The fairy pressed his lips together and crossed his arms over his bare chest.
Willow looked from the silent fairy up to Buffy. “What do you think they’ll do if we don’t find Xander in time?”
Now Lucket spoke. “I couldn’t say for sure, but my guess? They’ll probably tear him into a thousand pieces. That would be poetic justice, don’tcha think?”
Dawn gasped. “How could they do that?”
The fairy gave an unpleasant laugh. “One piece at a time.”
* * *
In the darkness of her secret hideaway, Queen Mabyana preened and fluttered in all her golden splendor in front of her captive. Her henchvamps had tied him to an upright post, so that the Fairy Queen could be certain to command his full attention.
Clearly unimpressed, Xander raised his head to glare at Mabyana. “Nice place you got here. Early military-industrial decorating, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Demon lover,” the golden queen spat. “Your life is in my hands. You dare to mock us when Anyanka herself brought us to this low estate?”
Xander considered briefly. “Yeah. I pretty much dare.”
“We will make her feel the pain of losing what she loves most. With our teeth we will peel your flesh slowly from your living body and make Anyanka watch you die. Then we’ll begin tearing her.” Queen Mabyana ended with a dramatic flourish of her wings.
Xander gave her a wolfish grin. “All offense intended, but I’ve faced my share of monsters and demons before, and you guys are a pretty . . . small threat. Untie me and I’ll show you exactly how small.”
Microvamps buzzed around Xander, like plague-carrying mosquitoes. They flew at his eyes, grabbed and pulled out hairs on his neck and head, pricked him with their needle-sharp fangs. He recognized what they were doing: tormenting, torturing, and terrorizing. They didn’t intend to kill him.
Not yet, anyway.
“What’s the matter?” Xander taunted. “Am I just too much man for you?”
“Silence!” Mabyana snapped.
Fairy vamps swirled around his head making a noise like swarming bees.
He struggled against his bonds. “You know, if you’d bring me a cell phone, I could hook you up with a really good exterminator. Clear this pest problem right up.”
The Fairy Queen was appalled at the lack of respect. The insolence. The demon’s boyfriend willingly added insult to injury. Did he not understand who she was?
Xander opened his mouth again to speak. Queen Mabyana motioned to two of her henchvamps, who flew forward and quickly inserted a gag of tangled string in the rude human’s open mouth and tied it at the back of his head.
The queen looked at the prisoner with horror. Did no one teach these humans manners anymore?
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Tough little bloke, ain’tcha?” Spike said, stroking a black-nailed finger along one of the fairy’s gossamer wings. “You important enough to your queenie that she’d swap you for our friend—even trade?”
The fairy’s face became stoic. “With payback so close? Not on your life. I’m whatcha might call expendable.”
“Well then,” Giles said, “perhaps she’d be open to a negotiation of some sort?”
The fairy made a rude noise. “What could you offer that can ever make up for what your pal stole from us?”
“Right. When all else fails, whine about your lot in life,” Spike scoffed.
“You,” Lucket said, spitting up at Spike. “Okay, maybe your body lost its mortal soul. Big whoop. Still, you got eternal life in exchange. Not a bad deal, as deals go. But us? When the vampire demon infested our troop, we got no profit. No reward. Nothing. We were already immortal. What we had was peaceful, playful, perfect lives—until that demon Anyanka came along. No more romping in the sun for us. Nuh-uh. Now our formerly happy spirits are trapped in these little bodies with the demon that she set loose on us.” The fairy’s already high-pitched voice grew louder and more shrill with each word.
Giles sighed and bent over the fairy. “Allow us to offer our sincerest condolences.”
“Whiny git,” Spike muttered.
“But you must see,” Giles continued, “that harming our friend will in no way compensate for the years of, er, torment you have endured.”
“Besides,” Willow said, “Xander is innocent. He never did anything to hurt you.”
“Yeah? We were innocent once,” the fairy said, buzzing with righteous anger, “before the infestation. But your friend wasn’t totally innocent. You tried to trap us last night, tried to kill us all.”
“Got a point there,” Spike said. Then, in a stage whisper he added, “Slayers can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”
Buffy growled low in her throat. “You haven’t been innocent in almost five hundred years, Lucket. You and your winged buds are the ones that started killing people in Sunnydale. We were only trying to stop you.”
Willow spoke, “Still with the blame issues. This isn’t how we’re going get Xander back.”
“Tell us where your troop is hiding,” Anya demanded, banging her hand on the table. Her bandaged hand. She winced.
The fairy snarled. His face became lumpy and misshapen, his wings sprouted black veins. “I’d never rat on my queen.”
“Really?” Spike said with some interest. Before anyone could stop him, he slipped a finger beneath Lucket’s upper right wing and folded it in half. It broke with an audible crunch. The minivamp shrieked and yowled and bared its fangs at them.
Willow gasped.
Too late, Buffy yanked Spike’s hand away from the microprisoner.
Dawn stared in shock at the injured fairy and said, “Cool.”
Spike glanced up at Giles. “Don’t tell me you never did this sort of thing when you were a boy. To a butterfly or a cockroach?”
Giles looked offended. “Why, no. Never.”
“Bloody figures,” Spike said.
Buffy’s mind quickly latched on to a line of reasoning that the little monster would understand. She nudged Spike aside. “Okay, back off a minute.” She set her elbows on the table and leaned toward Lucket, squelched her anger, and forced herself to sound upbeat and reasonable. “You wouldn’t actually be betraying your queen, you know. She’s really setting a trap, with Xander starring in the role of bait. Queen Mabyana needs us to walk into it.”
“Indeed,” Giles agreed. “You’d be doing her a great service by directing us to her.”
“So, we’re willing to stroll right into the trap. No strings. What more could your queen want?” Buffy put her arm around Anya’s shoulder. “And I personally guarantee Anya will head straight for the cheese.”
“Yes,” Anya said. “Cheese. I need it. I need it back now.”
Lucket fluttered his wings and seemed to think about this, then relaxed. The wings, including the broken one, returned to gossamer clarity and the face relaxed into the smooth beauty of a fairy once again. “I can’t tell you how to get there,” the lavender-clad fairy said, “but I could lead you.”
“Right, then. We’ll just let you fly straight out the door into the sunlight, shall we?” Spike said. He picked up the foam board and walked toward the curtained window.
“Stop.” Buffy put her hands on her hips while bad-cop Spike put the thin foam slab back on the table. “Just describe it, Lucket. We’ll take it from there.”
“Fairies usually live in hills,” Anya said. “Do you live in a hill?”
The fairy’s face grew dreamy as if he were thinking of a beautiful, far-away place. “Yeah. Under woodlands and grass. Beautiful. It’s kinda like an oasis in the middle of a bunch of black and gray stone.”
“An oasis in Sunnydale?” Dawn asked.
“Woodlands and grasses,” Willow said. “That’s probably a park.”
“Well, there’s that small hill in Weatherly Park with the sealed up door,” Buffy said, “but there’s no way in. Not even a fairy could get in there.”
“No, no. Yes there is,” Willow said. “
Buffy, I did some research while you were at the dentist. According to the city plans, that was once a civil-defense bomb shelter, built during the Cold War by the city council.” She shrugged. “I guess they thought they could hide there if there was a nuclear attack. Anyway, once the Cold War ended, they took out all the supplies and the gardeners were using it as an equipment shed. But in 1991 there was some sort of accident. Kids were playing hide-and-seek. One of them got trapped down there and almost died. The parents sued the city. It was a whole big thing. So the city council decided to seal up the entrance from above.”
“Thanks, Will,” Buffy said. “So we know where the fairies aren’t. I take it this is all leading somewhere?”
Willow smiled her I-know-a-secret smile and said, “I said it was sealed up from above.”
“Then there’s another entrance?” Buffy asked.
Willow tilted her head noncommittally from side to side. “Not so much an entrance as an opening,” she said.
Recognition lit Spike’s face. “From the sewers. Pretty sure I know the spot. I can take you there. Not far from where I found that homeless bloke.”
“What are we waiting for?” Willow said.
Anya looked worried but determined. “We need to get Xander back before, before . . .”
“Before anyone else gets hurt?” Willow asked.
“We need to leave immediately,” Anya said, flexing her injured hand as if spoiling for a fight.
“No,” Buffy said firmly. “We’ll leave soon, but this time we need to go in with the right weapons. I don’t plan to get whipped again by a bunch of fairies.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
With Xander in imminent danger of becoming a steaming pile of Xander bits, there was no time to lose. Who knew? By now some helpless homeless person might already have become the fairy vamps’ next meal. One way or another, they had to be stopped.
The Scooby gang had seen some painful changes over the years, but their basic mission had always stayed simple, as simple as the title of a Godzilla movie: Destroy All Monsters, with monsters being defined as any nonhuman entity with a tendency to harm and/or kill humans. The fairy vamps had already killed at least three residents of Sunnydale. That alone qualified them to become citizens of dustville as far as the Slayerettes were concerned. And when friends or family were threatened, their desire to kill the offending monsters ratcheted to an entirely new level. The Scoobies went into full-on Rambo mode.
“What we require for this battle is thoroughness and creativity,” Giles instructed.
“On it,” Buffy said, pushing through the doorway to the kitchen where she began opening cupboards and drawers, looking for anything that could beef up their arsenal. The rest of the gang quickly followed her in and began searching as well.
Buffy rummaged under the kitchen sink and said, “A-ha!” She straightened, holding up a squirt bottle of blue liquid.
Giles blinked several times. “You intend to poison them with glass cleaner?”
“Hardly,” Buffy said.
Anya looked misty-eyed. “That’s the same kind of cleaner Xander used to kill our ants.”
Buffy unscrewed the spray top of the bottle and dumped the blue liquid into a plastic bowl on the counter. “Dawn, I need you to find that butterfly net Dad got you when you were ten. Then bring all the holy water you can find in my room.” Dawn ran for the stairs.
“I understand.” Anya gave a nod of recognition. “You’re making insecticide—or fairicide, in this case, I guess. I approve.”
Spike turned from where he was looking through an upper cupboard. “Twisted. I like the way you think.”
“Less talk,” Buffy said, “more weapons.”
From a drawer, Giles pulled a box of sturdy deli toothpicks, the kind topped with a colorful plastic frill. “I suppose these will still have to do for close-up work,” he said. He distributed a small handful to each member of the team. “Remember, if you’ve got one stunned or immobilized, go for the kill.”
Dawn dashed back into the room carrying holy water, several crosses, and the butterfly net. She put down all but one of the crosses and slid the toothpicks Giles had given her into a pocket of her pants. “Crosses should still work, shouldn’t they? They burn the vampires.”
“Definitely,” Willow said. “Ooh, look,” she said, holding up something she pulled from a drawer. “Pipe cleaners.” When everyone stared blankly at her, she said, “You know, in case we need to take any more captives?”
“Speaking of,” Spike said, “what are we planning to do with Tom Thumb in there?” He indicated the dining room with a jerk of his head.
“Better leave him here,” Buffy said. “If anything goes wrong, we may still need to pump him for information.”
Spike made a noise of disgust and picked something out of the cupboard beside the stove with a pair of tongs and quickly handed it off to Giles. “Garlic powder,” he explained. “Bit of seasoning for the little wingies.”
“What’s this?” Anya asked, holding up a small canister with a nozzle on it.
“Butane torch,” Buffy said, looking down somberly at the floor.
Dawn picked up the cylinder. “It was Mom’s. She took a cooking class once. She used this to make little crème brûlées.”
“Fire is good,” Anya said. “It kills vampires. And it’s light enough to hold in my hurt hand. I’ll use this.”
“Any other suggestions?” Giles asked.
“Yeah, how about body armor?” Dawn said.
Giles raised his eyebrows. “That’s actually not such a silly idea. We should all be in full protective gear.”
“Everyone but Spike. He’s not in much danger,” Dawn said.
Spike used strapping tape to attach toothpicks to the fingertips of his left hand. “Even so, Nibblet, this’ll be a rough fight for me.”
“Why?” Dawn challenged.
He gave a sardonic smile. “Because, the stakes are so small.”
Pouring holy water into the spray bottle, Buffy growled. “Not too small to put you out of our misery if all you can do is make jokes. Dawn, find me another squirt bottle.” She screwed the top back on the bottle. “Everyone except Spike make sure you’re in full protective clothing: long sleeves, high necks, gloves, jackets, and leather if you’ve got ’em.”
“I don’t think we have enough weapons,” Dawn said, handing Buffy another small pump sprayer. She looked at Anya. “Didn’t you say there could be a thousand fairies? We can’t kill a thousand of these things one by one.”
Anya seemed impatient at the delay. “We can bring Xander’s Slayomatic. Of course, we’ll still only slaughter five or so at a time, but—”
“What about sunlight?” Giles asked. “Or fire?”
Willow shook her head and pulled on a jacket. “From what I saw in the city plans, their hideout is too far underground. I mean, it was built to protect people from nukes and radiation. Walls are solid concrete lined with lead. Plus, when they sealed the entrance, they pretty much stripped out all the perishable supplies and most of the furniture.”
Buffy sighed. “So I’m guessing the bonfire option is out too. Unless . . .” She checked some cupboards and found several more butane canisters and a bottle of lighter fluid. Definitely the beginnings of a lethal weapon. “Will, do you think there’s anything you could add magickwise to—”
“You can’t ask her to do the teleportation spell,” Giles warned. “Too dangerous.”
“I won’t need to,” Willow said. “Anyway, we’re not trying to push them away from us. But there may be something I can do if I could get a few supplies from the Magic Box.”
“Of course,” Giles said. “Perhaps we’ll find additional useful implements there. Spike, you take the tunnels. We’ll meet you at the shop. The rest of you can come with me in the car.”
* * *
Minutes later they were at the Magic Box, where a quick search yielded several more useful items. Spike found a South American blowgun with handfuls of tiny
wooden darts. Anya gathered more garlic powder while Willow collected some ingredients and put them in a bag. Buffy selected an antique penknife. Giles picked up a heavy-duty flashlight of the sort that is equally useful as a cudgel once the batteries are drained.
Buffy handed Dawn a candle in a ceramic pot and then took a large wooden torch like those used in medieval-castle movies. They all went down to the basement of the Magic Box to the mouth of the sewer tunnel Spike had used to get there. Buffy, concerned for her little sister, pulled Dawn’s turtleneck a bit higher and buttoned two more buttons on her sister’s jacket.
“Come on then, Mother Hen. Time’s a-wastin’,” Spike said.
“Stay out of the main fighting,” Buffy warned Dawn. Then to Spike she said, “Lay off, McDuff. We’re ready.”
“Yeah,” Willow said. “Let’s go kick some fairy butt.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Buffy could think of plenty of things she’d rather be doing than following Spike through the sewers of Sunnydale preparing to fight a mosh pit full of mini enemies. Being back in the dentist’s chair having a root canal, for example, sounded like lots more fun.
Spike’s leather duster billowed out behind him like the flapping wings of some dark bird of prey. The toothpicks attached to his left hand might have been talons. With grim looks on their faces, Anya and Buffy paced him. Dawn, Willow, and Giles brought up the rear, carrying a bright flashlight. Most of them held toothpicks in their mouths as a precaution. As Spike had pointed out, you never knew whether the treacherous flying buggers might have set up an ambush.
Although they moved quickly through the tunnels, as quiet as museum curators wearing felt slippers, to Buffy it felt as if they were walking in slow motion. Her nerves were wound tighter than an Egyptian mummy’s wrappings. This was no mere bust-and-dust operation. It was also a rescue and quite possibly a war. Precision would be more important than ever before.
Even the liveliest of alleyway brawls with vampires could not begin to compare with the sheer nerve-wrackingness of facing down hundreds of magickal, demon-infested, dragonfly-sized bloodsuckers. Homicidal hummingbirds, furious fairies, vengeful vamps—all of whom wanted to terminate one or more of the Slayerettes with extreme prejudice. Buffy gritted her teeth at the thought. One nice surprise there: no pain in her teeth.
Little Things Page 12
