“Well, thanks,” Cordy told the cop.
She guided the car into a U-turn and drove back toward the center of town. After a quarter of a mile, they turned north on Shore Road and pulled over as soon as the shoulder was wide enough for the car.
“You’re sure about this?” Cordelia asked, anxiously glancing up and down the street. “If my car gets stolen . . .”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Buffy reassured her. “But if you’re nervous about it, just stay with the car.”
Buffy and Xander got out, and for a moment, Cordelia remained behind the wheel. The engine ticked slowly as it cooled off in the darkness. There were no streetlights on Shore Road. This close to the docks, there were very few homes. Just over the rise to the west were warehouses and the ocean, but here . . . nothing.
“Wait up!” Cordelia said, and hurried to get out of the car. Buffy watched as she slammed the door behind her and clicked on her alarm. It chirped, confirming its vigilance. Then Cordy was rushing to join Buffy and Xander, and the three of them went over the rise together and soon found themselves walking behind a long row of warehouses and a cannery that had been closed since before any of them were born.
In the distance, they could hear sirens and the roar of truck engines.
* * *
One was tall and wiry, with dark hair and a beard shot with white. The other was bald, with a neatly trimmed beard and a startling face: one eye was pure, milk white and surrounded by a sunburst scar, the other was a dark brown, almost black. Both wore clothes selected to make their wearers completely forgettable: the tall one, Brother Galen, wore a fisherman’s sweater and a pair of jeans. The bald, scarred man, Brother Lupo, had on a tailored shirt and a pair of gray Dockers.
They stood side by side in the darkness on the small rise just off Shore Road. From their vantage point, they could see the Slayer and her companions as the three trekked toward the site of the evening’s catastrophe. Even as Galen and Lupo watched, the Stayer led the others between two large buildings and out to the wharf, where they turned to walk along the ocean. In the distance, the sky was lit by the flickering of fire and the flashing of emergency lights.
“Now?” Brother Galen asked respectfully.
“We go,” Lupo confirmed. “But remember, Il Maestro has decreed that the Slayer be taken alive. We need her knowledge. He needs her power.”
Lupo gripped Galen’s jaw and turned the other man’s head to face him. He stared into the other’s eyes grimly. “You have a taste for violence, Galen,” he said knowingly, intimately. “This is neither the time nor the place to indulge that taste.”
“Yes, Brother Lupo,” Galen said gently. “You speak for Il Maestro, and I obey his words.”
Brother Lupo raised a pair of binoculars, though he could see through only one lens, and scanned between buildings for the Slayer. He found nothing.
“Quickly,” he said. “But silently, Brother.”
Together, they moved swiftly down the small incline to the back of a large green-gray warehouse, and then began to trot almost soundlessly along the cracked parking lot. After the next building, the two men turned toward the water. On the right, another warehouse, and on the left, the abandoned cannery, whose every window had been shattered long ago. From inside came the whisper of wings, though whether bats or gulls, neither man bothered to guess.
The ocean washed against the wharf ahead, but when they reached the delivery road that ran in front of the warehouses, they stopped. Slowly, they turned the corner and looked south along the water, where a warehouse burned savagely. A large fishing trawler, mast buckled and hull breached, jutted from the side of the burning warehouse as if it had been impaled there. And, somehow, it had.
“Chaos’ name!” Brother Lupo breathed, and stared in awe.
They saw the Slayer and her companions hurrying toward the site and set off after them, sticking close to the front of the ancient, deserted cannery.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice whispered in the dark.
Even as Lupo began to turn, Brother Galen shrieked in agony. The thing that had whispered had used its claws to tear open Galen’s belly, and even now, he frantically tried to keep his guts from spilling out, unaware that he was dying.
“You!” Lupo said, startled, as he stared at the creature. For he knew it, or at least, he had seen it before. The white, oily flesh, the black eyes like wounds . . . It was called Springheel Jack.
“This is not supposed to happen,” Lupo said, shaking his head and gaping in horror at the killer and at the body of Brother Galen as it slid to the pavement with a wet slap.
“That’s what they all say,” Springheel Jack whispered pleasantly.
Then it opened its mouth wide, baring needle teeth, and vomited blue-white flame at Lupo’s face.
“No!” Lupo screamed, and his hands came up quickly, flashing past one another as if weaving something . . . and they were. Weaving a spell, creating a shield that turned the blue flame away from him.
“How did you do that?” Springheel Jack asked angrily. “How did you . . . ah, but no matter. I will split your rib cage, and your entrails will join the other’s on the ground.”
“Chaos’ name, no,” Lupo said, terrified as he watched the moonlight glint off the killer’s talons.
Then, a shout: “Hey!”
Springheel Jack turned, and the Slayer was there with a brutal snap kick to the face that sent him reeling. Behind her, her male companion, the one they called Xander, stepped in toward the murderous fiend and swung a piece of lumber he must have picked up from the road or one of the buildings. The wood connected with a satisfying crunch, and even Brother Lupo winced.
The Slayer moved easily, her every muscle prepared for battle, a confident warrior, intent upon victory. She needn’t have bothered, her companion kept after Springheel Jack. The board flashed back and forth, first from one direction, then another. With each impact, the monster reeled, falling back. It opened its mouth, tried to spit fire, and its attacker slammed the board against its head. It stumbled back toward the edge of the dock. Seeing that it could not fight, it crouched, prepared to leap away.
“Uh-uh,” the Slayer’s companion said, and swung the board with savage strength against the fiend’s legs.
Springheel Jack grunted. As it fell, it slashed its claws out toward the boy who had humiliated it so. Talons tore just through the boy’s shirt before the Slayer intervened. With a spin and a snap, she kicked Springheel Jack in the chest with tremendous force, and the fiend tumbled backward off the wharf and hit the ocean with a splash.
“I had him!” Xander said, rounding on the Slayer.
“You did,” the Slayer agreed. “But he almost tagged you with those claws. You did great, Xander. Teamwork, remember.”
“Wow. Do you guys think he’s dead?” asked the girl who had accompanied the Slayer and Xander. Cordelia, Lupo thought her name was. An appropriate appellation for one of such classic beauty.
“Not likely,” the Slayer replied, then finally turned to Lupo himself, whom she had saved. “But I don’t think he’ll be back any time soon. What about you, mister? Are you okay?”
Xander said, “I’ll check on the other guy. Maybe an ambulance . . . Cord, get out your cell phone, just in case.”
The Slayer said to Lupo, “I think you’re in shock.”
For a moment, Lupo could only stare at her in awe. She was an extraordinary creature, just as all the legends said. But to see her this close, why, it nearly took his breath away. The Slayer. In a world where so many legends had disappeared into the mists of time, to see her there before him was one of the most sublime moments of his life.
“Hello?” the Slayer prodded. “Do you want to sit down?” Still he didn’t speak. “Are you all right?”
“Sure, Buffy, he’s terrific,” the beautiful Cordelia said with great archness as she pulled a cellular phone from her purse. “He just saw some mons . . . monster-mask-wearing gang member on crack attack his friend
.” Cordelia looked at Xander. “So, 9-1-1?”
“I don’t think so,” Xander said, rising. He stopped in front of the corpse of Brother Galen, perhaps shielding the exquisite young woman from the carnage.
“I‘m sorry, man,” Xander said to Lupo. His dark eyes were sad, his jaw set in a grim, somber line. “I, ah, think, well, actually, I know that your friend is dead.”
“Oh, merciful heavens,” Lupo groaned, his accent thick and noticeable even to him at that moment. Could they hear the lack of sorrow in his voice as well? “Dear Brother . . . my brother,” he said brokenly.
“Your brother? Oh, wow, I’m really sorry,” the Slayer told him sincerely. “I . . . we came as fast as we could.”
“And quickly indeed,” Lupo agreed, “or my life would have been forfeit as well.” He lowered his head. “To that . . . gangster.”
“Um, listen, we’ll go tell the cops about what happened. Just hang out and they’ll be down, all right?” Xander suggested, patting him on the arm.
“Thank you,” Lupo said simply.
The Slayer stared at him, and for a wild moment he thought that somehow she knew who he was. He kept his head down, hoping he conveyed the proper posture of bereavement. In truth, he cared nothing for Brother Galen. But his frustration was growing into anger; he’d known Springheel Jack was in Sunnydale—the Hellmouth had drawn him—but was it mere coincidence that he had come upon them so far from the town’s main residential area? The monster should have been hunting, and therefore, could reasonably have been expected to remain near the largest concentration of people.
Brother Lupo blinked, his reverie broken as he realized that the Slayer and her friends were moving away quickly, whispering and glancing back toward him in sympathy. When they had disappeared into the night, Brother Lupo counted to one hundred. Then he walked over to the cooling corpse of Brother Galen, picked up his feet and dragged him by his legs to the edge of the dock. His intestines trailed alongside him, leaving a bloody swatch on the pavement and then the wood of the wharf. The splash when the body hit the water was barely audible over the sounds of chaos from down the shore.
Lovely chaos, he thought, and then set off after the Slayer. It would be more difficult, now that she had seen him, but Lupo knew he must not lose track of her, or Il Maestro would see him damned to hell for eternity.
The Slayer, Brother Lupo thought. And then he whispered, “Bellissima.”
* * *
“So, Buffy,” Cordelia said idly, almost as if they weren’t marching toward catastrophe, “do you really think Springheel Jack is still alive?”
“I don’t think a little bath is going to hurt him,” Buffy replied grimly.
“What?” Xander protested, holding his hands open like a preacher. “I kicked his ass! He’s ghost, ladies. Gone. Poof.”
Buffy shrugged lightly. “Let’s hope so.”
By then they had gotten close enough to the main dock area to see the scale of the destruction there, and the sight was enough to belay any further conversation on the subject. A pair of long docks that had once jutted far out into the water were nothing but splinters now. At least two ships that Buffy could see had been sunk, one with its prow pointing starward, and the other smashed into two large pieces which were nearly submerged.
Then there was the warehouse fire, and the boat that jutted from the blazing building like a broken sword from the chest of a fallen warrior. There were five fire trucks, three ambulances, and a score of police cars. Miraculously, the firefighters seemed to have the blaze under some kind of control, and it was rapidly diminishing in power. Buffy watched in awe. She’d always thought of firefighters as the true modern heroes. Men and women who faced death willingly every day to save the lives and livelihoods of others.
Wow.
They walked toward a tight knot of police cars. Xander and Cordelia hung back a moment, apparently unsure of how to proceed. Buffy urged them on with a tilt of her head, and they weaved through the cars. Just to Buffy’s left, an older, white-haired cop who looked somewhat familiar—familiar enough for Buffy not to want to get too close to him in case he remembered her as well—was questioning a thirtyish, dark-skinned dock worker whose arms were thick with ropy muscle. He was a clean-cut guy, and well spoken. The image of the old man of the sea with his pipe and a little too much to drink went right out the window.
“Let’s talk about what you really saw, not these wild stories,” the white-haired cop said emphatically.
“Do I look like a drunk to you?” the man demanded of the cop, and Buffy smiled, thinking about how much his words echoed her thoughts of a moment ago. “No, really. I’ve been working these docks since my fourteenth birthday. I’ve heard every tall tale from every fisherman and sailor who’s come into port here for nearly twenty years. I know a fish story when I hear one, Officer, and so I can’t blame you.
“But this thing was real, you understand? This really happened.”
“Now, Mr. Curtis, don’t get carried away,” the cop said condescendingly. “I’m sure this was very traumatic for you.”
“Damn right it was traumatic!” the man snapped. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Look around you, you idiot! You ever seen anything like this before? Other than a hurricane or a tornado, what could do this? Hell, I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen, and the tentacles on the thing are strong enough to do that!”
Mr. Curtis pointed to the boat jutting from the now merely smoldering building. Buffy’s eyes widened as she considered his words. Tentacles? It sounded crazy, but he seemed anything but. And in Sunnydale . . .
“You watch the way you speak to an officer of the law,” the old cop said angrily. “And as far as these cockamamie . . .”
The cop’s eyes had fallen on Buffy, Xander, and Cordelia.
“You kids have a reason to be here?” the cop demanded. “Clear out of here, before I find a reason to give you trouble.”
He was about to turn his attention back to Curtis when he blinked, then focused his attention on Buffy. “Hey,” he said. “Aren’t you . . .”
“Leaving!” Xander finished. “Absolutely. Right away. Great idea.”
With his fingers tightly gripping Buffy’s arm, Xander wrapped his other arm around Cordelia’s waist, gave her a quick kiss, and then propelled them both back the way they’d come. Back toward Cordelia’s car.
“Are we talking sea monster here?” Buffy asked when they were a good distance away, the ocean lolling gently against the wooden posts that supported the wharf.
“Sounds like it, yeah.”
“Wait a minute, guys,” Cordelia said, and they both stopped to look at her. She was staring down at a small pool of blood and a thin trail of it that led to the edge of the wharf, just above the water.
“Isn’t this where that guy was killed just now? By Springheel Jack?” she asked.
Xander and Buffy looked around. Even as Xander agreed with Cordelia’s assessment, Buffy crouched to look at the blood trail.
“Tell me that’s Springheel Jack’s blood,” Xander pleaded.
“I don’t think so,” Buffy said. “Either someone came to help the other guy and he turned out to be a bad guy, or Springheel Jack came back.”
“Or the guy you saved just dumped his brother’s body,” Cordelia added.
“Oh, sure. They’re tourists with funny accents, and his brother is eviscerated by a monster, so hey, it’s Dumpster time!” Xander said, huffing.
“He thought Springheel Jack was in a gang,” Cordelia persisted. “You didn’t exactly see him screaming hysterically?”
“No, because I believe that’s your own private Idaho,” Xander shot back. “You know, not everyone goes around shrieking at every little demonic thing that pops up.”
“Oh, is that right?” Cordelia shot at him. “Mr. Macho Man?”
Buffy frowned, glanced at the two of them. She hated to admit it, for several reasons, but it was possible Cordelia wa
s right. If the two guys were illegal immigrants, it was more than likely that he had not gone to the police, and had wanted to hide any evidence of his presence here from the authorities.
Before she could reply, the sky cracked open with a blast of thunder that rumbled through the air like a tidal wave about to crash down on their heads. They covered their ears a moment and just stood there.
With her hands clapped over her ears, Buffy let her eyes wander aimlessly over the black Pacific, moonlight flickering off the crests of each wave. Then something broke the surface of the water. Something huge, with massive tentacles or arms, and far too many of those for Buffy’s tastes. It was the biggest living thing Buffy had ever seen, and she only got a glimpse of it. Of part of it.
“Oh my God,” she said, as the skyquake echoed off into the sky. Xander and Cordelia followed her gaze, and they saw what she saw. “Now how in hell do I slay that?”
* * *
Giles slept fitfully and woke with a feeling of profound anxiety just after two in the morning that Sunday. He tried, with moderate success, to get back to sleep, but when his eyes fluttered open again and he saw that it was nearly half past three, he sat up painfully in his hospital bed. He quickly calculated the time difference between New York and London—it would be half past eight there now—then picked up the beige hospital phone and asked for an outside line. He dialed the number he’d been using, and then listened to it ring on the other end: two, four, eight times. The Council would not be so unrefined as to have an answering machine, of course. What would their message say, after all? But at the very least, there ought to be a butler or maid already about at . . .
On the eleventh ring, a deep male voice answered. He recognized it as belonging to Ian Williams, the new assistant he’d spoken to earlier.
“Yes, hello. It’s Rupert Giles,” he said quickly. “Sorry to disturb you at this early hour . . .”
“Early here, Mr. Giles, but an ungodly hour where you are,” Williams said. “Has something happened?”
“Precisely my question,” Giles replied. “Your Miss Tomasi was here yesterday afternoon. She left about a quarter to two, and was due to return last evening by seven. She never appeared, nor did she phone with a message. No word at all. I’ve tried her hotel, left word for her, but there seems to be no sign of her. What with the news she brought me, I was a bit alarmed. I would look for her myself, of course, but I have one more round of tests tomorrow before the doctors will release me.”
Out of the Madhouse Page 8
