A debate for another time, perhaps.
“Thank you, Madame Regnier,” he said with a slightly embarrassed smile. Giles was not completely alien to the concept of flirtation, but it had never been something he was adept at. Flirtation with a spirit was another thing entirely. It was not merely uncomfortable, but chilling.
The ghost of Antoinette Regnier floated through the library door and into the hallway. The others were off elsewhere in the house. They were supposed to be getting settled into their rooms now that the place was stable once more. Giles doubted that very much, however. He suspected that they were attempting to reach Willow or Oz, to find out what was happening in Sunnydale in their absence. Cordelia’s cellular phone did not seem to be working, and Giles had suggested they step out beyond the magickal field that keeps the house hidden from the outside world. After that, they would likely explore what they could of the house. He hoped they were careful of what doors they opened.
Leading him, the ghost glided up the great central staircase with an elegance that he could never hope to achieve. Giles followed, eyes straying to survey the incredible furnishings in the home—the woodwork and tapestries, the paintings and the windows—but his gaze would not stay away from Antoinette for long.
No matter how many ghosts he had encountered in his time as a Watcher, they never ceased to fascinate him.
“I should think you will all find yourselves quite comfortable here,” Antoinette whispered. Or more precisely, she spoke, and the ghostly voice floated to Giles as if it had been spoken very quietly just behind his ear. “If there is anything you need, please call out for me. I don’t sleep, of course.”
They paused in front of the heavy door to the Gatekeeper’s own bedchamber. The ghost put a finger to her lips and shushed Giles, as if one librarian and a ghostly old woman were going to make much noise. Then she passed right through the door, leaving Giles standing just outside it, feeling more than a bit foolish.
Should he knock? Just walk in? He chose both. He knocked twice, lightly, and then turned the knob and stepped into the room. There were some of the most amazing artifacts he’d ever seen before in that very room. But what drew his eye, of course, was the figure of the Gatekeeper, stretched out on top of the mattress with a dying man’s abandon. His face was ragged and exhausted, his arms so limp Giles assumed the man felt too weak to move any further.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Giles,” the Gatekeeper said, and coughed several times during the sentence. “As you can see, I am in no condition to greet you. I have prolonged my life with magick for too long. Soon, I will pass.”
Giles glanced at the huge black cauldron at the far side of the room, and at the long wooden spear, or lance, with an ancient-looking, battered metal tip that lay on the bed with the Gatekeeper, clutched in his old-man hands.
“The Cauldron?” he asked, and nodded toward the huge iron pot.
“Indeed,” Regnier agreed. “One immersion used to buy me twenty years. Now it can barely give me the hours I need to speak with you. Even then, I am only able to retain control over the sorcerous matrix of the house by the power I draw from the spear.”
Giles blinked, then looked more closely at the spear. An idea occurred to him, and his eyes widened. Without realizing he was doing it, he actually took two steps backward.
“That isn’t . . .” he began, then shook his head as if denying it would force the truth away.
Weakly, the Gatekeeper smiled. “All right. It isn’t. Does that make you more comfortable?”
The Watcher swallowed, then reached up to rub his eyes beneath his glasses, settling the frame more comfortably on the bridge of his nose. Whatever else he had seen in this house, whatever else he would see, these two artifacts dwarfed it all. According to myth, the Cauldron of Bran the Blessed would restore vigor to a dying man, or even restore life to the dead. The only story Giles had heard of it surfacing had come from Gundestrup in Denmark. The Gatekeeper must have retrieved it from there.
The spear was something else entirely. Once, almost two thousand years before, the spear had reportedly belonged to a Roman soldier named Longinus. It was said that while Jesus was dying on the cross, Longinus had pierced his side with the spear.
Its powers had been debated for millennia, but certain things were known as facts. Anyone who held it in his hands could not be defeated in battle, nor killed by an opponent, as long as the weapon remained in his grasp. The legendary Emperor Constantine had, according to history, won thirty-seven military campaigns in a row, and died only when he had the misfortune to accidentally drop the spear.
It could not win a war, but it could make its owner the most fearsome warrior to ever walk the Earth. And, apparently, it could also lend a little of that strength to the ailing.
“Mr. Giles?” the Gatekeeper asked.
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Sorry. This is all a bit . . . overwhelming.”
“I understand. But time is of the essence now.”
Giles nodded. “Indeed. Though as you do not seem to have any family about, no heir, if you’ll forgive me, I’m not certain what can be done to preserve the integrity of the Gatehouse.”
The old man on the bed nodded only slightly, just enough for Giles to know that he agreed. “So you have read my grandfather’s journal.”
“Indeed. And with what is transpiring in Sunnydale at the moment, and your own obvious concern, I can only surmise that the Sons of Entropy remain active,” Giles said, then paused a moment. He frowned, tilted his head, and stared at the Gatekeeper.
“Did you say ‘grandfather’?” he asked.
“The Regniers are quite long-lived,” the Gatekeeper told him.
“Remarkably so,” Giles agreed.
Without warning, the Gatekeeper allowed a small but agonized groan to escape his lips as he pulled himself up farther on the bed. His eyes were squeezed tightly closed and his teeth clamped together. When, finally, he looked up at Giles once more, he looked as though he had aged another five years, and the desperation was clear in his eyes.
“You must help me, Mr. Giles,” Jean-Marc said. “You are incorrect, sir. I do have an heir. A boy, eleven years old. I had sent him to school in England, just as my father sent me one hundred forty years ago.
“They’ve taken him. My boy, Jacques, is in the hands of the Sons of Entropy. To get him back, all I have to do is give up this house to them, and all its secrets. That is something I can never do.”
* * *
“Still no call from Willow?” Buffy asked Cordelia.
“Well,” Cordelia said, somewhat defensively, “I’m not going to sit out in the street just to get away from the anti–cellular phone magick that the stupid invisible house thing causes.”
“We left her a message last night,” Xander noted. “She knows we’re alive and trying to reach her. But it’s still too early to call there, Buffy. Her mom’s going to want to know why we’re calling at five in the morning, y’know. Give it an hour or two.”
Buffy frowned, concern etched on her features. “I’m just getting worried. I didn’t want to leave Sunnydale in the first place, and if anything happened to Willow . . .”
“Willow’s a big girl,” Cordelia said dismissively. “She can handle herself. Just take a breath, Buffy. We’ll all go out and call in a little while, or . . . I guess you can just use the phone if you want.”
Cordelia sighed. She didn’t really want to loan her cell phone out to anybody. You just never knew who was going to call Greece on your dime. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if Buffy knew anyone from Greece—or anywhere else more interesting than Southern California.
She took a long drink of coffee and tried to forget the events of the previous night. Cordelia was still completely freaked, but at least Xander had had the good sense to go out and get some breakfast for them. Okay, bagels and cream cheese and juice boxes weren’t exactly the breakfast of champions, but any port in a storm, Cordelia figured. It didn’t look like they’d be having regular meals for
a while.
Xander was his usual cheery, sarcastic self, and Buffy was very quiet this morning—other than her usual grumpiness. Cordelia sipped the last of her coffee—Xander had also saved his own scalp by managing to find a Starbucks nearby—and picked up Giles’s steaming cup. She slid out of her chair and started down the hall. They needed the Watcher’s brain in fully functioning order, and as far as Cordelia was concerned, nobody could function fully at eight o’clock in the morning without coffee.
As she moved up the steps to where Xander had told her the Gatekeeper’s chamber was, she was startled by the sudden appearance of the ghost of Antoinette Regnier on the landing above her. The dead woman’s spirit seemed to be staring at her. Cordelia shivered, but did not look away.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked snippily.
“If the worst happens, the Gatehouse must not fall. Jean-Marc will need a new heir,” Antoinette Regnier whispered.
Cordelia’s eyebrows knitted together. Slowly she held up one hand. At length she rolled her eyes, and spoke each word as if it were a sentence unto itself. “Do. Not. Even. Go. There.”
She pushed past the ghost. In the corridor just outside the Gatekeeper’s room, she heard the old man talking to Giles. Babbling.
“They are coming,” Regnier said desperately, his voice rising in pitch. “It is too late. They are coming now. The Sons of Entropy are . . . they are close now. Any moment they could . . .”
Throughout the Gatehouse echoed the sudden sound of chimes—what passed for a doorbell in the enormous mansion.
“No!” the Gatekeeper screamed. “You mustn’t let them in!”
Cordelia was turning into the open doorway, a tiny chill of terror creeping over her, when Giles exploded past her. His coffee cup flew from her grasp and popped open as it hit the floor, spilling pungent brown liquid on the carpet.
Giles didn’t even slow down as he ran for the stairs. Cordelia followed him, picking up her pace and then scrambling down after him as fast as she could.
“What’s going on?” she cried. “Giles, what is it? Who’s coming? Shouldn’t we . . .”
“No!” Giles roared.
At the huge double front doors of the mansion, Buffy was throwing back the locks as Xander sipped at a glass of juice. Buffy pulled the handle, and the door began to open.
“Buffy, no!” Giles shouted. “Don’t let them in!”
Too late. As Cordelia watched in horror, Buffy threw the door wide.
“Xander! Buffy! Get back!” Giles screamed.
On the threshold, Oz raised his eyebrows, his eyes darting to each of them in turn.
“Did I miss something?”
Chapter
16
“THE GATEKEEPER IS DYING,” GILES said once again. It was a truth they were all having a very difficult time accepting. For if it was indeed true, the consequences would be unthinkable.
“Despite the power in the artifacts he has gathered here, it is only a matter of time—and not a great deal of time, I’m afraid—before he passes on,” the Watcher continued. “When that moment comes, there must be an heir here in the house.”
Buffy glanced at Cordelia, whose eyes widened as she held up a hand. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Man,” Oz said unhappily, “I feel like I wasted a trip here. I could be a lot more help to Willow back home. I . . . don’t like the idea of her being there by herself.”
“Angel’s there,” Buffy offered.
“Only at night,” Oz said. “But after Willow’s call to Cordelia got cut off . . . and, well, we had no idea you’d get this information from another source.”
“How did you find this house, anyway?” Xander asked. “Didja sniff it out?”
Oz shook his head with a weak smile. “Cordelia told Willow it was at the top of Beacon Hill, and you could only see it if you were looking for it. I walked around awhile, but once I saw this place . . . well, hell, what else could it be?”
Giles cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the room back to himself. “Oz,” he said, “we are grateful to have you here. Your information is more helpful than you realize. It confirms a great deal. Though this Fulcanelli character I’ve told you about from the original Gatekeeper’s journals founded the Sons of Entropy centuries ago, it appears that Il Maestro, whomever he may be, has carried on Fulcanelli’s crusade.
“If what you were told is true, the Sons of Entropy would use the Gatehouse to drop the barrier between our world and the Otherworld. Should that happen, all the myths and monsters and unnatural phenomena there would collide with our own world, sending humanity into a new Dark Age, overrun with supernatural chaos. It would undo a millennium of human progress.”
“Okay, screeching halt, Giles,” Xander said, frowning. “Why would anyone want that? I mean, okay, no more lines at the Burger King drive-through, but y’know, no more drive-through. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Actually, Xander, I got the impression these guys think that when all this crap comes down, they’re going to be kings or something.”
“Like the warlords of old, or the feudal lords of old Europe,” Giles said, nodding. “Il Maestro has obviously made some significant promises to them in that regard. What I wonder, however, is what relation this has to their attempts to capture Buffy, and possibly even myself.”
“If they wanted you, it might have been to use you to get Buffy to do what they wanted,” Cordelia suggested. “That’s been an ongoing theme a couple of times, right?”
“Ever the mistress of unpleasant reminders, Cordelia,” Buffy said. “Okay, let’s say that’s why they wanted Giles. And they’ve been killing off Watchers just to make sure they had as little opposition as possible, maybe keep the Council busy while they came after me and did their deal with the Gatehouse. Giles is right. If keeping the heir from the house is all they need to take it over, why do they want me?”
“You mean, other than the obvious?” Xander asked, a lascivious grin on his face.
Cordelia punched his arm.
“Why indeed,” Giles echoed.
“Y’know,” Oz said, “when Angel was making this one guy . . . talk, he said his boss would get a lot of power from Buffy. But I definitely got the idea that maybe there was more to it than he was saying. But not because he wasn’t going to talk.
“He would have said anything right then,” Oz added, and when they all looked at him with wide eyes, he went on quickly.
“Anyway, I think this Il Maestro guy has a lot of stuff going on that he doesn’t share with his foot soldiers, y’know?”
“It may be,” Giles agreed, “that the Sons of Entropy are operating on several levels, several arms of a master plan we have yet to perceive. Jean-Marc has also sensed their presence close at hand. They might very well be just beyond these walls.”
With almost comic timing, Xander and Oz both glanced around at the interior of the Gatehouse’s enormous dining room. They sat around a table that would have made King Arthur envious, but there were only the five of them. Six, if you counted the ghost of Antoinette Regnier, who appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals. She was keeping a close watch over her son, hoping to prolong the time before he would join her at last.
“How long can the Gatekeeper survive like this?” Buffy asked, and her eyes narrowed as she searched Giles’s face.
Giles reached up his right hand to push up his glasses and massage the bridge of his nose. They were all very short on sleep now, and it didn’t seem as though they were going to be getting any time to catch up. Not soon, anyway.
“It’s impossible to say,” the Watcher finally admitted. “Several days, I think. At least. Perhaps weeks, though I doubt that a great deal. Remember that the Gatekeeper’s magick is all that is holding the complex mystical web of this house together. That places an extraordinary strain on him. If the Sons of Entropy are indeed nearby, there is no telling how stressful their next . . . visit may be.”
“Correct me if I�
��m wrong,” Xander offered, “but if all the house needs to have to keep itself going is an heir, couldn’t we just pick somebody else? I mean, that’s how the Watchers do it, right? One Slayer dies, and another is called, all that jazz?”
“In the case of the Gatekeeper, the heir must be of the Regnier bloodline,” the ghost whispered. “There are no other Regniers. Jean-Marc’s son, Jacques, is the last.”
“What if the kid’s already dead?” Cordelia asked matter-of-factly.
Giles covered his eyes with one hand. Xander scowled, and Buffy shook her head.
“Cordy, we can always count on you for the sympathy factor,” Xander noted, his discomfort obvious in his tone.
“If my grandson were here, do you think I wouldn’t know?” the ghost whispered.
Oz shifted in his seat and raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t the most talkative guy in the world, but he usually didn’t speak unless he had something to say.
“Okay, call me crazy, but why don’t we just go to Europe and find the kid,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, it isn’t like we have many other choices.”
“You ever been to Europe?” Xander asked incredulously. “You want to find one eleven-year-old kid on the whole continent?”
“Have you ever been to Europe?” Cordelia asked him with a look of astonishment.
“We’re not talking about me!” Xander protested.
Oz shrugged again. “It was just an idea. If the Sons of Entropy are trying to kill Buffy, they’re going to keep coming after her. We track them down, and we get the information we need. Whatever it takes. We keep searching until we have the kid or the world ends.”
Giles harumphed. “Despite his rather blunt explanation of our predicament, Oz does appear to have hit upon our only course of action.”
There was a moment of silence in the room, and Buffy thought she could hear the ghost of Antoinette Regnier whining just slightly, as though someone had left a window open in her soul. Or perhaps she was just moaning with her grief and anxiety. Poetry wasn’t part of the Slayer’s job. Damn good thing, too.
Out of the Madhouse Page 25
