by Nancy Holder
The concept of demonic gossip made Buffy uneasy. The image of fanged vampires and other foul creatures trading predictions of doom over goblets of blood was deceptively comical—and more insidious because of it.
“But I trust my instincts”—Angel shot her a questioning look—“and yours. Haven’t you noticed anything?”
“My early warning system’s on alert,” Buffy admitted, “but no four-alarm massacres have broken out. Does a socially outcast kid looking for a protection charm his mother donated to the school rummage sale count?”
“I’m sensing something much worse than anything a super stitious kid could conjure,” Angel said. “Still, a threat doesn’t have to be big or obvious to be devastating.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” It was getting late, but Buffy couldn’t bring herself to say good-bye. She waited for Angel to make the next move. She had accepted the he-vampire-she-Slayer problem, and they were on equal footing with the demon fighting and passionate kissing, but he was still older by more than a couple of centuries. That was a cultural hurdle she hadn’t totally reconciled—yet.
“I’ll walk you through the cemetery,” Angel offered, holding out his hand. “Then you should probably get home.”
“Yeah, I probably should.” Buffy smiled and slipped her hand into his. There was nowhere she’d rather be than alone with Angel, even if only for a few minutes walking through a graveyard.
Spike exploded out of his chair when the bottle of vintage French blood hit the wall behind him. He and the ancient text he was trying to translate escaped being splattered, but his train of thought had been thoroughly disrupted.
“Oh, fits and giblets,” Drusilla said, pouting. “I missed the mark quite entirely.”
Biting his tongue, Spike watched the red rivulets run down the brick factory wall between pipes. He made sure his seething annoyance was under control before he spoke. “So you were trying to hit me.”
“Did you hear that, Miss Edith?” Dru murmured into the porcelain ear of her favorite doll. “I think Spike found his voice and a word or two to go with it.”
Noting the fragile vampire’s pique, Spike stared at the floor. No matter how carefully he chose his words, there was no guarantee he could diffuse her anger or make her see reason. Drusilla was as vicious a vampire as had ever preyed upon the earth. She was also insane. When her twisted mind latched on to an idea, it was practically impossible to dislodge. He wanted nothing more than to cure the wasting disease that had slowly sapped her strength the past few decades. He had devoted his time and energies almost exclusively to the task, but today that mattered not a whit.
“He must pay a penance for ignoring us.” Dru turned toward Spike, the doll dangling from her fist. The glint of madness burned in the darkness of her corrupt gaze. “Perhaps he should lick the remains of Count Le Clerq off the wall. Can’t have all that royal blood feeding the spiders, now can we?”
“It’s not a great loss, Dru. The last time we uncorked a bottle of the count, he tasted musty.”
Drusilla ran the tip of her tongue over teeth as white as her translucent skin. “But he was so handsome, all dressed in blue with a feather in his cap—like the painting, only warmer.”
“Perhaps you’d like something fresher.” Smiling, Spike stepped closer and drew her slim body into his arms.
“A dressmaker would be nice.”
“They’re called designers now, love.” Spike touched his lips to the dark ringlets that framed her delicate face. “But none of them reside in this forsaken hamlet. I could fetch you a plump, young toddler.”
“I’m not hungry.” Dru pushed away. “I fancy an outing. Miss Edith needs a new frock, all frilly with lace. A hanging’s not the same without white lace to catch the bloody spittle.”
“And what’s Miss Edith done to deserve hanging?” Spike asked, humoring her.
“Telling tales of beasties swarming and slithering about”—Dru’s voice became hushed—“all grim with grit and grime.”
“Is something coming?” Spike asked, alerted by her haunted tone. Dru’s ramblings were not always nonsensical. Sometimes the riddles were clues to her prescient visions.
“They weren’t invited.” Cocking her head, Dru looked at him coyly. “I’ll need a new dress for the party, with velvet wings for dancing on the ceiling.”
Spike had no idea if her references to hangings, beasts, and parties were the disjointed parts of a premonition or simply inconsequential babbling. As a matter of survival, he couldn’t risk overlooking any threat. However, the bits and pieces of the puzzle had to be coaxed from Dru’s mind.
“You want to go shopping,” Spike said. For once he could safely satisfy her demented whim. “I know just the place.”
CHAPTER TWO
It’s almost dawn.” Spike nuzzled Dru’s neck, hoping to lure her away from the tables of used wares. They had been in the school for hours, but she wanted to look through the rummage sale items one more time. “We have to go.”
“But I need a hat pin, a pearl one—white like chipmunk eyes when the fox bites.” Dru added bright green boxer shorts to the other materials and bric-a-brac in her wicker basket. “And more socks.”
“You’ve got a dozen pair there,” Spike pointed out impatiently. “All colors and sizes.”
“Tiny tunics for voodoo dollies,” Dru cooed with a delighted giggle. “But they won’t do without pins to stick.”
Throwing up his hands, Spike returned to the display cases on the table near the door. As he snapped off the lock and raised the glass cover, he heard a distant door open and close. In her weakened state, Drusilla could barely overpower a teenaged girl. She had only barely escaped Prague, where a brutal mob would have torn her apart and left the pieces to fry in the morning sun.
Scooping up a handful of jewelry, Spike hurried back across the room. “We have to leave, Dru—now.”
“But I’ve not finished looking for baubles,” Dru whined.
“Here.” Spike dropped the tangle of gold, silver, and rhinestone trinkets into her basket and glanced toward the cafeteria doors. He would like nothing better than to cull a crowd of unsuspecting teenagers for breakfast, but his first responsibility was to Dru.
Dru stared at the glittering jewelry, then recoiled with an alarmed hiss. “Fireflies and bloodstones.”
“Come on.” Taking Dru’s hand, Spike pulled her toward the basement door. The locked dead bolt broke and turned easily in his vampire grip.
They had entered the school through the main doors under the cover of darkness. At sunrise the only safe way out was through the network of electrical tunnels and sewers that ran underneath the town.
Dru balked at the top of the stairs. “Maids and knaves to slaughter in the belly of the beast.”
Spike frowned. Her hesitation was rooted in fear, not obstinacy. They were very close to the Hellmouth, and he assumed the convergence of mystical forces was affecting her addled but highly receptive mind. However, petulant and easily bored, Dru didn’t have the patience for hiding in the school until sundown. They had to go underground to escape.
“We’ll hurry through,” Spike said, drawing her down the stairs. “It’ll be all right.”
“Lickety-split, then.” Dru followed obediently until they entered the cellar corridor. When she saw more cartons of rummage sale donations piled on tables, she dashed ahead, her apprehension forgotten. “It’s a bargain basement, all waiting with needles and pins. Knitting needles, pine needles—”
Spike cursed his luck. “We don’t have time to dawdle, Dru. They’ll be coming to get these boxes.”
Dru held up a corkscrew and made a jabbing motion. “Poke it in the eye, blind the mice. But there’s more than three, and they won’t run—” She dropped the corkscrew when something else caught her eye.
Spike listened to the sounds of people in the halls above. There were more than three, and they were coming closer.
Drusilla picked up a sunburst pendant on a gold chain, turned
it over in her hand, and traced the red and green stones with her finger. “It whispers with an aching heart—”
“Who unlocked this door?” a man barked.
Spike recognized Principal Snyder’s nasally voice. During the short time he and Drusilla had been in Sunnydale, he had identified and studied everyone who was close to the Slayer—friends and enemies. The perverse pleasure Snyder derived from giving Buffy Summers a hard time was his only redeeming characteristic and one reason Spike didn’t end his miserable life. The thought of feeding on the contemptuous little man made him nauseous.
“It wasn’t us,” a girl snapped with indignation.
“We just got here,” a boy said.
“It’s broken!” Snyder snarled, as though the vandalism was a personal affront.
“Who’d want to steal any of this trash?” a second girl asked, incredulous.
As the students started down the stairs, Drusilla shuddered and threw the gaudy necklace into a box. “The longing wiggles and burns—”
It was too late to run without being seen or heard. Cursing the seconds he had lost coddling Dru, Spike pulled her into the shadows behind a pile of boxes under the stairs. A guttural growl rumbled in her throat as Snyder and several teenagers descended into the basement.
“Hide and seek,” Spike whispered. The deranged Drusilla had a child’s passion for games, and he hoped her desire to win was stronger than the temptation of young prey. “We’re hiding.”
“They’ll never find us,” Dru said softly.
“Everyone grab a box,” Snyder ordered. “As soon as maintenance fixes that door, it’s getting locked and staying locked just like the sign says, so don’t leave anything behind.”
The guitar player from Dingoes Ate My Baby picked up the box with the sunburst pendant. Dru had been so profoundly disturbed by the necklace that Spike suspected it had some mystical properties. The Hellmouth would significantly enhance even simple folk magick.
“Dullards can’t even smell the rats scampering in the walls,” Dru whispered with disdain, “and the wee hearts racing all frantic and aflutter with fright. Squealing canapés for the serpent, they are.”
Hushing her with a finger to his lips, Spike waited until Snyder and his entourage were back upstairs. When the coast was clear, he led Dru down the concrete passageway toward the basement hatch into the tunnel system. As they turned into an adjacent corridor, the flapping of wings and a high-pitched screech brought him to an abrupt halt.
Dru clamped her hands to her ears. “The song stings, like nettles in my ears!”
The excruciating noise came from a horde of bats unlike any Spike had ever seen. Red, with three-inch fangs and a three-foot wingspan, they flew in haphazard disarray at the end of the corridor. They had no eyes, but they instantly detected the vampires. Alerted by sonar, the bats turned and swept toward them as a cohesive unit.
Spike recalled Drusilla’s words as they raced back the way they had come.
“. . . with velvet wings for dancing on the ceiling.”
The obscure warning was meaningless now that they were under attack. The bats blocked the route to the tunnel hatch, and there were too many to fight off without endangering Dru. With hundreds of students streaming into the school, taking cover seemed prudent.
Spike ducked into a storeroom, pulled Drusilla inside after him, and turned to close the door. Given Dru’s melodramatic musing about beasts and the burning necklace, he couldn’t help but wonder if the jewel and the bats were connected.
Drusilla screamed, banishing his reflections.
“It’s all right, love. There’s nothing in—” The rest of Spike’s words hung unspoken in the dark. Drusilla flailed, trying to beat off a crimson bat.
Spike’s rage instantly manifested with ridged bone and fangs. Roaring, he clamped his hand over the winged creature’s neck and pulled it off Dru. The vicious animal fought with the strength of a thousand beasts its size, erasing any doubt that it was demonic. But Spike felt no kinship with the hellish creature. He crushed its skull against the cinderblock wall, severed the head from the body, and stomped it into a bloody mass of red flesh, acid blood, and splintered bone.
When the killer lust subsided, Spike knelt to examine Dru. “Did it hurt you?”
“Stuck,” Dru muttered, “with poison pins.”
Spike gently brushed ringlets of dark hair away from her face. The blood of her last meal oozed from two deep puncture wounds in her shoulder.
• • •
Xander unfolded the orange blanket, but the camouflage hunting vest he had hidden inside it last night was gone. “Stolen. The question is, by whom?”
“Someone else with a military fetish?” Willow teased.
“Not a fetish,” Xander insisted. He was neither single-mindedly devoted to nor irrationally excited by fabrics that blended in with natural surroundings. “It’s an identity thing.”
“Yeah, well—okay.” Willow didn’t press.
That was the latest in hundreds of reasons why Willow Rosenberg had been his best friend forever. She never talked about it, but she understood that a few hours of being a real soldier had made him aware of his own untapped strengths and capabilities.
“There’s Devon and that guitar guy.” Willow tracked the two boys as they entered the cafeteria with a group of football players and cheerleaders.
“Are you afraid of them?” Xander asked, perplexed when she suddenly stepped behind him. “Are they after you?”
Xander was only mildly acquainted with the members of Dingoes Ate My Baby, but they weren’t dangerous. They were musicians. The only threat they presented was ignoring anyone beneath them on the popularity roster, which was just about everyone.
“No, he doesn’t even know I’m alive, not that it would make any diff—” Willow faltered. “Just go ask them to keep playing that old music today, will you?”
“You go ask them.” Xander couldn’t believe that Willow had a crush on Cordelia’s ex, but the signs were obvious. “Devon doesn’t bite, and I know for a fact that he’s available.”
“Devon? You think I want Cordelia’s castoff?” A frown hardened Willow’s perky, freckled face.
Xander shrugged. “This is a rummage sale. Everything’s a hand-me-down.”
Willow cuffed his arm. “Even I have more self-esteem than that. Go ask or . . . or I’ll carry the whereabouts of your hunting vest to my grave, which I hope nobody digs for another sixty or seventy years.”
“You took it?”
Willow clamped her mouth shut and made a zipper gesture.
“Okay. I’ll go ask.” Shaking his head, Xander ducked under the table into the next aisle. In the Sunnydale scope of catastrophes, losing a used piece of clothing wasn’t even a blip. As omens went, however, it boded well for Buffy’s wish. Maybe they would have a weekend where all they had to worry about was not getting the secondhand merchandise they wanted and dying of boredom.
Or getting a month’s detention for blocking an aisle, Xander thought as Principal Snyder marched toward him between tables. The man’s face was rigid with a look of permanent displeasure, but he charged past Xander without a glance.
“Ms. Calendar!” Snyder waved at the faculty adviser. “It’s after nine o’clock. I expect the rummage sale to open on time. The Mayor will be here at noon sharp for a photo op when the first customers come in.”
“We’ll be ready,” Ms. Calendar assured him. Her tight smile turned into a look of pure loathing when he turned his back. A pagan with a load of smarts but no power, or so she had told Giles, Jenny Calendar could only wish boils or perpetual hiccups on Snyder.
Xander stuck to his usual MO when dealing with the principal. He moved briskly in the opposite direction.
Devon and Oz had stopped to help Cheryl Saunders unload an assortment of potted houseplants, and Xander arrived at the music table ahead of them. Rather than wait like a groupie wanting an autograph, he flipped through the old albums.
“You’re in clo
thes, right?” Oz asked, coming up behind him a minute later.
“Right.” Xander held his hands up. “Not naked.”
The boy smiled. “No, I meant you and Willow.”
When the self-conscious girl caught both boys looking her way, she dropped the roll of price stickers. Xander could almost hear her gasp as she stooped to pick it up.
“She sent me over to ask—”
Oz perked up.
“—if you and Devon would keep playing the golden oldies,” Xander finished. “Willow and Buffy think doo-wop and psychedelic rock will make people spend more money.”
“That could work.” Oz held out the cardboard box. “This is clothes and some other stuff. Your department, not ours.”
“Don’t think so.” Harmony peered over Oz’s shoulder into the box. “I see things that belong in the expensive department. I’ll take it.”
Xander didn’t object when Oz handed her the box. He asked a more important question. “Have either one of you seen a camouflage hunting vest?”
“Can’t say that I have.” Oz turned on the old stereo and reached for a small vinyl record. “But I found a pair of sheepskin seat covers that will look great in my van.”
“The van with zebra stripes?” Xander hadn’t male-bonded since he had staked Jesse, his best friend turned vampire, but Oz seemed sincere and likeable.
“Yeah, but I’m thinking of painting it blue.” Oz pressed a yellow plastic disk into the large hole in the middle of the forty-five, then fit the small hole in the yellow plastic onto the turntable spindle.
“Have you seen the jewelry someone took out of the display case?” Harmony asked.
“Someone stole jewelry? Something specific?” Xander wondered if Michael had come back in the middle of the night to look for his medallion.
“Some chain necklaces, a couple of bracelets, and a pair of rhinestone earrings. Why?” Harmony’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know?”
“Not a thing,” Xander answered quickly. He wasn’t about to sic the insipid, painfully blunt Harmony on the verbally unarmed Michael Czajak. If Michael had stolen his charm back, it was a victory for the little people. “Gotta go.”