“Yes.” Giles pushed up his glasses and wiped the beads of perspiration from his brow. “It might have turned out to be the longest night mankind has ever known.”
“It certainly feels that way.” Cordelia sniffed. “I just want to go home and . . . by the way, Summers, where’s my car?”
“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,” Buffy replied, snuggling into Angel’s embrace, wincing at the pain in her abdomen.
“Buffy.” Willow reached for her friend. Buffy nodded back, giving her an “I’m going to be fine” look.
Xander cleared his throat. “Y’know, not that I’m not doing a little happy-to-be-alive dance—which, for those of you who don’t know it, is generally done with little in the way of actual pirouettes—but I’m a little bothered by this whole Chirayoju thing.”
“Only a little?” Willow looked at him, a small smile on her face.
“No, really,” Xander argued. “I mean, don’t we have enough local vampires? Now we have to start importing them?”
“C’mon, Xander, haven’t you heard?” Buffy asked. “We live in the Hellmouth. This is, like, Disney World for vamps.”
“I’d hate to see Mickey,” Willow muttered.
“You’re missing the point, Will.” Xander pointed at a certain young Slayer. “To the vampires, Buffy is Mickey.”
* * *
And they went on that way, mixing their cartoon metaphors and generally making Buffy’s headache worse, until they had to split up to get to Giles’s and Cordelia’s cars. Buffy paused then and took Willow aside, away from the others.
“Are you okay?” she asked, when she and her closest friend were out of earshot of the others.
“You’ve got a hole in your stomach, and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”
Buffy looked at her gravely. “Will. Are you okay?”
Willow smiled sheepishly, shrugged a little Willow shrug, and nodded.
“I’ll be all right,” she replied. “I still think I should learn to fight a little better, but I doubt after the past week I’ll ever start thinking that being the Slayer would be a good thing. No offense.”
“None taken,” Buffy said, grimacing in pain. “Besides, if I’m going to be laid up for a night or two, Giles may need a little help out on patrol. And you know Xander . . . he’s a little distracted by that case of Cordy on the brain that he’s come down with. Somebody’s got to look out for him.”
Willow grinned, then helped Buffy over to Giles’s car.
In the back of Giles’s ancient four-wheeled monster, on the way to the emergency room, Buffy fell soundly asleep in Angel’s arms, a bittersweet smile on her face.
Bittersweet because she knew, even as she drifted off, that in the morning he’d be gone. But not forever. Not even for long. It was the curse of the Slayer, and the gift of her love for Angel, that the night would always come again.
And in the front seat, next to Giles, Willow felt a curious lightening inside her, as if the heaviest of burdens had been lifted. Giles must have noticed, for he cocked his head, half taking his eyes off the road, and said quietly, “Willow?”
“You know,” Willow said, “it’s a lot of work and everything, fighting the forces of darkness on such a regular basis. But I think if we all stick together, we just might win.”
Giles smiled. He was the luckiest of men.
And the most fortunate of Watchers.
“Bravo,” he whispered, and drove on.
About the Authors
Christopher Golden is the best-selling author of the epic dark fantasy series The Shadow Saga, as well as the X-Men trilogy Mutant Empire and the current hardcover Codename Wolverine. With Nancy Holder, he has written several other Buffy projects, including the Gatekeeper Trilogy and The Watcher’s Guide. He is currently at work on a series of YA mystery novels for Pocket Books. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.
Four-time Bram Stoker Award–winner Nancy Holder has sold thirty-six novels and over two hundred short stories, articles, and essays. She has also sold game-related fiction, and comic books and TV commercials in Japan. Her work has been translated into over two dozen languages. She and Christopher Golden have written four Buffy-related books together, the most recent of which was Blooded. She is the author of Gambler’s Star: The Six Families, book one of a science-fiction trilogy for Avon Books, due out in October 1998. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Wayne, and their daughter, Belle.
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Christopher-Golden
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Nancy-Holder
Simon Pulse
Simon & Schuster, New York
Buffy the Vampire Slayer™
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie tie-in)
The Harvest
Halloween Rain
Coyote Moon
Night of the Living Rerun
The Angel Chronicles, Vol. 1
Blooded
The Angel Chronicles, Vol. 2
The Xander Years, Vol. 1
Visitors
Unnatural Selection
The Angel Chronicles, Vol. 3
The Power of Persuasion
The Willow Files, Vol. 1
Available from ARCHWAY Paperbacks and POCKET PULSE
Buffy the Vampire Slayer adult books
Child of the Hunt
Return to Chaos
The Gatekeeper Trilogy
Book 1: Out of the Madhouse
Book 2: Ghost Roads
Book 3: Sons of Entropy
Obsidian Fate
Immortal
Sins of the Father
Resurrecting Ravana
The Watcher’s Guide: The Official Companion to the Hit Show
The Postcards
The Essential Angel
The Sunnydale High Yearbook
Pop Quiz: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Available from POCKET BOOKS
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
* * *
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A SIMON PULSE Original
A Simon Pulse published by
SIMON PULSE, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
™ and copyright © 1998 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon Pulse, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-7434-3114-6
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2947-5 (eBook)
SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
Blooded Page 22
