by Nancy Holder
Jonathan hid behind the science lab station, listening to Andrew’s footsteps recede down the hall. Revenge wasn’t the only reason his friend had attacked him. The electric eel on the bullwhip had filled him with an incredible sense of power. He hadn’t been able to resist the overwhelming urge to crack the whip—over and over, preferably at something alive. Buffy had killed the eel, breaking the psychic bond, but another one must have taken its place. Now Andrew was in the whip’s thrall.
That wasn’t all, Jonathan realized. If Andrew hadn’t been exaggerating to impress Buffy Summers, the creature built up a stronger and stronger electrical charge with each strike.
I almost killed my best friend! Jonathan was appalled, but not just because he had almost electrocuted Andrew. They were both misfits, had been their whole lives, but they had each other. If Andrew moved away or got mad and stopped hanging out with him or died, he wouldn’t have anybody. That was the fate he dreaded most. He’d rather die than be alone.
But he didn’t want to die today.
Jonathan crept to the classroom door and paused to plot his next move. It was a no-brainer. Since Andrew had run back toward the cafeteria, he ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
Something weird was always happening in Sunnydale. Jonathan didn’t know exactly what was going on today, but the cops had arrived with sirens blaring to surround the school. Escape from the building wasn’t possible, but he just needed a secure hiding place to wait out the crisis—somewhere he had never been, where Andrew would never think to look. A sign on the corridor wall directed him to the perfect spot.
Jonathan raced around the corner toward the auto shop. Andrew probably didn’t even know Sunnydale High had a garage! Even if he did, nothing less than an emergency droid repair could lure him inside the student mechanics’ grimy habitat.
Jonathan’s elation evaporated twenty feet from the auto shop double doors. He skidded to a halt.
“Hey!” a redheaded boy called out. He was almost entirely engulfed in a mass of pulsating gunk that filled the doorway and looked like bread dough.
Jonathan recognized Oz, the lead guitar player for Dingoes Ate My Baby. Ordinarily he wouldn’t dream of talking to a popular musician from the Bronze, but Oz’s plight evened out the social differential.
“What?” Jonathan took a tentative step closer.
“Pull me out.” Oz extended his arm. He seemed remarkably calm for a kid who was being consumed by a real-life blob.
In his daydreams, Jonathan envisioned himself as the ultimate leading man who knew everything, had everything, and could do everything. That Jonathan would rush to the rescue without a second thought, deflate the victim’s doughy prison with a pencil, and yank Oz free.
The real Jonathan inched closer, but didn’t commit. “What is this?”
“My van seat covers,” Oz said. “They just started growing and won’t stop. I tried to run, but my foot got stuck.”
“Does it hurt?” Jonathan winced.
“Not so far, but I have a really bad feeling that this is some kind of giant fungus that’s slowly digesting me, like a Venus flytrap without leaves.” Oz pushed against the dough. “Grab my hand.”
“Okay.” Taking a deep breath, Jonathan reached out. Just as he touched Oz’s callused fingertips, the mass bulged outward. He jumped back as the dough enveloped Oz’s arms and oozed farther into the hallway. “I’ll go get help!”
“Wait!” Oz yelled.
Jonathan didn’t look back or pause until he reached the corridor outside the cafeteria. Ms. Calendar was in the classroom across the hall. He threw open the door and yelled, “The blob is coming! Run for your lives!”
“Andrew is here,” a familiar voice said behind him. “Gotcha!”
“Everybody dies is not an acceptable ever after.” Buffy fumed. Part of her success as the Slayer was the unshakable belief that every problem had a positive solution. The projected outcome of the present situation—that the trapped Hellmouth mini-monsters would die out after they had infected and killed all the available hosts in the school—wasn’t good enough. “There’s got to be another way to save the world.”
“I certainly hope so,” Xander said.
“Rupert? Are you down there?” Ms. Calendar hurried down the stairs. Rather than barge past Willow, she stopped before she reached the bottom. She looked frazzled and sounded frantic.
Giles blanched, assuming the worst. “Are you infected?”
“I don’t think so, but three people have died. And Jonathan Levenson just told me that a blob creature ate a guitar player.”
“Fascinating. Which one? That band Wretched Refuse has a raw, savage sound that hits right here.” Spike placed his fist against his stomach. “I’d miss them.”
“Is this blob entity in the vicinity of the infirmary?” Giles asked.
“I haven’t seen it,” Ms. Calendar said, “and Andrew chased Jonathan away before he finished his report. Are you any closer to fixing this? Dozens more are critically ill.”
“How’s my mom?” Buffy was afraid to ask, but she had to know. “The hard facts.”
“The dry peeling skin only affected her hands,” Ms. Calendar said. “But she’s broken out in green blotches on her arms and face. The, uh, green skin cracks and bleeds if it’s touched. She’s lying down and trying not to move.”
“I have to go to her.” Buffy took a step toward the stairs.
“Your impulse is commendable, Buffy, but it won’t cure her.” Giles spoke in an even, unemotional tone. “In fact, as much as I’m sure your mother would appreciate your presence, it would be a deathbed watch.”
Buffy whirled on the librarian, eyes flashing. “Then let’s stop talking and do what we have to do to save her!”
“And everyone else, too,” Xander said hoarsely.
“Agreed,” Giles said. “First we must identify and remove the magick that’s preventing Pragoh from using his powers.”
The kur’s head suddenly emerged from the blue scarf. It hissed and spit with the ferocity of a cornered wildcat until Willow hushed it.
“Rebooting Pragoh’s power isn’t a good idea.” Holding the kur close, Willow glowered at Buffy. “He wants to hurt Cutie. You can’t let him. I won’t let him!”
Willow was on the verge of a violent outburst, and Buffy hastened to calm her. “Nobody’s going to hurt Cutie, Will.”
“Promise.” Willow’s eyes narrowed.
Giles shielded his mouth with his hand and whispered, “The psychic link won’t be severed until the kur is back in the Hellmouth.”
Buffy nodded slightly to let him know she understood. Until the kur was gone, Willow wasn’t in control of her own emotions. Buffy would promise to marry Spike if it would keep Willow from going off the deep end and hurting herself or someone else. “I promise.”
“People are dying, Rupert,” Ms. Calendar said anxiously.
“We haven’t forgotten,” Giles assured her.
“At least their problems are over.” Spike punched the door when Dru slammed into it again. “Dru could be a ghastly bat forever, being immortal and all.”
Buffy held back a quip about justified fate and focused on the problem. “So how do we find the bad magick? We don’t even know where to start.”
“Actually, I have a theory.” Giles slipped into intense mulling-it-over mode. “It’s possible that the magick hindering Pragoh’s power attracted the vermin in the first place. Something induced the creatures to leave the Hellmouth, and nothing else adequately explains why an infestation hasn’t happened before in the months since the Master weakened the barrier.”
“Amy Madison,” Buffy said. The young witch was the only student Buffy knew with the power to counter a demon’s magick.
“She’s absent,” Willow said. “With the flu, the real flu. Fever, throwing up, feeling yuck.”
Buffy glanced at Ms. Calendar. “Have you—”
Ms. Calendar quickly set the record straight on her magickal abilities.
“I can cure hiccups and leg cramps. I can’t disarm a demon.”
“Well, someone did something,” Giles said, exasperated.
“It wasn’t me!” Willow exclaimed, flustered. “I’ve just been reading a few books about spells and potions and . . . and stuff. Strictly dabbling. I mean, not real magick that could actually do anything—”
Buffy wasn’t surprised that the ultrasmart techno-whiz was investigating the magickal arts. Knowledge was power. Willow’s mind was one of the Slayer’s greatest assets.
Giles didn’t dismiss Willow’s dabbling as unimportant either. “An amateur spell might be responsible. The most simplistic incantation or ritual could be increased by magnitudes of power this close to the Hellmouth.”
“Really? Whoa!” Willow blinked. “But I didn’t do any magick. Honest.”
“Oh! Oh!” Xander hit the banister with the heel of his hand. “Michael.”
“Michael Czajak?” Buffy asked.
“He was muttering . . . while he looked for . . . his charm.” Xander explained in halting phrases between labored breaths. “Didn’t hear what—”
“If Michael believes the gold medallion has the magickal power to protect him,” Giles concluded, “he might cast a spell to find it.”
“Makes sense to me,” Buffy said.
“Assuming that’s what occurred,” Giles went on, “Michael’s spell would have to be satisfied in order for the magickal interference to end.”
“Meaning the spell will be broken when Michael gets his charm back?” Buffy asked.
Giles nodded. “Theoretically, yes.”
Pragoh agreed. “No more bad magick.”
“Except that we don’t know what happened to the medallion,” Buffy pointed out.
“Is it a gold sun studded with red and green stones?” Spike asked.
“Yeah. Do you have it?” Buffy tensed. She didn’t have time to spar with the vampire.
“No, but Drusilla did for a few minutes this morning, before the bats attacked.” Spike hesitated, then added, “She said the bit burned, like an ‘aching heart.’”
Buffy had no idea if Drusilla’s gibberish meant anything, but at least Spike also thought the circumstances were too dire for games.
“A lost heart, perhaps?” Giles mused.
Spike shrugged. “‘The longing wiggles.’ She said that, too.”
“An odd choice of metaphors,” Giles said.
“Where amulet now?” Pragoh asked pointedly.
Buffy shared his impatience with the literary riddles, but it was disconcerting to be thinking like and working with a certified Hellmouth demon. Having the same goal doesn’t mean we’re playing by the same rules, she reminded herself.
“Drusilla dropped the medallion in a box.” Spike motioned toward the stairs. “The short guitar player from that Dingo boy band took it upstairs.”
“Oz?” Xander looked up. “Harmony took it. . . .”
Buffy sympathized with the difficulty Xander had speaking and asked yes or no questions. “Harmony took it where? To the high-dollar table?”
Xander nodded.
Buffy didn’t remember seeing it, but she hadn’t looked at the items in the display cases.
“Uh—I found Michael’s amulet stuck to my sweater.” Willow shrank back slightly. “But I gave it away.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Willow trudged up the stairs behind Giles and Ms. Calendar, she cast a wary glance back. Buffy and the kur-hunting demon were too busy helping Xander to harm Cutie—for now. Spike had stayed in the basement to make sure bat-Dru didn’t break out of the storeroom. It was weird, but the vampire didn’t seem so scary—maybe because Willow and Spike both had to protect the one thing they loved most in the world.
Of course, Drusilla had fangs and could fight back if she had to. Cutie was soft and cuddly and totally vulnerable without her.
But there wasn’t an immediate threat, and Willow relaxed as she hugged the kur. The warm fuzzies wasn’t just a sappy saying. It was exactly how she felt when Cutie felt safe and purred, like toasty mush.
“And you have no idea what became of the necklace, Willow?” Giles asked.
“I told Brad it belonged to Michael,” Willow answered, annoyed. She was so wrapped up in Cutie, she hadn’t followed every nuance of the discussion in the basement. The idea of finding Michael’s medallion was unsettling, but since the kur wasn’t in imminent danger, she put it out of her mind.
“Did Brad say he’d give it back to him?” Ms. Calendar stepped out of the stairwell and moved aside.
“He said he wanted to give it to his girlfriend.” Willow hurried past the computer teacher. Xander stumbled into the corridor after her with Buffy and Pragoh supporting him on either side.
“Brad Corelli has a girlfriend?” Buffy released Xander’s arm but held her hand up for a moment in case he started to fall.
“He’s been dating Cheryl Saunders for a month.” Nudged by a twinge of kur anxiety, Willow moved across the hall.
“House plants,” Xander said breathlessly. “Devon and Oz helped her—” He leaned against the wall, gasping for air.
“Where is Brad?” Buffy asked. “We need to know if he gave the necklace to Cheryl or Michael.”
“I’m not sure Brad will be able to tell you,” Ms. Calendar said. “He’s literally taken root at a desk. I haven’t seen Cheryl.”
Buffy pulled a wad of paper towels out of her waistband. “I can search the cafeteria for the amulet, on the off chance it’s still there.”
“Some of these kids don’t have much time.” Ms. Calendar’s voice was tight with urgency.
Willow began to inch away. She felt bad that so many people were sick, but they weren’t her problem. Cutie was feeling nervous again, and she had to keep him away from the ugly gray demon.
“Given the number of people who have been in contact with Michael’s amulet, it would appear the charm is working its way back to him. Eventually it will succeed.” Giles looked at Ms. Calendar. “Is Michael in the infirmary?”
Ms. Calendar nodded. “Drifting in and out of consciousness and wasting away to skin and bones.”
Giles turned to Buffy. “Sweep the cafeteria for the necklace, but do it quickly. If we lose its trail, perhaps we can backtrack it from the boy.”
Willow felt a surge of fright when a small orange-and-black lizard darted out the basement door and skittered between the demon’s legs.
Pragoh jumped suddenly and started stomping his wide foot. The lizard leaped to avoid being flattened.
Cutie screamed in Willow’s head, transmitting the same terror she had felt in the basement. The kur wasn’t afraid of Pragoh. He was terrified of the fire dragon.
“Stop!” Buffy yelled, and bopped Pragoh on the head. She pulled the startled demon back before he injured the fire dragon. “Are you trying to get us all turned into Easy-Bake ovens?”
“Not cook me,” Pragoh said.
“Of course.” Giles commented on the demon’s casual assertion as a matter of interest. “Pragoh would have to be immune to the creatures to be effective, wouldn’t he?”
“Don’t like fire dragon,” Pragoh explained.
“Don’t care!” Infuriated, Buffy pushed Pragoh back against the wall.
The fire lizard had been nearby the whole time they had been in the basement, and it hadn’t smoked anyone. It hadn’t even tried to smoke her when she had reached for the pot to trap it. The lizard had run away instead. And it hadn’t used its deadly defensive mechanism when Pragoh had just tried to squash it. She felt confident the fire dragon wouldn’t attack unless smoking was the only way to avoid being caught or killed. At the moment it was sitting up on its haunches a few feet away, watching.
“Everyone would probably be safer in the infirmary, Giles.” Buffy glanced at Xander. Every breath he took seemed harder to draw than the last. “Where’s Willow?”
“Run away.” Pragoh pointed down the corridor. “Kur don’t like fire dragon.”
&nbs
p; “Don’t blame him.” Ms. Calendar opened the classroom door, and Giles waved her inside.
“I know how to handle the lizard, Giles,” Buffy said, “but you’d better take Pragoh with you. I don’t want to get smoked by mistake.”
“Understood. A hand here, please, Pragoh.” Giles kept a wary eye on the lizard as he and the demon helped Xander hobble into the classroom.
After the door closed behind them, Buffy headed down the corridor. The lizard seemed to be tracking her movements, and she hoped it would follow her. Ms. Calendar’s mug was still half full, which was more than enough cold coffee to keep the little guy occupied until Pragoh called it back into the Hellmouth.
Provided we get his magick working, Buffy thought as she strode through the cafeteria doors. The floor was still covered with black splinters and shards. With so many bizarre beings on the loose, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the black ball had reconstituted itself like liquid metal, Terminator 2–style. She was relieved to discover it had not.
The coffee mug was where she had left it, on the table with the other art pieces her mom had brought in. Buffy tensed when the little lizard leaped onto the table, but it ignored her and clamped on to the mug. As she stepped back, she noticed the slogan the lizard’s body had covered earlier: PARTY PAGAN.
“May we all live to party another day,” Buffy said as she turned. The potted plants were on an end table one aisle over from CDs and old records.
Buffy’s alert gaze flicked over everything as she walked. An animal that looked like a purple armadillo-porcupine combo with boar’s teeth and three horns burrowed in the orange blanket where Xander had first hidden his vest. She realized that if she had left it there, he might not be facing a slow death by crushing, but she shook off the pang of guilt. For all she knew, the purple creature had poison quills that killed instantly.
The leather skirt she had stashed in defiance of Snyder’s rules was still tucked in the stack of shirts, but she didn’t want it anymore. Even after all the Hellmouth horrors were gone, she wouldn’t be able to wear it without imagining that something vile was swimming through her veins, chomping her white blood cells, or turning her hair into cactus spines and seaweed.