Out of the Madhouse

by Christopher Golden

  “What did you say?” he asked slowly, incredulously.

  “I said that you gross me out,” she shot back. And then she did what she hadn’t imagined she could make herself do. She laughed at him, laughed from deep inside where her hysteria was hiding.

  “How dare you!” Springheel Jack raged, and fire spewed from his mouth.

  Cordelia felt heat on her back. Summoning her courage, she glanced at him over her shoulder. “How dare I what? Make fun of a clown like you?”

  “A clown?” he sputtered. “A clown?”

  He stared at her slack-jawed. Then he narrowed his dark eyes and more flame shot from his mouth.

  Beside her, a rack of flimsy old clothes burst into a blaze. Like a trail of gunpowder, the fire traveled over other clothes, a row of hats, the aged wallpaper itself. Within seconds, half the room was engulfed in fire. The bed went up. The mirror shattered.

  The flames were about to reach the rope that held the attic door in place.

  Cordelia had figured out the old ghost lady’s plan. Make him mad enough to set the place on fire with his raging bile, then trap him before he could get to her. But if the flames reached the rope before Cordelia herself could get downstairs . . .

  “Will you be okay?” she yelled at the wheelchair. It rolled forward slightly just before the floor beneath it burst into flame, and it was engulfed. Cordelia caught her breath. She would have to take that as a yes.

  “Okay, then.” She sneered at Springheel Jack as he stood bewildered, surrounded on all sides by a firestorm. “Maybe you’ll find a girl your type when you get to Hell!”

  She turned to flee. Before she could reach the steps, the attic door shot downward with the force of a guillotine blade and covered up the entrance, effectively trapping her inside the burning room with Springheel Jack.

  Cordelia screamed. Taking a step back, she looked up. The fire had reached the end of the rope which hung behind the mirror and it had burned all too quickly.

  “Alone at last, sweet love. Come to me, Cordelia,” Jack said softly.

  Tears spilled down Cordelia’s cheeks. She was actually going to die. Above her head, the rafters burned furiously. A huge plank of wood dislodged and careened toward her like a bomb.

  She shrieked and jumped out of the way.

  Now she was closer to Springheel Jack, who smiled at her and said, “We must hurry, my darling. We wouldn’t want to burn to death before we have had one single moment in each other’s arms.”

  “Heck, no,” she muttered. The smoke was beginning to overwhelm her; she could barely see. Through slitted lids, she glanced desperately around.

  The only escape was the window. She didn’t know if Jack had figured that out, but that didn’t really matter, did it? If she couldn’t get to it, she was going to cook to death. But Jack was in her way.

  Coughing, she took another step toward him. Her foot caught on something, and she glanced down. It was the iron center support for the padded seamstress’s mannequin, now burned away. A little unwieldy for her, but it would have to do.

  She hefted it and tried to assume the same fighting stance she had seen Buffy take a thousand times. Only now she was the fighter, facing a monster that had defeated Buffy.

  She wouldn’t cry.

  She would not.

  “Oh, my brave beauty,” Springheel Jack said admiringly. “What a couple we’ll make.”

  Then he ran at her.

  Cordelia cried out and swung the support. He was too far away. She swung again, grunting with the effort. Her eyes bulged when she realized that she’d actually hit him, making hard contact with his left hip.

  “You . . . bitch,” he said, stunned, and opened his mouth.

  She swung again.

  The metal frame cracked against his face, and his head rocked back, his whole body thrown off balance.

  Springheel Jack turned, snarled, and vomited flame at her.

  At the same time that the floor gave way beneath him.

  With a scream he disappeared, fire streaming toward the burning ceiling like a geyser. Terrified, Cordelia sobbed and held on to her weapon.

  Then she picked her way through the burning room to the window, climbed out, and tried to hold on. But she was exhausted, and there wasn’t much to hold on to, and she knew she would soon let go.

  “Xander,” she screamed. “Xander, where the hell are you? You got me into this and you better get me out or you’re so dead!”

  * * *

  “You’re making an awfully big production out of this, aren’t you?” Xander asked, only moments after he had returned to consciousness.

  The ghouls had carried him deep into the overgrown garden. He lay on the ground and fought not to cry out as he realized the grinning white blob he was staring at was a human skull.

  There were more of them now. Perhaps a dozen in total, including two horrid-looking, stooped things, smaller than the others. Ghoul children, Xander thought in horror. The whole family.

  “We have not eaten flesh in centuries,” said the old guy with blood in his beard. He was actually rubbing his hands together.

  “I’ll disappoint you,” Xander promised. “It’s my stock in trade.”

  They had grabbed his arms and legs, and the oldest ghoul was trying to take the first bite. Xander kind of wished they’d bash his skull in first, but it looked like no such luck.

  One of the ghouls said, “Is that smoke?”

  And suddenly it was raining fire. Huge timbers slammed down around them, exploding into blazing grenades over their heads.

  The ghouls holding Xander screamed and let go. Drained and injured though he was, he jumped up and ran for all he was worth. He dared only one glance over his shoulder, following the trail of flames as they spewed onto the fleeing ghouls. An overhanging wing of the house was on fire, and the ravaged section was falling into the courtyard.

  If his geography was right, it was the wing of the house where he and Cordelia had been confronted by the ghost . . . the one with the window through which he’d crashed.

  “Cordy,” Xander breathed. Then he shouted her name, even as he cursed her under his breath. All the times he’d wanted to kill her, and here he was, once again, trying to figure out how to save her.

  “I hate irony,” he grumbled.

  Stumbling, he reached a set of French doors and grabbed the handles, tugging with all his strength.

  They were locked.

  “No!” He slammed his full weight against them. “Cordelia!”

  He slammed again, over and over. He was just about to abandon them and race to another set of doors when they opened.

  A very old man in a black turtleneck sweater and olive trousers stood on the threshold of the house. Ragged and pasty-faced, his dark brown eyes were ringed with black circles. There was heavy gray stubble on his chin. He looked terrible. Maybe even worse than Xander.

  “Fiend, are you with the Sons?” he demanded, then doubled over in a coughing fit that wracked his body. His fingers were sticklike, the veins protruding from the backs of his hands in a maze of blue and purple.

  “Fiend? Me? Have you looked in the garden lately?” Xander shot back, pushing open the door.

  The man wiped his mouth. There was blood on his fingers, but he took no notice as he glared at Xander and straightened his shoulders. Suddenly, he looked younger, though still so old that a few decades would do little to diminish his decrepitude.

  “Son of Entropy, I’m the one you seek. I am Jean-Marc Regnier.

  “I am the Gatekeeper.”

  * * *

  Buffy faced the three huge animals crouched in the doorway. The two men and the woman had completely transformed into black panthers, deadly and sleek. Their short black velvet fur covered rippling, jungle-deadly musculature. The tall man had become an immense animal, and a shock of gray ran down the spine of his shorter, more brutish companion. The woman was the smallest, but it was she who led the pack as they crept forward, low to the ground, yellow eyes a
lways on Buffy.

  All three of the enormous beasts bared their long, wicked fangs, growling deep in their chests.

  The female swiped at the air, flashing savage claws capable of tearing an arm off with a single motion. Buffy’s instinct for self-preservation screamed at her to get the hell away from them, but in this madhouse, she didn’t know where to run.

  The animals sprang through the doorway.

  Without a second’s hesitation, she launched a high side kick that took the female in the face, turning her away and blocking the charge of another. Then she leaped into the air and slammed down with all her weight on the hind end of the larger male. With a roar of fury he turned on her, crouching low, preparing to spring.

  Buffy shifted into a fighting stance, looked at the panther, and snarled in return. “I don’t know if you can understand me or not,” she said, “but here’s a newsflash: if you three don’t leave me alone, I’m going to kill you all.”

  How, she had no idea. She just hoped the panthers believed her.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t.

  The animal she had attacked seemed wounded, though she knew not badly. He regarded her coolly and struggled to rise. The other two continued to glare and growl.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you!” Buffy shouted. Beads of perspiration gathered on her temples as she pulled a stake from her belt. The Slayer was not supposed to show fear, but she had no other weapons, and she had never fought panthers before. Hyena people, yes. But not actual wild animals.

  She held the stake point out and took one slow step toward them. Then another.

  The larger male hissed at her. She felt at her belt, got another stake, and held it business-end in her left hand. Her mind raced, trying to formulate a plan if they should all charge her at the same time.

  She didn’t have the time.

  As if on cue, they rushed her, growling savagely. She felt the sharp, numbing sting of a bite, had no idea where she had been bitten. Her head snapped violently back, and the gray-striped panther struck her chin with the back of his forepaw, almost like a slap. If she had not been the Slayer, the impact would probably have broken her neck.

  She had a chance to get in a sharp jab to his paw before the animal drew it back. It roared in angry pain and lowered its head, its jaws wide open, and charged her.

  She feinted to the left, then catapulted herself across the animal’s line of approach, stake outstretched to make contact with its head as it launched itself at her. Her timing was good; the sharp point lodged in the panther’s mouth, piercing its tongue and the inside of its throat.

  The beast went berserk. As Buffy hit the opposite wall of the hallway, the huge head rolled left, right; it let out a roar that shook the walls.

  Buffy would have loved the luxury of panic, but she could not afford to waste precious moments. She pushed her back against the wall and scrabbled to a standing position. The panther dropped to the floor and began wildly pawing at his snout. Buffy knew that within seconds he would recover and come at her again.

  The female sprang, its powerful leap rocketing it on a direct path toward Buffy’s head. Buffy dropped. The animal sailed over her head and rammed into the wall. The female panther turned even as it fell, attempting to redirect its momentum. Buffy drove her stake into the animal’s abdomen. Blood spurted and gushed down her arm, spattering her face, as the animal thrashed on the floor.

  The gray-striped panther began to slink toward her.

  The wounded female rose halfway up, then fell back on its side. It lay along the corridor, its face away from Buffy. From the wound in its abdomen, blood spilled onto the carpet. But now the largest of the three, the one whose hindquarters she’d bruised, had regained its feet and was stalking her alongside gray stripe.

  They moved in.

  Without turning, Buffy slowly retreated. But as she moved to put as much distance between her and the panthers as possible, she ran into something as hard as stone. Her fingers reached backward and examined it quickly. It had to be another of the barriers erected in the house, weirdly misplaced as the house shifted once more.

  As quickly and quietly as she could, she began to run her hands over it, searching for a latch, a doorknob, anything she could use to escape. Into what? That was a consideration, but not one she had the luxury of making.

  As the two males slowly stalked her, preparing to pounce, Buffy saw the female roll onto its back. As Buffy stared, the animal lifted its head. Slowly the black velvet fur disappeared as its muzzle shrank back into a woman’s face. As she panted hard, fighting for breath, she narrowed her eyes at Buffy. Blood burbled from her mouth.

  “Don’t bother running,” she said. Then as she coughed up gouts of tissue and blood, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed onto the carpet. Within seconds, she was fully human.

  The other two panthers threw back their heads and howled. In unison they glared at Buffy.

  They tensed to spring.

  * * *

  There was so much blood in Giles’s eyes that he could barely see. The tiny monsters that raked his flesh were hideous, with black sticklike bodies and elongated stomachs. They plucked at him with long needle fingers and teeth that were longer still, and they shoved the bits of skin into their mouths as if they’d been starving for centuries. As they yanked off his flesh in strips, their stomachs grew, until those nearest him actually began to pop, disgorging rotten flesh which must have come from earlier victims.

  Giles batted at them, but there were too many, and they came at him from all sides. It would have been easier to free himself from a swarm of wasps.

  His instinct was to roll into a ball, if only to protect himself from further harm, but he knew that then he would be lost. He did manage to stuff his hands into the pockets of his tweed jacket, and he put his hand around the rose quartz Pallamary had given him at the hospital.

  Giles had forgotten it was there. Now his first thought was that the quartz was cursed, and had helped to embellish, if not create, the havoc all around him. Perhaps if he got rid of it, the monsters would disappear.

  Wincing against the pain it cost him to move, he tossed the quartz into their midst.

  The air rent in two. A vortex of crackling blue energy took up residence in the center of the room, dervishing in a circle. It opened a portal—Giles saw it clearly—and black and purple light danced within.

  Then the monsters began to be sucked into the black circle. In tiny, shrill voices, they flailed helplessly through the air as the portal pulled them in. They clung to Giles’s clothes, his hair, his ears and fingers. To no avail: one by one they disappeared.

  The rose quartz went with them.

  After the passage of mere seconds, they were gone. Giles stood in the wood, catching his breath. So the rose quartz had been a protective talisman after all. He was surprised that Pallamary had given it to him. Perhaps then, he had not been marked for death, but for capture, as had happened to him before. Then why were other Watchers being killed?

  Having no answer, he moved painfully to the doorway, crossed the threshold, and slammed the door shut. Whatever madness still lay within the room would hopefully remain there.

  For now, at least, he was not in immediate peril of his life. And so—as always—his next thought was of Buffy.

  * * *

  “I killed your girlfriend,” Buffy said to the two panthers as they crept toward her. “And I’m an equal opportunity Slayer. Boys get no special treatment.”

  Gray stripe roared and sprang at her. Buffy twirled in the air and got off a roundhouse kick, connecting squarely with its jaw. The panther was enraged; he swiped at her with his left paw, then his right, but Buffy dodged out of the way like a prizefighter.

  Still it came at her, darting forward, biting the air as she flung herself to the floor, rolled, then flipped to her feet.

  Where was the other? Her eyes darted around, trying to keep a fix on both of them. Gray stripe could just be distracting her, setting her up for his big
brother to come in for the kill.

  “Buffy!”

  It was Giles.

  She called, “In the corridor!” and realized how stupid that was. This place probably had a kazillion corridors. “Stairway!” And a bazillion stairways. “Panthers!” Maybe he had found a map of all the rooms.

  * * *

  Bemused, Giles stood before the door and placed his hand on the knob. From the sound of Buffy’s voice, he could swear that she was on the other side. But was it a trick of the house? Some mismatched set of magickal variables he would be mortally sorry he had trusted?

  If he opened this door, would something else try to kill him, and very possibly succeed?

  He pushed up his glasses with a philosophical shrug. That didn’t matter, did it? If there was the least chance that his death could save the Slayer, then he would die. It was that simple. One shouldn’t take foolhardy chances, of course, but when faced with the possibility that one’s sacrifice most likely would produce the end result, then—

  “Giles!”

  He opened the door.

  * * *

  The big panther merely watched as Buffy fought gray stripe; the Slayer understood it was waiting for her to get tired. Once she was worn out, it might join in. Or maybe it would simply claim the larger portion of the spoils, it being the big kahuna and all.

  Buffy had no time to wipe the blood and sweat from her face. Nor the tears of frustration. If there’d only been this one panther to battle, she would have pulled it off. But there were two. Which meant, in reality, that sooner or later she was going to die.

  * * *

  Behind the beautiful cherry-wood door stood another beautiful cherry-wood door.

  Giles was reminded of those American game shows where the picking of doors provided the highlight of the entire tawdry and tedious event. Or perhaps, more prosaically, of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. So he opened door number two.

  Covered from head to toe in blood, Buffy was struggling with an enormous black jungle cat.