by Nancy Holder
“Does it matter?” she asked, feeling better as she caught her breath.
“It’s mine! Give it back!” it shouted, balling its fists in frustration.
“Yours?” Buffy glanced at the chain. Along with the cross, the disk Willow had taken from the Sword of Sanno dangled from it.
Buffy grinned.
“Oh. Yours,” she said. “Then come and get it.”
Frenzied, screaming, Chirayoju flew at her.
For a heartbeat, Buffy froze. If Willow was really a vampire, just another hollow corpse filled with some kind of bloodsucking demon spirit—well, that’d be different. It wouldn’t be Willow anymore. But as far as she could tell, whatever this Chirayoju was, it was inside the real flesh-and-blood Willow, and she was still in there too.
For the moment, Chirayoju seemed focused on the small disk she wore on a chain with her crucifix. Could she just give it up? Maybe …
Chirayoju lunged for her. The Slayer dropped her left shoulder, ducked it down, and came up under Willow’s body, flipping Chirayoju over and back. Claws scrabbled for purchase on Buffy’s blouse and arm, dragging deep, bloody furrows across the flesh of her upper biceps.
Buffy spun to face the vampire demon who possessed the body of her friend. The seething sting of the scratches on her arm gave her a new clarity: Staying alive was key. Part of the Slayer’s job, actually. But unless she was willing to kill Willow, she would die.
Buffy took a deep breath. Then, silently, she apologized to Giles. To her mom. To Dad, wherever he was this week.
Because she knew she was about to fail in that primary task. Buffy Summers knew she was about to die.
Then, in that same moment of clarity, she recalled something that would save her life. Willow’s hand. Or rather, her wrist. After Chirayoju had possessed her, Willow’s fractured wrist had healed instantly. Almost miraculously.
Buffy smiled. She wasn’t going to like hurting Willow, but at least now she knew that Willow would heal. She could defend herself without doing any lasting damage.
“All right, whatever the hell you are,” Buffy snapped. “Come on, then. I want my friend back. If that means I have to keep inflicting pain until you decide to forfeit the game—well, let me tell you, I can go all night.”
Chirayoju roared and rushed at her again. Willow’s red-tinted locks flew back as the vampire sorcerer came at Buffy, more cautious this time, but no less savage.
“I have had entire nations on their knees before me,” Chirayoju snarled. “The ancients whimpered in fear at the whisper of my name. So shall you.”
The thing circled, looking for an opening. Buffy kept up her guard, and they faced each other down. She found it difficult to look at Willow’s face, at the slack emptiness of her features, the hollowness of her eyes. Instead, she concentrated on the gossamer flickering of the grotesquely glowing green face that seemed to cling over Willow’s like some sheer Halloween mask.
Only this wasn’t Halloween.
Buffy knew from Halloween, and this was way worse.
“The ancients, huh?” Buffy asked, smiling. “Well, then, just for you, the Slayer’s gonna have to reach way down deep inside and come up with a real old-school vampire butt-kicking.”
That ghost mask stretched itself into a sickening smile. Buffy’s stomach lurched as she saw Willow’s mouth and cheeks move beneath it, lifted into a tiny smile themselves, as though the ghost mask were touching her face, twisting her features.
“Foolish girl,” Chirayoju sneered. “You still do not grasp the truth of this conflict, do you? I have merely been testing you. This fragile shell I now wear has served me well, but it is weak and small.
“You, however, are the Slayer. Your body will be a much more suitable host for my magnificence.”
“I could take that as a compliment,” Buffy said. “But … no.”
She shot forward in a high kick. It would have connected well, a solid hit … if not for the wind. The wind that sprang up and tossed her through the air as though she were chaff in a summer breeze. Buffy landed painfully between a pair of squat pagodas. When she sat up, she had a hard time catching her breath.
Her left cheek was swollen and throbbing in pain, and she suspected the bone was bruised beneath the skin. Chirayoju wasn’t like any vampire she’d ever fought. Maybe it was because she was holding back for Willow’s sake, but she didn’t think so. There was something so profoundly evil in this creature that it made it difficult for her to concentrate. Not merely evil, but consciously so.
Most vampires were simple predators, their evil confined to their lust for blood and death and terror. This was very, very different. The average bloodsucker barely considered what its prey was, what it might be thinking, what life it might live. Buffy sensed in Chirayoju a horrible intelligence. This ancient, savage thing knew exactly what effect its butchery would have on its victims’ loved ones; it understood the questioning of reality that would come from an encounter with it.
Chirayoju was smart. The demon spirit was a vampire in more ways than one. It fed on blood, true. But Buffy realized that it fed on fear and despair as well.
And she wasn’t about to give it that.
“Give yourself to me, Slayer,” Chirayoju hissed, and seemed to float across the withered vegetation toward her.
Buffy looked up, felt the sharp pain of a torn muscle in her shoulder. She blew a strand of hair from her face with lips covered in bloody spittle. She was in rough shape, and she knew it.
She lowered her head as the vampire came for her. She reached for the concrete roof of the little pagoda in front of her and brought it up hard, with all her strength, in a blow that tore her shoulder muscle further. The concrete shattered on the side of Chirayoju’s head with a crack. Blood sprayed, and Willow’s skull gave way.
Chirayoju dropped to the dead garden.
Buffy’s heart stopped. She couldn’t breathe. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“Oh my God, Willow!” she whispered frantically. “I’m sorry.”
She dropped to her knees in the soft, dead earth and reached for her friend. A hand whipped up from the ground and tangled in her hair, drawing her down, her face forced into the dirt and dead plants. The smell was rich and sweet and laced with rot.
“Now, Slayer,” she heard it whisper, “your body will be mine. This form was useful to me, but you are so much more powerful. You aren’t like other mortal girls.”
Buffy threw an elbow back, slammed it into Willow’s gut, then used her leverage to toss Chirayoju off her.
“I’ve been hearing that my whole life,” she grunted, still trying to catch her breath. Buffy looked up at the ghastly double-vision face of her best friend.
Chirayoju’s eyes bulged with rage. “You tempt my fury, girl.”
“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, getting to her feet. “I’m just kinda wacky like that. You and my mom should have a chat.”
Wearing Willow’s body, cloaked in an armored breastplate, the vampire began to rise again.
C’mon, Buffy wanted to say. Gimme a second to catch my breath, will ya?
Chirayoju began to charge. Buffy set her legs, trying to convince her exhausted body that she was truly ready for another round. There was nothing else she could do.
Except to die before she could be possessed …
Then a shadow whipped past her and met Chirayoju head on. Claws ripped the air, ripped flesh, and Willow’s body was flung backward to the earth.
Buffy blinked.
Angel stood over Chirayoju, his face twisted and feral. The back of his shirt was torn to shreds, and long, ragged wounds, stained crimson, were already healing.
“You’re not going to touch her again,” Angel said, his voice that low rumble Buffy knew so well—was so incredibly relieved to hear. “She might not want to do it, but if it comes to it, I’ll kill that body you’re in to keep you from getting to Buffy.”
Buffy’s relief evaporated. The Slayer’s stomach lurched and a dagger of ice thrust itself int
o her chest. She reached out a hand as Angel advanced on the demon.
“Angel … ,” she gasped. “No.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Giles felt nauseous. Cordelia wasn’t helping.
“Giles, what are we going to do?” Cordelia asked desperately.
Giles didn’t tell her that she’d been asking the same question for the past four minutes, barely interrupting herself to breathe. Nor did he mention that his own mind was in as much turmoil as his stomach as he worked feverishly to answer that question.
But he did know that he’d been unnecessarily cold to Cordelia, and he regretted it.
“Cordelia, I must apologize.” He sighed. “I’ve been terribly short with you, and I’m afraid it’s because I’m feeling rather useless at the moment,” he admitted sheepishly. “You see, I really don’t know how to withdraw these spirits from Willow and Xander. I had hoped that if we kept up with Sanno—Xander—that I might be able to speak with it, to learn enough to stop this insanity.”
Cordelia watched the receding figure of Xander. Giles followed her gaze. “And we’re losing him, huh?” she said. “He’s getting away from us.”
“He’s getting away from us,” Giles agreed.
“Well, what about your books?” Cordelia asked hopefully. “There’s gotta be something there, right? You’ve got the skinny on every nasty thing that’s ever walked the earth.”
“Well, perhaps not all the nasty things,” Giles murmured, then looked at her. “Researching this could take all night, and this is happening right now. Not to mention that until we know where Xander—where Sanno—is going, we won’t know where the battle is going to be fought.” He looked glumly at the horizon, where Xander was fast disappearing.
Cordelia cocked her head at Giles and frowned.
“What did I say?” he asked.
“Well, only something clueless. I think.” Cordelia hesitated, then went on. “You showed us yourself in the museum, Giles. If they’re going to have it out, it’ll be in that Japanese garden place. Don’t you think?”
Giles paused, eyebrows raised. He looked far ahead, where Xander’s possessed form melted into the night. It made sense. If he recalled the layout of Sunnydale correctly, they did seem to be heading in that direction.
Which meant they didn’t need to follow Xander at all. And suddenly, Giles had an idea or two about possession. It might even be worth giving an old-fashioned exorcism a try.
“I can see the Giles-mind in action,” Cordelia declared hopefully. “Usually a frightening thing, but please tell me you’ve got something.”
Giles spun, and turned to walk back the way they came.
“Wait. Where are you going?” Cordelia demanded.
“The library,” Giles replied. “Come on, Cordelia, I’ll need your help.”
“But what about Xander?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
Giles stated the obvious. “We can’t keep up.”
She tried one more time. “But I’ve always been useless with research.”
Giles gestured for her to follow him. “Well, it’s time we changed that, then, isn’t it?”
“We should get your car.”
“Agreed.” He kept walking.
In the library, Cordelia was too nervous for this sitting around and thumbing through books stuff. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and said to Giles, “I don’t even know how to spell exorcism.”
“Look,” he said excitedly as the fax machine rang.
He gestured for her to join him as the paper unspooled. With an excited flourish, he ripped it off.
“‘Monsieur Giles, so sorry to hear of troubles in Sunnydale. I have fragments of Appendix 2a of Silver’s Spells, published much later than your edition. Pages thirty-two through thirty-four only. She writes most excitedly of the sword’s movement after the earthquake in Kobe. There was fear of escape of two spirits within. New enchantments were added, disks, I think, and the sword was put in Tokyo Museum. That is all I have at this time. You might try Heinrich Meyer-Dinkmann in Frankfurt, and of course you must have consulted Kobo at Tokyo University. Kindest regards, Henri Tourneur.’”
“All right, that’s confirmation that the disks are wards,” Giles said.
“All right,” Cordelia agreed.
“Do keep looking.” He gestured to the two-foot-tall stack of books he’d gathered on the table. “I’ll try Meyer-Dinkmann. And it’s e-x-o-r-c-i-s-m. I suggest you write it down.”
“Giles.” She shook her head. “What I mean is I am not getting anywhere. I can’t even see the words. All I see is Xander’s face when we found him in the bushes. And in the hospital. And now.” She swallowed hard. “I can’t concentrate.”
Giles put down his book and moved behind her. “But we must,” he said gently. “I, too, am distracted. But this is what we can do to help him. It’s all we can do.”
“Then he’s in big trouble,” she muttered.
Giles was on the phone to Berlin.
“Guten Tag, hier spricht Giles,” he began.
“Herr Giles! A pleasure!”
“That could be my job, if I spoke German,” Cordelia muttered. “I like talking on the phone. But no, I have to look up exorcism.”
“Ja, ja, vielen Dank,” Giles said, and hung up. “Well.”
She looked up hopefully. “Yes?”
“Meyer-Dinkmann couldn’t put his hands on it, but he’s read more of Appendix 2a than Tourneur. It appears that there was an actual Incantation of Sanno, and it has all the details about how to bind spirits into swords.” He looked dazed. “You know, Cordelia, this is rather how Miss Silver went about her research, only of course, everything was much slower in her day. Imagine what that woman could have accomplished given a fax, a telephone, and the vast resources of the Internet!”
“Yeah,” Cordelia piped. “So where is the Incantation of Sanno?”
“Meyer-Dinkmann said it’s online,” Giles said enthusiastically. “He said he’d have, ah, downloaded the file for us, but his computer is temporarily down for an upgrade of some sort. But if I understand computers, we can simply search for the topic and see if we have any matches.”
“Okay!” Cordelia said brightly, saved from the book stack. “Let’s do it.”
He moved his shoulders as he continued. “I haven’t the foggiest notion how to go about it, however. We need Willow.”
“We need Willow,” Cordelia agreed glumly.
Buffy and Angel caught Chirayoju off guard, and together were able to hurl the thing, in Willow’s body, over the bony, upraised fingers of a dead cherry tree. Buffy fought to catch her breath as the monster landed in the dirt.
“We can’t keep this up,” Angel murmured to the girl he loved. “We have to finish it.” He looked at her flushed, drawn face. “Buffy, we have to kill Willow.”
Wildly the Slayer shook her head. “No. No way. Look, why don’t you go? It hasn’t torched me with that magick fire because it wants my bod. It can’t kill me, I can’t kill it. Stalemate. We could use some Giles-type help here.”
Angel stared at her. “It may not want to kill you. That doesn’t mean it won’t. I’m not going anywhere.”
Chirayoju rose to a standing position and brushed the dirt off its crimson robes with theatrical distaste. “I find this fighting style most plebeian,” it said. Its right arm was crooked, and it limped as it moved forward.
Angel scrutinized Chirayoju’s movements as it prepared to launch another attack, posturing like a martial arts master. Willow’s body was badly injured. He knew Buffy couldn’t stand to see her suffer, even if she wasn’t Willow at the moment. But Angel would do whatever it took—including destroying Willow, who was his friend too—to make sure Buffy got out of this alive.
“Buffy, you know what must be done,” my love, he added silently, pitying her. Wishing he could lift the burden of being the Chosen One from her shoulders for just five minutes. But that would do nothing. And she was the Chosen One. There was no way she c
ould be anything less, not even for a heartbeat.
Looking very frightened and very young, she lifted her chin in defiance. Her eyes were huge in her face, but her jaw was set and hard. Her shoulders squared. “I won’t do it.”
“Then I will,” Angel said firmly.
“No!” Buffy cried.
Chirayoju the vampire rose straight into the air and made fists of its hands, launching fireballs at them. Buffy and Angel rolled in opposite directions as the balls seemed to track them, then exploded into the earth as the two successfully eluded them. The dry brush and the brittle trees lit up like fireworks.
Buffy murmured, “Okay, maybe it doesn’t want my bod.”
She frowned as something occurred to her. “And how come you were so late, anyway?”
Another volley of fireballs careened toward them. Angel leaped on top of Buffy and rolled her out of the way. As she lay beneath him, he said, “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that the rest of Chirayoju’s playmates kind of disappeared.”
“Yeah. A likely excuse,” she said as he let her up and she assumed a Slayer’s fighting stance. “You probably went out for cigs.”
“Gave ’em up,” he assured her. “They take years off your life.” Then he cried, “Look out!”
Chirayoju hurtled itself from the sky straight at Buffy.
“If you will not give yourself to me, then you will be eliminated! Choose, Slayer!”
Buffy jumped into the air and pummeled the vampire demon with a double kick, then flipped herself backward, catching herself at the last minute with her hands and pushing off them sideways, out of the way of Willow’s body as it slammed hard on the ground.
“That answer your questions, Chumley?” Buffy asked. She got in a couple of quick kicks before Angel grabbed it by the shoulders and punched it hard, wincing as he heard a tiny gasp that sounded very much like Willow.
“Please,” he heard, in Willow’s voice. “Please.”
“Stop!” Buffy shouted.
“It’s a trick, Buffy,” Angel called to her. “It’s playing on your feelings. Don’t listen to it.”
“I’m allowing her to feel the pain,” Chirayoju said, pulling itself away from Angel and focusing its attention on Buffy. It didn’t even bother to look at him. “And it hurts, Slayer. It hurts more than you can imagine. Certainly more than she could—until now.”