Ghost Roads

by Christopher Golden

  “Great! What now?” Oz asked.

  “Take them out,” Buffy snapped.

  She grabbed a torch off the wall, and moved in.

  * * *

  Eyes blazing feral yellow, Angel bared his fangs and tore into the acolytes. Several of them seemed to be working some kind of magick, and multicolored energy began to swirl around them. Angel went after the magicians first. He grabbed the nearest man by the hair, felt magickal energy crackle along his arm, then seized the man’s throat and snapped his neck.

  With a vicious backhand, he shattered the nose and facial structure of another acolyte, who went down screaming.

  Then he turned, and II Maestro stood right in front of him.

  “You’re supposed to be in Vienna, vampire,” the old man said, in Italian.

  “What matters is that you believed that,” Angel replied, in the same language, then switched to English. “Where’s the boy?”

  An acolyte grabbed Angel from behind, wrapping powerful arms around him. The man’s hands were locked across Angel’s chest in such a way that the hold would be difficult to break, even for him. Angel rammed his head backwards, his skull cracking the man’s forehead. His grip fell away, and Angel reached back and grabbed him by the front of his robe.

  With a single, powerful thrust, he shoved the man across the room and through the horrid pulsating corpse-colored breach that still burned at the center of the chamber. The demon laughed.

  Angel spun to face II Maestro, but the sorcerer was already on him. Magickal energy appeared around Angel, its coils encircling his body and tightening around him. Angel didn’t need to breathe, but in moments these coils would crush his bones to powder.

  II Maestro laughed. Angel studied the sorcerer’s face, the white hair and the cruel blue eyes.

  “Where’s the boy?” he demanded, struggling against the bonds that were slowly constricting around him.

  “What makes you think he’s still alive?” II Maestro asked, curiously.

  “If he wasn’t, his father would know.”

  “I have my uses for the heir,” said II Maestro. “They don’t concern you, vampire. You’re about to die for the second time.”

  “Yes,” sighed a voice from within the breach. “Give him to me. The balance himself, the demon and the divinity, the vampire with a soul. What a taste that will be.”

  “For blessed chaos!” shouted a broad-shouldered, Aryan-looking acolyte who came at Angel with a ceremonial dagger raised above his head. His eyes were wide and crazy; he was rapt in a religious fervor. “For II Maestro!” he cried.

  “Brother Johann, no!” II Maestro barked.

  It was too late. Brother Johann brought the dagger down, its blade stabbing deeply into Angel’s shoulder. Angel snarled with the pain. The magick pulsed. It was as if the vampire and the acolyte were one being in that moment, connected as they were by blood and iron. The scarlet coils of magick that surrounded him reached out and ensnared Brother Johann as well.

  In that moment, Angel was free. Before the coils could snap together, crushing him against Brother Johann, Angel dropped and rolled out from beneath the magickal field. The coils closed again, and Brother Johann shrieked with pain as they pulled tight. Angel heard bones breaking.

  He leaped to his feet and dove for II Maestro, grabbing the sorcerer by the front of his robe and around the throat. Angel began to squeeze. II Maestro’s eyes bulged from their sockets.

  A spear of black flame erupted from II Maestro’s right hand and pierced Angel’s abdomen, then jetted straight out through his back. It was as if he had been impaled on a pike.

  Angel roared in agony.

  * * *

  Oz was bleeding.

  He’d been cut, just slightly, on the left side of his back, and his lip was bleeding where he’d been hit. But other than the blood, he thought he was doing all right. It didn’t hurt that Buffy was right beside him.

  “Come on!” he said angrily, waving a torch at a couple of acolytes who were moving in on him.

  Sick freaks, he thought.

  Then he waved the torch again with his left hand. Both men backed off. Oz moved in, shoving the blazing torch into the folds of one man’s robe. As the acolyte began to scream and burn, Oz jumped on the other. The man struck him once, hard, in the gut, but that wasn’t enough. Oz’s fists were flying.

  Next to him, Buffy screamed Angel’s name.

  Oz jumped up, away from the man he’d pummeled almost senseless, and turned to see Buffy rushing away to help Angel. And three more acolytes moving toward him. One of them had a green glow around his hands. Different kinds of magick, he thought, different kinds of light. It’d be cool if it was any other day.

  With a quick glance around, he caught sight of a heavy thing like a lantern hanging by a thick chain from the ceiling. Incense burned inside it, and that made him remember what it was. A censer. The smell was pervasive, though he hadn’t noticed it before. Like rosemary and cinnamon and something else—something not as pleasant.

  He ran for it. The acolytes pursued him. Oz grabbed the chain that held the censer and put all his strength into one mighty tug. The hook from which it hung tore free of the ceiling and the censer clanked to the stone floor of the subcellar.

  “Die, fool!” one of the acolytes shouted as he rushed at Oz.

  Oz whipped the censer up by the chain; it collided with the acolyte’s skull, burning incense spilling out and sticking to the man’s face. He screamed as he fell, trying to wipe the ash from his eyes. Oz whipped the censer up again, swinging it around his head by the chain and moving toward the other two acolytes, who were backing away from him now.

  “Giddyup,” he drawled.

  * * *

  “Hey!” Buffy shouted at II Maestro. In one hand she clutched the torch.

  The sorcerer turned from Angel. She took a quick glance at him and saw that, though groaning and holding a hand across the wound on his abdomen, Angel was rising to his feet and turning to meet an acolyte who even now moved to attack him.

  “At last, the Slayer!” II Maestro exulted, striding confidently toward her. The room was blessed chaos now, and he savored it.

  Savored her. For she was beautiful, this Slayer.

  “Come on, then, pally,” the girl said brusquely. “You’ve been after me long enough. Now you’ve got me!”

  The girl swung the torch at him. II Maestro raised his ruined, gnarled left hand, and a crackling sheet of red energy shielded him from the blow. The Slayer grunted and turned to face him again.

  “You were clever, my young lady,” he told her. “Buffy, isn’t it? You’re not like the other Slayers I’ve seen. And you’re far prettier than the one I killed.”

  The Slayer blinked.

  II Maestro laughed. “Let me introduce myself,” he said, as she beat at his magickal shield. “I am Giacomo Fulcanelli. And I will be your death.”

  The Slayer blinked again. At first he thought she might be intimidated, and he was a bit disappointed, since he’d thought her made of sterner stuff. She backed away three paces and tilted her head back defiantly.

  “You’re Fulcanelli?” she asked. “Why are you still alive?”

  “Good living, I suppose,” he replied.

  The Slayer nodded. “Not for long,” she said, and she moved to attack him again.

  Fulcanelli laughed, truly enjoying her demeanor. Then his smile disappeared into a sneer, he dropped the shield he’d generated, and his good right hand came up, completely covered in crackling flames so dark that they seemed to suck the light from the room.

  La Brûlure Noire reached horrid ebony tendrils from Fulcanelli’s fingers, and the Slayer was bathed in the black burn, nothing but a silhouette within the magickal blaze.

  Dropping her torch, the Slayer screamed.

  II Maestro laughed.

  “Hey, Mr. Wizard,” said a voice behind him.

  But II Maestro didn’t even have time to turn, to see who had addressed him, before the heavy iron cen
ser collided with the back of his head and sent him sprawling to the floor, unconscious.

  Without his sorcery, the breach in the subcellar closed instantly, and the black burn also receded. The Slayer slumped to the floor not far from where Giacomo Fulcanelli, II Maestro, lay bleeding.

  * * *

  “Yeah!” Oz shouted.

  Angel was bent over slightly as he moved to stand beside Oz. There were only four acolytes left standing.

  “Well done,” Angel said. “I think you saved Buffy’s life.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Oz replied, glaring at the other acolytes. “C’mon, boys. Bring it on, we’re ready.”

  He turned to Angel. “I think we may get out of this alive,” he said.

  Then the doors at either end of the subcellar slammed open, and the room began to fill with very angry men in matching robes.

  * * *

  After a long and rather fitful night of half-remembered nightmares, Giles rose at half past six and simply lay in bed for several minutes. It was unlike him to do so. He was normally up the moment he woke, down the stairs to put on a kettle for tea, and then moving on to the bathroom to shower and shave.

  Not today. After the portents he had seen the night before, he had little motivation to rise. He began to drift back to sleep.

  His eyes snapped open, and he felt disgusted with himself. He sat up, groped for the night table, and retrieved his glasses. He slipped them on, then reached for his bathrobe and stood up.

  I’m the bloody Watcher, for God’s sake, he thought. I’m not afforded the luxury of being unmotivated.

  His thoughts turned to Buffy, and then, of course, to Joyce. He could do nothing to help the daughter, not with the task on which she was currently engaged. But he could and intended to dedicate himself wholly to locating her mother. It was all he would think about, until he had found her. Buffy would never forgive herself if something happened to her mother.

  Giles wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Determined, he moved to the winding metal stairs that led down from his loft bedroom to the living room of his small but tastefully decorated apartment. The sun was on the rise, and its rays sliced striations across the air in the apartment.

  In the shadows by the door, near Giles’s desk, a thin, bespectacled man sat sipping tea from a flowered cup. The cup was from a set willed to Giles on the death of his grandmother.

  “Good morning, Watcher,” said the man amiably.

  “Who the hell are you?” Giles snapped angrily, looking around the room, searching for something to use as a weapon. Several possibilities presented themselves, including a heavy cane that had belonged to his father and even now leaned against the far wall.

  Nothing close enough. He moved two steps toward the cane, but in such a way that it seemed that he was moving toward the intruder instead.

  “You may call me Brother Claude,” the man said. “Though, if you’re uncomfortable with the ‘brother’ part, Claude will do.”

  “How did you get in here?” Giles asked.

  The man named Claude rolled his eyes. “Magick,” he said. “What did you think, I was a cat burglar? Please. You’ve seen too many movies.”

  “I know who you are, magician,” Giles said coldly. “And I know of the fiend you call master. You’ve invaded my home. You’re uninvited . . .”

  “I think you have us confused with vampires,” Claude said reasonably. “But let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

  Giles lunged for the cane, picked it up, spun around, and marched toward Claude. The man didn’t so much as rise from the chair by Giles’s desk.

  “Where is Joyce Summers?” Giles demanded, advancing on the man.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Claude replied.

  Giles faltered. He still held the cane up, ready to attack, but he narrowed his eyes.

  “You didn’t come here to tell me where to find her,” he said confidently.

  “Well, in a way, I did,” Claude told him. “Here’s the deal. We want the Slayer, she wants her mother back. She shows up and trades herself for her very attractive and courageous mom, and we’re even.”

  “And then you kill Buffy,” Giles said.

  Claude smiled, eyeing Giles as though the Watcher were the densest creature on Earth.

  “But of course,” he said happily. “We’re not going to have a slumber party, are we?”

  Giles regarded him evenly. He knew nothing would be gained by attacking the man with the cane. This Claude had some magickal ability, and the chances that Giles, alone, might overcome him and elicit more useful information from him were not great. Better to see what he might divine through cooperation.

  “All right,” Giles agreed. “I’ll present your deal to her. Where and when would she show herself for this . . . exchange?”

  “Brother Lupo tells me you’re familiar with a local club the Slayer frequents,” Claude said.

  “The Bronze?” Giles asked, with some surprise.

  Claude nodded. “That’s the place. We’ll have the woman there tonight at nine o’clock. The Slayer will be there by nine-thirty, or her mother dies.”

  “Tonight?”

  “The way she’s been traveling, she should have no problem with that,” Claude said, then shrugged.

  Calmly, casually, he rose and walked to the door. He left Giles’s apartment, and the Watcher dared not do anything to stop him. They had a little more than twelve hours to find Joyce Summers, or get Buffy home, or her mother would be murdered.

  Somehow, he would stop it.

  He picked up the phone and dialed Willow’s house as his mind raced down the list of what they knew. Two valuable things:

  First, that Buffy was traveling the ghost roads.

  Second, and more important, that the Sons of Entropy had no idea whatsoever where Buffy was.

  Giles closed his eyes.

  As long as the Slayer was alive and free, there was still hope.

  * * *

  On the dank stone floor of the cell where she was imprisoned, Buffy lay unconscious, and did not dream.

  Chapter 16

  BLOODY HELL,” SPIKE GROUSED, THEN let himself out of the cellar of the outbuilding where he had spent the entire bloody day.

  It had not been easy catching one of those Entropy buggers and torturing the location of the really big noise’s HQ out of him. Neither had it been a simple matter to convince Dru that she needed to stay with the kid while Spike drove over to picturesque Florence to arrange for a sit-down. Had to give her the hooded one’s little rosy rock from his pocket. She’d sat on the floor like a little child, fondling the damn stone like it was the freakin’ Hope diamond.

  Then trust that bloody car to overheat. It wore a man down to the nubs, it did.

  So, walking in the predawn of bella Italia, cursing every used-car salesman he had ever killed, Spike had realized he had to find shelter or his goose—more literally, his arse—would be cooked. That being that, and there was the bloody villa anyway, only he was not sure where exactly all the fun took place—he had done only a slight investigation before it was time to avoid a very disastrous sunburn.

  He’d had nothing to eat, and of course he hadn’t slept. He was in a fine mood, he was, and if they didn’t hand over the bloody Spear of Longinus by the time he counted to ten, some heads were gonna roll.

  His duster flying behind him, he stomped across a distant field of dead vines, going the long way around. The villa was still quite a distance away, and Spike stopped once to get a stone out of his boot. As he did so, he scanned for guards. The security around here was worse than the Annoying One’s, the little snot-nosed brat he’d replaced—okay, killed—when he and Dru had first arrived in that charming little burg, Sunnydale. Maybe these jumble-sale magicians thought their hocus-pocus was so terrific they didn’t need a bunch of wankers standing about with real guns.

  But then, getting closer, he saw more and more clusters of hooded chums and nodded to himself, almost relieved.

>   If the cheese is too easy to get, you have to expect a trap.

  So Spike hunted around for a good long while for a way to avoid the guards. Finding none, he took one of those poor bastards out and put on his robe. One size fitted all, and he was off again, barely able to stifle his laughter as he was waved through Checkpoint Charlie. He strolled on down a lane toward what might be a side entrance to the main office and might be the door to the loo, for all he knew. He didn’t much care. He’d been invited in, technically, and that was all he needed.

  No wonder he and the missus weren’t getting much satisfaction from their hostage scheme. These buggers were totally useless.

  He started down a hallway, stomp-stomp—you had to act like you owned the bloody place or they’d have you for dinner. At the end of the corridor was a really lovely mirror in a startling gilt frame, and of course he wasn’t in it.

  But of course the bloke behind him was.

  Spike felt something hard in the center of his back as a low voice said, “I have a gun. Don’t move.”

  Spike laughed to himself and said, “All right, mate. I won’t.”

  Then he whirled around in full vamp face and took the poor bastard down.

  He found an empty closet and tossed the body in. Then he burped, frowning slightly to himself.

  He hoped he didn’t get heartburn.

  Italians could be so spicy.

  “Okay. Now it’s time to get serious,” Spike announced, and continued on his way.

  * * *

  Buffy opened her eyes but did not raise her head. Her gaze met a stone wall from which studded handcuffs dangled. The stones beneath her cheek were cold and slimy. The air stank. She grimaced as she inhaled. Her ribs hurt.

  “You may as well get up,” Fulcanelli said somewhere behind her. “I know you’re awake.”

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” she said, not moving. “Who did your decorating, Marilyn Manson?”

  He chuckled.

  “Rise up, child. You don’t have much time left.”

  Slowly she sat up and raised her head. Seated on a wooden chair on the other side of her barred cell, Fulcanelli sat in a black robe spangled with crimson half-moons and stars. He wore a pointed hat like a witch’s, and his long white hair cascaded over his shoulders. He was sipping something from a fancy jeweled goblet in his good hand; the gems caught the weak light from a torch in a sconce on the wall and sent them dancing like dying rainbows over the stones.