“What is it, Buffy?”
Finally, she pulled back and looked up at him, expression troubled. She opened her mouth, began to speak, but then she faltered, searching for words. After a moment, she glanced away, brow still furrowed with secret concerns.
“Hey,” Angel whispered, and lifted her chin.
Buffy offered a weak, unconvincing smile. “I love you,” she said, and rose up on her toes to kiss him.
Angel bent to the kiss, cold heart momentarily warmed. But still, he was concerned for her. “Something’s on your mind,” he said. “I’d like to help, if I can.”
“I know,” Buffy told him. “But now might not be the time. Can we pick it up later, after I try to make some sense of it myself ? Not to get so All My Children on you, but I just need to do a little Summers-brain spin control first.”
His first instinct was to say no. To prod her so that he might learn what was bothering her. Part of that, the admirable part, was his need to help her. But he understood that the other part was merely his selfish need to have the answers now so that the questions would not stay with him, worrying him until she was willing to share.
Reluctantly, Angel nodded. “So, what else is going on?”
With the conversation turning to what passed for business in their lives, Buffy brightened noticeably. The turmoil in her heart was too much for her, but monsters and dead things she could handle.
“The usual chaos, but with a twist,” she told him. “We’ve got a rise in vamp activity — in itself sort of a big yawn, I know — but we’ve also got some grave robbing going on.”
Angel frowned. “You’re sure they’re thefts? Not just vampires rising?”
Buffy shook her head. “Nah. This grave was dug up, not dug out of. Anyway, the Mod Squad’s gonna try to track down the grave-robbing angle — which I figure is safer, especially if they’re just on stakeout—giving us the space to start culling the vampire herd. Actually, I’m starting to wonder if it’s seasonal, y’know? Vampire breeding season coming around every few months. I should ask Giles to track the figures. Willow could make a computer model. That would elicit squeals of geeker joy.”
Angel went into the hall and grabbed his coat off a rack, then slipped the long black duster on.
“For vampires, it’s always breeding season,” he said darkly.
“Yeah, well, whoever’s riding shotgun on this undead posse must have an extra special itch, ’cause they were real concerned about reproducing last night, waiting for a newbie to rise.”
As they left the mansion, Angel pondered that. Buffy was right. Vampires usually employed a kind of scorched-earth policy, killing without thinking, changing a kill over on a whim, and not looking back. Newborn vampires came into the world as alone as they were when the last of their blood was drained away. Sometimes vampires killed for companionship, but then the body would not be likely to receive a burial in the first place.
It wasn’t much of a mystery. More of a curiosity. But at least it was something for Buffy and Angel to focus on while they both pretended not to be thinking about whatever had her so preoccupied.
Outside, only the last angry red rays of sun lingered on the western horizon.
Pepper Roback had taken a job waiting tables at the Fish Tank to make enough money to finish college. Six years later, she still didn’t quite understand what had happened to that dream. Granted, she didn’t make very much money at the Tank, even on the busiest of nights. The kind of guys who drank there weren’t much into tipping, unless they were trying to get a girl into bed. And the ones even vaguely interesting enough to go home with had a habit of forgetting her name the next time they came in.
Still, they always tried. Though she felt worn down inside, Pepper knew she was still attractive. Her curly red hair got a lot of attention, and her freckles, and her size as well. She was a very small woman, barely five feet tall, and ninety-two pounds pretty much forever. But despite her size, most guys didn’t give her a hard time. They might flirt, but if she wasn’t interested, they wouldn’t pursue it. The regulars respected her, and the others just didn’t want to make trouble with a woman who seemed as hard as Pepper Roback.
But Pepper wasn’t hard at all. Not inside. She had simply learned how to survive. It was vital that she know how to get by, to take care of herself. Nobody else was going to do it. Pepper had stopped briefly at the Fish Tank, and stayed too long. And the rest of the world had moved along without her.
With seven hundred dollars in the bank, Pepper knew she wasn’t going back to college. Wasn’t going much of anywhere, in fact. She’d wanted to be a teacher. Later, when she’d started to realize that the stale smell of beer and the raucous laughter and deep depression that permeated the Fish Tank were now a part of her life, she’d thought that maybe she might get a job doing day care.
No question, she loved kids. But over time, she’d come to wonder if she had anything to offer them. Pepper knew she wasn’t much of a role model. There was a rawness to the Fish Tank, and to the people who spent time there. And there was an element of danger to the place as well. The men and women who went into the bar night after night didn’t mind a fight or two, didn’t worry about using a broken bottle or a blade to hurt someone if they felt it necessary. Those things didn’t give them a moment’s pause, because they didn’t fear going to jail.
They didn’t fear going to jail, because they had nothing to lose. Not really.
It wasn’t much of a life. Not at all. But Pepper had finally done something about it, found something to enrich her life and make her smile, to give her something to look forward to, week after week. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon, she spent two hours reading to schoolchildren at the Sunnydale Public Library. Sometimes they were wild, those kids. But they were always glad to hear a story, and Pepper always left the library with a smile on her face. Her stories made the children happy, and that was all she had ever wanted.
But no matter how happy Pepper might be when she left the library, went out to the lot, and started up her car, the minute she began to drive, the smile slipped from her face. For she was always driving to her real job, driving to the Fish Tank. Which meant that she would need to don, once more, the cold, hard mask of the tough woman the place had made her. A smile as happy as hers would only make her vulnerable there.
Pepper couldn’t afford vulnerability.
On Monday afternoon, she read “The Seven Chinese Brothers” to the kids. The boys always liked that one, because the story’s characters all had strange powers, like superheroes. And they were family. They took care of each other, kept each other alive. It was a fantasy story to Pepper, just as it was to many of the children to whom she read.
When she left the library, a light breeze had sprung up, and Pepper shivered. Sitting in her car, she opened a brown bag she’d kept in the library fridge during the afternoon and ate the sandwich she’d prepared for dinner. Ham and swiss on wheat, with mustard. Then she had the apple she’d brought along and put the core back into the bag.
Then, ever so reluctantly, she started the car and headed for work. Her battered Chevy Corsica stuck out in most of Sunnydale, receiving disapproving stares from other drivers, and even from people just walking by. But by the time she reached the Fish Tank, she had started to blend. Sometimes her car stuck out in that part of town for the opposite reason: compared to the others parked on the street or passing by, it was in great shape.
The Tank was only a few blocks from the docks, where ocean-shipping warehouses and fisheries provided much of the clientele. The people there worked hard and came to the Fish Tank mainly because they didn’t have the time or the energy or the inclination to go anywhere else.
She had to drive around a bit before she found an acceptable spot, in a side alley a block from the Tank. There were tow zone signs posted everywhere, but the owners of the building never had anyone towed. The car would be fine. The only thing in it worth stealing was the radio, and that was a piece of junk as well.
Pepper tasted the salty tang of the air as she stepped out of the car, and she thought of the ocean. Once, she had loved to swim, even to sail when she got the chance. But now the ocean only meant customers — the regular influx of men just off fishing boats or fresh from unloading freighters at the docks.
She shivered slightly with the cool breeze and wrapped her arms around herself. The alley was dark and empty, save for several other cars parked there. Out on the street, it was too early for many of the regulars to be about. Some of them didn’t get started until after ten o’clock.
Wrinkling her nose at the odor of a Dumpster just a few feet up the alley — the wind had shifted, and now it brought the noxious smell of garbage — she began to walk to the corner, to make her way up to the front door of the Tank.
Pepper didn’t even hear anyone come up behind her.
“Cold?” the stranger asked.
She turned to see a large bearded man looking at her expectantly.
“Do you want my jacket?” he asked, an exotic accent to his voice.
For a moment, she almost smiled, almost said yes. This was a different sort of man, after all, from the usual crowd at the Fish Tank. This was a man who would not be spending the rest of his life, or even another hour, in this dump. He was well dressed, very handsome, and so very foreign. She almost said yes.
But there was something about him that unsettled Pepper. Something in his eyes.
“You know what? I work right here. But thanks for the offer,” she told him.
Anger flashed in his eyes, and then they changed. His nostrils flared, his features seemed to flow and contort. His eyes glowed.
He was a monster.
Pepper opened her mouth to scream, and then he struck her. She slumped forward, tumbling toward the ground, and he caught her. Groggy, unable to find the energy to cry out now, she felt unconsciousness cradling her, carrying her down into the dark. Somewhere, she heard a car start.
Then nothing.
When Ephialtes entered the crumbling stone structure with its boarded-up windows, he had the woman over his shoulder. Konstantin saw immediately that she was alive. He watched as Ephialtes brought the unconscious human to a darkened corner and set her down. To Konstantin’s eyes, she was a fine creature, a bit weathered by her life, but humans were so fragile in general.
Except for the Slayer. He remembered her strength, and it both infuriated and aroused him.
This woman was a pale shadow of the Slayer. But she would not be for long. Not long at all. Soon she would be changed.
He watched Ephialtes from across the room. Behind him, in what had once been the office of the chief of police — before a new police station had been built years earlier — three newborn vampires, all sired by Veronique herself, set about building the nest.
The nest. Konstantin was not precisely certain what the nest would contain, but he knew it would be soon. And they would be horrible.
There was a short cry of pain and a grunt of pleasure, and when Konstantin glanced back at the corner of the entry hall, Ephialtes was drinking deeply of the woman’s blood, long teeth sunk into her soft throat. Konstantin was jealous.
Ephialtes was the harbinger of the mistress, just as she was the harbinger of the Triumvirate. He was preparing her place in the world once more. Konstantin hoped one day to have that honor.
When Ephialtes laid the woman gently on the floor — for she would soon rise with the essence of Veronique within her — Konstantin stood behind him, watching carefully.
“Is there something you wish to ask?” Ephialtes demanded, his tone an admonition.
“Why bring her here to take her?” Konstantin asked.
“For the quiet. And out of respect. And because the place I found her might have been too far away from where the mistress’s last host met its destruction.”
“We are not like her, are we?”
“I forget how young you are,” Ephialtes said dismissively. “We are not like her, and never shall be. Veronique is a true immortal. Where we have only these flimsy shells, and are tied to them once we have taken up residence within, she lives on forever. Do you not recall the prophecy she shared with you that first night, on the Sea of Crete?”
Konstantin did recall.
“From my scion, the three faces of Hell shall be born.
“Through my offspring, three shall become one.
“In their name, shall I live on from flesh to flesh.
“And when the three-who-are-one have had their fill,
“I will drink the blood of the last man on Earth.”
Such had been the words of Veronique, some of the first words she had spoken to Konstantin when he awoke to his new life, slathered in their shared blood. The prophecy had chilled him and thrilled him to the marrow, giving his cold blood the illusion of warmth.
The blood of the last man on Earth.
Chapter Three
Constantinople, A.D. 543
It was close to midnight, and the horns of the crescent moon dripped with magick and death. The signs and portents were clear: the hour was at hand. She must make haste, or she would miss her chance.
The youth struggled and screamed as Veronique dragged him down the filthy street, his head caught firmly beneath her arm. His thin arms flailed; he dragged his sandaled feet and kicked his heels, but he was in no condition to cause her trouble. He obviously had not eaten in days. His face was sunken, and his eyes were ringed with exhaustion. He stank, but these days, everyone stank.
Constantinople, once the flower of the empire, had become more vile and disgusting than Hell itself. The plague of Justinian, now in its second year, killed more than it spared, and there was no one left willing to bury or burn the bloated, pustule-ridden corpses of the common folk. People were left where they fell, to die and to rot. The fouled air, an unbelievable stench of decomposition mingled with the oily smoke of noble funeral pyres, served as the only shroud for the majority of the deceased. Flies and maggots attacked the bodies in huge hordes, like locusts; and the rats, which had brought the plague, feasted on the blackened carrion, multiplied, and perpetuated the disease.
The scent of her captive’s fear made Veronique weak with hunger. She was starving. The plague had tainted the blood of the human population, making it impossible to drink, and there were not enough uninfected people to feed even the handful of vampires in Constantinople. The animals had already been devoured long ago. The hunt for sustenance had become a terrible contest that was rapidly winnowing down the vampire population to a hardy few.
But the blood of this lovely boy was clean. And his terror would surely enhance its flavor.
She felt her face change, and the captive’s screams reached fever pitch. Veronique slapped at him peevishly to silence him. Every impulse within her told her to drain him here, now, but she kept reminding herself that he would fill a higher need, if only she could hold off long enough.
A pretty one, Veronique thought, despite his condition. Blond, blue-eyed. Perhaps a foreigner, as she was. Some poor young adventurer who had dreamed of making his fortune, never imagining the fate that now awaited him.
“Please,” he tried again. “She’s a monster!”
The only other living person on the street barely bothered to glance at Veronique and her quarry. Its sex was indeterminate, since starvation robbed men and women both of their essence. Nothing registered on the haggard face. The day-to-day business of survival took concentration and great force of will. No one ever knew which heartbeat was the last. The plague of Justinian came on without warning. First came shivering and vomiting, headaches and giddiness. Then an intolerance to light and a high fever. Within a day, coughing started, until it became spitting up blood. Then the stomach bloated, and blood boils bubbled under the arms, the sides of the neck, and the sexual organs, which turned black and, often, exploded.
For those who were fortunate, death came next.
But many lingered for a time, in unbelievable agony. A few
miraculously survived the ordeal. But that was of no interest to Veronique and her kind. Once the blood had been infected by this insidious disease, vampires could not drink it, even if the host returned to perfect health . . . or what stood for health, in these desperate times of little food and no sanitation. She had never heard of such an illness, and yet here it was.
Still in vampire face, Veronique made a sharp left and dragged the young man through an alley. She stepped with distaste around corpses and piles of garbage, making an attempt to steer him past them as well. He must be as pleasing as possible for the ones she served.
After a very long walk, during which the youth finally gave up the struggle and hung limply in her arms, she came to the gates of her sanctuary. It was a small but exquisite villa. Its crowning glory, a sizable dome, had crashed through the roof three years before, collapsing large portions of the building in upon itself. She had been present, for it was a brothel, and she had been one of its star attractions — foreign, exotic, and skilled.
Long ago, even before she had become a vampire, Veronique had begun her life as a prostitute. Later, she had discovered it to be the perfect way to find victims. She might nip one of the men who came to her, take only a little, or follow him as he left to come upon him again in the shadows, this time to fulfill her own needs rather than his.
When the brothel’s dome fell, almost all the other hetaerae and patrons had been killed. A number of the courtesans were horribly disfigured, and they ended their lives rather than endure the shame. In a few cases, Veronique could have restored their beauty with magick, but she opted to do nothing. She could afford no scrutiny, not even from the clever, witty women who had warmly befriended a stranger such as she.
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