The Book of Fours

by Nancy Holder

  “And I’ll go to Willy’s,” Angel said, heading for the door.

  “Xander and I will patrol,” Buffy announced.

  From the loft, Xander said, “Oh, yay.”

  “I’ll stay here and keep Giles company,” Cordelia said, “and also, if people need rides, I’ll be here.”

  “We could use a ride,” Xander said.

  “People who aren’t here and need to be somewhere else other than here,” Cordelia added.

  Buffy leaned forward and put her hand on Giles’s. “I’m so sorry about Mr. Zabuto,” she murmured. “I didn’t know you stayed in touch with him.”

  He pushed up his glasses. “Actually, I’ve had many conversations with him. I didn’t mention it to you,” he said quickly, “because, frankly, I didn’t want you to think about the fact that Kendra had died. I tried to find out everything I could about her. What her weaknesses were. What battles she walked away from. How she trained.”

  “Why?” Buffy asked, puzzled.

  “I need to learn everything I can to keep you alive.” He hesitated. “I’ve often thought of calling Kit Bothwell, but I never have. It was just too close to home.”

  “I understand.” She cleared her throat. “I won’t stay, if it will make you uncomfortable.”

  “Perhaps, when we aren’t quite so . . . distracted, you and I might go down for a visit with him. He lives in San Diego.”

  She wrinkled her forehead. “You know where he lives?”

  He nodded. “Not his precise location. Only that he’s down there. And that he’s not handled the death of his Slay . . . of India very well.”

  Buffy made a face. “He knew the job was dangerous when he took it. So did she.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Buffy. Hearts don’t just turn on and off.” He looked both weary and affectionately put out with her. “People are not interchangeable, though the Council would like us to think they are. One Slayer dies, another chosen . . . but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Human beings, with human feelings, are involved.”

  So I would be missed? she thought. Or after a while, would I just be one of the long line of Slayers, somebody you can talk about in the old Watchers’ Home when you don’t have any teeth left?

  Am I going to matter? Is my life going to matter?

  Is my death going to matter?

  Giles said, “You’ll both need coats.” He went to his hall closet and opened it. “I’ve got a nice London Fog and this all-weather jacket.” He pulled them out.

  “Jacket,” Buffy told him. “Xander can look like the James Bond wannabe.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Giles said. “This is nothing like what James Bond wears.”

  “Pierce Brosnan had that very coat in GQ,” Buffy informed him, and Giles looked pleased.

  “Really?” he said, admiring it. He held it out. “It does have style, doesn’t it.”

  Xander came over and said, “We blowin’ this pop stand?”

  Buffy grinned at him. “You got it.” She smiled at Giles. “Later.”

  “Take care.” His voice was soft, wistful.

  Buffy looked at him, really looked at him, at the crow’s feet along his eyes, the creases in his forehead. There was more gray in his hair now than there had been a year ago.

  Does he wonder about his life having meaning? Does he worry about dying?

  “Don’t get killed,” Cordelia said.

  “We’ll do our best,” Buffy replied.

  “Buffy, do be careful.”

  She looked at him. “I never asked you. About . . . her.” Her throat caught. “God, am I just the most superficial person who ever lived or what?”

  Giles’s smile was sympathetic and reassuring. “It’s a documented fact that most Slayers never ask about the one whose death called them to service, Buffy. I wasn’t at all surprised that you didn’t ask me about her. To be frank, I didn’t want to discuss it, either. It’s distressingly . . .”

  “Close to home,” Buffy finished.

  He closed his eyes and nodded, walking them to the door. As he opened it, heavy winds ripped it from his grasp and slammed it back on the hinges, nearly breaking it off. Rain was tumbling into the courtyard like a waterfall.

  “Yikes,” Xander said. “Not a good day for hang gliding.”

  “Or walking,” Buffy muttered.

  Giles brought them umbrellas and Buffy found herself wishing for a desk job—maybe she could become Buffy the Computer Virus Slayer except, okay, knowledge of computers; or Buffy the Data Input Entry Mistake Finder except, okay, boring.

  Slaying it is, then.

  “To Oz?” she asked Xander.

  “Or Atlantis?” Xander said. “Or a really nice, warm room? Oh, wait, we were just in one.”

  Giles said, “I’ll have tea and hot water bottles ready.”

  “You’re all heart,” Xander replied.

  He and Buffy opened their umbrellas and together, they breached the gale.

  Chapter Seven

  San Diego

  It was very stupid of him to have a go again, and he knew it. But the thought, the hope, was like a terribly addictive drug. And Christopher Bothwell could no longer stop himself.

  Dressed in a robe of midnight blue spangled with kabalistic symbols, Kit stood in the center of his living room in the Ocean Beach section of San Diego. His female consort stood at his side also robed. Her magickal name was Cecile, and he’d met her at a Wicca singles group three weeks ago. By day, she was temping at a law firm; by night, she danced naked around bonfires on the beach and claimed to be able to speak to the dead.

  She had warm, cocoa-colored skin and brilliant red hair, but he suspected that she dyed it because it was the traditional hair color of those imbued with magickal abilities. Her affectations concerned him—methinks she doth protest too much—but on the other hand, she had managed a number of spells. Thus far her most notable accomplishment was that she had lit all the candles in the room with the power of her voice alone; for another, she had seen—or claimed to have seen—the ghost of Kit’s uncle, who had recently died. Of course, there were innumerable ways to fabricate such a story.

  “Abracadabra,” she intoned, her eyes closed.

  “One,” he replied.

  They had ingested powerful hypnotic drugs together, herbals that he had ground according to ritual with his mortar and pestle. Simple paraffin candles provided the only source of illumination, in a protective circle which he, as the male, was to protect. The female was there to actually perform the rituals. Most magick traditions were matriarchal, a fact he had learned in his Watcher’s training.

  His tiny, cheap flat reeked of smoke, lavender, and incense. In another neighborhood, perhaps, the neighbors would complain, but Ocean Beach was the last bastion of hippiedom, replete with graying surfers, wrinkled flower children, and wizened, middle-aged folk who worked for nonprofit organizations to protect the rights of animals and legalize various drugs. If they worked at all.

  The raggedy drapes were tightly shut against the front window, but they could not drown out the twang of the truly hideous country and western music Kit’s neighbor across the common listened to night and day—especially night, all night, every single wretched night.

  On a metal folding card table, herbal tea was steeping in the pot his mother had purchased for him in Cambridge, to celebrate the day he had graduated from University. The china pot was shaped like a wise old owl, wearing the cap and gown of a scholar. Two mismatched cups were placed beside it. One, he had pilfered from his job at Kinko’s, where he managed the special orders desk. Once upon a time, he had owned a splendid coffee service of Royal Doulton bone china; he had sold almost everything of value in his quest to connect with India.

  If it would have helped to sell his soul, he would have done that as well.

  Cecile took his hand. Her hands were small and always warm. “I feel a presence,” she murmured.

  He concentrated hard, constricting his face into a grimace as he strained
to become receptive to whatever vibration or influence Cecile was sensing. As usual, he felt nothing.

  He had begun to wonder if she ever felt anything during these sessions, or if these sensations of hers were her way of coming on to him. This was their fourth attempt at contacting India. Last time, Cecile had mentioned that in her coven, they performed most rituals “skyclad,” which was the pagan term for naked. She’d also suggested that sexual magick was the most potent form of conjuring in existence.

  He was not a naïve person. He knew that charlatans abounded in the pursuit of the Arts. But he also knew that magick was very real, having devoted his life since the death of India to exploring the mystical realms. He himself had been elevated to high priest status in the coven he had recently left, though he’d never mentioned that fact to Cecile. He respected his Witches’ vow of silence, in the same way that he had honored the oath he had taken upon becoming a Watcher.

  Magick had worked for him in the past. Since India’s death, he had most definitely felt her presence, twice. Once he had been reading, and once sobbing over a silly photograph of the two of them in Spain. And on each occasion, he had dreamed of her that night. Lovely dreams, they’d been. If all he ever managed from his magick was to have another dream of India, the efforts and expenditure would be worth it.

  I never knew I loved her, until she sacrificed herself to save me. Oh, my India . . . my lovely girl . . .

  “Abracadabra, abracadabra,” Cecile chanted.

  “Two,” he replied.

  Then he gasped.

  He did feel something.

  Cecile squeezed his hand. “Don’t open your eyes,” she whispered. “Stand perfectly still.”

  There. Something brushed his lips very gently; it took a conscious act of will not to squint one eye open to see if it was Cecile.

  In the kitchen, Mariposa, India’s little dog, barked sharply. Then the pup growled and scratched at the closed kitchen door.

  “Who is here?” Cecile whispered.

  Kit’s heart pounded. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes. It was a terrible temptation to open his eyes, but he resisted. There were rules, and he followed them, even if they did make it more likely that he was simply being played for a fool by a woman who fancied him.

  “Who is here?” she asked again, her voice firm, in command.

  Please, India, Kit thought. I don’t want to disturb your rest. I only want to know that you’re all right.

  Suddenly, the room grew warm and fragrant; the scent of oranges filled the room and he smelled wistfully, remembering Spain. Spain was where I came to care for her so very much; dear God, if for one moment I could see her, tell her what a great Slayer she had been; thank her, tell her that I did love her, only never realized it . . .

  “Alors, mon vieux, do you see her?” Cecile whispered. Her voice was filled with excitement.

  In the distant landscape of his mind’s eye, a figure shimmered like an angel.

  India?

  Watchers Council Headquarters (rebuilt), Great Russell Street, London

  Micaela Tomassi dreamed.

  In her dreams, she sat on the lap of her adoptive father, the handsome old Italian, as they watched the fieldworker harvesting the grapes. She smelled cinnamon in the air, and rosemary, and closed her eyes. The scents of her life were heavy and thick. The colors of her childhood were Merlot and burgundy, apricot and burnt sienna.

  On her tongue, sugared almonds delighted her taste buds and made her eager for the homemade nougats in the monkeypod bowl at her father’s elbow. She reached for them excitedly and—

  —opened her eyes to the gray fluorescent light, and the gray stone, of her dismal cell inside the prison of the Watchers Council.

  The meeting rooms were on other floors, true; and many Watchers and operatives passed hours within their walls, discussing the progress of the eternal war against evil. Perhaps they never wondered about the other places they never went; perhaps they knew that those who were found guilty of crimes against the Council were housed beneath the first floor, condemned to pass years surrounded in a fog of colorless, lifeless monotony. Many would do anything to end such an existence, and some had managed to kill themselves while in captivity.

  There was something Micaela could do to end it. The temptation was there. To be able to look at colors again, and eat food that tasted; to smell flowers; to lie in a real bed and pull the covers up. To drink wine.

  To make love—

  Rupert, she mouthed, and tears sprang to her eyes. Did he know what had become of her? Did he care? Had he protested, or had he acquiesced to her sentence, believing it to be exactly what she deserved for obeying her father, the evil sorcerer, Fulcanelli?

  She got up from her cot and walked to the bars. Holding onto them, she stared at the gray wall six feet away.

  Because of her magickal abilities, she had been ordered to fulfill her sentence of ten long, excruciating years in solitary confinement. If that wasn’t purgatory, she didn’t know what was.

  Just as she closed her eyes and lay back down on her cot, she heard the familiar footsteps. She clenched her teeth and her fists, fearful and feeling more alone than she had in her entire life.

  It was the man who had asked her to call him Tony. She knew full well who he was—Lord Anthony Yorke, one of the most highly placed members of the Council. And if he didn’t realize that she knew that, he was a bigger fool than she’d imagined. Stupid men were far more dangerous than cunning ones. With an intelligent man, one could match wits. But stupid men were unpredictable because they didn’t think reasonably and logically. Hence, it was more difficult to plan strategy against them.

  The aristocrat, a tall, middle-aged man of slight build, with luxuriant gray hair and a trim goatee, was not only a Council member; he was also a traitor. Many other Council members and operatives had come privately to Micaela’s cell, hoping to bribe her into goosing their pursuit of private personal gain—wealth, success in business or in love, even a promotion within the Council hierarchy. Others had threatened her life if she didn’t give them what they wanted.

  All of them, she had managed to deflect with what amounted to a few parlor tricks, when compared with the powerful magicks she had at her disposal. Her adoptive father had taught her much that, over time, she had forgotten. But with nothing else to do as the days, and weeks, and months dragged by, she had begun to remember a great number of things she had previously suppressed. Perhaps it was the proximity to other magick users—operatives and allies of the Council—or perhaps it was the unceasing sense of danger she felt herself to be in. Whatever had called forth her forgotten knowledge, Lord Yorke had sensed it.

  A minor magician himself, he knew powerful magick when he was in its presence. He admired and respected it.

  And he wanted it.

  “Signorina Micaela,” he said pleasantly as he walked into her view. “How are you? Enjoying the view?”

  She glared at him, remaining silent.

  He was holding a piece of very old-looking parchment. She tried to see what was on it, but it was at a bad angle. Or else her eyesight was beginning to go. With very little to focus on, she found herself seeing double on occasion.

  He looked down at the parchment, then turned it around and pressed it with his palm against the bars of her cell. “Does this look familiar?”

  It was a drawing of a battle axe. The handle was more of a scepter. The ram-like horns of a bearded demon curled around the top of the blade, whose shape reminded Micaela of the sensuous arabesque forms of ancient Middle Eastern art.

  She shrugged. “It’s beautiful, but I’ve never seen it before.”

  “There are four of these,” he said. “They were made as a set.” He smiled provocatively, and her stomach turned. “My colleagues—the ones you’ve refused to help—are searching for one of them. My own finder’s spell, alas, is not working. If you’ll work on recovering it, I will get you out of here.”

  Her answering smile was as cold as her
heart was dead. “Do you know how many people have made offers like that? I’ll be freed if I’ll find the Gem of Amarra; or if I’ll open the portal to Xanadu; or if I will make contact with Lucifer himself—”

  “But you know that I can free you. And I promise you, I shall.”

  The temptation was there, that much she could not deny. Lord Yorke had a sense of honor, as despicable as he was. She remembered how she had been pampered and loved by Fulcanelli, one of the most evil beings who ever walked the Earth. He had treated her like a princess.

  But Fulcanelli also tried to kill me.

  The lines between good and evil were, at best, a foggy gray.

  * * *

  The Watchers Council were, by nature, a very serious group. Their vows included words such as “Guardians of Eternity,” “unceasing vigilance,” and “unswerving loyalty.” Quentin Travers had once said, “Being a Watcher is like guarding the door to your child’s nursery while wild animals roam the halls of your home.” Thoughts such as those moved one to seriousness. Laugh, and you might get eaten.

  It was, in many ways, a disheartening, thankless task. All personal hopes and ambitions were subordinate to the calling. Marriage was, at best, difficult. Friendships withered. One couldn’t hope for a career that demanded too much, and as a result, many Watchers were severely overqualified for their “day jobs,” which could be stultifying as well as financially unrewarding.

  The sacrifices were bad enough; worse was the realization that one was only a cog in a much larger machine. Watchers lived, Watchers died, and still the ferocious beast growled and slathered in the passageway. Look away for a moment, and it might spring. Die, and the burden was passed on to someone else who could not, dare not blink.

  Faced with such circumstances, the notion of “morale” was set aside. It didn’t matter how Watchers felt about their situation. They had a job to do and they had better jolly well do it. Turn traitor, and you were dealt with.

  Seriously.

  In Neema Mfune-Hayes’ opinion, the prison in which Micaela Tomassi spent her days and nights was positively medieval. Amnesty International would certainly have protested the conditions she was forced to endure, had they been aware of her situation. Her cell was cramped, barely long enough for her canvas cot, and the stone floor was always wet and cold. The stone walls wept moisture. There was no ventilation, and the sole source of light was from a bare bulb hanging in the passageway beyond the heavy metal door.