“No Zima,” Buffy snapped. “You were The First one to uncover the Seal and feed it blood. How did you know it was there? How did you know what to do?”
“I—I don’t know. Stuff happened.” He shrugged. “I forget. I’m not a part of this. I document, I don’t participate. I’m a detached journalist, recording with a neutral eye—”
“Andrew, stop it, or I’m going to smash this camera over your head,” Buffy said, hefting his sacred camcorder in her powerful grip. Clearly she had no idea it was as precious to him as a Panavision once had been to Spielberg, who was The First director ever to use one in a commercial film—Sugarland Express, starring Goldie Hawn.
“Actually, I’m gonna do that anyway, so you might as well talk,” she added, and all was despair, despair . . .
“Stop going off topic,” Willow ordered him.
“I wasn’t going off topic,” Andrew told her. “It’s going to get relevant in a second, because Jonathan’s going to go to the bathroom.”
* * *
And so, we return to Méhico, where . . .
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Jonathan announced.
Off he went, and Andrew idled away the time by singing “La Cucaracha” to himself . . .
Then there he was, dead Warren, only looking great, and he said, “You get the knife?”
Andrew gasped and got to his feet. “Oh, gosh! I’m glad to see you!”
“Me, too,” Warren said fondly. “You’re looking good.”
“Am I?” Andrew was sure he was being polite. He rubbed his face. “I probably have pillow creases . . .”
“No, no, it’s good,” Warren assured him. “You’re a man on the run. You’ve got kind of a wild, desperate thing going.” He came nearer and said again, “Did you get the knife?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy. I had to meet this demon guy who sells all kinds of weird weapons and stuff.”
“Yeah?” Warren asked. “Show me.”
Andrew got a little anxious. “Well, I didn’t buy them, but there were poison arrows and this sort of collapsible sword . . .”
“Show me the knife!” Warren said impatiently. “Quick, before the shortcake comes back.”
“Oh, it’ll be awhile. He’s got a shy bladder.” He called over to the bathroom. “Jonathan, you okay in there?”
“Don’t talk to me,” Jonathan snapped. “I’m fine.”
Andrew got the knife from under the bed and showed it to Warren. It was not of the Ginzu variety. “Pretty knife,” he said. “Except the, uh, stabbing. I don’t . . . I don’t think I can do it. Jonathan has been a good friend to me here in Mexico.” He smiled faintly. “He said he’ll buy me a burro.”
Warren didn’t take the knife, which Andrew was almost hoping he would do, just so he wouldn’t have to keep track of it anymore; but then Andrew remembered that Warren couldn’t take corporeal form just now.
“Oh, you can stab him,” Warren encouraged him. “It’s all part of the plan. That boy’s blood is a powerful tribute. It’s a gift to something very big, very important . . . and ultimately, won’t even hurt him! We get a reward,” he reminded Andrew. “You and me and him, too.”
“We live as gods,” Andrew murmured.
He saw them in his mind’s eye in the Elysian Fields, as presented in Young Hercules, or rather, Fern Gully—the three of them in blazing white togas and wearing crowns of laurel leaves, frolicking with harps among daises and poppies. Butterflies flitted; bars of gold gleamed; a unicorn flitted past and it was all very Loreena McKennitt, or maybe the cover of the Kenny Loggins CD. At any rate, much airbrushed joy as they strummed and sang, “We are as gods! We are as gods!”
“There’s power in the knife,” Warren reminded him. “Drive the words deep into him. It’s the only way for us to get our reward.”
“Got it. If I kill him with this knife,” Andrew said, “We live as gods.”
CUT TO THE RELENTLESS INTERROGATION OF THE MISUNDERSTOOD HERO IN BUFFY’S STYLISH LIVING ROOM
“We need to see that knife,” Willow mused. “There’s something there.”
Buffy turned to Willow’s young and hot lesbian girlfriend and said, “Kennedy, search his stuff. There’s something there.”
“It’s not in my stuff,” Andrew told her. “It’s in the kitchen. In the cutlery drawer.” He said to Buffy, “You didn’t have any steak knives.”
Willow stared at him in revolted fascination. “You put your old murder weapon in with our utensils?”
He shrugged, not quite getting the problem. “I washed it.”
Willow continued, “The First said something about words. ‘Drive the words deep into him.’ ”
Andrew thought a moment. “There was some carving on the blade. I just thought it was a pattern.”
“Found it,” Kennedy called out.
She handed the knife to Willow, who showed it to Andrew.
“Okay, you’re Mr. Demon-summoner. How are you with demon languages?”
He stared down at the hilt, and realized that he had been staring at the runes upside down all this time!
“Whoa, you were right,” he said. “It’s in Tawarick. It’s, uh, like proto-Tawarick. It’s really, really old.” He studied it a moment. “It says, ‘The Blood which I spill, I consecrate to the oldest evil.’ ”
Wow.
* * *
In the way of popular and powerful individuals who have worked hard and played hard together, everyone else except Andrew, who was left out, went into the dining room to make a plan. Andrew doubted it had much to do with him . . . until Buffy came back to him and said, “Guess what, Andy. You just won yourself a free vacation to the beautiful downtown Hellmouth.”
“So he can do what?” Spike demanded. “Yell at it in its own language?”
“Maybe,” Will said.
“What?” Robin was puzzled. “I’m not following.”
“Look, we have to deal with the Seal right away. We already might have to just shut the school down, and I’m not losing any more territory to The First. Besides, it’s the only thing we’ve got.”
Willow explained, “The Seal responds to this language somehow, or The First wouldn’t have needed this knife. Andrew knows the language, so he can talk to it, maybe give it commands.”
Oh, God. This can’t be happening.
The Supervillain swayed with terror.
* * *
(And so here I am, filing the war zone that has become Sunnydale High School . . . it’s like in Pitch Black, when Vin Diesel as Rick Riddick stands all alone on the planet of New Mecca and darkness shades the planet. He must face the overwhelming hordes monsters bursting from every corner of everywhere . . . )
DIE CHEERLEADERS was spray-painted on the wall, and MARCHING BAND RULES. There were fifty-five gallon drums spewing flames and smoke, and chaos, and noise.
“Nice way to run a school,” Spike drawled. “There’s got to be kids injured in here.”
Principal Wood glared at him and said, “Yeah, easy pickings for the likes of you, eh?”
“Hey, to help, you know,” Spike shot back, giving him a look.
“Check out Spike and the principal,” Andrew said into the camera. “There something going on there. Sexual tension you could cut with a knife.”
The belly of the beast was filled with books, trash, and rubble. Some students ran past, amok. Then one jumped out from behind a corner and hit Principal Wood with a fire extinguisher! Another ran off with Buffy!
And yet another hit Spike with part of a locker.
As Andrew wisely retreated, he murmured, “Oh, God, struck down before I achieve redemption.”
Not burdened with cameras, the others fought back; Buffy freed herself and el prinicpale grabbed the locker door. Spike started beating up one of the boys.
“Then Buffy said, “Spike, Wood!” I need you to stay here, holding the line of retreat.”
Then she grabbed Andrew and dragged him down, down, down the rabbit hole of doom—the
basement.
“We make our way down the stairs carefully, alert for any danger,” Andrew whispered.
Buffy took his camera away. “No more.” She clamped the viewfinder shut with her powerful yet beautifully manicured fingers.
“But I want the world to see what you do,” he protested.
“What I do is too important to show the world,” she replied.
“Ooh, I like that,” he said appreciatively.
“Be quiet!” she snapped at him. “I don’t want a biographer, especially a murderer.”
Ouch-iewawa.
“Yeah, well, see, about that . . . we just keep tossing that word around,” Andrew said nervously, but that’s not really what happened.”
“What? You stabbed Jonathan to death. What were you trying to do? Scratch his back from the front?”
“It was confusing,” Andrew protested. “Jonathan and I were digging, but Warren was there, and only I could see him. . . .”
CUT TO THE TRUE VERSION OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
Andrew and Jonathan were in the basement uncovering the Seal of Danzalthar while Warren was observing.
“Not one of them cares about you,” Andrew was saying to Jonathan.
“But I care about them. That’s why I’m here,” Jonathan replied.
“Do it. Stab him,” Warren urged him.
“No! I can’t do it!”
Jonathan stopped digging. “What?”
“Do it now,” Warren insisted.
“This isn’t right,” Andrew said firmly.
“Stab him. Spill the blood.”
Jonathan frowned. “Who are you talking to? What isn’t right?”
And then Andrew pulled out the knife, saying to Warren, “Did you actually think I could use this?”
“A knife?” Jonathan asked, wide-eyed. “You tricked me, damn you! I’ll kill you!”
“Stab him! You have to!” Warren shouted. “If you fail, you’ll die a lost soul and I’ll hate you forever!”
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” Jonathan screamed.
They wrestled with the knife; Andrew tried with all his might to stop their mortal combat, but then Jonathan fell against the knife, fell, I tell you!
And Jonathan fell to the ground.
(Then there was a dramatic pull-back as I raised my hands to the unforgiving heavens and cried:
“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”)
* * *
“See, I’m a man trapped by circumstances into paying for a crime I didn’t even . . .”
“I thought you would say that,” Buffy said. “I saw the Seal possess Wood like that earlier today.”
CUT TO THE TRUE VERSION OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, FROM A DIFFERENT BUT EQUALLY VALID PERSPECTIVE
Jonathan said, “That’s why I’m here.”
Then the hideous Seal of Danzalthar, cunning, baffling, yet powerful, possessed Andrew spirit, body, and soul. His eyes went white in the throes of his possession as he shouted, “Die! Die! Die!” stabbing his friend from many angles.
Then he saw Warren, watching him, and regained the color of his irises as he shouted, “What have I done? Get out of my brain!
(There was a dramatic pull-back as I fell to my knees and cupped my hands to my temples, screaming like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes:
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”)
Buffy glared at him. “You just completely changed your entire story.”
“Did not,” he said,
“You did too,” she insisted.
But as they reached the outer portal of the evil, beating chamber of the black heart of Sunnydale, strange chanting filled Andrew’s ears.
“There’s someone in there. We’re going in. Just be prepared, okay? The Seal could have done anything to them.”
They entered the chamber.
Five students had carved the damned sigils of The First into the faces, thus mutilating themselves . . . and then they had mystically changed into Bringers, servants of The First.
“Nope, they’re okay,” Buffy drawled.
A ROMANTIC INTERLUDE
Xander and Anya lay together on a cot in the basement, speaking in tones vaguely reminiscent of the poignant scene in Stephen King’s The Shining as Wendy recalls her lovemaking with Jack.
“Wow,” Xander said. “That was nice.”
“Certainly was, you carpenter, you,” Anya murmured, pleased.
Xander glanced at the wall. “It’s too bad Buffy took Spike’s chains down, huh?”
“You said it,” she agreed.
[LONG BEAT.]
“Mmm, I feel good,” Xander said.
“Well, yeah. I’m a spitfire in the bedroom,” she said proudly.
[LONG BEAT.]
“Yeah, I always knew we’d do that again.”
“Yeah, one more time, anyway.”
Xander asked gently, “Is that what it was?” He looked at her. “One more time?”
They looked at each other with tenderness.
“I think maybe we’re really over,” she said. “Which is . . . it’s good, right? I mean, now we can move on.”
* * *
The Seal was glowing as Buffy fought the student-Bringers. One of them threw her to the ground as she kicked his knees, sending him to the ground on top of her. Buffy launched the dead weight of the injured student up at the next attacker.
“She’s like a woman fighting for more than life,” Andrew said into the microphone of his camera, which he had retrieved. “She fights like fighting is life. It is the air she breathes, and she knows she will win because there is no alternative.”
Then she knocked out the last Bringer and whirled on him. “It’s your turn, Andrew,” she announced.
She pulled out the knife and walked toward Andrew.
He backed away. “So, you figure, what? I, uh . . .” He put down the camcorder. “I stand on the seal, and hold the knife and command it to stop glowing in, uh, Tawarick?”
They faced each other on opposite radii of the goat-faced disc. Walking around the circumference, Buffy tried to approach Andrew as he tried to maintain his distance.
“Doesn’t really make sense?” Buffy said menacingly. “Bringing you here to talk to it. This thing doesn’t understand words. It understands blood.”
(Oh, my God. It’s like a Warren thing. She tricked me into coming here!)
“Blood opens it,” Andrew pointed out. “You don’t want to open it. Opening it would be bad.”
“Well,” Buffy said, still walking around the circle. “Willow did a little research. Looked into that. Seems the blood the man that awoke it . . . you . . . that’s a different kind of deal. Reverses the whole thing.”
Oh . . . my . . . God . . .
“How much blood are you going to . . . ?” he asked, his heartbeat picking up.
“I don’t know,” she said simply. “Maybe not enough to kill you.”
He faced her, but he couldn’t make himself stand still, He kept backing away from her. “So, this is my redemption at last. I buy back my bruised soul with the blood of my heart. Not enough to kill . . .”
She stood directly before him now, knife out, her facial beauty a synergistic combination of good lighting and righteous anger.
“Stop that!” she shouted at him. “Stop telling stories! Life . . . isn’t . . . a . . . story!”
“Sorry. Sorry,” he managed, terrified.
“Shut up!” She was nearly in tears, so she was furious. “You always do this! You make everything into a story so no one’s responsible for anything because they’re just following a script!”
“Please don’t kill me,” he begged. “Warren said Jonathan would be okay. I trusted him, and I lost my friend.”
“You didn’t lose him!” Buffy thundered at him. “You murdered him!”
“I know,” he managed, “but you don’t need to kill me. You said we’d all get through this.”
“I made it up,” she bit off. “I’m making it all u
p. What kind of hero does that make me?”
He shook his head. “No, you’re doing great. Really. Kudos.”
“Yeah?” Her eyes flashed. “Well, I don’t like having to give a bunch of speeches about how we’re all going to live, because we won’t. This isn’t some story where good triumphs because good triumphs. Good people are going to die! Girls. Maybe me. Probably you. Probably . . . right now.”
He shook his head, terrified, pleading with her as she dragged him toward the Seal. He leaned over it. She was holding the back of his collar so that he didn’t fall. She pointed the knife at him. The Seal of Danzalthar glowed brightly.
“Don’t, please, don’t!”
“When your blood pours out, it might save the world. What do you think about that? Does it buy it all back? Are you redeemed?”
And something in him broke. It just . . . broke, and he began to cry.
“No! Because I killed him.” He sobbed, tears streaming down his face. “Because I killed him! I listened to Warren, and I pretended I thought it was him, but I knew . . . I knew it wasn’t. And I killed Jonathan!”
He sobbed harder.
“And now you’re going to kill me. And I’m scared, and I’m going to die. And this . . . this is what Jonathan felt.”
His tears dripped onto the Seal, and as he wept . . . the Seal stopped glowing.
Buffy released him. He fell to the ground, and the knife with him.
“It . . . stopped,” he said slowly.
She gazed at him. “Didn’t want blood. It wanted tears.”
He was mystified. Yet as he got back up, he said, “Thanks.”
She was kind to him now, gentler than she ever had been. “Sorry I had to . . .”
He swallowed hard. “You . . . you weren’t really going to stab me, were you?”
“I wasn’t going to stab you,” she told him.
“What if . . . the tears didn’t work?”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer smiled at him enigmatically—Buffy, the Slayer, and he grabbed his cam-corder and trailed after her.
* * *
Spike and Robin had been battling together. They were both bruised and battered but not beaten; and Spike could have been staked with any number of things with weapons from the woodshop.
Then the students simply stopped—bell had rung, time for the next period—and wandered off.