The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Three - SONS of ENTROPY

by Christopher Golden

  Buffy looked longingly at the shower, but her mother was out there somewhere, and somebody still had to get Jacques back to Boston. Giles had already called to make plane reservations for himself and the boy for first thing in the morning.

  She was not convinced that Jacques would be safe aboard a plane, but the boy had assured her he would be, that he knew, blah-blah-magick-stuff-blah. It was on her lips to mention to him that he’d been kidnapped once already, but if she pushed too hard, she’d just feel guiltier about not escorting him herself.

  Besides, morning was a long way off.

  She washed her face quickly, changed into a clean shirt, and headed out to find her mother.

  Joyce sat against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest, and kept her eyes on the door to the room she had come to think of as her cell. The concrete was cold against her back, and she imagined it must be a rather chilly night outside.

  She wondered where Buffy was. And how she was. And if she was even still alive. In fact, she explored those particular wonderings every fifteen to twenty minutes, always coming back to the morbid knowledge that if Buffy were dead, then she herself would have been dead long ago. As long as the Sons of Entropy kept Joyce alive, she felt it safe to assume that Buffy was in one piece somewhere.

  After several days—she wasn’t quite certain how many—in the hands of these madmen, these sorcerers who wanted to bring the world to an end, everything else had ceased to be important. Food. Sleep. The gallery. Her very life seemed to be the last priority. All that mattered was Buffy. Her only child.

  As long as they held her prisoner—

  The locks were ratcheted back, and the heavy door shoved open, scraping the floor. Joyce stared at the door as it swung wide. He stood there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor, unmistakable. Giacomo Fulcanelli. Il Maestro.

  “Mrs. Summers,” the sorcerer said, clutching his withered hand to his side. “Come with me.”

  There was something awful in his voice, something so very final. She couldn’t help but think the worst. They were through with her. Buffy must be dead.

  Joyce began to cry. “I’m not going anywhere with you, monster. If you want to kill me, you can do it right here!”

  Fulcanelli turned slightly sideways, and the light from the hall lit up his features. He seemed to be scowling at her. But there was more to his appearance than that. He seemed greatly agitated, his features even paler than when she had first seen him, with great dark circles beneath his eyes.

  “Get up, woman,” he commanded.

  “Go to hell,” Joyce said, a quaver in her voice.

  Then the sorcerer did something terrible: he smiled. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told her. “After all, why go to Hell when I can bring Hell here to Sunnydale?”

  Watching the gleeful expression on his face, Joyce felt sick and cold. He moved across the room toward her. Though she remembered quite well the violence he had shown her before, she prepared to spring at him, her fingers already hooked into claws. Anticipating her, Fulcanelli raised one hand, flashing red, and tendrils of energy slithered from his hand and struck like serpents at her head.

  They twirled in Joyce’s hair, and Fulcanelli turned and began to walk away. Joyce screamed and got to her feet, stumbling along behind the sorcerer, trying desperately to free her hair. If she refused to walk, or fell, it would be ripped out by the roots. She scrambled to keep up with him, and fresh tears began to fall.

  “I’ll see you dead,” she whispered.

  “That you might,” Fulcanelli replied. “Time will tell.”

  After that, they walked in a silence broken only by occasional bursts of profanity from Joyce. They passed small groups of Fulcanelli’s acolytes as they moved through the building, all of whom instantly stopped whatever they were doing to pay him the proper respect.

  “Please!” Joyce cried out to them. “Help me. Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s a madman. He wants the world to end. If he brings Hell to Earth, do you think any of you are going to escape?”

  They ignored her. There were no taunts, no smiles, no questioning glances. They simply ignored her. She was there for one purpose and one purpose only, as bait for the Slayer. And at that, she was there at the instruction of Il Maestro. And Il Maestro could do with her what he wished.

  Joyce screamed once. Loud and long, and more for her own benefit—for the release of it—than with any hope that she might be heard. Fulcanelli didn’t seem to think anyone would hear her; he barely reacted to her screeching.

  Outside, she could see one of the screens from the old Sunnydale Twin, large holes torn in it where whole sections had collapsed. Odd, because the screens looked far worse than they had only days ago. Joyce wondered idly if their deterioration had accelerated because of the proximity of the Sons of Entropy.

  That was what entropy was, after all. The universal rule of corruption and erosion: things fall apart.

  Fulcanelli gave her hair another yank. Her scalp tore slightly, and a small trickle of blood slipped through her hair and down her cheek. Her head was down as she followed him, but when he stopped, he relaxed the grip his magickal tendrils had on her, and she was able to look up again.

  She couldn’t see the other screen. In the darkness, she thought for a moment that it had been destroyed somehow.

  Then, as her eyes adjusted, her brain began to take in what she was seeing. She let out a small sigh, but she wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of asking the question she knew he was waiting for.

  “Yes, breathtaking, isn’t it?” he said, watching her carefully.

  She didn’t respond, only stared at the enormous structure that had suddenly appeared in the parking lot.

  He gave her a tug, and Joyce bit her lip.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is.”

  “This way,” he said, and this time she stepped forward even before he started to move. Well trained, just like a house pet, she thought bitterly.

  The wall was very high, at least three times Joyce’s height, and they walked around its outer edges for several minutes until they finally came upon a pair of huge iron doors. The doors were barred by a long iron bar that had been slid through rings.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered her.

  Then he released his hold on her hair. The red tendrils crackled and snaked out to grab hold of the bar and slide it back, then they pulled the double doors open.

  “Go,” he told her.

  “What?” she asked, staring at him incredulously.

  Fulcanelli smiled. “There is another way out, Mrs. Summers. Joyce. If your daughter comes after you, I intend to capture her. If she does not, this is my gift to you. This door will be barred, but if you can find the other way out, I will not pursue you. By that time, your daughter’s fate will have been decided one way or another.”

  Joyce stared at him. She did not, for a moment, think that he was telling the truth. But she could not know how much was truth and how much a lie. So she did the only thing she could do.

  She walked toward the iron doors, just happy to be free of her captors’ presence for the first time in days. Whatever waited inside those walls was no more life threatening than the Sons of Entropy, that much was certain. The sorcerer watched her go, the smile slipping from his face only to be replaced by a look of eager anticipation. Almost hunger.

  He barred the doors behind her.

  “But I’m still alive,” Joyce whispered to herself. And as long as they kept her alive, that meant Buffy was still alive.

  She turned to her left and began to walk along the inner wall of what she quickly realized was a huge labyrinth. She turned right. It’s a maze, she thought with astonishment. Then she smiled wildly to herself. They just wanted to make it harder for Buffy to get to her, and to keep her busy while they tried to kill her daughter.

  Left again.

  But Joyce didn’t mind. Joyce liked mazes. There’d been one built on the campus of a college not far from where she’d grown
up. It hadn’t been anywhere near as large as this, but . . . yes, she could do this. All she had to do was think, and remember the turns. To concentrate, and try to map out the maze in her mind.

  Right again.

  She could do this.

  Then she heard the bellow of a monster, some kind of beast, not far off. Here in the maze with her.

  And it all fell into place. The things Buffy and Giles and Willow had told her about the Gatehouse, and the Otherworld, and all of that. This maze. This labyrinth. And the half-man, half-bull creature who lurked inside the labyrinth, preying on those who became lost within.

  The Minotaur.

  She began to sweat.

  And worse, she began to wonder: if they would do this to her, put her life in danger in this way, perhaps her daughter was dead after all. Joyce didn’t let her mind wander too far in that direction.

  But after that, she found it very difficult to concentrate.

  Only a handful of his enemies remained alive outside his home, but the Gatekeeper could not raise a hand in its, or his own, defense. Even now, they were calling for reinforcements. For the moment, they were still frightened of him, still loath to come near. They had seen him on his knees before, seen him apparently beaten, apparently dying of old age or fatal wounds, only to emerge young and perfect to battle once more.

  But now, as he dragged his bleeding and broken body up the stairs in front of the Gatehouse, Jean-Marc Regnier knew that it was over. He was finished. His frail form was too brittle to make the climb, but even had he been able to, the Cauldron of Bran the Blessed would have done him no good. When it had rejuvenated him, it had used part of his life force as a foundation.

  He had nothing left to give. Not a drop of energy left to devote to the world.

  For just a moment, as his enemies moved in behind him, he thought of his mother, Antoinette. He was pleased that he would soon join her in the spirit world.

  But then, as a young magician loosed a spell of destruction upon him, crushing the bones of his legs to powder, Jean-Marc could think only of his son, Jacques.

  As he screamed in pain, he knew that his agony was more than physical. The grinning magician thought that it was he who had brought down the Gatekeeper, but it simply wasn’t so.

  It was just his time. No one was immortal, a lesson taught to Jean-Marc by his own father, Henri, so very long ago.

  Jacques, he thought weakly. I’m so very sorry.

  Then Jean-Marc Regnier’s head slumped to his chest. The Gatekeeper was dead.

  The Gatehouse, and all the strange and horrible beings inside, groaned as one, mimicking the old man’s death rattle.

  And the world held its breath.

  Chapter

  5

  IT WAS HALF PAST SIX WHEN ETHAN RAYNE STEERED HIS rental car into the parking lot of the Blue Horizon Restaurant and Lounge. Midway along the stretch of Sunnydale’s coastline, and also about halfway between the beach and the docks, the Blue Horizon sat on a stony promontory overlooking the crashing surf. It was an older restaurant, built sometime in the forties, if Ethan guessed correctly, and it had long since seen its better days.

  Still, with its high windows looking out on the ocean, and a fresh coat of white paint on its clapboards, it was a stately old place, frequented mainly by locals and older tourists. It wasn’t hip. It wasn’t happening. But the owners apparently still did enough business to keep it running. It seemed like the kind of place Americans always gravitated to when it came time to hold their wedding receptions.

  Ethan smiled as he got out of the car. The Blue Horizon had been his idea. He’d eaten here several times on his visits to Sunnydale, and though the menu was pedestrian, the preparation was first-class. And, given that most of the other restaurants in the area—at least those that were currently popular—served either Mexican food or what was dubiously called “California cuisine,” Ethan was happy to go anywhere he could get a decent steak au poivre.

  With a spring in his step, he mounted the stairs to the door and went in. The Blue Horizon was never really busy, and tonight was no exception. Plenty of diners, but no wait. He ignored the hostess and wandered into the lounge, eyes roving over the people at the bar. Though he hadn’t seen the man in nearly fifteen years, it didn’t take him long to spot Calvin Trenholm. The man’s blond hair had all but disappeared, leaving a ring around Trenholm’s head that was more nostalgia than actual hair. But the face was the same, without a doubt. Trenholm had wide, prominent eyes, almost fishlike, and thin lips that added to the overall bloodless, pale look about him.

  The man raised his hand in a small wave, and in his smile Ethan detected both curiosity and fear. Exactly the emotions he had hoped to elicit from the man—the very same emotions he had always brought out in Calvin Trenholm, back in the old days.

  Trenholm stood as Ethan approached. “Ethan Rayne, you right bastard,” he said with an uneasy grin. “It’s been an age.”

  “So it has.”

  “How on Earth did you find me in bloody California of all places?”

  Ethan shook his head as if he, too, found this incredible. “Sheer luck, Trenholm old man. Look here, why don’t we have some dinner before my stomach crawls up my gullet looking for something to feast upon, eh? We’ll catch up after we’ve ordered, all right?”

  For a moment, Trenholm looked at Ethan oddly, as though he were wondering if his comments about his stomach might hold some bizarre truth or hidden meaning. Then he seemed to exhale, and together they walked back to the hostess and let the woman find them a table.

  Wanker, Ethan thought, as Trenholm ordered a drink. Some people never change.

  Once upon a time, Ethan had been part of a small circle of young people who had wanted to tap into the power of magick. Their experiments might have been foolish games played by students in search of a thrill, or made gullible by their desire for something to make their flawed lives perfect. They might have been. But they were not.

  Their magick raised a demon.

  Most of the others in the group turned their backs on such dealings, recognizing the danger in them. One of those was Rupert Giles, who would later become a Watcher and combat the very things he once toyed with himself.

  Ethan Rayne never turned away. The horror of that night taught him only one thing: be more careful. And he was. And so were the many other people he came into contact with over the years, in one group or another. He learned a great deal, and taught things to others in return. Sometimes, for his friends—those who had taught or given him something he wanted—he would perform certain favors.

  For Calvin Trenholm, that favor was making an extraordinary young woman named Kymberly Egler fall in love with him. Ethan had been happy to do it. He’d never liked Kymberly, and having her be trapped for life with a fool like Trenholm was quite amusing. When Trenholm left her to join the Sons of Entropy, Ethan wanted to kill him. At least, until he realized that the man’s departure only made Kymberly’s situation all the more ironic, and all the more agonizing.

  The sadistic side of him—which was, to be honest, his only side—took great pleasure in that.

  So Trenholm was still alive. For the moment.

  The waiter came by to take their order. Ethan eagerly requested his steak au poivre, with the wonderful garlic mashed potatoes Blue Horizon’s chef could whip up, and a side of sautéed asparagus. He asked for a scotch to be brought right away. Trenholm also ordered another glass of wine, asked for the swordfish, and then looked at Ethan nervously, waiting. Simply waiting.

  Ethan let him wait. Finally, when his scotch arrived, he took a long sip, swirled the glass around to watch the ice spin, and then set it down, looking up at Trenholm and feeling the mischievous spirit that he could never quite control rising up within him.

  “I saw Kymberly not long ago,” he lied. “She still hates you. Because she still loves you.”

  Trenholm sipped his wine, trying to pretend he was not afraid of Ethan. He nearly pulled it off, too, but only because
there was someone he was even more afraid of. The fact that Ethan already knew that gave him complete control over what would happen next.

  “I’m sorry for that,” Trenholm answered guard edly. “Sorry for . . . for her.” He wiped a bit of sweat off his smooth brow.

  “Yes, well, you had to do what you had to do, of course,” Ethan replied. “Your friend the Maestro required that, didn’t he? Complete dedication. Was going to teach you a great deal about magick, wasn’t he?”

  Trenholm was agitated, and nearly enough so to look it. He lifted his weak chin and clenched his teeth. “Il Maestro has taught me a great deal, Ethan. You would have done well to join him when I did. Perhaps then you would be among those who will . . .”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Who will what?” he asked, smirking.

  The other man did not reply, but looked away instead.

  “Oh, don’t be daft, Trenholm,” Ethan sighed. “I could lie to you about why I’m here in Sunnydale. That would be simple enough. But the truth is, I’m here because you’re here. I know what your man Fulcanelli is up to, and I may want a piece after all.”

  Eyes darting like those of a frightened rabbit, Trenholm glanced about the restaurant nervously, then glared at Ethan.

  “Watch your mouth, Ethan Rayne,” he reprimanded. “You’ve always been a bit off, yourself. More than a bit. The rebel, you are. But one wrong word could have you roasted where you sit.”

  Ethan shook his head in amusement. “You know what’s important to your boss?” he asked Trenholm. “That you believe that. He only has to make it happen once or twice, and none of you ever knows if he’s breathing over your shoulder or not.

  “How do you suppose he does that?”

  Trenholm blinked, frowned at him. “It’s magick, of course,” the man replied.

  With a soft chuckle, Ethan shook his head again. “So he’s the great grand wizard, is he? It’s amazing to me how many men, particularly those in search of power, don’t even pay attention to what’s going on around them.