“Buffy, you have to heal,” Joyce said.
Buffy replied, “I don’t have time.”
“Are you worried about the sun going down?” Joyce asked sweetly. “Because there’s some things you can’t control. The sun always goes down. The sun always comes up.”
“Everyone’s counting on me,” Buffy asserted.
Joyce’s brow wrinkled. “Well, they do that, and I’m sorry, Buffy, but these friends of yours put too much pressure on you. They always have.”
“Something evil is coming,” Buffy said.
Joyce gazed upon her with infinite patience. “Buffy, evil isn’t coming. It’s already here. Evil is always here.”
Buffy lifted her chin. “I have to stop it.”
“How are you going to do that?” Joyce queried.
“I don’t know yet, but—”
“Buffy, no matter what your friends expect of you, evil is a part of us. All of us. It’s natural. And no one can stop that. No one can stop nature, not even . . .”
And then the school bell rang, and Buffy woke up at her desk. A young male student was sitting across from her, looking hurt and pissed off.
“Oh, um, I’m sorry,” she said. “What were we talking about?”
“Only my life,” he said with supreme irritation. “You’re just like all the others.”
He gathered his things and rose to go.
“No! I’m different!” she proclaimed. “I’m hip and relate to the young people. Don’t go . . . uh . . .”
“Roger,” he said angrily.
“Roger. See, I knew that.”
Enough was enough. He was out of there.
* * *
In the living room at Buffy’s house, preparations for siege were underway. Xander was in the loop, finishing boarding up the living room window. Giles was pacing. Dawn and Willow were selecting weapons from the chest.
The Potentials sat together, looking useless and scared.
“This day’s almost over,” Giles said, looking at his watch. “And the sun will go down in seventeen minutes.”
“Hey, junior Slayers, don’t look so worried,” Xander piped, smiling at the three young girls. “I mean, sure, we don’t know where Spike is, or how to fight The First, or when the super-style vamp is going to attack us all. However, the house”—He tapped his hammer on the wooden panels he had installed—“boarded up. Now all we gotta do is trap this Ubervamp in the pantry, and it’s game over.”
Willow raised a brow at him. “Xander? Newbies. Let’s ease them into the whole ‘jokes in the face of death’ thing.”
“Who’s joking?” Xander shot back in mock innocence. “Are you saying M. Night Shamalayan lied to us?”
Buffy said to the Potentials, “You’ll be okay.”
Coming up to Buffy, mace in hand, Willow said encouragingly, “Okay, or even better. It’s like our guarantee.” To Buffy, she added, “Um, Buffy, I just, I want you to know that I’m really sorry for letting you down. You know, here before with the magic going all ‘aah’ and me going all ‘eee’ and everything getting all ‘rrrr.’ I wish I could help out.”
Buffy was touched. She said, “No one expects you to make everything right.”
However, Willow’s guilt was not assuaged. “So, I can’t do everything, but I should at least be able to do something. I have so much power, but when I try to use it . . .”
“Don’t, okay?” Buffy told her.
“Okay.” Willow was still earnest face. “But you need help, Buffy. I know you and I’ll know you’ll never admit it, but you need help.”
Buffy shrugged. “I’ll be okay. Okay, or better. It’s like my guarantee.”
A moment. Between friends.
Then Kennedy approached, bordering on agitated, as she said, “Hey, are we getting weapons? Trained fighters, badness coming? I’ve heard worse ideas.”
Annabelle said primly, “We’ll be armed when the Slayer feels we’re ready.”
“I feel ready,” Molly volunteered.
“You’re frightened,” Annabelle insisted. “You must learn to control your fear.”
Kennedy said huffily, “Hey, you know what would help with that?” She looked at Buffy. “Weapons. We’re sitting ducks without them.”
Annabelle countered, “We’re with the Slayer. Safe as houses.”
“Do you see the house we’re in?” Kennedy scoffed.
And Annabelle’s balloon of courage pfffted . . . revealing a very young girl, filled with very pure dread.
Buffy saw it and said, “We should load them up, Giles.”
* * *
Xander walked into the dining room, where Andrew was still tied in the chair. The blond bad boy said, “Listen to me, man. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. My spider-sense is tingling. This is going to get hairy. I’m talking weird with a beard. Better untie me.”
Buffy joined them. “And that’ll help us how?”
Andrew sighed mournfully. “Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Andrew. Bad guy. You think I’m a super villain, like Dr. Doom, or Apokalypse, or . . . or the Riddler.”
The last reference was lost on Xander, but he merely shrugged.
“I admit I went over to the Dark Side,” Andrew went on, earnestly. “But only to pick up a couple of things and now I’m back. I’ve learned. I’m good again.”
As she and Xander walked out of the room, Buffy muttered, “And when were you good before?”
“Okay, technically . . . never. Touché.” He called after her, trying to get free. “But I’m like Vader in the last five minutes of Jedi, with redemptive powers minus a redemptive struggle of epic redemption which chronicles . . .” Realizing the futility of both his diatribe and his struggle , he sighed and added, “These ropes itch.”
* * *
Buffy joined Giles at the window. Sunset was imminent. Their time was at hand.
“You have all my faith,” Giles told her. “And they’re depending on you.”
She gave him a wry look. “Giles, that’s not exactly what I needed to hear right now.”
Then Molly came into the room. “Guys? Annabelle split!”
* * *
Escape.
Darkness had fallen, over the city of Sunnydale and across Annabelle’s reflexive prime directive: survival. Her mind had gone into primitive overdrive; it was fight or flight, and something deep inside her had chosen the latter.
She was frantic, racing for her life, putting distance between the Slayer’s house and her safety and—a hideous monster jumped from behind a dumpster and grabbed her by the throat. With a roar it hoisted her off the ground, her eyes bulging, her legs kicking . . .
Escape . . .
* * *
It didn’t take Buffy long to find Annabelle’s body. She was sorry, so very sorry; here was one she had not saved, could not save.
Then thoughts of mourning fled as the Ubervamp rushed up behind her and slammed her to the ground. Buffy crawled around the Dumpster, crouching, and then she launched her attack.
It took her only seconds to realize that she was doomed to repeat the battle in the underground cave: she kicked, and he ducked. He blocked her fists. Then he launched his counterattack, giving her far worse than she gave. She would up on the ground, face first; he yanked her up and started to choke her, and the only thing that saved her was when she spit blood at him, startling him into dropping her.
In the instant she had while he savored the taste of Slayer’s blood, she limped away into the bowels of the building where their battle had led them, all pipes and machines and pieces of gigantic tubing.
Like the Terminator, the Ubervamp came after her, and Buffy was given no chance to rest. As before, she went on the offensive, hitting him over the head with a large piece of pipe, but it did no damage at all. He wrested it from her and they fought bare-fisted . . . and as before, he had the upper hand.
Punching, kicking, maiming. She was in pure defensive mode. She backed up, he came forward. She weakened, he gained his
stride.
Her ribs were broken. Her head rang as he backhanded her, sending her at least thirty feet across the vast interior of the room.
As she lay gasping, he ran toward her. Then she saw a block and tackle holding up a pallet of metal rods. Three tons, she estimated. She followed the line to a rusted lever and pulled it.
The Ubervamp looked up just as the crate of metal rods came rushing down upon him. The impact was thunderous. He was buried beneath dozens of rods, beneath thick wood.
Silence.
She sagged with relief, her pain flooding into her consciousness now that she was safe. Slowly, painfully, she rose. She had to get home, share the good news . . .
Then she heard the horrible sound of twisting metal crashing.
She turned.
Impossible.
The Ubervamp was rising from the wreckage.
She couldn’t believe it. Nothing could have survived . . . and yet here it came, loping after her in long strides.
She ran, but it was no use. She was far too wounded. He blocked her way as she nearly made it out, grabbing her, assaulting her with killing blows.
He threw her into a concrete wall, then crawled up the wall to gain force as he kicked her. She went down, hard. He kicked her in the head and grabbed her arm. Then he threw her through the wall.
Down it all came, chunks of rubble and bricks and concrete, slamming down on the Slayer, on the doomed, unconscious Slayer.
* * *
In the underground cavern, Spike’s torment did not end. The First, still wearing Drusilla’s image, seemed to have tired of their games.
She asked him, “Do you know why you’re alive?”
He was so injured he could barely speak, but he managed it. “Never figured you for existential thought. I mean, you hated Paris.”
She hissed, “You’re alive for one reason, and one reason only. Because I wish it. Do you know why I wish it?” She held her hand to her heart. “Because I’m not done with you.”
He had the brass to snicker at her. “Give it up. Whatever you are, whatever you get away with, I’m out. You can’t pull this puppet’s strings anymore.”
She snapped around to face him. “And what makes you think you have a choice? What makes you think you will ever be any good at all in this world?”
“She does,” he managed. “Because she believes in me.”
* * *
Xander, Giles, and Willow found Buffy and brought her home. Her face was battered, both eyes blackened. She sat in a chair in a fetal position, beaten and injured, and listened to their conversation in the next room.
“We could make plans as we always do,” Giles said, “but the truth is, Buffy was our plan. There is no backup.”
“Giles,” Willow ventured, “she looks bad.”
“She does,” Giles replied, sorrow in his voice. “I’m afraid there may be internal bleeding.”
“What do we do if she can’t fight?” Willow asked.
“We’re back at square one,” Giles stated flatly.
“Which square would that be, exactly?” Xander’s voice had taken on the caustic tone he had when his back was up against the wall.
“I’m not sure,” Giles admitted. “The First predates everything we’ve ever known, or can know. It’s everywhere. It’s pure. I don’t know if we can fight it.”
Then the Slayer unfolded herself, rose, and moved slowly into the room, and everyone turned, gazing at her in surprise, as if they hadn’t even expected her to be able to walk.
“You’re right,” she said, her voice hoarse from the injuries to her voice. Through her ruined face, her eyes blazed. She held herself upright as proudly as she could.
“We don’t know how to fight it. We don’t know when it’ll come. We can’t run, can’t hide, can’t pretend it’s not the end, ‘cause it is.” She took a breath. “Something’s always been there to try and destroy the world. We’ve beaten them back, but we’re not dealing with them anymore. We’re dealing with reason they exit. Evil. The strongest. The First.”
Her eyes shone. There was something about her, an aura of command, of power. This was no defeated girl; this was a Slayer.
“Buffy, I know you’re tired,” Giles said.
She looked at him. At all of them. “I’m beyond tired. I’m beyond scared. I’m standing on the mouth of hell, and it is going to swallow me whole.”
A beat.
“And it’ll choke on me.”
A fierce resolve crept into her voice, and the others unconsciously responded. She took a step forward.
“We’re not ready?” she asked. “They’re not ready. They think we’re going to wait for the end to come like we always do.
“I’m doing waiting. They want an apocalypse? Oh, we’ll give ’em one.” She almost smiled.
“Anyone else who wants to run, do it now. ’Cause we just became an army,” she announced. Her passionate calm was almost unearthly; it was the interior serenity of a warrior, a champion, whose business is death and who had enacted many transactions in the coin of the realm.
“We just declared war.”
Her voice gained momentum. “From now on, we won’t just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them, and cut out their hearts one by one, until The First shows itself for what it really is. And I’ll kill it myself.”
The others were locked up in her passionate calm. Everyone was moved: Giles. Willow. Xander. And Andrew, in tears.
“There is only one thing on this more powerful than evil. And that’s us.”
She looked around at them all.
“Any questions?”
Chapter Eleven: “Showtime”
Rona was the last one off the bus. As she slowly went down the metal steps, she looked around at the deserted area, anxious that no one was there to meet her.
She crossed to the payphone, picked up the director dangling from a cable, and flipped through the pages. The one she needed had been torn out. No Summers listing for Rona.
Then, as she looked up, one of the black-robed, eyeless men she’d encountered before ran full tilt at her. He was armed with a wicked-sharp knife, and his grotesque face was grim with purpose. In terror, she turned to run. There were two more, their curved knives flashing as they arced over their heads.
Panicking, she backed up against the wall, her breath shallow and dizzy as she sank to the ground.
Oh, God, they’re gonna kill me . . .
The two suddenly sprang into the air and went flying off into opposite directions.
And Buffy the Vampire Slayer stood where they had been.
The third attacker retreated while The First two rushed Buffy. As one swiped at her, Buffy grabbed his hand and stabbed the other one with his buddy’s knife. He doubled over, and Buffy kicked him, hard. After a tussle, she broke the neck of the other one.
Then she called to the one who was retreating, “Hey! Try picking on someone my own size!” She hurled the knife at him, and it sliced into his back.
He fell.
Then Buffy crossed to Rona and said, “Rona, right? I just got word you were arriving.”
Rona accepted Buffy’s help as she got to her wobbly feet. “You’re her,” she said, in a daze.
“Here is me,” Buffy concurred.
Rona took that in . . . and took in, too, that she had only been in Sunnydale mere seconds before she’d been attacked.
“I thought, uh, they told me I’d be safe here.”
“Right,” Buffy nodded. Then she backtracked slightly, adding, “Well, you are. I mean, you will be . . . safer . . . with me around.”
“That’s good,” Rona allowed.
Buffy started to walk away, and Rona followed her. “Next time you’re attacked—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Rona protested. “ ‘Next time’? You saying I’m gonna get attacked again?”
“Welcome to the Hellmouth,” Buffy said frankly.
* * *
Kennedy watched Willow shifting un
comfortably on the floor in her sleeping bag and said, “You don’t have to do this.” She patted Willow’s bed invitingly, “Nice big comfy bed right here. I mean, you ought to know. Your bed.”
“No,” Willow assured her, stiff on her back, “I’m just, uh, uneasy ’cause Buffy’s out.”
Kennedy nodded. “Right. How many girls arriving this time?”
“Just one,” Willow told her. “But since Giles has the coven searching for other Slayers-in-waiting to send ’em our way, I’ll bet we’ll be seeing a lot more soon enough.”
Kennedy propped her head on her hand. “With this many girls, well, if we don’t get another bathroom in this house soon, things are going to get ugly.”
Willow smiled. “Sounds like somebody had to share mirror time with a bunch of siblings.”
“Somebody, but not me,” Kennedy insisted. “I only have a half-sister and her bedroom was in another wing of the house.”
Willow stared, impressed. “Wing? Your house had wings?”
“Yeah.” Kennedy looked abashed. “Just a couple. A few. Our summer home in the Hamptons didn’t have any at all. Well, one, actually.”
“Huh.” Willow took that in.
“But never mind my deal,” Kennedy went on. She regarded the redhead with interest. “What’s your story, Willow? I mean, witchcraft? That sounds new-agey.”
Willow shifted. “No. It’s safe to say that what I practice is definitely old-agey.”
Absorbing that, nodding, Kennedy urged, “So, show my a trick.”
“A trick?” Willow echoed with mild dismay.
“You know, pull a rabbit out of something, or make something float.”
Willow shifted uncomfortably once more. “Um, yeah, listen, Kennedy, it’s almost morning. We really need to get some sleep.”
Kennedy scoffed. ‘Hey, if I wanted to sleep, I’d be downstairs catching Zs with the other girls.”
* * *
But no Zs were to be caught belowdecks, as several of the Potentials listened to Molly’s recounting of everything that had happened before they had shown up. She spoke in a singsong voice as if she were telling a ghost story at a campfire, and the girls’ eyes were huge, avidly taking in everything she was telling them.