by Various
It had to be Absalom.
The dude was dressed in a sort of old-fashioned outfit, like a preacher from the olden days, or something. Jay wasn’t too big on history. Absalom’s face was tricked out, and he looked hungry. Everyone was taking a step or two away from him.
The Anointed One scooted his evil little backside off the Master’s throne and walked to the newcomer. The vampire bent down on one knee and gave him a hug. The Anointed One hugged him back, the way a little kid might hug a favorite uncle.
Shivers ran up and down Jay’s back.
“Absalom has come at our request,” the Anointed One announced like a freakin’ king. Which he is, Jay reminded himself. Don’t forget that. Don’t ever forget that. Dude can gouge your eyes out and behead you, if he wants to. If he tells these guys to tear you to pieces, they will.
Jay said weakly, “Cool.” Heads swiveled in his direction, including Kevin’s. Jay clamped his mouth shut and cleared his throat.
“I greet you, my brothers and sisters,” Absalom said in a booming voice. “This has been a tragic time of loss and grief. But no more. I’m here to bring our people back to a time of plenty. A new harvest.” He smiled at the Anointed One. “I am here to fulfill the mission laid before me, and I will not fail our leader, or you, my brethren.”
Absalom raised his arms toward the ceiling of the cave.
“Praise be, I am here to resurrect the Master.”
There was a collective gasp. Then silence. Then cheers.
One of the other vampires, a sweet little redhead dressed in purple, raised her hand. “How?”
“Do not question my acolyte,” the Anointed One growled. His voice thundered like a hellish chorus, echoing and reverberating off the walls of the cavern.
“No, my lord. Let us rejoice that your flock is careful and cautious. The Master left you goodly sheep.” Absalom bowed to the young leader, but didn’t lower his gaze. “We have need of vampires who can think.”
“So many can’t,” the Anointed One said, sighing heavily.
Jay thought about that. He didn’t know why some came back with all their faculties — like him and Corvelle, and Kevin, too — and some were simple, ravening beasts. He didn’t know if it was luck of the draw or some weakness in life or the strength of your demon, or what.
“Now, to answer your question.” Absalom smiled at the redhead. “I have wonderful news.” He spread his arms wide. “A miracle has occurred. When the Slayer struck down our Master —”
Boos rose up and drowned him out.
The Anointed One stomped his foot and shouted, “Silence!”
The boos died down. Absalom’s smile grew. “I am truly touched by your loyalty. It speaks of your great love for the Master. Now, when she pushed him through that skylight, and he fell, it is true that he turned to dust.”
Kevin looked directly at Jay, as if willing him to keep quiet. No problem, Jay thought, trying hard to swallow. Talk about dust. It was in his throat.
“But . . .” Absalom held up a finger. “Unholiest of miracles, his bones remained intact.”
There was dead silence.
“But his enemies, the ones who smote our great leader down, they gathered them up. They have them now.”
“How . . . how do you know all this?” the redhead stammered. Go, chick, Jay thought. Of course, that was the question on everybody’s mind. His, especially.
“I know all, see all,” Absalom said, grinning. He winked at her. “The power of the Master is alive in me, as I live in him.”
She frowned. “But nobody here knows that stuff. And you’re from out of town.”
Jay stared straight ahead. He was dizzy with fear. Kevin had assured him that no one else but he, Kevin, had seen the Slayer’s friends take the Master’s bones out of the Sunnydale High School library. Just how reliable is that guy? he worried.
Absalom looked casually at the Anointed One. The child nodded gravely.
Absalom walked calmly toward the redhead, pulled a stake from his vest, and smoothly, quickly stabbed her in the heart. The beginning of her scream signaled the end of her life.
“The time has come to trust in me,” Absalom said. His eyes were golden, his fangs long and glistening-sharp. And he was smiling. “For he — or she — who is not with me, is against me. We will find those bones. And as I stand here tonight, witnessing to his might and his glory, we will have our Master back.”
No one cheered louder than Kevin.
Unless it was Corvelle and Jay.
Yeah, I’m cheering like my life depends on it, Jay thought, totally freaking out. ’Cause it does.
Jay slid his glance toward Corvelle, who was chewing his tobacco for all he was worth. He flashed Jay a secret signal, thumb out to the side, like they were hitching.
It meant, We need to get the hell out of here.
Slowly, Jake started sidling toward the tunnel exit to the lair.
Then he looked up, and saw Kevin staring at him. Kevin made the same signal as Corvelle. Jay’s eyes bulged. Kevin shouldn’t know that signal, but he did.
This sucks, he thought.
Giles’s heart skipped a beat when Jenny glided into the courtyard, a paper bag cradled in her arm. Her dark hair was clipped atop her head, with tendrils curling beneath her chin. She had on a beaded gray, clinging blouse and a long black skirt.
Here’s the affectionate ghost, he thought as she beamed at him. A score of poems about beautiful phantoms by Englishmen long dead sprang to mind. She walks in beauty, like the night.
“Giles.” She was breathless. She greeted the others with a nod. “There was a vampire in the magic shop. He was a student of mine.” She patted her chest to catch her breath. “I think he started to follow me.”
“A vampire?” Willow echoed. “How did you know?”
“No reflection in the mirror,” Jenny answered.
Giles was alarmed. “Do you suppose they know?”
“That we have the Master’s bones?” she said in a quiet voice. “We were so careful. I did that protection spell before we gathered them.”
“I placed wards,” Giles murmured.
“You two have been busy. Alone,” Xander said, wagging a finger. “Funny cars, I can let that go. But this is sounding pretty much like something two young people in love should be refraining from.”
“Xander,” Willow muttered, “please. They’re teachers.”
“Teachers in lust, I think. And, oh, Angel, you wouldn’t have, by any chance, mentioned this bone-collecting to any vamp buddies of yours? Engaged in a little pillow talk with some toothy hottie, perhaps?”
Angel simply stared at Xander. Giles stepped forward. “Now is not the time to point fingers at each other,” he said. “It doesn’t matter at the moment how they found out. It only matters if they do indeed know we have the bones.”
“We’ve got to cleanse them asap,” Xander said. “I say, bring on the mugwort!”
“I had a thought,” Jenny said hesitantly. “We don’t know why the bones haven’t disintegrated, and we can feel the Master’s demonic presence.”
“Some of us can,” Xander cut in.
Jenny looked confused, then continued on. “But what if cleansing the bones is the wrong thing to do? What if it actually frees the Master, like —” She gestured with her hand as she searched for the right words. “— like letting the jinn out of the bottle?”
“Gin?” Xander echoed.
“A genie,” Giles said slowly. “That’s a possibility.”
“We might be doing the exact wrong thing,” Jenny continued, “if we cleanse these bones.”
Giles thought for a moment. Then he said, “So we bury them. In consecrated ground. We place wards all around them so the vampires can’t even hope to touch them.”
“Excuse me? Shovels?” Xander offered.
“Lots of consecrated ground,” Willow said anxiously. “Lots of it. Hectares of it.”
“And I would expect you, Will, to know precisely what a h
ectare is,” Xander said fondly.
“We’ve got to move them now, then,” Angel spoke up. “If that vampire in the shop suspected anything, they’ll be all over this place.”
“If,” Jenny replied, looking at Giles.
“We can’t take that chance.” Giles headed for his front door.
Xander followed after him. “But I thought we’d decided cleansing the bones was the action item on our agenda du jour.”
“We’re changing the menu,” Giles informed him.
“You teachers. You’re just so chummy,” Xander grumped.
“Xander,” Willow said.
Giles felt his face flush. Truth be told, he was rather liking how chummy Miss Calendar had become. And he was delighted she hadn’t yet left Sunnydale. She’d made mention of some rather dreadful New Age be-in or whatever they were called these days — convocation? — and he’d somehow assumed she’d planned to leave the second school was out. But here they were, saving the world yet again — hopefully — and, as usual, her nearness was intoxicating and distracting.
Giles led the way to his weapons trunk. His various cudgels and battleaxes were strewn about. Knives, maces, and swords lay across the divan. The Master’s bones were locked inside the trunk, with chains and padlocks securely bound around the outside.
“Wow, it’s Houdini,” Xander said.
“Angel, please come in,” Giles said, when he counted heads and found Willow, Xander, and Jenny in his living room, but not the vampire.
“Angel?”
“Silence is not golden,” Xander breathed.
Giles looked at the faces of the two young people.
I shouldn’t have let Buffy go, he thought.
* * *
Jay and Corvelle emerged from the manhole and stood across from Sunnydale High School in a state of shock.
“Damn. We made it,” Corvelle said. He looked at Jay. “Nobody stopped us. Nobody so much as blinked.”
Jay nodded. “Always said I’d leave Sunnydale one day. I guess it’s time.”
He broke into a run. Corvelle shouted, “Hey! Wait up!” and joined him.
They were only a few yards down the road when something moved into their path. It was tall, and solid.
And it was not a something. It was a someone.
It was Absalom. He had his hands behind his back.
Jay and Corvelle screeched to a halt.
“Dear brothers, where could you be going on such a fine night?” the vampire asked pleasantly.
“Um,” Jay answered. “Just, uh . . .” He looked at Corvelle.
Absalom rocked on his heels. “I believe the correct answer is, ‘Brother Absalom, we’re going to fetch the Master’s bones and bring them home.’ ”
Jay croaked, “Huh?”
Absalom just smiled. He took a step forward.
Corvelle said quicky, “We’re going to fetch the Master’s bones.”
“And bring them home,” Jay added.
“For his works are mighty,” Absalom said. “Brothers, we’ll come with you.”
From the bushes on either side of the road, vampires emerged. One, two . . . a dozen.
But no sign of Kevin.
Absalom’s eyes glowed in the black night. “Onward, brothers. For the weak who falter are as dust.”
He brought his fists from around his back and lifted them to eye level. With a cheery smile, he opened them. Dust sprinkled onto the blacktop.
“Ashes to ashes, brothers. And the weak are as dust to —”
Jay swallowed hard. Kevin?
“Miss Calendar was flirting a lot with Mr. Giles,” he ventured.
“The Slayer’s Watcher. Praise be.” Absalom looked pleased. “The moon is full, and she shines down upon this revelation. Oh, how she smiles.”
“Angel?” Rupert said again.
Willow and Xander looked at each other in silence.
They’re just children, Jenny thought. Buffy is, too. So young to be mixed up in things like this.
Willow slid her glance toward her, almost as if she could read her mind. Rupert moved slowly toward the open door as the others held their breath.
“Angel,” Xander whispered bitterly.
Oh, God, maybe he’s gone to tell the other vampires we’ve got the bones, Jenny thought. Despite all I have been taught about the vampire Angelus being given back his soul, maybe his capacity for evil is still greater than his inherent goodness.
She cleared her throat and said quietly, “We’d better get these things out of here.”
“Indeed,” Rupert murmured, as he crept toward the door. She saw that he had a stake in his hand. Slowly, carefully, she bent toward the couch to pick up the crossbow lying there. It was unloaded. She had no idea where the bolts were, nor how to load them.
“But where’d he go?” Xander demanded. “Out for a pack of cigs? ’Cause you know, guys who say that never come back.”
Rupert gestured to Jenny. She crept through the shadows toward him. He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and held them out to her. He smelled good. His light brown hair was shot with gray, but that only made him more appealing, in her eyes. She looked down at his strong hands, the veins in them as he pressed them into her palm, and felt a flutter in her stomach.
If he ever learns who I really am, and why I’m really here . . . She pushed the thought away. For now she was Jenny Calendar, and not Janna, a Kalderash Gypsy. She was a technopagan helping a sorcerer dispose of their common enemy: the world’s enemy. Anything else was trivial and irrelevant.
“Right,” Rupert breathed. He looked at her. “When you open the trunk, the emanations will probably be stronger. You’d best be prepared.”
She nodded. Closing her eyes, she murmured an ancient Gypsy blessing. It brought with it little peace.
She whispered, “Which key?”
“The largest one.” He returned his attention to the door. The tension was so thick that Jenny wanted to scream.
“Open the chest, Jenny,” he breathed. “I’m going to look outside.”
“No,” she said urgently. “Rupert, no.”
He gave her a smile. “I’ll take care.”
He slid around the jamb and blended with the night. Jenny heard Willow make a little anxious groan. The two students watched her with large eyes as she crossed back to the trunk and knelt beside it.
As she unlocked all the locks, she could feel the evil of the Master. It was like a bone-chilling ache. The stench of something rotten pervaded the air.
This place has been defiled, she thought.
“So much evil,” Willow whispered.
“Of the bad,” Xander added softly. “I can feel it now, too.”
Jenny opened the trunk.
With sickening dread, she peered in. The arms were folded in on themselves. The hands were positioned palms up. Finger bones had separated and were nestled on either side of the skull, like huge, macabre earrings.
Then the Master’s left hand shot straight up and wrapped itself around her throat.
Across the room, Giles burst in, shouting, “Arm yourselves!”
“What?” Willow struggled to pull Jenny free.
Xander pointed at the back window and shouted, “Earth to Alamo! Vampires, dead ahead!”
“Jenny!” Rupert cried.
As Jenny clutched at the bony arm, Rupert grabbed the paper bag of mugwort she had placed on the floor. He ripped it open and sprinkled the mugwort across the bones.
She couldn’t breathe. Her vision was blurring, but she saw the window above the trunk splinter as it was yanked from its frame. A vampire charged at the empty space, but was flung backward as if by some unseen force.
“Hah! No invitation, no service!” Xander cried.
The Master’s other hand thrust up and wrapped itself around Jenny’s throat.
Rupert began the Rite of Cleansing:
“Earth, Air, Fire, Water,
Pure Elements, Pure Energy.
All a sign of Purity.
Ashes to ashes,
Of Phoenix born,
Dust to dust,
Cleanse the unclean.”
The skeletal fingers loosened their grip. The bones separated and fell back into the chest, landing inside the rib cage. Jenny collapsed, holding on to the side of the trunk as she spasmed with coughing.
Rupert sprinkled mudwort liberally over each white fragment she could see. His hands were shaking.
At that moment, the pop of a gun gave Giles only brief warning as he was struck. He wasn’t even sure where the bullet had lodged as the impact knocked him sideways. He only knew that it hurt, very much.
He landed hard. There were more gunshots; and then something was thrown through the shattered window. It was a Molotov cocktail — a firebomb in a bottle — and it caught the curtains and flashed across the ceiling as if devouring a trail of gunpowder. Flame and smoke erupted in a fireball.
“Oh, my God!” Jenny cried hoarsely. “Rupert!”
“I’m fine,” he rasped, though even that effort cost him a great deal. “Bones. Get them,” he said.
Things began to get hazy for Giles. He thought he saw Angel dash inside the flat, which was fast becoming an inferno. As the vampire did so, Angel staggered backward and grabbed his chest.
“Angel!” Willow cried.
“Get out of there!” Angel shouted, clenching his teeth. “They’re here!”
“We can’t let them get the bones,” Jenny said to Giles. He nodded. She glanced around the room and picked up a large wooden cross, which had been in the weapons trunk.
“Willow, Xander, go!” Angel shouted, heading for the trunk. “There’s too many!”
“Fighting,” Willow said bravely. Giles wanted either to hug her or throw her out the front door. These children are so brave, he thought. No wonder the Slayer loves them.
But there were times for courage, and times for practicality. Heroic as it might be to make a stand and die for it, Giles could not permit them to make that choice.
Pushing himself up with his good arm, he called to them, “Out the door. Now,” when they hesitated.
“Giles, no,” Willow pleaded. Her eyes widened. “You’re hurt!”
Xander looked at Angel, then at Giles, and last at Jenny. Then he wrapped his hand around Willow’s forearm and dragged her toward the front door.
