She would never have imagined it.
“Fine,” Buffy said, and idly picked lint off her sweatshirt. They’d all changed into clean and comfortable clothes after the chaos had ended. “Someone’s got to stay here, Giles,” Buffy said. “And I’m not leaving Willow alone back in Sunnydale, so someone’s going to have to go home and back her up. As for the rest of us . . . I don’t know how long the search for the heir is going to take, but it doesn’t really matter. Either we find him in time, or it just won’t matter anymore.”
They all stared at her. One by one she searched their faces. Giles. Cordelia. Oz. Xander. And Angel. Dear Angel. They’d rarely been this close, and rarely this far apart.
“First we sleep,” Giles said. “None of us will do anyone any good unless we get some sleep first.”
Buffy nodded her agreement.
So, that would be it. Sleep. Just a little. And then the madness would begin again.
Once upon a time, the vineyard had been the pride of his villa. But Il Maestro ages ago had lost interest in grapes. In wine. Power was the only substance upon which he could become drunk. Power, and chaos.
“Il Maestro?”
The voice was quivering with fear. Taking his eyes off the lights of Florence in the distance, turning his back on the ravaged and overgrown remains of his vineyard, Il Maestro turned to find Brother Aldo standing at a respectful distance, eyes downcast.
Il Maestro chuckled dryly, and black fire burned almost invisibly at his fingertips where they hung at his sides. The Frenchman who had taught him to access that darkest of sorceries had called it La Brûlure Noire. The Black Burn. Even now, it began to creep up his arms, enveloping Il Maestro in a sheath of blazing darkness.
“You’ve come to tell me that the Gatehouse still stands.”
Brother Aldo said nothing, but he began to cry.
“That the Slayer is still free.”
Aldo started to sob.
“That we still do not have the heir.”
He nodded slightly, bit his lip.
“That the Hellmouth has been put . . . in order.”
With a whimper, the young magician turned to run, screaming, through the remains of the vineyard.
Il Maestro snickered. He didn’t bother to expend the energy it would take to raise his hand. He’d never been melodramatic. Black lightning coursed from his body, crackling as it reached shadow tendrils across the dead vineyard and lightly caressed Brother Aldo’s body. He froze in place and began to shudder. Black tendrils danced across his skin and his clothes.
Aldo erupted in an explosion of charred flesh and bloody cinders.
Il Maestro shook his head. “What a waste,” he whispered to himself.
He never expected to hear the voice that was now raised behind him.
“My sentiments exactly,” said the voice.
Perturbed, Il Maestro turned and peered through the night and the dead vineyard at the figure who even now stepped closer. The hair was as white as white could be. Though slender of frame, he held himself with a power and arrogance that was slightly off-putting, even for one so powerful as the master of the Sons of Entropy.
“You haven’t come through with your part of the bargain,” the visitor said dangerously.
“I want the boy,” Il Maestro replied, his tone meant to brook no argument.
The other, the visitor, only smiled. Showing fangs.
“You promised us the Spear of Longinus,” he said. “A trinket, you said. A toy, in the grand scheme of things. My baby doesn’t like to be disappointed. Her man promises her something, he delivers.”
As the wind he moved, and stood beside Il Maestro, ignoring the black fire that surrounded the master sorcerer.
“That’d be me, by the way,” he whispered.
Then he backed off, with a grin and a laugh. “I don’t much care for babysitting. We’re gonna have stew à la Gatekeeper Junior before long. You get us the Spear of Longinus, we’ll give you the boy.”
Il Maestro was enraged, but logic dictated he must remain silent. He wanted that boy. The heir of the House of Regnier was hidden from his magickal senses by virtue of his heritage. Thus had the vampires been able to hide the boy from him. As he had done quite often in the past, he had used them as his tools to abduct the boy, in exchange for that little trinket. It had been an agreeable bargain at first. But then, he had thought he would have the spear in hand by now.
“How long do we have?” Il Maestro asked.
The white-haired vampire shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. He took out a cigarette and a metal lighter, flipped it open, and lit up. There was a long pause as he sucked smoke into dead lungs.
“Way I figure it, you’ve got until I get bored, or Drusilla gets hungry,” he said casually.
A moment later, Spike was gone.
About the Authors
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is a novelist, journalist, and comic book writer. His novels include the vampire epics Of Saints and Shadows, Angel Souls & Devil Hearts, and Of Masques and Martyrs; the recent hardcover X-Men: Codename Wolverine, the upcoming Strangewood, and six Buffy novels written with Nancy Holder. His latest project is a series of young adult mysteries for Pocket, the first of which, Body Bags, is on sale now. Golden’s comic book work includes The Punisher, as well as Punisher/Wolverine, The Crow, and Spider-Man Unlimited, and a number of Buffy comic book projects.
The editor of the Brain Stoker Award–winning book of criticism CUT!: Horror Writers on Horror Film, he has written articles for The Boston Herald, Disney Adventures, and Billboard, among others, and was a regular columnist for the worldwide service BPI Entertainment News Wire. He is one of the authors of the recently released book The Watcher’s Guide, the official companion to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. He graduated from Tufts University. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com .
NANCY HOLDER has written three dozen books and over 200 short stories. She has worked on nine Buffy projects, including six novels and The Watcher’s Guide with Christopher Golden (with assistance from Keith R.A. DeCandido), as well as The Angel Chronicles, volumes 1 and 3, and The Evil That Men Do. Gambler’s Star: Legacies and Lies, the second book in her science-fiction trilogy for Avon Books, is available now. She also writes novels based on the TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch, for Archway/Minstrel.
Holder is a former editor with FTL Games, as well as the author of comic books and TV commercials in Japan. She has also taught writing. Recent short story appearances include “Little Dedo” in In the Shadow of the Gargoyle, and “Appetite,” in Hot Blood X.
She has received four Bram Stoker Awards, one for her novel Dead in the Water and three for short stories. She also received a sales award from Amazon.com for The Angel Chronicles. Volume 1. She has been published in over two dozen languages and is a former trustee of the Horror Writers Association.
Holder lives in Southern California with her husband and daughter. A former ballet dancer, she graduated from the University of California at San Diego.
Golden and Holder started working together when Holder sold an essay to Golden’s CUT! Horror Writers on Horror Films. They write together via the Internet, and to date have collaborated on seven books as well as short fiction, including “Hiding,” for The Ultimate Hulk, and “Ate,” which appeared in Vampire Magazine in the U.S. and Canada, and Vampire Dark in France.
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