Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3

by Nancy Holder

  “No!” Angel screamed, and picked up speed, hand still clamped over his healing belly.

  They stood that way, frozen for a second, maybe two. Then Sanno ripped the sword out, slamming his—Xander’s—upper torso into Buffy’s body and sending Chirayoju stumbling back, left arm hanging limply by her—its—side. Blood ran freely from the wound, and Angel stared at it as he approached. But already the blood was drying up. Already the wound was healing. By sorcery, or because Chirayoju was a vampire, he didn’t know. But the speed of it was amazing.

  He glanced at Sanno, saw that Xander’s face was also healing, and with that amazement running through his mind, he launched himself the last few feet toward Buffy. In her eyes, Chirayoju’s spirit burned. Her lips stretched into a disgusting laugh, and that ghostly face that the sorcerer had worn earlier returned, even as it reached out for Angel.

  Angel clasped his fists together, brought them around from waist level and up into Buffy’s face with all the strength he could summon. There was a loud crack, and Buffy’s body flew backward several feet, her head snapped back and to one side.

  “Well done, young one,” a deep voice that was not Xander’s said behind him.

  Angel turned quickly as a powerful hand clamped on his shoulder. Behind him, the King of the Mountain grinned with Xander’s face, but more and more, Sanno was taking over and Xander seemed almost to be disappearing into himself.

  But then that smile disappeared, and for the first time Angel saw the true arrogance of an ancient god, or whatever manner of being this was that had once been called a god. He saw the cruelty and the conceit there, and Angel stiffened, prepared to fight again.

  “Arigato gozaimasu,” Sanno said. “I thank you, stripling. But now, keep out of my way!”

  Then the King of the Mountain lifted Angel from the ground and threw him into the air. Angel landed hard on his back, and though his rage increased even further, a tiny spark of dread was born in his heart, a sort of hopelessness unlike anything he had ever known.

  Somehow, he had to stop them both from fighting to the death. But he had no idea how to go about it.

  “Come then, Mountain King, I will tear the throat from your host body, and drink down the boy’s blood, and your spirit with it.” Chirayoju sneered as it regained its footing, its guttural grunting twisting Buffy’s perfect, soft mouth into something horrible, something Angel could barely stand to see.

  “You will spill no more blood this night, vampire,” Sanno declared, sword held at the ready.

  “You’re right,” Chirayoju crowed, then slid toward Xander—toward the Mountain king—with the grace of a dancer, despite the arm that hung limply by its side … by Buffy’s side.

  Buffy’s mouth contorted into a repulsive grin. “I won’t spill a drop,” it said from within her. “I wouldn’t want to waste it. No, I will taste the blood of your host, and then I will gather the small army already in my thrall, and I will walk the night of this new land and my power will swell with each risen moon.”

  “You will walk only in the spirit world, parasite. I will see to that,” Sanno proclaimed, and launched himself at the vampire again.

  Chirayoju rushed to meet him.

  Buffy was cold. She imagined she could remember what it was like to be buried in the frozen earth. To be dead, immobile in her own flesh. It must be something like this, she thought. But of course she could not remember it. And she was grateful for that at least.

  But this wasn’t the same. Not exactly. For as she floated inside the limbo that was her own mind, she could see cracks in her prison. Glimpses of the outside. There were moments when she felt a phantom pain, the tingling of her fingers, the thudding of her heart. Moments when she saw through her own eyes and heard with her ears.

  She gathered her energy, reached into the deepest reserves of her mind, into the fabric of everything that made her herself. Buffy Summers. The Chosen One.

  The Slayer.

  And when dawn finally broke, what was Chirayoju but another vampire? More powerful than others, maybe. Older. And there was that whole magick thing, sure. But he was still a vampire. Buffy knew what to do with vampires.

  She focused her anger, her hatred, and her duty, concentrated on her revulsion and her thirst for vengeance until they became like some kind of mental weapon, a blade of her own. A blade that sliced from within. Then she surged up through her consciousness, and she attacked! Chirayoju screamed inside her mind.

  “I hope it hurts, you son of a … ,” she started to say.

  With her own voice. Her own lips.

  Then she was wrenched back down again, down away from the surface, away from the body that she’d successfully navigated through seventeen years of living in America.

  Buffy should have given up then. She knew that. Every ounce of strength had gone into that last effort, and it had given her only a moment of triumph. No matter how strong she was, no matter how brave, no matter how persistent, even she might have lost all hope in that moment, were it not for one thing.

  Chirayoju was afraid.

  She didn’t know quite what it feared. It had to do with the sword, and with the millennia it had spent as a captive inside the sword. But the King of the Mountain has already stabbed her—stabbed it—once, and there had been no reaction. But still, Chirayoju feared that sword, as if there was still some possibility that it might be trapped there again.

  Chirayoju was afraid.

  In the secret chambers of her mind, Buffy smiled.

  As smoke from the burning Japanese farmhouse roiled toward the combatants, Chirayoju glared with hatred at the Mountain King and thought of the girl whose body it inhabited with loathing. She was fighting to reassert control of this form. For that she would pay.

  While the ancient spirits raged, the fire from the farmhouse had spread. Flames raged around the battleground as the desiccated plants of the garden fed the blaze.

  A wind whipped up, fanning the flames. Fireballs shot like arrows from Chirayoju’s fingertips and were diverted by Sanno’s sword, helping to spread the blaze ever faster.

  As Angel watched, the winds whipped up and seemed to lift Chirayoju from the oval of garden that was not aflame, the patch of earth that had become the arena for this ancient battle. Buffy seemed to fly then, with the magick of the vampire sorcerer propelling her along. She hovered above the place where the tiny farmhouse had been, where the fire burned brightly.

  Then she dropped into the flames.

  “Buffy, no!” Angel screamed.

  But it was only a moment before she reemerged, hair ablaze, skin blackened and smoking. Then the flames were out, and already Chirayoju’s magick was working to repair the damage; new pink skin began to show through.

  In Buffy’s hand, Chirayoju held a long, gleaming katana. The sword reflected the light of the fire and of the full moon above. For a moment, Buffy’s body just hung in the air.

  Then the wind swept down with pummeling force and carried Chirayoju with it. It dropped to the earth in front of Xander … in front of Sanno, and the two spirits clashed swords.

  “Buffy,” Angel whispered.

  Giles screeched to a halt. Before the car stopped rolling, Cordelia and Willow were out and running to the rise above the sunken garden.

  “Oh my God!” Cordelia cried.

  Silhouetted against the backdrop of fire, Xander and Buffy were fighting with swords. Metal clanged against metal as they savagely battled, hacking and slashing with every ounce of their supernatural energy.

  Angel saw the three of them, waved, and began to run toward them.

  “Willow! Cordelia! Help me,” Giles called.

  They both ran back to the car and took large sacks from him. Inside Willow’s sack were salt, water, and white paper, all symbols of purity. Cordelia carried Claire Silver’s book and a printout of the Incantation of Sanno. Giles brought a white bandanna on which he had written the Chinese character for the Japanese word for the life force: ki. And the disk.

 
Giles joined the girls at the crest and began pouring salt in a sacred circle. “Cover it with the paper,” he said, and they quickly laid the pieces of paper inside the circle.

  “They’re blowing away!” Willow shouted, grabbing at the sheets as they were lifted by the wind and went sailing toward the fire.

  “Here. Use rocks,” Cordelia said, gathering some large pebbles and handing some to Willow. Impressed by Cordelia’s quick thinking, Willow did as she said.

  Once the paper lined the circle, the two girls stepped out and Giles sprinkled the water over the field of white.

  Then he stepped into the circle and lifted the bandanna to the east and intoned, “Oh, great ancestors of the lords of Japan, I call upon you to cast the spirits forth from these mortal beings!” Bowing, he put the bandanna against his forehead and knotted the ends.

  Angel ran up to Willow. “What’s going on?” he asked, staring at them with a mixture of doubt and hope on his face.

  “We’re going to get the spirits out of Buffy and Xander,” Willow explained. “Then we’ll bind them in the sword with the disk.”

  “Great rulers, I call upon you to heed me!” Giles cried.

  Xander rushed Buffy. She deflected his sword thrust and somersaulted over his head with a horrible, maniacal laugh.

  “It’s not working,” Cordelia fretted. “It’s not working!”

  “Yet,” Willow said hopefully.

  Chirayoju faltered.

  For a moment, Buffy felt as though she could break out of her prison and take her body back. She cried, “Yes!” and hoped that someone could hear her, sense her.

  Help her.

  Sanno looked at the crest of the hill. Willow swallowed as he seemed to stare through her at Giles.

  “Mortals, do not interfere,” he said.

  “I have the ward,” Giles told him. He held the disk high. “You can use it to bind the vampire and—”

  “It is too late. It is unnecessary,” Sanno said, but his attention was focused on the disk.

  “He’s lying,” Angel murmured to Giles. “He was pretty interested in that when Buffy had it.”

  “Yes.” Cordelia nodded. “He’s lying for sure.”

  “How do you know?” Willow asked her.

  Cordelia smiled grimly. “Believe me, I know when guys are being bogus. And that is one Mountain King who is not telling us the truth.”

  “Because it will bind him, too?” Willow asked hopefully.

  They both looked at Giles, who murmured, “Perhaps. But we must get them out of Xander and Buffy before we deal with that issue.”

  Below them, the battle raged.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Giles shook his head and dropped his arms to his sides.

  “It isn’t working!”

  Angel stared at him, trying not to panic at the rage and helplessness that was welling up within him. All along, he’d been battling the feeling that he could do nothing to affect the outcome here. He’d fought at Buffy’s side time and again, and nearly always he had felt secure in the knowledge that he had helped. He was a vampire, after all. He was strong and very hard to kill. The perfect companion for the Slayer, in an odd way.

  But all night long, as the battle raged, the despair had grown greater in him as each moment ticked past. As each of his attacks was brushed aside by beings far more powerful than he. Angel could do nothing. He had held on to one small hope: that he could keep Xander and Buffy from killing each other long enough for Giles to arrive with a solution. He’d done that.

  And now …

  “What do you mean it isn’t working?” Cordelia shrieked. “It’s got to work! You’re doing everything the book says to do! It’s got to work!”

  Giles ignored her now. He had begun chanting the Incantation of Sanno again, as if repetition was going to make it suddenly work when it hadn’t been working before.

  She stared down the small incline at Xander, slashing away at Buffy, fire burning from his hands and the wind making his hair sweep back off his forehead.

  Cordelia didn’t know exactly what it was she had with Xander. But she didn’t want to lose him.

  Not like this.

  Cordelia Chase began to cry.

  Without thinking, Willow stepped in close to Angel and reached for his hand. He clasped her fingers in his own without even glancing at her. Together they looked down at the two battling warriors, at the elements scorching and scouring the dead garden, and neither of them spoke a word.

  Willow shivered and realized that she could barely recognize her friends from up here. They stood inside a circle, almost like an arena, made of blazing fire. The garden had long since given way to flames for the most part, and it was already starting to burn down to nothing but cinder and ash. There had been very little there to burn in the first place.

  Xander and Buffy wore ugly, frightening masks, one white and the other sickly green, that shimmered just in front of their faces. Their bodies hadn’t changed, not really, but just the way they carried themselves, the way they moved, they didn’t look like Buffy and Xander anymore.

  They weren’t Buffy and Xander anymore.

  Willow was over it being her fault. She had to be. No way could she have known what was going to happen when she touched that sword, when she was “blooded.” And Willow had learned her lesson, no question about that. She’d learned that she should worry about being the best Willow she could be, and let Buffy worry about being Buffy.

  If Buffy lived long enough to worry about being Buffy.

  And that was it, wasn’t it? That was why her heart hammered in her chest and her stomach felt like a ball of ice. Because the lesson wasn’t over yet, was it?

  It wasn’t her fault. But that didn’t make it any easier.

  And she still felt useless.

  Completely, and totally …

  Willow stared at Xander and Buffy. Something was happening. Giles was finishing up his latest rendition of that radio-saturated top-ten hit, the Incantation of Sanno. And something was happening.

  For a second, Buffy and Xander both faltered. The wind died. The flames fizzled. Then the moment was gone. Xander—Sanno—raised his sword and brought it down swiftly, but Chirayoju spun out of the way, using a move that Willow just knew the sorcerer had stolen from Buffy’s mind. She had had enough information stolen during her own possession to know what it was like.

  It was over. But for that moment … that split second …

  “Am I hallucinating, or did something just … ,” Giles muttered.

  “Giles!” Willow shouted. “Do it again!”

  Giles turned, opened his mouth to ask for elaboration, but when he saw the look on Willow’s face—on all their faces—he began the chant again immediately.

  For a stunning second, Buffy had been in charge. It wasn’t so much that Chirayoju had gone as that it had been banished far back into her mind, just as she was now.

  The vampire sorcerer controlled her body again. But it was anxious now, unfocused. Confused.

  Buffy like confused.

  All right, you evil SOB, she thought, let’s try this again.

  The Slayer concentrated her energies, reached out, and gathered up all the things that made her the Chosen One, every personal moment, every intimate memory. They were her weapons and her armor, all the things that made her her. Her individuality was her strength. It hadn’t been enough before, when Chirayoju was filled with confidence, at the peak of its strength.

  But she didn’t think it was at the peak anymore. Someone … Giles or Angel, maybe … someone was doing something to throw it off. And then there was that sword. Chirayoju was afraid of the sword, Buffy knew that. It had been trapped there before, and the thought of being …

  … oh boy, Cheerios. I am so not going to be your favorite girl after this, she thought.

  Gently this time, so that it would not sense her, she tried to glide upward, tried to inhabit her body. To see through her own eyes.

  And suddenly she could see
. Xander, with that ghostly face in front of his own, bringing that huge, razor-sharp sword around for another thrust.

  “Chirayoju, you lose!” Buffy screamed with her mind.

  And with her mouth! The words came out of her mouth! She had her body again, before the vampire sorcerer even knew that she had taken over. It would toss her back quickly, she knew. But she only needed a second to do what she needed to do.

  “Do it, Xander!” she shouted. “Do it!”

  Buffy threw her arms wide, left herself wide open for the falling blade, and waited for the cold rush of its point sliding through her chest and toward her heart.

  Xander had been submerged completely. The King of the Mountain had taken him over and driven him under so far he had not even been aware of his possession. For him, it had been like a particularly deep sleep.

  Seconds ago, he’d awakened in his own body, staring at Buffy, who was bruised and burned and … healing before his eyes, even as fire scorched her again. He’d felt the weight of the sword in his hands, felt the aches of his own bruises as he let the sword’s point fall to the dirt so he wouldn’t have to hold it up anymore.

  “Buffy,” he had whispered hoarsely, “what’s …”

  And then the Mountain King had surged up within him again.

  But this time Xander didn’t go away. This time he saw it all through his own eyes, though he was powerless to act. Powerless, that is, until the precise moment when Sanno began to bring the sword around into a thrust that would have cleaved Buffy’s heart in two.

  In that moment, Xander Harris had all the power he would ever need.

  “No!” he roared, and his muscles were his own again.

  Too late to stop the thrust, he could only redirect it. The blade impaled Buffy through the lower abdomen, sliced cleanly through. It was the second time she’d been stabbed with that sword, Xander seemed to recall from a horrible dream he’d been living only seconds earlier.