Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3

by Nancy Holder

  As she turned off the main street and passed another car, still running with the driver collapsed over the armrest into the passenger’s seat, she realized that she was going to have to end this thing well before nightfall, or as soon after as possible. If, as she suspected from her fight the night before, Sunnydale’s undead population was also affected by the spell, the townspeople were safe for the time being. But if last night had just been a case of two vampires too stupid to live, then come sundown, the town might as well hang a sign saying “Smorgasbord” at the city’s entrance. All of these defenseless people would be a vampire’s Suck-a-palooza, and Buffy shuddered at the thought.

  Nearing her home, she noticed that the suburban streets shooting off from the town’s main thoroughfares were a little more clogged with early-morning traffic. Of course, the traffic wasn’t moving. A few people had left their cars and collapsed on the sidewalks. In the distance Buffy clearly heard a man screaming at the top of his lungs. She started to run toward the source of the shouting, but the minute the man caught sight of Buffy, he started to run in the other direction, still screaming something about “killer kumquats.” Buffy decided he was, like the others, probably hallucinating and only moments away from dropping.

  Hurrying up her front walk, Buffy noted that her mother’s SUV was still in the driveway. Rushing inside, she called out, “Mom!” but received no answer. She finally found Joyce curled up on the bathroom floor, still holding her toothbrush and with a few dribbles of toothpaste caked on her mouth. Though she knew it was probably useless, she tried to wake her mother. Her pulse once again doing the mambo, she lifted Joyce carefully and took her back into her bedroom, arranged her on the bed as comfortably as possible, and wiped her hands and face with a wet washcloth. Her mother looked peaceful enough as she slept, but Buffy couldn’t shake the overwhelming desire to try to force her mother to wake up.

  Strange to be the handsome prince who gets to slay the dragon and wake the princess with a kiss in this scenario, she thought. Just once, I wouldn’t mind being the rescued.

  With a deep sigh, Buffy hurried to her room, grabbed the last few things she needed, and set out for the Snyder house.

  All she could do until he arrived was wait.

  Buffy hated waiting.

  “For God’s sake, either kiss her or kill her,” Spike said aloud to the television screen, frustrated that, once again, the producers of Sunset Beach seemed determined to draw out the “will they or won’t they?” question for Annie and Gregory until he was well past caring. He knew the chaps who wrote this twaddle were just doing their job, but seriously, if these two didn’t start shagging soon so that Olivia could come in and find them and—wishful thinking—cut them both into tiny pieces for their betrayal, he was going to have to find a new daytime drama.

  There was little else to do when the sun was up. Spike didn’t think of himself as high maintenance. He didn’t need much sleep, and though he was definitely much wearier than usual this morning, he rarely turned in for a little rest until his programs were over. Give him Drusilla, a few hours of telly, and a little fresh blood each day and he was a happy man.

  Though he had to admit that little Callie was also quickly becoming something that he wasn’t sure he wanted to live without. He cast a quick glance in her direction and satisfied himself that she was still humming softly to herself on the sofa as she whittled the hours away.

  Thankfully, feeding time was no longer an issue. Once Callie’d had her first taste of human blood, she’d been a new girl. He would forever treasure the look on that snotty little Michael’s face when Callie had jumped him from behind and sunk her little fangs into his neck. That had been passion. She’d sucked him well past dry and, turning to Spike, her face aglow and Michael’s fresh blood still dripping from her lips, had screamed, “More, Daddy!”

  Adam had come next. Only the sounds of approaching sirens had stopped Spike from turning her loose on the entire team and their coaching staff. What the hell was T-ball supposed to be, anyway? There simply wasn’t a sport that Americans couldn’t find a way to muck up.

  He and his little pet would be hunting again tonight. After I’ve caught a quick nap, Spike decided. Callie had set her sights on a young girl named Amanda who had once teased her for weeks at a time for having the audacity to wear little pink bows at the ends of her braids, and this was a sin for which Amanda must pay dearly.

  He was grateful that Callie had yet to ask him any questions about the birds and vampire bees. It didn’t seem to have occurred to her yet to wonder where vampires came from, or to want to sire any herself. Frankly, he preferred it this way. He didn’t really want to share Callie right now with anyone but Drusilla, who had expressed more than once her delight in the changes Spike was bringing about in their child. Callie had even taken to spending the occasional few minutes with her mummy, playing nicely with her dolls. They were becoming something resembling a happy family, just the three of them, and thankfully, Angelus seemed too preoccupied with Buffy and someone called Todd to bother them much.

  In fact, if all went as well as Spike hoped this evening, it was altogether possible that none of them would be troubled by Angelus at all in the near future.

  It hadn’t totally been Spike’s doing. Though Callie didn’t seem concerned with understanding the birth of a new vampire, they had discussed at some length those things, including a pair of Slayers named Buffy and Kendra, that could hurt or kill a vampire. Until Spike was certain that Callie was either strong enough to hold her own in a fight or cunning enough to know when to run, he was going to make sure that she and the Slayer from hell never crossed paths. But once Callie had learned that vampires were killable, she had begun to ask many leading questions about their housemate, Angelus.

  Callie didn’t like Angelus. The “time-out” had been a huge mistake, and Callie had apparently decided then and there that the world wouldn’t miss Angelus much. So, with Spike’s permission, she wondered if she might not be allowed to kill him.

  Normally, Spike would have resisted. He knew full well that demons often killed other demons, but once a bond had been forged between them like the one that bound Spike to Drusilla and Dru to Angelus, killing out of spite was simply not done. Unless I am absolutely certain I can get away with it.

  Spike wasn’t going to be starting an “I Love Angelus” fan club any time soon either. Though he wasn’t planning to deal the death blow himself—there’d be ten kinds of hell to pay with Dru—he didn’t see the harm in staying out of Callie’s way.

  “What do you think, Spikey?” Callie asked sweetly, holding up the little stake she’d been carving for hours.

  Spike tested the pointy end himself and managed to prick his finger with it. “Very nice work, pet,” he replied with a smile.

  “Can I do it now? Please, please, please?” she asked.

  Spike hadn’t seen Dru or Angelus since last sundown. For all he knew, they were hiding out in the sewers after a long night of hunting.

  I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look, though, he decided.

  “Climb on up, then.” Spike nodded, and Callie crawled onto his lap.

  As they rolled down the main hall toward Angelus’s suite of rooms, Callie hummed contentedly to herself.

  “What’s that you’re singing, love?” Spike asked softly.

  “One of these things is not like the others,” Callie sang softly in his ear. “One of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell me which one is not like the others, before I have time to finish …”

  “That would be Angelus,” Spike whispered back, wondering again why he was so bloody tired this morning.

  Callie rewarded him with a bright smile. “Daddy Spike always knows,” she said happily.

  That he does, love. That he does.

  Any vague doubts he might have been nursing were silenced when they finally found Angelus. He wasn’t in his room, or the dining hall, or anywhere else in the living areas. Spike had almost despaired of their chanc
es, when a bleak thought had stuck in his gut, a thought too troubling to dismiss.

  He wouldn’t, Spike told himself.

  But then, this was Angelus. That phrase almost never applied to him.

  They’d found Angelus, just as Spike had feared, in Drusilla’s bed. Had he been alone, Spike might have killed him then and there just for being so cheeky.

  But he wasn’t.

  Angelus lay on his side, curled up beside Spike’s beloved Dru, both of them sleeping deeply. And the worst part: Dru was smiling in her sleep.

  Spike swallowed his rage.

  “Go ahead, then, little bit,” he whispered to Callie. Part of him wanted this moment for himself. He’d been looking forward to a good knock-down, drag-out with the bastard since Angelus first joined them, once again soul-free just after Drusilla had reassembled the Judge. But this had been Callie’s plan, and part of him wanted to see her succeed. It was a gift he was giving her, a new side of the powers that lived within her that she would only now begin to explore in all their glory. Once Angelus was out of the way, he, Dru, and Callie would kick the dust of Sunnydale from their feet and go elsewhere—Europe, South America, anywhere but here.

  And then, what games we’ll play, he thought with a smile.

  Callie gave Spike a quick pat on his head.

  “Stay here, Daddy,” she said. Then she crawled off his lap and, with slow, delicate motions, began to make her way in between Angelus and Dru.

  Spike saw her clear the space and noted with relief that neither Angelus nor Dru even stirred. Callie turned back to smile at Spike, then raised her pale little hand, holding the business end of her stake pointed directly at Angelus’s heart.

  That was the last thing Spike saw as the blackness took him.

  • • •

  Buffy felt like she’d been waiting forever. In fact, it had only been a few hours. As the afternoon sun had started to wind its way down in the sky, she’d found slivers of shade beneath the branches of the jacaranda tree near the edge of the front porch. She was grateful she’d thought to bring a few diet sodas with her for her little stakeout. Though she was far from dropping in her tracks, she was certainly feeling the burn of the past several sleepless nights, and sitting around waiting was almost as much fun as watching Giles reorganize his ancient reference book collection.

  As the sun dipped toward the horizon, casting longer shadows down the row of dilapidated houses, Buffy started to worry that perhaps Snyder, like the others, had succumbed to “the sleep of living death” and might not show up. She’d toyed with the idea of using the bandages in her pocket to try to enter the gateway on her own, but even if she found the demon and killed it, she didn’t relish the idea of searching an entire other dimension for the object that would close the gateway and break the spell. For all she knew, the demon had parents, or babies, or groupies, and once she crossed over, she could be lost there for days, years, or even the rest of her life if something went really wrong. At least she knew that Snyder could find his way out, and though some of the potential scenarios she had imagined that afternoon included his untimely death at the hands of the demon, of course, she both hoped and feared that once the big nasty had been disposed of, Snyder would be able to lead her back to the gateway.

  If the sun set completely, she would have no choice. With or without the principal, she was going in. She rose to stretch and started to pace the length of the front yard, changing her mind with every minute that passed about just how long she would wait for Snyder to show.

  Finally, a few minutes after six, by her watch, a loping shadow approached. With the sun behind him the figure was shrouded in darkness, but the outline, from the balding head and unmistakable ears, as well as the definite limp, told her that, finally, her quarry had arrived.

  As expected, Snyder took no notice of Buffy. He walked in a daze, a faint smile playing across his lips. Tonight, along with his uniform suit, he was wearing a pair of open-toed sandals. Buffy took a moment to imagine Snyder in the shorts and probably Hawaiian-print shirt he might have bought these sandals for, and couldn’t help shaking her head. She doubted the man knew the meaning of relaxation, let alone how one might go about getting some. She also noted that the toes of his left foot were covered in blood-soaked bandages. He was leaving a fresh trail behind him with every step.

  Without a glance in Buffy’s direction, Snyder walked straight up the front path and disappeared in a flash of light through the front door. She followed his steps to the porch and, for good measure, removed the fouled bandages from her pocket and dabbed them in the blood Snyder had left as he passed the spot. Taking a deep breath and clasping her weapons bag firmly in her right hand, she walked again toward the front door and, instead of meeting any resistance, suddenly found herself surrounded by a burning white light.

  The next sight that met her eyes wasn’t at all what she had expected.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Buffy thought she’d had time to prepare herself. She’d imagined the dimension where Snyder would be tortured nightly, and frankly, she was hoping for something grim. The best mental picture she’d been able to concoct had been something akin to the basement beneath the University of California–Sunnydale fraternity house where she and Cordelia had bonded several months earlier while chained to the stone walls in preparation for being fed to a giant snake named Mikida. Add a little fire and brimstone, or maybe a river of blood, and the picture would be complete.

  She hadn’t been prepared to cross into her very first demon dimension and find herself in the entryway to a house that looked like it was sold to the Snyders by June and Ward Cleaver.

  It was, in fact, the exact house she had searched the evening before, minus the dust and cobwebs and the stench that reminded her of her grandmother’s closet. To her left was the living room. The sofa looked like it had been shrink-wrapped, but upon closer examination, Buffy realized that the cushions were simply slip-covered with plastic. The same “Home Sweet Home” pillow whose sad abandon she had lingered over before looked positively perky, giving the otherwise bland room a splash of festive color.

  Buffy could have eaten off of the coffee table, the surface was so clean. In fact, every piece of furniture had been dusted and polished to within an inch of its life. Though the wood paneling that ran the length of the far wall only vaguely resembled real wood, it glowed with a warm sheen that only hours of elbow grease and a rag could have produced.

  The front window that Buffy had unceremoniously broken the first time she had entered the house was intact, and framed with slightly yellowed lace curtains that had certainly once been white. The faded color was not a product of neglect. The curtains actually looked freshly ironed. It was their age that betrayed them.

  To the right of the entryway, Buffy saw the dining room table, still adorned with its arrangement of fake apples, bananas, and grapes, still covered by a freshly pressed peach linen cloth, minus the moth holes. Taking better inventory of the dining room, Buffy noted an antique china cabinet that housed a complete collection, up through the mid-1960s, of presidents of the United States dinner plates. Each was boldly etched with the name and years of service, along with a truly frightening portrait of Herbert Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt, and Grover Cleveland, among all the others.

  A swinging door separated the dining room from the kitchen, at least if the savory smells of a home-cooked dinner that set Buffy’s stomach rumbling were any indication. Listening closely, Buffy was almost sure that she heard a faint and pleasant humming coming from the other side.

  Buffy returned to the entry hall and saw Snyder reach the landing at the top of the staircase and turn to his left, toward what Buffy knew was the little boy’s room she’d searched before. To her surprise, there was a definite spring in his step. At the very least, he no longer appeared to be limping.

  Torn between facing whatever was in the kitchen and making sure she had a chance to find the all-important stolen object, Buffy opted to follow Snyder. As quietly as poss
ible, she crossed the hall and tiptoed up the stairs.

  A few steps down the upstairs hall, Buffy noted a swash of light spilling out from the first bedroom. Cautiously, she crept toward it. Though the door was slightly ajar, Buffy had to push it open another few inches to really get a good look at the room.

  Snyder stood with his back to Buffy near the open closet. He was removing his sandals and lining them up neatly with what appeared to be several other pairs of fully-grown-man-size shoes. Flabbergasted, Buffy realized that Snyder’s toes were no longer covered in bloody bandages. In fact, his bare feet looked positively healthy as he wriggled his toes in the deep beige pile carpet.

  Buffy did a quick check of the carpet in the hall and stairs and satisfied herself that Snyder was no longer leaving a trail of blood behind him. Whatever damage was done to him in this place didn’t seem to affect him until he re-entered the real world. Willow had seemed so sure about the being tortured part, but apart from the 1950s suburban nightmare decor, Buffy could see little that would cause anyone, least of all Snyder, any pain here.

  Taking a deep breath, Buffy opened the bedroom door wide enough to enter. She fervently hoped that, just as before, Snyder would take no notice of her, and at first he did just that. The principal sat cross-legged on his bed, one arm wrapped around the stuffed snake that was now restored to its full glory in a plush pattern of orange and yellow diamonds, absentmindedly stroking it with one hand while the other nimbly turned the pages of a comic book resting in his lap.

  Buffy turned immediately toward the dresser, whose surface she could only see once she’d entered, and with a triumphant smile saw that standing in its center was a small trophy. A golden bee rested atop a small wooden base, almost certainly the exact size of the dust square she’d committed to memory. Buffy moved closer and peered in to read the inscription on the plaque attached to the trophy’s base: “Cecil Snyder, 5th place, Arborville Elementary School Spelling Bee.”