Immortal

by Christopher Golden

Konstantin wondered if the dead woman whose form Veronique now inhabited had spoken a language other than English.

  “How many meals do we have left for them?” Veronique asked, nodding toward the hatchlings.

  “Enough to last until tomorrow afternoon,” Konstantin replied, twitching slightly with his hunger. “But no longer. We will have to go out shortly to find more dead. If the ritual isn’t soon —”

  “Tomorrow night,” Veronique interrupted. “The stars have shown the way, they have aligned just as the prophecy foretold, and this time, I have prepared the way properly. Nothing will prevent the Three-Who-Are-One from joining. Their shadow will fall, and their rule will be eternal.”

  Konstantin frowned as he looked at Veronique and realized that her eyes weren’t even focused on him. She was lost somewhere, off with her prophecies. Her lips parted almost sensually, and he realized something else. She was also hungry.

  “Mistress, while we are out, you must allow us to feed,” he said. “We are starving. I am nearly unable to control myself, and I don’t think Catherine is far behind.”

  Catherine hung her head. “Konstantin speaks truth, Harbinger. I hunger, and the need is almost overwhelming. Could we not try, just for tonight, to bring sustenance back with us as well?”

  Veronique snarled, face transforming, silver nostril hoop swaying a bit and reflecting the candlelight that dimly illuminated the room.

  “You will obey me,” she growled. “Or you will die.”

  “Of course, mistress,” Konstantin replied, though he imagined himself offering a very different response.

  “The Slayer still searches,” Veronique said. “She knows that something is coming but is unaware precisely what horror awaits her. If I lose any of you now, there may not be time to replace you before the ritual. We cannot afford that, not for anything. Certainly not because of your hunger pangs.”

  This last she said quite bitterly, and Konstantin winced at her tone. Fortunately, Catherine was there to soothe them both. She reached out to Veronique and ran a hand through the short hair at the nape of the Harbinger’s neck.

  “Mistress,” Catherine said, her voice a supplication in itself, “if we do not feed soon, I fear we will be unable to control ourselves. That will not serve the ritual, either. The others may not be as bold as Konstantin in speaking their minds — perhaps it is fear, or perhaps they are not yet as hungry as we are, though they soon will be — but that does not mean they are not affected as we are. If something is not done —”

  “Enough!” Veronique snarled, and slapped Catherine’s hand away. “Do you think I do not hunger as well?”

  She shook her head and took several paces away from them, toward the small pile of bones that had spilled from the demon nest. For several moments, the three of them stood in relative silence, listening to the sound of the bones jostling beneath the demons. When Veronique finally turned to face them again, it was with a new composure.

  “Tomorrow night, not long after dark and well in advance of the time of the ritual, we will feed. I know of a way we might do so without immediately attracting the Slayer’s attention. By the time she realizes what has happened, the ritual will be completed. In addition, we will need several living humans to be fed to the Triumvirate after its facets have been reunited. We will get those tomorrow night as well.

  “But tonight, no one feeds. No one moves without my command. We will strike at the San Rafael Cemetery, retrieve three of the dead, and return here without incident. Is that understood?”

  Konstantin and Catherine exchanged a glance. He saw her lick her lips again, and he knew that she was filled with the rush of anticipation, of knowing that the following night they would taste blood once more.

  Now, it was only a matter of keeping his wits about him until then.

  “Yes, mistress,” they said together, their voices hushed.

  “Excellent.”

  As swiftly and silently as they were able, Buffy and Angel moved through the overgrown field and toward the line of trees on the opposite side, keeping low. They slipped into the forested area, and the darkness enveloped them. Strangers would have been lost to each other then, but the Slayer and her companion were hardly strangers. They had done this sort of thing together time and time again. Like wraiths, they moved through the trees, sometimes in sight of each other, sometimes not, but never losing track.

  It was several minutes of this before Buffy came upon Angel crouched beside a thick tree, peering into the starlit clearing just beyond. She moved down next to him, even more silent than Angel himself. An eerie thought crept through her mind. I make less noise than the dead; I’m hardly more than a ghost myself.

  Buffy shivered. And yet, creepy as the thought was, the truth of it was always helpful to her. Her duty was to kill and destroy creatures of darkness, things of evil. It wouldn’t serve her purposes to have them hear her coming.

  Like now, for instance.

  Angel studied her features, and Buffy locked her gaze with his. She nodded toward the clearing. Unspoken, but Angel understood the question. You’re certain this is the place? He nodded.

  Buffy held up a hand, lifted one finger. Then a second. On the third, the two of them launched themselves into the clearing, running for the other side. Perhaps it would have been wiser to work their way in silence around the edges, but Buffy didn’t have much time to think about anything right now.

  Her mother finally had begun to feel a little better. Which ought to have been good news. But what it really meant was that she was now well enough to have her surgery. Joyce’s operation was in the morning. Before that happened, she wanted to put an end to Veronique and the whole mystery surrounding her intentions. Whatever the eternal vampire was up to, Buffy intended to stop it tonight, so that the next day, she could be with her mother with a clear conscience, without worrying what Veronique might be preparing to unleash upon Sunnydale and the world.

  The only problem was, Veronique and her brood were in hiding. Whatever they were planning, they didn’t want Buffy to know what it was. They’d gone to the extent of nearly disappearing from Sunnydale altogether. It had been several days since she had encountered a vampire. But they hadn’t really disappeared. They were still around, somewhere. Buffy and her friends had searched the more obvious places, but a door-to-door search of every possible hiding place in town, and even beyond the city limits, would take forever.

  Maybe Angel had forever, maybe Veronique did, but the Slayer certainly did not. And her mother might have even less time than Buffy did. The thought haunted her every breath.

  So they sprinted across the clearing toward the place that Angel had told her about. Even as they approached, Buffy saw movement in the trees on the other side of the clearing. The quick flash of green skin under the starlight . . . and possibly some flesh that wasn’t quite green.

  The demon Tergazzi burst from the trees and stood before them for a moment as if trying to decide which way to run but unable to do so.

  “What do you . . .?” he started to ask.

  But then he must have gotten a good look at the expressions on their faces and thought better of it. Because the demon turned and ran. He made it less than a dozen feet across the high grass of the clearing before Buffy tackled him, driving his face into the ground. Tergazzi actually screamed, whimpering like a child.

  “I don’t mean to hurt you,” Buffy snapped quickly. “But I will if I need to. Believe that.”

  “Oh,” he said breathlessly as she rolled him over. “I do. Really I do. And I’ll cooperate. Just ask your buddy Angel, there. I’m really very much the cooperative type.”

  “Cooperate by shutting the hell up,” Buffy said, hauling Tergazzi to his feet.

  Buffy turned to see Angel standing just beyond the tree line. He was looking into the trees, through them, and Buffy frowned, trying to see what he saw. Then she remembered the other skin that had flashed among the trees. Pale skin. Human skin.

  “What were you doing in there
?” Buffy asked Tergazzi suddenly, yanking on the spines on his head.

  The demon cried out in pain. “None of your business!” he said, trying to sound brave.

  Buffy yanked again, and the demon started to cry.

  “Oh, boy, you’re pitiful,” Buffy sighed. “I don’t have time for pity. What were you —”

  “Come out, Queenie,” Angel said quietly, though his tone carried.

  Buffy turned to see a very breathless, very ruffled-looking human woman emerging from the trees, clothed only in a long man’s shirt that was haphazardly buttoned up the front. Her eyes widened, and she looked back at Tergazzi, who raised his eyebrows with a sly grin.

  “Queenie?” Buffy repeated in disbelief.

  The woman in question — all five ten and surgical enhancements of her — turned to look at Buffy and smiled with embarrassment. “Hi,” said Queenie. “You must be that Slayer girl that Terry told me about. Pleased to meetcha.”

  “Terry?” Buffy asked, baffled.

  Angel nodded toward Tergazzi. Buffy looked at the demon again, and suddenly a lot of the anger drained out of her.

  “Look,” she said to him, exhausted, “I don’t want to have to hurt you. I mean that. But I have to find Veronique, and I mean tonight. I don’t have time to be nice about it.”

  Tergazzi looked confused. “I wish I could help you,” he said. “But I really don’t know where she is.”

  Buffy shook her head sadly. Then she grabbed Tergazzi around the throat and ran him backward into a thick tree. The demon gasped for air and tried to rasp something. The Slayer let up on her grip a little.

  “You don’t need to do this. I’d be happy to tell you if I could.”

  “Hey!” Queenie cried shrilly. “You can’t do that to him, got it? He’s a powerful demon. You’re lucky he doesn’t just tear your freakin’ head off. Tell her, Terry. She can’t do that to you!”

  The half-naked woman rounded on Angel. “I liked you, mister. I thought you were nice, and kinda cute in that broody way. But cute or not, you can’t just waltz into our home and —”

  “This is the forest,” Angel countered.

  “It’s where we live!” Queenie screamed. “It’s all we’ve got right now, and Terry is working hard to change that. Most girls woulda left, sure, but I love the little freak, okay? And now you guys think you’re gonna rough him up just ’cause you don’t know where to find some vampire chick? After he gave you those papers and stuff, not even askin’ for money. You got a lot of nerve.” She rounded on Buffy. “And I’ll tell you something, missy, you lay one more hand on my little demon, and I’m gonna kick your ass from here back to Vegas.”

  Buffy blinked, staring at her in horror and a little bit of sympathy. Angel’s face went from human to vampire in an eyeblink, and he leaned in toward Queenie, leering.

  “Maybe you should shut up,” Angel suggested in a savage rasp.

  Queenie looked at him and nearly swooned, a small smile playing across her features.

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Queenie gasped, moving closer to him. “Whatever you say. Just don’t hurt me.”

  Buffy scowled in disgust. Then she remembered Tergazzi and glanced at him again, frowning. He seemed harmless enough, but he was a demon. She shook her head.

  “What are you?” she asked Terry.

  “Um . . . a collector and seller of antiquities?”

  “Besides that,” she growled.

  “Say ‘demon,’” Angel suggested.

  “Demon?”

  “Very good,” Buffy told him. “And what am I?”

  “Slayer?”

  “What does the Slayer do to demons, in your experience?” she demanded.

  Terry shrugged. “Um, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge, really. Though I’ve heard some stories about other demons who’ve run into Slayers.”

  “So tell me,” she insisted. “What have you heard?”

  “Slayers kill demons,” Tergazzi said with a gulp.

  “See.” She nodded. “That’s where we’re going with this. I should perforate you just on principle, just ’cause that’s the job. Neither one of us really wants that. You’re not really getting in anybody’s way, out here committing God knows what kind of crimes against nature with your girlfriend there.”

  Suddenly, it was as though storm clouds had moved through her eyes, lightning flashing there, and thunder rumbling deep within her. She didn’t touch Tergazzi again, didn’t hit him or even lean toward him imposingly. Instead, she merely let him see the truth in her eyes.

  “I want Veronique,” she said. “Tonight. I’ll meet you in front of the Bronze at one A.M. If you don’t do what I’m telling you to do, I will hunt you down and break every bone in your body, one at a time. If you’re not where I’m telling you to be, I’ll know that you didn’t look for Veronique hard enough, and I’ll hunt you down and break every bone in your body.”

  Tergazzi was cowering. Buffy felt like a jerk. But the mere thought of how weak her mother had looked the night before and early that morning was enough to alleviate her guilt.

  “We clear?” Buffy demanded.

  “How do I find her?” he asked weakly.

  “You’re even more of a weasel than Willy,” Angel snarled. “And you don’t have a business here, or a life here, really. You find out what’s happening, you give up the location to us, and then you leave town. No repercussions. Once we’ve taken Veronique out of the picture, you’re welcome to come back as long as you don’t cause any trouble.”

  Tergazzi grumbled. “Oh, and then I’m Slayer’s pet snitch for the rest of my life.”

  “Not necessarily,” Buffy said reasonably. “Just for the rest of my life. Which, in demon years, probably won’t be long.”

  “What a shame,” Terry said miserably.

  Then he shrugged. “Look, if somebody has the knowledge, I’ll get it. But even if I don’t have it, I’ll be at the Bronze. If I’m not there, it means I put my nose where it didn’t belong.”

  Queenie preened. “Honey, that’s one of your strong points,” she said, giggling.

  Buffy shot Angel a look. “Let’s go before I retch,” she said bluntly.

  Angel nodded but reached inside his jacket to withdraw a wad of cash that he handed over to Tergazzi. The demon’s eyes widened, and he grinned broadly, showing long rows of silvery needle fangs.

  “There’s gotta be a grand here,” he said excitedly.

  “That’s for the box with the pages,” Angel told him. “From my pocket. You behave, maybe you’ll have a profitable life in Sunnydale. You don’t . . .” Angel grabbed Terry by the back of the neck and drew their foreheads together, glaring at him, demon to demon. “You have any doubt the Slayer will rip your heart out of your chest?”

  “Not a one,” Tergazzi replied, and swallowed hard.

  “Good boy,” Angel grunted.

  They rode back from the edge of town in Giles’s car, which Angel had borrowed earlier that night. It was quiet in the car, and Buffy knew that they were both thinking of her mother. She still didn’t really believe that Angel could understand what she was going through — the distant memory of grief and dread was not the same as the current understanding of it — but she knew that he felt for her. That he was there for her, as much as he was able.

  But that was the kicker. Just as her mother was alone with her fear at the surgery she had to have the next day, Buffy was alone with the terror she felt at the thought of losing her mother.

  As they pulled into the parking lot at Sunnydale High, Angel glanced over at her from behind the wheel.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “Not, really,” she confessed. “I just . . . I can’t imagine life without her.”

  She bit her lip, and though she tried to fight them, tears began to roll down her cheeks again. Only for a few seconds, though, and then she got herself under control.

  “I’m sorry,” she rasped. “I never thought of myself as the weepy type.”

 
; “There’s no shame in being afraid, or being sad,” Angel told her as he shut off the engine. He reached over and drew her into an embrace. “I’d be more worried about you if you were trying to hold all this stuff in.”

  Buffy nodded. “Yeah, that’d be good. The first Slayer to die because her brain exploded and blood poured out her ears.”

  Angel grunted.

  “What?” Buffy frowned and looked at him oddly.

  “Actually, you wouldn’t be the first.”

  She made a face. “Eeeew.”

  Angel smiled. “Bad joke, huh? My weak attempt to distract you.”

  “Thanks for trying, anyway,” she said gently. “Still, eeew.”

  They got out of the car, locked the doors, and headed for the front entrance of the school. The place seemed quiet, and Buffy figured that meant Giles was alone. Willow was at a bar mitzvah, and Oz was playing with the Dingoes out of town. Xander and Cordelia, Buffy reasoned, must still be out on the hunt for vampire grave robbers.

  In the meantime, Giles was research central, working overtime to try to get to the bottom of all the madness.

  “We’ll go back out as soon as we’ve checked in,” Buffy told Angel. “See if we can’t hook up with Xander and Cordelia.”

  “That’ll make my night,” Angel told her, with unusual sarcasm.

  At the double doors to the library, he stopped her with a gentle hand on the shoulder. He didn’t ask this time, but Buffy knew that he was inquiring once more about her emotional state.

  She didn’t smile. Instead, she gnawed her lip a little and nodded slightly. “I’ll be better after we meet back up with Tergazzi. If he can’t find out where Veronique is, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

  “You really gonna break every bone in his body?” Angel asked.

  Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said honestly, and then pushed through the double doors into the library.

  Giles looked up immediately from the burnt pages Xander and Angel had brought him several days earlier.

  “Oh, Buffy. I’d hoped you would check in before continuing your patrol.”

  “Why don’t I like your tone?” she said instantly.