Immortal

by Christopher Golden

  “Classic anxiety symptoms.” Dr. Coleman patted her. “They’ll go away eventually.”

  Buffy was uncomfortable with that. She didn’t know why, exactly. But she nodded and followed the doctor out into the corridor.

  “Go down the hall and then to the left. She’s in 311.” Dr. Coleman gave her another smile. “I’m going to go to my hotel and make a pitcher of margaritas.”

  Buffy was a little surprised; this staid old grandmother didn’t seem the margarita type. But she nodded and began to leave. Then she whirled around and called, “Dr. Coleman!” to the retreating figure.

  “Thank you,” Buffy said feelingly. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’ll be fine. Both of you.” The doctor gave her a salute and slowly walked away.

  Buffy started running, then slackened her pace when a nurse behind a large console glared at her. She wheeled around the corner and headed for 311. She passed by a room where a man was moaning, “Hallo? Hallo?” with a foreign accent. There was weeping in another room.

  The door to 311 was open, and Buffy sailed in.

  Joyce opened her eyes and smiled at her. There was an IV needle in the back of her hand, and she was pasty against the white pillow. But she was her mom.

  And she didn’t have cancer.

  “Did they tell you, Mom?” Buffy asked, bursting into tears.

  Joyce held out her right arm. “Buffy, honey, come here.”

  Buffy knelt beside the bed and cried. Her heavy sobs wracked her body; her throat became even tighter, so tight she could barely breathe.

  She didn’t know if she cried for five minutes or five hours, but after a while, she couldn’t do it anymore, even though everything in her wanted to. She realized that through it all, her mother had been stroking the crown of her bowed head.

  Buffy looked up. Her mother was wincing with pain.

  “Mom?” Buffy asked, alarmed.

  “I’m just sore. They’re going to bring me a morphine drip.” She touched Buffy’s hair. “I was afraid I was going to leave you behind.”

  “I was afraid . . .” Buffy began, then sagged. “I was just afraid.”

  “My poor little girl. You’ve been through so much.” Joyce’s face was radiant. “I’m still here for you, honey.”

  “They told me you’re still sick. You have something called Valley Fever.”

  “Sounds hokey, huh?” Joyce grinned. Then her smile started to sleep. Her lids fluttered. “Honey, I’m so tired. Go help Mr. Giles.”

  “No,” Buffy protested.

  “I’m okay. I’m very tired.” Joyce patted her. “Ask the nurse to bring me some painkillers, okay?”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Honey, I need to sleep. I need this.” She tilted her head and studied Buffy’s face. “When I look at you, I still feel the same sense of awe as when I gave birth to you. They laid you in my arms.” Her eyes closed, opened. “About five minutes ago.”

  “And now I’m all grown up. Almost.” Buffy was terribly wistful for the earlier, simpler days.

  Joyce chuckled. Then she drifted.

  Buffy reluctantly left the room. She found some nurses gossiping about a new doctor and asked them to give her mom something for the pain.

  “We’ll take care of her, honey,” one of the nurses told her.

  “Right,” Buffy murmured.

  She left, trying to focus on the problems at hand —Xander and Cordelia in trouble, an immortal vampire, the Tri-whatever, yadda yadda. But all she could think about was, My mom isn’t going to die.

  She left the hospital, oblivious to the shadows pooling around the back entrance.

  Oblivious to the fact that they brought death with them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Sea of Crete, 1862

  They navigated by the stars, the wind filling their sails, the rigging pulled taut. But Veronique paid no attention to the stars or the wind or the fullness of the sails. She stood on the bow of the ship and stared out at the choppy sea, imagining that she could see her quarry ahead of her. She could almost taste the blood of the Slayer mingling with the salt in the air.

  Cresting the swells, the ship came in sight of a tiny island off the port bow. Veronique turned slightly to catch the captain’s eye and pointed at the island. The wind whipped the man’s long hair across his face, but he gave her a meaningful stare and nodded ruefully.

  Veronique smiled. This, then, was their destination.

  For weeks, she had pursued the Slayer along the eastern edge of the Adriatic. She had killed at her leisure and taken clothing and currency wherever she found it. Once, near Tirana, she had nearly overtaken the girl. But Veronique must take cover by day, and the girl had no such restrictions. Save sleep. That was the only reason she had not escaped Veronique completely — she needed sleep.

  In retrospect, though, Veronique thought that perhaps there was one other reason. The Slayer was a beautiful young girl, traveling alone, who had encountered more than a few bands of ruffians who would challenge her virtue. Veronique scowled in amusement at the thought of the little harlot in fear for whatever virtue she had remaining to her. Angela’s confrontations with those men had left a trail behind clearer than Veronique might have hoped.

  Upon arrival at Athens, it had been a simple enough task to discover that the girl had gone ahead by boat, hoping still to escape her wrath. But Veronique had made a vow to herself and to her masters. She would not rest until the Slayer was dead.

  For centuries, Veronique had tried time and again to bring the Triumvirate to Earth, where they would transform the land into an inferno. To her disappointment, she had relied for far too long upon the daunting magicks they had taught her, rituals they vowed would bring them forth. Only when she realized that it was not working did it occur to her to think for herself, to find a solution.

  Truly, she would be eternally blessed.

  For she had found a solution. The Three-Who-Are-One could not pass into the plane of man in their whole, united form. They must be broken down into their component parts, born unto death, and reunited under the aligned stars.

  Veronique had rejoiced with this discovery, and the Triumvirate had been very pleased with her. At long last, their lusts would be fulfilled.

  And would have been, if not for Angela Martignetti.

  The translucent flesh, the hatchlings writhing beneath, pressing to be free . . . and then the Slayer bursting in, thrusting the stake into the heart of the vampire shell, their vessel . . . turning it to dust . . . closing the way.

  In all the weeks she had pursued the girl, Veronique’s fury had not abated even a fraction. If anything, it had grown. This girl knew too much about her, as had her Watcher, Toscano.

  Who had burned. Veronique smiled at that thought, the wind whipping her face as the ship closed in on the island. The ship she had hired in Athens to pursue the girl to Crete, where all reports indicated she had gone. And in Crete, there were whispers that she had set out to sea, running, hiding from some horrid pursuer.

  “But I am her mother,” Veronique had said, wearing the stolen garments of a noblewoman. “I have come to fetch her home. The danger has passed.”

  And with gold likewise stolen, she had paid the captain to continue on, to take her out to the island to which the Slayer had fled. This little whitewashed bit of stone in the midst of the Sea of Crete.

  Kefi.

  In a small dip in the land, away from the wind, the people of Kefi were burning their dead. It was just after dawn, the third day after the bucolac had come. Upon her arrival, the first thing she had done was to make other vampires.

  Just as Angela had expected.

  Veronique was not a fool. She knew how far from any other land the island was, how far from other vampires. Should she die here, on this island, it might be some time before another vampire was created nearby, allowing her to live again. But the Slayer knew it as well. Which was why, when she had first arrived on the island nearly a week earlier, she had tried
to convince the people of Kefi that they must leave.

  To do so, she had broken a cardinal rule of the Council of Watchers; she had told the truth. But the truth was the only way she could see to get these people not merely to leave their homes but never to return.

  They had mocked her.

  They had stayed.

  And upon Veronique’s arrival, they had begun to die.

  Angela absolved herself of blame. She had done all she could to prepare these people, to send them away. Veronique had now made at least three new vampires. And killed dozens of other islanders, those now in flames atop the enormous funeral pyre.

  As the bodies burned, and Angela watched with a numbness inside where her tears ought to have come from, one of the older men from the island approached her carefully. Though his face was weathered and wrinkled, his eyes were young and blue as the Aegean.

  “We were fools not to listen,” he told her in Greek, a language she only half understood.

  It had been difficult for her to express her concerns to them in the first place. But she had made them understand, if not believe. Now, though . . . now they believed.

  For she had killed Veronique twice in as many nights. Here on this island. Both times, with islanders bearing witness. And yet, because she had made other vampires of their loved ones, the islanders were not rid of Veronique’s evil. She would continue to plague them for as long as there were humans living there, humans who could be made into vampires.

  “We will go,” the old man said.

  He was weeping.

  All through that morning, homes were abandoned, belongings were gathered, ships set out to sea. Angela watched the exodus for a time, but when the sun was highest in the sky, she knew that her work must begin. The island was small, yet it took her many hours before she finally found the abandoned whitewashed hut where Veronique’s offspring lay resting, away from the rays of the sun. Their mistress was not there, but this was the primary job in any case.

  Angela tore the shutters from the small home and heard the shrieking within as the sunlight splashed onto the dusty floor inside. When she entered, they were cowering in the corner, three of them, though there was a small puff of dust that might have been a fourth before the sun had burst through.

  They attacked as best they could, but Angela used the sun against them, dancing in and out of its rays, leading them in to be burned. Within minutes, two of them were dead, leaving only the last.

  “Do you want to live? To sleep the day away and emerge in the shadows, to set out to sea and find some other hunting ground? Shall I spare you, demon?” she asked, sneering, her heart beating and sweat dripping from her brow.

  The vampire nodded.

  “Where sleeps your mistress?” Angela narrowed her eyes.

  The creature hesitated only a moment. “In the church,” it said.

  A tremor of disgust and hatred like none she had ever felt rippled through Angela. She remembered Peter, burning to death. Remembered Lucia. Her emotions were in turmoil, but within that chaos, one thing was clear: none of her heartache would exist save for the evil of Veronique.

  Now it would end.

  Angela moved on the remaining vampire quickly. It tried to attack but was hesitant because of the light. She brought her stake down, but it was knocked from her grasp. The vampire grabbed her around the throat, but Angela only smiled grimly at it as she broke the grip. She struck out, crushing its nose, splitting its lip over fangs. Then she grabbed it by the hair and hauled it across the dusty floor, shrieking, into the sunlight.

  It exploded in a shower of burning dust.

  The Slayer brushed what remained of the vampire from her clothes as she went out and started to climb up the long hill toward the church and the trio of bells that sat, one upon the others, on the overlook above the sea.

  They were alone on the island, then. The Slayer and Veronique.

  The immortal vampire had nowhere to run.

  Curled in a small alcove near the back of the church, Veronique lay with her eyes tightly closed, only barely asleep. Though they might come here in worship, they would not see her unless they were looking. And none of the superstitious fools would ever guess that she was hiding from the sun within the walls of their sacred church.

  She slept with the security of that knowledge.

  Shattered, as the door slammed open with a crash and crack of wood.

  Veronique’s eyes opened, and she vaulted to her feet. This was no mere worshiper, come to pray for deliverance from evil. The sheep came quietly to the shepherd. No, she knew there was no hiding from this intruder. She knew that it must be the Slayer.

  “Come out, vampire!” the girl cried.

  There was another crash, perhaps a bench tipping over. Veronique smiled to herself, thinking how foolish the girl was. She stepped out from the shadows of her hiding place and noticed immediately the dim sun stretching its fingers in through the open door. Dim, because out over the ocean, the orb burned the water as it sank on the horizon.

  Dusk.

  “Hello, Slayer,” Veronique said, speaking the girl’s native Italian. “Have you come to kill me yet again? I am so frightened.” The vampire stretched sleepily, bored. “Or it may be that this time, I will kill you? Ah, but you won’t come back, will you?”

  Veronique was a bit taken aback by the Slayer’s smile.

  “You are so very wrong, Veronique,” Angela said happily.

  Her clothes were torn, and there was blood on her collarbone and her upper right thigh. Veronique wondered how she would taste. A Slayer’s blood, she knew, held great power.

  “Truly? Educate me, then, girl, before I kill you.”

  “You believe you are immortal,” Angela said. “Perhaps that is so. But I am also immortal.”

  A flicker of doubt went through Veronique’s mind, and then she smiled cruelly. It was not possible, of course.

  “You don’t believe me, I see,” Angela went on. “If I kill you, you will be reborn. But if you take my life, my blood, so will I be returned to life. For the very moment I breathe my last, somewhere in the world another girl will find herself gifted with the strength and the duties of the Slayer. Strike me down, I will rise again in her.”

  Veronique nodded in understanding. There was truth to what the girl said. But it mattered not. For before a new Slayer could find her, she would go to ground, to plan for the next time the stars aligned, that she might bring the Triumvirate to Earth at last.

  “An eternal war,” she told the girl. “Or so you think.”

  “No,” the Slayer replied, and her smiled returned. Then she stepped aside and gestured toward the door, beyond which the sun had finally slipped beneath the waves. “It is a long way to Crete, Veronique.”

  The vampire frowned, confused. Then she pushed that confusion aside and stepped toward the girl. “Come then, Slayer. Let us engage in this struggle once more.” Her features changed, fangs protruding, and her eyes blazed yellow in the dark.

  The Slayer nodded, reached into the folds of her ragged garments, and withdrew a stake. “Oh, yes, let’s,” she whispered. “Just you and me, Veronique.”

  The vampire lunged for her, and the Slayer dodged to one side and brought an elbow down on Veronique’s skull, driving her to the floor. The vampire rolled, leaped to her feet, and turned to face the Slayer again.

  “Just you and me,” Angela repeated.“The battle comes down to the two of us, demon, because we are the last. We are alone here, on the island. No human, no vampire remains, save for we two.”

  Veronique paused to stare at her, understanding beginning to sink in. Crete was ever so far away. Too far. If she were killed here, it would mean she must wait for the island to be settled once more, long enough that a vampire might come, and take one of them. Unless her masters aided her. But she had already failed them so very often; she had no faith that they would.

  “Come, then, vampire,” the Slayer snarled. “Perhaps we’ll die together.”

  Then
the girl lunged for her prey. Veronique barely moved aside in time. Her eyes darted around the church, to windows and broken door, out to the ocean beyond, longing to be anywhere but there in that room with Angela Martignetti. The Slayer.

  For the first time in many centuries, the creature called Veronique was afraid.

  * * *

  Angel stood among the cars in the parking lot at Sunnydale Hospital, blending with the shadows as best he could. He knew that Buffy was inside, thanks to the message she had left him, but he had decided it would be best for him to wait out here. When she emerged, he would go to her, and stay with her as long as she needed him.

  The minutes ticked by unnoticed. What did they mean to him, after all? Long hours filled with nothing were not uncommon for his life. But keeping this vigil for Joyce, and for Buffy, was enough to occupy his mind and heart.

  Until he saw Leah coming out of the hospital. A small smile spread over Angel’s features, and he stepped even more deeply into the shadows, crouching a bit, as she came toward him. She stopped only a row away, and he watched her. With a striking suddenness, he was overwhelmed by the memory of the first time he’d seen her, when she’d come into the alley and he had watched her, skulking in the darkness. This was so similar, it was painful for him to remember.

  For a moment, he dropped his gaze.

  Then he heard Leah Coleman scream.

  Before his mind had begun to register what was truly happening, Angel was vaulting onto the hood of the car in front of him. Several vampires had come from the darkness deeper into the lot to attack Leah, and he saw many others moving as shadows toward the hospital.

  “You should have kept your mouth shut,” one of the vampires snarled at her. “If you hadn’t seen us, you would not have to die. But we cannot afford to have you sound an alarm, old woman.”

  Angel ran across the hoods of cars, his heavy boots denting the metal, and then he dove at the nearest of the vamps, tackling it to the ground. The vampire tried to rise, but Angel was up first. He kicked the vampire in the head, and then the chest, and turned on the others.