Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3

by Nancy Holder

  “Cordelia, please, take those wretched things off!” Giles pleaded.

  “I’m sorry. I just need to stop for one second so I can get them off.” She watched Xander up ahead and felt as if she might cry. “These are Ferragamos! Do you know how much they cost?”

  Giles shook his head impatiently.

  “A lot!” She added, “What’s happened to Xander?”

  “It appears he’s been possessed by the Sword of Sanno, well, actually, by Sanno himself,” Giles said anxiously as he watched the figure thunder away from them.

  “Well, then why is he speaking English?” she asked, confused.

  “I suppose Sanno has accessed all of Xander’s knowledge, including the language center. Xander wouldn’t be used to actually having to form the sounds required for ancient Japanese. Also, it must realize we wouldn’t understand it otherwise. Fascinating, really,” Giles replied.

  “Oh, yeah, that’d be my response too,” she said sarcastically as she yanked off her shoes, “but it’s not. I mean, I know he’s possessed, but how?”

  “Cordelia, I’ll try to explain later. We must hurry!”

  “That’s all I am to you guys,” she said sadly. “The one you’re going to explain everything to later—!”

  “Cordelia, come!” Giles ordered, urging her along.

  “—The one you talk to like she’s a collie!”

  She hurried after him, her precious shoes slung over her shoulder.

  A cold wind kicked up around Giles and Cordelia, gathering in strength and pushing them forward. About twenty feet ahead, Xander turned and smiled at them.

  “I thought to hurry you along,” the booming voice told them. “So that you may witness the destruction of the vampire. It does not yet realize I have freed myself, but when it does—”

  “You freed yourself?” Cordelia shouted at it. “Excuse me, but my boyfr— … the guy I … Xander Harris freed you, Mr. Sanno.”

  “I am Sanno!” the voice thundered. The figure lifted its arms and the wind blew so hard it almost lifted Giles from the earth. “The Mountain King.” It lowered its arms and strutted. “I am the protector of the Land of the Rising Sun!”

  Though she was losing her balance in the bitter gale, Cordelia was not about to capitulate. Giles found her scrappy behavior remarkably refreshing, as opposed to her penchant for superficiality.

  “Well, well, um, you aren’t in the Land of the Rising Sun, you’re in the land of Sunnydale,” Cordelia said. “And things are different here. We have our own person who destroys vampires.” She waved him away. “So you can go home now.”

  “Silence!” Sanno bellowed. “Silence, mortal girl! Baka no onna!”

  With a point of his fire, Cordelia was slammed to the ground and pinned there. She began to shriek and struggle, near tears.

  Giles knelt on one knee and bowed. “Oh great and magickal warlord, gomenasai. Forgive the female,” he said carefully. “She is very young and ignorant. She acts out of fear for the boy whose body you inhabit, knowing what is to come.”

  He hissed at Cordelia, “Apologize!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said meekly.

  Sanno said, “Very well.”

  Immediately the wind stopped blowing. Blinking, Cordelia brushed her bangs from her eyes, waited a beat, them clumsily got to her feet. She looked drained.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Sanno turned and strutted away.

  Cordelia raced over to Giles. “‘What is to come’? I don’t know what is to come. Do you?”

  Giles gestured to the retreating figure. “Oh, my dear girl.” He sighed. “I’m afraid he’s going to fight Chirayoju.”

  Cordelia stared at Xander, and then at Giles. She said, “What? But that’s Willow.”

  Giles sighed harder. “Precisely.”

  She cocked her head. “Willow and Xander are going to duke it out?”

  “And other things. I imagine some magick will be involved.” Gently he took her wrist. “Come along now. We must keep up.”

  “Magick?” she repeated, stumbling after him. “Why will there be magick?”

  “Isn’t there always?” he asked, trying to make a joke. But it wasn’t at all funny.

  “How do we know when one of them wins?”

  He didn’t want to answer her, but she shook him hard. “Giles!”

  “Oh, well.” He halted and looked at her sadly. “I suppose when one of them … loses.” He swallowed, hating to say the words. “That is to say, when one of them dies.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The ruined Sunnydale Friendship Garden was not the weirdest thing Buffy had ever seen, but it was close. It was enormous, which both surprised and worried her: Why hadn’t she ever seen it before? She’d lived in Sunnydale an entire year and she’d been sure she’d seen all its seven wonders—but this beat all of them by a mile.

  The garden was sunk into the ground. She stood on the ridge above it and looked down on the skeletal trees and rotted humpbacked bridges as she scanned the area in the gray twilight. She flicked on her flashlight. The yellow beam flickered over stone lanterns and little red temple-things—pagodas, came the word, although she had no idea how she knew a thing like that when she couldn’t even remember origami—and in the distance a large, darkened building made of wood with a gently curved tile roof. Wow. When this place was built, it had represented a lot of high hopes. And money.

  Buffy looked up. The sun was peeking just above the horizon, dimming the landscape. Buffy heard no sounds, not even the chirping of crickets. That in itself was enough to give her the creeps.

  But what she saw coming out of the building made her knees turn to water.

  Willow was dressed in an elaborate Chinese robe and, over that, some kind of upper-body metal armor. She carried a spear, maybe a long sword, and she glanced up, apparently not noticing Buffy, then strode back into the building.

  A light flickered in one of the open windows, as if from a candle.

  Buffy swallowed hard and began to walk down a set of stone steps toward the building. Every sense was on alert: Her gaze darted left, right, as she tried very hard to look casual and unafraid.

  To her right was a deep indentation that looked as though it might have been a pond or pool at one time. A wooden bridge rose over it, the center portion smashed, probably by vandals.

  Buffy walked through the silent garden.

  Then she thought she heard weeping.

  She quickened her pace as she approached the building. The weeping came from inside. It could only be Willow. Or so Buffy hoped.

  There was a small wooden porch attached to the building. Carefully, aware that the wood could give way at any moment, Buffy stepped onto it and peered inside.

  In the center of the bare, wood-floored room, Willow wept all alone, the tears splashing down her face. With a large, jade-green candle set in an ornate red candleholder before her, she was seated on a scarlet pillow, staring at the spear she had been carrying. On the floor nearby was a sword, a traditional Japanese katana, and Buffy didn’t even want to know where or how Willow had come by all these things.

  Not that she had time to think about it. Not while Willow was pointing the sharp tip of a spear directly at her own heart.

  “Willow, no!” Buffy screamed, running toward her.

  The floor beneath Buffy made a strange singing sound as she ran across it. It startled her, making her falter.

  Willow’s head jerked up. With a whiplike motion, she turned the spear around and pointed it at Buffy. Then she said, “Oh. It’s only you.” She wiped her face and stared with brutal hostility at the person who was supposed to be her best friend. The spear remained pointed at Buffy.

  “Oh? It’s only me?” Buffy echoed in astonishment.

  “I thought you might be someone else.” Her tears were gone. She was a different person.

  Oh, yes, a very different person.

  “Who were you expecting?” Buffy demanded, sliding her hand into her Slayer�
�s bag as discreetly as she could. “Pizza delivery? Cable guy?”

  Willow pursed her lips. Then she smiled a cruel, knowing smile and patted a cushion across from her own. “I have within me a memory that in the past your childish humor amused me. Sit while I await the setting of the sun.”

  Buffy didn’t move. Now that she had found Willow, with the sun at its last gasp, she didn’t know what to do. Eerily, Willow continued to pat the cushion. Her smile broadened.

  She gestured to the floor. “This is a ‘Nightingale Floor.’ A very ancient tradition, which I learned in Japan,” she said. “The emperors installed them so that no one could sneak up on them. But of course I knew you were coming.” She chuckled. “I could smell your blood. I cannot wait to taste of it.”

  “Willow,” Buffy tried again. “Something very bad has happened to you. Let me take you to Giles so he can fix you.”

  “No one can ‘fix’ me.” Willow raised her chin. “It is too late.”

  And then, for one awful moment, Willow’s chin quivered and she reached toward Buffy with both her hands. She was trembling. “Stop it,” she begged. “Buffy, stop me.” Then she fell forward as if someone had shot her.

  The sun had gone down. The night had fallen upon them all.

  Buffy acted. She darted toward Willow over the strangely singing floor and grabbed away her spear. In one motion she cracked it over her knee and tossed the two pieces across the room.

  “And what has that accomplished?” Willow asked, in a lower, deeper voice. “That was not the weapon you should fear.”

  “Okay,” Buffy said slowly, glancing at the sword on the ground not far away, trying to buy time. Angel should be catching up to her any second. “And the weapon to be feared would be?”

  “I am that weapon,” Willow said.

  Slowly she sat back up. The floor clinged and clanged. Buffy blinked. She could almost see another set of features superimposed over Willow’s. A luminous green face with bloodred lips. Almond-shaped black eyes that bored into her. The face seemed covered with some kind of glowing growth, like mold or rotted wood. It was horrible.

  Laughter boomed across the room even though Willow did not laugh.

  The floor sang, though Buffy stood frozen.

  “I am,” Willow repeated.

  She clapped her hands. Like arrows, vampires leaped into the room from every window and rushed Buffy. She realized they must have buried themselves in the garden the night before, to be so close so fast.

  Instantly Buffy jumped to her feet and assumed a fighting stance. She kicked the first vamp to reach her in the face and scrambled to get a stake out of her bag, cursing herself for being caught off guard as another vampire grabbed her from behind. She thrust her body forward and down, flipping the vamp to the floor with a satisfying crack. She grabbed a stake and dispatched them both quickly, in twin clouds of dust.

  The floor’s song became a long screech of fury. The vampires descended upon her, a small army, and she punched and kicked, fully realizing for the first time that the other night at the Bronze, the vampires who had lain in wait for her had been sent by Willow. They had preferred death over her wrath.

  But it wasn’t her, that’s what Buffy kept telling herself. It wasn’t really Willow.

  A girl vampire with bright red hair and an oversized St. Andrew’s sweatshirt vaulted toward her with a savage snarl even as another fang-girl in a large sweater dove at her legs. For a moment, they had her.

  Then Buffy moved. Her fists came up and she shattered the grip of the redhead. With the heels of her hands, she thrust the St. Andrew’s girl’s head back, then slammed the by-now-well-used stake deep into her chest.

  As soon as the redhead had exploded, Buffy took care of the other one around her knees.

  But there were more. There seemed to be no end to them. And even though she was holding her own so far, Buffy was growing tired.

  Seated on her pillow, Willow watched, smiling. Buffy turned to her and held out a beseeching hand, just as Willow had earlier. Panting, she said, “Will, you can stop them.”

  Willow said slowly, as if the thought was just occurring to her, “Yes.”

  Hopefully, Buffy went on, “Yes, yes! Just tell them to stop. They’d do what you want. They’re afraid of you.”

  Willow lowered her head. Buffy felt a surge of hope that her sweet, Smurfy buddy was battling the monster that had possessed her.

  Then Willow threw back her head and laughed, spreading her arms wide. The features of the other being were laid over her face like a grotesque green plastic mask.

  “They should fear me,” Willow said, only it was not Willow’s voice at all. It was a demon’s, and it grated on Buffy’s nerves like fingers on a blackboard. “As should you, Slayer.”

  It snapped its fingers and walked slowly toward Buffy. The other vampires released her and glided away, ringing the perimeter of the room like spectators at a wrestling match.

  “You’re tired,” it said in a singsong voice, the floor echoing its hypnotic rhythm. “Very tired.”

  Buffy’s eyes drooped. An ice-cold wind whipped up around her, sapping the energy from her muscles. Her legs quivered. Her knees began to buckle.

  “Your heart is slowing. Your blood is congealing.”

  Buffy sagged. She could barely keep her eyes open.

  Then Willow rose into the air with her arms spread as the wind slapped at Buffy. Her head brushed the ceiling and her hair streamed behind her. Balls of lightning tumbled from her fingertips and crackled as they smashed into the floor around Buffy, setting the floor on fire.

  The singing floor began to scream.

  The other vampires backed away from the growing flames of the tinderbox wood, looking at one another as if waiting for one of them to jump out a window, so the others could see if it was better to upset Willow or burn to death.

  “Know me as the vampire sorcerer Chirayoju,” Willow bellowed above the shriek of wind as it whipped the flames into a brilliant wall of death. “I have come forth from my prison at last. And as soon as you are no longer a threat to me, Slayer, I will rule this place.”

  “Sunnydale?” Buffy murmured. Now she was sweating from the heat, and suddenly she realized that the threat of the fire had distracted her long enough for Willow’s hypnotic voice to begin to lose its effect on her. Her heart was not slowing, it was revving up like she was listening to thrash metal after two particularly thick espressos. And most definitely was her blood not congealing.

  “Really, with all these special effects, you could do better,” she went on, her voice stronger, her stance more assured. “Conquering Sunnydale would be nothing to brag about to the other vampire sorcerers in Vampire Sorcererland, believe me. They’d take your union card and laugh you right out of the club.”

  “Silence!” Chirayoju shrieked. It fell from the ceiling, aiming directly at Buffy.

  Which would require, Buffy realized, that it pass through the wall of flame.

  “Willow!” She shouted. “No!”

  The body of her friend continued to plummet. Buffy took a deep breath and looked for a gap in the flames. She saw one about three feet to her left—the flames were only knee-high—and Buffy bounded over to the spot, making sure she still had her slayage equipment, and jumped over the fire. She felt the heat through the soles of her boots.

  Chirayoju landed less than five feet from her and came at her with a series of roundhouse kicks. Buffy ducked them, giving as good as she got, then wincing as the monster cried out in pain, not in its own voice, but in Willow’s.

  “An interesting dilemma for you, eh?” Chirayoju said. “You must defeat me, but you do not want to kill your friend.” It sneered at her, a morphing combination of its own features and Willow’s. “You are weak.”

  “Oh?” Buffy stiff-armed Willow in her changing face. The thing inside her staggered backward. “How’s that for weak?”

  “You care for her,” Chirayoju taunted her, coming at her. “I care for nothing and no
one.”

  “You hear that, you guys? It doesn’t care about you,” Buffy called. She ticked a quick glance around the room. The other vampires had disappeared. No wonder. The entire building was engulfed in flames, the ceiling included. Any second now, the whole structure would cave in.

  With a grunt of effort, Buffy launched herself at Chirayoju, forcing it back into the depths of the room. Yet Buffy’s mind registered that Willow was in mortal danger from the flames.

  She had no idea what to do. Chirayoju represented a threat far greater than just this tiny combat in a dead garden. Buffy had to stop it. But how to do that without sacrificing her best friend …

  Above her, two wooden beams dislodged from the ceiling and crashed to the floor behind her. The floor groaned like a dying beast, and then it cracked open. Buffy staggered backward slightly. Another beam fell. Roof tiles shot through the weakened ceiling toward her and Chirayoju like bombs.

  Suddenly she rushed at Chirayoju, grabbed the demon vampire around the waist, and dove with it out a window.

  They rolled in the weeds and the dirt. Then Buffy flung it away from her and resumed her fighting stance.

  It was then that she realized her Slayer’s bag was still inside the burning building.

  Chirayoju seemed to realize the same thing at the same time.

  It grinned hideously.

  “It ends,” it said, advancing slowly as if savoring the moment of triumph. Smoke rose from its body. “You will be mine.”

  “Sorry, I’ve already got a Valentine.”

  Her mind raced as she scanned the area for a piece of wood, a branch, anything she could use as a weapon. Finally, in desperation, she reached inside her blouse and yanked the metal chain she wore around her neck. She held the cross before Chirayoju, having no idea if it would have any effect on a Chinese vampire sorcerer.

  Chirayoju hissed and stopped short. Buffy almost cheered with relief. It was the same cross Angel had given her the night they met. She would have to thank him again for it. She would have to—

  “Where did you get that?” the vampire demanded, gesturing to it.