Resurrecting Ravana (26 page)

“But why would he want to bring them here? To Sunnydale? I-I mean, there are bigger museums in bigger cities.”

“If you were going to revive an ancient demon, you’d want to do it in a place where it would most likely work, wouldn’t you?”

Willow thought about that a moment, then her face brightened. “A Hellmouth!”

Buffy nodded. “This place is the supernatural demonic equivalent of Lourdes, so of course he’d want to do it here.”

“Okay, so . . . if they’re here, why is this woman still so desperate to get the stuff in the gallery? You said she’s still bothering your mom about it, right?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. She looked over at the messy bed. “I wonder if Lloyd is the one who gave her the black eye she had when she came to our door.”

“So much for romance,” Willow said.

Buffy put the rubber band around the letters and the letters back in the suitcase. She and Willow closed the suitcases they’d been looking through.

Willow started to say something more about the romance novels, but she swallowed her words when keys jangled outside the door. They stared at one another with expressions of shock frozen on their faces.

“What do we do?” Willow breathed.

Before she was finished asking the question, a key slid into the lock of the motel room door.

Chapter 19

A
CTIVITY HAD INCREASED IN THE LIBRARY
. S
TUDENTS
were coming and going, some looking for books, others returning them. A few students were gathered around the computer. The quiet clatter of fingers on keyboards blended with the sound of whispered voices to create the library’s usual sound.

Giles sat at the front desk with books open before him, rapidly taking notes. They would have to talk to Phyllis Lovecraft later that day. With any luck, she would lead them to the Ravana statuette. But it had not occurred to Giles until about twenty minutes ago that once they found it, they hadn’t the first clue what to do with it. It would have to be destroyed, of course, along with the demon’s essence inside. But how? He was searching for answers to that question. When he next saw Willow, he planned to discuss it with her, as well; she had been doing some extensive reading lately in the area of spells, incantations, and potions, and perhaps she had come across something that might work.

A voice was speaking nearby, but in the intensity of Giles’s concentration, it sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a lake.

“. . . iles? Um . . . Giles? Giles?”

Giles jerked his eyed up and saw Xander leaning his folded arms on the countertop.

“Are you there?” Xander asked.

“Yes, I beg your pardon. I was rather involved in my reading. What can I do for you, Xander?”

“I was just wondering if you’ve seen Buffy. Or Willow.”

Giles shook his head. “No, why?”

Xander suddenly looked sheepish. “We were all going to meet back here and . . . uh . . . meet, study. You know, the book thing. And . . . they’re late.”

“Late? Xander,” Giles glanced at the clock, “the bell just rang.” Then his Watcher sense — or rather prolonged exposure to this group of Slayerettes — kicked in and he glared at Xander. “Good Lord, what have they done now?”

Buffy and Willow lay facedown under the bed in Phyllis Lovecraft’s motel room. The instant Buffy had heard the key slip into the lock, she’d used her foot to push the last suitcase back into place, then she’d crawled quickly over the floor and slid under the bed, with Willow right behind her.

The first thing Buffy noticed about Phyllis Lovecraft was her shoes; they were ugly. She also noticed that Phyllis was limping and crying. As she walked around the bed, she favored her right side and cried quietly, sniffling occasionally, a small hitch of breath catching in her throat now and then.

Where’s Lloyd?
Buffy wondered.
Was she just with him?
Maybe that’s why she’s crying. She remembered the black eye Phyllis had the day Buffy had come home to find her on the porch talking with her mom.
Had Lloyd hit her?
Buffy wouldn’t be surprised. He was, after all, just using her to get to a statuette that would allow him to rule over chaos at the right hand of an ancient demon. A guy like that was liable to do anything.

Although she could only see Phyllis’s feet, Buffy could tell what she was doing from the sounds she heard.

Phyllis slipped off her shoes and walked away from the bed. She ran water in the sink just outside the bathroom door, washed her hands. Still sniffling, she returned to the bed and sat on the edge. The sound of the telephone receiver being lifted, buttons on the base of the phone being pushed. Buffy could faintly hear the tone of each number being pushed and then the purring of a phone ringing at the other end of the line . . . a tiny, pinched voice.

“Hello, Seth. It’s Phyllis.” Her voice sounded thick from crying, as well as a little hoarse from weariness. “Oh, no, I’m fine, fine. Actually, I-I . . . yes, well, I was calling to see how Grandpa is doing.” She stretched out onto the bed, but only for a moment. She jumped up. “What? How did he —” She paced as far as the coiled cord would allow. “But I closed that. I put everything back just
exactly
as I found it. Seth, did you tell him?” Insistent chatter from the earpiece. When Phyllis spoke again, her voice was low and whispery. “Oh, Seth, you’re not serious.” She dropped onto the bed again, making Willow wince for fear of being crushed. “But he doesn’t know where I am! You didn’t tell him that, did you? Of course you didn’t, you don’t even know where I am.” She sounded like more tears were coming, as if she might break down soon. “Oh, his supernatural hoo-ha! Where did he say he was going? Sunnydale? Oh . . . oh.” She sniffled. “When did he leave? Oh . . . oh.”

She sounds pathetic,
Buffy thought.

Phyllis released a long sigh, then said, “I have to go, Seth. I’ve got things to do. Yes, you do the same, Seth. ’Bye-bye.”

The receiver clattered back in its cradle and Phyllis groaned. She didn’t move for about a minute, then stood. She muttered to herself under her breath as she went into the bathroom. The shower door snapped open and she turned on the shower.

Buffy and Willow turned to each other instantly, smiled, and nodded.

Phyllis came out of the bathroom and undressed at the foot of the bed, tossing her clothes onto all the others scattered over the bed, fat, big-toed feet moving back and forth. When she went back into the bathroom, she absently swung the door closed behind her, but not hard enough; the door stopped about an inch short of closing. The shower door opened again . . . and a moment later, it closed again. There was a change in the sound of the shower’s stream as Phyllis stepped under it.

“Okay, she’s in,” Buffy whispered as she crawled forward. Willow moved beside her. Once on their feet, they ran before they were standing up straight. Buffy opened the door slowly, careful not to make a sound; she pulled the door closed once they were both outside.

“That was close,” Willow said as they went down the stairs. “Too close.”

Buffy laughed.

Enough adrenaline was still pumping through the two that they hardly noticed the rain at all, and walked through it without a blink.

“Who do you think she called?” Willow asked.

Buffy replied, “I don’t know, but it’s someone she trusts, someone back home in Washington. Someone who knew she’d taken the Indian pieces from her grandfather’s collection.”

“It sounded like he used something supernatural to find out where she was once he realized she’d run off with his stuff.”

“Yep. Giles says he’s an expert. And it worked, too, because he headed for Sunnydale. He’s here in town somewhere, or will be soon.”

“You think a guy that old travels well?”

“A guy that rich does, no matter how old he is.”

The got into the van and Buffy closed the door, thinking about the limo she’d seen.
Bingo!

“What’d you do?” Oz asked. “Order pay-per-view?”

“We got held up,” Buffy said.

“Yeah,” Willow said excitedly, smiling. “She showed up while we were going through her stuff, and we had to hide under the bed. It was total
Mission: Impossible.”

“Better than the movie,” Buffy said.

“Are you upset because we kept you away from school?” Willow asked Oz. She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

Oz started the van and drove away from the curb. “I’d like to be ready for exams, just in case we all survive.”

“Then take us back to school, Jeeves,” Willow said. “And make it snappy.”

* * *

Giles sat at the desk in his office listening to Buffy, while Willow stood beside her silently. He spent most of his time with his face in his hands. The more he listened and learned how much information she had gathered, the more certain he was that he would not get angry, even though she had done something he’d specifically told her not to do.

“I can’t believe you went through her things, Buffy,” he said.

“How could I not?” she asked, spreading her arms wide. “I mean, look at all I found out. This Lloyd guy? He wooed this homely woman — who might even be suffering from some kind of mental illness, I’m not sure — and he got her to care for and trust him enough to steal her grandfather’s collection of Hindu art and run away with him. And according to those letters, he told her he wanted to do it so that collection could be exhibited in a gallery where people could appreciate it and enjoy it, instead of being packed away in some storeroom. At least, that’s what he told her. And now that he’s hidden away with that statuette, now that he’s started the summoning, I think he’s gotten tired of Phyllis. I think he’s beating her. She had a black eye the first time I saw her and when Mom asked her about it, she got really nervous. And today, she was limping. Look, what I’m saying, Giles, is she might be in danger. If this Lloyd dude succeeds in calling up Ravana before we can stop him, then we’re all up the creek. But if something goes wrong, he might take it out on Phyllis.”

Giles shook his head slowly, took in a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh.
If she weren’t a Slayer,
he thought,
she could be a detective.

“She may be weird,” Willow chimed in, “but she’s also pretty sad. She doesn’t deserve that. Nobody does.”

“How did you get into the room?” he asked.

Buffy and Willow glanced at one another.

“Oh, um . . . that. We, um . . . we managed. And we didn’t have to break anything, either.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Buffy —”

“Okay, we . . . we kind of, um, picked the lock.”

“Yeah,” Willow said, nodding. “We picked it.”

“I see.”

“Oh, and Benson Lovecraft is probably somewhere in Sunnydale right now. Or at least on his way.”

Giles’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

“The rumors are true. He’s still alive. He found out she took the —”

“Are you quite serious?”

Buffy nodded. “Yes.”

“That . . . that is extraordinary!”

“Yeah. Anyway, he found out Phyllis took his collection of Hindu art, and apparently, he left Washington to come looking for her.”

Giles said, “I’m not sure I want to know how you learned that.”

“We overheard a telephone conversation while we were hiding under the bed.”

“Hiding under the bed?” He looked at her, appalled. “You mean, you were in the room with her? Hiding?”

“She didn’t see us. Didn’t even suspect we were there. And as soon as she got in the shower, we got out of there.”

Giles stood, walked around in a U-turn, and faced her. “That’s not the point, Buffy . . . Willow. Do you realize the kind of trouble you were flirting with? We can’t afford that. Mistakes are far too easy to make when you’re prowling through someone’s personal belongings like a common cat burglar. Let alone if you’d been caught. How would you explain —”

“She didn’t even have a cat,” Buffy said. She didn’t give Giles a chance to continue. “Look, Giles, waiting until after school today to go talk to Phyllis Lovecraft? Bad idea. I think we should go right now. She’s upset, crying . . . I think she might be on the verge of turning on Lloyd, especially now that she knows her grandfather is coming. If we go now and you talk to her, you might be able to get something out of her. Like where that statuette is. But if you wait, Lloyd might get to her again and sweet-talk her some more.”

“I’m having serious thoughts about this Lloyd fellow. He’s probably —”

“There’ve been more murders.”

Giles stared at her a moment, stroked his chin. “Plural?”

Buffy nodded. “Just heard it on the radio on the way in. At the Sunnydale police station. Several cops went nuts and started shooting each other. There are a dozen dead, and the shooters have disappeared.”

Giles sighed and stood up. “I’ll ask Mrs. Tucker from the front office to come in and mind the library for a little while.”

Buffy smiled. “That’s a major idea, Giles.”

He turned to Willow. “We need something to destroy that statuette and its contents. Have you —”

Willow grinned. “Are you kidding?” She grabbed for her bag — which Buffy knew sometimes doubled as a spell kit.

“There are a couple books on my desk. I’ve marked a few places in them and made some notes. Look over them and add any suggestions you think are relevant. But don’t actually go through with anything until I return. I won’t be long.”

“You got it, Chief,” Willow said. She went behind the desk to the office.

“You mean
we
won’t be long,” Buffy corrected.

“No, Buffy, you’ll be staying here,” he said. “You’ve done enough right now.” He tried to look stern.

“But you don’t know where to find Phyllis Lovecraft.” She wore a self-satisfied smile.

“She’s at the . . .” He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them and smiled. “The Rocking R Motel.”

“And her room number?”

“I don’t remember the room. What’s the number?”

“Uh-uh. Not gonna tell.”

Another sigh as Giles lowered his head and massaged a temple. He stood again, reached into his pocket, and handed her his keys. “Go wait for me in my car. I’ll be there as soon as I talk to Mrs. Tucker.”