“Poor Cotton Mather actually thought his bargain with the Despised One would prove a boon for mankind. By sacrificing his soul to Old Scratch when he convicted the innocent of witchcraft, he hoped to turn others, many others, to the Good Word; and then the Almighty might forgive him and send his soul to Heaven.
“I truly believe that if the Despised One’s plan had succeeded, poor Cotton Mather would have been among the first to be eaten.”
“Cotton mouth,” Buffy whispered aloud to no one in particular.
“I watched with wonder and horror as the four sheep performed the ceremony for calling forth the Despised One. It had never worked for me, but I’d always been alone. Alone, and manipulated. These people believed they were acting of their own free will.
“A multi-fingered fork of charged, white light struck the standing slabs in a sustained eruption. I twisted about in my blue prison and watched the archway of power reaching down from the sky like the wing of a great cathedral. This lightning did not die in an instant; rather, thanks to invisible sources of might, it was continuously renewed.
“Meanwhile, the storm intensified. The wind howled like anguished wolves. The rain came down in buckets, yet still could not extinguish the curious blue flames that had engulfed the slabs. The four worshippers held hands and performed a slow, unsavory dance. I felt their polluted souls rising above their bodies—I felt my mind’s doors of perception widening in a manner I did not approve of. And all because of the power of that dance.
“I realized then that when it came to serving the needs of the Master, I was a rank neophyte. Surely he had thought me no better than a pawn, while these four were utter professionals.
“Suddenly they began to chant. A thousand invisible pinpricks skewered my body like so many thorns. My every nerve was in agony. Yet the cuts and bruises I had sustained during my flight healed completely. Even the scars that might have lingered disappeared. Indeed, the occult energies mended and cleansed my clothing as well. Obviously the Despised One desired that his offering be presentable. But then my blood began to flow. I screamed; yet I heard no sound. This unholy place had rendered me silent.”
“This is really exciting,” whispered Willow to Buffy.
“Not when you consider that according to Eisenberg’s Prophecy, this ceremony is going to be performed again, somehow,” said Giles.
“Where’s he going to get the moon rocks?” asked Willow.
“Yeah, Sunnydale is in the wrong part of the solar system to get moon rocks,” said Buffy. Then she reconsidered. “Uh-oh. No, it isn’t.” She tapped the cover of her dream notebook.
“Will you people be quiet? Have all manners and propriety been lost in this future age?”
“Blame television,” said Buffy. She happened to glance at the glowing vase as Sarah continued.
“The ground beneath the dancing fools transmuted as if by alchemy. Alternating between a bright crimson and a soft pink shade, it became translucent. From above I easily saw the flames of the underworld.
“The four worshippers brought their dance to a climax and fell to their knees. ‘The Despised One comes!’ they shouted in unison. ‘Soon his presence shall be known to the entire world, and the entire world shall turn upside down!’
“The storm intensified to gale force. Trees fell as if cut by an ax. The earth shook. The pale blue lightning became stronger, hotter, and the thunder even louder and more dissonant. Winged creatures with claw and fang flew in formation in the clouds.
“My thoughts sank in a chasm of helplessness. I believed the world wasn’t turning upside down so much as it was dissolving in a pool of chaos.
“The worshippers rejoiced as suddenly a single, green, webbed hand protruded from the translucent, blood-red soil. The Despised One had arrived!
“Indeed—He had risen! He stepped up onto the solid earth as if he’d already conquered his greatest foe! Even from my distant vantage point, he was the ugliest creature I’d ever seen. His body looked like a cross between a dragon and a giant worm. His mouth was devoid of lips, and his nostrils were missing a nose. And those teeth! My arcane studies had informed me of a species of fish that lived in the southern hemisphere, a voracious, carnivorous fish with two rows of sharp, pointed teeth. These the Despised One’s resembled.
“I could tell the entire world was going to be in for a cataclysm of biblical proportions, and there was nothing I could do about it. There was nothing anyone could do about it.
“Except for Samantha Kane. Surely her arrival could not have been as silent as it seemed. Doubtless the storm had concealed the sound of her horse’s gallop. I am certain I was the first to spot her, and I trust my reaction was not so great that I inadvertently warned any of the others.
“In any case, they appeared most surprised when her horse bolted between them. Hester Putnam and Cotton Mather were knocked to the ground, while Sheriff Corwin and Judge Danforth were simply too stunned to react. I do not blame them. Had I been in their position, I would have been equally surprised.
“As Kane’s horse galloped past the Despised One, she jumped from her saddle and threw herself directly on top of him. They both fell, but Kane fell on top. Keeping the startled Despised One pinned with her weight, she stabbed him with the hunting knife she held in one hand and poured holy water from the bottle she held in the other. She doused his face. Even in the rain and the confusion, I saw the steam rise from his head; I saw those terrible features disintegrate into a formless shape even more terrible; and I heard screams so horrible I would have felt pity had they come from anyone, or anything, else.
“The Depised One undoubtedly lacked the experience at physical combat that Kane demonstrated, but that did not prevent him from fighting back. The two fought furiously as they rolled in the mud, while the others, lackeys that they were, did nothing except look to one another for direction. In vain, of course.
“Then it was over: Kane had achieved victory. But at such a cost.
“For they both rolled into the transmuted ground an instant before it closed. Before they’d disappeared, I saw the Despised One sink his fangs into her shoulder and rip out a huge mouthful of flesh. Kane had surely been bleeding to death before the earth closed up around them.”
“You don’t seem exactly broken up about it,” said Buffy.
“Why should I? Does she not live on in you, after a fashion?”
“As do you in Xander?” Willow asked Sarah.
“I stand corrected. The essence of Sarah Dinsdale indeed resides, temporarily, in this being called Alexander Harris, but I would not call it living. Even so, it is superior to being bound by the confines of nonexistence. I suppose you would like to hear, now, what happened after my occult prison disappeared and the four worshippers fled to resume their charades of respectability?”
“I’m not sure we have time,” said Buffy, as an especially loud thunderclap resounded above the school. She noticed that the vase with the ashes inside was trembling, as if it and it alone were caught in an earthquake.
“I think we’d better get out of here,” said Giles.
“Can’t I just throw the vase in an open sewer or something, like in the movies?” Buffy asked.
Giles reached out to touch it, but drew his hand away before he actually did so. “Too hot.”
“Darn,” said Buffy, “and I’m all out of hand lotion. You’re right. Ok, I’m outtie. Xander? Or should I say, Sarah? Are you with us?”
“All right, I’ve heard quite enough,” someone said behind them.
Xander/Sarah was a little slow on the uptake, but the others all turned toward the person just in time to be blinded by a camera flash.
“MacGovern!” exclaimed Buffy, trying to blink away the spots in her eyes. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to learn that you four are part of a religious cult bent on world domination!” said MacGovern. His face was red and he was breathing hard. Buffy was about to protest when he flashed another picture, this one of
Xander.
“What heinous sorcery is this?” Xander/Sarah cried, backing into a chair and falling down.
“It’s the science of the fourth estate, young man, er, madam,” replied MacGovern, both defiant and confused. “And now that I have my proof; the entire world will know what’s going on in Sunnydale High Library!”
“No, you shouldn’t report this!” Giles protested. “If people actually believe you, the media will keep her under constant surveillance!”
“Summers should have thought of that when she tried to take over the world!” MacGovern replied.
“Buffy! Quick!” said Willow. “Hit him over the head! Maybe it’ll knock some sense in him!”
“It’s too late for that!” said MacGovern, trying to get past them to the front door. “Stay away from me. It’s my First Amendment right to be trespassing here!”
Suddenly the vase exploded. Everyone was inundated with ashes. Everybody was immediately grossed out, too—everybody except MacGovern, that is. He was inundated with one of the four blue shower-curtainesque fields of ectoplasm revealed in the aftermath of the explosion. The blue field outlined his body until it was completely absorbed. The others did not notice because they were still grossed out, and because the effect was disguised by the brilliant flashing of another lightning blast striking the school grounds. This time they heard the distinct sound of a wall crumbling.
“We’ve been undone!” Giles exclaimed, staggering backward onto a couch as if felled by a hammer. Already the perspiration brought on by his fever caused the ashes to run down his face. He looked like a crying clown with too many eyes.
“What makes you say that?” asked Willow. “Is it your fever?”
“Has something happened we should know about?” asked Buffy, who was always a little suspicious of Giles’s tendency to withhold information until the last possible moment.
“I believe so,” said Giles. “Whoever’s manipulating present events to fulfill the prophecy of the Dual Duel used the mystical forces focused on the vase during our séance to pry open a gateway between the dimensions of the living and the dead.”
“You know, it always amazes me that you’re able to say so much without taking a breath,” commented Xander.
If Willow tried to contain her excitement, it was lost on the others. She did restrain herself from throwing her arms around Xander, though just barely. “You’re . . . yourself again!”
“Who else?”
“Time check,” Buffy advised.
Xander did. He was wearing a cheap wristwatch he had purchased at a hamburger joint. It was your regular yellow smiley-faced watch, only this one had three eyes. “Hey! It was only eight! Where was I? Oh no, I wasn’t a girl again, was I?”
“ ’Fraid so,” said Buffy. “We were about to give you a makeover.”
“Your identity crisis will have to wait,” said Giles with a cough. Then, nodding toward MacGovern: “We’ve more pressing problems.”
Xander finally noticed the reporter standing there. “Ah, I don’t think we’re talking to MacGovern anymore.”
The girls automatically took a few steps back from MacGovern. Giles cringed momentarily. Xander sneezed.
Holding his flash camera like a weapon, MacGovern breathed heavily and glared at each of the foursome in turn. A noticeable change had come in his posture. He stood straighter, with his shoulders held high. With a shrug he tried to make his jacket appear a better fit—a hopeless effort. He looked down imperiously at them, easy enough to do from the upper level.
“I know you!” exclaimed Buffy. “You’re Cotton Mather. Where’s your blood?”
MacGovern/Mather scowled. “I do not know your meaning, sinful one.”
“The blood that’s supposed to be on your hands!”
He chuckled. “Oh, very good.” He inspected the reporter’s hands, which at the moment were his own. He appeared to enjoy it. “It is there. These hands are not nearly as clean as MacGovern might wish.”
“So Mather’s your name, eh?” Xander asked. “What’s your—?”
MacGovern silenced him with a gesture. “Don’t. You have no idea how many times I heard that phrase in purgatory, where the imagination runs the gamut from A to B.”
Buffy was unimpressed. “Still a good question.”
MacGovern/Mather smiled, like an angel. “I have returned so I may do my bit, however modest, in unleashing the underworld onto the Earth. It’s time for what’s currently called a hostile takeover.”
“Come on,” said Xander, “what’s the race of mankind ever done to you?”
“Exist.”
“So you’re a little bitter,” said Willow, trying to be helpful, “and you’ve had a bad experience these last three-hundred-plus years. But that’s no reason to have such a negative approach right now.”
Mather drew himself to his full height and pointed his finger straight toward her nose. “Silence, woman! I am not an open book for you to read.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Buffy quietly. “We already know how you’re going to end.”
“And you too, unfortunately,” snapped back Mather. “Well, I must retrieve an important ingredient for the upcoming resurrection. Bye!” He gathered his arms before him and dove toward a closed window, intending to smash right through it. He stopped at the last possible second, startled practically out of his wits.
“The bars are made of metal in these newer buildings,” Giles pointed out. He couldn’t resist a smile, even in his condition.
“Curses!” Mather exclaimed, and before they could guess his intentions, he leapt over the railing and landed on the table, square in the middle of the pentagram, knocking down two of the candles. Lightning flashed, followed by deafening thunder, and all the lights in the library cut out for several moments, enough time for lightning to flash yet again. Buffy spent the time stamping out the two flames.
Thus giving Mather the time to jump down and dash out the front door.
“Next time we have a séance, Giles,” said Buffy, “you should remember to lock the front door from the inside.”
“Point taken,” said Giles, just before throwing up.
CHAPTER 8
The black raincoat she’d borrowed from Giles was much too big for Buffy, but at least it had a hood and protected her somewhat from the continuous rain. Though she was on the verge of becoming totally out of breath, she continued running toward the gallery, where she hoped to prevent MacGovern/Mather from obtaining V.V. Vivaldi’s Moonman statue.
She ran through an open shopping center, across a small park and through a ritzy neighborhood. Normally when she had this great a distance to make across Sunnydale, she broke down and asked Giles for a lift, but right now he was running a temperature of a hundred and four and was taking a cold shower in the boy’s locker room. Xander’s job was to take care of Giles, while Willow was surfing the Net hoping to find some kernel of information about Prince Eisenberg, The Eibon, V.V. Vivaldi, or anything else that might prevent tonight’s events from becoming an absolute rerun of the past.
Buffy hated prophecies. Especially this one. Normally she didn’t like to admit to herself that she needed help—even when she knew she did—but she had no problem making an exception in this case. It was too bad Angel wasn’t around. He often showed up whenever he was afraid she would get in over her head, but tonight he was nowhere to be seen. She supposed even a conscience-ridden vampire had a social life; that is, if he wasn’t out raiding a blood bank somewhere.
At least the raincoat was doing its job. Without her boots, though, her shoes were soaked, and her feet felt wrinkled to a wormlike state by the wet.
Her Slayer instincts were doing their job, too. She knew the Hummer following her belonged to the Churches. They were good at their work too. Every time she took a shortcut or deliberately went down a narrow alley impossible for them to get their jeep through, they always picked her up a short distance down the line.
Buffy had the distinct suspicion the Churches m
ight be more heavily involved in this affair than they’d intended. She also wondered if they were aware of the other set of headlights—belonging to a van—following them. Probably. They were undoubtedly used to occasional media attention by now.
Even so, if she couldn’t prevent the Moonman from being stolen, then her task was to keep the four former worshippers of the Despised One from doing a reprise of their “unsavory” dance. She figured that if she could prevent one major element of the original incident from fitting into its proper place, then the entire prophecy might wash away with the smog and pollen in the storm.
Buffy was just a half-mile from the gallery when she finally spotted MacGovern/Mather. He was drenched. He shambled down the center of the street, which tonight was devoid of traffic thanks to the terrific storm; everybody with a semblance of common sense—or no bodily repossessions—was staying home.
She was glad to be able to slow down. Her heart was beating so hard that she was surprised he couldn’t hear it, even over the frequent thunder. Still, she edged closer to him, and they were both approximately a hundred yards away from the gallery when Buffy spotted her mother’s car parked outside. Naturally. As if it wasn’t bad enough she was willfully participating in a scenario that may have killed her in a past life, her mom might discover her daughter is secretly a key player in the eternal struggle between good and evil. Can you be grounded for eternal life?
There was only one thing to do, and that was take the bull by the horns and face the situation.
“Mather!” she called out.
MacGovern/Mather stopped and turned. He had been carrying his flash camera the entire time and it was as drenched as he. Rivulets flowed from the brim of his hat and his cheap coat clung to his cheap shirt like plastic wrap. “What do you want? Do not think of interfering,” he added, answering his own question.
Night of the Living Rerun Page 8
