She heard a commotion out in the lot. She looked away from Cordelia as a long black Cadillac roared into their midst.
What was this?
Electric windows rolled down, revealing a pair of young men’s faces. They had something in their hands.
Crossbows!
“Watch out!” Naomi screamed.
But they were already firing their deadly wooden bolts into the crowd.
She turned and saw Gloria hiding behind the muck monster. The bolts didn’t seem to harm the large, squishy thing in the least. Gloria and Bryce were going to get away! Other vampires were fleeing, too—those lucky enough not to have been mowed down by crossbow fire.
That’s what Naomi needed—a shield. And one stood only a few feet away. The hell with Eric and his plans! She had to get out of here, to suck another day.
She tugged at Cordelia’s arm. “Come on.” But Cordelia was frozen in place.
Naomi had no time for nuances. With a wave of her hand, she removed the spell. Cordelia sagged briefly then strengthened.
“Now you’re coming with me,” Naomi insisted. “And spell or no spell, I can still crush you!”
“So we’re just getting a little exercise?” Cordelia looked out at the black car. One of its occupants actually waved at her. “Remember our cheerleading days together?”
Naomi couldn’t help herself. “I should have been captain of the team—not you!”
“You could never be captain!” Cordelia said with a laugh. “You could never get the “Rah Sunnydale Rah” cheer right.”
What was this woman saying? “I could, too!”
“You couldn’t remember it for a moment!” Cordelia hunched over slightly. She was going to show her how the cheer was done? Ha! Naomi would show her!
She crouched down behind Cordelia.
“Just as the sun rises over the hill!” they shouted together. They both started to rise, doing their cheerleader imitation of the sun. “Sunnydale’s gonna win! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Naomi leaped up in the full Sunnydale cheer. But Cordelia wasn’t with her. She had fallen down. Clumsy Cordelia!
Naomi looked up at a shout.
“This one’s for messing with my girlfriend’s mind!”
She was totally exposed. Bolts shot at her from three crossbows.
Cordelia heard a familiar voice out among the trash cans.
“Hu—hu—hu—hurt Naomi.”
“ ‘Hurt Naomi,’ he says,” Gloria’s voice answered. “They’re going to hurt us too, if we don’t get out of this place, like, forever.”
“Hu—hu,” Bryce replied.
And then Xander was at Cordelia’s side.
She was never so happy to see a guy in her life.
Chapter 24
GEORGE HAD TO PUT WILLOW IN ANOTHER TRANCE. He could not stand to look at her cry.
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” his nephew David said. “I can’t do this either. Not to Willow.”
“Oh, no,” Eric said from the doorway. “It is too late now. You will help us, or I will kill you myself.”
David looked at the vampire, then back to George.
“Uncle?”
“Eric is right. We must follow through on this. It may be our last chance. It has to end tonight!”
“I brought a few more things to speed the spell,” Eric said as he pulled open a shoulder bag.
George was astonished as he looked inside. “How do you know so much about this?”
Eric smiled. “I thought by now it might be obvious. Come. Let us get started. I shall tell you as we go.”
George hurried to make the final preparations. He pulled free the sacrificial knife, nothing more than an ornament for the past two thousand years. Tonight, it would once again find its true use.
And, once Willow’s blood filled the basin, the real magic would begin.
Buffy watched the two men frown at the invisible wall.
Giles frowned. “I was sure this would work.”
“My uncle’s spells can be very powerful.”
Giles’s first attempt at breaching the spell didn’t appear to have done much of anything. Not that one could really tell. Short of total success, it was hard to see what sort of effect you were having on something that was invisible.
It had been doubly frustrating because as they approached the warehouse Buffy could have sworn she saw another man had entered the building. Ian didn’t know the man at all. Buffy was guessing from Oz’s description that it was Eric.
Ian and Giles argued over what approach they would take next. Every once in a while, Ian would steal a glance in her direction. Buffy smiled back at him. Even if there could never be anything between them, it was still great to fight side by side.
Ian threw something at the invisible barrier as Giles shouted a string of foreign words. There was a bright flash.
Buffy blinked, trying to regain her night vision. Both Ian and Giles were getting up off the ground.
“Well, that was rather more dramatic than I had expected,” Giles allowed.
“Yes,” Ian replied. “But did it work?” He thrust his hand forward. It stopped as though it had hit the same invisible wall.
Buffy couldn’t help herself. “Willow’s time is running out!”
Giles nodded. “I know. There’s got to be something that we can do.”
“But what?” Ian asked.
George chanted the primary spell, Eric the secondary.
They stopped. All the preparations were in place. It was time for the sacrifice.
But by now, George knew the answer. “You have not simply studied the Druids. You are a Druid yourself.”
Eric nodded. “I was one in life. And I have maintained many of the skills that I have learned there.”
“I should have realized, when you came to me that night when I had not invited you—”
“Yes. I had projected my image before you.”
“Something that I have done hundreds of times.” George shook his head. “Little wonder then that you see the importance of our work.”
“Little wonder,” Eric agreed.
“But we should begin. The time is drawing near.”
Eric glanced at David, watching them silently from the other side of the room. “What about your nephew?”
George waved away the other’s concern. “He will not participate, but he would not dare to interfere.”
“As you wish.”
Dave left the room. His uncle wished he could make the young man understand.
But it was growing late. George had to make the sacrifice. “Come. It is time for us to change the world.”
Giles was lost in his books. Ian was simply lost in thought.
“Hey,” Buffy called. “Look!”
Ian looked up at a broken window. “It’s Dave!”
“I’ve disabled the protection spell!” Dave called. “Get in here now! We need to save Willow.”
The three all gathered up their tools and quickly ran to the front door without any interference.
“I had to wait until they were too wrapped up in their spellcasting to notice,” Dave explained. “But since my uncle left me in charge of all the secondary spells, it was easy to shut one down. But we have to hurry! We only have a few minutes before my uncle uses the knife.”
A tiny circle of light appeared before them—a pulsing, red light. An entrance to the Hellmouth. George could barely breathe.
He had seen this light before.
No! No! Don’t let them near me!
The light grew, and George could hear the first faint cries of the damned, and the obscene demands of their keepers. Any of them might have the power to destroy the world. But according to the spell that Eric had given him, one had to open the Hellmouth before one could seal it.
Bursts of light came from the still-small opening, as though the things upon the other side wished to force their way through. But the opening would get no larger without the offering of blood.
George stared dow
n at the knife before him. In a moment, he could leave all his brother’s cries behind.
He picked up the knife and pricked his finger. First blood. The voices redoubled from the other side, entreating, cajoling, demanding. They wished to overwhelm him. Soon, though, I will seal them away forever.
The light swirled and grew—the size now, perhaps, of a tin can lid. When it was the size of a window, it would be time for the blood. The Druid chanted, and Eric joined in, drawing the power to them.
There was something wrong with the light.
It was far too red, the color of the power that had destroyed his brother—the color that had caused George to see the evil on the other side, to almost be consumed by it.
They could not control that power. It would control them.
“No!” George shouted. “The spell has gone wrong again!”
Eric smiled. “Oh, no, the spell could not be more right.”
George didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve never seen it, have you? This spell, all of this, has been for me all the time.”
“What?” George demanded. “For you? How could this be? My brother and I—”
“Played into my hands over a year ago. This spell was never about turning back the forces of darkness. That was merely the explanation I whispered in your ear. This spell has always been to bring the powers of darkness, to bring chaos upon the Earth, under my control.”
George was confused. This was impossible. No simple vampire should be able to break through his training, his own abilities, his protective spells.
Eric chuckled. “But I could not have done it without the resources of my former sect. Or without the power of the Hellmouth.”
George looked in horror as the red orb grew.
“You are not entirely to blame,” Eric continued. “I had you under a mastery spell. It was easy to do, after I killed your brother. You weren’t paying attention to much, other than your own guilt and shame. To amuse myself, I taught a local vampire a much cruder version of it to use on the locals. But I have refined my own gift over a thousand years, so that you would do whatever I require and not even realize you are being controlled. Until now, of course. It is so much more satisfying to see one of the great and holy Druids realizing that he has damned the whole world.”
“No!” George shouted. How could this be?
“You have control of your voice, but nothing else.” Eric smiled. “Now complete the spell. Pick up the knife. Sacrifice the girl.”
“No!” George said again, but he could feel his fingers curl around the hilt, feel his arm lift the knife above his head. Willow was tied to the makeshift altar before him.
“Take some consolation, George,” Eric continued. “There is no way, now, to avoid the blood. The spell has gone too far. It demands blood, or it will destroy us all, and probably all of Sunnydale besides. Now, kill her and let’s get on with it.”
No! He would not be a party to this any more. He would find a way to reverse this spell. He struggled to bring the knife back down to his side, but only succeeded in keeping it from lifting any higher.
“What?” a young woman’s voice called from just behind them. “You’re throwing a party and we weren’t invited?”
Without even turning around, he knew it was the Slayer.
Buffy ran into the room in front of the others, ready for action.
Willow was tied to a table in the middle of the room. She appeared to be out cold. The two others stood to either side of her, George dressed in ceremonial robes, Eric in basic vampire black.
“Kill her!” Eric demanded of George. “Kill her now! Once the spell is truly begun, I will bring things here from the Hellmouth that will swallow the Slayer whole.”
George appeared to be struggling with the knife in his hands, like he was having second thoughts. Or maybe the knife was. Buffy decided she’d try to push Eric back first, then disarm the Druid.
“Oh, that sounds just yummy,” she called to Eric. “But I don’t think I can stick around. I do, though, hate to kick and run.”
She whirled, aiming one of her patented Slayer kicks at his midsection.
But Eric was no longer there. Buffy almost lost her balance and had to come to a running stop.
“Watch out!” George called. “He’s a Druid! He can fool you into thinking he’s somewhere he’s not!”
Eric was suddenly at George’s side. “If you cannot kill the girl, then I will!” He reached for the knife.
Buffy kicked his hand away.
“Got you that time!” she called.
George screamed as he turned the knife on himself and cut a long, red gash on his arm.
But the red circle was growing, always growing, now the size of a manhole cover. And there were sounds coming from the other side—moans, and screams, and strange, strange laughter. But none of the voices sounded like they were having a good time.
“We have to stop it!” George called. “We have to stop it now!”
“No!” Giles said.
They had rushed quickly through the old building, led by Dave to that room where his uncle was conducting the spell. But the room was lit by flashes of a horrible light, and small fires burned in corners of the floor and on the walls.
They could not rush in there. In the next room, the Hellmouth was creeping into the world. If they drew too close, they might be consumed.
“It’s not safe in there!”
“That much I guessed,” Oz agreed. “But Willow’s in there!”
“Buffy, too!” Ian added.
Giles squinted, attempting to see into the increasing glare. The two men inside appeared to be having an argument.
“Do you have any way to protect us?” he called to Dave.
“Only my uncle knows the spell!” the young Druid replied.
“Stay back!” Giles called to the others. There had to be some way to get in there and get back out again. If only he could wrack his brain and come up with something.
A new flare shot from the growing disc of light at the room’s center. The entrance to the Hellmouth was growing stronger.
In a moment, they would have to try and rescue Buffy and Willow, no matter what.
George had been such a fool.
He had given this Eric everything he had wanted: a way to open the Hellmouth and even a young woman to be sacrificed. And now, through his stupidity, he was going to unleash upon the world the very thing he had tried so hard to prevent.
The gateway was growing larger. Already, he could see shadows on the other side, things eager to break into this world and destroy.
And Eric was correct. The spell was out of George’s hands, and Eric was adding to the power by blood. If he could not sacrifice Willow, the vampire would force George to sacrifice himself, just to keep the passage open.
But blood was only one component of the spell. It might control the gate, or it might close it. George had spoken with the other elders, debated the ancient rites, until he knew every aspect that the Druids remembered. The spell needed blood. But with the proper incantation, the blood could end the spell as well.
George’s mind was very clear. He could hear countless voices on the other side.
“Please, free me.”
“I can bear it no longer.”
“Give me souls and I will give you anything.”
He thought he saw eyes within the fires—eyes and mouths and hands—things that wished to take solid form if they could only step through the gate. They were very close. The spell would let them through.
Eric was laughing. “It is my time now! I will destroy you all!”
There was no helping it. George had brought this power to the edge of the world. He would have to force it back.
He still had the knife.
He raised it, and plunged it quickly into his own stomach, drawing the ancient blade all the way across. That should provide the blood.
But if he was not careful, his internal organs would spill
out onto the floor. He clutched the wound together, and, saying those five words that would end the spell, leapt into the growing red orb.
He was surrounded by fire. By placing himself there, his burning form would close the way, cauterize the wound. He would be the seal that would keep the world safe from the Hellmouth.
He only had an instant to scream.
Everyone stopped when the circle disappeared.
“Buffy?” Willow opened her eyes and sat up.
“What happened?” Buffy said.
“My uncle sacrificed himself to end the spell,” Ian explained. “For now, the magic has completely gone out of this place.
“The magic is gone?” Buffy turned to the figure in black. “Then Eric is only a vampire. I know how to deal with vampires.” She pulled a stake from her bag.
Eric rushed at Buffy with a roar.
Buffy set herself to meet his change, certain she could avoid his fangs and stake him. She reached out to grasp his wrist.
But he wasn’t there. He had avoided her counter attack. He was as fast as any vampire she’d ever fought.
“Slayer!” Eric whispered.
She almost looked at his face, before she remembered the mastery spell. It had killed Kendra, it could kill her as well. Perhaps the Druidic power was gone from the room, but who could say if the ancient vampire magic was gone as well?
She couldn’t let Eric look her in the eyes.
“Look at me, Slayer!”
But Buffy was already on the move, watching his hands, his feet, anything but the eyes to tell her what he might do next.
“I don’t know,” she said lightly. “You’ve seen one vampire, you’ve pretty much seen them all.”
Eric roared even louder than before. She watched his form approach, shifting her weight to one side, and noting how he shifted direction to counter her new position. He wanted to get her off balance, twist her around so he could reach her neck.
Two could play a game of surprise.
She took a step backward, dropping her stake hand low as if Eric’s charge frightened her, and all she could think of was escape. Eric shifted again, rushing straight at her now, eager for the kill.
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