Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2

by Nancy Holder

  “You won’t say things like that when you’re older, Willow,” he said. Angel was still in human mode, wearing his eternally youthful features, but his eyes looked suddenly old.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be as old as you,” Willow said. “Um. No offense.”

  The vampire shook his head. “I know what you mean,” he said. “But that’s not what I mean. You’ll get older. You’ll see things differently. You’ll see that people are more alike than they are different. They want food, drink, and companionship. Entertainment. The simple things are what make them feel human, even when they aren’t.”

  It was the simple things that made him suffer, as well. The pleasures that most took from food and drink had been replaced by the driving need for blood, and the soul that was his curse made him an outcast among his own kind. He could enjoy existence, at least on a momentary basis, but true contentment and joy were denied to him.

  “He was more than an alchemist, though. He was into many disciplines, and he was a bit of a schemer, too,” Angel said. “Got drunk in a tavern one night and told me that he’d been born of common blood and spent his entire life and wits trying to rise above it. I kept telling him that all blood is pretty much the same, but he was so busy talking that he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Wait a minute,” Buffy said. “You. Knew. Cagliostro?” She paused briefly between each word, dragging out the question, clearly still having difficulty with it.

  Angel knew why. In her relatively brief tenure as Slayer, she’d encountered demons and vampires by the dozen, and had somehow managed to remain in many ways a typical teenage girl, well grounded in the here and now. That was something he loved about her, one thing among many. But even though she knew full well who he was, what he was, his own apparent youth made it easier for her to look past that unpleasant truth. The comment about Cagliostro had served as a reminder.

  Angel nodded. “He was a popular guy,” he said. “He was sort of a doctor, too.”

  “A doctor?” Buffy asked, unbelieving.

  “It’s like the proto-science thing,” Willow said. “Stuff hadn’t gotten sorted out all the way just yet.”

  Angel nodded. “He treated Benjamin Franklin for a headache once. That was in Paris. Never let anyone hear the end of it either.” Even two hundred years after the fact, he sounded annoyed. “What a blowhard.”

  “How dangerous is he, then?” Buffy asked. “If this is him, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” Angel said after a moment’s thought. “The Cagliostro I knew was a charmer and a showman more than anything else. He talked a lot about transmutation and raising demons, but I never saw him do either.”

  “That could have been a cover,” Willow said. She’d apparently finished her research and was closing the bound volumes and stacking them neatly for a return to the shelves. They made a sizeable pile. “Like in Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter,’ when everyone’s looking for something that’s been hidden in plain sight.”

  That made sense, Angel thought. Willow’s comment cast a new light on things, making him consider them from a new perspective. Indeed, the Cagliostro of his memory had demonstrated at least one gift, even if he’d not consciously realized it at the time. He’d been an immensely likeable man, with a magnetism that defied easy description, but which could not be denied.

  It wasn’t easy to charm a vampire, after all.

  “Is there anything else we should know?” Buffy asked.

  “He was fascinated with the idea of vampirism,” Angel said, remembering more and more of his late-night chats with the egotistical European. “I think that’s why we got along so well. What I was—what I am interested him.”

  “He wanted to be turned?” Buffy asked. “Yecch.”

  Angel shook his head. “No, nothing like that. It was the metaphysical end of things that he liked. He wanted to run tests and do experiments,” he said. Again he smiled. “But I knew better than that.”

  “Oh,” Buffy said.

  “We lost touch after the French Revolution, of course,” Angel said.

  “Of course,” Willow said.

  “That’s about it,” Angel said, returning to the present again. “But you believe he’s running the drive-in?”

  “Well, that’s what Xander was telling us,” Buffy said. “You didn’t see anything suspicious out there?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just a nervous security guard. But, Buffy, the place wasn’t open for business yet.”

  Buffy sighed. Xander wasn’t there to see it, but he got his wish. “I guess we’re going to the movies, then,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The phone on the nightstand buzzed. The sound wasn’t loud, but it was enough to rouse Xander from his light, uncomfortable sleep. He blinked in surprise as vague dreams fled his conscious mind, leaving behind phantom images of reporting for a biology final while clad only in his gym shorts. He rubbed his eyes, momentarily disoriented, and then reality reasserted itself. He was still in the white-finished hospital room, and nothing seemed to have changed much since his last waking moment. Jonathan remained still beneath the bedsheets, his eyes moving beneath their lids. The bedside monitor continued its work, and the air was thick with that wonderful hospital scent, the smell of sick people and medicine.

  The phone buzzed again. He stood and went to answer it. The catnap had helped, but he was still tired, and a bit stiff from sitting in the chair for however long it had been. He had a bad taste in his mouth and his lips were dry; he licked them before answering.

  “Xander?” Buffy’s familiar voice asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered. There was a pitcher of water on the nightstand and a pair of drinking glasses. He eyed them thirstily. “What’s up, Buff?”

  “You’re still there?” she asked. “Your mom said she didn’t know where you were, but I thought you’d have gone home by now.”

  How late was it? He looked for a clock but didn’t see one. From the looks of the sky outside, however, visible through the room’s window, it was very late afternoon at the earliest. The sky had begun to darken, just a bit.

  “What time is it?” he asked. Then, after she told him, he whistled softly. He’d been asleep for hours. He must have been more fatigued than he’d thought. Jonathan’s still-slumbering form was a reminder that another explanation might apply, but Xander chose to hold on to the mundane. He’d been up all night, after all.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Yeah, I’m still here. What’s up?”

  As Buffy told him what she and Willow had learned, and about Angel’s contribution, Xander drank some water. It was rude, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. Buffy’s account was rapid and precise, but curiously uninvolving. Usually he found these things fascinating, but not now. Maybe it was because he was hearing them in the worrisome context of the hospital room, but her words simply didn’t draw him in.

  “That’s great, Buff,” he said, trying hard to be sincere. “I mean, not great, but—”

  “I know what you mean,” she said.

  “Do you want me to come with?” he asked. Even to him the offer sounded unenthusiastic. Maybe it was that famed Buffy focus on all things Slayerish, but she hadn’t asked how he was, or if there’d been any change in Jonathan’s situation. She hadn’t even asked if he had spoken to any of the doctors. Ordinarily, such oversights were business as usual and perfectly understandable, but right now, in the last of his sleep hangover, the oversight rankled slightly.

  She must have heard it in his voice. Even over the phone her sigh was audible. “You’re worried about them, aren’t you?” she asked, more gently now. “All of them, I mean.”

  “Yeah.” There wasn’t much more to say.

  “Look, Xander, we know that this character can send minions out, to do his work. Maybe you’d better stay there, keep an eye out,” she said. “You know?”

  “Yeah,” he said again, but this time more gratefully. Deliberately or not, she’d said just the thing he needed to hear. Now he could
stay without feeling guilty.

  “Is Cordy there?” Buffy asked.

  “I haven’t seen her.” The idea that the Queen of Sunnydale High would spend her Saturday afternoon in a hospital visiting sick friends seemed unlikely. Cordelia had shown surprising depths to Xander in some of their private moments, but he didn’t think she’d come that far, not just yet.

  “Her dad says she went out,” Buffy said.

  Xander felt a pang of worry. “It’s early for the Bronze,” he said.

  “He said she went out hours ago,” Buffy replied. A moment’s silence stretched between them before she continued. “I’m sure she’s fine, Xander. Cordy can take care of herself. But I’ll keep an eye out.”

  He told her he’d do the same, and then, at her prompting, told her as much as he could about the drive-in itself. Before being banished to handbill duty, Xander had undertaken many chores on the site, most of them somewhat demeaning. According to Buffy, Angel had taken a quick look-see too, but Xander knew the place better. He was able to provide reasonable details about what went where, who to go to, and what to see.

  “Good,” she said. “That’ll help.” She paused. “Xander, this really isn’t your fault, you know.”

  Jonathan’s beside monitor chirped again, another reminder. Xander eyed it and then his sleeping classmate. Jonathan seemed unchanged, but Xander couldn’t be certain. Sometimes staring at something too long blinded you to its details.

  “Isn’t it?” he said, not quite bitterly.

  “No, it’s not,” Buffy said. Now her words were nearly a command. “Look, think about it. We know something like this has been going on for at least two hundred years. Jonathan was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Emphasis on wrong,” Xander said. “And because I put him there.”

  “Yeah, like you put Aura there?” Buffy said.

  “But Aura wasn’t—Oh,” Xander said, realizing what she meant. “The others were,” he said.

  “Not all of them,” Buffy told him. “Look, we can talk about this later, but there’s no reason to tear yourself up. You didn’t do anything wrong and you’re helping now.”

  “Yeah,” Xander said. “Helping.”

  “Take care of yourself, Xander,” Buffy said. “That way, you can take care of the rest of us.”

  She ended the conversation on that oddly philosophical note. Xander shrugged and replaced the handset. He glanced at Jonathan, then at the monitor, and then out the window at the darkening sky.

  There wasn’t much else to do, really.

  “Am I getting old?” Buffy asked, hanging up the phone.

  “Huh?” Willow asked. She could not have looked more confused had Buffy sprouted a second head. The question threw her for a loop.

  “Don’t be silly,” Angel chimed in. “You’re just growing up. That was pretty mature advice you gave him at the end there.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Buffy said. She sounded half amused, half confused. “It’s just, Xander doesn’t want to go to the drive-in with me. I must be losing my girlish good looks.”

  They were in her room at the Summers house. Joyce was nowhere in sight, and the note she’d left just said that she’d gone out with a friend. That was just as well. Buffy had preparations to make and didn’t want to have to provide excuses for Angel’s presence in her room.

  Some of those preparations were prosaic enough: a quick shower and a change into something stylish but durable, since there was almost certain to be some violence in the offing. That violence was also why she and the others were taking quick inventory of her personal arsenal, choosing what was likely to come in handy.

  “These things Cagliostro has are bad news,” she told Willow. “And they don’t hold to the usual rules, to judge from that wolf-guy. I’m guessing that the traditional crosses and such won’t be much use.”

  “If they’re made out of ectoplasm, you’re probably right,” Willow said. She set the crosses and holy water aside to make space for more pragmatic tools, being careful not to wave the blessed items in Angel’s direction. Rules were rules, after all, and Angel very definitely was a vampire, no matter how good a guy he was. “It’s funny,” she continued. “Alchemy’s bound up in the kabbalah.”

  “Kabbalah?”

  “Ancient Jewish sorcery,” Willow said. “I wish I knew more about it. Maybe I could help with some kind of hoodoo—”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Willow,” Angel said. “Magicks are bad news, unless you know what you’re doing, and dabbling in a new discipline is especially bad. Besides, old Giuseppe may be an alchemist, but that doesn’t mean this is alchemy proper that we’re talking about.”

  Buffy knew what he meant. They’d talked about it on the way home from the library. This was more of the hide-in-plain-sight stuff; Angel had suggested that, even back in the day, Cagliostro might have used expertise in one field to divert attention from others. Everything she’d heard so far suggested that Cagliostro had pursued many lines of inquiry into the workings of the universe, and this was no time to try to second-guess him. It was better to stick with what she knew worked.

  That meant knives. Knives and axes and swords, and other edged things that could slice pieces off the conjurer’s cat’s-paw agents. A dozen deadly implements lay arrayed on Buffy’s chenille bedspread, incongruous-looking on the frilly thing. “Take your pick,” she told the others.

  Angel went for the largest implement of death, of course. He was a guy, after all, even if an undead one. He picked a Roman-style short sword, thick and solid but honed to a razor edge. The air whistled as he test-swung it, and he nodded in approval. “I’m ready,” he said.

  “This one’s pretty,” Willow said. She selected a wavy-bladed dagger with a red stone set in its hilt, and banded decorations that bore cryptic runes.

  “You’re sure about this, Willow?” Buffy asked. She wasn’t. Xander, by his absence, had reminded her yet again that taking civilians into battle wasn’t always the best strategy. Willow was smart and brave, but there were things in life that simply weren’t meant for non-Slayers.

  “Hey! You’re not leaving me behind,” Willow said. She was very pretty, in an impish sort of way, but also very good at showing irritation. “I’ve been through a lot lately, you know.”

  “Okay,” Buffy said, resigned. This was an argument she never seemed to win. “In that case, ditch the pretty knife. Take this instead.”

  She handed Willow a battle-axe, like the one she’d used the night before, but smaller and lighter; Willow didn’t have Slayer strength, after all. “Chop with it,” she said. “Stabbing holes in these things doesn’t do much good, but cutting pieces off does.”

  “So it’s an issue of structural integrity, hey?” Willow said. She hefted the weapon and tried to make a snarl, but she was just too cute to make the effect work.

  “Just hang back and follow our lead,” Buffy told her. “Let Angel and me handle the heavy lifting. Don’t be afraid to run if we tell you to.”

  Willow nodded.

  Coins rattled in the machine’s inner workings, and numbers lit next to the slot. She fed it two dollars in quarters, which was all she could find in the depths of her handbag. As she considered her snack choices, Cordelia wondered when the modern world would make its way to Sunnydale. If this thing were able to read credit cards, like they could in civilized places, she’d be able to buy it out.

  After a bit of mix-and-match, she settled on Twizzlers and a bag of those baked potato chip things, the former for their durability and the latter out of consideration for her figure. Either had to be much better than the cafeteria’s grim fare, which ran to salted fat. At least they were prepared by national manufacturers. She stooped to claim her purchases from the machine’s chute.

  “You are here,” Xander said.

  She whirled, startled. He stood behind her, framed in the doorway of the alcove that held the snack machines.

  “I thought I saw you walk by,” he conti
nued. He looked bad—not bad ugly, but bad tired and bad worried.

  “Huh? What? Yeah,” Cordelia said.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “A while,” she said. The next words didn’t come as easily as she would have liked them to. “I was worried about Aura,” she said. “I didn’t want her to be alone.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Xander said sympathetically. “But everyone’s doing what they can, and the doctors say there’s nothing anyone can do. Jonathan’s signs are all good, except for this pesky sleep thing.”

  Cordelia tried to muster some sympathy for Xander’s little friend, but with only the slightest success. She had other things on her mind.

  “Aura’s been here for days, Xander,” she said. “She was the first, and they say she’s getting weaker.”

  “I don’t think they’re telling us everything, Cordy,” Xander said seriously. “In fact, I know they aren’t. I heard the doctors talking. The longer this thing lasts, the less likely it is that they’ll wake up.” He paused. “Wake up ever, I mean.”

  “Why would they hide something like that?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Worried about a panic, I guess,” he said. He sounded worried.

  Without asking, he fell in beside her as she left the vending-machine room. The hospital was only lightly staffed, for whatever reason, and no one seemed to take note of them as they paced down the corridor toward the patient rooms.

  “Buffy called,” Xander said. “She asked after you.”

  “How sweet,” Cordelia said without particular sincerity. “Any news on the Giles front?”

  “Yeah, Willow thinks she’s figured it out,” Xander said. “Whoops. Here’s my stop.”

  Cordelia followed him into Jonathan’s room. Remarkably, the place had an unoccupied bed. Again without any conscious coordination, they sat on it, side by side, but with a reasonable distance between them.

  Even so, Cordy had a feeling about where things were headed.

  “Twizzler?” she asked, only to have him decline. That was a surprise. Xander nearly never turned down food, and the ropy candy strands qualified as food, at least on a technicality.