Paleo

by Yvonne Navarro

  “He won’t be back in town until late tomorrow night,” Oz said blandly, despite the warning bells in his head.

  This time he saw Alysa outright scowl before she dropped a mask over the expression. “All right,” she said again. “Monday then. But it’ll have to be during the day.”

  Oz considered this. “Can you come to Sunnydale High? I could meet you after school. In the library— that’d be cool.”

  She paused, then nodded. “Fine. But,” Alysa added as she tucked the folder beneath one arm and spun on her heel, “that’s absolutely the end of your time limit.” She stared at the two of them for a moment, then her gaze slid to the stage area, where a group called Broken Mirror was pounding out rock ’n’ roll with an overly heavy hand on the bass. Oz didn’t really think they were that great. “You know, Saturday night is the prime spot,” she said casually. “Extremely well paid. Did you know Broken Mirror is one of my clients? A month from now it could be Dingoes up there instead of them.” She gave them a final sharklike smile.

  Oz and Devon sat there for a few minutes and considered this, watching as she strode out of the Bronze. There was a briskness to her walk, an anger, that hadn’t been there when she’d first come in. They’d ticked her off by yanking away the band reins and putting them into the hands of someone she’d never met.

  And never will.

  “Mitch?” Devon asked now. “So what the hell was that?”

  Oz stood and pushed the chair away, kind of enjoying the scraping sound it made across the beat-up floor. It made him feel reconnected to solid earth. “A stall,” he told Devon. “A phantom writer to give us a little more time to think about what it is we’re getting into, and just how deep we want to go.”

  Willow hugged herself and listened in dismay as Oz gave her and Giles a rundown about the T. Rex that he, Buffy and Xander had killed in the alley by the Bronze. “Buffy said she’d come by and tell you everything,” he said to Giles, “but we haven’t had a chance to talk to either Kevin or Daniel yet. She and Angel are probably still on patrol. I was . . . done sooner than I thought. Did you guys find out any info?”

  Willow shook her head tiredly. “Not much. A couple of references to ancient mythology and dragons, but nothing we can pinpoint yet.”

  “We’re still searching,” Giles said, and inclined his chin toward another stack of waiting books. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  Willow nodded in agreement, then studied Oz. “Anything else?”

  “Not on the dinosaur scene,” he said. He glanced at Giles, but the librarian had already turned back to his demonology books. When he spoke again, he’d dropped his voice to where only she could hear. “But we did have that meeting with Alysa Bardrick.” He went on to fill her in.

  “Wow,” Willow marveled afterward. “She wants everyone to sign contracts? She sure wants to move, like . . . fast. And legal. What did you do?”

  “Stalled,” Oz told her. “I said we had to talk to someone else and I wouldn’t be able to tell her anything until Monday afternoon. She’s going to come by here.”

  Willow thought about this. “Here at the library? Do you think that’s a good idea? I mean, what with the Timimus . . . ?”

  “At least it’ll give us a few more days to think it over,” Oz said. “We can get this whole dino-deal out of the way and do something about that Timimus.”

  She chewed her bottom lip for a second and stared at the computer. “You know,” she said softly, “why don’t I do a little digging around?”

  Oz looked at her speculatively. “On Alysa?”

  Willow nodded. “I’m demon-researching, but I can do the Alysa hunt in a couple of sub-windows, see what I can see.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea.” She could hear the exhaustion in his voice when he continued. “I’m gonna head home and get some shut-eye. If you’re here when Buffy comes by, tell her I’ll meet her early in the morning and we’ll head over to Kevin’s, see if we can find out just what he and Daniel have been conjuring up.”

  Conjuring, Willow thought. Interesting choice of words, and not something that should be done if a person—an amateur—didn’t know exactly what they were doing. “All right.” She saw Oz glance over at Giles again, but the older man was deeply absorbed in his books. Her boyfriend gave her a little grin, then leaned over and kissed her, ever so quick, on the lips before leaving.

  She sat staring after him for a little while longer, then set a couple of power searches going in the background while she mulled over the whole conjuring thing and thought again about Kevin and Daniel. As with so much of what spewed out of Sunnydale, there was undeniably something magical at work in this, but it was dark and ugly and ought to have been cut off at the neck a long, long time ago.

  By the time Buffy and Angel made it to the library, Willow had gone home and only Giles remained, burning the proverbial candle over his musty old books. He barely acknowledged them as they pushed through the library doors.

  “Nice to see you all were concerned about my welfare,” Buffy said. “Being as the main foe tonight had an appetite a bit larger than the average bloodsucker.”

  Giles didn’t look up. “Oz was here,” he said. “He told us all about it.”

  Buffy looked around. “Xander was dead on his feet. We sent him home. Willow—”

  “Went home,” Giles told her, finally raising his nose from whatever he was reading. “And Oz said he’d meet you in the morning to go talk to Kevin Sanderson. How was patrol?”

  “Amazingly vamp-free,” Buffy told him and looked at Angel. “We’re thinking the word’s out that something bigger’s visiting and sees them as fair game for dinner.”

  “Ah.” Giles finally seemed interested. “So whatever is behind all this is something quite intimidating.”

  “You still don’t know?” Buffy demanded.

  “No. But we have to be getting closer.”

  Angel raised one eyebrow. “Why is that?”

  Giles looked at them both grimly. “Because, quite frankly, we’re running out of places to look.”

  “Hey, man. It’s Devon.”

  Oz squinted at the telephone, then glanced at the clock. He was going to get up in another half-hour anyway, but a call from the singer at six in the morning? His first impulse was to ask “Who are you and what have you done with Devon?” Instead he scrubbed at the sleep in his eyes and asked, “What’s up?”

  Either Devon was wired from being up all night, or he was majorly pissed about something. The answer came in only a few more words. “You remember that Friday– Saturday gig we had set up in Newport next weekend? The high-dollar one we’ve been waiting on for three months?” Devon ground his teeth. “Well, we lost it.”

  Oz frowned. “Lost it how?”

  “I called the club manager last night to double-check on their speaker setup, see if we needed to add anything to their equipment list. He said he was going to call me today and cancel anyway, because he’d lined up a different ent band, said it was some ‘hot little outfit called Shy.’ ”

  “Hold it,” Oz said. “Didn’t he sign our contract?”

  “Yeah, and I called him on it!” Oz could picture Devon waving his hands in the air. “Basically, he said too damned bad. He’d gotten the offer from Shy’s manager late last night and he took it. The jerk told me to go hire a lawyer. Hell, he knows we don’t have deep enough pockets for that kind of stuff.”

  Oz’s eyes narrowed in the predawn darkness. An offer late Saturday night? He’d bet anything—

  “Did he say who Shy’s manager is?”

  “Oh yeah,” Devon said. “Wouldn’t you know it? Alysa Bardrick.” He was silent for a moment. “What I can’t decide is did she step in here to push her own client, or did she do this because she found out it was us who had the booking for that date?”

  Oz didn’t answer, but he was pretty sure that both he and Devon knew the answer to that one.

  No bright California sun this time; Sunday A.M. was ov
ercast and chilly, even though it probably never would get around to really raining. Buffy hugged herself beneath her sweater, then glanced at Oz; he looked as tired as she felt—dark circles under his eyes, a smattering of bruises here and there. Still, he gave her a hopeful grin when he caught her eye. “So, do you think it’s too early?” she asked.

  Oz shook his head. “Nah. Those eager student types—they’re always up at the crack of dawn. Even if Kevin’s not awake, his parents probably are. We’ll just try looking pathetic and desperate enough so they’re willing to wake him up.”

  Buffy chuckled. Desperate for class notes? Notes, not, but they definitely had the desperate part down. And getting more so by the hour. “Got it.”

  This morning Kevin Sanderson’s house seemed gloomier than it had on their previous visit, the yellow brick darker and more subdued, the row of bushes more like a mini-wall than ornamentation. Even the empty hanging baskets were wrong somehow, as though something—even plastic blooms—should have been stuffed in them to create an illusion of cheerfulness. The whole effect made Buffy shiver again, compounding the grayness of the day and making her wish even harder for sunshine.

  And when Oz knocked, Buffy knew right away that they were off to a bad start by the way the footsteps inside pounded hurriedly toward the entrance.

  Mrs. Sanderson yanked open the front door. The look on her face was full of hope, then her expression immediately crashed when she saw it was them. “Oh!” she said. “I’m—I’m sorry. I thought it would be my son.”

  Buffy stepped forward. “Kevin’s not home? Do you know where he is?”

  Mrs. Sanderson shook her head as her husband moved into place behind her. Mr. Sanderson looked much more haggard than his wife and Buffy recalled her comments yesterday about his feeble health. His weaker constitution was obviously standing up poorly against the stressful situation. “He didn’t come home last night,” Kevin’s father rasped. “A Saturday night, a teenage boy . . . we expected him to be late. But he’s never stayed out all night before without calling.”

  “He’s not that kind of boy,” Mrs. Sanderson added, and Buffy wondered if she was telling them that, or reminding herself and her husband. “We got the number for Daniel Addison from information, but no one answers.” She looked at her husband, her eyes wide and filled with fright. “No one’s answered all night.”

  Mr. Sanderson stared at the floor for a second, then lifted his head. His eyes were reddened and sunk deep into his skull. “Maybe they got involved in some paleontology project and lost track of the time,” he suggested. “They probably decided not to wake us up by calling really late. After being up half the night, they probably slept in.” The older man looked at his watch. “But if he’s not home by noon, I’m calling the police,” he said decisively.

  “Oh, surely it won’t come to that,” Mrs. Sanderson protested. “You know how Kev gets overwhelmed by anything to do with dinosaurs. More than likely, it’s just a new project.” She glanced at Buffy and Oz, and Buffy could tell the woman was looking for support.

  “Overwhelmed,” Buffy said. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

  Oz looked at her sharply, then gave the Sandersons a pleasant nod. “Well, we’ll check back with you later,” he offered.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Sanderson replied, a little too brightly. “You do that, and when he gets home, I’ll tell him you came by. Oz, wasn’t it?”

  Oz nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  The older woman nodded her head jerkily. “You two just can’t seem to get together with my Kevin, can you?”

  “Oh, we will,” Buffy assured her as she and Oz turned and headed off. “Sooner or later . . . we’ll catch up with him.”

  “So,” Oz said when they were out of earshot and they’d seen the front door of the Sanderson house close, “what do you think? Vamp attack?”

  “I don’t know,” Buffy admitted. They made their way back to Oz’s van slowly, neither really knowing where to go next. “A lot of people here in Sunnydale have a sort of . . . feel for what goes on behind the scenes. I mean, most don’t go walking around outside by themselves at night just because they kind of instinctively know they shouldn’t. Kevin’s so new . . . maybe he doesn’t have the Sunnydale safety radar yet. I guess it could have gone down that way.” But with everything that had happened, she wasn’t really convinced and she was sure Oz wasn’t either.

  Oz nodded. “Or he could be at the museum,” he suggested. “His parents said there’s no answer at Daniel’s, and we didn’t try the museum last night. Why don’t we give it a shot this morning? It’ll be open by ten.”

  Buffy nodded, then squinted unhappily at the sky. “Jeez, with these clouds it could be ten or it could be four. Yuck. I’d much rather have the sunshine.”

  Oz nodded. “In Sunnydale, sunshine is definitely an advantage.”

  “Yeah,” Buffy agreed, and shot a final, glum look overhead. “Let’s just hope it’s shining on the museum by the time we get there.”

  “Am I right in detecting a really overwhelming sense of big-time screw-up here?” Buffy asked Oz under her breath as he pulled over to the curb and cut the engine.

  The grounds in front of the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History, usually so spacious and uncrowded, seemed to be filled with people. All of them were of that same not-good variety who tended to wield, where they weren’t pointing television videos and cameras at everything, guns, badges, and billy clubs. Added to that were several police cars with flashing lights, an ambulance that hadn’t bothered to turn its lights on at all, and the most dreaded minivan of all—the one with the circular words SUNNYDALE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER stenciled on each side.

  “Oh, yeah,” Oz whispered back. “Definitely in the big bad domain. Now what?”

  “Now we get closer,” Buffy decided. “Keep our mouths shut and do the ‘little pitchers with big ears’ thing.”

  Oz scowled. “Always hated that saying.”

  “Me, too. Come on.” They climbed out of the van and Buffy led the way around the worst of the crowd with Oz right behind her, deftly avoiding the cameras and looking like nothing more than a couple of curious teenagers. She paused now and then, gazing off into space and going for the airheaded blond look that nearly guaranteed no one would pay attention to her and her companion. It didn’t take long for them to work their way up toward the front, not far from where several police officers and a couple of white-suited techs milled around the morgue van as if they had nothing better to do. The back doors were open and Buffy could see a mound inside covered by a sheet that was splotched with dark circles, spots that looked black in the shadowy interior.

  Rather than linger like vultures, the two drifted away from the opened doors and closer to the knot of city personnel, straining to hear anything they could. As they did, Buffy saw one of the techs climb back inside the van and retrieve a plastic bag, then return with it to talk to one of the cops.

  “His I.D.’s in here,” the tech said. When the officer looked pointedly at the bloody contents and made no move to take the bag, the tech shrugged and split it open with gloved hands. He dug around in it for a few seconds, then brought out a fabric wallet splattered with plenty of red. Buffy couldn’t help flinching at the unexpected ripping sound when the tech pulled apart the velcro-bound flaps and peered at what was inside. “Couldn’t tell it by what’s left,” the tech told the policeman with a grimace, “but according to this he’s not much more than a kid—only twenty-two years old. Says his name is Daniel Addison.”

  Oz’s face went white as Buffy sucked in a lungful of air and whispered “Uh-oh.”

  The cop who’d refused Daniel’s personal effects looked over at them and frowned faintly. Buffy made a show of appearing vacant and twirling the end of a lock of her hair, and after a second, he returned his attention to the tech. “Any idea what happened in there?”

  The white-jacketed guy shrugged. “Not a clue. My first guess would be some kind of animal, but this is a museum, not a zoo. Ever
ything in there is already dead and stuffed. This has gotta be the work of a psycho or something—wouldn’t be the first one in this town.”

  A second cop pulled a notebook out of his pocket and began scribbling in it. “That’s certainly true,” he said. Buffy thought she caught a note of disgust in his voice as he looked around at the reporters just now starting to pack up and leave. “And you know by twelve o’clock this’ll be all over the afternoon news.” He exhaled. “Give me the kid’s address off of that I.D., would you? I don’t know what he was into or what he was doing in the museum, but I guess we’re the lucky ones who get to hunt down his next of kin before they find out on the tube that he got famous.”

  Chapter 11

  “OKAY,” OZ SAID. “WE’VE BEEN HANGING HERE FOR nearly two hours, waiting for everyone to leave, and we’ve tried calling Giles three times with no luck. I think this is about as good as it’s going to get.” He peered around the corner of the museum. “They’ve got a sign on the front door that says it’s closed for the day,” he told Buffy. “But there are still people going in and out. If we want to get in there without tripping an alarm, we need to do it now, before the rest of the cleanup crew leaves and powers up the security system.” “No time like the now time,” Buffy muttered.

  He saw her glance down the long side of the building, then he spied a recessed doorway, almost invisible behind a Dumpster. “How about over there?” he suggested.

  “The garbage exit,” Buffy said with pseudo-brightness as they hurried over to it. “Always my favorite option. ” Nevertheless, she wrapped one hand around the knob and turned it experimentally; it was locked, of course. She gave a final, quick look around, then twisted hard. There was the faint sound of metal bending inside the mechanism, then the steel-plated door obligingly swung outward.

  “At least it’s quiet,” Oz said. “In the horror movies, the doors always squeal.” Buffy shot him a don’tgothere look and he shrugged. “Trivia.”