Immortal

by Christopher Golden

  Joyce’s smile was filled with concern. “Why I’m sick.”

  Buffy tried to say something. She couldn’t. She wasn’t certain she was breathing.

  “Dr. Coleman’s an oncology specialist,” Joyce continued. “That means she’s a —”

  “I know what oncology is,” Buffy cut in. Her voice was shrill and petulant, sounding like the only child she was, someone used to stamping her foot and throwing tantrums to get what she wanted.

  In this case, her mom.

  Joyce reached along the hospital bed railing and took Buffy’s hand. “I know you’re frightened, honey. I am, too.” She laughed shortly. “I guess that’s fairly obvious.”

  “Mom,” Buffy said uncomfortably. “I . . . this is about you. I’m okay.”

  Joyce cocked her head. “I spoke to Mr. Giles today.” She briefly closed her eyes, then opened them. “He didn’t go into details, but I know you’re up against something big. I don’t want to be a burden on you. I know you’re fighting a bigger fight.”

  Buffy’s eyes welled. “It’s a different fight. Not a bigger one.” There can be no bigger one. “Why do they think you have . . .?”

  “Cancer?” Joyce said bluntly. Buffy bit her lower lip and stared down at her mother’s hand. “If you can name the monster, you can fight him.”

  Buffy was ashamed. My mom is so much braver than I have ever been.

  “Oh, Buffy,” Joyce said. “Don’t be frightened. It’s going to be all right.”

  Buffy’s shame grew as the tears slid down her face. She buried her face in her mother’s shoulder to hide that she was crying. She opened her mouth to murmur words of comfort, to tell her mother that she was fine, but she couldn’t get a single word out. Her throat was so tight she had trouble taking a breath. She silently nodded.

  They remained that way, mother and daughter, for a very long time.

  In the condemned police station, the hatchlings were devouring the dead much more quickly than Veronique had anticipated. She was both alarmed and exhilarated. They were growing at an astonishing rate, and according to her understanding of their condition, the more mature they became, the harder it would become to unite them. There was a possibility that each aspect of the Three-Who-Are-One, having tasted life as an individual, would balk at submerging itself into the Triumvirate.

  On the other hand, she must continue to provide them with carrion, or they would die. It was a delicate balancing act. Failure was not an option; these were her Masters, on Earth at last. Their lives were in her hands.

  And so is my true immortality, she thought, clenching her hands as she waited for nightfall. For this time, all is fragile. My hopes. Their survival.

  Her children were dozing, except for Konstantin, who, she realized, was watching her. He’s jealous. He wants what I have. She didn’t know if he truly understood that her immortality was a gift bestowed upon her, not something that was inherently hers by right. If he thought about it enough, it might occur to him to barter with the Triumvirate for the same gifts.

  Or usurp my place. Get rid of me.

  If necessary, she would destroy him first. He was valuable, but he was expendable. They all were. They had to believe, to know fully, that there was more to be gained in allying themselves with her than in turning against her, if Konstantin tried to betray her.

  Maybe I should make him fall in love with me, she thought. But oftentimes, lovers are the most ruthless betrayers of all. She smiled, thinking of all the powerful men she had used and then destroyed. Down through the ages, she had exploited the power of the feminine life principle — power beyond measure — to bring herself to this momentous day.

  She would not allow one male vampire to get the better of her now.

  Ignoring Konstantin, she walked out of the room and into the corridor, the better to check the status of the sun. Oranges and fiery reds washed the wall at the end of the passageway. Sunset. How many more, until there were no human eyes to look upon them?

  Someone came up behind her. Konstantin. She grinned to herself and said in Greek, “Put your arms around me, my dear one.”

  He touched her upper arm. She tensed slightly.

  If he has a stake, I will have to use it on him. The thought saddened her greatly.

  But all he brought his mistress was a kiss.

  They were still locked in an embrace when twilight smothered the brilliance on the wall. Throughout the station, the vampires were stirring. As she had ordered, they would go out and sire new flesh of her flesh.

  And they would gather old flesh, rotting and decayed flesh, as the hatchlings continued to cleanse the Earth of foulness.

  In Weatherly Park, Catherine watched scattered children at play. It was dark, and indulgent parents, standing together on a square of concrete with some open bags of tortilla chips and jars of salsa, glanced over at the little ones now and then and made noises about going home for dinner.

  A chubby little boy sat on a swing and frowned in concentration as he flung his legs straight out, then yanked them back in. Out, in. She was charmed. He was learning how to pump.

  I’ll take him, she thought, feeling her face change. Veronique and I will raise him.

  Then she realized the foolishness of her impulse. They needed fighters, not offspring. Followers, not dependents. True children were a luxury for later, after their ends had been achieved.

  Her face changed back to human form. She walked toward the boy, who smiled at her and cried, “I can swing!”

  For a moment, she lingered, watching him. “So you can,” she told him. “Good for you.”

  Reluctantly, she moved on. I’ll be back for you, she silently promised.

  Melting into the darkness, she glided more deeply into the park. She found a young man wearing a Crestwood College sweatshirt and a pair of earphones. He was carrying a couple of books.

  He’s lovely, she thought as she attacked him. He never heard her coming, never knew what was happening. But he fought. How he fought.

  Delicious. She drained him completely. But not before she’d given him some of her own blood.

  Some people are brilliant. Some can barely fend for themselves. Others need constant care, because demons rage inside them.

  In that respect, the forces of Hell are very like the humans they seek to destroy.

  The vampire lurched along, its demon brain half-formed. It had not fully understood what the leader wanted of it. Dazed and disoriented, it waited with the others for the brightness to go away, and then it had stumbled out of the building and wandered off alone. It went, partly out of instinct but mostly out of chance, to a nearby graveyard, stumbling in confusion over headstones and tree roots.

  It was hungry.

  That was all it knew.

  The nurses brought an extra tray for Buffy at dinnertime. Buffy pushed bits of roast turkey around on her plate. She couldn’t swallow anything, not even water. But she didn’t want her mother to know that.

  But years of motherhood clued Joyce in. When Buffy smiled briefly and said, “This was really good, for hospital food,” Joyce rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll ask them to make you a sandwich for patrol,” she offered.

  Buffy sighed. “I’ll just trade it for cookies.”

  Joyce sipped broth. “Well, then, I hope you stop somewhere.”

  “My first break, I’m Denny’s-bound,” Buffy promised.

  A young woman in a pink scrub top and white drawstring pants took the tray away. Then she took Joyce’s blood pressure and temperature. In a loud voice, she said, “Joyce, do you want something for the pain?”

  Joyce looked caught as she murmured, “Yes.” She shrugged and looked at Buffy. “My chest. It’s a little sore.”

  She lifted her plastic cup. “May I have some more ice water?” she asked the woman. Buffy wanted to tell her not to lift anything, not even to move, but she knew how much her mother hated things like that. They both did. Summers women were strong women, and they didn’t like to be patronized
. Coddled on occasion, perhaps. Babied now and then, of course. But they didn’t like to be reminded that they were not invincible.

  My mom is the bravest woman on Earth, Buffy thought with a sudden rush of feeling. Pulling up roots when L.A and being a married woman were all she knew, getting the gallery gig, dealing with a kid who turns out to be kind of a freak. Bumps along the way, most certainly, but Joyce Summers had passed all the initiation tests. She was a full-fledged amazing person.

  Joyce turned to her and said, “What? You’re looking at me so oddly.”

  Buffy couldn’t think of any words. Instead, she made a face and offered a small shrug.

  “Honey, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a nap before the CAT scan. Why don’t you go home?”

  “But —” Buffy protested. She had planned on staying through the CAT scan.

  “I’m so tired, sweetheart.”

  Buffy nodded, capitulating. “All right.” She got up and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Call me as soon as you can?”

  “I will.” Joyce smiled.

  Buffy walked into the hall. She paused for a moment.

  That was when her mother started sobbing. Buffy stopped herself from going to her. Listening to the fear, and maybe the pain, she knew, somehow, that this was not the time for comfort.

  This was the time for naming the monster.

  A strange voice drew me to the graveyard . . .

  In seventh grade, Xander had gone through an intense teenage death song phase, and Willow, as his best friend, had suffered right along with him. Now, along with calculus equations, spells, incantations, the phone numbers of all her friends, and probably a hundred and fifty interesting factoids about wolves, she knew all the words to “Strange Things Happen in This World.”

  “Remind me again why this is a good idea tonight, when last night it turned out pretty darn bad,” Xander said.

  “Well, for one, we’re better armed tonight,” Willow said optimistically.

  “Ready for vampire shenanigans,” Oz agreed.

  “Oh, sure, that’s it,” Xander said. “Those vampires and their shenanigans. I’m still rooting for a frothy cappuccino, myself. But if you guys want to hunt vampires —”

  “Want to?” Cordelia asked, glaring at him. She threw up her hands, a cross in one and a stake in the other. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “Comic relief?” Xander suggested.

  Cordelia glowered at him.

  Everybody was armed — with holy water, stakes, and crucifixes. Xander had pleaded with Willow to ask Buffy to accompany them, but Willow had refused. Her best friend needed to be with her mother right now. They could pick up the slack when necessary. They’d done it before.

  They walked on, around the crumbling headstones and weeping angels, crosses and stakes at the ready. The moon gleamed on the Hart family crypt, where the vamps had sort of imprisoned Willow and the others — okay, technically, we imprisoned ourselves. She reminded herself that she would have to come back soon, during the day, and fulfill her promise to them, to let them use her as a kind of window on the mortal world. The thought made her shiver.

  As they passed the crypt, Willow heard something moving inside.

  With a finger to her lips, she got the attention of the others and pointed at the crypt. Oz nodded. He’d heard something, too. Willow took a few deep breaths and murmured her favorite warding spell, just to be on the safe side.

  “By the light and the heart of the Earth,

  I forbid all evil spirits my bedstead and couch;

  I forbid you my house and my home;

  I forbid you my flesh and blood and body and soul.

  I irrevocably forbid you entrance to my mind and my thoughts;

  My fears and my strengths;

  Until you have traveled over every single hill and vale;

  Forged every stream and river;

  Counted all the grains of sand on all the shores;

  And every star in the sky.

  I forbid you.”

  The door was still open, as they had left it the night before. Willow brought up her flashlight and clicked it on, its beam piercing the darkness of the crypt.

  And the mindless newborn vampire, which had been shambling around inside the tomb, starving and desperate, lunged at them.

  Buffy reached Angel’s mansion and stood outside for a few moments, struggling to compose herself. Half the way there, she had started shaking so badly she couldn’t walk. She simply slid to the ground and gasped for air, her throat aching with each labored breath.

  She had no idea how long she lay there. The stars seemed to move crazily across the sky, but maybe that was just her. At any rate, she finally got up and got going. If she could just make it to Angel, she would find strength from being in his arms. For a few moments, she wouldn’t be the Slayer, just Buffy, and she would bury her face against her boyfriend’s chest, and maybe she would cry. Maybe he’d tell her everything was going to be all right.

  Maybe she would believe him.

  She walked to the door and pushed in. The Art Deco living room was bathed in diffuse light from the sconces on the walls. How many times had she come here? She had lost count. But tonight everything looked different to her. She felt almost as if she had never been here before.

  “Angel?” she called softly. They were all supposed to meet at Shady Hill Cemetery later on, though her friends had decided to start patrol at dusk without her. But she had told Angel she’d try to come by first.

  She called his name again. When there was no answer, she tiptoed deeper into the house. Maybe he’s still asleep.

  She walked into the hall. “Angel?”

  On his bed, she found a note, in the handwriting she had once come to hate. After they had made love on her seventeenth birthday, he had lost his soul again. Fully taken over by the demon inside him, he had once more become Angelus, the One with the Angelic Face, one of the most hated and feared vampires of all time.

  He had left sketches of Buffy on her pillow to taunt her. Of her mother. And of Jenny Calendar, the Gypsy spy sent to watch him and Buffy, who had fallen in love with Giles. Whom Giles had loved in return, despite her betrayal of the Slayer.

  Angelus had murdered Jenny and left her in Giles’s bed, luring him upstairs with a note Giles thought Jenny had written.

  And now there was an envelope on Angel’s pillow.

  She shivered as she opened it.

  Buffy,

  I figure you’re spending some time with your mother, so I went out for a bit. I’ll meet you at eight-thirty at Shady Hill with the others, as agreed.

  Love,

  Angel

  Her heart skipped a beat at the word love. She was embarrassed that it meant so much, at the way she stared at it like some dumb kid. But she did stare. And it meant the world to her.

  Carefully, she folded the note and slipped it into the pocket of her sweatshirt. She sat down on the bed and placed her hands on the sheets. They were cool to the touch. It was chilly in the room.

  He won’t get old, she thought. He won’t get . . .

  She burst into tears, echoing her mother’s heavy, heartbroken sobs. She gathered up his pillow and pushed her face into it, smelling him. He won’t get cancer.

  Alone in Angel’s house, she wept as if her mother were gone. The pain was unbearable. It was too much for her to handle alone.

  But she was glad he wasn’t there. He was already hundreds of years old. All around him, people aged and died, and he remained untouched. He must have left this kind of grief behind a long time ago. Rolling with the punches, while we plain old human beings go down for the count.

  Willow screamed as the drooling vampire reached for her. The others had their crosses up in an instant, and the vampire roared like the Frankenstein monster confronted with fire and backed away.

  “You messed with the wrong girl, Chumley!” Willow cried, staking the slobbering creature. It exploded, and that was that.

  Oz looked at he
r. She looked at Oz. “Okay, so my tough chick banter needs work.”

  “Hey.”

  They all turned.

  Buffy stood beside the tomb. She looked awful. Her eyes were huge and puffy and lost, like a Precious Moments figurine that had just lost its best Precious Moments friend.

  “Oh, God, Buffy,” Willow whispered, running to her.

  “I’m okay,” Buffy rasped.

  But Willow held on tight.

  The silver-haired woman waited for the driver to get out of the cab and hold the door open for her.

  Those days are long gone, Angel thought, then smiled faintly when the cabbie, clearly irritated, stomped around to the passenger door beside the curb and yanked it open.

  Like a queen, Leah Coleman climbed out, moving precisely, if not exactly slowly. Most elderly people took care. It was hard to heal broken bones this late in the game.

  Except it’s not a game. If it was, we’d all be having a lot more fun.

  He thought back to the alley, and the young woman she had been. So lovely. Despite her energy and drive, however, a much less confident woman than the one who now walked with caution — not fear — toward the front doors of the Sunnydale Suites Inn. That she was residing here indicated that her stay was too long for a regular hotel but not long enough to rent an apartment.

  From what Angel had learned of her, that made sense. Since those days in the alley, she had gone on to medical school at Harvard and pursued postdoctoral oncology studies at several prestigious institutions, including the Mayo Clinic. She spent most of her time consulting with doctors and hospitals all over the world. Apparently, she had come to Sunnydale to discuss some new findings about gene therapy with the cancer staff.

  Somebody at Sunnydale Hospital must have a lot of clout, to get her to come out here. Joyce Summers probably doesn’t realize how lucky she is. She’s got the best looking after her, and it’s all just coincidence.

  Leah had never married. Her fiancÈ, Roger Giradot, had been killed in the Pacific during the war. But she had done a lot with her life. She had made a difference. Especially to Angel, though she probably didn’t even know it.

  Does that make the prospect of death any easier?