Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Buffy Season4 02 (7 page)

“I’m going to ask questions. You’re going to drive. If I think you’re lying, I’ll snap your neck. Any doubt in your mind that I mean what I say?” she demanded.

He hesitated. Then he smiled, as if relieved. His eyes still had the sparkle that had charmed her once upon a time. “Buffy,” he said amiably. “You don’t have to threaten me.” Nostrils flaring, she turned to glare at him. “You took advantage of me once, Parker. But that was a long time ago. Do I look like that girl to you now?”

Cowed, he gave her the once-over, then shook his head.

“I’ll break you,” she promised. “Just drive.”

“Where to?”

Her thoughts skittered off in several directions at once. There was no way to know how far Camazotz’s influence had spread. But she was certain that there was no way a city the size of Los Angeles could have been overrun. If it had, they wouldn’t still be based here in Sunnydale.

“South,” she said.

Parker drove.

A car passed going the other direction. She watched to be sure Parker made no attempt to signal the driver, likely another collaborator on his way to open up some business that would serve the vampires. The shadows had grown longer. The sky on the western horizon had begun to darken. Nightfall was imminent.

“Faster,” Buffy instructed.

“Your wish is my command.”

“Guess you’re pretty good at that response,” Buffy snarled. “How long have they been in control here?”

“In Sunnydale? Going on four years, I guess. It started small at first, a few people here and there disappeared. Then the cops and the professors up at the college started acting weird. The new mayor, too. Night classes. Evening press conferences. At some point, there were enough of them to just take the town. They did it all in one night, after that. The winter solstice, y’know? Longest night of the year.” The wind seemed almost chilly as it whipped around the convertible.

“How many are there?”

Parker shrugged. “No idea.”

“My friends. My mother. What happened to them?”

“I never met your mother. And I haven’t seen Willow or that other guy since before that night.” Buffy winced, hurt by his ignorance. She wanted so badly to know what had become of her friends. But Parker could not help her.

“How far does their influence extend?”

“I heard they’ve turned the governor. But that’s just the beginning of the king’s plans for the state. Same as he did here, he’s gonna turn officials and people in power, then build up enough of an army to take the whole state at once. Right now it’s just around here. Sunnydale’s like ground zero, with maybe thirty square miles in his control. He’s smart about it, though. Keeps other towns functioning, even has people in some of them thinking nothing’s changed, not even knowing the vampires have taken over. Morons. The leeches keep reproducing, though. It’s only a matter of time.” His words chilled and infuriated her.

“Those people, the ones you gave to the vampires, who were they?” Parker swallowed loud enough for her to hear it. He twitched a little. “They’re… like me. We play along, we live pretty good. But we all have to take turns going to the lair. They … use us. Drink, whatever else they want. One night only. Then they throw us back until it’s our turn again.” Bile rose in the back of Buffy’s throat and her stomach convulsed. She nearly threw up right there in the car. Her nose crinkled with her distaste. Then she remembered something else he’d said.

“King.”

“What’s that?”

“Camazotz has them all calling him ‘the king’ now? It wasn’t enough being the god of bats?” Parker actually chuckled and shook his head. “You really have been away, haven’t you, Buffy?” Buffy frowned. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

But he did not answer. The evening had darkened the eastern sky to a bruised purple, though to the west it was still a baby blue. Minutes left before true night.

Ahead was the intersection with Royal Street, which ran alongside the north end of Hammersmith Park, a quarter of a mile from her mother’s house. The light was yellow. Parker began to slow down.

“Don’t stop.”

But he only smiled. Alarmed, Buffy turned to see a gray van speeding up behind them.

“Go!” she snapped at him.

Up ahead, a second van barreled down Royal Street. Its brakes squealed as it came to a shuddering halt, blocking the way in front of them. The van behind them slewed sideways, preventing them from retreating.

Furious, Buffy shot an elbow into Parker’s side, then punched him in the side of the head. The car was hemmed in front and back. Resigned to a fight, wary of the encroaching dark, she grabbed her bag and leaped up to stand on the seat. Her hands went into the bag and withdrew the crossbow, nocking a bolt into place. She shot a glance at Parker and saw that he was groggy, but conscious. He reached for the steering wheel and the gearshift.

With a grunt, Buffy kicked him in the head and he slumped over the wheel. The car horn began to blare incessantly.

Ahead of her, four vampires in silver suits climbed out of the van. Three others emerged from the vehicle behind her.

Seven. She’d faced worse odds.

The sky seemed to grow darker in the space between one blink and another. It seemed to Buffy that eyes stared ominously down at her from the windows of every building around her. She thought of her mother’s house, so close and yet impossibly far, and tried not to think of what she might find if she dared go there.

On the corner was a coffee and doughnut place she and her mother had been to a hundred times. Its familiar presence seemed almost to mock the way she knew the world
should
be. The nineteen-year-old soul that shared a double existence with its older counterpart inside her retreated even farther within.

“Come on!” she cried, outraged, prepared to tear down this ugly new world and rebuild the old, even if she had to do it alone.

The four vampires in front of the Mercedes started toward her. Buffy laughed darkly and shot a crossbow bolt at the one in front. It exploded into a burst of dust inside its silver suit, and the suit crumpled to the ground, empty. Buffy had nocked another bolt into the crossbow in an instant. Then the vampires began to remove their goggles and hoods. It was dark enough now, and it was as though they wanted her to see them, to realize that they did not fear her. She might kill them, they seemed to be saying, but she was in enemy territory, surrounded now, and with more on the way. Buffy fired again, but this time the vampire that was her target moved swiftly, dodging the bolt. She nocked another one, prepared to fire as one by one they removed their hoods. With a harsh intake of breath, she recognized two of the vampires in front of her. One was a female with green-dyed punk hair, face covered in garish, red and white greasepaint. The other was an ugly male who seemed always to accompany her. Though Buffy did not know their real names, during their skirmishes—years ago—she had come to think of them as Clownface and Bulldog.

They knew,
she thought.
Knew where I was, all along.
It could not be coincidence that of all the vampires in Sunnydale, these two were the ones who had caught up with her. Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy caught motion behind her. Alert, ready to defend herself, she spun to see that the other three had also begun to approach her. They had already removed their hoods and goggles.

She knew them all.

Blond, bubbly Harmony had been in her high school class. The dead girl waved almost shyly, a sweet, stupid grin on her face. But Harmony did not worry her. It was the other two that made Buffy curse out loud.

Spike and Drusilla.

Willow sat in her dormitory room amidst a circle of white candles, their flames casting a sickly yellow glow upon the walls, flickering shadows of things that had no form. It was dark outside, but clouds blotted out the stars.

Something prevented her from summoning Lucy Hanover. For more than an hour she had tried. Now she bit her lip and fought the despair that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Lucy, please,” Willow whispered into the seething shadows. “I need help. You’re the only one who might have answers. Please.”

With her heart and soul she reached out into the dark, into the spiritual ether she had mentally touched several times before. Something cold touched Willow’s back, and she flinched in fear and shock.

“Lucy?”

As one, the candles blew out, smoke wafting up from each of them, glittering in the dark. The tendrils seemed to reach out to one another, to twine into a web of smoke, to spin and weave together into a hideous shadow face, a snarling, horned thing whose eyes seemed like endless black pits.

“Noooooo…” it groaned with pain and anger.

Though the windows were closed, a sudden wind rushed through the room and the smoke dissipated. Willow shivered as the temperature dropped precipitously. She blinked, searching for some sign of that malevolent presence.

Lucy was there, hovering half a foot above the ground. Her spectral form seemed even more faint than ever, a ghost of a ghost. Willow whispered her name and the spirit smiled weakly.

”
I
am here, friend Willow,”
Lucy said, her otherworldly voice quavering.

“What was that?”

“The creature was a soul-eater. My will proved too strong for it, but it has been thwarting my
attempts to reach you. It attacked me here on the Ghost Roads, in the moment just before The
Prophet showed the Slayer the future. I fear that it may not have been coincidence.”
Willow slumped over, one hand over her mouth, and squeezed her eyes shut. Only for a moment, though. Then she stood, determined, and faced the ghost.

“You’ve gotta help me figure out what’s going on,” she said. “Ever since that night, Buffy’s been all wigged. At first I thought maybe she was just pushing us away, that she was gonna go all Lone Ranger, take Camazotz down herself and get Giles back.”

Something rolled over in Willow’s stomach and she shuddered.

“She hasn’t even tried, Lucy. I live here. I see her. She goes to half her classes, and she’s looking over her shoulder all the time, paranoid, like any second, hello, ambush! But she’s the Slayer. She gets ambushed all the time. Comes with the territory. And not usually during the day. It just isn’t like her.” Willow paused, a chill creeping through her. When she looked up, she saw the phantom of the dead Slayer gazing dolefully down upon her, swaying slightly in the dim room.

“Lucy?”

“Where are your friends? Do they agree?”

“Definitely. It’s been two days and Buffy hasn’t done anything about Giles, so we’re going to do it ourselves. Oz is tracking down the ship, and Xander and Anya are getting some weapons from Giles’s apartment. We’re going in tonight to save him, with or without her.”

“Of course I will aid as best I can,”
Lucy agreed.
“But what of Buffy? Your words have given
rise to a terrible suspicion. I think it best we find her and put that suspicion to the test before even
attempting the rescue you have planned.”

Willow hesitated. A whispered voice in the back of her mind told her that it was already too late for Giles. But she would not listen. She was determined to find him and bring him back alive. The last thing she wanted to do was to wait another day.

“We’re going in after Giles in the morning,” she said. “I don’t know what to do about—” A key rattled in the lock. The door opened, and Buffy walked in. Willow’s breath caught in her throat as she saw her friend stiffen, a dark look spreading across the Slayer’s face.

“Buffy,” Willow whispered.

“No,”
Lucy Hanover said, her voice like a breeze rustling through the trees.
“That is not Buffy
Summers.”

Willow shot a glance at the ghost, then back at the doorway. She shook her head, not understanding. Buffy shot the gossamer spirit of the former Slayer a hard look, then smiled grimly. It was the smile that convinced Willow.

“Oh my God.”

Buffy crossed to her bed, bent down and reached beneath it, and retrieved a duffel bag. Willow could only stare at her, frozen with shock and grief.

“It is The Prophet,”
Lucy said.
“Whatever she is, the creature has taken Buffy’s physical
form,”

The Slayer began to open drawers and throw clothes into the bag. “It was foolish of me to think I would be able to stay here. Though it would have been more convenient, it is simpler to start over.” Willow could only stare as she zipped the bag, but as soon as The Prophet began to move toward the door, she moved to block the way. Fear and disbelief were supplanted within her by a kind of anger unlike anything she had ever known. She shook her head, jaw clenched tightly.

“You’re not leaving,” Willow said. “Not until you bring Buffy back.” A brittle, severe expression settled upon Buffy’s face, and Willow wondered how she could not have noticed the change in her best friend. This thing in front of her was not Buffy.

“Move, witch.”

Willow glanced once at Lucy, hoping that the ghost would have some way to remove The Prophet. But the specter only floated, a soul-haze and nothing more. She could not help. Willow swallowed hard and begin to inscribe arcane symbols upon the air with her fingers. Her lips moved silently as she mourned a spell that would lock them all in the room.

With a guttural laugh, The Prophet backhanded Willow, who staggered backward and slammed into her desk before crumbling to the floor.

Dazed, she dragged herself to her feet.

But the door hung open, and The Prophet was gone. Buffy was gone.

And if Willow did not catch up with her, she might never know what had truly become of her best friend.

The car horn kept blaring. Parker, unconscious, was slumped over the wheel and Buffy could not spare even a moment to slide him off.

Spike and Drusilla.

“Well, well, Dru, look what we’ve got here,” Spike called happily, preening like a rooster as he took a few steps toward the car. His hair was longer now, almost shaggy, giving him a more feral aspect. “That Utile Summers girl, isn’t it? I thought she was a house pet now. Soft little kitten.” Drusilla’s mad eyes widened and she made tiny scratching motions in the air, then licked her lips.