by Various
He peered at the inscriptions again. What was this one . . . General Samson Murray. He vaguely remembered hearing about this guy, some fanatical war hero who was housed in another part of the same V.A. Medical Center in Sunnydale that had kept Patrick himself until a few days ago. In fact, it looked like it hadn’t been that long for General Murray, either — he’d died only a couple of weeks back.
Hey, Patrick thought, maybe the good old General was wearing something a bit more interesting than the green army uniform adorning his own somewhat skinny form.
With something to finally occupy his time and mind, Patrick grinned and started working at the mortared edges of the faceplate to General Murray’s tomb. It didn’t take long to get it open — one of few pluses about being a vampire was the increased strength, and once he found a couple of chinks in the seams, he just dug around in there until he could wiggle it side to side; eventually, it toppled off and shattered, barely missing his foot when he hopped backward. Can vampires get broken bones? He had no idea.
The smell that drifted out of the chamber he’d opened up was ripe and, by his old human standards, unpleasant. Now it didn’t bother Patrick, and he squinted in the low light, trying to see inside. He finally gave up and just yanked the casket out of the hole in the wall, letting it fall to the floor. No cheapie box here: the General’s bed was made of rich, dark mahogany with plenty of decorative carving on all sides, and it gave Patrick hope that the old fart inside might be wearing something worthy of confiscation.
A good hard wrench and the lid fell victim to his enhanced strength. Then he was staring down at the earthly remains of General Samson Murray.
Thanks to modern-day preservatives, the elderly war hero didn’t look half bad. Prune-wrinkled, of course, and his closed eyes were all sunk in, as was his nose, the area under his cheekbones, and the ends of his fingertips — everything looked pretty much fat-free. More important, he was wearing a nifty looking uniform, nice dark blue with a whole bevy of medals pinned to it, and the clothes looked like they just might fit him. Patrick recognized most of the glitz on the old man’s chest, but one oddball medal stood out, a big, oval-shaped opal rimmed in ornate gold and pinned above his heart. The stone was shot through with dark fire, and when he reached to touch it, it pulsed with hot light.
Patrick drew his hand back. What was this, some kind of occult magic? A week ago he would’ve rolled his eyes, but, Hey, Ma — look at me now! His brain might be dead, but it was suddenly open to all sorts of new and intriguing possibilities. What would happen to him if he stripped the dead guy down and put on his clothes? Probably nothing. Then again . . .
Curious, Patrick decided to check the pockets of the uniform jacket, all the while keeping his hand carefully out of range of the weirded-out opal. He’d almost given up and called himself an idiot, when just for grins he stuck a couple of fingers into the breast pocket on the inside of the jacket and something rattled.
Bingo.
But what he pulled free of Murray’s pocket turned out to be nothing more exciting than a piece of paper with indecipherable scribbles on it. They looked vaguely familiar, like they ought to be letters but were backward or something, and they made no sense. Then he turned the paper over and was gratified to find that at least this side was written in good old American English. It was . . . well, a spell or something, and while it took a little bit of focus, he began to realize that hidden within the words were the instructions for working it, not very complicated at all. Again, where he once would have crumpled up the parchment and tossed it away in derision, now his mind whispered that he could do something he’d never dreamed was possible. It was a spell, all right.
To raise the dead.
Patrick Beverly read the incantation, then read it again, just to make sure he understood.
And he smiled.
“Oh, Rupert, look!” Jenny tugged on his arm and pointed. “They’ve even decorated the roof of the gazebo.” Giles turned obediently, and Jenny tried not to laugh out loud — he was trying so hard. If cooperation were as visible as perspiration, any moment now Rupert was going to start dripping. When he did, perhaps she’d hand him a red, white and blue hankie, just to stay in the spirit of things.
Meanwhile, he was studying the colorful ribbons twined around the posts and amid the latticework of the large gazebo that marked the center of Weatherly Park. The Park District really had outdone themselves on this year’s Uncle Sam Celebration, and not just in that tiny section. Their efforts were everywhere, from the traditional tricolored balloons tied to any available bench or lamppost to the lightweight Uncle Sam banners that fluttered gaily between the tree trunks. Each time she turned she saw vendors and Park District employees dressed in period costumes, some selling hot dogs and extra-snazzy balloons and noisemakers, others simply walking around and making fanciful animal creatures out of long, skinny balloons. A tall, gangly teenager grinned at them as he strolled past and shoved yet another red, white and blue pamphlet into Giles’s hands, and Jenny glimpsed a heading that read “GENERAL SAMSON MURRAY: SUNNYDALE’S OWN WAR HERO.” Noise filled the air — kids screaming with laughter while adults called out to them, dogs barking, speakers blaring out tinny renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and, to Rupert’s obvious continued discomfort, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”
“Come on,” Jenny said enthusiastically. “They’ve set up the picnic area on the other side of the gazebo. I’m starved. You can buy us hot dogs.”
Giles looked decidedly shocked, and she wanted to laugh at him all over again. “Hot dogs? Good Lord! Do you have any idea what’s in those things? Can’t we just go somewhere and have a nice turkey sandwich —”
Jenny gave him a severe glance . . . well, not that severe. “Hot dogs and apple pie, Rupert. These are essential parts of the American spirit. Plus we need to eat now. Then we can join in on some of the games. Remember, the parade’s supposed to start at six o’clock.”
She couldn’t decide if the expression on Giles’s face was dismay or frustration. He glanced down at the pamphlet still clutched in his hand and sighed. “At least this —” he waved the pamphlet in the air “— has more of an historical bent to it. Look at how foolish everyone is acting. For God’s sake, the British uniforms aren’t even accurate. A country’s independence should not be celebrated with hot dogs made of unspeakable contents, screaming children, atrocious band music and —” He stopped momentarily, staring. “What on earth are they doing?”
“What?” Jenny squinted against the late afternoon sunlight, trying to see where Giles was focusing. “Oh — those are potato-sack races.”
She had to giggle at his wide, frightened eyes. “Good heavens, Jenny. You don’t expect me to stick my leg into one of those, do you?”
She laughed and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Let’s just start with one of those unspeakable hot dogs and some chips, then see where those lead.”
“Straight on to food poisoning, no doubt,” Giles muttered. Cranky he might be, but Jenny saw that he still couldn’t hide his happiness at spending the day with her.
“It’s almost six-thirty,” Jenny said. “The parade should have started by now — they’re running late.” She craned her head over the shoulder of the person in front of her in the crowd.
Giles looked up from where he’d been reading the pamphlet on General Murray. “Hmmm? Yes — the parade.” He bent his head back to the pamphlet, then jumped as Jenny poked him playfully in the side.
“C’mon, share,” she said. “What’s so interesting?”
“What? Well, I suppose you’ll find it boring, but it’s this pamphlet.” He frowned at it, as if his stern expression could do something to make sense out of what he was reading. “Quite a bit of creative writing, I suspect. I remember reading something recently about this General Murray — it wasn’t so long ago that he passed on, you know. Only a few weeks.”
Jenny nodded and looked at him expectantly. For a moment Giles didn’t say anything. He was
so accustomed to dealing with Buffy and her friends, to seeing that constant glazed look in their eyes when he tried to tell them about something he thought particularly interesting, that he always felt surprised that Jenny was actually attentive to what he had to say. She was just so . . . delightful that sometimes he actually became speechless.
“And?” she prompted gently.
“Well,” he said, then finally managed to pick up the thread of his thoughts again, “if memory serves me correctly, the General wasn’t the hero that the events committee in our fair town portrays him to be in this.” He tapped the glossy pamphlet on which was a photograph of a distinguished-looking older man with a white buzz cut. Below the stiff brim of a military hat, Samson Murray’s eyes were small and brown, without a trace of warmth. “I recall reading several articles on him. I believe his military career included an abundance of . . . shall we say, less than savory activities.”
“Really?” Jenny’s eyes lit up with curiosity. “Like what?”
Giles frowned and swatted at a mosquito that had landed on his neck. Little flying vampires, that’s what the bloody things are. Don’t we have enough of those in Sunnydale already? “I’m a bit foggy on the details, I’m afraid. Something about a couple of court martials, but he was acquitted because of questions regarding his mental stability. He spent his last years at the V.A. Medical Center on the edge of town.” Giles raised an eyebrow. “They have a psychiatric wing there, don’t they?”
Jenny shrugged. “Call me clueless. I never heard of him before today.”
“Yes, well.” Giles held up the history brochure. “This artful piece of work neglects to mention the one thing I do recall — that the late, great General was never at all convinced that World War II was over. He spent his last years raving about counter-attacking enemy forces he insisted were spreading through Sunnydale.” The librarian shook his head in disbelief. “Despite all that, apparently he’s still quite the celebrity around here.”
Jenny smiled lightly. “At least for today.” Something over his shoulder caught her eye. “Oh, look — finally!”
Giles twisted his head around. “What is it?”
“The start of the parade. Good thing, too. It’s supposed to be pretty long. They’re going to have a hard time getting it all in before sunset. We’ve got, what —”
“Sunset tonight is at 8:09 P.M.,” Giles said absently. “I keep track of it — professional need and all.” He squinted over the heat waves, trying to see the float at the front of the procession, then wishing he hadn’t had the privilege. It was a huge caricature of Uncle Sam, bobbing and weaving on some sort of spring contraption that reminded him more of the movement of paper dragons in a Chinese New Year’s parade. He thought it was utterly hideous.
“I suppose it’s okay that they delayed the start,” Jenny said at his side and nudged him closer to the front of the growing crowd. Marvelous, Giles thought sourly. The line of floats, dancing clowns, baton twirlers, and the first of the school bands already looked endless; to make matters more burdensome, they seemed determined to go no faster than the pace of a very old tortoise. “It really should be full dark before the fireworks start.”
“I really can’t wait,” Giles said.
“Don’t be such a stick in the mud, Rupert.” She caught him off guard by leaning over and kissing him on the cheek, then she shook out the red gingham blanket she’d been carrying over one arm and spread it on the ground. “This is the perfect spot for both the parade and the fireworks. Look, you can even see City Hall from here. Sit here with me and enjoy it. We’ll have a grand old time, you’ll see. Before this evening is over, I guarantee you’ll look at American patriotism like you never have before.”
“Peek-a-boo,” Patrick whispered. Feeling a bit averse to the notion of getting his eyeballs fried out of his skull, the newbie vampire gave the heavy door to the tomb a solid kick, hard enough to crack the lock but not quite there on opening power. If his heart had been working, he was sure it’d be pounding, but that little side effect of fear was lost to him. That didn’t mean he was fearless, though. When he finally shoved the door wide, Patrick leaped backward like a puppy that had just discovered fire via the tender tip of its nose.
It was twilight, or damned close — the sun wasn’t quite down, but it had gone far enough below the line of trees on the western edge of Sunnydale Cemetery to cast comforting gray shadows over everything. A sunburn-free zone . . . nice.
Still, caution was always a good thing, so Patrick scoped out the area around the mausoleum carefully before he stepped outside with the paper he’d lifted from General Murray’s suit pocket. Deserted, although he could tell from the plentiful arrangements of fresh flowers placed here and there around the cemetery that there had been a fair share of Independence Day visitors — he was just lucky no one had decided to pop in on his little piece o’ the dead realm. Patrick shook his head, disgusted at himself. Idiot that he was, he had never even considered that.
As final resting places went, this was a nice-looking spot, he decided. Lush and green, lots of leafy trees and bordered with pretty flowers for which he didn’t have a name. He was new to the vampire world, but Patrick could already appreciate his heightened senses: insects buzzed everywhere but didn’t land on him; in the high branches of the trees above him birds sang their final songs of the evening. Farther away, he could hear the strains of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” being hammered out by a less than proficient band, probably one of the junior-high attempts. To his oversensitive hearing, it sounded like a bunch of people beating on pots and pans with wooden spoons.
“Okay,” Patrick said, then jumped at the sound of his own voice, the way it seemed overly loud in the silent cemetery. Boy, he just hated this being-alone business — you’d think there’d be like a vampire social group, something to bring newborns like him into the fold and teach them. But since there wasn’t, he’d just have to make his own company.
He’d crumpled up the parchment a bit, and now he held it up and tried to smooth it out so he could read the words in the deepening dusk. “Okay,” he said, and realized his voice was raspy. Would it make a difference? He cleared his throat and tried again. “Here goes.”
I call to powers from afar,
here beneath the moon and stars,
On the fields of battle, and in the halls of war,
Gone on to his dark glory,
this leader’s meant for more.
With the power of the Opal,
the key to all Unlife,
We bring him back among the living,
awake to walk this Night.
And if he chooses, let him call,
to others of his kind.
They to follow, one and all,
the orders of his mind.
Patrick didn’t really know what to expect — a pause, a crack of thunder — shoot, even a sudden rainstorm with lightning and gale-force winds, just like in the movies. For a few overlong moments he thought nothing at all had happened, and he simply stood there, feeling as stupid as a twelve-year-old who’d still believed in Santa Claus but had finally gotten the department store clue.
Then he heard the scrabbling from inside the tomb.
Patrick turned and scampered back through the door, the parchment paper crushed in his suddenly nerveless fingers. What he found made a cold grin stretch across his face.
General Samson Murray was very much alive.
Well . . . he was moving, anyway. Whether that meant he was alive or unalive made no difference to Patrick. That opal medal, obviously the stone referred to in the spell, was glowing something fierce, spitting streaks of hot pink, yellow, blue and white light all over the inside of the small chamber. The old man was pulling himself to a sitting position in his casket, his still-withered hands sure and strong where they gripped the sides.
“Excellent!” Patrick exclaimed. He tossed the parchment aside and offered a hand to the General. No warm flesh here, so Patrick knew he’d zapped up a zombie, but that wa
s cool. He didn’t care, so long as it could walk the walk and talk the talk. He started to say “Welcome back to Sunnydale,” but the words froze in his throat when General Murray fixed him with a hellish stare.
“Attention, solider!”
Uh-oh.
Boot-camp-instilled habits died hard, even when they’d been interrupted by a long illness. Patrick’s spine snapped straight, and his arms slapped hard to his sides, shoulders back and eyes forward. His mind, though, it was still his, and wasn’t that a big old question —
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
— bouncing off the insides of his brain like an electrified Superball?
“Follow me out, soldier, and watch your step!” The General’s voice was rough around the edges, as though it was full of dirt. There was something in it that made disobedience unthinkable, and if Patrick had thought he’d forgotten what fear, the real deal, felt like, he’d been very, very wrong.
“Yes, sir!” Patrick snapped right back.
And just like when he was in the army, Patrick had no choice but to follow the General out of the mausoleum and into the night.
And, as it turned out, there’d clearly been a lot more to the spell on that little piece of paper than what had sunk into Patrick’s limited-capacity brain. Marching behind General Samson Murray like the good little soldier he was, Patrick could only watch with wide and marveling eyes as the military man went from grave to grave and, by nothing more than force of will, sheer presence, raised himself up a full-blown, unified army of the dead.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever watched a parade this long,” Giles grumbled. He slapped at his arm. “For God’s sake, Jenny, we’re getting eaten alive by mosquitoes!”
“Must be that British blood of yours,” she said cheerfully. “I haven’t been bitten once.”
“I hardly think it matters what my heritage is,” he said huffily. “A parasite is a parasite, and —”
“They’re patriotic, you know.”
He peered at her over the top of his glasses. “Excuse me?”
