by Nancy Holder
“Honey, go after her,” Joyce urged.
“No way,” Buffy said. “I’m staying put.”
There was a silence. More than once, Buffy had put the safety of her mother ahead of all other considerations. Though neither one of them talked much about it, Buffy had been forced to make that choice more often, now that her mom knew she was the Chosen One. Which was why she should never have told her. But it couldn’t be helped, at the time. So much had happened so fast. But it was harder on Buffy for her mom knowing than when she had thought her daughter was some violence-prone slacker who came home all bruised up and bloody from gang fights.
In the kitchen, Buffy pulled a chair out with her foot and eased her mother down into it. Joyce was wobbly and shaken.
Buffy headed for the phone. “I’m calling nine-one-one.”
Joyce shook her head. “No, honey.” She waved a limp hand toward the kitchen cabinets. “I restocked the first-aid kit again. Just go get the Betadyne and bandages.”
Buffy pulled her mom’s bathrobe away from the wound, then made a face when she saw the teeth marks through her nightgown. “I don’t know. This looks stitch-worthy.”
“It’s not fair, you know,” Joyce said, wincing as Buffy examined the damage. She touched the scratches on Buffy’s cheek, putting on her worried-mom face. “I scar, and you don’t. Come to think of it, I wrinkle and you don’t.”
“I will, if I live long enough,” Buffy shot back, then didn’t smile because it wasn’t funny. She might not live long enough. “Anyway, I think we should go get that checked.”
“Oh, Buffy.” Joyce sighed. “Let’s just make some popcorn.”
Buffy waited a beat. Then she realized her mother was serious.
“Well, it’s nice to know your appetite isn’t affected by a near-death experience,” Buffy shot at her, crossing the kitchen to retrieve the first-aid kit.
But Joyce wasn’t listening. She was looking out the kitchen window. “What got into her?” She grimaced and touched her shoulder.
“Whatever it was, I hope it didn’t get into you,” Buffy said. Or me. Lindsey had dug her nails into Buffy’s cheek pretty deeply. “I’m going to see Giles first thing.”
Joyce nodded as she unbelted her bathrobe and bared her shoulder. “Good idea, honey.” She exhaled.
“As soon as you’re taken care of, I’ll go look for her,” Buffy promised.
“Oh, no,” Joyce protested, but Buffy knew she wanted her to go. She knew she would worry about the little girl for the rest of the night.
She also knew her mother didn’t want her to go out into the dark and battle the ugly things there. But as her old friend — not — the British sorcerer, Ethan Rayne, would say, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Since becoming the Slayer, Buffy had ridden some pretty wild horses. Including black stallions that breathed fire.
Joyce caught her breath as Buffy applied the disinfectant. Buffy’s stomach tightened as her mind cast back, remembering a night very like this. It was the first night she had invited Angel into her home. Not knowing he was a vampire, knowing only that he was this handsome, mysterious guy she’d nicknamed Danger Man, who appeared from out of nowhere to warn her about various dire goings-on. He had given her the large silver cross she had on.
When he had been injured helping her out in an attack, she had brought him home and dressed his wound. Had seen the tattoo on his back, the mark that revealed him to be none other than Angelus, one of the most vicious vampires who ever lived. But to Buffy, he was Angel, the only vampire to have his soul restored, the only vampire who wrestled with demonic passion and human compassion. And she had grown to love him with all the need of someone who knew she would probably die young.
Then things had gone so wrong. . . .
“May I have some water, Buffy?”
Joyce’s words were slurred around the edges. Buffy scrutinized her as she got a glass and filled it with water from the faucet. She handed the glass to her mother and stood over her while she slowly sipped.
“Mom, I’m still thinking Dr. Greene. You know, the ER.” Buffy took the empty glass. “More?”
“No, thank you. I just want to rest,” Joyce insisted, getting to her feet. Her cheeks reddened slightly. “They always ask so many questions at those places. Remember when I thought I’d fallen on a barbecue fork?”
Buffy would never forget. Angel’s sire, Darla, had fed on her mother and practically killed her.
“They ask questions,” Buffy said harshly, “but they don’t really care what the answers are.”
Joyce reached out and smoothed Buffy’s hair. “Don’t worry, Buffy. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I don’t want to go, all right?”
“Not all right,” Buffy said, then grinned lopsidedly. “I think I know where I got my stubborn streak, though.”
“Exactly. From your father.”
Joyce put a protective arm around her daughter and urged her from the kitchen.
“I locked the door,” Buffy said.
“Thank you, sweetie.”
They climbed the stairs. Buffy watched uncertainly as her mom opened her bedroom door, and gave Buffy a little wave to show her she was all right.
“Sweet dreams, Mom,” Buffy said.
“Don’t go out,” Joyce said suddenly. She shivered. “I have this feeling. Stay home. She’ll be found.”
Buffy smiled tightly. “Sorry. But Slayers take, like, this Girl Scout oath. It’s very boring and long, but . . .” She shrugged. “You know I have to, Mom.”
Joyce kissed her cheek, held her for a moment. “Come home safe to me,” she said.
Buffy waited until her mother went into her room and shut the door. Then she went into her own room and opened up the drawer where she kept her slaying supplies. What to take, she pondered. Holy water? Sure. A couple of good, sharp stakes? Why not?
Brass knuckles? Too clunky.
As she loaded up, she looked over at the open window and, despite the heat, pulled it shut.
Most of the time, Slayers had very good instincts.
And on occasion, very bad dreams.
“Good morning, lemmings,” Xander Harris cried out to a gaggle of Cordelia Chase’s fashion-forward galpals as they set about ignoring him. “Lovely day for a mass suicide, isn’t it?”
He slammed his locker shut and galumphed along the hallowed halls of Sunnydale High, searching for the Buffster. Willow and Cordelia had actually planned to come to school together. Some kind of bonding thing, he guessed, although the notion of those two chewing the fat made his ears spontaneously combust. True, they all had a lot of past to deal with, and he figured it was best dealt with in a group format, darn it. However, the girls had not consulted him about their morning plans, so, here he was, same old Xander, riffing off the snobs and the elitists and getting absolutely no credit for it.
He burst out of the building and onto the quad. The day was already boiling. Pretty soon, the fountain would be gushing steam.
“Morning, morning, morning,” he said pleasantly, to guys who had flushed his head in the toilet in ninth grade; and stolen his Nintendo in seventh grade; and beaten him up for his lunch money in fourth grade; and laughed at him for three weeks straight when he barfed during nap time in kindergarten.
And who had cackled with feigned glee when Cordy had flounced off yesterday after some imagined insuit — okay, it had been a real insult, but he hadn’t guessed she’d actually get it — and told him he had always been and always would be a loser.
Ah, Sunnydale. You have to love the stability of small town life.
The warning bell rang. Ten minutes until first period. Let the day begin.
He started across the quad, didn’t notice the tree root stretched out in front of him, and stumbled over it. Losing his balance, he dropped to one knee and anticipated some kind of putdown from someone who happened to see, mostly out of habit and not so much because such things bothered him anymore.
Instead, he heard a ser
ies of strange popping noises. It took him a few moments to recognize them for what they were: gunfire.
On the quad.
At school.
For a split second he knelt, frozen. Some of the other students reacted as well, but most looked idly around, the way you might when someone’s car backfires, and continued on with their conversations.
Then years of playing backup to Buffy’s slayage activities kicked into high gear. He leaped up and said, “Run for cover! Someone’s got a gun!”
“Harris, you are so twisted,” Brad Thurman, one of the big, brainless football jerks, flung at him as he sauntered past.
“Thurman, for once — ” Xander said, starting toward him.
Then suddenly Thurman was on the ground, screaming. Blood was spurting from the CENTER of his thigh, right through his jeans.
Artery, Xander thought. He ripped off his shirt as he ran to him, no clue where the bullets were landing, fell to his knees, and started winding the fabric around Thurman’s leg. The guy was in serious trouble; the blood was coming too fast.
Xander grabbed the jeans leg of someone running past, saw it was one of Thurman’s teammates, and said, “Sit down and press your hand over this. I’m going to get help!”
The other guy, a bulky jock, shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No way, dude. Someone’s freakin’ shooting at us! I’m not sitting out here.”
“This is your friend and unless you help me, he’s gonna die,” Xander shot back. “Now, sit down.”
The jock shook his head. Xander narrowed his eyes in disgust as the guy took off.
“Harris,” Thurman gasped. His mouth worked but no more words came out.
“It’s okay, Brad,” Xander said, finishing tying the tourniquet. One Halloween he had been magickally turned into a soldier, and he still remembered his field medicine. Plus he’d helped keep Buffy in one piece after the occasional totally brutal battle.
“But remember this when you get out of the hospital, okay?” he added, fighting to hide his alarm as Thurman’s eyes began to go glassy. “You owe me so big time.”
Thurman exhaled. His eyes closed and his head fell to one side. For one awful moment, the entire world was telescoped down to Xander and this guy who was usually a huge pain in the butt, but who, at the moment, looked pretty much like a seventeen-year-old with his whole life ahead of him. Except for the fact that if he wasn’t already dead, the rest of his life could probably be measured out in seconds.
Xander knew what death looked like.
“Hey, Brad, don’t cheese out on me,” he said to Thurman over the pops and shrieks, giving the guy’s leg a gentle shake as he kept pressing on the gushing wound. “Cuz I intend to collect on this debt. Lifesaving, that’s huge.”
Thurman’s eyes weren’t closed all the way. He was staring blankly at the grass, which was pooling with his blood.
“Damn it,” Xander gritted.
Around the two of them, kids shrieked and collided in utter panic. The popping kept going; a chunk of the fountain broke off and fell into the water. A window shattered.
Xander didn’t want to leave Brad Thurman. But if he’d learned anything since Buffy had come to Sunnydale, it was when to cut your losses. There was nothing he could do for the guy; there would be no glory or even sense to staying with him just so a minister could say Xander Harris had died a hero as they lowered his coffin into the busy underground of Restfield Cemetery.
The quad was a battlefield. People were going down right and left. Mr. Carey, the new civics teacher, leaned his head out of his classroom on the second floor and cried out, “Kids! This way!” Then he shouted and grabbed his arm, crumpling to his knees.
Xander whirled around in the opposite direction, trying to see where the shot had come from. Somebody had to take out the maniac who was doing this, and it didn’t look like Buffy was on duty. So, that left Riker . . . or was he Worf? Whatever. Looked like he was the only Slayerette available for the job.
He was grateful beyond words that Willow and Cordy were together, and he hoped like anything that they hadn’t arrived at school yet.
Cautiously, he ran back to the fountain and shielded himself behind it. Several more pieces had been shot out of it and the water was streaming from the broken base and onto the grass.
Then this kid, Stevie, who was, like some brain or something who had skipped a half-dozen grades, scrambled up beside him. He was white-faced and his eyes were enormous.
“Stevie, get the hell out of here,” Xander said.
Stevie shook his head. “I saw him.” He pointed to the third classroom from the right on the second floor. “It’s Brian Dellasandro.”
“Get out,” Xander said. “Brian? Have you been shot or something? No way!”
Bullets screamed around them. Stevie covered his face.
“Hey, man,” Xander began, then blinked in amazement as Stevie straightened up and stood.
“What are you doing?” Xander shouted.
Something hit him; it happened so fast that Xander didn’t even see it. Silently, Stevie went down in a terrible Peckinpah slo-mo ballet.
“Xander, here!” It was Giles. He stood at the back of the main building, directing kids back inside. He dashed across the lawn, half-crouching as he ran, and joined Xander at the fountain.
“He’s been grazed,” Giles said, inspecting his wound. “Let’s carry him back into the main building.”
“You got it,” Xander said, taking Stevie’s feet.
Stevie groaned.
They moved fast, carrying Stevie around the stairs. The gunshots came fast and furious. People were screaming, stampeding. More than once, someone slammed into Xander and almost knocked him down.
“The police are coming,” Giles said. There was blood on his glasses.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they always say.” Something zinged close to Xander’s ear and he almost dropped Stevie’s left foot as he jumped.
They made it into the building. The halls were jammed with students stampeding for the main entrance. Xander couldn’t remember when he’d been surrounded by so much noise and chaos. Once he and Willow had snuck into a rave, but that didn’t even come close.
Someone slammed into Xander, knocking him off-balance. This time he did let go of Stevie’s feet and the boy hit the floor hard.
Xander Scrambled to retrieve him as someone else smacked into Giles.
“Let’s go to the library,” Giles suggested.
Xander nodded.
They got to the library’s double doors. Giles backed through them and Xander rushed in after him.
The place was deserted.
“This must be depressing you,” Xander said. “People are getting shot and they still don’t think of the library as any kind of wonderful place to go.”
Giles grimaced. “I’d say your jokes at a time like this are banal at best, but you’ve heard me say that before.”
“Yeah, I have, but up until now, I thought it was a compliment,” Xander said.
They carried Stevie over to the study table. Giles leaned over him, pushing up his blood-splattered glasses with a blood-splattered hand. His face was very grave.
“I’ll call for an ambulance. Or a dozen.” Xander moved for Giles’s office.
“Good idea, though I’m sure they’re en route,” Giles replied. Then he added, almost under his breath, “Or else we’re going to have a lot more dead students around here than normal. For a Friday, at any rate.”
“Stevie said it was Brian Dellasandro who went postal,” Xander said over his shoulder to Giles.
“That’s preposterous,” Giles replied.
“Actually, I’d say it’s a pretty good guess,” Xander said slowly. “Yes, a darn good guess.”
In a gore-splattered Hellboy T-shirt and shredded sweatpants, Brian Dellasandro stood in the CENTER of Giles’s office with a semi-automatic pointed straight at Xander.
“Take ’em all out,” Brian wh
ispered.
He raised the weapon.
Chapter 2
EVIL DWELLS HERE.
There was cheering as she fought for her life. Seated in rings above her, thousands of people waved their hands and flung flowers down at her. Roses. The petals blurred and liquefied, raining down in a storm of overpowering scent.
Raining down in a storm of blood.
The sand around her feet was sticky with blood; she slipped and fell.
The axe in her opponent’s hand came down . . . . . . and Angel’s head rolled in front of her . . .
“No,” Buffy said in shock, blinking as she raised her head from the couch in Angel’s living room. Someone had placed a pillow under her head and wrapped a goose-down duvet around her body.
Of course she knew who that someone had been.
Last night, she had told herself she had come here only for the comforting presence of a friend. Lindsey Acuff had been nowhere to be found. A jog over to the Acuffs’ house had revealed a police car in the driveway, lights flashing, and the sight of her mother and father through the kitchen window, fully dressed and very worn out, talking to one of Sunnydale’s so-not-finest.
Lindsey’s mother was in tears. Her father stood blankly with his arms around his wife. It was a study in grief which Buffy had, unfortunately, seen before.
The problem with being the Slayer was that you knew where a lot of the bodies were buried. Kids who went missing, kids who were thought to have run away — more often than not, Buffy had the information that could close the case file and give the parents if not peace, or answers, then at least a way to stop hoping.
Sometimes that was the best you could get. Hope could be the cruelest thing on earth.
Because the notion about coming to Angel for the comforting presence of a friend was pretty much a bogus lie. She had to face it: a tiny part of her still hoped that somehow she and Angel could be together. That was nothing short of crazy. She knew it, and she had resolved many times to give up hope.
But there were some battles even a Vampire Slayer could never win.
