Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Buffy Season4 02 (6 page)

Profoundly unnerved, a thousand questions in her head, Buffy shattered one of the chairs, snapped the legs and back into half a dozen usable stakes, and carried them under one arm with the quiver. In the other hand she held the crossbow. On alert, skin prickling as she searched around her for any sign of another presence, she hurried down the stairs and out into the sun. With the blue sky above, she felt a little better, but not much. This was a mystery that disturbed her deeply. Someone had known or at least suspected that she would find her way to this spot, or had been here upon her arrival and left these things for her to find.

And all across the lot, the shadows cast by nearby trees and the remnants of the drive-in screens had grown longer. The afternoon was waning, and night was only a few hours away. Buffy hurried to the police car again. She opened the trunk, and was relieved to find a canvas bag that had belonged to one of the police officers inside. There were cotton sweatpants and a sweatshirt in there, as well as a large pair of sneakers. She dumped the clothes out, dropped the weapons into the bag, then noticed a small box of roadside flares and took those as well. She slung the bag over her shoulder and headed, not for the road, but for the chain link fence at the far side of the lot. It felt to her as though there were eyes upon her, now. The crossbow was almost warm in her grip. Buffy vaulted the fence and set off through a stretch of woods that would lead up to a power plant, from which she could work her way eventually into Hammersmith Park, and then into the backyards of residential Sunnydale.

Stay off the street,
she told herself.

If the silence in El Suerte had been surreal, the ravaged streets of Sunnydale were all
too
real. As Buffy made her way through back alleys and across fire escapes, hugging the shadows to keep out of plain sight, a constant current of alarm and abhorrence ran through her body. Her town had become an abomination.

The parks were ravaged, statues destroyed. Every few blocks she passed a row of buildings or houses that had been burned out completely, leaving a charred shell behind. It was unnerving, seeing some shops and markets apparently thriving, while so many other businesses had been ransacked, shattered windows in the front a sure sign of what she would find inside. Three times she had entered such a store, and each time the result was the same. Christabel’s Consignments, The Flower Cart, and Quarryhouse Pizza. Each store had been torn apart, ripped and shattered, but it had obviously happened long ago and a thick layer of dust, unblemished by the footprint of a single intruder, lay upon everything. In the back of each of those businesses, Buffy discovered the remains of the owners, so decayed that there was no way to tell how they died. She could only assume the vampires had killed them.

And yet the others, the stores that were still running, were equally disturbing to see, for Buffy knew that their proprietors must be cooperating with the vampires, serving both the humans who still lived in Sunnydale and the monsters who ruled it.

With each block she drove, Buffy’s mood became even more grim. Questions about her mother’s fate, and that of her friends, kept forcing their way into her mind, but Buffy pushed them away. Before she could help anyone, she had to know exactly what the situation was, what she was dealing with. Someone had been there, at the Twin Drive-In. They knew she was on her way here. No way could she risk going by her house just yet.

In a way, despite her horror at the devastation that had occurred in some places in town, it disturbed her even more deeply when she saw that other businesses and homes seemed remarkably well-preserved. Downtown was deserted, and yet many of the businesses actually still had lights on. Curious, Buffy broke in through the back door of the Espresso Pump. The machines hummed quietly, the coolers still working, red lights winking on coffee machines, ready for business. Buffy made her way through the darkened store to the front door and looked at the posted hours of business. There were three words printed there: Open All Night. Simple enough, but they created more questions. The Espresso Pump was still in operation, as were most of the bars she had seen, as well as video stores, a couple of small markets, and the Sun Cinema. But were they run by vampires or humans?
Were
there many humans left?

As she had made her way around town, she had seen several police cars cruising slowly down deserted streets.
Probably looking for me,
she’d thought. But she had also seen a few other vehicles, including two gray vans with no rear windows and blacked-out windshields. Just inside the Espresso Pump, Buffy stepped back a bit from the door when she saw another of those gray vans cruise by slowly. It seemed too quiet, almost as though it were rolling along without an engine. Ridiculous, of course. She had not heard anything because of the hum of the many machines inside the cafe. But eerie nevertheless.

A car pulled up in front of the Sun Cinema across the street. Buffy was only slightly surprised to see a haggard-looking middle-aged couple climb out together. They walked around to the trunk, from which they retrieved a trio of large film canisters. Revulsion rippled through her as she realized what was going on. These people were collaborators. Whatever was in the canisters, they were films that had been brought in to be screened for the vampires that now populated Sunnydale.
Maybe they had no choice,
Buffy thought. But she knew that they all had a choice, the people who still lived in this town. Some of them might not be cooperating with the vampires, but rather were paralyzed by their fear, too terrified to fight. The people remaining in Sunnydale could have banded together and killed their masters, or simply run off while the sun was up. Some probably
had
fled. But Buffy knew that she would have to be careful. Whether collaborators or simply ruled by their fear, she could not afford to trust anyone who was still here.

The whole town belonged to the monsters now, one enormous lair for the vampires she had come to know as Kakchiquels, the servants of Camazotz. With this as the epicenter, they were building a kingdom, an empire even. Their control extended at least to El Suerte, probably farther. Buffy needed answers.

As soon as the human couple had disappeared inside the theater, Buffy went back out into the alley behind the Espresso Pump again. With the canvas bag of weapons slung across her back, she moved lithely through the hidden places of Sunnydale, always alert for watchful eyes. Even the humans here could not be trusted, that much was now certain.

The going was slow due to the need for stealth, but within twenty minutes she found herself on a block of warehouses, factories and office buildings that ran parallel to the street where the Bronze sat. There were other bars there as well, and it stood to reason she might be able to catch a human out during the daylight

Answers. The need to hear it from the lips of a living, breathing human being was strong in here. Her instinct, and her own memories of the place, had suggested this would be a good neighborhood to start. If that didn’t work, she might try at the college, or simply break into a home that looked as though it were still occupied.

It had occurred to her that the initial skirmishes she’d had with the Kakchiquels all those years ago had been in Docktown, but it would take too long for her to get over there. She had a couple of hours, probably less, before dark. If possible, she wanted to be out of Sunnydale by then. Otherwise she would need a safe place to use as her base, and had no idea where to begin. Buffy slid between an enormous trash bin and the brick wall of a warehouse. Fifteen feet above the ground was an iron ladder that led to the roof. Without hesitation, she splayed her hands against the brick on one side and the metal bin on the other and crawled up between the two. Muscles rippled like cables in her arms.

With a push off the wall, she landed atop the trash bin, balanced on the metal Up of the thing. Buffy sprang from her perch and both hands locked around the bottom rung of the ladder. Feet against the building, she pulled herself up and then was scrambling hand over hand to the roof. Crouched low, she sprinted across the rooftop to the opposite corner, where she could see the street that ran in front of the Bronze, as well as the alley beside the building she was on. Disappointment deflated her. The street below was empty of movement of any kind. A stray beer bottle, pushed by the wind, rolled across pavement with a tinkle of glass. Otherwise, all was silence. For ten minutes or more, Buffy sat there at the edge of the roof. From that height, she could see almost as far as Docktown to the east, the blazing sun on top of the cinema downtown off to the north, and to the south, the tops of houses in residential neighborhoods.

It was as though the entire town had been killed, drained by a vampire. Yet it seethed with menace, as if at any moment its eyes would open, burning orange, and it would rise with fangs gnashing, thirsting for blood.

Anxious, Buffy bounced on the balls of her feet and glanced time and again at the deepening hues of blue on the horizon and the long afternoon shadows on the street.

“I’ve gotta get out of here,” she whispered.

Almost as if on cue, the sound of a distant engine came to her. Buffy crouched down even farther and glanced furtively up and down the street. A moment later, she saw the same gray van—or another exactly like it—cruising toward her.

With a small squeak of brakes, it stopped in front of the Bronze. There was a moment’s pause and then the horn blared twice and the passenger door opened.

The figure that emerged from the van made Buffy shiver, though the sun shone warmly on her. She could not see if it was male or female, but it was clothed in a silver radiation suit that covered it from head to toe. Only the black goggles across its eyes broke up the endless silver. Not an inch of skin was visible.
Vampire,
she thought, and instantly knew it was true. Daylight reflected off the folds in its silver suit, but the monster was safe within that protective garb.

The driver of the van beeped again and the front door of the Bronze slammed open. A tall human man with black hair came out of the club, hands in the air.

“All right, all right! Keep your shirt on!” he snapped.

The vampire walked around to the back of the van and opened the door. From what Buffy could tell from that angle, there was nothing inside the van. Then the man turned back toward the Bronze and shouted inside.

“Move it! Come on, kiddies. Everyone has to take a turn.” Almost immediately, six more people came out of the club, all in their late teens, early twenties. Three male, three female. One of the girls began to sob and hesitate, unwilling to climb into the van with the others. The dark-haired man went to her, held her face in his hands and whispered something that made her stiffen, wide-eyed. After that she went meekly to the back of the van and climbed in. The vampire returned to the front of the van, climbed in, and then the vehicle rolled away. For a moment, the dark-haired man stared after it. Then he went to the door of the Bronze and locked it up before walking to a brand-new convertible Mercedes parked along the road amongst several other cars.

He got in and started the engine. Then he took a moment to tilt his head back and regard himself in the mirror, fussing with his hair.

Which was when Buffy recognized him.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“Parker.”

The last time she had seen him he had been a freshman in college. He had seduced her, used her, and then pretended he had done nothing wrong. Now he was five years older, and Parker Abrams was not only collaborating with the vampires, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Son of a bitch,” Buffy muttered angrily.

She withdrew from the edge of the building eight or ten feet, paused, then ran full tilt. With a grunt of effort and anger, she sprang out across the narrow alleyway below. The gap was broader man she had judged and she extended her body forward, turned her leap into a dive. Buffy made it across with room to spare, hit the roof of the Bronze and tucked into a roll.

Without a pause, she flowed back to her feet and ran across the building to stare down at Parker’s car. The Mercedes slid into reverse, but moved only two feet as he attempted to pull out from between two other vehicles.

He was right below her.

Buffy leaped out into open air, her hair whipping behind her as she fell straight down, canvas bag dragging behind her like an unopened parachute. Though it lasted only a heartbeat or two, the fall seemed extremely slow to her. Parker had turned the steering wheel and put the car in drive again, and even as she fell he began to pull forward slowly, at pains to be sure he cleared the bumper of the car in front of him.

Her boots slammed the hood of the Mercedes with a loud crumpling noise. The impact made her teeth clack together and drove her to her knees.

Parker screamed in surprise and fear and for just a moment, forgot he was driving. The bumper of the Mercedes rapped lightly against the car in front of it

He didn’t even notice. He only stared at her. “What—” he muttered. “Who the—” Parker’s eyes went wide, and she knew then that he had recognized her.

“Oh Jesus.
You.”

Buffy rose from the dented hood and gripped the top of the convertible’s windshield. Parker gripped the wheel, cut it as far to the left as he could, and pressed the accelerator. He clipped the other car’s bumper again, but Buffy flipped herself over the windshield and into the passenger’s seat.

“No!” Parker yelled.

Beside him now, Buffy shot her right hand out and latched on to his throat, squeezing.

“Stop the car.”

Parker slammed on the brakes. “Buffy, please,” he rasped hoarsely, eyes roving desperately, searching the streets.

It turned her stomach to think that he might be hoping the vampires might still be there, might protect him from her.

“You remember me. You know who I am. Let me ask you, do you know
what
I am?” Choking, he managed a wheezing “yes.” His eyes were on her, and Buffy stared back at him until Parker looked away. She released his throat and he began to massage it, almost whimpering. When she reached around to pull her canvas bag into her lap, he flinched.