly—and this was the troubling part, or the happy accident, depending on how he chose to look at it—Buffy seemed to like Todd, or at least respect him.
The tutor was still speaking. “Despite the fact that Henry the First specifically stated before his death that his only surviving child, his daughter, Matilda, should succeed him, the nobility of what was really a very young Britain at the time had never been ruled by a woman, and most of them were terribly disconcerted by the idea.”
“So this Stephen guy, even though, he’s, like, her cousin, and also swore to protect her, turns on her the minute her father dies?” Buffy asked.
“Basically, yeah,” Todd answered.
“Typical,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes.
And there’s the smile.
Angelus had been watching Buffy’s study session and her new study partner since sundown. And Todd, as that little smile seemed to confirm, was just beginning to realize that there was definitely a whole lot more to the petite blonde with the dusky hazel eyes and the short attention span than one might assume at first glance.
“Why typical?” Todd asked.
“Men in general,” Buffy replied curtly.
“I see,” Todd said thoughtfully.
That’s right, big guy, she’s been hurt. Recently. And it’s going to take more than that crooked smile and a big brain to make her forget it. In fact … she’s never going to forget it, if I have anything to say about it.
“So men aren’t your favorite subject these days?” Todd asked just innocently enough.
To her credit, Buffy caught the faint whiff of flirtation immediately.
That’s my girl.
But then she turned to Todd, and instead of taking the perfect opportunity he had given her to wax rhapsodic about men and their inconstancy, she softened a bit and said, “Not all men, I guess.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Todd replied with a bigger smile. “I mean, I can’t speak for all men, but for me … I guess … well, I haven’t had a lot of time for …”
“What?” Buffy asked, seeming genuinely interested.
Angelus didn’t like where this was starting to go one bit.
“It’s just, I work pretty hard. Always have. You know … I’m trying to put myself through college, but money’s pretty tight, so I’ve got a couple of part-time jobs.”
“You mean you’re not spending your evenings tutoring the less intellectually inclined just out of the goodness of your heart?” Buffy teased.
“No, I mean, I like tutoring … ,” Todd began.
“It’s okay,” Buffy chuckled. “I can relate.”
“You work part-time too?” Todd asked.
“Not exactly,” Buffy replied a little evasively. “I guess the ‘never having enough time’ part just sounds familiar.”
“Oh.” Todd nodded. “You’re probably pretty busy at school,” he suggested. “And I bet you’re really popular.”
Buffy laughed dismissively. “Then you’d lose.”
“Now you’re teasing me.”
“Nope. I mean, I have friends, good friends, but being popular takes the kind of effort I don’t usually have to spare,” Buffy said.
“So what do you like to do that takes up so much time?” Todd asked with serious interest.
Angelus watched as Buffy considered her response. Anyone who didn’t know her as well as he did would not have questioned the sweet mask of innocence that she’d worn through their entire exchange. On the surface, everything about Buffy definitely suggested what Todd was seeing. She was beautiful, funny, and terribly charming. She had “cheerleader” and “homecoming queen” written all over her. And before she’d been called to slay vampires, that, and the mall, had been the sum total of her existence. But now that beguiling sweetness was tempered by a wealth of experiences, both dark and powerful, at which Todd could never guess. And the reality was, for a man to truly know Buffy, he had to get past the candy shell and dig for the gooey center. That was where the truly good stuff was, and that was the part of her that Angelus was determined to destroy before he allowed himself the exquisite pleasure of killing her.
“You know, it’s getting pretty late,” Buffy said, clearly ready to change the subject, “and we still haven’t talked about my English essay.”
That was more like it. She obviously liked Todd. But she was nowhere near letting him get close to that inner sanctum she guarded so carefully. Trust was a huge issue with Buffy, and Angelus sensed that, despite the fact that Buffy seemed flattered by Todd’s attentions, it was going to take more than a little flirting to break down the walls she had built around her heart.
Good girl, Angelus thought as he dropped silently from the roof onto Buffy’s front yard and caught the faint scent of infant from a few houses down. He toyed with the idea of getting himself an invitation into that house, but sweet as newborn blood was, there wasn’t usually enough there to do more than whet his appetite.
Maybe he should wait for Todd. Buffy had miles to go before she slept that night, and it sounded like their session was about to come to an end. The tutor would undoubtedly be heading out the front door in minutes. But then, how much more delicious would it be to wait for Buffy to actually develop a serious liking for Todd before Angelus sucked the life out of him? Today, Todd was a harmless flirtation. Given enough time, he could become someone Buffy would be truly sad to see die.
In his hundred-plus years of existence as a demon, Angelus had definitely learned patience. And when it came to Buffy, there was nothing worth having that wasn’t worth waiting for.
Todd could wait.
For now.
CHAPTER FOUR
Buffy didn’t want to think about Todd’s dimples. She didn’t want to think about how smart he was, or how normal he was, or what a nice change of pace it would be to spend time with a boy who didn’t even know vampires were real, let alone how plentiful they were in this neck of the woods. She also didn’t want to think about how much better she seemed to feel when Todd was around. Buffy’s self-esteem had been one of Angel’s many casualties of late, and it did her more good than she realized to feel another boy’s attraction, especially such a cute boy’s.
Mostly she didn’t want to think about a civil war that had erupted in England almost a thousand years ago.
Her head was so full of all the things she didn’t want to think about that as she sat poised over her world history textbook, highlighter in hand, she found all of those things coalescing into a vaguely blurry ball that buzzed and hummed until she was faintly aware that he
r eyes no longer wanted to stay open.
Patrol.
When that word came darting through the haze, Buffy found herself fully awake.
She also found that she was really, really cold.
Her room was exactly what it should be. The desk lamp glowed brightly, and the sky outside her open window, hence the cold, was still pretty dark.
What was I supposed to be doing? she found herself wondering.
Her textbook lay open before her, but a quick glance at the clock by her bed told her that almost the full night had somehow elapsed since she had asked Todd to leave so she could finish her assignments on her own. Of course this had been a flimsy excuse to get him out the door so she could do a little patrolling before going to bed.
Crap.
Now fully awake, and still too cold, Buffy rose and started to shut her bedroom window before accepting the fact that she would never hear the end of it from Giles for two nights in a row of zero slaying and that the window was as good a way as any to leave the house in the wee hours of the morning.
Grabbing her heavy leather jacket and a few spare stakes from the trunk in her closet, Buffy did a quick hallway check to confirm that Joyce was snoring softly in the next bedroom before she shimmied out her window and landed with a soft thud on her front lawn.
She honestly didn’t know what was wrong with her. Though her sense of time was not as finely honed as your average vampire’s, Buffy had often found that her internal clock was subconsciously sensitive to the passage of time. Many a night, walking these same streets with Angel, she had found herself growing anxious as part of her felt the approach of dawn, knowing this would require them to separate.
Stop thinking about Angel and concentrate, Buffy demanded of herself.
Despite the fact that her body had apparently forced a full night of sleep upon her, and the reality that she had lost valuable study and slaying time in the process, Buffy still had at least an hour before dawn and remained cautiously optimistic that something that shouldn’t be was still probably lurking the streets of Sunnydale.
She decided to cut through the playground of a nearby park en route to the cemetery nearest the high school when she pulled herself up short before jumping a chain-link fence. In the faint moonlight she could barely make out the form of a young girl, and she could hear the metallic whine of one of the playground’s swings.
This couldn’t be more wrong, Buffy thought immediately as a tiny bit of adrenaline pushed her into a hyper-conscious state. There was no rational explanation she could conceive of that would include a little girl on a swing set just before dawn. A memory forced itself into her consciousness: Giles … yesterday … and something about a little girl who was missing. Buffy didn’t like to let herself hope, but she quickened her steps as she approached the girl, and was gratified to see that as she did, the girl looked up and met Buffy’s gaze shyly.
Immediately conscious that she should try to keep the little girl at ease, Buffy stopped a few paces short of the swing and knelt so as to address the girl at roughly eye level. “Hi, there,” she said gently.
“Hi,” the girl replied.
“My name’s Buffy,” the Slayer said. “What’s yours?”
“Callie,” the girl said with a faint smile as she pushed herself off from the ground a bit to start the swing going again.
Buffy cursed herself for not having paid more attention to Giles but thought that the name did sound vaguely familiar. Hopeful that she was on the right track, Buffy rose and took the swing next to Callie’s before she continued.
“It’s kind of late … or kind of early, to be playing, isn’t it?” Buffy asked. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
The girl shrugged and continued to swing.
“You know, the swings were always my favorite too. But I hate to think that someone might be out there missing you right now. Why don’t you let me walk you home?” Buffy suggested.
“I’m hungry,” was Callie’s defiant response.
“Okay,” Buffy said, rising and extending her hand to Callie. “Come to think of it, I’m pretty hungry too. Maybe we could find a little something on the way back to your house.”
“Do you like to eat people?” Callie asked sweetly. “Because I don’t.”
The transformation was instantaneous. One moment, blond ringlets had framed chubby cheeks and a perky little heart-shaped mouth, and the next, the girl’s forehead protruded and the blue of her eyes was lost to a feral yellowish glow as the child-vampire’s fangs extended themselves from her gruesome mouth.
Buffy was poised for action, a stake in her hand, before her mind even registered what was happening. She put a couple of feet between them and waited for a lunge, but Callie remained seated on the swing looking up at Buffy, almost sadly.
Buffy knew what she had to do. This was the easy part of the job. Find demon. Kill demon. Unless the demon had a soul, or had once been her boyfriend, it was rarely more complicated than that.
But she couldn’t. This was a child.
No, it isn’t, another voice within her reasoned.
Time and again she and Giles had discussed the reality that, once a human was turned into a vampire, the human was gone. The vampire that remained might remember the details and relationships of the previous life, but the body was all demon. There was nothing to be saved, no hope for the victim. This child had already been killed by a vampire. The fact that something newborn and evil now wore her face meant nothing. Callie was already dead.
Callie seemed to sense Buffy’s reluctance. For the first time since they’d met, she smiled broadly.
“What’s wrong, Buffy?” Callie asked.
“Nothing,” Buffy replied less forcefully than she would have liked.
“Then come and get me,” Callie shouted, and sprang up.
Buffy instinctively jumped back to avoid the attack. She actually hit the ground butt first before she realized that Callie was now running off in the opposite direction.
She considered giving chase. Vampires were faster than humans, but so was Buffy. Even now she might still catch her. But something kept her rooted to the ground.
Buffy had never before faced a vampire who was a child. Now there was something else in the world she didn’t know if she had the strength to kill.
She needed to talk to Giles.
Though she didn’t think Giles would be awake for another few hours, she knew he’d forgive the wake-up call, under the circumstances. Retracing her steps back toward her home, Buffy was running so quickly, she narrowly avoided smashing full-force into a pedestrian she encountered just a few blocks from Ravello Drive.
Though it seemed a bit early for a jog, Buffy had almost put it from her mind as she offered a quick apology, until she realized that the “jogger” wasn’t so much jogging away from her as lumbering casually along as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Then it hit her.
“Principal Snyder?” Buffy said in disbelief.
The balding pate and unfortunately large ears were unmistakable, as was the civil servant’s budget suit. For reasons that defied understanding, Buffy’s principal was roaming the streets of Sunnydale before dawn like a sleepwalker.
Uh-oh.
Maybe Callie wasn’t the only new vampire in town. But though she wouldn’t have hesitated to strike down a vampire Snyder—in fact, she would have taken great pleasure in it—she knew in her gut that Snyder was still very much alive.
And limping?
Snyder walked on, favoring his left foot, oblivious of Buffy. Homing in on the principal’s feet, she realized with alarm that he was barefoot, and leaving a distinct trail behind him.
Buffy couldn’t smell blood, but she certainly knew it when she saw it. Kneeling at the closest part of the trail, Buffy satisfied herself that Principal Snyder’s left foot was bleeding—rather copiously, from the looks of things.
It was too much. Something was seriously wrong with this picture, but between Callie and the re
ality of a new school day dawning on the horizon, Buffy decided that rather than confront the principal here and now, she needed a shower, a change of clothes, and a telephone … probably not in that order.
Well done, Rupert, Giles thought as he rose from the insufferable wooden chair before his small office desk in the school library, cursing the stiffness in his back and wondering how he had managed to fall asleep there rather than in his perfectly comfortable bed at home. Truth be told, he couldn’t remember.
It wasn’t that sleeping in the library was such a rare occurrence. During many of Buffy’s more complicated trials of the last few years he had burned more than his fair share of the midnight oil in this very spot. He even kept a few clean dress shirts and a toothbrush at the library for such occasions. But as there was nothing particularly apocalyptic on his schedule for the week, he found it odd that he’d lost track of time over a well-worn edition of Tomberlin’s Demons of Eighteenth-Century Europe and had dropped off for more than eight hours while seated at his desk.
An urgent call from Buffy had awakened him here, just short of six a.m. As he debated between boiling a kettle or firing up the coffeemaker in the faculty lounge, he realized that from the tone of Buffy’s voice he had only minutes before she would come bursting into the library, so he opted to settle for a quick round of morning ablutions in the nearest restroom, followed by a fresh shirt.
By the time he’d returned to the library, Buffy was already waiting for him, seriously studying a number of large reference books he’d left on the main table.
“Good morning, Buffy,” he greeted her.
“There you are,” she shot back. How she could be peeved this early in the morning escaped him, but he had no doubt she would illuminate her problem as best she could with little prodding on his part.
“The little girl, the one you mentioned yesterday,” Buffy began.
“Callie McKay?” Giles offered.
“I thought so,” Buffy said, shaking her head.
“What happened?” Giles asked. “Did you find her?”
“I think so. Do you still have the paper?”