The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Three - SONS of ENTROPY

by Christopher Golden

  The tentacles lashed at her, ripping out chunks of flesh along her back and the backs of her arms. She tried to get up, but the weight was too great. The pain was unimaginable. She couldn’t groan, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  It traveled toward her. She felt its nearness, smelled its rotten odor. She couldn’t help but vomit.

  Then the tentacles rose for another onslaught, and the Slayer rolled out of the way and onto her back.

  That was when Belphegor leaned over her. And looked at her with its demonic eyes.

  And also with the single, massive eye in the center of its forehead, which began to open slowly. The thickness she had assumed was a scar was its eyelid.

  It was a human eye. Overly large, true, but not at all like the others.

  Belphegor said, “This was too easy, Slayer. You disappoint me.”

  Grunting, Buffy managed a flip to her feet. She whirled around and jumped as hard and high as she could. Extending both arms, she took a breath. Her right hand hit Belphegor’s third eye. For a moment it pressed against the membrane, and then pierced it. Belphegor shrieked and tried to jerk away.

  Yes, Buffy thought.

  Keeping hold, her fingers shoved through the layers, hitting the fluid beyond, and the horned curve of the socket.

  Black liquid sprayed her in a torrent. She hung, her fingers grabbing around the socket, and shot her other hand through the ruins of the eye.

  Then, with both hands, she pulled outward, yanking the bits and pieces from Belphegor’s forehead.

  It screamed with fury and threw her to the ground. Its tentacles flapped wildly. It bent over her with its mouths slashing and cutting.

  Buffy fought back with every ounce of her strength, with every fiber of her being. She kicked, she punched, and now she bit.

  She hit, and hit, and hit.

  She kept hitting, even with the wind died down and the fires banked, and the wail of ambulances keened in the distance.

  Until Micaela, beside her on the ruined section of roadbed, touched her shoulder and said, “Buffy, it’s dead.”

  In Boston, the great sorcerer Giacomo Fulcanelli, sometimes known as Il Maestro, shrieked in rage and horror and agony as his barely human, centuries-old body burst into flame and withered in an instant.

  Tied so long to the demon Belphegor, his soul had been claimed at last.

  At the windows of the Gatehouse, Willow stared, wide-eyed, as Fulcanelli burned. The Gatehouse solidified once more. An instant later, the demons simply disappeared, leaving only the beauty of a spring dawn on Beacon Hill.

  With Oz at her side, she began to cry.

  Buffy and Micaela stood over the still forms of Giles and Ethan Rayne and watched as the hole at the center of Belphegor’s head became a kind of abyss, a dark void that grew and grew. The demons screeched and wailed as they were dragged toward it, into that portal to Hell.

  “The eyes of man,” Buffy croaked weakly. “The darkest passage.”

  By ripping out that eye, she had opened a passage into Hell. But its horrible vortex did not affect her, nor anything else of the human world. Even as the last of the demons was pulled through, the police sirens still a short distance away, the creatures of the Otherworld began to scream as well.

  One by one, in rapid succession, they disappeared into nothingness.

  Buffy glanced at Micaela. “So, I guess the Gatekeeper got things under control.”

  The burgeoning sorceress smiled. “Or something like that.”

  The sun would not rise for several hours, but to Buffy, it felt like dawn had already arrived.

  Epilogue

  GILES’S EYES FLUTTERED OPEN. HE COULD HEAR BIRDsong outside the open window, and a light breeze blew across his face. It was quite pleasant, actually. Until his vision came into focus, and he realized that he was, once again, in hospital.

  “Oh, this is just too bloody much,” he murmured, and tried to sit up a bit, only to be defeated by a sudden bolt of pain, and an overall weakness that made him despair.

  Then, into that despair, a ray of light.

  A soft smile on her face, her honey-blond hair flowing over her shoulders, Micaela Tomasi moved to the edge of his bed and reached, so tenderly, for his hand.

  “Rupert,” she breathed.

  Giles offered a pained half smile in return. He hoped she understood that it was the best he could manage at the moment.

  “You look well,” he observed.

  And it was an understatement. She looked simply smashing. But rather than the velvet she had donned the night they’d met, today she had chosen more casual attire: blue jeans and a scarlet silk shirt.

  “Whereas I,” he continued, “probably look rather catastrophic.”

  She chuckled at that. “You look a damn sight better than you did when they brought you in here.”

  Giles considered that a moment, and then realized she meant that his healing had been helped along by a spot of magick.

  “I guess I should thank you for that,” he said, truly touched.

  “Well, me . . . and Ethan,” she said.

  He blinked. “I see. That’s a bit of a surprise. And Ethan’s gone now, is he?”

  “Long gone,” Micaela replied, grinning now. “In fact, when he was done here, Buffy couldn’t get rid of him fast enough.”

  “All yes, Buffy. Tell me, how did she defeat Belphegor, after all?”

  “I’m sure she’ll explain it to you, Rupert. As for me, I . . .”

  Her words trailed off, and then Micaela’s smile began to crack. Then it disappeared entirely, and tears began to well up in her eyes. Giles started to speak, to ask her what was wrong, but she shushed him, and bent over to press her lips lightly, lovingly, against his, before he could protest.

  Not that he had any intention of protesting.

  The kiss was long and tender, and when Micaela broke away, Giles took a deep breath. There were so many questions involved in his . . . attraction to Micaela. She had been so badly used by Fulcanelli for so long, and she had acquitted herself well, no doubt. But she had betrayed the Council, and him personally, and he was afraid that no matter what else, there would always be a lingering taint between them because of those actions.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Micaela said quickly. “And you should stop.”

  Giles raised his eyebrows and looked at her guiltily. “I’m sorry?”

  “I’m going back, Rupert,” she said quickly, turning to look out the window, avoiding his gaze. “I’m going back to London to present myself to the Watchers’ Council. I’ll tell them everything, and then I’m going to ask them what it would take for them to begin to trust me again.”

  She turned to face him, her features grimly determined.

  “It’s what I must do. I’ve done a great deal of wrong, and I intend to begin making up for it.”

  Giles swallowed. There were so many things he wanted to say, but they were things that Micaela already knew. Instead, he merely reached out for her.

  She came to him, and he held her hands in his.

  “You already have, Micaela, you already have,” he said.

  “I won’t forget you,” she said quickly.

  “I won’t let you,” he scolded.

  Less than ten minutes after Micaela left, Buffy swept into the room with her mother, both of them loaded down with flowers. Buffy trailed multicolored balloons as well.

  “Hey, look who’s awake!” Buffy said happily.

  Joyce put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and greeted Giles warmly.

  “Flowers from, well, everyone!” Buffy exclaimed. “And the balloon bouquet, from Xander and Cordy.”

  “Balloon bouquet?” Giles replied. “What an insidious concept.”

  “That’s just what I said,” Buffy nodded. “But I didn’t know what it meant either.”

  Giles didn’t have the energy to engage in the usual Buffy banter, but he was extremely pleased to see her in any case. She looked like, well, Buffy. And that
’s all Giles had prayed for.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” he told her.

  “We all are,” Joyce confirmed. “This has been almost an entire month of hell, like nothing else you guys have run into. I know that Buffy has a . . . well, a duty to the world, but I hope she never has to go through anything like this again.”

  Giles felt it then, that moment of tension between himself and Joyce Summers, between her expectations and hopes for Buffy’s future, and Giles’s terrible knowledge of the girl’s duty and destiny.

  But all he said was, “So do I.”

  Buffy glanced back and forth between Giles and her mom. But before she could break up the staring contest, the two smiled at one another again, and all was right with the world.

  “So, Buffy, how did you defeat Belphegor?” Giles asked.

  Buffy opened her mouth to respond, and then glanced at her mother. “Y’know,” she said, “maybe that’s a story for another time. Mom’s getting over a stomach bug and, well, it was pretty vomitrocious.”

  “Wonderful,” Joyce said, rolling her eyes.

  “But all is back to normal, eh? In Sunnydale, and at the Gatehouse?”

  “Yeah,” Buffy said, mind wandering. “The Gatehouse.”

  “Buffy? What is it?” Giles prodded.

  She shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. Just thinking about Jacques. It really sucks for him. I mean, he’s just a kid, and now he has all this responsibility just dumped on him. It isn’t like he had a choice, right? I mean, he’s a Regnier, so there you go, bam! Gatekeeper. And if he tries to blow it off, the whole world’s in jeopardy.”

  Joyce pulled her daughter into a tight embrace and kissed Buffy’s hair.

  “Sounds a lot like someone else I know,” she said softly. “And you’re right, honey. It does suck. I’d do anything to make it all go away for you. But I can’t. I’m just your mother.”

  Buffy smiled wanly at that, pulled back, and gave her mom a kiss on the cheek.

  “Yup,” Buffy said. “I guess we all have our destinies. Yours is to worry like hell, and then be there to tell me it’s gonna be all right when I get home.”

  Joyce smiled back. “You know what? I can do that.”

  About the Authors

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is a novelist, journalist, and comic book writer. His novels include the vampire epics Of Saints and Shadows, Angel Souls & Devil Hearts, and Of Masques and Martyrs; the recent hardcover X-Men: Codename Wolverine, the upcoming Strangewood, and six Buffy novels written with Nancy Holder. His latest project is a series of young adult mysteries for Pocket, the first of which, Body Bags, is on sale now. Golden’s comic book work includes The Punisher, as well as Punisher/Wolverine, The Crow, and Spider-Man Unlimited, and a number of Buffy comic book projects.

  The editor of the Bram Stoker Award-winning book of criticism CUT!: Horror Writers on Horror Film, he has written articles for The Boston Herald, Disney Adventures, and Billboard, among others, and was a regular columnist for the worldwide service BPI Entertainment News Wire. He is one of the authors of the recently released book The Watcher’s Guide, the official companion to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. He graduated from Tufts University. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.

  NANCY HOLDER has written three dozen books and over 200 short stories. She has worked on nine Buffy projects, including six novels and The Watcher’s Guide with Christopher Golden (with assistance from Keith R.A. DeCandido), as well as The Angel Chronicles, volumes 1 and 3, and The Evil That Men Do. Gambler’s Star: Legacies and Lies, the second book in her science-fiction trilogy for Avon Books, is available now. She also writes novels based on the TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch, for Archway/Minstrel.

  Holder is a former editor with FTL Games, as well as the author of comic books and TV commercials in Japan. She has also taught writing. Recent short story appearances include “Little Dedo” in In the Shadow of the Gargoyle, and “Appetite,” in Hot Blood X.

  She has received four Bram Stoker Awards, one for her novel Dead in the Water and three for short stories. She also received a sales award from Amazon.com for The Angel Chronicles. Volume 1. She has been published in over two dozen languages and is a former trustee of the Horror Writers Association.

  Holder lives in Southern California with her husband and daughter. A former ballet dancer, she graduated from the University of California at San Diego.

  Golden and Holder started working together when Holder sold an essay to Golden’s CUT! Horror Writers on Horror Films. They write together via the Internet, and to date have collaborated on seven books as well as short fiction, including “Hiding,” for The Ultimate Hulk, and “Ate,” which appeared in Vampire Magazine in the U.S. and Canada, and Vampire Dark in France.

  A Sunnydale student goes on a vicious shooting spree, leaving the town shell-shocked. What could have sparked the random rampage? Buffy Summers can guess. Considering the prophetic dreams she’s been having, the Slayer suspects possession by an especially malevolent force.

  With the pressure in Sunnydale mounting, the residents’ reactions to stress grow increasingly unpredictable. The Slayer continues her search for answers, narrowly surviving an attack by a well-trained and powerful vampire who brought a gruesome death to every Slayer who crossed her path. Is this ancient creature behind the recent influx of evil? Or is there another influence...closer to home?

  The

  EVIL THAT MEN DO

  By Nancy Holder

  Published by Pocket Books