Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3

by Nancy Holder

  So, with its three ranks of soldiers ripe for battle, Chirayoju shut itself deep within a cave and on the longest night of winter, cast its dragon bones. It sought the most auspicious moment to strike at the Emperor and devour him.

  Not knowing, at the time, that Sanno, the Mountain King, had gathered thousands of followers of his own and stood poised in the foothills for battle. In his left hand he held fire and lightning. In his right, water and wind.

  He vowed he would destroy Nara before he allowed Chirayoju to escape him. He would destroy all of Japan, if need be.

  His only thought was of vengeance.

  But his actions spoke otherwise: He went with a small company of retainers to the gates of the palace and demanded an audience with Kammu. From the guards’ behavior, he deduced that word of his deadly temper had not spread as far as Nara, and that he was believed to be the benevolent deity he once had been. For the guards, astonished to see the god in their midst, quickly ran and informed the Emperor of his esteemed guest.

  Hasty and elaborate preparations were made, and Sanno was welcomed with pleas by Kammu himself that he excuse the poor banquet and clumsy entertainment laid out in his honor. In fact, of course, the entire evening was most sumptuous. Sanno and his retinue enjoyed the meal and drink, and when he rose to dance after many toasts and protestations of loyalty and friendship, the palace shook to its foundations under the tread of the Mountain King.

  Thus was Chirayoju alerted that Sanno had arrived.

  The vampire sorcerer called its armies together, and the siege began.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Buffy had no license, but Buffy drove. If you could call it that. Shrubbery suffered. So did curbs. But she managed to avoid getting pulled over.

  She was halfway down the block—actually, down the center of the block—when she realized she’d forgotten to tell Giles about the little shrub and the disk and the note. Maybe there was something to that whole take-a-deep-breath-and-think-things-through thing he had going. She’d decided to kill two birds with one stone and meet up with him back at school. It could be that Willow had her wits about her, and it was possible she would go there looking for help from Giles.

  It was worth a shot.

  Way too short a time later—at least as far as Sunnydale’s speed limits were concerned—she pulled into the school’s faculty parking lot, tires kicking up sand as she put on the brakes. She was in a rush, or she might have cared a bit more about positioning the car between the lines. Details, details.

  Before she ran into the school, she slipped the disk onto the chain she wore around her neck with a large cross dangling from it, then jumped when a jolt shot through her. It could easily have been static electricity, she reasoned, but she took note of it nonetheless.

  She made sure she had the little tree and the note from Willow’s bedroom, and then she was off.

  It was already fifth period, and the halls were empty as she hurried toward the library. She banged open the door, a naive little part of her mind hoping she’d see Willow there, at the computer, doing that hacking thing that she did.

  Uh-uh.

  “Willow!” she called. “Please, come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  “Yes, I’d like to know where Miss Rosenberg is as well,” an insinuating voice sneered from behind her. “And the school librarian as well.”

  Buffy whirled, ready to fight off whatever horrible monster had followed her into the library. But it was worse than that.

  It was Principal Snyder.

  “Oh, um, good afternoon, Principal Snyder … ,” she began to stammer, glancing around, before remembering that Giles would arrive in time to rescue the Slayer in distress.

  No joy.

  “Don’t give me that, Miss Summers,” Snyder said, cynical as ever.

  She knew Snyder had never liked her, and the feeling was mutual. The guy looked only slightly more human than one of the Ferengi on Star Trek. But he was the principal, and after all, he knew Buffy’s mom’s phone number. By heart.

  “Um, give you what, sir?”

  “I’m on to you, Summers. On to you and all your delinquent friends. Bad enough you run roughshod over the rules of this school, over the fundamental respect for authority that we all need in order to get along in this world. But then you come in here and holler for your friend as if you were at one of those drug-addled rock-and-roll clubs all of you hoodlums frequent.”

  “Speaking of which, have you seen Willow? Or, um, Mr. Giles?” Buffy asked, wincing in anticipation of the principal’s response.

  “Don’t interrupt me! There is a thing call decorum, Summers.”

  Buffy didn’t have time for this.

  “Y’know, Principal Snyder,” she flared, “maybe if you’d asked what I was in such in a hurry for …”

  “I was just getting to that, Summers. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you were off campus. I saw you running up the walk. You know I could suspend you for that alone.”

  Buffy thought fast.

  “Well, actually, sir, Mr. Giles had sent Cordelia Chase and me over to the Sunnydale library to get a book we needed for a research project he’s helping us with.”

  He looked less sure of his self-righteousness. “That’s no excuse …”

  “I’m sure he’ll show you our permission slip to leave campus whenever he gets back from … wherever he is,” she added earnestly, keeping her eyes wide and innocent and terror-free. “And when we left, we both had study hall, so you see, we didn’t miss any classes or informational content or, um, knowledge acquiring.”

  “Don’t think I won’t check on your story,” Snyder grumbled. “And it’s fifth period now. You’re definitely missing class.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You know, that knowledge-acquiring thing you find so foreign and new? I’d say you’re both in for detention all next week, even if your story checks out.”

  Buffy really didn’t have time for this.

  “Listen, you … sir … Xander Harris is in the hospital and Willow Rosenberg is missing. Her mother thinks she might have been abducted or something. That’s why Cordelia and I were gone so long. Cordelia’s at the hospital with Xander right now.”

  “Why would Cordelia Chase have anything to do with any of you, particularly That Harris Boy?” Snyder remarked, crossing his arms and looking very stern. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Miss Summers.”

  Buffy sighed. Though it was hard for her to call Cordelia a friend, she supposed that it was true. But as much as she brushed it off, it hurt to know that Snyder couldn’t even conceive of such a thing. Sure, Cordy tried to maintain her rep as the most popular girl in school by not letting anyone know she hung out with Buffy and company. Which would have really hurt if she thought Cordelia had any idea how insulting that was. But when a child-hating geek like Snyder was dishing on her, Buffy had had enough.

  “Y’know what?” she said huffily, “I’m completely powerless to stop you from doing whatever it is you want to do.”

  She realized it was useless to try to wait for Giles. Useless, too, to even hope to write him a note about Willow’s strange little collection. And no way was she leaving Willow’s stuff where Snyder could scoop it up and throw it in the trash.

  She raised her chin. “So I’m going to go to the bathroom, and then I’m going to my sixth-period bio class.”

  Buffy spun on her heel, ignoring Snyder’s vows to suspend her the next time she pulled a stunt like this. Next time. Those were the operative words. Detention was even okay, since that didn’t necessarily mean a call home.

  Of course, next time could be awfully soon. Especially since, once inside the bathroom, all she did was pop open the window and slip out. Then she was sprinting across the lawn for Cordelia’s car.

  There was a ticket stuck under one wiper.

  Buffy grimaced.

  • • •

  Miraculously, the ticket was still there when Buffy pulled up in front of the main branch—in fact, the only b
ranch—of the Sunnydale public library in Cordelia’s car, gears grinding. She parked illegally there, too, but she hoped the ticket would keep her from getting another. On the other hand, the only thing that really mattered at the moment was not getting towed. Getting towed would be bad.

  No Willow at the library.

  Xander had once pointed out, with his usual teasing, that before Willow started to spend so much time hanging out at the school library because of the whole slaying thing, she had spent almost as much time at the public library. Quiet. Surrounded by lots of books and computers. It was just Willow’s kind of place.

  Not anymore, apparently. Which sent Buffy scrambling madly across town in Cordy’s car, burning gas as the afternoon wore on and she checked small specialty bookstores, the place Willow had gone to have her hair tinted, and the weird video store Xander had dragged them to when he’d gotten on his Hong Kong action movie kick.

  She phoned the school library to talk to Giles. The phone was busy.

  It was busy the next time she tried.

  And the next.

  By the time she stopped for a breather and fed the Cordymobile, it was nearly six. There was one message for her on the message machine at home, but it was only to say that he was back in the library. Yet the phone was still busy. She began to worry that the phone was off the hook. Then she got through, but there was no answer.

  Dusk wasn’t that far off, so she left off trying to reach Giles and called Willow’s mother to find out if there’d been any word. None. Mrs. Rosenberg had been crying.

  After Buffy hung up, she had to take a few deep breaths. A sinking feeling was setting in with the sinking sun: This was going to end badly.

  Buffy slapped the roof of Cordy’s car as she finished pumping the self-serve.

  “C’mon, Willow, where are you?” she said aloud. Her only answer was the weird stare she got from a heavyset man gassing up his Lincoln.

  The dim light of encroaching dusk filtered into the hospital room where Xander Harris lay, still unconscious from a few nasty raps to the noggin and the fact that his best friend had turned him into a Slurpee. Or at least, that’s what somebody was saying about him as Xander started to come around. He thought he remembered the phone ringing, but there wasn’t much else in his head except cotton and some kind of liquid that sloshed around in there when he tried to move.

  “Not so loud,” he croaked.

  “Oh God, Aphrodesia, I’ve gotta go,” the voice beside his bed said. “I think he’s waking up.”

  Click. That was the phone going back in its cradle. Really loud. Really, really loud, and Xander didn’t like it at all. He winced again. Carefully, he opened his eyes just slightly. Not too bright in there, which was nice. With the way his head hurt, the light might just crack it open.

  “Xander?” that same voice said in an excited hush. “Are you … okay?”

  A face floated down into view above him. He knew that face.

  “Daphne?”

  With a snarl that was nearly a roar, the face dropped down so that he was eye to eye with it, with the girl … with Cordelia.

  “And just who is Daphne?” Cordelia demanded.

  Xander blinked. “Huh?”

  “Daphne!” she snapped. “You just called me Daphne. I’ve been parked here for hours waiting for you to wake up, completely ruined my makeup crying because I thought something horrible had happened to you, and here you’re talking about some girl named Daphne!”

  Xander exhaled, frowned, though it hurt his head even worse. “Um, Daphne from Scooby Doo?” he suggested, though he had no idea if that was the truth. He already couldn’t remember ever having called her that, at least to her face.

  “Uh-huh,” Cordelia replied.

  With another sigh, Xander slumped back against the bed and stared at the ceiling. He was in a hospital, that much he knew. But be couldn’t quite recall how he’d gotten here. When it came to him, it struck hard, like a blow to the gut, and he struggled to sit up, staring at Cordelia.

  “Where’s Willow?” he asked urgently. “Or Buffy?”

  Cordelia rolled her eyes. She opened her mouth to complain but was interrupted by the arrival of a rather frazzled-looking Giles. In his right hand he clutched a pair of thin, faded books that looked like old diaries.

  “Yes, that’s what I’d like to know,” Giles said, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. Xander thought he looked haunted, but as far as he was concerned, Giles always had that kind of distracted thing going on. Sort of a cross between Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Absent-Minded Professor.

  “It seems my timing is propitious,” Giles said. “Xander, what did happen? Willow is missing, and there have been enough clues and coincidences to lead us to some horrible conclusions. I hope that you can dispel them as erroneous.”

  Xander blinked. “Whatever you said. But if one of your horrible conclusions is that Willow fanged me … yeah, that’s the way it looks.”

  Xander felt sick. Just saying the words gave him a chill. Willow was closer to him than a sister, and the idea that she was now … one of them, was more than he could bear.

  “Actually, we have reason to believe that Willow is not, technically, a vampire. At least, not yet. She was seen in daylight as recently as Monday by her mother, and though she is still among the missing, if we can find her, we might be able to save her from further harm.”

  “Let’s go,” Xander said, and sat up painfully.

  “Xander, what are you doing?” Cordelia cried.

  He winced with pain from the bruises on his head, from the tightening in his chest that told him he probably had a few ribs that were at least cracked, and he reeled from the disorientation that made him feel like he was on a fishing boat instead of dry land. But Xander got up. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself. Felt a draft. Hung his head and smiled at his own abject humiliation.

  “And, of course, Xander Harris is wearing a hospital gown, isn’t he? The kind that covers about as much as an apron? Yes, of course he is!”

  He spun around quickly and slumped against the closet door, frantically searching for the knob.

  “Ah, nothing. Nothing to see here,” he said. “Or, well, nothing that should be seen … that very nothing anyone needs to see at this particular moment.”

  “When he starts talking about himself in the third person, that’s usually a sign that he’s embarrassed,” Cordelia observed. She looked very proud of herself. “Third person being an English grammar, um, thing, where it’s him, her, and it.”

  Giles began to study his shoes as if they were completely fascinating, and was still doing that when Xander stepped unsteadily from the closet wearing the greatest invention in the history of mankind.

  Which would be pants. Pants were very, very good.

  Xander started for the door to the room. Whoa. The tide was coming in. He staggered awkwardly and lurched forward.

  “Xander, what do you think you’re doing?” Giles demanded.

  “Wearing pants is what I’m doing. What a man does. Wear pants.” Xander stuck out one hand to stop the room from spinning on its axis, reached out the other one, and found himself being steered by Giles back toward the bed. He sat quickly and squinted at the sudden jolt of pain in his head.

  Giles cocked his head. “Xander, get back in bed. You’re in no shape to be up.”

  “We’ve got to find Willow,” Xander insisted. “And Buffy. Before she … before they end up hurting each other. We’ve got to do something.”

  “Xander,” Giles said gently. “We’ve got to do what we’re good at.”

  Suddenly Xander shivered as fresh memories rushed to fill the blanks.

  “When she … she bit me, she laughed,” Xander said, and fought off the burning sensation in his eyes, the urge he felt to cry at the thought of it. She was his best friend, and now this horrible thing had happened to her, and in a way, to him as well. “Willow laughed while she drank my blood.”

  “Did … did you drink her blood as we
ll?” Giles ventured.

  Xander frowned. “What am I, pervo boy? I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, I missed something,” Cordelia said. “Willow was out during the day, yesterday, right? We’ve established that. So now, what are we thinking? She’s somehow possessed by a vampire? Can that be done?”

  “It certainly seems that way,” Giles replied.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Xander added. “The person who attacked me last night? Maybe it has Willow’s face, but it wasn’t Willow. It wasn’t even her voice. And it referred to itself as something else. Some weird Japanese name or something.”

  Giles softly said, “Perhaps it was Chinese.”

  “Perhaps,” Xander said. He went on alert. “So this makes some kind of sense to you?”

  Giles sighed. “It’s beginning to.”

  “Look, I read the last panel of the Sunday comics first to save myself the suspense. Could you spill, already?” Cordelia said, her hands flapping the way they always did when she was frustrated.

  Giles walked to the window and looked out at the darkening sky.

  “I suspect the name you heard was Chirayoju,” Giles said. “Do you recall our visit to the museum the other day? Willow cut her finger on an ancient sword that belonged to a Japanese warrior-god called Sanno, the King of the Mountain.”

  “Riiiight,” Xander said, tentatively. Nervously. Less than joyfully.

  “Which has exactly what to do with this Cheerios guy?” Cordy asked.

  Giles faced them, looking as troubled as Xander had ever seen him. Maybe even more so, if that was possible. They’d all seen some pretty troubling things in the company of the Slayer.

  “The text that accompanied that sword told of a legendary battle between Sanno and a Chinese vampire called Chirayoju, which ended with both of their deaths. I had a conversation earlier with a retired Watcher, who directed me to this.”