Slowly . . . slowly . . . the wall disintegrated at his touch. Very slightly now . . . but soon . . .
“Almost free,” he murmured.
He shut his eyes and his voice raged throughout his sanctuary.
“Yes! Give me more!”
* * *
Luke obeyed.
Flushed with power, Luke triumphantly dropped another body and looked about at his hostages.
They were really terrified now, and it exhilarated him to see it. With the two corpses lying before them, the reality—and the utter hopelessness—of their plight had begun to sink in at last, and he could hear screams and pitiful whimpers from the crowd.
In a corner under the stairs, Darla was facing off with Jesse. He still held on to Cordelia, and he was determined not to give her up.
“This one’s mine,” Jesse challenged her.
Darla had no time for his games. “They are all for the Master,” she told him, grabbing the stunned girl from his grasp and heading toward the stage.
Jesse paused, disappointed. “I don’t get one?”
They didn’t notice the upstairs window opening . . . the window by the balcony where an equally oblivious vampire stood with his back to it. No one saw Buffy slip in and no one saw her standing there, sizing up the situation.
“I feel him rising!” Luke shouted. “I need another!”
Buffy stared at the three-pointed star on his forehead.
“The Vessel . . .” she murmured to herself.
But this time the vampire on duty did hear her. As he turned and grabbed her, Buffy felt herself being hauled to the middle of the balcony, another potential offering for Luke.
Luke was still unaware of her intrusion. “Tonight is his ascension,” he informed the horrified onlookers. “Tonight will be history at its end! Yours is a glorious sacrifice. Degradation most holy.”
He stopped, his evil gaze sliding from one face to another.
“What, no volunteers?” he mocked.
And then Darla emerged, holding Cordelia.
“Here’s a pretty one,” she said.
“Nooo . . .” Cordelia struggled, but to no avail. As she started to cry, Darla dragged her toward the stage and handed her over to Luke.
The activity had momentarily distracted Buffy’s captor. With one quick movement, she slipped from the vampire’s grasp and threw him off the balcony. He landed on his back right in front of the stage.
The room plunged into shocked silence.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Buffy said. “Were you in the middle of something?”
Looking up, Luke’s face contorted with fury. “YOU!”
“You didn’t think I’d miss this, did you?” Buffy tossed back at him.
The anger drained from Luke’s expression.
His lips curled in a dangerous smile.
“I hoped you’d come,” he said.
CHAPTER 24
The door was open at last.
Wielding a metal pipe, Giles burst through the backstage exit with Xander and Willow close behind.
At the same moment, a vampire rushed Buffy from the side. Grabbing him easily, she tossed him into the hookah pit, where he tried to scramble back up. Buffy did a backward flip, sailed through the hole, and landed on top of a pool table. There was a cue lying there. With one simple handspring, she grabbed it and landed neatly on her feet.
A vampire came at her other side.
Without looking at him, she jammed the cue end into his heart. There was a soft sound of punctured flesh, and when Buffy released the cue it stayed right where it was.
“Okay, Vessel-boy.” She stared straight at Luke, challenge flashing in her eyes. “You want blood?”
She stepped forward as the cue rose into the air. It looked curiously like the arm of a guard gate, and in the next second, the vampire’s impaled body thudded to the floor.
“I want yours,” Luke snarled at her. “Only yours.”
“Then come and get it.”
Seeing her chance, Cordelia tried to break free of Luke’s grasp. He flung her roughly away just as Buffy leaped at him and slammed her fist into his face. Luke was shocked at her strength. He stumbled back in pain.
Almost instantly he came back at her. Buffy ducked and met his face again, this time with a roundhouse kick. She whipped out her stake and took aim, but he blocked her with a blow to her face. Badly hurt now, Buffy skidded into the corner. The stake fell at Luke’s feet.
As the crowd panicked and shoved in all directions, the backstage door burst open. Xander stumbled out and nearly fell, but recovered himself at once. He took a quick look around, saw that the immediate vicinity was free of vampires, and instantly began herding people out.
“Come on!” he yelled.
As fast as he could direct them, Xander moved the panicky crowd through the door. Willow and Giles waited backstage to push everyone safely toward the exit.
Luke was closing in.
Buffy kicked him fiercely in the chest, sending him back against the wall. He landed hard, and seeing her chance, she went in for the kill.
Then she spotted Xander.
He was too busy getting people out to notice the vampire at his back.
Buffy turned to the drum kit, kicked the cymbal off its stand, and caught it in midair. The vampire had reached Xander now; she could see Xander’s look of fear as the creature grabbed him.
Buffy hurled the cymbal Frisbee style.
Sensing something, the vampire turned, his eyes wide, as the cymbal flew straight at his neck.
Xander heard the slice and ducked away.
His eyes followed the trajectory of the severed head as it sailed across the room.
“Heads up . . .” Xander mumbled.
Buffy barely had time to turn before Luke grabbed her from behind. His arms closed around her and he lifted her in a crushing bear hug.
Xander started toward her, but a shriek stopped him in his tracks. Whirling around, he saw Jesse dragging Cordelia farther below the stairs. As Cordelia screamed and struggled, Jesse threw her to the ground and knelt above her, pinning her with his weight.
“Hold still!” Jesse ordered her. “You’re not helping.”
Xander came up behind them. He stood looking down, clutching a stake in his hand. He could do it right then, he thought to himself, could end it right then, just plunge the stake through Jesse’s back, straight into Jesse’s heart . . .
“Jesse, man . . .” Xander begged him. “Don’t make me do it.”
Jesse looked up. His grin was anything but human. He looked like something from the dregs of a nightmare.
“Buddy . . .” Jesse said.
* * *
Buffy twisted uselessly in Luke’s grasp. She could feel him squeezing and squeezing—everything around her spinning, fading to black . . .
She coughed and choked, gasped desperately for air. From some distant place she thought she could hear Luke laughing.
“I’ve always wanted to kill a Slayer,” he confessed. He sounded proud and somewhat amused.
And then Buffy heard something else.
Something inside of her beginning to crack.
CHAPTER 25
The panic had reached full proportions now.
Backstage, people were still rushing out, and Giles shouldered his way through them, shouting to Willow.
“Come on! We’ve got to open the front as well!”
He headed for the door, moving against a current of hysterical people, trying to reach the main room. Darla came out of nowhere, leaping upon him and digging for his throat. Giles tried to use his stake, but it knocked out of his hand as he toppled to the floor.
* * *
Xander took a step back as Jesse rose and faced him.
“Jesse, I know there’s still a part of you in there,” Xander insisted.
Jesse looked exasperated. “Okay, let’s deal with this. Jesse was an excruciating loser who couldn’t get a date with anyone in the sighted community! Look at me no
w! I’m a new man!”
To prove his point, he grabbed Xander and hurled him against the wall. Xander slid back down again and fell in a heap beside Cordelia.
“See,” Jesse sighed impatiently. “The old Jesse would have reasoned with you.”
* * *
Giles was no match for Darla.
While Willow dug frantically through Buffy’s bag for a weapon, Giles continued to struggle, all too aware that he was losing the battle. Darla held him flat against the floor, and as he stared up at her, her teeth lowered menacingly toward his neck.
“Get off him!” Willow cried.
Darla turned at the sound of Willow’s voice. Something wet hit her full in the face, and she realized too late that she’d been doused with holy water.
Screaming, she brought her hands up to her cheeks, smoke pouring from between her fingers.
Giles pushed her off and staggered to his feet, prepared to confront her. But Darla was already stumbling out of the exit, her face a scorched, sizzling mask of agony.
* * *
Up on the stage, it looked as if Buffy was losing her own battle.
Her body went limp in Luke’s merciless grasp. Her head dangled forward like a rag doll.
Luke looked down at her, smiling. Wild elation rushed through him, and he uttered his humble prayer.
“Master, taste of this and be free.”
His lips peeled back . . . mouth opening wide. He lowered his head, leaning in for the kill.
Buffy hit him so hard, he didn’t realize what had happened. He felt the back of her head as she rammed it up into his chin, and the unexpected impact nearly knocked him off his feet.
“How’d it taste?” she asked defiantly.
Despite her bravado, she was still weak. She managed to grab the cymbal stand, holding it out like a weapon, and at the same time quickly assessed the stage to try and form another plan.
Then she noticed the window at the back of the stage.
It hadn’t been that visible before, because someone had painted the entire windowpane black.
Buffy looked at the window. She looked at Luke.
* * *
Jesse picked Xander up again from the floor and shoved him against the wall. He didn’t have time for all these interruptions, these old reminders that meant nothing to him now. He glared at this easy prey that had once been a friend, and cold fury etched his new face. “I’m sick of you getting in the way, you know?” he railed at Xander. “Cordelia, she’s gonna live forever. You’re not.”
Mustering his courage, Xander held the stake up to Jesse’s chest. His face was determined, but Jesse could see that it was also very scared.
Jesse couldn’t help but taunt him. “Oh, right! Put me out of my misery! You don’t have the g—”
His words gagged in his throat. He felt the sharp, quick thrust and looked down at his stomach.
A panic-stricken girl had slammed into him from behind. She’d been trying to escape and had driven him forward, right onto Xander’s stake.
Jesse stared at Xander in shocked surprise.
Gasping, dying, he grabbed onto his old friend.
Xander watched stunned as what once had been Jesse disintegrated into a pile of dust.
He scarcely had time to react before two vampires grabbed him.
* * *
Buffy swung the cymbal stand at the steadily advancing Luke. He dodged it easily, bestowing her an evil grin in the process.
“You forget,” he sneered. “Metal can’t hurt me.”
Buffy didn’t flinch. “There’s something you forgot about, too.”
She saw his split-second pause—the flicker of doubt on his face.
“Sunrise,” she said.
She hurled the stand through the plate-glass window at the back of the stage. Glass shattered everywhere, and as the warm light streamed in over him, Luke screamed and raised his hands to ward it off.
Then he stopped.
His expression was completely baffled.
With lightning quickness, Buffy drove her stake though Luke’s back. He arched forward, his massive body twisted in unbearable pain.
“It’s in about nine hours, moron,” Buffy reminded him.
It was then that Luke realized the light from the window wasn’t daylight at all. Only a streetlight, shining in from the deep, safe darkness.
With a gasp of amazement, he stumbled forward.
He could feel his life draining . . . draining . . . and with it the life of his Master. It was as if they were one and the same: Luke staggering across the stage—the Master staggering forward in his lair as all the bright, vibrant energy began draining from him, too. Luke could feel the Master’s suffering—his anguish—the Master reaching out, doubling over, just as Luke was doubled over, just as Luke was falling and crumbling to dust . . .
In those last brief seconds of awareness, Luke could see everything ending—centuries of hope, centuries of waiting, the last vestiges of power melting away from the Master as that mighty one fell weakly to his knees and groped blindly for help that would not come . . .
From far away, Luke heard his strangled cry.
“Nooooo . . .” the Master gasped, and as he touched the mystical wall that entrapped him, it was once again too strong to escape. Fury and despair crossed his face as he gazed up at it. A scream of defeat welled up in his throat.
Through a mystical haze, Luke gazed up and saw Buffy standing breathlessly over him.
And then there was nothing more.
CHAPTER 26
Xander struggled fiercely with his captors.
The two vampires holding him had momentarily shifted their attention. Their eyes were narrowed, focused uneasily on what had been happening onstage.
They saw Buffy staring down at the spot where Luke’s body had been only a moment before. Then they watched as she turned her gaze slowly and deliberately on them.
They regarded her expresssion for one fraction of a second.
Then without a word, they dropped Xander and bolted for the door.
Xander was just picking himself up again when Giles and Willow came out from backstage. He and Buffy met them in the middle of the dance floor.
Giles glanced around, a note of relief in his voice. “I take it it’s over.”
“Did we win?” Willow was almost afraid to ask.
The four of them looked about at the carnage surrounding them. Most of the crowd had managed to escape by then, but a few still remained, some sitting, some wandering, all of them stunned and silent.
“Well, we averted the apocalypse,” Buffy said wearily. “You gotta give us points for that.”
She looked over and saw a dazed Cordelia still in a heap on the floor where Jesse had left her. For once, Cordelia had nothing to say.
“One thing’s for sure,” Xander sighed. “Nothing is ever gonna be the same.”
* * *
Out in front of the Bronze, vampires were fleeing in panic. As the last of them retreated down the street, Angel stepped quietly from the shadows and stood there alone, gazing after them.
He turned slightly and stared at the entrance to the club.
And then he smiled.
“She did it,” he murmured. “I’ll be damned.”
CHAPTER 27
Contrary to Xander’s prediction, the next day dawned as it always did.
And everything looked amazingly normal.
The warm California sunshine enveloped Sunnydale High, and in the fountain quad the routine was exactly the same. Students milled about laughing and talking, and Cordelia held court with her friends.
“Well, I heard it was rival gangs fighting for turf,” she said dramatically. She glanced around at all the eager faces, her adoring fans clinging to every word. “Anyway, Buffy totally knew these guys, which is too weird. I can’t remember anything too well, but I’m telling you, it was a freak show.”
“Oh, I wish I’d been there,” one Cordelia-wannabe sighed.
Crossin
g the quad in the opposite direction, Buffy and her own friends happened to overhear Cordelia’s play-by-play. While Buffy hid a smile, Xander turned to her in exasperated disbelief.
“Well, what exactly were you expecting?” Buffy chided him, while Xander gave an indignant shrug.
“I don’t know! Something. The dead rose! We should’ve at least had an assembly.”
“People have a tendency to rationalize what they can,” Giles reminded him gently as he joined them outside the building, “and forget what they can’t.”
Buffy nodded in agreement. “Believe me, I’ve seen it happen.”
“Well, I’ll never forget it,” Willow said emphatically, giving an inward shudder. “None of it.”
Giles looked pleased. “Good. Next time you’ll be prepared.”
“Next time?” Xander sounded suspicious, while Willow echoed, “Next time is why?”
Giles gave them a tolerant smile. “We stopped the Master from freeing himself and opening the mouth of hell. Doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying. I’d say the fun is just beginning.”
“More vampires?” Willow croaked.
“Not just vampires.” Giles stopped and turned to face them. His expression was very solemn, even for him. “The next creature we face may be something quite different.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I can hardly wait.”
“We’re at a center of mystical convergence here,” Giles went on. “We may in fact stand between the earth and its total destruction.”
Xander shook his head. “Buffy, this isn’t good.”
“Well, I gotta look on the bright side,” Buffy told them cheerfully. “Maybe I can still get kicked out of school.”
She smiled at Giles and started off, the other two hurrying to keep up with her.
“Hey, that’s a plan,” Xander was agreeable. “ ’Cause a lot of schools aren’t on hellmouths.”
“Maybe you could blow something up,” Willow suggested helpfully. “They’re really strict about that.”
Buffy considered this with a shrug. “I was aiming for a subtle approach, like excessive not studying.”
Watching them go, Giles shook his head.
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