“Fool,” Fulcanelli said, and his voice sounded different now, strange, because he spoke through something that barely resembled lips. “Did you think I had spent all of these centuries prostituting my soul to the darkness without any repercussion at all? Oh, I am still alive. Still living, breathing. Human, even, by some definition.
“But I’m much more than human.”
Around both of his hands, and in his eyes, an oily black aura had begun to form. The withered hand twitched at Fulcanelli’s side, and talons ripped through the flesh of his fingers. Still, though, the arm was crippled. The blackness crackled and burned, so dark that it swallowed the night around it.
Xander swallowed. Raised his sword.
“Come on, then, you ugly bastard,” he said. “There isn’t anything good on TV tonight anyway.”
With a roar of courage and fear rolled into one, Xander leaped from the threshold of the Gatehouse, magickal sword raised high, and brought it down toward the twisted creature that Fulcanelli had become.
From the sorcerer’s hands and eyes, the black burn lanced out.
Willow and Cordelia screamed a warning and ran forward, trying to get him out of the way of Fulcanelli’s attack. But they were too late.
Xander was blasted backward into the house. He flew across the foyer and crashed into the marble stairs. Pain shot through his entire body, and the magickal weapon he’d created dissipated. He was barely able to keep up the protective field around Willow and Cordelia. The girls ran to him, shooting terrified glances over their shoulders toward the open door.
“God, Xander, are you all right?” Cordelia asked.
“Do I look all right?” he grunted, sitting up painfully. “What was that?”
The ghost of Antoinette Regnier hovered near. “That was what is called the black burn, young man. One of the most powerful forms of magickal energy on this plane of existence.”
“Great,” Xander said.
“It could be worse,” Willow said quickly. When they glared at her, she shrugged. “Not, y’know, much worse. But—”
“Willow,” Cordelia interrupted.
She was staring past Willow, and now Xander saw what she was staring at. Fulcanelli. He had levitated himself up with the power of the black burn, that ebony oil swirling in the air around him, and now stood at the very threshold of the Gatehouse.
The entire structure convulsed.
A horrible, fetid wind blew through the house, and Willow and Cordelia had trouble standing in the gale. The house was trying to keep him out. But the wind didn’t seem to affect Fulcanelli at all.
The leathery yellow features of the sorcerer’s face stretched into what might have been a grin.
“An extraordinary house,” he said with that slithering voice. “And an amazing feat of magickal fortitude.”
“No!” Willow shouted. “Xander, what do we do?”
Xander stood up, green light flashing from his hands, reinforcing their protection and pulsing with power.
“Get out!” Xander snarled.
“You can’t come in here,” Cordelia insisted. “You weren’t invited.”
Il Maestro laughed at that. “I’m not a vampire, girl,” he said, the black oil pouring from his mouth now as well.
“I’m something much, much worse.”
Angel’s mind was racing. This entire plan of Giles’s had been hatched in an instant. The Watcher was one of the brightest men Angel had ever met. It wasn’t that he merely knew how to acquire knowledge, but that he knew how to apply it, which was far more important. But there were times when he lacked in the strategy department.
Like now.
“Take off your armband!” Angel snapped to Jacques.
But the heir to the Gatehouse was already doing just that. He untied the white strip of cloth around his arm and tossed it away, off into the gray ether that swirled around him. The ghost roads had suddenly grown rather quiet, and it bothered Angel. He wondered if the barriers had fallen, if the final battle was over before he and Oz and Jacques had even had a chance to do their part.
“How are we going to get him to follow us without getting slashed?” Angel asked angrily, glancing around at the nothingness that was this limbo world.
Beneath the soles of his boots, he felt the solid ground of the road, and dared not look down. The ghost roads still had never made sense to him. They were the roads that the spirits of human beings followed after death. Somehow they existed in all worlds simultaneously, and supposedly had no reality of their own. But if not, then what was Angel standing on? He wasn’t sure how deeply he wanted to examine the idea.
And he certainly didn’t want to think about the things he’d seen here before. Even if he had the time. Which he didn’t.
“I have an idea,” Jacques said.
Even as Angel felt a bit of relief wash through him, he shook his head at the absurdity of it. He was more than twenty times the boy’s age, and yet he was looking to the child for assistance. And yet . . .
Suddenly a red, raw light blossomed like a wound from the palms of Jacques outstretched hands. Angel stared at him, blinked several times, and then noticed that Oz had turned his snout toward Jacques and was sniffing the nothing in the air.
He couldn’t see them. But whatever Jacques was doing, Oz could see or smell or taste it. Something. And he liked it.
“I thought you didn’t have access to your inherited abilities,” Angel said, frowning.
“I don’t,” Jacques agreed. “But I know a bit of magick my father taught me over the years, and I’ve practiced quite a bit in Europe. I will have all of my father’s power and magickal knowledge once we reach the house. Now that he has . . .”
The boy didn’t want to say the word. Angel let it go. His father was dead, and he was only eleven years old. Eleven, and he had to take up the responsibilities his father had left him, responsibilities that the world would never know enough about to appreciate. Angel was amazed at the boy’s strength of character. Personally, he’d never been much more than a drunken, ungrateful layabout when he was alive. Only in death, and under his curse, had he found a purpose to his existence.
A child like Jacques, a person like Buffy, even her other friends, amazed Angel. They saw something that was required of them, and they did it, simple as that. It reminded him of something he’d heard said a very long time ago, something at which he’d scoffed at the time.
“A hero is someone who does what must be done, and needs no other reason.” How true that was. He wished he hadn’t killed the man who’d said it. But, after all, the guy had been trying to kill him. Heroes were like that.
Angel stared at Jacques a moment longer. It was amazing how much he reminded Angel of Buffy. Both of them were trapped in a life they never asked for, with the world depending on them. And both took up the gauntlet the world had thrown down with their chins held high.
“Now that he’s died,” Jacques finished. “But for now, this is enough.”
And it was enough. Oz followed the magickal fire, sniffing the air of the ghost roads, and they walked far enough ahead that the occasional swipe of a claw did no damage.
Time slipped by. They saw several demons, but they were far off, and looked to be on their way to somewhere else. The wandering souls of the dead appeared from time to time, en masse, and then slipped away again. They were terrified. Hiding. Angel didn’t blame them. Most of them—the ones who had given up traveling and been lost—had long since lost any hope of finding their way to their ultimate rest. And now, it appeared as though that rest would instead be eternal damnation in the flames of Hell.
Which, he knew from experience, was less than pleasant.
“Look,” Jacques said suddenly. “I think we’re nearly there.”
Angel turned. In the distance, he could see a shimmering hole in the ghost roads.
Perfect order was perfectly boring. Ethan wandered the roads of Sunnydale with a roiling feeling of revulsion in his gut. The trash in the alleys was stac
ked like reams of computer paper. The graffiti on the walls and fences wasn’t gone, but he did notice that it was all spelled correctly.
He sighed heavily.
While he was unable to seal off the ghost roads, or to reinforce the places where the barriers between worlds had grown thin, he had been perfectly capable of creating this foolish bubble of perfect order. It made him question everything in his life. Chaos magick was exceedingly difficult. It had taken him many years to rise to the modicum of proficiency he could now claim pertaining to chaos magick.
Why was it, then, that the magick of order was so damned easy?
It had to be, of course. Each spell was perfect. Orderly. And it was attractive to think of the power he might obtain through worshiping the Masters of Order.
But, God, the world would be a stultifyingly tedious place.
So the Hell with that.
Still, Ethan did allow himself a tiny bit of pleasure at seeing the rather silly results of his work. The cars in the parking lots were each parked precisely the same distance from the curb, and from one another. On the street, passing vehicles were moving at the speed limit. Exactly.
As he wandered, he saw more and more examples of the touch of order. Each lawn was cut to the same height. Passing youths spoke flawless English to one another. Which was, of course, patently impossible in America.
The sphere was spreading. Strengthening.
So, although one might claim he’d abandoned Buffy, it was fairly clear to him that the sphere needed more time to spread its influence. It was a good guess that the sphere was strong enough now that it would keep the demons back, and the monsters of the Otherworld, if any of them were brave enough to face the demons, for quite some time.
The sphere wouldn’t last forever. And it wouldn’t stretch out indefinitely. But as a stopgap measure, until Giles could figure something else out, or Fulcanelli could be done away with, it was damn fine work, if he did say so himself.
And he did.
Grinning, Ethan decided it was time to go back to his hotel and have a bit of room service. He was tired and hungry, and besides, there was a good movie on the hotel pay-per-view in about twenty minutes.
He’d done his bit. Let the others make a contribution.
Then an evil wind rose from the west and whistled down the street, blowing him to the ground and stealing the breath from his lungs. For a moment he couldn’t breathe at all. Then, finally, his lungs sucked in fetid air, like a farmer had dumped twenty tons of manure a block away. The stench made his eyes water.
“Bloody hell,” he snapped. “What the devil could—”
Then it hit him.
Nothing could. Not in this sphere of order’s influence. Not unless the sphere had already been ruptured.
Ethan jumped in his car and raced down Route 17.
In the cemetery, Buffy scrambled backward out of the crypt.
“Oh, God, oh God, oh God,” she muttered as she fell on her butt, then jumped up and started to run.
Just to put some space between her and . . . it.
Behind her, the crypt exploded in a shower of granite and marble. The ground split open, but it wasn’t any earthquake. Six huge tentacles shot out of that hole in the ground, each of them covered with row upon row of razor-sharp spikes that moved with one mind.
It dragged itself up out of the ground.
“Slayer!” it roared.
Buffy turned to face Lord Belphegor, without so much as a weapon in her hands.
Face flushed with fury, she screamed, “Ethan!”
Chapter
13
A NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ENTROPY WERE STILL camped at the remains of their sanctuary at the Sunnydale Twin. They were holed up in the ruins of the main building, surrounded by the bodies of their fallen comrades. The place was a shambles, and, as was usual for Sunnydale, no police or other authorities were to be seen.
From his vantage point at the end of a corridor, peering from behind a reasonably intact door, Ethan softly clapped his hands and gave himself one of those natty black robes all the really fashion-forward chappies were wearing. Not that he had any notion of revealing himself. Still, one had to take precautions.
“Well, what I want to know is where Il Maestro has gone,” one of the acolytes was grumbling. “Has he deserted us?”
“My runestone indicates that he’s no longer in Sunnydale,” another added. This man was rather old, and his voice sounded high and whiny.
No news here, Ethan thought, and figured himself for a fool. It had occurred to him that perhaps young Jacques had been mistaken. Everyone had leaped on the notion that simply because he could not sense Fulcanelli anymore, the sorcerer was dead.
“Identify yourself,” a harsh voice said behind him. A hand came down hard on the same shoulder Angel had threatened to pulverize.
Oh, dear.
Ethan thought fast. “I’m Brother Ermino,” Ethan told the hand. “I’ve been sent by Il Maestro himself to tell you to clear out. Go back to, ah, London.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes,” Ethan said brightly.
“Liar!”
Ethan was whirled around so hard his head spun, and then someone was smashing that same head in. Not using magick, just good, hard elbow grease.
“Liar! He took some of us to Boston!” the man shouted. He was amazingly ugly, with a brutish cauliflower nose, pug eyes, and jowls.
“But . . .” Ethan spit out a tooth. Damn. “I hate to seem confrontational, but that wasn’t my understanding.”
“Do you think all are privy to the plans of our dread lord?” The man’s jowls bobbled with indignation. He hit Ethan again. “Now, tell me why you’re here, spy.”
Ethan blurted out, “His demon sponsor, Lord Belphegor, is in the cemetery.” And realized that, by George, that just might be true. That might be why the sphere was crashing.
By all the gods, he thought in alarm, it’s begun. Then he cleared his throat and continued. “He’s there.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” the man screamed, and again started pounding Ethan’s face.
“Stop!” cried another voice.
Ethan looked up at the smooth-faced lad who pointed a finger at the ugly man. Nice chap, or looked to be. He was smiling at Ethan.
Then the lad whirled and pointed the finger at Ethan. A blue net of energy dropped over him like a hood.
Not again, Ethan thought, before he started screaming.
At the apex of the breach into Boston, Jacques stopped suddenly and looked hard at Angel. Oz, who had trailed behind, started to gain on them.
“Fulcanelli is at the Gatehouse,” Jacques announced. “He’s not dead.”
Angel closed his eyes. Not good news.
“Angel, I need to get to him now.”
Angel nodded, all business, and anxious to keep moving so that Oz wouldn’t get too close. “Will he sense that you’ve arrived as soon as we enter the breach?”
“Yes, no doubt,” Jacques said. He looked hard at Angel. “Angel, I cannot die.”
Angel was distracted by Oz’s fast approach. He could smell the musky scent of Oz’s hide. There were certain legends about werewolf blood and vampires, but he had no idea if they were true.
He realized Jacques was still staring at him, and tried to give the boy his full attention. “You can’t die. You mean, you do have some of your powers now?”
Jacques cleared his throat. “What I’m trying to say to you is, I must not die.”
They regarded each other very seriously. Angel got it. He was expendable. Jacques was not.
“You want me to distract him. Act as decoy. Me and Oz.”
Jacques inclined his head. “Please understand, I don’t ask this for myself. If giving my own life would solve anything, I would do it without hesitation.”
Angel put a hand on the boy’s thin shoulder. “You’ve already given your life. You’re the Gatekeeper.”
“I should be,” he said firmly. Then he looked very
young, a little afraid, and confessed, “The notion of leaving Xander to it crossed my mind, I must confess. But not for long.” He lowered his head. “I’m very ashamed of my weakness.”
“You wouldn’t be human if it hadn’t occurred to you,” Angel said, with a sad smile. “There’ve been a lot of times where I chose the easy path.”
“But you were not born to fight evil,” Jacques persisted.
“Sometimes I’m not so sure of that,” Angel replied, and the boy looked startled.
“I’ll go first,” Angel went on, “and I’ll lure Oz out with me. Then I’ll distract him as best I can. But he won’t be that interested in us. I mean, what real threat do one vampire and one werewolf pose?”
As if in answer, Oz roared and charged. Angel sighed, turned, and punched him across the snout. The bewildered werewolf jumped back and pawed at the air, seeing nothing, but sensing tantalizing prey nevertheless.
They moved away from Oz, who stood stock-still for a moment, growling and sniffing.
“I must prepare,” Jacques said, as he closed his eyes. His face went as blank as a dead man’s, and Angel stood respectfully by. In another situation, Oz’s whining and confusion would have been comical as he wandered to their left in a zigzag pattern, searching for him and Jacques. For now, it was a welcome break, as Angel watched Jacques breathe deeply and rhythmically. The boy’s chin rested on his chest.
Then he raised his face and his eyes opened slowly.
“Do you see? Do you hear? Do you understand?” he said in a slurred voice. His head swiveled as if it were on a strange pivot. He looked straight at Angel.
Then he smiled and said, in Xander’s voice, “Hiya, dead boy.”
“Xander?” Angel asked, impressed.
“Only part of us is known to you as Spock,” Xander replied. “Listen, Jacques filled me in, I’m going to help on my end. But hey, um, hurry, okay? I mean, being the Gatekeeper is making me a real chick magnet and all, but I’m not sure how much longer I’m good for. I got somebody on my door stoop and it’s for sure not the pizza delivery guy.”
The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Three - SONS of ENTROPY Page 19