by Nancy Holder
“Spike,” Buffy said grimly.
“I think it’s also worth noting that both boys were classmates of Callie McKay’s,” Giles added somberly. “I take it you didn’t come across either Spike or Callie while you were patrolling last night?”
“No,” Buffy replied. “I had my hands full keeping Angel in check.”
“I’ve got it!” Willow announced from the other side of the table. “A Siberian Sleeping Sloth.”
“Only able to survive in the remotest regions of northern Russia,” Giles answered briskly.
“I’m sorry, Giles,” Buffy said sadly. “I’ll find her tonight. I promise.”
“If Spike has taken her under his wing, there’s no telling—”
“I know,” Buffy interrupted, “though he doesn’t strike me as the father-knows-best type.”
“I agree,” Giles replied. “In your encounter with Angelus, did you confront him about Callie?”
“No,” Buffy confessed. “He’s been spying on me, and my new tutor. I think Todd made Angel’s most-wanted list last night. I honestly forgot all about Callie.”
Giles shook his head in obvious disapproval.
“Really, really sorry,” Buffy added. “I promise I’ll find them tonight. Maybe I could get a jump on it this afternoon.”
“Good.” Giles nodded.
“What about a Somnambulatory Shudder-moth?” Willow piped up. “Or a Helvorkian Sleep Shaker?”
“The first is mythological, and the second has been extinct for five hundred years,” Giles replied.
“In the meantime …?” Buffy asked.
“I’ll help Willow,” Giles agreed.
The most difficult part of Buffy’s assignment for the afternoon was zeroing in on a place to start looking. Since the factory where Spike, Drusilla, and Angelus stayed had been destroyed in a fire, she had no idea where she might find the unholy trio and their new Cabbage Patch Killer. She was loading up her backpack at her locker and contemplating playing “Kick the Crap out of the Demon” with Willy the Snitch for a lead when she caught sight of the principal leaving his office for the day. He passed her in the hall with a faraway smile on his face and not even a glance of insult in her direction. Buffy noted that he was no longer wearing the white wingtips with the blue suit. Instead, the principal was actually wearing a pair of faded red sneakers. Buffy did a little quick math in her head, trying to account for the array of natural disasters that would have to have occurred for Principal Snyder to be caught dead wearing those shoes in public, never mind leaving campus before the school day was over.
A whole lot of nothing came to mind, and as there was plenty of time until sundown, Buffy decided that she could easily keep her promise to Giles and still satisfy her raging curiosity about Snyder. The man had changed more than his footwear in the last few days, and Buffy wanted to know why.
Maybe Willow’s wrong and this is his fault, she thought with an inward smile.
Buffy followed Snyder off campus and into the streets of Sunnydale at a safe distance and within twenty minutes was, once again, on the road to Arborville.
Snyder managed to avoid any close calls reminiscent of the night before as he trundled along, and a few times Buffy got close enough that she could have sworn she heard him humming softly under his breath while he walked. The sun was starting to fall toward the horizon, and Buffy was beginning to worry that she might have to let the principal go and start searching for Callie, when he turned down a street lined with houses buried deep within the old suburban district.
Come on, come on, Buffy pleaded silently. This was as off the beaten path as it was possible to get. She scanned the street as she walked. Many of the houses lining the street looked deserted, and those that weren’t were still several gallons of paint shy of presentable. Apart from the loud barking of a really cranky-sounding dog and the rattling of a chain-link fence, she didn’t sense any potential dangers unless you counted the serious lack of curb appeal.
Finally, Snyder reached a house at the end of the street and turned up the front walk.
Hallelujah, Buffy rejoiced inwardly. Only when she turned up the path herself did it dawn on her that she might have spent the last hour and a half accomplishing nothing but determining Snyder’s home address. As she contemplated the overgrown front yard, the peeling paint, and the rotting boards overhanging the front porch, she was surprised to find herself thinking, If this is all he has to come home to each night, no wonder he’s such a miserable excuse for a human being.
Snyder had reached the front door. Buffy ducked behind a dead jacaranda tree and waited for him to let himself in.
He did.
Just not the old-fashioned way.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Snyder didn’t bother with the doorbell or knocker. In fact, he didn’t bother with the doorknob. Instead, he stepped into what should have been a solid wood door and was quickly enveloped in a burst of blinding white light.
When Buffy’s vision had cleared, the porch was empty.
I knew it! Buffy thought, thrilled to finally have some proof that her instincts about the principal had been right. She couldn’t wait to tell Giles and Willow she told them so.
But at that point it dawned on her that now that she’d learned part of the truth, she was duty bound to figure out the rest. With a sigh, she hurried up to the porch and, pausing only for a second, walked into the front door. “Ow!” Buffy said aloud.
All she received for her trouble was a solid thwack on the head.
Stepping back, Buffy reached for the door. Running her hand over the worn surface, she decided it felt real enough.
But she knew what she’d seen. This was definitely not just a door. Normal doors didn’t go all Lite-Brite when one person entered and then turn solid again. She considered knocking, or simply breaking it down, then thought better of it. With all that Snyder had against her, she didn’t need to add stalking to the list, and stealth could be fun in small doses.
Searching the rest of the porch, she saw two windows on either side of the door. Both had been boarded up for years, if the cracked paint and rusty nails were any indication.
Buffy quickly pried one of the heavy planks from the window nearest the door and peered into the darkness. All she could make out was a faded, dusty, cobweb-covered sofa placed before a low table, also shrouded in webs. There was no sign that any human being, or Snyder, had inhabited the house in years.
A few more boards and a broken window later, Buffy climbed into the living room and allowed her eyes to adjust.
It was worse than staking out a cemetery. At least there you had the outdoors, the moonlight, and some really spectacular engraving work to look at. To see the faded, moth-eaten tablecloth and dusty plastic fruit arrangement centered perfectly on the dining table opposite the living room gave Buffy a whole new kind of creeps. Someone had lived here. Someone had made this a home. Someone had cross-stitched a “Home Sweet Home” pillow for the center of the sofa, and that someone had obviously died, leaving no one to care for their earthly possessions. It was sad.
It was also empty.
Buffy cautiously made her way through each room of the main floor, disturbing nothing bigger than a family of mice that had taken up residence in the kitchen cabinets. She was faintly surprised to find that, once inside, she could open the front door with a sturdy pull and step easily out onto the porch and back into the house without fanfare.
The second story was much like the first, a few bedrooms and a small bathroom with a tub guarded by a dusty plastic duck. Only one of the rooms gave Buffy pause. It was a boy’s bedroom, if the blue sailboat wallpaper and matching bedspread were any indication. The closet and dresser still held clothing sized for a child of ten or twelve, but apart from a well-worn stuffed snake, none of the toys or games you would expect to find, nothing personal to the boy who had lived here, remained. Atop the dresser, however, was a small square patch directly in the center. The patch was unusual because it was the only surfa
ce in the entire house Buffy had seen that wasn’t covered in at least an inch of dust.
Something was here, Buffy decided. Something that was removed pretty recently.
With her thumbs and forefingers, Buffy was able to measure and commit to memory the rough size of the dustless square, and with only that much information, she left the house to its solitude and slow decay. She considered waiting to see if Snyder would leave the house the same way he’d entered, but it was almost nightfall and the logic of the last few mornings suggested that the next time he would be roaming the streets would be just before dawn.
Buffy knew she needed to set out in search of Callie, but now armed with proof that Snyder was perhaps trafficking with the demon world, which might be grounds for his termination—either from his job at the high school or more permanently—Buffy decided to check in on Willow first, to see if she’d made any progress with her research.
“Good evening, Mrs. Rosenberg,” Buffy said politely when Willow’s auburn-haired mother opened her front door twenty minutes later. Buffy had considered first searching for her friend at the school library, but reminded herself that Willow was still under a strict curfew and had probably returned home shortly after she’d set off after Snyder, undoubtedly with piles of take-home reading in her backpack.
“Oh, hello, Bunny,” Mrs. Rosenberg replied absentmindedly. Though it was hardly bedtime, Willow’s mom was already wearing a fluffy cotton bathrobe, and her demeanor was that of someone who had been awakened from a sound sleep in the middle of the night.
“I just stopped by to pick up some history notes from Willow,” Buffy said.
“All right”—Mrs. Rosenberg nodded—“but keep it brief.” She stepped back to allow Buffy to enter.
“Brief is my middle name,” Buffy said, and smiled as she headed upstairs, certain that from now on, Willow’s mom would probably refer to her as Bunny Brief Summers. Mrs. Rosenberg, like Joyce, had a superhuman ability to rationalize and ignore the myriad strange things that had surrounded her daughter once she had become friends with Buffy. What never ceased to amaze Buffy and Willow were the odd and random facts that managed to stick, as well as those their mothers chose to care about. If, for example, Mrs. Rosenberg were ever to find out that Willow was now dating Oz, Buffy was pretty sure that the problem wouldn’t be that he was both older than Willow and a werewolf; the difficulty Mrs. Rosenberg would have to overcome was the fact that he was in a band.
She found Willow in her room, seated on her full-size bed, surrounded by dozens of well-worn books. One of them was open in her lap, and though her head was bent forward as if she were reading it, Willow’s soft, regular breathing told Buffy that her friend had dozed off. Looking past this adorable scene, Buffy felt a quick pull in her stomach as she noted that Willow’s aquarium was still empty. A few weeks earlier Angel had sent the Slayer a warning in the form of killing Willow’s fish. The only upside was that they were relatively new fish for Willow, and she hadn’t even had a chance to name them before they had met their untimely end.
Knowing how exhausted Willow must be, Buffy almost hesitated to wake her. Unfortunately, she had no choice.
“Will?” Buffy said softly, gently nudging her friend.
In response, Willow’s head snapped up with a snort.
“Oh, Buffy … what am I … I have to get home … ,” she stammered.
“You are home, Willow,” Buffy replied gently. “And I need your help.”
Willow blinked her eyes rapidly and rolled her neck back until it clicked. She then put the kibosh on a huge yawn and, rubbing her eyes, said, “Did you find Callie?”
“Not yet,” Buffy said, shaking her head. “I caught Snyder leaving campus early and decided to follow him.”
Even tired Willow was intrigued. “You mean the principal was playing hooky?”
Buffy gave her the broad strokes of her trip to Arborville, and by the time she was done, Willow had already relocated to her computer and was pulling up any information she could find about the house in question.
Struggling between yawns, Willow did a quick search of the county tax files and a number of other databases that Buffy was certain weren’t accessible to the public at large but thankfully were no match for Willow’s hacking skills.
“Well … the house is in Snyder’s name,” she finally said.
“What does that mean?” Buffy asked. “It can’t be his house. You know what a neat freak he is. The smell alone would give him hives.”
“It’s not his primary residence, at least according to the tax records,” Willow continued. “He lives in a condo near the bluff. But he inherited this house fifteen years ago when his mother died. There are no records indicating that it was ever listed for sale after that.”
“It’s definitely a fixer-upper,” Buffy said.
“I’m pretty sure it was the house he grew up in, though,” Willow added. “It was originally purchased in the fifties by Thomas Snyder, but he died not long after that, when Snyder was seven or eight, and it went to Snyder’s mom, Paulina.”
“So when do you think they installed the trick door?” Buffy asked.
Willow turned to her friend with a wince. “I don’t think there’s a permit you can pull for that kind of thing. Oh, wait …” Willow rose quickly and tossed a few of her reference books aside until she found what she was seeking.
“Don’t tell me Giles has a book about demon home contractors,” Buffy said.
“No … gateways,” Willow replied, flipping pages. “They’re barriers between our dimension and other dimensions.”
“And I’m guessing that some of those gateways have demons behind them,” Buffy said.
“Gateways are extremely rare,” Willow continued. “Usually they’re not static, and most often you have to be a demon to use them.”
“Haven’t I been saying for over a year that Snyder has to be a demon?” Buffy interrupted. “Between the attitude and the fashion sense … he’s not fooling anyone. The man is evil.”
“I know”—Willow nodded—“but before you slay him, we need to make sure that he’s not being drawn to another dimension against his will.”
“That would be less fun for me,” Buffy acknowledged.
“Yes, but it’s also possible,” Willow said pointedly.
“So how do I use one of these gateways?” Buffy asked. “The thing wouldn’t light up for me no matter what I did, and I have a bump on my head to prove it.”
Willow did a little quick reading and finally arrived at a verdict. “Oh, gross,” she said.
“What?” Buffy demanded.
Willow showed Buffy the text in question and read aloud: “‘To gain access, a human must be either expected or invited. In the absence of an invitation, the blood of one who is invited may suffice to pass the barrier.’”
For the first time since they had started to piece the puzzle together, Buffy smiled.
“So I need to get some of Snyder’s blood? And it’s for a good cause?”
“Yes,” Willow said, “but, Buffy …”
“I know.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “I don’t get to kill him unless I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s not just annoying but that he’s really taken out a time-share with Satan. Still … this could be fun.”
Willow closed the book and tossed it back on her bed. “Are you going back there now, or are you going to look for Callie?” she asked.
“I don’t imagine I’ll have any luck tracking Snyder down until morning, so I’m Buffy the Vampire Hunter for now,” she replied, then considered her friend’s slumped shoulders and paler-than-normal complexion. “Why don’t you get some sleep … or as much sleep as you can,” she offered. “Have you had any luck with your theory on Sunnydale’s sleeping sickness yet?”
Willow shook her head. “No. But I have to keep looking. This can’t go on. Are you as tired as I am?”
Buffy thought about it for a minute. She had to admit that she was exhausted. But she’d been to the
land of no sleep many times before and so far she didn’t seem much worse for wear. I guess that’s just the luck of the Slayer, she mused, though if she’d had her pick at the superpower store, this gift would have come well behind a number that she didn’t possess, including the ability to force her mother to give her a car, or at least allow her to get a driver’s license. Still, not wanting to rub it in, she replied, “Yeah. I could sleep for a month. But I’m not going to until we sort this out.”
Willow nodded. “I think I’ll make myself some coffee,” she decided.
“Seriously, Will,” Buffy started to protest.
“No. My mind is made up. See my tired but determined face? Anyway, if I’m right, closing my eyes won’t do any good.”
“Okay.” Buffy nodded. “Thanks for this, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Willow added. “Or maybe dark-circle-eyed and straggly-tailed.”
“Either way.” Buffy smiled and gave her friend a quick hug before heading back downstairs.
On her way out, Buffy passed Mrs. Rosenberg asleep in front of the evening news.
I hope Willow’s wrong about this, she thought as she let herself out the front door. Thing was, Willow was usually right, and if she was, the demon who was denying all of Sunnydale their sleepytime was going to move right to the top of Buffy’s crap list. She honestly couldn’t help thinking that the dice would come up Snyder.
Giles was accustomed to working all hours of the day and night. Obviously, so were the pair of detectives who summoned him to a quaint suburban home several miles west of the school after ten o’clock in the evening. Unfortunately, they needed no introduction. The first was a middle-aged man named Stein, who shook Giles’s hand limply and offered a weak “Thanks for coming on such short notice.” Giles vaguely remembered meeting Stein at the school a few months earlier, when the police had been investigating Buffy’s assault on a man named Ted Buchanan. Though Buffy was never charged in the case, and Ted had turned out to be a homicidal robot, Giles still remembered darkly those few days when Buffy was devastated by the thought that she had harmed a human being.