by Nancy Holder
Giles raised an eyebrow. “Spooks you a trifle?”
“Trifle. A little less than Poltergeist, a little more than Casper. Trifle.”
“Ah,” Giles said, then quickly moved on. “What does Willow’s tardiness have to do with demons? Did you and she have a quarrel or something?”
“Or nothing. Ever since she got mugged, Willow’s been getting funkier by the day.” She pursed her lips. “She’s actually acting … witchier … than Cordelia. And you know how pointed her hat is.” Buffy sat forward and crossed her arms.
“Well, we do all have our bad days,” Giles offered, scrutinizing her. “But I should like to hear more about these—”
Buffy frowned impatiently. “She was wearing sunglasses, and they were Gargoyles.”
He blinked, clearly not getting it.
“Giles, read the magazines, don’t just subscribe. Even geeks have put their Gargoyles away. And as for wearing them indoors, well, that went the way of the sequined glove and Bubbles the Chimp. It’s so over even the geeks think it’s over.”
She reddened. “Not that I’m lumping Willow in with the geeks. Because I would never do that. She’s my friend. And that’s the point of my babblesomeness. She is not acting like herself.”
Giles sighed. “Buffy, please, I beg of you, slow down. For someone who insists she’s not a morning person, you bring with you a certain manic exuberance to our preclass chats that I, for one, occasionally find a bit, well, exhausting.”
“Well, of course,” she said cheerily. “You’re old … er than me,” she amended, at his crestfallen expression.
They both glanced up as Xander strolled in, already talking as he walked through the door.
“Subject: Willow. Not even Oz the new true love werewolf boyfriend has seen her today.”
“Subject: Willow,” Buffy agreed, rubbing her hands together.
“Buffy, I really think we ought to concentrate on these vampires who targeted you over the weekend,” Giles insisted. Before Buffy could protest, he held up a finger. “First. After which we may discuss Willow’s change of attitude and declining fashion sense to your heart’s content.”
“Oh, all right,” Buffy said, pouting. “Xander, come.” She patted the study table. “Sit.”
“I pant like a dog and obey like a doormat.” He sat beside her and gave her a friendly bump with his elbow.
“We were going back through some odd occurrences of late,” Giles told Xander. “Over the weekend, Buffy met up with some vampires who were very focused, very organized.”
Xander nodded knowingly. “All right. Teamster vamps. Filed away. Next item?”
“She was in the graveyard with Angel the night before and felt something weird.”
“Buffy,” Xander said, scandalized.
“We both had this weird feeling,” Buffy said.
“Yeah, I’ll just bet you did. It being that weird feeling popularly known as lust.” Xander looked angry. “Do you know how dangerous it is to make out when you’re on patrol?”
Buffy frowned indignantly, even though she figured her flush was giving her away. “Not making out. We were both hunting.”
“Hunting what?” he asked. “For rabies? ’Cause if you keep kissing Dead Boy, you’ll probably get it. I warned Willow about the same thing with Oz.”
“And I’m sure Willow appreciated it as much as I do,” Buffy said, frowning at him.
Xander held up his hand. “Plus, what kind of message are you sending to all those impressionable young vampire girls who might be spying on you two? You know, as the Slayer, you are a role model, whether you like it or not.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she drawled, giving him a knowing look. “Next time I find you all over Cordelia.”
“We are not talking about my strange hobbies,” Xander said without a hint of embarrassment. “We’re talking about your taste in boyfriends.”
Buffy slipped off the table and began to pace. “Meanwhile, Will. I think she was so shaken by the attack that she’s putting up walls so she won’t get hurt again.” She trailed off, thinking of when she had been defeated by the vampire known as the Master. How angry she’d been once she’d been brought back to life. How bitter and mean to all her friends.
How Xander had brought her back to life with CPR.
“At first I thought it would pass, but it’s been more than a week now since she was attacked, and she’s only getting moodier. Now she’s dropped out of real life completely, or something. We have to help her,” she finished softly, giving Xander a look as she recalled how many times he had been there for her and Willow both. For everyone.
Xander said quietly, “And we will, Buff.”
They smiled at each other.
“Okay, let me figure this out,” Cordelia said as she drove Xander over to Willow’s house. “Whenever I inform you that we must cut short our perverse and disgusting display of mutual passion or whatever, I am then on a date with another guy. But whenever you call it quits and ask me to drive you to Willow’s house, we are checking up on a friend?”
Xander peered through the window on the passenger side and nodded. “I swear, babe, hanging with me has increased your brain power.”
“I am not ‘babe.’ I have never been ‘babe’ and I will never be ‘babe.’ Babe is a pig.” She stomped on the brake. “And no dumb whiplash cracks, either. And as for my brain power—”
“I have said nothing. I have nothing to say,” Xander said, opening the door and rushing to Willow’s front door. The porch light was on, but it looked like nobody was home.
He rang the bell. They waited.
“I’m hungry,” Cordelia whined.
“I’ve got a half-eaten candy bar on the floor mat on my side,” he said. “Formerly, it was in my hand, but I had to drop it when we careened on two wheels around that last curve. The chewed part is probably covered with carpet fuzz, but what the hey, we all need our fiber.”
“That’s disgusting,” Cordelia said. She leaned past him and knocked hard on the door. “She’s not home. Come on. I have two hours until cheerleading practice.”
Xander was tempted. Two hours in Cordelia’s arms were two hours well spent. He was certain she was dumping an extreme amount of money into lipstick these days, because she was wiping it all over his face with an extravagance matched only by his purchases of Altoids breath mints.
But his concern for Willow was stronger than his practically overwhelming desire for big smoochies, et cetera.
“What’s the big?” Cordelia demanded as he stubbornly stayed on the porch. “So she’s out.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Xander asked. “It’s a school night.”
“So she’s Bronzing with Oz.” Cordelia shrugged. “Maybe she’s gone shopping with Buffy.” She thought that through. “No,” she said decisively. “Those two would never actually go shopping for fun. If they put the least amount of effort into it, they’d just have to have better wardrobes.”
He stood his ground. “I’m going to wait for her a little while.” He put his arm around her and urged her against his chest. “C’mon, Cor, we can make out in your car here just as easily as at the Point. Moon, stars, lips? What do you say?”
She sighed heavily, a martyr to ecstasy. “Come on,” she said, and led the way to the car.
Buffy gasped and froze in her tracks. “What’s the matter?” Giles asked. “Do you feel that … ‘oddness’ again?”
“Weirdness, Giles. It was a weirdness. And, no,” she said slowly. “It was just that … well, I think I forgot to change the dryer setting to ‘delicate’ before I put my clothes in.” She groaned. “My new shirt is going to shrink.”
“I see. Alas,” Giles mumbled dismissively.
“Okay, maybe you don’t care what you look like,” Buffy said angrily, “but you are not a seventeen-year-old high school female.”
“Quite true, Buffy, quite true,” Giles agreed.
Buffy didn’t miss his whispered “thank the Lor
d,” but she chose to ignore it.
“You were going to tell me about the research you’ve been doing, sans Willow?” Buffy prompted.
“Ah, yes,” he said, happy to be back in familiar territory. Giles hefted her Slayer’s bag and used the stake he was carrying to push up his glasses. “There has been a veritable surplus of recent disappearances.”
She nodded, all business now.
“Many of them are teenagers,” he said pointedly. “They were known to frequent a well-known area where young people congregate for the purposes of—”
“Makeout Point,” Buffy said, nodding. “Get on with it, Giles. I may not have a social life, but I know what one is. So, what, did someone go up there and vampirize a bunch of kids who were swallowing each other’s tonsils?”
“It would appear so, yes,” Giles said, clearing his throat. “If you are correct about there being a new leader of sorts on the Hellmouth, it may be that he is gathering a group of vampires loyal to him to do his bidding.”
“Much joy there,” Buffy said. “If I can just get him on my good side, maybe he can force them to do my homework.” She waved a hand to stave off the inevitable request from Giles to be more serious. “Or I can ask him to—”
She stirred, alert, gesturing to her Watcher.
A vampire lurked nearby.
Giles raised the stake.
“Wait,” Buffy said, smiling.
A vampire, yes. Tall, dark, and not fangy at the moment. But handsome. Very, very handsome.
“Hi, Buffy,” Angel said. He bobbed his head at Giles. “Good evening.”
“What’s the haps?” Buffy asked, trying to sound casual.
“I was out.” He shrugged. “I was hoping we could—”
Just then, a ring of vampires fell from above, shrieking as they landed in a circle and surrounded Buffy, Giles, and Angel. At least a dozen of them in full fang face, crouched and waiting. Not rushing. Not crowding.
Not acting like your typical demon-infested, ravening corpses.
Buffy glanced around at the odd mix of vampires. Young and old, of varied races and sexes, they also differed in another way. Some were in funereal clothes, indicating that they had been taken to funeral homes and buried in the ground before reviving to undeath. But others were in street clothes or work clothes. One man wore only a bathrobe and boxers. Those were people who were killed and dragged away and never given a proper burial. Whoever had turned them had simply sat around waiting for them to come back to life.
Whoever had made them was making an army.
“This is not good,” she whispered, glancing at a man in black who wore a white collar.
Giles said quietly, “This morning, a priest was reported missing. And an elderly lady wearing a jogging suit.”
The priest was going after Angel. The old lady jogger growled menacingly at Giles.
The chubby guy in the bathrobe leered at Buffy. “Prepare yourself, Slayer,” the vampire growled. “The master has plans for you. You will make a most powerful slave.”
Buffy spun, launched a high kick that took bathrobe boy in the chin and rocked his head back hard … but not hard enough to snap his neck, she thought with disappointment.
“Okay, people. Former people,” Buffy corrected. “Maybe if you tell me what’s going on, I’ll let you live. Who’s this master you’re all so hot on? ’Cause I knew one guy who called himself that, but what’s left of him is in some kid’s sandbox somewhere.”
The priest vamp laughed. “Soon you will know. When you bow down at his feet and beg for your life!”
As one, the vampires attacked. The priest, bathrobe boy, and a young girl with multiple nose rings and a stud through her lip all went after Angel. But behind them, things got worse. The next three hulking vamps were dressed in their Sunday best—the suits they were buried in. Young guys, not much older than Buffy when they died, and they looked vaguely familiar. She pushed the almost-recognition away. Maybe they’d played football for Sunnydale High or the parochial school two towns over. Buffy didn’t want to know.
Giles was attacked by the lady in the jogging suit and a younger boy who looked no older than fourteen. Even as she fought off the vampire offensive line, Buffy kept an eye on Giles, concerned for his safety as always. But, as always, his skill surprised her. The old jogging lady was dispatched instantly. The boy proved to be a different matter indeed, making passes in the air with his hands and shooting out his legs as he twirled in huge, distracting circles.
Some kind of weird martial art, Buffy figured. Not something she’d seen before, though.
Whump! A fist connected with the side of her face. Not a solid hit, but even a graze of knuckles when the punch had vampiric strength behind it was enough to send her reeling.
“That’ll teach me to pay attention,” she mumbled to herself, and returned to the battle.
Pierced girl shot a kick up toward Angel’s head, but he blocked her attack, parried, and sent her tumbling across the ground. The priest was right in front of him, and Angel kneed him in the gut, then brought both fists down on the vampire’s back, forcing him to the earth as well. The overweight guy in the bathrobe came at him then.
“Throw me a stake!” he shouted to Buffy.
But it was Giles who answered.
The Watcher ducked away from the youthful male vampire trying to gut him and hurried to the Slayer’s bag. Half-turning, he was about to throw Angel a nicely carved stake when the boy vampire hurled himself at Giles. Giles’s reaction was all instinct—the stake came up just in time, and the boy shrieked and exploded into dust. Though the smallest bit taken aback, Giles didn’t miss a beat as he tossed the stake to Angel.
As Angelus, he had been called “the Scourge of Europe.” That was a different creature entirely, as far as he was concerned. But still, Angel was fierce in battle. With the stake in his hands, the other vampires didn’t stand a chance. In moments, the priest was gone. Next, he took out the bathrobed man by flinging him onto his back and landing on top of him. Straddling him, Angel brought the stake down hard.
Of Angel’s assailants, only the pierced girl remained. She sneered at Angel, “When we are gone, there will be more. My honorable lord has returned, and he will conquer this land and grind your bones to dust.”
“Returned? From where?” Buffy called out, anxious for information.
“If we all die, you’ll never know,” the girl said to Angel.
Angel looked at her for a beat, part of him unwilling to stake one so young. Then, as she bared her fangs and rushed him, he reflexively thrust the stake hard into her chest.
“Guess we’ll have to take that chance,” he said as she exploded into dust.
Buffy saw Angel rush to help her, but she was faring just fine on her own. Already, one of the dead jocks had been dusted. The other two were persistent, and she’d fought them off several times without getting the opening she needed for a staking.
They moved around to trap her between them, and Buffy smiled. That trick hadn’t worked the last time she’d been ambushed. It wasn’t going to work now, either. They started in toward her. Buffy dropped to her hands, swept her legs around under her body in a move the gymnastics coach would have kissed her for, and took one of the dead jocks down at the knees. The other one was looming over her, but Buffy did a backward handspring and brought both of her boots up into his face.
He grabbed his nose and eyes, staggered backward, and didn’t even look at her as the stake slid into his heart. While his buddy exploded in a cloud of ash, the last dead jock started to get to his feet.
He never made it.
“Who’s next?” Buffy shouted through the dust cloud, but the handful of remaining vampires broke into a run, fleeing like a pack in the same direction.
Buffy watched them a moment, thinking how odd it was that they should stay together. They were so much more … disciplined than vamps she’d seen before.
Panting, Buffy slid into Angel’s now empty arms and snagged a quick
kiss. Giles approached, stake in hand. The three looked down at the piles of dust their conflict had left on the ground.
Then a chill wind kicked up, lifting the piles and scattering them. It whipped at Buffy’s hair and clothes, stinging like buckshot.
“We should get out of here,” Giles said, gathering up her slayage equipment and stuffing it into her bag.
Angel took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. “This is the second jacket of mine you’ve gotten,” he teased her, having to yell over the wind. “Pretty soon I won’t have anything to wear.”
“That’s a nice thought,” she shouted back.
A bolt of lightning flashed across Angel’s face and landed not five feet from them. Buffy shouted and jumped in surprise.
She turned and stared hard at something odd that had been illuminated by the lightning. The departing vamps were running behind a figure who laughed and capered. Even now, Buffy could see her silhouetted in the moonlight.
“Oh my God,” Buffy whispered.
It looked like Willow.
CHAPTER EIGHT
As was his custom, Sanno, the god whom men called King of the Mountain, rose from the dawn clouds surrounding Mount Hiei and walked the earth like a man. Each of his footsteps was like a small earthquake, summoning the faithful to greet him like the sun. For Sanno was a gracious god, benevolent and generous. He gave his people clear mountain springs to drink from, hares and other animals to devour, and wood for their villages and the castle of the local branch of the Fujiwara clan, nestled in the foothills of Mount Hiei. He anticipated their every need, and he provided for them.
So he walked, anticipating a fine morning with those who loved and revered him in the beauty of his shrine, on the far side of Mount Hiei.
But on this snowy winter morning, no one came.
Frowning in displeasure, he ascended Mount Hiei once more and with his mighty breath blew away the clouds. Then he looked down upon his lands and observed his people, gathered on the opposite side of Mount Hiei, cowering before the entrance to a newly erected temple with a strange, curved roof. Some of the women wept and tore their clothes. Their farmer husbands lay prostrate on the ground, their faces buried in the mud.