All of a sudden, Danny tensed up, a look of shock on his face.
Laura, who couldn’t make her head move and was only looking at Danny’s horrible features, had no idea what had just happened. All she knew was that Danny wasn’t attacking her anymore.
Then he just started to fall apart—literally. His face started to flake and collapse, his hair and clothes and leather jacket all became a fine powder, and then—
—then nothing. Just dust on the Waverly Place sidewalk.
Now the girl was standing in front of Laura, holding a piece of wood in her hand. Behind her, Jackson was on the sidewalk, leaning up against a fire hydrant, shaking his head.
“Th-thank you,” Laura managed to blurt out. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
The girl just smiled, then turned and ran toward Jackson, the piece of wood raised up. Jackson managed to kick her in the stomach before she could get too close, but then she grabbed his ankle with her left hand and yanked him closer to her, pulling him away from the hydrant, his head hitting the sidewalk with what Laura thought was a pretty hollow crack.
With her right hand, the girl plunged the piece of wood into Jackson’s chest.
He turned into dust too.
It was the freakiest thing Laura had ever seen.
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Dedicated to the fond memory of Gordon Parks—photographer, author, composer, and filmmaker, the latter including the seminal film Shaft.
Here’s to a bad mother—
(Shut yo’ mouth!)
But I’m just talkin’ ’bout Gordon!
Acknowledgments
First of all, I must thank Doug Petrie, who gave us Nikki Wood in the fifth-season Buffy episode “Fool for Love,” and without whose efforts this book would be much shorter. Also thanks to David Fury and Drew Goddard, who fleshed Nikki out in the seventh-season episode “Lies My Parents Told Me.” Scenes from those two episodes are incorporated into the narrative that follows, and I owe a large debt to all three writers for giving me something to work with. I hope that what follows does justice to what they created.
Secondly, I must thank my wonderful editor Beth Bracken, who shepherded this book through magnificently and kept me on track when I might’ve gotten derailed. (Oooh, beat that subway metaphor into the ground!) Gratitude also to Debbie Olshan at Fox, who nipped some authorial infelicities in the bud, and to Cara Bedick and Terra Chalberg.
Thirdly, thanks to the two women who gave Nikki life on screen, April Wheedon-Washington and K. D. Aubert, as well as Damani Roberts and D. B. Woodside (the child and adult iterations of Robin Wood, respectively), Juliet Landau (Drusilla), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), Roy Dotrice (Roger Wyndham-Pryce), and most especially the incomparable James Marsters (Spike); and also to the writers of the numerous Buffy and Angel episodes that provided background material that helped solidify this book in the complex and wonderful universe those two shows gave us.
Fourthly, gratitude to various reference sources and inspirations: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watchers Guide, Volumes 1–3; CBGB.com and the DVD Dead Boys at CBGB 1977; the movies Shaft, Shaft’s Big Score!, Superfly, Cleopatra Jones, Foxy Brown, Hell Up in Harlem, Across 110th Street, The Black Godfather, and so many other contemporary flicks; the various comic books published by Marvel starring Luke Cage, aka Power Man, aka Hero for Hire; the TV shows Barney Miller, Good Times, and What’s Happening!!; the book Down 42nd Street: Sex, Money, Culture, and Politics at the Crossroads of the World by Marc Eliot; the good folks in the Microforms Room at the New York Public Library, who provided me with various summer 1977 newspapers; and the work of the reporters who wrote for those newspapers, in particular Jimmy Breslin’s columns on the Son of Sam and Pete Hamill’s account of the night of the 1977 blackout.
Also: Lucienne Diver (my wonderful agent), Lisa Clancy (my editor on The Watchers Guide, Volume 1 and The Xander Years, Volume 1, my previous forays into Buffy books), Christopher Golden, Nancy Holder, Laura Anne Gilman, Lesley McBain, Terri Osborne, the Forebearance (especially the Mom, GraceAnne Andreassi DeCandido), Diana G. Gallagher, Jennifer Crawford, Michael A. Burstein, Jac Fry, Kyoshi Paul and everyone else at the dojo, and the staff of the Delacorte Theater, who handled it so well when the blackout of 1977 hit in the middle of the production of Threepenny Opera (starring Raul Julia) that my parents and I were attending.
Oh, and I’m told some person named Joss somebody had something to do with this whole thing, so I guess I should thank him, too. No, no; I kid—thanks to Joss Whedon, who gave us such a rich and glorious world to play in.
Prologue
Sunnydale, California
January 22, 2002
9:30 p.m.
Spike was looking forward to a pleasant evening. The grocery store had restocked the Weetabix shelf, giving Spike the opportunity to clean it out again; the butcher had plenty of blood; and the little trick with the tree branch in the Blockbuster returns bin had nabbed him a videotape of Henry V—Branagh’s version, thankfully, not Olivier’s. Spike had never been able to stand Olivier. Pompous wanker, and made it all too pretty. Branagh’s battle sequences felt more real to Spike—who’d participated in plenty of massacres in his time and knew just how messy they were—and the dialogue was more natural, like people talking, instead of that bloody awful declaiming that Olivier and his lads did.
Now Spike walked through the cemetery toward his crypt, in anticipation of a quiet night of blood, Weetabix, and Shakespeare.
Bollocks, he thought as he approached the stone edifice he’d taken as his home. Is this what it’s come to, then? Looking forward to an evening of sitting in front of the telly? I’m turning bloody middle class, I am.
He had little choice. The chip the Initiative had put in him two years ago had rendered him incapable of harming humans, forcing him to depend on animals, hospitals, or what he could obtain from butchers for his necessary sustenance. He’d stopped with the hospitals of late, however—a promise to Buffy—and stuck with what he could obtain legitimately.
Legitimately. The very word brought him out in a rash. And yet, who was the one who was helping Buffy and Giles and Willow and the rest of them against Glory this past May? Worse, doing it to save a little girl?
Not just a little girl. Dawnie. Little Bit’s an innocent in all this, doesn’t deserve to be killed.
Yeah, some bloody demon you’ve turned out to be. Since when do you give a toss about the innocent?
Since she’s the sister of the woman you’re in love with. Since you promised that woman to protect Dawn at all costs.
And isn’t that a kick in the teeth?
Then Spike picked up the scent. A fellow vampire. He smiled. A scrap’s always good to get the old blood flowing.
“Damn, when I heard tell this was your pad, I thought they was jivin’ me, but there you are.”
Spike whirled around to see the vampire. He was dark-skinned—what had been variously referred to in his lifetime as abo, Negro, colored, Afro-American, black, and African-American—and dressed in what Buffy might refer to as “early high pimp.” The vamp wore a purple brimmed hat that barely covered an Afro of a size Spike hadn’t seen in twenty years at least; a matching purple silk shirt with a massive collar, unbuttoned halfway down the chest and revealing several gold chains; and corduroy pants that
flared at the bottom.
The face on the vampire was familiar. “I know you.”
“Yeah, you do. Been twenty-five years. ’Course, last time we met, was somebody else wearin’ that coat.”
Between the clothes and that comment, it clicked into place for Spike. “You were one of Reet’s boys, yeah?”
“Leroy—Leroy Hawkins.”
Spike nodded and gently set down his grocery bags. He didn’t want to risk the Weetabix box getting bruised in the fight. “Didn’t I kill you?”
“Damn, honky, I’m ’bout the only one you and that crazy bitch didn’t kill. You still hangin’ with her?”
“We split.” Spike didn’t provide any more information than that. For one thing, his relationship with Drusilla was none of Leroy’s business. For another, the vamp would be dust in two minutes. No sense wasting time.
“Good move, m’man. That lady was bad news. After what she did to Reet . . .” Leroy shook his head, the feather in the brim of his purple hat shaking in the light breeze that wafted through the Sunnydale night. “I see you got ridda that punk jive you was wearin’.”
“Yeah, well, it was all the rage—then. I try to change with the times. I’d recommend you try it, but you won’t be around that long.”
“Say what? What you talkin’ ’bout, man?”
Spike blinked. “You’re not here to take revenge?”
Leroy threw his head back and laughed, causing the gold chains to jangle and almost dislodging his hat from its perch atop his Afro. “You crazy? What the hell I want revenge for? Thanks to you, I was set. After what you and that lady did, the rackets was mine. The Big Apple was ripe for the biting—’specially since you took out the Slayer.”
“So if it was so ‘ripe,’ why are you here?”
Leroy shrugged. “Core got rotten. New York ain’t what it used to be, know what I’m sayin’? So I got while the gettin’ was good. Worked my way out West, found my way here. Naw, man, I’m here to thank you. Heard tell there’s a bar in this dump, caters to our kind. If you want, I’ll buy you a drink.”
Bending over to pick up his groceries, and not even bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice, Spike said, “No, thank you. I’m not exactly welcome there.” He’d allied himself with the Slayer, after all, and that made him persona non grata in Willy’s bar. He went into the crypt.
Leroy followed him in. “Well, at least tell me where the good killin’ spots are. I figured now’s the best time to be in Sunnydale—Hellmouth and all.” He looked around. “Sheeee-oot, you call this a pad?”
“No, I call it a crypt. The rent’s free, the TV works, and I get left alone. Best of all, I don’t get a lot of visitors. You might take that hint.”
Not doing so, Leroy stepped off the concrete of the doorway into the dirt of the crypt floor. “If I can’t get you a drink, tell me what I can do. Man, I owe you.”
Spike couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Look, mate, the only reason you’re still basking in the glory of unlife is because I somehow missed killing you back in the day. Total accident, yeah? Complete oversight on my part, one I’d be more than happy to rectify, if you catch my drift.”
“Man, I ain’t carin’ about the why, I’m carin’ about the results. Now you did me a solid, and I wanna pay you back.”
“Leaving might be a fine start.” Spike set the grocery bag down next to his easy chair and tried to remember where he’d put that stake.
“Come on, man, you were the baddest cat on the block! Don’t tell me there ain’t nothin’ I can do for you. Especially now. I heard tell the Slayer was dead—got replaced by a robot or somethin’ after she got iced by some goddess bitch. That means Sunnydale’s open season, am I right?”
A familiar voice sounded from behind Leroy. “Not quite.”
Looking past Leroy to the door to the crypt—which the vampire had left open, the wanker—Spike saw the familiar, diminutive form of the Slayer framed by the doorway, moonlight shimmering on her blond hair.
Chuckling, Spike said, “It’s getting so a man can’t have a quiet evening in this town, can he?”
Leroy turned around to face the new arrival. “Who the hell’re you, chickie?”
Buffy Summers smiled. “I’m the Slayer.”
“But you’re dead.”
She shrugged and pulled out a stake. “I got better.”
Chapter One
New York City
July 6, 1977
4:50 a.m.
Laura McCarthy cursed John and everything he stood for.
The predawn breeze cut through the thin silk fabric of Laura’s dress and set the litter on the sidewalk into a whirl. The paper spinning made a sound like autumn leaves being stepped on, echoing on the streets. This late at night—or early in the morning, depending on how you looked at it—was one of those rare occasions when the island of Manhattan was quiet. It was after the bars and discos finally closed, and before people were getting up to face the new day. The sun hadn’t come up yet, and wouldn’t for another hour or so.
She never even got John’s last name. Not that she cared what it was, really, unless she wanted to send the big jerk a letter bomb.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Freddie had broken up with her at Cissy’s Fourth of July party. Laura had decided to show him what a real woman could do, so she had put on her best outfit and had gone to the No-Name Bar, fully intending to go home with someone better looking than Freddie.
As she turned the corner onto Sixth Avenue, goose pimples came up on her flesh as the wind intensified, no longer blocked by the buildings on West 3rd. It had been a long, hot, humid summer so far, but it was still cold without the sun up, especially when you had only thin silk to protect you, and not a whole lot of that. She hadn’t brought any money with her—a fine-looking chick like herself could depend on men to buy her drinks—and all her tokens must’ve fallen out of her purse. So she had to walk, even though that Son of Sam freak was still on the loose. Been going on a year now, and the cops had no idea who it was killing people—mostly girls—with a .44 caliber gun. He’d sent letters to the cops and the newspapers and everything, but nobody really knew who he was.
Everybody knew, though, that they probably shouldn’t be walking around alone this late at night.
But John hadn’t given her much choice. Oh, he had been one smooth-talking man in the bar when the drinks had been flowing. He had come over with his big arms and his deep voice and his tight shirt and his hip sideburns and his thick mustache and told her how pretty she was, and she had eaten it all up as fast as she had drunk the Manhattans he’d bought her.
Her ankle twisted on a crack in the pavement, and she stumbled, trying to recover her footing on the high heels she’d worn. Why do we wear this stuff? She knew there was really no logical answer. It was just what you were supposed to wear with nice dresses. Still, she kept them on, since she for damn sure wasn’t going barefoot. That might be all right for those hippie chicks, but Laura knew just how dirty a New York sidewalk was, and she was keeping her shoes, no matter how uncomfortable, between that filth and her feet.
By the time Laura had had her fifth Manhattan—or maybe it was her sixth—she had been willing to do whatever John wanted, and what he had wanted to do was her. She had eagerly gone with him back to his pad. But after he was done, he had kicked her out. No breakfast, no offer to call her a cab, nothing, he had just said, “Thanks, baby. You were great. But you gotta go. Got things to do.”
Laura didn’t know what kind of things anybody had to do at four thirty in the morning, but John had to do them, and he couldn’t do them with her there, apparently. So off she went.
It wasn’t until she had arrived at the subway station that she had realized she had no tokens. She could have sworn she had some in her purse, but they might’ve fallen out in John’s pad. Or in the No-Name. Or maybe she ran out, she could never keep track of the damn things. She didn’t have any cash to buy more tokens, and the banks wouldn’t
be open for hours.
So she walked.
A Checker Cab went zooming up Sixth, honking its horn at her as she crossed against the light, but not actually stopping. Laura ignored it, simply putting one foot in front of the other on the uncomfortable heels, knowing she’d be home soon. She just had to make it to Waverly and her own apartment, and everything’d be okay. Thank God she had the morning off. They’d put her on the four-to-midnight shift this week, so she could get some sleep tonight—or this morning, or whatever. She just hoped that her roommates were asleep, or had found their own men to go home with. Right now, Laura did not want to deal with people.
“Fine-lookin’ chick like you shouldn’t be out by yourself, ain’t that right, Jackson?”
“That’s right, Danny—ain’t safe.”
Laura almost jumped out of her skin at the voices. She hadn’t heard them approaching her, hadn’t seen them, nothing.
“Yeah,” said Danny, who was tall, had a receding hairline, and wore a leather jacket. “See, there’s all kinds of freaks on the streets this time o’ night.”
“That’s right,” Jackson, the shorter one with the thick beard, glasses, and denim jacket said. “A girl might get hurt.”
Oh, no, it’s the Son of Sam! Any minute now, one of them’s gonna pull his gun out of that coat!
Laura was about to scream, but Danny moved incredibly fast and covered her mouth with a cold and clammy hand. “Ah, ah, ah. None o’ that. We like it quiet.” His hot breath smelled like something had died in his mouth.
Then his face changed.
His forehead seemed to get bigger and thicker, his eyebrows disappeared completely, and the bridge of his nose got wider. Eyes that had been brown became sort of greenish and watery.
And his mouth was now filled with huge fangs—which went straight for Laura’s throat.
Laura’s scream was muffled by Danny’s cold hand on her mouth, but she yelled as loudly as she could anyhow. The cops got it all wrong, the Son of Sam is two people, and they’re crazy freaks, and oh God, I’m gonna die!
Blackout Page 1
