by Nancy Holder
And the next one.
And the next.
Huge blocks of rock fell like bombs from overhead, slamming into friend and foe alike. Willow looked worriedly at Oz, who was still inert. Everything in her wanted to shield him, but she realized that if she and the others were defeated, he would die anyway.
Then the ground began to crack. In her ear, Buffy shouted, “Jump!”
Willow leaped across the fissure. Then she cried, “Oz!” and jumped back across it, to help Angel and Giles as they dragged Oz toward the rapidly growing crack.
“Go back, Willow,” Angel told her. “We can do it.”
“Cordelia? Willow yelled. “Come on!”
Cordelia, in the process of backing away from a hairy white creature, threw down her sword and ran toward Willow. Together they sailed over the split, just as it pushed outward on either side, becoming a huge chasm.
Of the bad guys, only Julian and a couple of vampires were on the Slayerettes’ side of the chasm. Before Willow could react, Angel and Giles took the two vampires out.
Buffy and Julian faced off. His face was incredible; beyond vampiric, a mask of shadows and hollows. His golden eyes gleamed like pinpoints in two black holes, like the statue’s. His hands were claws; his skin pure white, strips of it peeling off. Blue veins criss-crossed his features, pulsating like overfull tubes of paint.
The thing that was once Julian circled her. He growled and hissed, his eyes flickering, his hands drawing into taloned claws.
Then he saw the golden bowl on the floor and picked up one of the vials of Madness Potion. He stood for a moment, uncapping it, and then he said, “Ah, yes. A sacrifice.”
Without warning, he whirled on a vampire guard and pierced its eyes with his nails. As the vampire screamed in agony, Julian ran to the wooden gates and smashed them with a single punch.
Great minds think alike, Buffy thought. Now the wood is nice and jagged, just the way we Slayers like it.
Julian staked the screaming vampire. It exploded.
“I have made my sacrifice,” he announced. “I have initiated the curse of the Madness Potion. Now you will die under the frenzy of my blade.”
He swallowed it.
His eyes glazed.
And then he exploded into dust.
Buffy stared. “Well, that was kind of an anticlimax,” she said.
On the other side of the chasm, the roof caved in. Tons of rock slammed down on the last vestiges of the demon court, crushing vampire and monster alike. The shock sent Buffy and her friends sprawling.
Then, on top of the rubble, the floor of the Alibi crashed down in bits and pieces.
Buffy said, “That wasn’t.”
Epilogue
THREE DAYS HAD PASSED. SUNNYDALE BEGAN TO TAKE stock. The flood damage was astronomical. The dead were mourned.
And Xander was back in the hospital.
Buffy stood with Giles, Willow, and Oz around his hospital bed and made a face at him.
“I swear, what is it with you, Harris? Do you have a crush on a nurse or something?”
“I like the food,” he said, indicating the mush on his evening tray. "So,” he said to Giles, “what’s the official explanation for a town gone mad?” He held up his hand, then winced. “Let me guess. PCP.”
Giles inclined his head. “PCP it is.”
Xander rolled his eyes. “So unoriginal. What about Julian? What was his deal?”
Giles perked up. “So far as we can ascertain, Helen had mixed holy water in with the Madness Potion. We’re not sure what her plans were, but they obviously included getting rid of at least one vampire in the arena.”
“Hence, kaboom,” Oz said. He smiled at Willow, who gave him a very careful squeeze. Though werewolves healed fast, they didn’t heal spontaneously.
A nurse bustled in and scowled at the large group.
“Visiting hours are over,” she announced frostily. “And next time, please limit yourselves to two visitors at a time.”
“Jawohl, mein Fraulein,” Xander said under his breath. Then he murmured to Buffy, “She’s the one I’m crushing on. Sue me, I love bossy chicks.”
The nurse stood meaningfully beside the door.
Buffy looked down at Xander. “You did a good job up there. I didn’t follow up on the blood in the bathroom. Maybe I could have stopped this all a lot sooner if I’d found out it belonged to Bitterman’s sacrificed wife.”
He winked at her. “It’s on my résumé. I’m sure it’ll help me snag that job at Happy Burger.”
“We’ve gotta go,” Willow said. “I’m going to help Oz MP3 a new Dingo song he wrote.”
Oz smiled faintly. “What can I say? They missed me.”
“Well, thanks for stopping by, everybody,” Xander said. “Now it’s just me and Hindu TV, if I know my Sunnydale Hospital channel selections.”
Buffy turned and left with the others. They were halfway down the hall when she heard sobbing in one of the rooms.
Glancing at the others, she walked soundlessly to the door and peered inside.
In his hospital bed, Brian Dellasandro wept bitterly, his arms around Mark. Mark was crying just as hard, as a woman who resembled them looked on helplessly.
“That’s their aunt,” Willow said, coming up beside her.
“How’s he going to live with himself?” Buffy murmured. “Knowing he killed his parents. That people are dead . . .”
“They’re going to see a therapist,” Willow added. “But I think it will take a lot more than that for Brian to forgive himself. Even if it was a drug.”
“But it was also a curse,” Oz said. “So how come everybody wasn’t affected? How come you weren’t, Buffy?”
Buffy looked at Giles.
“A predilection for violence?” he asked quietly. “Something within some of us which responded more readily to evil?”
“One man’s evil is another man’s good intentions,” Oz said.
“I researched Julian,” Giles said. “In life, he was a great man. A philanthropist. He was also opposed to the owning of slaves. A shame, that when he was changed, it was so extreme.”
Giles murmured softly, “’The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.’ Julius Caesar. By Shakespeare.”
“Gwenyth Paltrow’s boyfriend,” Buffy filled in, but her throat caught.
She walked on, somewhat apart from the others.
Willow caught up with her. She swallowed and looked uncertainly at the Slayer.
“Hey,” Buffy said.
“Hey.” Willow took a breath. “What will it take for you to forgive me? Cuz I was mean to you even when I wasn’t drugged.”
“Willow,” Buffy said, and she began to break down. “Will, it’s my fault that you almost died. I — I was with . . .” She caught her breath and turned away. “I failed you.”
“Buffy, you’re not perfect,” Willow said. She flushed. “I guess I expected you to be, though, and that sure wasn’t fair.”
“I . . .” Buffy ran her hand through her hair. “That doesn’t matter, Will. Fair doesn’t enter into it. I’m the Slayer.”
“There are sins of omission, and sins of commision,” Willow said. “It’s a lot harder to forgive yourself for something you didn’t do. Because that kind of blaming never ends.” She made a face. “We can all do better. But if we try, that’s what matters.
“I think that’s something we’re supposed to learn, anyway.”
Buffy closed her eyes. “It’s just . . . every time someone gets killed, I think I should have prevented it. I mean, how can I go Bronzing and to the movies and all that stuff, when I know we’re on a Hellmouth?”
“Because you’re not a god,” Willow said. “Slayer, sure, but also a human being.”
Behind them, Oz said quietly, “’To err is human. To forgive, divine.’”
“But people die when I make mistakes,” Buffy murmured.
“But you save a lot of other people,” Willow said. “B
ack during the big battle? I started to get overwhelmed. Then I realized that if all I did was freak, I wouldn’t be able to help anyone. But I was injured and tired and seared, I didn’t do very well.”
“But we won,” Buffy said.
“We won,” Willow agreed.
The good that you do, she thought. Oh, Buffy, I hope it lives after you.
After all of us.
“Want to talk?” Willow asked in a small voice. “Over coffee? Oz will wait.”
“Coffee,” Buffy said warmly.
The two friends moved quietly away from the others.
About the Author
Nancy Holder is the award-winning Los Angeles Times-bestselling author of forty-two novels and more than two hundred short stories, articles, and essays. She has won four Bram Stoker Awards for her supernatural fiction, including Best Novel for Dead in the Water. Her work has been translated into over two dozen languages. With her frequent collaborator, Christopher Golden, she has written many Buffy projects, including the Sunnydale High School Yearbook, The Watcher’s Guide, and Immortal. Her solo Buffy-Angel efforts include The Evil That Men Do and Not Forgotten. She is currently finishing The Watcher’s Guide, Vol. 2, written with Jeff Mariotte and Maryelizabeth Hart.
Holder is an avid swimmer and lifelong horror aficionado. A native Californian, she lives in San Diego with her brilliant and beautiful daughter, Belle, and their intrepid dogs, Mr. Ron and Dot.
