Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Buffy Season4 02 (13 page)

“This is home base,” Willow said.

Buffy stared at the front of the building. “Big operation.” The three of them climbed out of the car. Without a word or a glance, Xander started for the building, but Buffy and Willow hung back, walking slowly side by side. After a moment, both women paused. Buffy and Willow turned to gaze at each other. The Slayer was overcome with emotion, a release of despair that she had fought against for so long. Willow bit her lip, a tiny smile twitching at her lips, and then the women embraced. Best friends, too long apart, they had built up walls around their hope that they would be together again. Buffy still felt some distance between them, knew that it would take time for them to be comfortable with each other again.

But this was a start.

After a moment, they stepped back from each other. Buffy began to walk toward the building, but paused again and glanced curiously at this woman Willow had become.

“I know we have a million things to talk about— you have no idea—but you know what’s nagging at me? If all Camazotz wanted was his wife back, then why did he capture me afterward? Why bother with me at all? He could have just killed me and gone home. All this conqueror stuff, I mean, what does that have to do with chasing his wife?”

Willow’s eyes went wide as Buffy spoke. When only silence hung between them, Willow lifted a hand to her mouth as though afraid of the words that might come out. After a moment, she shook her head.

“God, Buffy, I’m sorry. I… it never occurred to me that you didn’t know.” Icy tendrils of dread clutched at Buffy’s heart. “Didn’t know what?”

“Nobody’s seen Camazotz for years. If he’s still alive, he’s probably as much a prisoner as you were.”

Buffy frowned. “I don’t understand.”

The van rocked back and forth as the Kakchiquels tried to tip it over. Anya held up a crucifix in front of her broken window. Willow stared through the windshield and saw Camazotz retract his tongue. The black, viscous thing that had been pulled from inside Buffy’s throat undulated at the end of the bat-god’s tongue. Buffy was limp in his clutches but the thing was out of her body, at least. Camazotz sucked the twitching black thing into his mouth and swallowed it whole. The bat-god’s withered wings fluttered mightily and he threw his disgusting head back and laughed, needle teeth flashing in the starlight.

“Run him down,” Willow said, stomach roiling in disgust. “Go!” Oz put the van in drive and was about to floor it when there came a soft tap at the driver’s-side window.

They all glanced that way at once, surprised by the subtle noise amidst the violent cacophony around them.

Giles stood beside the van, just outside Oz’s window. He no longer wore his glasses, and his eyes blazed brightly with orange flame. He bore no tattoo on his face, but when he smiled at them, Willow saw the pale outline of fangs.

Something crumbled inside her then. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head in despair. “No, no, no!”

“Giles,” Anya said. “He’s a…”

“You can’t win,” Giles called amiably, loud enough to be heard through the window. “You can only die. Don’t worry, though. Buffy will live. I wouldn’t dream of killing
her.”
With that he turned away from the van and strode toward Camazotz. Through Anya’s shattered window they heard Giles shout at the bat-god.

“Careful with her! Don’t forget, if you kill her, another will rise in her place. The only way to defeat the Slayer is to cage her. If we can’t send her to Hell, bringing Hell to her here on Earth is the next best thing.”

Camazotz hesitated, but after a moment he dropped Buffy on the ground. Giles motioned to several of the others, who picked her up, and then they all retreated into the night, beyond the reach of the van’s headlights, carrying Buffy with them.

In a moment, the van idled in the parking lot, and they were alone save for the dead travelers inside the bus station.

They had been left alive, but Willow knew it was not because the monster who had once been their friend had spared them. It was because they were an afterthought. With the Slayer a prisoner, they didn’t matter to him. Not at all.

“Oh, man. Giles,” Oz said, voice hushed.

“What do we do now?” Xander asked. “We are
so
screwed.” Willow began to cry, there in the back of the van, great heaving sobs that seemed to be torn right out of her. She didn’t think she would ever be able to stop.

Buffy stared at Willow, eyes wide. She had never felt so cold. Of all she had seen and heard in this horrid future, this was the hardest blow of all. She bit her lip, tears slipping down her cheeks, and shook her head slowly.

“No, Willow. Oh, no,” she whispered. “Not Giles.” For Willow, that night was five years in the past. And yet the pain of it still haunted her eyes. She pulled Buffy to her again, held her for a long moment. Suddenly Buffy pulled away.

“Giles,” the Slayer said, wiping at her eyes. “Giles is a vampire.” Willow paused, then glanced away. “Not just a vampire,” she said. “The most brilliant, most evil, most dangerously organized vampire who has ever lived. He’s their leader.

“Their king.”

To Be Continued…