Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2

by Nancy Holder

  “Buffy! Please!” Giles said.

  Six massive books lay on the library table before her and Willow, each bound in what she sincerely hoped was leather. A rivulet of protein drink flowed toward one. The half-dozen volumes weren’t from the school’s state-issued collection, but from Giles’s assets. With the protective instinct of a mother hen, he slid the endangered tome aside with one hand while he blotted the spilled drink with a handkerchief held in the other.

  “I said I was sorry,” Buffy said. She was, too, but not sorry enough to forgo her liquid lunch. Slaying burned a lot of calories.

  “Yes, I can tell you’re quite distraught,” Giles said.

  “See anything familiar yet, Buffy?” Willow asked, obviously eager to change the subject.

  “Nope,” the Slayer said. She shook her head emphatically and pointed at each of the books in turn. “No. Uh-uh. Nopers. That’s a negatory, good buddy.” With each rejection, she pointed at a different volume using the same hand that held her drink.

  “Please, Buffy, if I could trouble you to be careful with your beverage,” Giles said. He seemed physically uncomfortable. “That copy of the Crimson Chronicles is more than six hundred years old. It would be terribly difficult to replace.”

  She pulled the drink back, so that it was no longer above the open tome. Just in time, too: A drop of condensation trickled down its side and fell to the floor. “O-kay,” Buffy said. “But just because you ask so nice.”

  Giles had opened the half-dozen books, presenting illustrations for her review. The pictures varied wildly in style and execution, but each was of a wolf or wolflike creature. Some sported horns or forked tails or human eyes. One picture was an unsettling fusion of a human head and a wolf’s body, precisely the opposite of what Buffy was looking for. Only the sixth image was even a slight match.

  “This guy’s in the neighborhood,” Buffy said, pointing at the last open book.

  Giles and Willow looked. The image she’d indicated was of a human figure with a canine head. The anonymous artist had rendered the portrait in awkward profile but with nice detail. The subject was bare-chested, was dressed in sandals and a loincloth, and carried a staff in one very human-looking hand.

  “That’s not a werewolf,” Willow said. She sounded faintly dismayed. “That’s Anubis, the god of the dead in ancient Egypt.” When Giles and Buffy both looked at her in surprise, she continued more defensively, “Hey, I’ve been reading up on this stuff! I’m not just a computer geek!”

  Giles lifted the open book. He made a great production of reading from the crabbed lettering. “It’s an image of Anpu, actually,” he said.

  Willow rolled her eyes slightly. She said, “And Anpu is another name for . . . ?”

  Giles sighed. “Anubis.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Buffy said. “I don’t care if it’s Anubis or Andrew—”

  “Anpu,” Giles said softly.

  “—or Anpu. That guy’s not who I saw last night. He’s just in the same general neighborhood,” Buffy continued impatiently. “Human body with added wolfy badness.”

  “Anubis is a jackal deity, not wolf,” Willow said.

  “I. Don’t. Care,” Buffy said, emphasizing each word. “I want to know what he’s doing in Sunnydale.” She drained the last of her shake and thought back to wolf-man’s absurd attire. “And I’d like to know what team he’s playing for too, if that’s not too much trouble.”

  Giles hadn’t entirely believed her when she’d made her preliminary report. Convincing him proved difficult. Her story just felt too far outside his personal experience and research. He’d listened to her account of the evening’s patrol but had actually tried to correct her on the details, which was ridiculous. While Buffy was prowling the cemetery and not kissing Angel, Giles must have been home sipping tea and watching BBC satellite feeds, or whatever it was he did with his evenings. That didn’t seem to matter to Giles, though, not even when the Slayer pointed it out to him. Again and again he asked her if she was certain the wolf-man hadn’t attacked her on all fours, or if she was sure that she hadn’t used a silver bullet, or if the autumn moon might not actually have been full.

  “I have some other texts,” Giles said slowly, closing the Anubis book with great reluctance. “One in particular might be of use. We can consult it later.”

  “Later?” Willow asked. “Now is better, isn’t it?”

  “But I can’t seem to find it at the moment.”

  That was a surprise. The Watcher was obsessively orderly. Not only did his books run according to a strict filing system that only he fully understood, but he kept his pens and pencils sorted according to type, color, age, and size. Both girls looked at him in plain disbelief.

  “I’m certain it’s just mis-shelved,” Giles said.

  “You never mis-shelve things, Giles,” Buffy said incredulously.

  He shook his head. “Not by me, then. Someone decided to explore the stacks earlier,” Giles said. “Someone untidy.”

  “I thought the whole idea of your working on-site here was that you could keep your books in the library and no one would screw with them,” Buffy said. “Hide in plain sight and all that. I mean, we’re the only students who hang out here, right?”

  “It wasn’t a student,” Giles replied. He looked even more uncomfortable.

  “Oh? Spill!” Buffy said.

  “Yes, Giles, make with the spillage,” Willow agreed. “There’s new faculty?”

  “It would appear that the school secured the services of a new nurse,” Giles said. He gathered up the other volumes and set them on a cart for reshelving. “I came upon her in the stacks. She was making herself at home and appears to have done some . . . rearranging.”

  “A new nurse?” Buffy asked. In a more ominous tone, she continued, “The name’s not Ratched, is it?”

  “No, no, not at all. Her name is Inga.”

  “Inga?” Willow asked.

  “She’s . . . Swedish,” Giles said. The words came very slowly.

  “Uh-huh,” Buffy said. “Nurse Inga.” She raised both hands and made beckoning motions for him to be more forthcoming. “Swedish and . . .”

  “Swedish and very attractive,” Giles said. He cleared his throat and loosened his collar. “Blue-eyed and blond, quite tall, and very, um—”

  “Giles!” Buffy said. She stamped her feet in delight. She always liked catching him in a human moment. “You dog! You sly, sly dog!”

  “That’s uncalled for,” Giles said.

  “Hallo, mister library man,” Buffy said in her best bad Swedish accent. “Do you speak the Svensk?”

  “Zee Alps, zey are very nice zis time of year!” Willow said, following suit. “Ve could go exploring, yah?” Her accent was even worse.

  “No!” Giles said, clearly flustered. “It was nothing like that! I found her poking about and tried to direct her attentions elsewhere!”

  Buffy planted her elbow and rested her chin on her hand, looking up at him. “I bet you did,” she said, in tones that were soft and knowing. At her side Willow giggled.

  “There’s no way I can win this, is there?” Giles asked.

  “Nope. None.”

  “Ahem,” Giles said, and soldiered on. “Very well, then. She made a bit of a mess.” He paused. “I was just reordering things when you two arrived, but—”

  “Is anything missing?” Willow asked anxiously. “Some of your books are bad mojo.”

  “I’m not sure just yet, but I’m beginning to think so,” Giles confessed. “Inga left empty-handed, though. That’s why I wasn’t particularly concerned until you asked for all my, um, ‘werewolf goodies.’”

  Buffy grinned. Her liquid lunch was done now and she dropped the empty can in a nearby wastepaper basket. Metal hit metal with a clang much too loud for the library’s quiet confines. “Dashed inconvenient, that!” the Slayer said. She’d shifted to faux British. “Can me and the little miss give you a hand, guv’nor?”

  Giles seemed to shudde
r. “I rather think not,” he said.

  “What happens if you can’t find it?” Buffy asked. “Can I interrogate the nurse? Please, please?”

  “I’ve got some questions for her,” Willow said eagerly. “The hussy!”

  “Please,” Giles said. He put one hand to his forehead, massaging his temples as he shaded his eyes. “Oh, please. Let me do what I can first. And if I can’t find it—”

  Both Buffy and Willow looked at him brightly. They were eager to commence their investigation.

  “If I can’t find it by the end of the school day, we’ll revisit the matter,” Giles said. “I have some other works at home that may be of service. I’ll review them this evening. Contact me before you go on patrol.”

  The sun was high in the midday sky, but the walls of Angel’s lair sheltered him from its heat and menacing rays. He bolted the door against unwanted intrusion and dimmed the lights almost to the point of darkness, creating a private world of cool gloom. Alone with his thoughts, Angel lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Soon he was neither asleep nor awake, but in a tranquil state somewhere in between. Images and sensory impressions flitted though his mind like fish in the sea, each one bright and distinct and unique.

  Being a vampire had its advantages. His enormous strength and stamina were beyond a human’s dreams. He experienced the world through heightened senses. He could hide his thoughts from mind readers, and his image was invisible to mirrors. These were among the gifts of vampirism.

  No.

  They weren’t gifts, not really. They were symptoms, part and parcel of his current state, like his thirst for blood or his vulnerability to direct sunlight. He would forfeit them all, strengths and weaknesses alike, for the chance to be human again. Even so, there was no denying that the traits of vampirism had their uses.

  One of his most useful attributes was an eidetic memory, the ability to recall experiences in full quality and detail. Buffy called it “photographic,” but the word was misleading. It was more than that, much more.

  For Angel, with a bit of effort, the past could be as real as the present. Sight and sound, smell and taste, even touch—his mind recorded them in exacting fidelity. Angel had walked the world for nearly two and a half centuries, and he remembered clearly almost every moment of his existence.

  Just now he recalled the events of the previous evening. The night was cool, the moon half-full. Crickets chirped and leaves rustled. Angel had been standing silently beneath a tree in the cemetery. He’d been alone, but was waiting to hear the familiar footsteps and heartbeat.

  He slowly replayed the entire sequence of events in his mind. He walked again through the autumn night and heard anew the words he’d exchanged in low tones with Buffy. Once more he felt her breath on his cool skin. Then the wolf-man fell on them from above, and the battle began.

  He considered the entire scene again and again. Like a dog might gnaw, he mulled over the memories, striving to extract every iota of information they held. Something about the night’s adventure troubled him, even now. He had to know why.

  The battle was nothing special, really; there’d been dozens of others like it. Recover from an enemy’s attack, then counter attack. Defend Buffy and be defended by her, in turn. Triumph. The previous evening was like many before it, and like countless others to come.

  Only one thing was unique: the monster himself. Angel was certain he’d seen the creature before, or one like it, but the memory was a faint one. Tantalizing and elusive, it hung at the very threshold of his ability to recall, defying his cognitive abilities. If he’d seen the wolf-man before, the encounter must have been a fleeting one, too brief and inconsequential to register in a vampire’s memory. He might not have even seen the creature itself, he slowly realized; he might only have seen an image of the thing, a painting or drawing or photograph. . . .

  When recognition came, it struck like a thunderbolt. Angel’s eyes widened in surprise and his entire body tensed. He bolted upright in bed and shook his head in disbelief.

  “No,” he said softly. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Buffy spun the dial and lifted the hasp. The mechanism made a ka-chunk sound, and her locker door swung open. She inspected its slightly chaotic interior. It held mostly teenage girly stuff; she didn’t keep much Slayer paraphernalia at school, choosing to rely on Giles’s resources instead. Dropping off two textbooks, she picked up a third, then used the mounted door mirror to make a quick hair-and-lipstick check. Everything was in order.

  The walk from her fifth-period class to her sixth-period one typically took two minutes. Granted a five minute break, she had enough time to make a stop along the way. She smiled impishly. There was more than one kind of reconnaissance patrol.

  “Knock, knock!” Buffy said a moment later, air-rapping her knuckles on the open door to the school nurse’s station. “Hello? Anyone here?”

  “Just a moment, dear!” came a woman’s voice from the examination area. The privacy curtain whisked aside and a woman wearing a white uniform appeared. She was short and middle-aged and had curly brown hair that came from a perm and a dye bottle. Her smile was warm and friendly. “Why, Buffy Summers!” the woman said. She spoke with a musical Wisconsin lilt. “You never come calling. Is something wrong?”

  “Nurse Forman?” Buffy asked, utterly nonplussed.

  “Why, yes, dearie,” she chirped. “You sound disappointed.”

  “Um, no, no, not at all,” Buffy said. “Just surprised.” She had expected to be greeted by the Norse goddess Giles had so reluctantly described.

  The attending nurse cocked an eyebrow at her, and Buffy felt briefly ashamed of herself. Kitty Forman was motherly and sweet, with an endearing pixie-ish quality. Buffy knew that she should have been happy to see the familiar woman. “It’s just—I heard there was a new nurse, and I wanted to meet and greet,” Buffy continued. Even to her own ears the words sounded lame.

  “New nurse? Was her name Ursula?” Forman asked.

  “Inga,” Buffy corrected.

  Forman shook her head and laughed, a sound like silver bells. “No Inga here,” she said. “Or Ursula, for that matter.”

  “But—”

  “People have been asking about this Ursula or Inga or whoever person all day,” Nurse Forman said. “I don’t know what the world’s coming to. Someone must be playing a prank.” She shook her head. “A cruel, cruel prank.”

  Buffy wasn’t so sure. Giles was a hard man to fool. If he’d seen a Valkyrie in the library, there’d been a Valkyrie in the library.

  A chime rang. Nurse Forman waved Buffy toward the hallway. “There’s the warning bell,” she said. “You’d better scat! Don’t want to be late for class, dear!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The afternoon sun was bright. Cordelia lingered on one of the low retaining walls in the high school courtyard and luxuriated in the warmth. She needed a chance to unwind, and this was as good a place as any. There was a half-hour gap between the end of her classes and the beginning of cheerleading practice, and Cordelia intended to make the most of it. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. The autumn air was scented with green, thanks to the ongoing work of the landscaping crew. The moment was worth savoring. It was like an afternoon at the day spa, except it was free, so it couldn’t be as good.

  A shadow fell across her and lingered. Someone was blocking her sun. And she had a pretty good guess who it must be.

  “Go away, you,” she said without lifting her eyelids. “I’m busy.”

  “Good. I’d like to get busy too. Think you can help me with that?”

  She was right. The voice was Xander’s, filled with an easy familiarity that she found a bit presumptuous, even now. It was one thing to neck with a guy in a broom closet while vampires swarmed the hallways outside, and quite another to let him act like you were part of his life.

  “Go away,” she said again, but more gently this time, and with open eyes. Classes were done and witnesses were unlikely, so
she favored him with a smile. It was brief but genuine.

  “What’s the matter, Cordy?” he asked as he stepped aside. “Not ready to be seen in public with me just yet?”

  “‘Just yet’?” She quoted his words back to him, but with a bit of a bantering tone. She didn’t want them to sting too badly. “That implies ever.”

  She’d never tell anyone, but Cordelia had decided that there was a bit of long-term promise in the Harris boy. Xander’s typical teen gawkiness was fading fast, and if he wasn’t yet handsome, he had strong features and a good smile. Now that she’d gotten to know him better, much to her own surprise, she’d found that he could be sweet and warm.

  Not that Cordelia spent much time telling him so.

  “On your way to work?” she asked. She crossed her long legs. They were clad in designer jeans that fit like paint, and Xander’s eyes followed the movement. Good. It was always good to know that a guy was still interested. More than once, it had seemed to Cordelia that Xander was on the brink of taking her for granted. She couldn’t allow that to happen, no matter how weird it seemed to be with him.

  “Huh? Oh yeah,” he said, looking up again. His right hand held a thick sheaf of the orange handbills he’d been handing out to anybody who would take one. In his left hand was a staple gun. “Boss-man asked me to post some around town and stir up some interest among today’s troubled teens.”

  “Seems kind of low-tech,” Cordelia said.

  “Boss-man’s a bit low-tech himself,” Xander replied. “What can I say? He likes the old ways.”

  Cordelia shrugged. She couldn’t think of a response worth making.

  Xander could, or thought he could. “You should check it out, Cordy,” he said. “You’d have fun.” He paused. “We’d have fun,” he amended.

  “You’re still on that?” Cordelia asked. Without trying to be subtle about it, she looked at her wristwatch, a sterling silver wafer that her father had given her. Fifteen minutes had passed. She would need to report for drills soon.