She nodded to Buffy and Willow. Amanda sat at the table, too, but she was busy talking to Becky Grimes at the next table over.
Willow glanced back at the animated male conversation. “So what are they so busy talking about?”
“Boy,” Cordelia complained, “I leave to talk about the Spring Formal for what—fifteen or twenty minutes—and Xander gets lost in this other conversation. It’s like he barely knows I’m here.”
Buffy sighed. “You know, Cordelia, Xander might have been feeling a little neglected.”
“Neglected? Do you think so? He has to realize the importance of this event.” She shook her head in wonder. “We only have a few more major dances before we graduate!”
Willow grinned. “Dances, wow. Oz is always playing at dances. Which is cool and all, but sometimes a girl would like to dance, sort of. How about you, Buffy?”
“Dance?” Buffy sighed. “I’m the Slayer. Case closed.”
Cordelia glanced back at the guy table. Xander was obviously ignoring her. But one of the newcomers, the cutest of the three, in Cordelia’s opinion, kept stealing glances their way.
Cordelia leaned across the table. “Buffy, you see the way one of the new guys looks at you?”
“You mean Ian?” Buffy asked, straightening a little and adjusting her jacket. “Well, yeah, I thought I noticed. I’m kind of out of practice.” She sighed one more time. “I thought I saw him look; once I even caught him smiling. But then every time I get near him, he turns around and has a conversation with somebody else.”
Typical, Cordelia thought. “Well, he is a male.”
“Always a difficulty,” Willow agreed.
“And I’m the Slayer. It’s an automatic turnoff.”
It was Cordelia’s turn to be exasperated. She had never known the girl to be so dense. “Buffy! You’re the Slayer, this guy’s a Druid! It’s a match made, if not in heaven, at least in Sunnydale! I mean, the guy’s not my type, but you might be perfect for each other.”
“You think so?”
“Hey, it’s worth a try. Look at him. He’s got a cute smile and those really intense blue-gray eyes. Not that I noticed. And that curly dark hair. And, and—”
“And he’s mysterious!” Willow added.
“Well, yeah,” Buffy admitted. “I do like mysterious.”
“Maybe a little too much,” Cordelia added, remembering Angel. Now there’s someone who’s lying low these days. Wonder what he’s up to? “But, hey, what would it hurt to talk to him?”
“Maybe he won’t talk to you because he’s a Druid,” Willow suggested.
“What do you mean?” Buffy asked.
“Well, who knows?” Willow said. “Druids and Slayers may be forbidden to meet by the Druid code or something.”
“The Druid code?” Buffy thought about that for a moment. “It’s probably that their uncle doesn’t want them getting too friendly with anybody.”
Cordelia didn’t think it was that at all. “Well, they’re getting friendly with the guys.” She glared at Xander’s back.
“You know what I mean,” Willow insisted. “They can probably only date other Druids.”
“You think so?” Buffy asked. “Maybe their uncle makes them be unsocial. . . .”
“I could buy the uncle thing,” Willow admitted. “The guys are cute. The uncle’s a little creepy.”
“Now what?” Cordelia demanded. The boys at the other table had all stood up and were moving toward the front door of the Bronze. “They’re going to leave without saying goodbye?”
“It’s probably a Druid thing,” Willow ventured again.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, Oz is pretty fascinated by all their spells and stuff. He told me maybe they could do something about the werewolf business. So I’m trying to be understanding, when they turn around and leave and don’t even say a word. . .” Willow did not look at all understanding.
The group of boys laughed as they headed for the door to leave the club.
“Well, I don’t care at all.” Cordelia looked around the club. There must be something, or someone, else interesting in this place.
“Well, I do.” Willow announced. “What if they do something—you know, Druidic? Don’t you want to see?”
“Hey,” Buffy joined in. “Just because they’ve put up their No Chicks Allowed sign doesn’t mean we have to agree.”
Willow nodded. “Girl power.”
“I’m not—” Cordelia paused and looked at the other two. If they were going to be stood up for some stupid magic, she wanted to see, too. She stood up. “Let’s go.”
The three of them quickly followed the boys’ path.
“Cordy!” Amanda called from the table behind them. “We still haven’t talked about the decorations!”
“Later!” she called over her shoulder. A young woman had to have her priorities.
The street outside was deserted.
For a moment, Buffy couldn’t figure out where the guys had gone. Then she heard faint laughter around the corner.
“Come on.” She waved for the others to follow. “We’re about to sneak a peek at the boys’ club.”
The three of them stopped short at the corner. The street in front of them was full of flowers.
They could hear voices drifting from just out of sight.
“Maybe we can give you an hour before school,” Xander was saying.
“After school,” Oz added, “we’ve got plenty of time.”
Willow looked to her friends. “We’ve lost them forever.”
“To a bunch of Druids?” Cordelia made a face and kicked at the nearest flowers, which appeared to be growing through the concrete. “Its like they’re all attending sorcery shop!”
“Sorcery shop?” Willow asked.
“You know, like metal shop, but with magic!”
“Hey,” Willow said, “that’s pretty good. But why did they have to come out here?”
“Besides the fact that somebody would have noticed all the flowers growing all over the Bronze?” Cordy asked.
“Maybe they just spend all their time around magic,” Buffy surmised, “and they’re not that comfortable around girls.” She remembered with a pang how Kendra, in full Slayer mode, hadn’t known how to act around Xander.
“So they know the secrets of the ages but they can’t ask anybody out on a date?” Willow asked. “What’s with that?”
Cordelia shrugged.
Males lacking social skills? Buffy thought. That they could all understand.
“Maybe they don’t have any women in the Druids,” Cordy ventured.
“No,” Buffy replied. “They’d have to. Otherwise, how could they have baby Druids?” She knelt to pick a flower. It felt real enough and smelled divine, but already the street looked less like a garden and more streetlike. Are they fading? Was it an illusion? She gripped her stem a little tighter.
Willow shook her head. “I actually looked this up after Uncle George showed up. The Druids were anything but a men-only club. They had both priests and priestesses. You know, many early religions were woman centered, based on the worship of the Goddess—you know, like Mother Earth. I read one theory that said Druidism might be a direct descendent of these religions.”
It figured. Cordelia had pegged these three newcomers as boring from the start. “So this No Chicks Allowed thing isn’t the Druids. It’s just them.”
“Maybe they’re just trying to be—extra mysterious,” Buffy mused.
“Well, if they are, I think it’s working,” Cordelia pointed out. “Who have we been talking about ever since we came out here?”
“I think they’re just being extra annoying. Especially Ian.” Buffy had had enough of this. The flowers were gone. Except the one in her hand. The street was back to plain, unbroken asphalt, as if the flowers had never been there in the first place. She turned around and headed back toward the club.
She heard the others talking as she marched away
Cordelia said “She likes him.”
Willow replied “That’s a definite yes.”
Sometimes her friends could be so infuriating.
Especially when they were right
* * *
“So, yeah,” Ian said. “If you can help us, we’ll do our best to help you.”
Xander thought these guys were all right. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind learning that flower trick.”
“I think it would definitely help if we formed an alliance here,” Ian continued. “I mean, not that we’re going to be in town long or anything. But we can work together as long as we’re here.”
“So you could give us basic Druid lessons?” Xander asked. “If that’s okay. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.”
“My Uncle George would probably be ticked off if he knew we were talking this much to you,” Tom added. “He said we should try to keep to ourselves.”
“So why aren’t you with him?” Oz asked, leaning against a non-working phone stand. They’d come outside to see the flower trick and Dave was grabbing a quick cigarette. From the way his brothers glared at him, Oz figured Dave would be kicking the habit quite soon.
“He’s still preparing things. At this point we’d just be in the way.”
“We have to keep a certain distance,” Dave said between drags. “At least according to our uncle. After all, we’re Druids.”
Ian sighed. “Our father was a lot looser. Uncle George is stricter, more old guard. But we know he’ll do a good job.”
“It’s important to all of us,” Tom agreed. “Because our father died as a part of this, we feel we need to finish the job. I guess it’s our father’s legacy.”
Dave nodded. “And we’re going to need as much help as we can get.”
“Including the Slayer?” Xander asked.
“Especially the Slayer,” Ian agreed.
“You know, we’ve been hanging out here, having a good time,” Oz said. “We’ve sort of been neglecting the girls.”
“Sort of?” Xander replied. “We completely left them out of the loop.” And, he thought, I did it because I was mad at Cordelia.
“Well, why don’t we go and put them back in.” Oz looked at Ian. “You guys, too.”
“Well,” Ian replied, “if you think so.”
They marched back into the Bronze.
Willow smiled at them from the table where all the girls had been before. She sat on one side of the table, while Amanda was at the other end, deep in conversation with a girl from the next table.
There was no sign of Buffy—or Cordelia.
Xander couldn’t believe it. Where did that girl go now?
Chapter 11
JOYCE SUMMERS WOKE WITH A START.
She had been dreaming. Something about her daughter. It only made sense. She had been sitting in the living room, unable to sleep, waiting for Buffy to come in the door. She was half-watching some awful made-for-TV movie where a fortyish woman had discovered her husband had at least three other wives and was a supposed serial killer. Joyce wished her problems were as simple as that.
Her dream had been disturbing. She could still hear Buffy’s voice.
“Mother. Don’t you understand?”
She saw her daughter, flanked by a group of men in dark robes. Most of the men seemed friendly. But one of them was not friendly. One of them was not what he seemed. One of them means to do Buffy harm
“Mother. Don’t you understand?”
That’s what the dream was trying to tell her. That she had to understand, to somehow warn Buffy. Joyce could never remember a dream that was quite this vivid. She wondered if it had anything to do with her learning that her daughter was—the Chosen One. If her daughter had special powers, maybe Joyce had one or two as well.
But if that were true, it would be even more important to figure out the dream.
“Mother. You don’t understand.”
The dark men—did they have anything to do with the boy Buffy had just met? Her daughter could certainly take care of herself under most ordinary circumstances, but this dream did not feel at all ordinary.
She heard the key turn in the front door, then heard the door swing open.
“Buffy?”
“Yeah, Mom. I thought I’d come home a little early for a change.”
This is early? No, Joyce told herself, you don’t want to start an argument. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said instead. “Do anything interesting?”
Buffy poked her head in the room. “Just went to the Bronze.” She did not look at all happy.
“Was that boy you were interested in there?”
Buffy hesitated, as if it was all too personal. “Well, yeah. Not that he’d talk to me.”
Joyce had a hunch. “Does this boy have anything to do with—dark robes?”
“Psychic Friends Network.” Buffy stared at her mother. “Well, yeah Mom. Kind of. It’s part of this kind of . . . club he’s in. How’d you know?”
Joyce shook her head. “I just had the funniest dream. Well, it wasn’t funny at all. I think it was more of a warning. There was something about these men in dark robes. It seemed dangerous.”
“Well, Mom, as of tonight, I think the chances of me getting involved with that guy are as great as me burning down another high school.”
Joyce frowned.
“No way would I ever burn down another high school,” Buffy quickly added. “We’re staying in Sunnydale forever, even if I never meet another eligible guy. Which I won’t.”
“Oh,” her mother replied. Buffy’s head disappeared, and she heard her daughter clomp upstairs. Joyce guessed, if she cut through her daughter’s melodrama, this was good news. What had Buffy called it? The Psychic Friends Network? Maybe Joyce did have a few special abilities of her own.
But wait a minute. Why was her daughter going out with men in dark robes?
“I knew you’d come if I called.”
She did? Then why didn’t I know? Like where am I? And who’s talking to me?
Cordelia found herself in the alley behind the Bronze. How had she gotten here? A minute ago, she had been chatting with Buffy and Willow and Amanda, getting a bit annoyed that Xander could spend so much time with three guys from Wales. And then?
“Welcome back, Cordelia.”
A single look, and Cordelia remembered.
“Naomi,” she whispered. It all came flooding back to her. The flowing gown that covered her feet so that it looked like she floated rather than walked. The perfect, unlined face, so much paler than it had been in life.
This was the face she had seen in the locker mirror, the voice she’d heard crawling along her spine.
Cordelia knew exactly what she had become.
“You’re a vampire.”
“Only one of my many new talents.” Naomi smiled. She didn’t display her fangs—yet. Vampires could look quite normal when they wanted to—until they came in for the kill. Then their true bestial natures came out, their eyes glowing red, their mouths filled with fangs. Cordelia shivered. Thanks to Buffy’s crowd, she knew far more about vampires than she had ever wanted to.
Naomi floated even closer. Cordelia tried to back away, but she found she was frozen in place. Just like the other night. How could I have forgotten?
Naomi stretched out her hand and stroked Cordelia’s cheek. Her touch felt like the inside of a freezer.
“I’m a very special vampire, Cordelia. I do think it’s so important to keep up appearances.”
She smiled again. This time, Cordelia thought she saw the slightest hint of fang.
“Dear Cordelia, elected to the head of the cheerleading squad—over me. Cordelia who dated Bryce Abbot when I longed to go out with him.”
What? Bryce Abbot? Cordelia hadn’t thought about him in years. “The quarterback? He was a jerk. He couldn’t do anything unless he had a football in his hands.”
“Quiet, Cordelia!” Naomi actually hissed. But a moment later, she smiled. “It’s my time now. Thi
s isn’t the Spring Formal where you were named Queen—over me!”
Cordelia frowned. “Naomi. You definitely have some issues.”
This time, Naomi laughed. Cordelia decided she liked the hissing better.
“Not as many as you’re going to have,” Naomi said all too sweetly. “I want to share something with you. Come here, my pet! Come here or Naomi will be angry!”
Cordelia heard something moving around the pile of trash on the far side of the alley.
“This is where he lives now,” Naomi says. “It’s all he deserves.”
The thing shambled out from behind the dumpster. Cordelia could think of no other way to describe it. It looked like it once might have been human—if it hadn’t been so stooped over, it might have been six feet tall. And those filthy rags hanging from its form might once, long ago, have been clothes. And all of it—the matted hair, the mudcaked flesh, the sodden rags—was the same brown as dead leaves.
“There are so many things I can do to you, dear Cordelia. That’s why I’d like to introduce you to one of my creations. But, of course, you two have met before.” She waved to the thing. “Stand closer so dear Cordelia can get a good look at you.” Naomi giggled. “Now, Cordelia! I’d like you to say hello to an old friend.”
Old friend?
The thing growled, showing the remains of a half-dozen yellow-brown, rotted teeth. What? Who?
“Cordelia, you disappoint me. You’d never forget an old boyfriend, would you? Dear girl, meet what’s left of Brycie Abbot.”
Cordelia didn’t even want to think of this. This shambling monstrosity—it could have been the same size as Bryce, she guessed. That is, if the star quarterback walked hunched over, if his hands had turned to claws, and if he hadn’t taken a shower in a year and a half. Come to think of it, hadn’t Bryce graduated last year? I thought he left for college—
“Brycie and I went out for a while,” Naomi purred, “after you broke up. It was never right though, knowing you had been there before me.”
The thing moaned piteously. It shambled a step closer. Cordelia swallowed a scream.
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