Immortal

by Christopher Golden

  “She was asleep when I went back to the hospital,” Buffy murmured softly. “There was a notepad on her nightstand.” With that, she glanced at him. Her large brown eyes were filled with questions he didn’t know how to answer.

  “Did she ask you if I can live with you until I graduate?” His lips parted. She colored and looked down at the pillow. “Because it’s okay if you don’t want to. It’s no big.”

  “I just assumed your father . . .”

  She took a breath. “Don’t get me wrong. My dad’s a good guy, and he’d be happy to have me come live with him in L.A. But I’d be able to finish school and fight the good fight around here.”

  Leaning forward, she picked up her teacup and cradled it in both her hands, as if she were very cold. Her blond hair draped her shoulders in a slightly unkempt manner, and she looked thin and tired. She must have gone straight to the hospital after battle, seen something Joyce had written, and come over here immediately after.

  “I’d be most honored to be your guardian until you graduate.” He inclined his head.

  “Not that it’s going to happen.”

  “Buffy, did something else happen at the hospital?” he asked gently.

  Buffy took a breath. “The nurse talked to me. They did the CAT scan. They saw a mass. So they did a needle biopsy. It was . . .” She fished for a word. “They couldn’t tell what it was. So they have to cut her open to get another . . . sample.”

  “An excisional biopsy,” he said.

  She nodded. “On the money. Surgery. Big time. They slice your side open and spread your ribs apart to get the sample.” Privately, Giles was appalled that a nurse had taken it upon herself to explain this to the daughter of a patient. But that didn’t matter right now. His Slayer mattered. His Slayer’s mother mattered.

  Buffy gestured toward the books. “Find me the cancer demon. Cuz I’m going to dust his butt, too.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Then Giles said, “I shall look for him for you tonight.”

  “Thank you.” She took a sip of tea. “I think next time I’ll have a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.”

  “Oh.” He started to get up.

  She waved her hand. “No, no, just joking.”

  There was another stretch of silence. Then he said, “When Jenny died, I went mad for a time. I thought I should never get over it.”

  “I remember,” Buffy said. “I wasn’t sure you would, either.”

  He looked at her gently. “I haven’t gotten over it. Buffy, everything in me wants to tell you that things are going to be fine. When I first met you, I would have been inclined to do that. But I have too much respect for you. I can tell you this. You’re one of the strongest people I know.”

  His picked up his own teacup and held it. “You’ve endured much more pain than some people experience in a lifetime. Your courage inspires me. It is, in part, what kept me going, and for that I thank you.”

  “Oh.” Buffy looked embarrassed. “Well, I, you know . . .” She shrugged. “Slayer and all.”

  “No. Slayers are physically stronger than other people. And most of them have had few companions. Thus, fewer risks of heartache. But your heart has been broken at least twice, and still you are brave enough to love. I take comfort in that. It gives me hope that someday I’ll find someone I will love as much as I still love Jenny Calendar.”

  Tears welled in Buffy’s eyes. She kept them fixed on her tea and then, finally, looked up at Giles.

  “Me, too,” she said hoarsely. She put down her teacup. “Thanks.” She stood.

  “Did you want to talk to me about Veronique?” he asked. “Did you discover something about her?”

  Buffy shook her head. “I got what I came for.” She headed for the door. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow. I told everybody to meet in the library for a debriefing, see what we’ve got.”

  “Very well.” He walked her to the door. “I hope you can get some rest, Buffy.”

  “Thanks.” She turned to go. Then she turned back. “Giles, um, about the guardian thing. Thanks.” She moved her shoulders.

  “Let’s assume it won’t be necessary.” He put his hand on the transom and watched her go. “But you’re welcome, Buffy.”

  She cocked her head as if she heard him but kept going. He watched her until the night cloaked her. Then he closed the door as a wave of melancholy washed over him. These lives we lead are so full of what might have been, he thought.

  Resolutely, he picked up Buffy’s tea and took it into the kitchen. He made himself a fresh cup, poured lots of milk and sugar into it, and resumed his research.

  Perhaps there were no cancer demons, but there were ancient beings purported to be healers. If one existed who could — and would — help Joyce Summers, he would find it.

  The next morning, just before dawn, Willow walked nervously among the gravestones at Shady Hill Cemetery. She’d woken while it was still pitch black outside, though now a slight tinge of color burned like fire on the distant horizon, and the dark sky had become bands of ever brightening blue. The stars looked almost manufactured, even as the imminent sunlight began to erase them from the sky. Willow knew the gang would have freaked on her if they knew what she was doing. But she’d made a promise that she meant to repay, and there was no need for them all to be up this early.

  Her flashlight was no longer necessary as dawn arrived, but Willow left it on. In a moment, it would be needed again. The door to the Hart family crypt hung open. From the threshold, Willow cautiously shined the flashlight over every nook and cranny, wincing at the sight of the skull and the bones. She caught her breath and whispered her ward of protection. She opened her mind and her heart. And she spoke into the darkness.

  “Lucy?”

  There was no answer. She hadn’t really expected there to be. The restless spirits within weren’t strong enough to manifest themselves the way Lucy Hanover’s ghost did so willfully, and Lucy herself apparently spent most of her time on the ghost roads. It was possible she was still around Sunnydale — she had said there were a great many lost souls to be helped in the area — but it wasn’t likely she’d just be hanging around the Hart crypt waiting for Willow to return.

  Nervously, Willow glanced behind her, into the cemetery, and then back into the crypt. She would have felt better about it all if Lucy had been there. Not quite so alone. Which was weird, given that Lucy had been dead well over a century.

  She’s a ghost, Willow told herself. But then another truth came to her. She’s also a Slayer, and it’s always a comfort to have a Slayer around.

  Not that Lucy could do much slaying these days.

  “Lucy?” she called again.

  Still, there was no answer. Willow put on her resolve face and stepped deeper into the cold tomb. She scattered rosemary across the floor and the bones.

  “Spirits of the dead, I remember you,” she chanted, beginning the Rite of Possession. “I am your portal.”

  She closed her eyes. “Through me, recall your joys, your griefs, your triumphs, and your defeats. See the world again, through me. I am the portal. I am the east, the west, the north, and the south. I am the sun and the moon. I am the five senses and the heart.”

  Energy began to build inside her. It was like an electric current, a tension, buzzing very deep inside her. It was as if a switch had been turned on in the very center of her body, and slowly it radiated outward. Willow was surprised at how physical it felt. She had assumed it would be more psychic, more spiritual. But this was very much a thing of the flesh.

  “Spirit, join matter,” she said, opening her eyes.

  She dropped more rosemary on the floor, then struck a match and lit a chakra candle, which she had bought at Dragon’s Cove. The warm yellow glow cast her shadow over the walls of the tomb.

  Then her shadow began to separate into many shadows and to move independently of her. The tomb filled with sighs and yearning, and Willow trembled with the need of the earth-bound spirits to anchor them
selves in her reality.

  As the shadows glided over the moss-covered walls, Willow took deep, steadying breaths.

  They caught hold of her, inhabited her. She stiffened.

  “We are here,” they said through her voice. “We are with you, young life. We thank you for fulfilling your promise.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I feel you.”

  The candle glowing on her face, she walked out of the tomb and down the hill of the cemetery, toward the town.

  Cordelia lay in her room and thought about growing old. Dying was too abstract. Wrinkles and cellulite . . . now, those were fairly easy to imagine. Way too easy, in fact.

  I don’t want to get old, she thought unhappily. On the other hand, I don’t exactly want to die tomorrow.

  But she couldn’t understand how a sagging, wrinkled old woman could be happy. How she could hold her head up high and demand better service at Neiman’s or wherever. Cordelia half expected anyone who looked ugly or old to just sort of shuffle off and leave the world to prettier people.

  So, age, she thought. Then she rolled over and closed her eyes. She began to doze. How old is too old? When’s it better just to throw in the towel, so to speak?

  The sun was coming up, but she pulled the covers over her head. She wasn’t in any hurry to get up today.

  This is too complicated anway, not to mention depressing.

  And I need my beauty rest.

  The sun rose. Willow stood under a jacaranda tree as the spirits inside her sighed with the scent. The colorful sunrise stirred them, until they were all talking at once again. Great, deep emotion surged through Willow, and she wasn’t certain she would be able to withstand the onslaught.

  So beautiful, so beautiful, the voices cried. More.

  They were starved for input. Imprisoned in the tomb, their world had decayed to a powdery gray — the gray of the ghost roads, as Willow remembered, having traveled them recently — and they rejoiced now at seeing the world that their children and grandchildren thrived in. That had been the bargain. They wanted to see that world, to feel that connection to their loved ones who were still among the living, and then they could move on.

  Or, rather, they’d be able to move on when Giles finally got around to calling Father Carey about reconsecrating the Hart crypt. Giles had said the priest owed him a favor and wouldn’t ask any questions. Willow was happy that she was going to be able to fulfill her end of the bargain so soon.

  But soon was a relative term. It didn’t look as if Giles would get around to calling Father Carey until they took care of the whole Veronique situation.

  Soon, she promised them in her mind. Soon you can finally move on.

  There was no response. The Hart ghosts were overwhelmed with sensation and with the bittersweet knowledge that they were truly saying good-bye to the mortal world and to their offspring . . . at least, until they died as well. The ghosts were almost crazed with hunger for sensation. To taste, to feel, to see, hear. To speak. They made Willow talk.

  “I love you, I miss you. Kevin. Marie. Dear, sweet Elizabeth.”

  “Miss me.”

  “Never forget me.”

  “It’s too much,” Willow said softly. “I can’t do this much longer.” She was getting dizzy and weak. The dead were taking too much out of her. They were blissful at the sight, but it also grieved them. It was time to stop, to move on at last.

  “More,” the dead begged.

  No.

  This time, the word did not come from Willow’s mouth. She turned in surprise to see the form of Lucy Hanover, gossamer and faint, merely a suggestion of her face and body, shimmering in the sunlight on the hill.

  You have been given a gift most souls never receive. Accept this gift graciously and move on. Soon, your resting place will be reconsecrated, and the light will beckon you at last. Leave her.

  Willow felt their hesitation. But then, as one, the ghosts departed, leaving her feeling hollow and raw and, oddly, a bit hungry. She bent over weakly, taking a long breath, getting used to being alone in her body again. When she looked up, she was surprised to see that Lucy’s ghost was still there, looking like little more than a trick of the light.

  “Thank you,” Willow said sincerely.

  Not at all, Lucy replied.

  For a moment, it looked as though she might have smiled, but it was so hard to focus on her, like the glint of the sun off the crest of a wave on the ocean, that Willow could not be sure.

  The reconsecration? the ghost asked. You will see to it?

  Willow nodded. “Already working on it,” she reassured Lucy. “It might be a few days, though. We’re kind of in crisis mode. This vampire, Veronique? She has the pesky habit of coming back after she’s killed. But Buffy and Giles — he’s her Watcher — are on it.”

  For just a moment, Willow remembered it was a ghost she was talking to. Hanging with Buffy, she’d seen a lot of weirdness. This wasn’t even the first ghost she’d met. But it was still pretty amazing. Especially since Lucy seemed so nice. Willow felt she could just talk to her, and she had to remind herself how bizarre it all was. Ghost. On the other hand, she was a spellcaster. Which most people would have found pretty freaky.

  Veronique? Lucy repeated darkly. I remember the stories about her. She serves a demon, as I recall.

  “Yep.” Willow nodded. “Giles said it’s called the Triumvirate.” Suddenly, it occurred to her that Lucy might be able to help. “Do you know anything about it? We’re having kind of a hard time in the research department. We know Veronique is the high priestess, or whatever, but we have no idea what the Triumvirate is after, or even what kind of demon it is.”

  A strong breeze blew across the hill, and the ghost seemed to shimmer in and out of existence. For a second, Willow couldn’t see her at all and thought she was gone. But then, suddenly, the ghost re-formed, appearing more tangible than she had before.

  I have no answers for you, Willow, Lucy said. But I will do what I can to find them.

  Then, before Willow could ask her to elaborate, Lucy’s ghost simply disappeared.

  Angel rolled over and stared at the wall of his bedroom in his mansion. The sun was up, and he was tired, but he couldn’t fall asleep. He was too worried about Buffy and her mother.

  He had the feeling that Buffy believed he couldn’t care about people anymore. It hurt him, but he understood it. She would view it much the same as the starving Irish peasantry back in his time looked upon the wealthy, interloping English. Wealth, title, security — they had it all, and they couldn’t possibly understand the plight of the less fortunate.

  What Buffy didn’t know about him was that Darla had sensed within him his intense longing for a bigger life than what eighteenth-century Galway had to offer. His vampiric sire had exploited his desperation. That longing had not gone away. In fact, it had intensified over the years. In many ways, vampires could not live big lives. Constrained to the darkness, unable to connect fully or for very long with humans, they were lonely and isolated, even among their own kind. Under conditions like those, immortality was almost tantamount to a death sentence.

  But he was not feeling sorry for himself. He was only frustrated that he couldn’t make himself understood. Mortality touched him, moved him. The pain of loss was his pain, too.

  He thought of Leah Coleman, and his heart ached a little. She had been extraordinarily striking as a young woman. Dark hair, strong features, a wide mouth. Blue-red lipstick, as he recalled. Rather fast for the times.

  He managed a smile. Then the smile contracted as he compared that memory to the Leah of today. Joyce was depending on that frail old lady to keep her alive. But Leah doesn’t have to carry her out of a burning building, he thought.

  Only out of the valley of the shadow.

  In the protective darkness, behind the walls and shutters and drapes of his home, Angel stared at nothing and thought of death.

  Buffy lay quietly in her bed, and she dreamed. She knew she was dreaming; she often d
id. In her dream, dawn came, and she waited until she heard her mother moving around, and then she got up.

  Joyce was in the kitchen, reading a recipe book while she drank coffee standing up. A half-opened box of Cheerios, a bowl, and a quart of nonfat milk sat on the island in the center of the room.

  Buffy stood in the doorway. Her mother was hunched over. She looked very young in the sunlight. The gray in her hair looked like highlights. She had on her bathrobe, but her feet were bare, and she had painted her toenails a bright pink.

  “Hi.” Joyce was looking quizzically at her. “What?”

  “Your toes. Nice color.” Buffy came into the kitchen. “What are you reading?”

  “Oh, it’s that old dessert book.” She smiled at Buffy.

  “Baked Alaska,” Buffy drawled.

  “We’ve still never made it.” Joyce laughed and shrugged. “I’m thinking I’ll have lots of time while I recuperate.”

  It was almost a joke between them. They had gone to an awards dinner back in L.A., when Buffy’s old cheering squad at Hemery had won regionals. The dessert had been baked Alaska — meringue surrounding delicious ice cream and sponge cake. As it had been served, all the lights in the dining room were turned off, and the waiters poured brandy over the meringues and ignited them. The result had been a magical parade of flaming desserts. Buffy was enchanted. Joyce promised to make the dessert just for her, at home.

  Almost three years later, and they had still never made it.

  Joyce said, “Do you want some scrambled eggs?” She flipped through the book. “Oh, look, here’s English toffee. Remember your Aunt Jamie? She used to make it for Christmas every year.”

  Buffy felt as though her mother had punched her in the stomach. Her mother’s best friend, Jamie — not really an aunt — had died of ovarian cancer when Buffy was ten. She said, “She used too much sugar.”

  “You can’t possibly remember that,” Joyce chided. “And besides, it was perfect.”

  The dead can do no wrong, Buffy found herself thinking. She stirred and said, “Well, it would be fun to make for Christmas this year. You know, we could carry on the family tradition.”