Buffy The Vampire Slayer - The Lost Slayer - The King Of The Dead

by Christopher Golden (lit)

  Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Willow watching her.

  "So, I'm guessing we don't have to invite them in," she said as she ran.

  "It was a hospital once. Anyone is welcome in a pub­lic place like that. When we first moved in, I tried half a dozen times to cast a spell to revoke that general invita­tion, but it never took. When a hospital is built, the in­tention of everyone involved is that it be open to anyone. I think that intent of purpose is too strong to override."

  Ahead, Oz had reached the line of trees. The were­wolf paused and stared back at them, poised impatiently as they hurried to catch up.

  "Meaning any vampire can stroll right in at any time," Buffy said. "Nobody thinks that's a security risk?"

  "Of course it is," Lonergan grunted, obviously a bit annoyed. "That's one of the reasons they've got me around here. Bloodsuckers nearby, I sense it."

  "So I noticed," Buffy replied. "But you didn't sense Giles, did you?"

  Lonergan shot her a withering glance. "Didn't know you'd dusted Spike, did I? Gift I've got can't distinguish one from the other. Just tells me when there's evil about. Look, we've got enough manpower to repel a demon or vampire assault. But, hell, nobody ever thought the leeches'd come in one at a time. Suicide, isn't it?"

  "Or it should be," Xander muttered darkly.

  Buffy shot him a sidelong glance. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing."

  At the edge of the trees, the Slayer stopped. The other operatives went on around them, but Willow and Xander hung back. The three of them studied one another war­ily. Buffy could not even bear to argue with Xander. In­stead, she looked at Willow.

  "So you think, what, that because it's Giles, I let him go?" she demanded.

  Willow met her gaze evenly, though she replied with some hesitation. "It crossed my mind."

  Xander was more direct. "You can't tell us it wasn't difficult for you, seeing him like that."

  "Of course it was!" Buffy snapped, shaking her head. "But that only makes me want to destroy that thing even more. He was too fast for me. That took me by surprise. He trained me, and he used that against me. But if you guys think I just let him go, after all he's done... I don't know what you've gone through the last five years that's changed you so much, but you don't know me at all anymore."

  Xander stared at her. "Maybe we don't," he said. Then he turned and jogged into the trees after the others.

  Buffy watched him go, then stared at Willow. A bitter sort of anger rose up in her and she turned to follow Xander. After a few steps, though, she changed her mind, turned and confronted Willow.

  "When they put me in that cell, they didn't just take away my freedom. They stole so much more from me. My mother. Giles. Faith. Angel. And five years of my life. I guess I didn't realize they'd stolen you from me, too."

  Willow blanched, all the wary hesitation going out of her expression in an instant. She took a quick, unsteady breath and shook her head almost imperceptibly. Buffy waited for a few seconds for her to speak, but when Wil­low said nothing, she turned to follow Xander through the trees. The woods weren't very deep, perhaps thirty feet. On the other side was an office park. The werewolf was crouched on a spot in the parking lot, sniffing the pavement. He glanced up expectantly. In that form Oz could not speak, but his meaning was clear.

  This was where the trail stopped.

  Buffy hung back, watching Xander and Lonergan and the other operatives begin to scan the lot for any sign of Giles, but it was clear they all knew it was a futile pursuit.

  There was a rustle from the woods behind her, and then Willow laid a hand on Buffy's shoulder. The Slayer turned to face her old friend, and was surprised to see that Willow seemed almost angry.

  "There's something you should understand," Willow said. For a moment, she glanced away, then fixed her gaze upon Buffy again. "After they took you, it was a while before we realized what was really going on. Giles took his time, covered his tracks. During that time before it all really went to hell, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think the next phone call, the next knock on the door, was going to be you. That you'd find a way to get free, to come back. That you'd have a plan.

  "When Angel went looking for you and he didn't come back either... I still tried to tell myself it would be all right. We searched for you constantly, interro­gated every vamp and demon in Sunnydale. I tried to use magick to find you, but I knew that was probably useless. Giles would have expected that."

  Willow pressed her lips together and turned away, wiping at her eyes.

  "A little more than a year after they took you, the vampires rose up and took Sunnydale. It happened in a single night, and we had no idea there were so many of them. A lot of the cops. The mayor. People's parents. My parents, Buffy."

  With a small shudder, Buffy put a hand over her mouth. "Oh God, Willow."

  "I hadn't been by the house for a couple of weeks," Willow went on, eyes narrowing with grief at the mem­ory. "That night, they came to see me."

  "What... what did you do?"

  Willow shook her head and glanced off at some point in the distance, as though she could still see the horrors she had witnessed that day.

  "Not me," she said softly, the burden of her memories clear in the set of her shoulders, the cast of her eyes. "Oz. He dusted them both. It's never been the same with us since then. I never stopped hoping you would be all right. But after that night, I couldn't wait for you any­more, you know?"

  Regret weighed heavily upon Buffy and she cursed herself for being so selfish. She was not the only one whose world had changed.

  "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," Buffy said. "But, Willow, I'm here now."

  A tiny, hopeful smile twitched upon Willow's lips. Her hand shook a bit as she held it out. Buffy took it, their fingers twining together. Then the two women em­braced briefly.

  "I'm so glad you're alive," Willow whispered.

  "Join the club," Buffy replied as they separated again. "So what's our next move?"

  "You're asking me?"

  "Seems like you're the girl to ask around here."

  Willow furrowed her brow in contemplation. "If even half of what Spike said about Giles's advance­ments in Los Angeles were true, and after this thing with Giles, I think we have to accelerate our plans. But I want to talk to Christopher and Ms. Haversham first."

  Buffy nodded slowly, then paused. "Before you do that, though? There are some other things we should talk about."

  Willow stared at Buffy, astonished and baffled. "Is that even possible?"

  Buffy threw up her hands, a kind of lost expression on her face. "Apparently."

  They sat on the sofa in Willow's quarters, shoes off, feet drawn up beneath them as they faced each other. After they had come back inside, Willow had brought Buffy here. The Slayer had been distracted as she complimented Willow on how nice the suite was, the way Willow had acquired some of the things that decorated the walls and shelves. Though Willow had known Buffy was stalling, putting off getting around to discussing whatever was on her mind, she could never have prepared herself for the sheer incredulity of it.

  "Are you sure it isn't... well, no offense, but some kind of psychosis from being a prisoner so long?" she ventured.

  Buffy shook her head. "It would be easier if I was crazy, huh? Tell me about it. But, not, sorry to say."

  Willow rested her chin atop her knees, arms wrapped tightly around her shins, and stared at Buffy as she turned the extraordinary story over and over in her mind.

  "Tell me that look is from you puzzling out how to fix it," Buffy said hopefully.

  "Sort of that," Willow replied hesitantly. "And sort of... there are really two of you in there?"

  "Yep. Dos Buffys."

  "There's no conflict, though? No struggle for domi­nance or whatever?"

  Buffy gave her a sheepish look. "Haven't thought about it much, to be honest. Been a little busy. But it isn't like having two different minds in one b
ody. Two sets of memories, yeah, but not really. I mean, the stuff that happened five years ago... all that's a lot fresher in my mind than it should be, because in a crazy way it just happened a few weeks ago. I know there's this doubled up thing happening, but both of the souls in me are me. Y'know?"

  "If I say I do, will you not try to explain it anymore? It's making my head hurt."

  "I know how you feel," Buffy said. "I mean, some of the things that I do, I'm not even sure if my instincts and emotions come from version nineteen-point-oh or twenty-four-point-oh, or some combination of both. But it's not like I'm all Jekyll and Hyde or any­thing."

  Willow nodded, but her mind was already skipping tracks, examining other aspects of this bizarre phenom­enon. "Let me think out loud for a second." She stood up and paced around the room a bit, reaching out to touch familiar, comforting objects, thoughts swirling. At the same time, even though she was contemplating Buffy's situation, in the back of her mind a warm, joyful feeling had begun to grow now that the awkwardness she had felt toward Buffy had been dispersed.

  "This is thinking out loud?" Buffy asked.

  "Oh, sorry," Willow replied quickly, waving at some­thing in the air around her. "It's just... a little over­whelming. It's hard to put any of it into words."

  Buffy leaned forward on the sofa. "Those telepathic powers I had once? Long gone."

  "I know, I know. All right, since your now self re­members being thrown into the cell in the first place, and since I'm pretty sure you were you for a second there after Camazotz ripped Zotzilaha out of you, we know this, um, overcrowding thing is temporary. Which means we're destined to figure out how to send you back."

  With a sigh, Willow reached up and took the clip from her hair, then shook it out. Her head hurt, and though she doubted the clip was responsible, it felt bet­ter to have her hair down.

  "That's not right, is it?" she asked.

  Buffy shook her head. "I wish it was that simple. But no, that's not right. Even if you can figure out how to separate me, or us, or whatever, and send me back to where I belong, if you just put me in at that moment, nothing will have changed. Everything will happen the same way."

  Willow nodded. "Which means that Camazotz exor­cising The Prophet from your then-body is the catalyst, the thing that draws you back from this time." Alarm bells went off inside her. "And we have no way of know­ing when that will happen. It could be years or seconds from now."

  "Exactly," Buffy said. "The clock is ticking but we don't know how much time we have. Before I get pulled back, you've got to figure out how to override it all and send me back farther, back before The Prophet Zotzilla or whatever took over my body. Zotzilaha said I made a mistake that led to this. I hate to say it, but I believe that. Which means I have to go back and stop myself from making that mistake; I have to pick the right moment."

  Willow pressed a hand to her forehead. "Which is?"

  Buffy sighed. "I don't know. I guess I made a lot of mistakes. The thing that sticks out in my mind was that night at the harbor master's office, when Giles was cap­tured. I... left him behind."

  "You had to," Willow told her. "You'd probably both have been killed right then and there. What could you have done differently?"

  The Slayer lowered her gaze and a shadow fell across her face. "I don't know. Maybe it wasn't that moment.

  Maybe the specific moment was before that. Or even after it. But what could I have done differently? I want you to use your magick to give me a chance to find out. I'll tell you this much, though. If I get a second chance, I'll never leave Giles behind again."

  "I wish I had as much faith in me as you do," Willow said with a soft laugh. "But Zotzilaha did this to you. Once we understand exactly what she did and we can fig­ure out how she did it, hopefully we'll be able to reverse it. If we can get you back far enough, none of this will ever have happened. Everything in my life will be different."

  Buffy frowned. "Will, I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that. But—"

  Willow interrupted firmly. "Anything's better than this." All the heartaches of the past five years came to her then with crystal clarity. The death and loss and dis­appointment, and the loneliness.

  "I'm so glad you're here," she said.

  Buffy gave her an emphatic nod and a sweet smile. "Never thought I'd say this, but me too."

  "I'm going to get on the research right away," Willow promised.

  "Good. While we're waiting around for that, we can work on the plan."

  "Plan?"

  "How to take Sunnydale back and kill Giles."

  "Ah," Willow nodded. "That plan."

  Over the years since Sunnydale had fallen to the vam­pires, its downtown area had become like Bourbon Street in New Orleans. While some shops and restau­rants still had windows boarded up, there was more life here than anywhere else in town.

  After dark, at least.

  The old Sun Cinema was technically closed, its facade falling apart, but they still showed movies all night, every night, thanks to one enterprising demon who saw a need and filled it. Establishments that had been trashed or abandoned had been replaced over time with others, mostly bars and strip clubs and such.

  Giles rode north through town on a refurbished thirty-year-old Norton motorcycle that was his pride and joy. He had first spotted the machine in Aaron Trask's garage eighteen months earlier. Trask was the human mechanic who cared for all the vehicles used by Giles and his most trusted aides. For more than a year, in his spare time, Giles had admired the mechanic's handiwork as he re­stored the Norton. When it was finished, buffed to a high shine, ready to go, Giles let Trask take it out for one ride before he demanded the motorcycle as tribute to the king.

  Frankly he thought the whole king thing was a load of crap, but he found that vampires and humans were, as a general rule, stupid, and royalty was something they could understand. That, and fear. Giles had a feeling it was more the latter than the former that convinced Aaron Trask to hand over the Norton without a word of argument.

  Trask hated him, that much was clear to Giles. For that alone, he would have killed the man, but he was a very good mechanic.

  A short time later Giles parked the motorcycle in its spot in the garage under City Hall. The guards all in­clined their heads as he passed. Aaron Trask was there working on a limousine as Giles walked to the elevator bank, past a pair of sentries on duty there. He smiled and waved to Trask. Trask returned the wave but not the smile.

  When the elevator doors slid open on the third floor, Jax was waiting for him.

  "Did you enjoy your trip, my lord?" he asked, eyes blazing amid the white tattoo across his face.

  "Very much, thank you, Jax."

  "You have supplicants waiting for the brand, master."

  Giles paused to glance at Jax, then scratched his head thoughtfully for a moment. "Let's move them to tomor­row night. I'm feeling a bit hungry, and thought I might go down for a bit of rejuvenation."

  "I'll take care of it," Jax promised.

  "Excellent," Giles replied.

  He reached into his pocket for a ring that held keys to the Norton, a Jaguar he particularly liked, and a few others. As he walked down the hall to a different eleva­tor, he spun the ring on his finger, the keys jangling loudly.

  The elevator doors opened immediately when he pressed the button. Giles stepped in, selected the appro­priate key, and inserted it. After he turned the key, he pressed the button marked "BB" and the elevator began to descend to the subbasement.

  A very interesting night, he mused. Buffy's response had not been what he had hoped, but it had been precisely what he'd expected. He only dreamed that in time she would surrender to the conclusion that he was right, that she was meant to be a part of his regime. Still, it had been wonderful seeing her again. He had nearly been able to taste her blood even from across the room.

  A good night.

  Giles was humming as the doors slid open again.

  Time for a visit with the god of bats.


  Time to drink of power.

  Chapter 5

  Home.

  As Buffy opens her eyes her senses are suffused by the atmosphere of home that surrounds her. Soft jazz on the radio floats up to her along with the scent of something cooking. Pancakes, she thinks. Or not thinks exactly, so much as registers, 'cause thinking would require too much effort. Sunday morning, then, with pancakes and that jazz radio show that runs until noon.

  The sheets smell fresh and clean and she burrows a little deeper under them, enjoying the feeling of the cot­ton against the side of her face. A strand of her hair is across her face and it tickles her nose so that she must blow it away with a puff of breath.

  It's bliss, really, but somehow she cannot slip back into unconsciousness. Sleep has fled now and though she is warm and content, her mind has begun the day already without her cooperation. A bemused, drowsy grin steals across her face and, lazily, she opens her eyes.

  It is bright outside her windows but there is no breeze. Her stuffed pig, Mr. Gordo, is a pink lump half hidden be­tween her pillow and the headboard. Her alarm clock has numbers on it, but Buffy finds she cannot read them. She blinks several times, convinced it must be after nine o'clock because of the jazz. Then her vision seems to clear—though there wasn't anything wrong with it be­fore—and the numbers on the alarm clock read "12:00." The numbers blink off and on like the clock on a new VCR.

  Power's out, Buffy thinks. But she knows it can't be, because then where is the music coming from?

  Her bliss ripples like the wind across the surface of a pond. With a sigh, she sits up in bed, and it is then that she notices the splash of purple on the wall. She recog­nizes it immediately, a carnival mask hand-painted in vivid colors. Her father brought it back from Venice for her when she was twelve years old.

  During the move from LA. to Sunnydale, it was shat­tered in the box. A box scrawled with the word fragile on the top, bottom and on every side. Broken, this gift from her father, that he brought back specially for her from his business trip.

  But here it is. Whole and unbroken.