Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2

by Nancy Holder

  She nodded. She knew what he meant. Together, they’d spent a fair piece of time the night before clobbering a set of bikers who could have ridden right off this printed page.

  “You said there was something like this in Europe,” Willow said. Her fingertips were black with newsprint smudges. “Something like the sleeping sickness. But that was before there were movies, right?”

  “Right, a long time before,” Angel agreed. He paused. “But there were pup—” His words trailed off into silence.

  They both looked at him expectantly.

  “Well, I heard something about monks in one village fighting giant puppets,” Angel said slowly. “Punch and Judy puppets.”

  They looked at him, united in an utter lack of understanding. Who the heck were Punch and Judy?

  “Puppets?” Buffy asked.

  “Punch and Judy puppets,” Angel said. “Marionette shows, about a husband and wife team. All the rage, back in the day.” When comprehension declined to dawn, he sighed. “I really wish Giles were here,” he said. “It’s a European thing.”

  “So do we,” Buffy said. “But since he isn’t—”

  He took the hint. “Punch and Judy shows were blood-and-thunder stuff, entertainment for the masses. They drank and they cursed and they hit each other a lot. With clubs,” he said. “And axes.”

  Buffy ran her fingers through her blond locks, thinking. “Sounds pretty un-PC,” she said.

  “Entertainment for the masses,” he said again. “Cheap thrills. The shows moved from town to town.”

  “Giant puppets fighting monks, you say?” Buffy said.

  “Life-size, anyway,” Angel said. “That was the rumor, at least.” He smiled, faintly and sadly. “I’ve been around a long time, Buffy. I hear a lot of things.”

  “It sounds familiar,” Willow said. “I mean, marionettes are kind of like movie characters, aren’t they? And you said that there were sleeping-sickness outbreaks in the 1860s, but that was a long time after Cagliostro—”

  “Cagliostro?” Angel demanded sharply, interrupting.

  “That’s right,” Willow said. “You guys were contemporaries. You know about him?”

  “About him?” Angel repeated, with a short, sharp laugh. “I knew him. I used to go out drinking with him.” He paused again. “Or, I guess you could say, Angelus did.”

  Buffy felt as if something cold had just run its fingers along her spine. Angelus was Angel minus the soul that gave him compassion and so much more. Angelus was the vampire Angel had been more than a century before, when he’d painted much of Europe red with fire and blood.

  If this was the same Cagliostro who had been Angelus’s drinking buddy back in the day, Sunnydale was in serious trouble.

  • • •

  “Really, ma’am, I can’t suggest any specific medical or therapeutic treatment,” Amanda said to the worried-looking lady on the other side of the counter. The words were a legal disclaimer, and she’d learned them by rote. The owner had been very clear on such things. The Magic Box wasn’t a pharmacy or licensed health-services provider, and if Amanda ever said or did anything to suggest the contrary, she’d be out on her rear.

  If it had been up to her, though, she’d have made her suggestions, taken the money, and let the woman have her powdered wolfsbane or dried goblin root or whatever nostrum sounded like it might do the job.

  “Don’t you have some kind of incense or something?” the customer asked yet again. She was plump and curly haired, a little long in the tooth for typical walk-in traffic, and her wardrobe ran to faded tie-dyes. Amanda had pretty much decided that she was some kind of over-the-hill hippie. Amanda hated hippies, but she felt a vague sympathy nonetheless. Experience with her grandparents had given her a crash course in how difficult medical challenges could be.

  “You might try the Good Luck Tea,” she said. “It’s supposed to bring good fortune. That might help. It comes in a mint and berry blend.”

  She’d tried the Good Luck Tea herself. It was sour and gave her gas.

  “No,” the chubby lady said. “That won’t work. How can I get him to drink tea when he won’t wake up?”

  “Huh,” Amanda said. It was a reasonable question and she didn’t have an answer.

  “But incense, now—”

  The phone rang. Amanda gestured in a mute request for patience and lifted the handset. “Thank you for calling the Magic Box,” she said. Those words were rote too. “Proud provider of wondrous things to Sunnydale and surrounding environs.”

  “Hey,” a voice said, husky and familiar. It was the heavyset guy she’d met at the teeny club earlier in the week. His name was Otto, but he preferred being called Skull.

  “One moment, please,” Amanda said. She covered the mouthpiece. “Incense is on the left wall, next to the candles,” she told the lady with the sleepy kid. As the woman went to inspect the stock, Amanda whispered into the phone. “I’m not supposed to take personal calls, Otto.” She took pains to use his real name.

  “Yeah,” he said. He could be a real mouth-breather. “Doing anything tonight?”

  “Maybe,” Amanda said slowly. Otto wasn’t much, but he was more than nothing, and if she spent another night in her grandparents’ house, she was going to pop like a blister. “Is there a band?”

  “I was thinking movies,” Otto said. “At the drive-in.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. Bad enough that the townie kid had tried to pick her up, but if Otto was going to climb on the drive-in bandwagon—

  Otto continued, “It’s free.”

  “Free?” It wasn’t much of a selling point, especially since Amanda had her own set of passes, but she was curious as to how Otto might have swung such a deal. She asked.

  “Guy on TV,” Otto said. “I saw him on the news. Belasco, or something like that.”

  Reflexively, Amanda corrected him. “Bal-sa-mo,” she said, giving the name the rolling power that she remembered so well from the chance encounter of a few days before.

  “Uh-huh,” Otto said. “Really. Seemed like a nice guy. Liked him.”

  “He is,” Amanda said. Long silence greeted her response, and she could almost hear the gears in Otto’s head working, or trying to work. He was asking himself how she knew the theater owner. She was asking herself if she might get to see the guy again. It might be kind of nice.

  “Yeah,” she finally said. “I’ll go to the drive-in with you, Otto.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was late in the day when they came for Giles. There were no windows in the washroom and he wasn’t wearing a timepiece, but the air filling the enclosed space had become hot and muggy, and then had slowly cooled a bit. That meant the sun had passed its peak and was descending now. He’d been held prisoner at least half a day, maybe more.

  Giles tried to use the time wisely. He ate the meal that his jailer had provided, drank plenty of water, and even performed a few exercises in an attempt to keep himself limber and aware. If any opportunity were to present itself, Giles wanted very much to be ready to take advantage. Even so, he’d become bored somewhere along the line.

  That was the worst part of confinement, really: the mind-numbing monotony. A man could review the facts he held in his mind only so many times before they ran together, crying out for new information, new data, new contexts. So he was actually a bit relieved when the lock mechanism clicked and the washroom door swung back.

  “Howdy, pardner,” said a lean man with a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his grizzled features. He was clad in worn black breeches and a soiled work shirt, with a Mexican serape draped across his shoulders. There was a cheroot cigar in one corner of his mouth and an antique army repeating pistol in his right hand. Another, bulkier figure stood just behind him.

  Giles had seen the lean man before, twice. Once when the man abducted him, and once on the television, when he’d chanced upon a western movie, vintage 1960s.

  “Here’s how we’re goin’ to do it,” the gunfighter said. Curiously,
the movement of his lips didn’t quite match the words he spoke. “You’re goin’ to be a good boy, and I’m not goin’ to put a hole in you. Leastways, not just yet.”

  “Pop him one, Pops,” the gunfighter’s companion said. He was a motorcyclist by the looks of him, unshaved and unwashed, and wearing a scuffed leather vest and trousers. He made a fist with his right hand and drove it into his left, to make a meaty sound that echoed in Giles’s Spartan quarters. “Pop him one, and show him who’s boss.”

  “Kids these days,” the westerner said, still in a dry, whispering drawl. He stepped back a bit and gestured for Giles to emerge. “Don’t know how to treat a classy gent like you, do they?”

  “No, they don’t,” Giles said, obeying. “But I hardly think you’re the one to provide him with guidance. Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

  The lean man snickered. “Boss told me that you were a bug for names,” he said. “I’d give you mine, but I ain’t got one.”

  “The proverbial man with no name, eh?” Giles asked.

  The response was a nod and a gestured command for him to raise his hands. Again, Giles obeyed. “Now, my friend’s goin’ to lead the way, but I won’t be far behind. You try anythin’—you even think of trying anythin’—and you’ll get a bullet in the back.”

  “No Spell of Entrancement this time?” Giles asked. That was most likely how they’d taken him from his home, he’d decided. He had only the vaguest of memories of that encounter, phantom images of these men and his host wielding a lens or an amulet of some sort.

  “Nope,” the gunfighter agreed. “It was handy, when I came and got ya, but don’t need it this time. This time there’s no one local to hear.”

  They fell into line, the biker, then Giles, then the man with no name. Viewed from behind, the motorcyclist was remarkably simian in appearance, with stooped shoulders and a slouching gait, his head dropped low. He was silent as he led the strange trio from the improvised cell toward their destination. Giles made no move to escape as he followed the human gorilla, but he did take careful note of their surroundings.

  They were about as he’d expected. The washroom was part of a building that housed a theater concession stand. A popcorn kettle, soft drink dispensers, hot dog racks, and other aluminum-clad appliances glistened. The three men walked past the appliances and outside onto a concrete walkway and then into a gravel-strewn parking area. The late afternoon sun made Giles’s eyes sting and water, but he kept his hands elevated.

  To his right was the curved shield of a drive-in screen. He recognized it instantly from the handbill.

  “Over there, pardner,” the westerner said. “On the left.”

  Giles turned left, keeping pace with the others as the biker led them to another structure. This one was smaller than the refreshment stand, with a low slanting roof and slitlike windows. The biker opened the door and went inside, into a smallish chamber housing projection equipment and racks that held reels of film. Giles followed, then blinked as the leather-clad ruffian passed from view.

  No, not passed—vanished. He disappeared as utterly and swiftly as light did when a lamp was turned off. One moment he was there, and the next he was not.

  “Very impressive,” Giles said.

  “I thought you would appreciate it,” came the response. Seeing his host again, Giles realized that he was correct. The man who’d brought him his fast-food luncheon had the same face as the man in his alchemy book. Differences in clothing and facial hair obscured only slightly the strong resemblance between his host and the archival image. This, indeed, was Giuseppe Balsamo, Count Cagliostro.

  The motorcyclist had departed, but two other underlings remained. They scurried about the projection shack, presumably in the service of Cagliostro. One fellow wore an overcoat and a fedora, despite the heat outside. The other was the Anubis-like wolf-man Buffy had described before. Giles rather wished now that he’d given more credence to her account.

  “You’re something of a film aficionado, I gather,” Giles said.

  Cagliostro smiled. “Films are the only art form of any value that this misbegotten nation has created,” he said. He pointed at his underlings and identified each in turn. “Dick Shamus, private eye,” he said. “And the varsity werewolf. Behind you—”

  “Is a man with no name,” Giles said. “From the old American West, by way of Italy, I think.”

  The booth held two film projectors, each taller than a tall man. Moving in perfect coordination, the detective and the wolf-man tended to the mechanisms. Dick Shamus swung open the round door of a film-reel cover and stepped aside as the werewolf wrestled a loaded reel into place. After locking it, the detective fed a length of footage from it into the projector’s inner workings and set about guiding past gears, spindles, and the bulb. Were it not for his situation, Giles would have found the spectacle laughable. As it was, the entire sequence of events seemed more than ominous.

  “Sit,” Cagliostro commanded. His beard and hair were black as night now, and the twinkle in his eyes was now a fire. Gone was the amused and indulgent aristocrat, and in his place was someone vastly less pleasant.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Giles said.

  The wolf-man growled, and Giles sat. The chair that Cagliostro had indicated was uncomfortable and without ornament, but sturdy. Giles knew better than to complain or resist as the gunfighter bound his wrists to the chair arms with a length of rope he took from his belt.

  “And does your fondness for the cinema extend to desiring an audience?” Giles asked, honestly curious.

  Cagliostro shook his head. He dropped into another chair and eyed Giles. “Not at all,” he said. “But we’ll open for business shortly, and it seemed wise to move you from your cell. The locals will have need of the facilities. Besides, I know all too well how unpleasant such accommodations can be to a man of learning.”

  “You flatter me,” Giles said. “But the attention, really, is unnecessary.”

  Cagliostro shrugged. “I hadn’t planned on finding a Watcher here,” he said. “I hadn’t expected anything other than a sleepy California town. Really, all I’d hoped to do was visit, exhibit some motion pictures, refresh myself, and then move on. Nothing out of the ordinary, I assure you. Business as usual, I think the Americans say.” He paused. “But Sunnydale has proved itself to be a most surprising place.”

  The words sounded odd, coming from a man with a werewolf at his beck and call.

  “I discovered a curious establishment called the Magic Box,” Cagliostro continued. “I had expected to find it stocked with nothing more than inexpensive novelties, and instead I found something remarkable: a matched set of Latverian soul crystals. Imagine that, Mr. Giles. A matched set! I had to destroy them, of course. Imagine how useful such a complement could be to one who knew their uses, as a weapon or a means of detection.”

  Giles didn’t need to imagine. The owner of the Magic Box had excellent suppliers, a fine eye for value, and a remarkable attentiveness to the needs of his clientele. More than once Giles had found unexpected treasures there.

  “How is it that you’re in America, Count?” Giles asked bluntly. “You look remarkably well, for a dead man.”

  “Ah,” Cagliostro said. Still seated, he tipped his head in a mocking half bow. “I’m honored that my humble story has come to the attention of the Watchers Council.”

  “Only obliquely,” Giles said frankly. In popular literature, Cagliostro was a towering figure, legendary in stature; alchemist, occultist, and Italian nobleman, he had founded quasi-religious orders that stood the test of time, and he had performed unexplainable feats of mysticism. Supposedly, he had spearheaded the French Revolution and been plagiarized by Napoleon Bonaparte. In the annals of the Watchers, however, he was little more than a footnote, written off as a con artist and minor political schemer.

  Under the circumstances, however, it seemed likely that the popular literature had the right of things.

  “I came to these fair shores following
the War Between the States,” Cagliostro said, answering the question. “Then, as now, this was a rude nation, rough and unrefined, but it offered great promise and opportunity. It has been my home in the long years since.”

  “Most sources have you as deceased, circa 1795,” Giles said slowly. The details were coming back to him now. “Rome tried you for heresy, magick, and conjuring and imprisoned you for life in Montefeltro.”

  “If it were truly for life, I would be there still, my friend,” Cagliostro said. “But no. I have led many lives. I’ve used many names. They fall from me as the years pass, like leaves from a tree. They fall away, but I endure.”

  The werewolf was moving film reels from rack to rack. He dropped one, and he yelped in pain as it struck his foot. Cagliostro murmured a word that Giles couldn’t quite hear, and the man-beast dissipated. Without waiting for instruction, the gunfighter picked up the dropped reel and took his fellow’s place at the storage rack.

  “You have no idea how pleased I am to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Giles. You seem to be an educated man, well versed in matters worth knowing,” Cagliostro said. “As you can see, my current associates are less erudite. They’re little more than extensions of my own will, really, and the patrons of my little enterprise are scarcely better.” He paused. “I look forward to many conversations with you.”

  “They’ll be one-sided,” Giles said.

  “I think not,” Cagliostro said. “I have many interesting means of persuasion.”

  “He wasn’t such a bad guy, really,” Angel said. “A bit pompous. He liked to talk and he liked to drink, and he liked playing host. I don’t think I paid for a single drink in the entire time I knew him. Liked to wager, too.”

  “This is Count Cagliostro we’re talking about, right?” Willow asked. She looked skeptical. “The master alchemist played the ponies?”

  The vampire nodded. They were still in the library, still in the quiet confines of the lower-level research room. Angel, however, was now at least partly in the past, wandering the labyrinth of his long and convoluted memory.