Ghost Roads

by Christopher Golden

  Buffy peered at the bill and saw what he meant: enormous amounts of 000’s. “Are they trying to rip us off?”

  He frowned. “Not sure. But let’s see . . . if you divide . . . well, it’s actually fairly reasonable. For an expensive place.”

  He pulled out a wad of Italian money and counted it out. “Remind me. Tip is good?”

  “I think it’s included,” she said uncertainly. Then she grinned at him. “Listen to us. We’re waiting for a vampire to show up so we can kick some major butt and try to save the world from chaos, and we’re worried about the tip.”

  He grinned back at her. “Like you said. A bit schizo.” He counted out the money and left it on the table.

  They picked up their backpacks and strolled outside. They’d opted to bring them with. If someone felt the need to break into their van, it would be very bad not to have their stuff with them.

  It was nippy, but Buffy didn’t want to bother with getting out her new English sweater. Maybe she’d give it to her mom.

  There were tons of trees and the grass was lush and green. The air smelled fresh, despite the fact that Milan was a bustling metropolis with a lot of traffic. L.A. was like that on a good night. The surf on the beach, the traffic surf from the highway, a relatively smogless sky.

  Nowhere better.

  Beneath a streetlight, a fountain shaped like a wood nymph holding an urn trickled water into a circular pool. It was beautiful. There was so much in the world that was. Sometimes Buffy couldn’t comprehend why there was so much evil in the world. What compelled the various forces she battled to destroy everything in their path? For her, her worst fury always sprang from her greatest pain. Was that how it was for them?

  “How long do we wait?” Oz asked gently.

  She sighed. “We’ll have to go soon.”

  “We have a few minutes, then.” Oz meandered along, then pointed to a small building beyond the fountain shaped like a miniature Grecian temple. “I wonder what that is.”

  “Let’s check it out,” Buffy said.

  They crossed the park and reached the building. It was locked tight, but there was a small sign on it that Buffy thought might have something to do with puppets. Maybe it was a puppet theater.

  She glanced at Oz, about to tell him her deduction, when she caught a flicker of blue light among a stand of trees about fifty feet away. Tugging on Oz’s shoulder, she began to run. After a second or two, he followed her.

  There was another flicker, and then, as Buffy crashed through the trees, a large black circle appeared. It hovered about five feet in the air and pulsed dark purple and blue. A figure appeared in the center, and two more sprang up behind it.

  “Breach,” Buffy said, assuming attack position. Oz stood beside her, bracing himself for a fight.

  Suddenly Angel burst from the circle, stumbled but kept his footing, and wheeled around to face the breach. As if they were joined together, two monstrous forms flew from the center.

  Buffy darted forward, taking on the one on the left while Angel rammed his fists into the face—if it could be called a face—of the other. They were hideous, oily things that resembled a human form only slightly, and when Buffy kicked hers in the chest, her foot seemed to slide into the creature for a moment before she was able to pull away from it.

  Angel grabbed his opponent and threw it back into the circle, where there was a bright flash. Then the creature disappeared.

  Buffy did the same, grimacing as her hands were coated with the slippery substance. There was another bright flash.

  Then the breach closed. The hole disappeared.

  Huffing, Angel said, “Sorry I’m late.”

  “I thought there was a train,” Buffy replied.

  “Missed it. So I took the ghost road, which turned out to be a bad idea.”

  “I’m asking why?” Buffy said.

  “Some Sons of Entropy and other assorted garbage were waiting for me in a bar.” He shrugged. “No big. They really do think you’re in Vienna.”

  “Good.” She gestured to the place where the breach had hung. “So I take it there’s a bit of a traffic jam in there?”

  “Ghost road rage,” Oz muttered.

  Angel nodded. “The ghost roads are clogged with demons. At least the one I took was. We’ll have to stick to our plan and go overland.” He made a face. “Despite the fact that I’m fashionably late.”

  “At least you’re here.” She smiled. “Oz was worried about you.”

  Angel gazed at her. “You?”

  She shrugged. “I know you can take care of yourself.”

  “Good.” He frowned. “Damn it. My duffel didn’t make it.”

  “Well, after we destroy II Maestro, we’ll go shopping,” Buffy said brightly.

  “Where’d you guys park?”

  “Down an alley down an alley. Lots of alleys around here,” Buffy said. Then she looked at Oz, who was looking up at the moon. “Oh, wow. You okay?”

  “So far. But I don’t have much time left.”

  They moved quickly after that.

  * * *

  In Vienna the glockenspiel performed its mad pantomime as it struck noon. Inside a coffee and pastry shop called Gerstner’s, several members of the Sons of Entropy sat and blew steam off cups of Kaffee mit Schlag. They were dressed as tourists and looked right at home. They looked, for all intents and purposes, normal.

  “She’s not coming here,” one of them said angrily, rubbing his temples before replacing the thick glasses he wore.

  Another, an obscenely fat man with sweat pouring down his forehead, despite the cool weather, grunted unhappily.

  “How can we know?” he said. “So the seers do not feel her any longer, that could be magick, no? She could be shielded somehow.”

  “If she were coming here, somehow convinced that II Maestro made his home here, we would have seen her already. We’ve been here for hours. Don’t forget Paris. They aren’t afraid of us,” said the bespectacled man in frustration.

  The third and last of those gathered, a thin, quiet man called Brother Pino, clucked his tongue.

  “Not afraid of us, perhaps,” he said. “But afraid of II Maestro, yes? They must be. Only a fool would not fear for his life.”

  The obese man laughed gently. “A vampire, a werewolf, and the Chosen One? She is a legend herself. Why would she fear him? It is her calling to face him without fear.”

  Brother Pino narrowed his gaze, his face like a crow’s, and bent forward as if he might peck. “No one is without fear,” he said bluntly.

  The bespectacled man raised an eyebrow. “What is it, then,” he wondered aloud, “that II Maestro fears?”

  The other two men looked horrified, and stared about the room as though they might be struck dead at any moment. As though lightning might shatter the window by which they sat, on the second floor amid the scent of chocolate and hazelnut and caramel.

  When it did not, Brother Pino looked at the man with glasses and sneered. “You are an imbecile, Brother,” he said. “You might as well have presented your throat to be slit.”

  “Not at all,” replied the man with glasses. “I have heard things, you see. Seen things, in the villa. And I am forced to wonder if all we have been promised will come to pass. I am forced to question a great many things of late.”

  The others stared at him, but he went on.

  “II Maestro has vengeance in his heart for the Regniers, this we know. He wants the boy alive to train as his own, because the Regnier line has power, and because tainting the son of that house will please him. This I understand.”

  The obese man nodded, and mopped his forehead with a cloth napkin. Brother Pino only stared as the man with glasses went on.

  “The Gatekeeper is failing quickly, very near death. We may not have his heir in hand as yet, but near enough. The boy will never set foot in that house again. So what is our hurry? So many have died already, when we might have just waited for the old magician to die, rather than continue to leech
his life away while throwing away so many of our own.”

  Brother Pino held up a finger. “I must stop you there, Brother,” he said, still glancing about warily. “You see, II Maestro has specifically said that this is a time of great weakness in the walls that hold the worlds apart. As we approach the vernal equinox, the walls thin even further. Afterward, it will be more difficult.”

  “More difficult than what?” asked the man with the spectacles angrily. “The Gatekeeper would be dead. Once we had control of the Gatehouse, we could simply wait until next year’s vernal equinox if necessary.”

  Brother Pino blinked. He looked thoughtful a moment, then said, warily, “Go on.”

  “What is more vital,” said the other, “if the heir is at least in our control, and the Gatekeeper is dying, what need has he of the Slayer’s blood, other than to dispatch her on general principle? What’s to be gained from that? Power? When the Gatehouse is his, all the power in the world will belong to II Maestro. He will be the lord of chaos on Earth when that wall falls.”

  The obese man gasped, his eyes wide.

  “What, Brother Dominic?” Pino said quickly. “What is it?”

  “No,” Dominic replied. “I can’t even speak it. I have no reason to believe it, only that it occurred to me. For II Maestro has never done anything without specific purpose.”

  “What is it, Brother?” demanded the man with glasses.

  Sweat dripped down the obese man’s face, and this time he did not mop it up.

  “He plans to drop the barrier between Earth and the Otherworld,” he said. “But what if II Maestro wants to bring down another barrier as well? What then?”

  The others only stared at him.

  They were still staring when lightning exploded through the window and baked the three of them where they sat, eyes smoldering and open mouths filled with steam. As for the one who had first spoken his doubts, his spectacles had shattered.

  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  * * *

  In Florence, alone in his chamber, II Maestro was frustrated and enraged. His sorcery touched nearly all the Sons of Entropy, and so he could reach out and watch them, through his magick, at any time. All save his own daughter, she for whom he had broken so many of his own rules. She whose life he now wanted to spare.

  It was only instinct, luck and curiosity that had allowed him to discover the traitorous conversation of Dominic and the others in Vienna. He had been curious as to the Slayer’s whereabouts, and so had looked in on them.

  The ungrateful wretches.

  He thought now of the occasions on which he had lost track of one or more of his followers, and wondered if that neglect would harm him in any way. However, that was becoming a moot point: his ranks were thinning dangerously after so many attacks on the Gatehouse. He had no choice but to proceed. This was the time that had been dictated by the dark lord whom he served. Belphegor had promised him eternal life or eternal damnation, an empire or the pits of Hell, in exchange for his cooperation.

  And for the sacrifice of the most prized blood in all the world. The blood of the Slayer.

  Now she had disappeared. She was not in Boston. Not in California. She had been in Europe, but since the traitorous Albert had aided her, II Maestro could not sense her. She had been on the road to Vienna, that much was clear, but where was she now?

  Without her, Micaela would die. Without her, the Gatehouse might fall and the Otherworld be split apart like the ripest of melons, but true power would still elude II Maestro.

  Worse, the demon might take him before the task could be completed. Already it was growing impatient.

  Belphegor had once been warmonger of Hell. It did not like to be kept waiting. And, much like II Maestro himself, it did not suffer failure. Not at all.

  No, it was clear that the Slayer must be found once more. It had been his arrogance that had prevented him from personally seeking her before. II Maestro had not thought such intimate involvement would be necessary. But the girl had proven to be far more resourceful than he’d been led to expect.

  Slowly, II Maestro began to smile.

  For he had thought of a way to bring the Slayer into the light where he could lay hands on her. Better than that, he had thought of a way to get her back where he needed her to be.

  At the Hellmouth.

  Chapter 11

  WILLOW LOOKED UP FROM HER book and sighed. Across from her at the study table, Xander and Cordelia were paging through thick, leather-bound volumes, but their hearts obviously weren’t into the research thing. She could relate. Neither was hers. All she could think about was what might be going on in Italy. Or Boston. Because nothing was going on here in the Sunnydale High library.

  Which was good. Giles had assured her that it meant she had done an excellent job with her binding spells. And she was happy about that, really. But now that she’d had a moment to catch her breath, she felt pretty useless. Her man was off fighting with Buffy, and the Gatekeeper was battling the Sons of Entropy. It seemed like a waste of Slayerettes to be back in Sunnydale, and going to school, of all things.

  Although going to school was a good thing in terms of, okay, making sure she’d be at graduation. The past couple of weeks they’d all missed enough classes to make even the nicest teachers a bit cranky. Willow couldn’t blame them. How did they know that there were things more important than calculus?

  She sighed and picked up her book, titled Legends of Italy. There was nothing in it so far that could help them with this II Maestro guy. There was nothing in it about an II Maestro guy at all.

  “Willow, are you all right?” Giles asked, as he came out of his office with a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other.

  “Sure.” She smiled gamely.

  “She’s not,” Xander snapped. “None of us are.” He slammed his book shut. “This is dumb. We should be doing something.”

  “Yeah,” Cordelia said. “Not reading.”

  Giles paused a moment, then sighed. “And I did so hope that was a joke, Cordelia.”

  “What?” she said defensively.

  “Reading,” Willow supplied. “It’s doing something.”

  Cordelia slammed her book shut, too. “Reading is a joke, when everybody else is fighting.” Giles, Willow, and Xander stared at her. “Not that I like fighting,” she added. “I’m not even any good at it. But it seems way past normal to be going to classes while we’re waiting for everything to go pffft.”

  “I think it will be more like ka-BLAM,” Xander said helpfully.

  “ ‘Not with a bang, but a whimper,’ ” Giles murmured.

  “Not me, pard. No whimpering here.” Xander pushed back his chair. “I’m going to Boston.”

  “No. You are not,” Giles said. He wiped his face, and Willow noticed how tired he looked. There were rings under his eyes and a bit of stubble on his cheeks. “Listen, I know how much you all want to help. But we can’t go off half-cocked. Now, I spoke to the Gatekeeper this morning.”

  “Wow, did he materialize in your bedroom?” Willow asked excitedly.

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Go on.” She nodded at him. “Please.”

  “On the phone,” Giles continued. “He assured me that while he’s fairly stretched, he is managing. He specifically asked me to thank you all for your help, especially you, Willow, with the breach. But as the battle being waged is primarily of a magickal nature, he needs to concentrate fully on the matter at hand.”

  “In other words, thanks but no thanks,” Cordelia grumped.

  “Because we would be a distraction,” Willow filled in. “I can understand that.”

  “It’s not true,” Xander said angrily. “Willow’s done a lot of magickal stuff here. That breach was a big honkin’ deal, and she dealt.” He nodded at her.

  “You rocked, Will.”

  She dimpled.

  “No offense to Willow,” Giles said, “but she is a beginner, at best. A cautious dabbler in a war bei
ng fought by master sorcerers with decades of experience. She has done exceedingly well with protective and defensive spells, and we may need more of that, right here. But in a war of this magnitude, Willow would likely be killed at the outset.”

  “Okay, so, maybe no Boston,” Willow said, nodding reasonably. “I just wish I knew what was happening with Buffy and Oz.”

  “And Angel,” Cordelia volunteered.

  “Angel can take care of himself,” Xander said coldly. Then he leaned in to smile at Willow, trying to cheer her up. “Hey, Will. He’s okay. Buffy would call if there was a problem.”

  “If she could,” Willow said quietly.

  “She would. You’re her best friend, Will. She would find a way to let you know.”

  “Yes, Willow,” Giles said. “I concur entirely. She would find a way.”

  “You think?” Willow swallowed hard. She didn’t even like to think “Oz” and “problem” in the same paragraph, never mind the same sentence.

  “I know,” Xander insisted, giving the table a little pound. “Buffy’s . . . Buffy.”

  “And so perfect,” Cordelia muttered.

  “Hey, do you mind?” Xander said sharply.

  “It’s okay.” Willow smiled bravely. “I know what you’re trying to say, Xander.”

  “So do I,” Cordelia said, giving Xander a look.

  Xander scowled back at her.

  Willow lowered her eyes, pretending to read her book.

  * * *

  Giles felt for Willow. For all of them. The reestablishment of calm was, paradoxically, creating a state of high anxiety. Just this morning, he had had to practically order Joyce Summers to remain in his condo. She had been determined to move back into her home now that the breaches in Sunnydale appeared to be stabilized. As if reestablishing a presence in her home would be an act of strength, and not merely one of defiance.

  He knew it might seem paradoxical, but now was when they most needed to stay on their guard. If there was going to be a storm, this was the calm before it.

  The last moment of calm any of them might ever know.