by Nancy Holder
“The marquee says—”
“Kung fu first,” Xander said again. “Take the word of one who knows. Anyhow, this is just a coming attraction.”
As if in response, a deep and booming voice thundered from the parked car’s sound system, louder even than the guitars. “They were the dark knights of the road and their horses were the two-wheeled, road-ripping, fuel-injected, rampaging machines they called ‘hogs’! The highway was their hunting ground, and decent people were their prey!”
Management had programmed the grand opening not just as a festival of vintage films but as a re-creation of the “authentic drive-in experience.” Before and between movies there’d be coming attractions for action flicks of the past, chosen to appeal to modern audiences. Xander had spent an entire afternoon in the projection shack as it underwent renovation, chatting up the man who was running the films now. He’d taken a peek at the projection schedule, and thus had known for days what he could expect to see tonight.
The reality was different, though, and the difference was increasingly apparent as Xander munched and sipped his way through the preview for Hellions on the Highway. Images that seemed small and remote at home, even on the largest monitor, had new impact when blown up to fill the drive-in’s screen. They became so much larger than life, in more ways than one. Not only did they loom above their audience, but they took on a luminous quality as well. Xander had witnessed some remarkable things in his life, but when the preview zoomed so close that the lead biker’s glaring eyes nearly filled the screen, even he was impressed.
“Yow,” he said softly, then ate more popcorn.
“They’re the kings of the road, and you’d better pray their road doesn’t lead to your town!” the announcer warned.
The din started faintly in the distance, barely even a murmur at first. But the murmur became a rumble and the rumble became a roar, and then the roar gave way to a rolling thunder. It sounded like a thousand bombs being detonated all at once, and then, impossibly, detonated again and again and again. The thunder grew louder, becoming more intense.
It was the roar of motorcycle engines, and they were coming closer.
Buffy turned just in time to see the first headlight glare at her from the night’s darkness. Almost instantly the single beacon was joined by five more like it, moving together in a formation that spanned the street and sidewalks alike. Looking past them, she could barely see chrome shining in the shadows beyond. The headlights’ size and placement, the grumbling roar of high-power engines, and the hints of glinting chrome all added up to one thing.
A motorcycle gang was bearing down on her, moving hard and fast. She didn’t waste time wondering who or how or why.
With urgency but not fear Buffy looked from side to side, assessing the immediate terrain’s strategic possibilities. A fire-escape ladder offered a potential avenue of retreat, but she’d need to turn her back on her pursuers. A narrow alley promised escape too, but it was thick with unexplored shadow. A loading dock to her left offered shelter and high ground and a wall for her back. It also offered the potential for being cornered, but right now it seemed like her best bet. She sprinted toward it.
The Slayer moved fast, but the leftmost motorcycle moved faster. With an engine snarl like the cry of a great cat, it raced into Buffy’s path, obstructing her goal. The rider was a showoff, pulling his bike back and up into a wheelie as it rushed past her. Buffy caught a glimpse of torn jeans and a leather vest covering bare, hairy arms, thick with muscle. She saw a low-brimmed helmet and glaring eyes, and a lashing, whirling something that shone like silver even in the poor lighting.
It was a chain.
Buffy ducked back, nearly in time but not quite. The leading link of the lashing chain smashed into her shoulder. It hurt like a bullet, and she gave a gasp of pain.
The first biker roared past her, his job done. He’d delayed her just long enough for his fellow bikers to join him. With practiced ease, the five followers formed a circle with Buffy at its center. Even as she realized what they were doing, the first bike retraced its path and joined them. The now six bikes roared in a chrome-steel orbit, a whirling wall that blocked off any possible path of escape.
They’d surrounded her.
Buffy let her legs bend slightly and dropped into a half crouch, presenting a smaller target. She groped in her weapons bag and drew out her crossbow, with bolt already in place. Without looking, she cocked the weapon and set its release, then reached again into the store of weapons. Working by touch alone, she found her battle-axe. It was the only other instrument that might be suitable for distance work. With an axe in her left hand and a crossbow in her right, she looked warily from side to side, poised for battle. When the attack came, it would come quickly.
“Yee-haw!”
“Whoop-whoop-whoop!”
“Little lady want a ride?”
The shouts and mocking calls were loud enough to be heard over the bike engines, at least when they were this close. The six gaps between the six bikes narrowed, and the circle became smaller. In perfect coordination, they were closing in on her, like a sprung trap, or a closing noose.
When had this become her life?
At the barest edge of her vision, Buffy saw a liquid silver flash, the sheen of chrome steel rippling like water under the streetlight’s glare. Another chain. With animal instinct she jumped straight up. Pavement chips flew as the chain struck where her feet had been. At the peak of her trajectory, in the perfect instant before gravity pulled her earthward again, Buffy took easy aim and squeezed the crossbow’s release. The bolt flew.
One of Buffy’s tormentors yelped in pain as the arrow stabbed him. Buffy’s feet and the injured rider’s bike struck pavement simultaneously. Sparks flew as the motorcycle, engine still roaring, spun on its side across the pavement.
“First blood!” one of her attackers yelled.
“Yeeeee-haaawwww!”
“Time to party!”
“Gonna getcha! Gonna getcha good!”
The circle of death grew tighter. Her crossbow was empty now, its bolt flown. She cast it aside. Even as she did, a third chain lashed at her, then a fourth. Buffy dodged them both, with an awkward twisting leap. If she fell, or if she drifted too far from the center of their circle, she’d be in serious trouble.
Yet another whiplash arc of steel whistled at her. But this attack arrived at chest height, offering an opening.
The axe’s handle was a shaft of cured and seasoned wood that was a bit longer than her forearm, banded with reinforcing steel. She gripped it with both hands just beneath the axe’s bladed head. She was running on automatic, executing moves that Giles had drilled into her during long hours of combat practice.
The axe came up, not to strike but to block. Buffy’s two-handed grip tightened as she held it before her, precisely perpendicular to the whipping chain’s trajectory and as far from her body as she could manage. Instinctively, she braced herself for impact.
It came like a thunderbolt. It raced through her arms and body, almost enough to tear the weapon from her hands.
Almost, but not quite.
She’d timed it just right. Night air whistled as the chain wound itself tightly around the axe handle, like fishing line on a reel. Buffy gritted her teeth and dropped back, yanking hard. The chain came with it, and the biker roared curses as she tore the lash from his grip and made it her own.
Buffy now held one end of the chain, spinning it rapidly above her head. She grinned. Numbers were still on her attackers’ side, but her reach was as long as theirs now, and her strength was far greater.
“Somebody wanted to party?” Buffy shouted.
She braced herself and cast the chain in a sweeping, serpentine strike. As much by luck as by aim, it hit a biker and wrapped itself around one beefy arm. The man yelped in pain and lost control of his bike. More sparks flew as the second bike toppled and slid across the pavement, taking the biker with it.
Most of him, at least. Either B
uffy’s whiplash strike had been stronger than she realized, or her assailant’s structure was physically weaker. His arm remained trapped in the chain’s coils, torn free from his body. The grisly image lingered just long enough to register before the arm vanished into nothingness.
If she’d had any doubts that these guys were like the man-wolf of a few nights before, those doubts were gone now. The kid gloves could come off; they weren’t human, probably not even alive.
“Okay!” Buffy shouted defiantly. “No more Ms. Nice Slayer!”
The remainder of the pack pulled back. She grinned, pleased with herself. She had them on the run. She spun the chain again.
That was when it happened. One second the captured chain was secure in her grip, reassuringly solid as its centrifugal force tried to pull it away from her. The next second, without warning, the seemingly solid metal evaporated to liquid, and then was gone.
Turning to her empty hand, she blinked. The bikers were like the wolf-man, but so were their weapons. Could things get any worse?
As if on cue, a figure dropped from the night sky.
A woman’s voice, deep and throaty, purred from the car speakers. She had an accent that promised vague exoticism without suggesting a specific nation or language. Whoever she was, wherever she was from, she seemed very pleased to have found an audience.
“The Swedes have a word for it,” she said. “But doesn’t everyone?”
Jonathan’s eyes widened a bit, and he sat more upright in his seat. He set his drink in its armrest caddy and pulled his other hand from the bag of popcorn, without taking any. His entire attention was fixed on the drive-in screen, where a very attractive blonde was winking at him and everyone else in the audience. She had cleanly drawn features and pursed lips that were as red as a fire engine. Her eyes were of the purest blue, and if her hairstyle and makeup were a bit old-fashioned, there was no doubt that they got the job done.
“Hel-lo,” Xander said softly. He set his drink down too.
“Um?” Jonathan asked. Words seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him, slowly and with great reluctance. “Are we old enough to see this?” he asked.
“Why, yes, spoilsport, we are,” Xander said dreamily.
“Are—are you sure?” Jonathan spoke with a mixture of relief and uncertainty.
“It’s just the coming attraction,” Xander told him. “The movie, now—”
The blond woman on the screen moved seductively as she made her way down a long hallway with many doors. She wore a white uniform and wheeled a cart loaded down with medical equipment. When a pudgy, balding man dressed in white approached from the opposite direction, she tickled his chin and kissed him on one cheek before whispering something in his ear. He blushed furiously, and Xander knew that no matter what language the blond woman spoke, he wanted very much to hear it.
Movie content had been the topic of more than one discussion during the previous week or so. Historically, drive-in films were known for their racy content and approach, but “racy” had meant different things over the years. According to Xander’s supervisor, the new proprietor’s fondness for the old-fashioned extended to a certain conservativeness in programming. This preview was as much of the movie as they were ever likely to see, at least at this venue.
“From a land of cold nights and hot passion comes a prescription for health and happiness,” the announcer cooed. “Really, it’s The Best Medicine.”
As she spoke, the movie’s title appeared on the screen in bold pink letters, then faded. Replacing them was another close-up of the pretty blond nurse, her lips pursed in an alluring smile.
As the screen faded to black, the announcer’s voice sounded again. “Report for treatment to this theater,” she said. “Ask for Nurse Inga.”
Xander sat bolt upright, not an easy thing to do in a car seat. “Inga?” he said sharply.
“Inga,” Jonathan agreed. “That’s what she said. Why?”
Xander didn’t answer. Telling Jonathan about the phantom nurse on the Sunnydale High campus would have meant telling him entirely too much. Anyway, the matching names had to be a coincidence.
Didn’t they?
• • •
Night air whistled in Angel’s ears as he leaped from the warehouse rooftop.
As he fell, he changed. His perpetually youthful features shifted into something bestial and cruel. His brow dropped and his jaw thrust forward. His eyes receded into their sockets slightly and burned with animal fire, while picture-perfect teeth became ragged fangs. By the time he smacked into his target motorcyclist, he was in full-on vampire mode.
“Angel!” Buffy said.
He didn’t answer. Instead, even as the big high-horsepower bike bucked and slewed, he wrenched the German-style helmet from the biker’s head and threw it away.
“Hey! Wha—?” the biker yelled. “What’s your problem, man?”
Hands that were inhumanly strong clamped on to either side of the rider’s head. Angel gripped and wrenched. The biker roared in pain. He took both hands from the handlebars and tried to break the vampire’s grip, but without success. The motorcycle broke ranks and went into a skid.
Angel expected to hear bones break, but instead he felt something tear. The biker gave a final yelp and then fell silent as his head came up and away from his shoulders, slightly more easily than Angel would have expected. He had only the briefest moment to consider the surprising development before the disconnected cranium evaporated, leaving nothing but empty space between his hands.
Then the rest of the biker melted away.
As did his motorcycle.
Angel found himself several feet above the ground, trying to ride a motorcycle that was no longer there. He dropped, bounced, and rolled. Returning to his feet, he threw himself back into the fray.
In some ways, the world moved in slow motion for a vampire. Angel’s inhuman speed and fast reflexes made it easy to dart between two of the four motorcycles that remained, still circling his beloved. In seconds he was where he belonged, at Buffy’s side.
“That was a surprise,” the Slayer said. She’d reverted to a defensive stance, battle-axe in one hand and curved boka in the other.
“Pleasant one, I hope,” he said.
“More the merrier,” she responded.
She offered the machete-like blade to him, and he accepted it gratefully. The weapon’s hilt felt good in his hand, reassuringly solid. Right now the sensation of substantiality was precisely what Angel wanted.
The four remaining bikes continued to circle. They too looked substantial—solid masses of muscle, bone, and metal. It was difficult to believe that mere physical force could turn them so swiftly from something that was into something that wasn’t.
Angel’s travels had exposed him to many religions and philosophies. A lesson from one drifted up from his subconscious. It was a Zen koan, a puzzle or question that was intended to teach and enlighten.
Where does a fist go when the hand opens?
Wherever it was, the vanished biker had gone there too. Angel had seen many things in his long years, but this specific phenomenon was something new.
He could worry about that later, though. It was time to finish the job.
Guitar chords blasted, fast, fat, and fuzzy. They echoed as the camera tracked down from the orange sun that filled the screen, sliding down along a yellow sky to seemingly endless sands that were the color of pale rust. Just watching it all made Xander feel hot and sweaty. It didn’t make sense to start the car and run the air conditioner, so he retrieved a second soda out of the ice-filled cooler instead. It was the cheap stuff, supermarket-brand carbonated fruit punch, but it went down good.
On-screen, the desert sands seemed to stretch on forever. Where they met the yellow sky, something was increasingly visible. It was a man riding a horse.
“This is going to be good,” Xander said. When he got no response, he glanced at Jonathan. The younger boy’s eyelids were half-closed. “Hey!” Xander said sharpl
y.
Jonathan sat up, startled. “Huh? What?”
“It’s kind of early to doze off,” Xander said. He would never admit it, but he had prepared for the evening by taking a nap after school.
“No, no,” Jonathan said. “Just resting my eyes.”
Xander had his doubts, but he allowed another abrupt guitar riff to command his attention back to the screen. Just in time, too: A jump cut eliminated the distance, and a man’s face nearly filled the screen. Presumably, this was the distant rider shown a moment before.
He looked as though he’d been built out of beef jerky, as though the desert sun had sucked every molecule of moisture out of his body and turned his skin to leather, corrugated and rough. He had a Stetson hat pulled low over eyes that were little more than slits but that still burned with a fire all their own. A hand as leathery as the face raised a cheroot cigar to barely parted lips. The traveler took a puff and exhaled, and the swirls of smoke condensed into yet another movie title.
Reach for the Sky—and Die!
“They hardly make westerns anymore,” Xander said helpfully. He drank more fruit soda. If he kept this up, he realized, he’d need to try out another part of the renovated open-air theater.
“Gee, I wonder why,” Jonathan said. He’d opened a cooling beverage as well, but his choice was caffeinated cola.
“This one’s Italian,” Xander said, still trying to be helpful.
The guitar chords continued. The rider’s face gave way to a rapid-fire sequence of images, some of them surprisingly violent. Having dismounted his horse, the man strode along the central street of a flyspeck western town. Storefronts, saloons, and plank sidewalks lined either side. He carried a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a six-shooter in the other, and a bullwhip coiled around one serape-clad shoulder. In a series of tightly edited shots, he put all three weapons to extensive use.
The shotgun blasted twice, taking out the saloon’s plate glass window. When townsfolk made their opposition known, booming shots from the six-gun silenced them . . . permanently. The bullwhip snaked out to impossible length, snared a rooftop sniper, and pulled him to the street. Interspersed between the frenetic scenes were glimpses of quieter moments, ones in which the characters exchange challenges, quips, and double entendres. When he spoke, the leathery-looking man’s voice was as dry and raspy as stones sliding across one another. And because the film was dubbed from the original Italian, his lips never quite matched his words.