The sound was louder now. As she neared the front of the mausoleum, she could tell that the noise came from inside, and to her surprise she saw that the solid iron door was standing open. An eerie glow of light flickered across the threshold. Buffy took a deep breath and looked in.
A torch was set in the ground, and it was this light that threw its macabre shadows over the gloomy, rotting interior of the tomb. As Buffy watched, she could see a dark figure pressed close to the far wall, so absorbed in its work that it had no idea she was even there. It seemed to be intent on one of the vault doors, and as the lock finally broke, Buffy saw the thief open the vault and grab something from inside.
Quickly she hurried out again. She positioned herself at the bottom of the mausoleum steps, arms folded casually across her chest as the figure came out.
“Does ‘rest in peace’ have no sanctity to you people?” Buffy asked in mock surprise. “Oh, I forgot—you’re not people.”
Dalton froze where he stood. He clutched the red velvet bag in one hand and prepared to defend himself. He didn’t think Buffy had heard the second vampire sneaking up behind her. As she pulled out a wooden stake, this new creature lifted its claws and poised for attack.
Buffy wheeled without warning, knocking the vampire back with a vicious, jumping kick. She grabbed him and drove his head into a tree trunk.
The vampire crumpled to the ground. Buffy plunged the stake into his chest and watched him explode into dust.
“One down,” she declared triumphantly, then spun, ready to take on Dalton.
But Dalton wasn’t there.
Buffy gazed at the empty steps of the mausoleum.
“One gone,” she mumbled, bewildered.
She stood for several minutes, straining her ears through the night. When every instinct told her the danger had gone, she finally headed for home.
Angel was waiting for her. As Buffy started to climb through her window, she could see him inside and so she stopped. Her heart fluttered, sending warmth through her body, the way it always did when she was close to him—when she even thought about him.
And this is the way we’ll always meet, she suddenly thought—the only way we can ever meet, here in the cover of darkness . . .
Her heart wrenched in her chest. She froze there on the windowsill and watched.
Angel didn’t see her as he moved restlessly among her things, back and forth through her bedroom, picking up one personal item after another, then setting each back down again. He’d never concerned himself much with material possessions; he’d learned early just how cumbersome they could become throughout the centuries. But now, as he inspected childhood toys and private treasures, a whole new picture of Buffy began to emerge. Not just that of a Slayer, a Chosen One, but that of a vibrant young woman, full of life and hopes and dreams and a burning desire to be like other girls her age.
Gingerly, Angel reached out toward a shelf. He ran one finger down the side of a plush pig, and he fought down a sudden ache in his throat.
These were things of a human world.
Things that only reminded him of Buffy’s mortality.
Buffy saw him hesitate, saw the muscle tighten in his cheek. Quickly she tossed her equipment bag into the room. As it landed with a thud upon the floor, Angel jumped like he’d been shot. He spun toward her, and Buffy saw with amusement that he was holding her favorite stuffed animal.
“Buffy,” Angel sighed in relief. “You scared me.”
She swung her legs over the windowsill. “Now you know what it feels like, stealth-guy.” She’d meant to be teasing, but that edge had crept back into her voice. “So. Just dropping by for some quality time with Mr. Gordo?”
Angel looked blank. “Excuse me?”
“The pig.”
He looked down and realized he still had her plush toy. “Oh, I, no—” Embarrassed, he quickly put it back on the shelf.
“What’s up?” Buffy asked casually.
“Nothing.”
She tossed him a look. “You don’t have ‘nothing’ face. You have ‘something’ face. And you don’t have to whisper. Mom’s in L.A. till Thursday. Art buying or something.”
“Then why’d you come in through the window?”
Buffy stared at him. Then she sheepishly glanced back at the window. “Oh. Uh, habit. So what’s up?”
The banter fell away. Angel’s face grew serious. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I had a bad feeling.”
“Oh, surprise,” Buffy said curtly. “Angel comes with bad news.”
She could see him watching her in obvious bewilderment, she could read the hurt in his eyes.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I’ve been cranky miss all day. It’s not you.”
“What is it then?”
“Nothing, it’s . . . We’re having this thing at school—”
“Career week?”
“How’d you know?”
Angel shrugged. “I lurk.”
“Oh, right. So you know, then. It’s this whole week of ‘What’s my line?’ Only I don’t get to play.” She hesitated, lowering her eyes. “Sometimes I just want . . .”
She broke off. She gazed hard at the floor.
“You want what?” Angel coaxed her. “It’s okay.”
“The Cliffs Notes version?” Buffy said seriously. “I want a normal life. Like I had before.”
Angel nodded. “Before me.”
Silence fell between them. Buffy lifted her head and gazed into the mirror beside her bed. She could see herself so clearly, the weary young woman gazing back with sadness in her eyes.
But she was all alone there in the glass.
Angel had no reflection.
“It’s not that,” Buffy said carefully. “It’s just, this career business has me contemplating the el weirdo that I am. Let’s face it—instead of a job I have a calling. Okay? No chess club or football games for me. I spend my free time in graveyards and dark alleys—”
“Is that what you want?” Angel broke in. “Football games?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But you know what?” Buffy could feel the self-pity building inside her, not wanting to feel it, but strangely powerless to stop it. “I’m never going to get the chance to find out. I’m stuck in this deal.”
Again that hurt on Angel’s face. Buffy felt sick and ashamed.
“I don’t want you to feel stuck,” Angel told her at last.
“Angel, I don’t mean you,” Buffy said desperately, trying so hard to explain, wanting him so much to understand. “You’re the one freaky thing in my freaky world that makes sense to me.” She paused, took a deep breath. “I just get messed sometimes—wish we could be like regular kids.”
This time he relented a little. He even managed a halfhearted nod.
“I’ll never be a kid,” Angel reminded her.
“Okay, then,” Buffy conceded, thinking quickly. “Just a regular kid and her two-hundred-year-old, creature-of-the-night boyfriend.”
She knew her joke had fallen flat. She watched his eyes travel to the mirror, and then slightly above it, where he seemed to notice something.
“Was this part of your normal life?” Angel asked.
He reached past her, plucking a photograph from the mirror’s frame.
It was a younger Buffy, a happier-looking Buffy. She was figure skating and performing a perfect arabesque.
Buffy’s face softened as she took the picture from him. “My Dorothy Hamill phase. My room in L.A. was this major shrine—Dorothy posters, Dorothy dolls. I even got the Dorothy haircut.” Now it was her turn to feel embarrassed. “Thereby securing a place for myself in the Geek Hall of Fame.”
Angel was regarding her with interest. “You wanted to be like her.”
“I wanted to be her,” Buffy corrected him. “My parents used to fight a lot. Skating was an escape. I felt safe . . .”
Her voice trailed away. Angel carefully replaced the photo in the mirror frame.
“When was the last time you p
ut on your skates?” he asked, with an odd gleam in his eyes and a half-smile playing on his face.
Buffy had to think. “Like, a couple hundred demons ago.”
“There’s a rink out past Route Seventeen.” He took a step toward her. “It’s closed on Tuesdays.”
Buffy looked up at him, scarcely daring to hope. She returned his smile and took a step toward him. “Tomorrow’s Tuesday,” she said cautiously.
They were close enough to kiss.
“I know.”
CHAPTER 2
The outcomes of the aptitude tests had been posted.
As students milled about between classes, Xander and Cordelia stood in front of the large sign in the palm court, anxiously reading over the lists, searching for their names.
“Here I am!” Cordelia announced “Personal shopper or motivational speaker. Neato!”
“Motivational speaker?” Xander’s look was mildly shocked. “On what? ‘Ten steps to a more annoying you’?”
“Oh,” Cordelia threw back at him. “And what about you? You’re—”
Once again she scanned the lists, this time finding his name. With a burst of laughter, she shook her head and moved off into the crowd, leaving Xander desperately staring at the sign.
“What? What?”
He still couldn’t see his name, and Buffy and Willow walked right past him, too deep in girl-talk to stop.
“You and Angel are going skating?” Willow said excitedly. “Alone?”
Buffy nodded. “Unless some unforeseen evil pops up. But I’m in full see-no-evil mode.”
“Angel, ice skating . . .”
“I know,” Buffy agreed. “Two worlds collide.”
They turned as Xander caught up with them. One look at his face told them he was severely disturbed about something.
“Wouldn’t you two say you know me about as well as anyone?” Xander demanded. “Maybe even better than I know myself?
“What’s this about?” Willow sounded wary.
“When you look at me, do you think prison guard?”
The two girls paused. They looked him over appraisingly.
“Crossing guard, maybe,” Buffy said at last. “But prison guard?”
Xander was in full indignation. “They just put up the assignments for the Career Fair. And according to my test results, I can look forward to being gainfully employed in the growing field of corrections.”
“At least you’ll be on the right side of the bars,” Buffy teased.
“Laugh now, missy. They assigned you to the booth for Law Enforcement Professionals.”
Buffy made a face. “As in police?”
“As in polyester, donuts, and brutality,” Xander said.
“Ugh.”
Willow’s expression brightened. “But . . . donuts . . .”
The mention of food didn’t soothe Buffy at all. In fact, she was gazing off in another direction now, where they could see Giles trying to balance a foot-high stack of books under his chin.
“I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it,” Buffy said. “First I have to deal with Giles. He’s on this Tony Robbins hyper-efficiency kick. He wants me to check in with him now every day after homeroom.”
Waving goodbye, she hurried off. Willow turned to Xander.
“You didn’t check to see which seminar I was assigned to, did you?” she asked.
“I did,” Xander assured her. “And you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t what?”
“On any of the lists.”
Willow looked confused. “But I handed in my test. I used a number two pencil.”
“Then I guess you must’ve passed,” Xander concluded.
“It’s not the kind of test you pass or fail.”
“Your name wasn’t up there, Will,” Xander said again.
He headed off for class, leaving Willow to stare worriedly after him.
The books were just about to fall.
As Giles tried to set them down on the library table, the whole stack tilted and began to topple over, when Buffy suddenly caught them.
“Oh, Buffy.” Giles smiled his relief. “Thank you.”
Together they eased the stack down safely while Giles continued to talk.
“I’ve been indexing the Watcher Diaries covering the past two centuries,” he told her. “You’d be amazed at how pompous and long-winded some of these Watchers were.”
Buffy hid a smile. “Color me stunned.”
“I trust last night’s patrol was fruitful,” Giles went on, opening a notebook.
“Semi. I caught one of two vamps after they stole something from this jumbo mausoleum at the cemetery—”
“They were stealing?” Giles broke in.
“Yep. They had tools and the whole nine yards.” Buffy paused, then asked, “What does that mean? The whole nine yards . . . nine yards of what? Now that’s gonna bug me all day.”
She pondered this a moment longer, then realized Giles was pacing, visibly disturbed.
“Giles, you’re in pace mode,” Buffy scolded. “What gives?”
“The vampire who escaped, did you see what he took?”
“No, but let me take a wild guess. Some old thing?”
Giles frowned. “I’m serious, Buffy.”
“So am I. I bet it was downright crusty.”
Giles was definitely not laughing. There was an edge of impatience in his tone.
“So you made no effort to find out what was taken?” he persisted.
Buffy looked up at him, a little surprised by his sharpness.
“Have a cow, Giles. I thought it was just everyday vamp hijinks.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” Giles retorted. “It could be very serious. If you’d made more of an effort to be thorough in your observations—”
“If you don’t like the way I’m doing my job,” Buffy broke in, hurt, “why don’t you find someone else? Oh, right. ‘There can be only one.’ Long as I’m alive, there isn’t anyone else. Well, there you go! I don’t have to be the Slayer. I could be dead!”
Giles regarded her solemnly. “That’s not terribly funny. You’ll notice I’m not laughing.”
“Death wouldn’t be much of a change anyway,” Buffy rushed right on. “I mean, either way I’m bored, constricted, I never get to shop, and my hair and fingernails continue to grow, so really, what’s the dif?”
Giles struggled for composure. “Must we be so introspective now?” he asked gently. “Our only concern at this moment should be to discover what was stolen from that mausoleum last night.”
The large silver cross lay on a velvet pillow.
Its crossbar appeared to be dotted with holes, yet with no particular pattern or significant design. Instead, the holes seemed to have been randomly placed—very much like Swiss cheese.
“This is it, then?” Spike asked softly.
He sat on the edge of Drusilla’s bed, holding out the pillow to her like an offering. Her frail, quivering hands hovered above the cross, and yet she didn’t touch it. She looked almost as if she were warming herself.
“It hums,” Drusilla murmured. “I can hear it.”
Spike smiled delightedly. “Once you’re well again, we’ll have a coronation down Main Street. We’ll invite everyone and drink for seven days and seven nights—”
“What about the Slayer?” Dalton broke in.
He was standing at a respectful distance. Spike whirled around, angry at the interruption.
“She almost blew the whole thing for us,” Dalton went on earnestly. “She’s trouble.”
Spike raised an eyebrow, his voice dripping sarcasm. “You don’t say.”
The reminder was enough to send him to his feet again, and as he started pacing, his anger quickly grew.
“Trouble?” he echoed mockingly. “She’s the gnat in my ear. The gristle in my teeth! The bloody thorn in my bloody side!”
He slammed his fist down on the table, alarming even Drusilla.
“Spike—” she whimpered, but
Spike immediately cut her off.
“No,” he said. “Smart guy is right. We have to do something. There’s no way we’ll complete your cure with that bitch breathing down our necks.”
He grew quiet for a moment, thinking.
And then, as realization began to dawn, he slowly nodded his head.
“I need the big guns,” he decided. “They’ll take care of her. Once and for all.”
Dalton looked at him nervously. “Big guns?”
“The Order of Taraka,” Spike said.
He was pleased with Dalton’s reaction, at the obvious shock and fear.
“The bounty hunters?” Dalton stammered. “For the Slayer?”
Drusilla picked up her Tarot cards.
She peeled three from the deck, and then she gazed at them with a dreamy, faraway smile.
“They’re coming to my party,” she mumbled. “Three of them.”
“But, the Order of Taraka,” Dalton rushed on worriedly. “I mean, don’t you think that’s overkill?”
Spike grinned. He looked down at Drusilla’s cards.
“No. I think it’s just enough kill.”
He was pleased with the images he saw there.
Ominous, archetypal etchings that were not quite what they seemed.
A cyclops, a worm, a jaguar.
CHAPTER 3
Career Fair was up and running. By two-thirty that afternoon, Sunnydale students were clustered eagerly around the booths that had been set up in the school lounge. Each booth was manned by representatives from various professions; all of them were there to give advice, offer encouragement, hand out information, and convince students that the real world is fun.
Willow drifted worriedly through the crowds. Her eyes went from one booth to the next—physician, postal worker, policewoman—but she still didn’t know where she belonged.
“What are you doing here?” Xander teased, coming up to her. “Fly! Be free, little bird—you defy category!”
“I’m looking for Buffy,” Willow told him.
“She left with Giles an hour ago. Some kind of ‘field trip’ deal.”
Willow sighed, “If she doesn’t get back soon, Snyder’s really—” Without warning she perked up, her whole face brightening. “Done a fantastic job setting up the fair this year, hasn’t he, Xander?”
THE ANGEL CHRONICLES, Vol. 2 Page 7
