It was Lance Brooks, the former BMOC of Sunny-dale High, and Xander was stunned.
* * *
“You might not know it now, looking at me with a couple of extra pounds, but back then, I was quite the guy,” Lance announced.
Then as Spike glared at all the dozens and dozens of angels on shelves and turned their backs to him, he came across a picture of R. J. and his brother.
“He’s wearing your jacket,” Spike noted.
“That jacket was with me all the way through high school. Gave it to him when I graduated.” And his father, it turned out, had worn it before him. Lance’s mom was a former Miss Arkansas. . . .
It’s the jacket, Xander and Spike realized, and abruptly left.
* * *
It’s him, Anya and Willow thought dreamily.
Wearing his jacket, R. J. had come to the Summers home and rung the bell. And now he was ringing chimes . . . even Willow’s.
“A. J. is my best friend and my dearest darling,” Anya insisted.
“It’s R. J. And what you were picking up on was his deep caring and devotion to me.”
Then Buffy and Dawn came back downstairs, overheard their conversation . . . and Buffy finally realized what was going on.
“Clearly, you’ve both been affected by the same spell that got Dawn.”
Willow said, “There’s a simple answer to this. Just think about who loves him the most. Clearly I do, since I’m willing to look past the whole orientation thing.”
Dawn yowled, “I need him.”
Anya scoffed. “Well, you’re going to have to do better than that. I’d kill for him.”
Willow glared at her. “You’d kill for a chocolate bar.”
“Yes! Kill for him!” Buffy proclaimed. “I’m the Slayer. Slayer means kill. Oh, I’ll kill the principal.”
Anya looked daunted. “Ooh, that is hard to top.”
“Yeah? Well, I have skills,” Willow interjected. “I can prove my love with magic.”
“Yeah, right, what’re you going to do, use magic to make him into a girl?” Anya flung at her. When Willow’s eyes widened, Anya muttered, “Damn.” Then she brightened. “Oh, I know what he’ll like.”
The three older loves of R. J. went on their separate ways, Buffy managed to be generous as she faced victory. She said to Dawn, “Sorry, Dawnie. You’re never going to get him.”
“No, never,” Dawn grieved.
* * *
They hopped to it.
Willow was halfway through her supplication to Hecate, to change a son into a daughter, when Xander and Spike stopped her . . . and she spilled the beans about the others.
They decided to start with Buffy first, since murdering the principal, not a good thing.
They got there in time, and managed to wrestle the rocket launcher from her just in time.
Then Willow, whom they had brought with them, did a locator spell . . .
. . .and they found Dawn, lying on the train tracks, waiting for the train.
Buffy jumped onto another oncoming train and leaped onto the tracks, gathering up her sister and rolling her away just as the train bore down at them.
“This is the plan? You’re going to steal R. J. by being trisected?” Buffy demanded of her weeping sister.
“What am I?” Dawn asked, sobbing. “Going to compete with you? You’re older and hotter and have sex that’s rough, and you kill people. I don’t have any of that stuff. But if I did this then his whole life he’d know there was someone that loved him so much they’d give up their life.”
“No guy is worth your life, ever . . .” Buffy insisted.
That was when Buffy realized that, well, maybe she was under a spell . . .
* * *
The girls went home . . . and Xander and Spike concocted a brilliant, strategic plan to steal R. J.’s jacket—namely they swooped down on R. J., who was window-shopping with a cheerleader, and while Xander tackled him, Spike yanked that evil leather garment clean off the quarterback.
They burned it in Buffy’s fireplace to dulcet tones on the radio.
“That, my friend, is the smell of sweet, sweet victory,” Xander announced.
“Also, burning cotton poly-blend,” Anya added.
Buffy smiled at her old friend. “Xander, be honest. You didn’t, you know, think about slipping that jacket on, just for a little bit?”
Xander said, “I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it didn’t fit.”
Anya groused, “Man, this fool gets his jacket from his brother, who got it from their father, and we’ll never know where he got it. That bites.”
“Yeah, welcome to the Hellmouth,” Xander said, “where even outerwear isn’t safe.”
Then Willow, Buffy, and Dawn agonized over how stupid they had been, what terrible things they had almost done . . . powerless to stop themselves over a stupid curse.
But powerless was the operative word.
“I feel so stupid. All over a spell,” Dawn said, sighing.
“Get ready to feel even stupider when it’s not,” Buffy told her.
“Hey, Anya,” Willow piped up. “You never told us what you can’t believe you almost.”
“I, uh, wrote an epic poem comparing him to a daisy and a tower and a lake,” she said, lying through her teeth
But as she stood there the radio announcer said: “. . . with the latest on Sunnydale’s late-night bandit, who is still at large. A masked thief held up a number of businesses, including . . .”
Anya snapped off the radio.
“Okay, who wants ice cream?” she burbled.
Chapter Seven: “Conversations with Dead People”
Secrets have power. Share them, and they weaken . . .
Not going to be alone tonight much longer, Buffy thought, as she squatted beside a fresh grave.
As if on cue, a hand shot up through the earth. The rest of the vampire soon followed, faster than Buffy had anticipated and catching her a little off guard. It should have been easy to dust him, but he was surprisingly strong. Or was she just not up for it tonight?
They got into a clinch, and he was starting to beat down on her when he stopped and looked at her . . . and said, in surprise, “Buffy?” He laughed. “Buffy Summers?”
* * *
It was dark. Dawn let herself into the house and found the twenty and the note:
Will and I are out until late.
Here’s money for the store.
NO PIZZA! Love you,
Buffy
A night alone, Dawn thought, flopping onto the couch. Cool.
She ordered pizza; whoops, got it on one of Buffy’s blouses while she was trying it on; and danced around to Mexican ranchera music on the radio. Then she watched marshmallows expand in the microwave and exchanged TV viewing comments on the phone with Kit, her bud from the basement adventure.
“There it is again,” she said into the phone. It was a thump, and it had been going on intermittently for most of the evening. She had thought maybe it was a tree branch scraping on a window, something like that, but so far nothing.
Or maybe it was someone at the door . . .
Dawn got up from the couch and opened the door. It flew open on its own accord, a wind blowing violently. She managed to get it shut, crying, “Kit? Is there a storm? Are you there?”
The door blew open again, more insistent, more violent. This time it hit Dawn, making her drop the phone.
Suddenly the TV started blaring. And the CD player . . . and the radio . . .
Dawn raced to the TV and tried to turn it off . . . then she pulled the plug . . . and it stayed on.
She got Buffy’s battle axe and slammed it down on the TV screen, and it finally went dark. Then she swung the axe and smashed the CD player, and it went silent.
Hoisting the axe, she headed into the kitchen, intent on smashing the radio, which was blaring a crazed banda tune. But before she could get to it, the microwave began to hum . . . and hum..
It exploded, th
e door blasting outward in fragments of glass. Dawn yelped and ran for the back door, stepping on the glass. Her feet were being sliced into ribbons.
On the way, as she passed near the radio, the music dissolved into static, and through that static, she heard . . .
“Dawn?”
It was her mom.
She froze, staring in astonishment. Had she really heard that? Had she?
“Mom?” she whispered.
* * *
She didn’t recognize him, not even after a few prompts—history essay, lightboard accident during the school production of Pippin. He was hurt. It took her so long to realize who he was. She tried to cheer him up a little.
“No, I just—I didn’t recognize you, you know, your face, all demon, and I think you’ve filled out a lot.”
They chatted a bit more—he’d been a psych major, took a year off to do an internship—then his face demorphed, and he said excitedly, “So, I’m a vampire! How weird is that?”
“I’m sorry,” Buffy murmured.
“No,” he assured her. “It feels okay. Strong, and I feel like I’m connected to a powerful all-consuming evil that’s gonna suck the world into fiery oblivion. What about you?”
“Not so much connected,” she said. Then she told him about being the Slayer, which way surprised him.
“Lotta kids thought you were dating some really old guy, or like, you were heavy religious. Scott Hope said you were gay.”
“What?”
“So all that time, you were a Slayer.”
“ ‘The,’ ” she corrected him.
“ ‘The.’ Like as in, the only one?”
“Pretty much,” she murmured.
“Ah. So when you said not connected, that was kind of a telling statement, wasn’t it?”
She put her hands on her hips and gave him a look. “Ah. Psych 101 alert. I really need emotional therapy from the Evil Dead.”
“Hey, it was your phrase,” he said.
“I’m connected,” she insisted. “I’m connected to a lot of people, okay?”
Unaware that on the ground, her cell phone was ringing . . .
* * *
The lights were on the Summers home. Dawn was sitting on the living room floor, picking glass out of her foot and wrapping cloth around it. The phone was pressed against her ear.
On the floor, the radio remained silent.
Her mother said nothing, and Buffy wasn’t answering the phone.
She gave up and hung up, rising and shaking the radio.
“Do it again! I heard you!” she cried.
The lights went out and the room fell into darkness . . . but only for an instant. Then the lights flared back on.
The room had been altered: the weapon’s chest stood on end, the chairs were piled on the table, and the wall was splashed with the bloody words MOTHER’S MILK IS RED TODAY.
The lights went off again. In the darkness Dawn heard her own panicked breathing . . . and a slow, steady thump that shook the house on its foundations.
The lights came back on. Everything was back in its place. No chairs in a tower, no disarray.
No blood.
The thumping resumed, even louder, more insistent, thumpthumpthumpthump.
“Stop it,” Dawn pleaded.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMP
“Stop it, please!”
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP
“STOP IT!” she shrieked.
Silence.
Surprised, Dawn looked around. The silence reigned.
“Hello?” she called.
THUMP.
She lowered her voice and whispered, “Mom?”
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
“Wait. Wait! Wait! I don’t—”
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
“Slow down!” She thought to herself for a moment. “Once for yes . . . okay, once for yes . . . and twice for no.”
To the silence she called, “Mom?”
THUMP.
Her voice broke. “Mom, it’s you?”
THUMP.
“Are you okay?”
THUMPTHUMP.
“You’re not. Mom . . . Mommy . . . are you alone?”
The house shook violently, earthquake levels. The lights strobed on and off, blinding Dawn in flashes as everything tumbled to the floor—vases, pictures, lamps, her house tumbling down around her ears, as she screamed.
Then a sound raged through the house, like a frenzied, growling animal, and she tried hard to stand her ground.
“I hear you,” she called. “I hear you breathing. Are you hurting my mother? Are you keeping her from coming back to me?”
A brilliant flash of blue light revealed her mother lying on the couch, her eyes milky and dead. Dawn hurried toward her.
“Mom? I see you. I’m coming toward you, okay?”
There was another flash. A strange, dark figure loomed over Joyce, choking her as she helplessly reached out toward Dawn. It was choking her mom, hurting her!
Dawn screamed. “She’s trying to talk to me! Get off her and let her talk to me!”
She got down on the floor, groping through the wreckage for her battle axe. Another flash of light revealed that the figure had it, and was swinging it straight at Dawn’s head. Dawn screamed and ducked . . . and the figure missed.
Then it said in a low, gravelly voice, “Get out!”
Dawn ran toward the front door, which had swung open. Wind blew at a gale force. She was almost across the threshold, but she stopped and turned on her heel, resolutely staying inside the house.
“No!” she shouted, and shut the door. “She’s my mother. I’m staying.”
On the couch, her mother’s eyes flashed open.
* * *
Buffy was lying on a sarcophagus, using a carved stone book as a pillow. Holden sat in the analyst’s chair, in this case a headstone, and probed gently.
“So, you meet someone, you form a bond . . .”
“But it never lasts.”
“I just target the impossible ones with deadly accuracy,” Buffy said, frustrated.
“You think you do that on purpose? Maybe you’re trying to protect yourself?”
“Protecting myself? From heartbreak, misery, sexual violence, and possible death? Not so much.”
“From committing,” he said patiently.
She sat up, and retorted heatedly, “I commit. I’m committed. I’m a committee.”
“So it’s them? You’re reaching out, they’re not coming through?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s different. I think you’re confusing me because you’re evil.”
“I just think you’re in some pain here—which I do kind of enjoy ’cause I’m evil now—but you should ease up on yourself. It’s not exactly like you have the patent on bad relationships.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool if I did?” she asked mournfully.
“And what are you, supposed to be settling down already? At . . . twenty-one? You know, my girlfriend at college, she’s sweet, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna go vampify her just so we can be together forever.”
“Sire,” Buffy told him. “When you turn a human into a vampire, you ‘sire’ them.”
He stood and leaned on another headstone. “Oh, I have so much to learn. Come on, isn’t this insane? I mean, I was afraid to talk to you in high school, and here we are mortal enemies.” He paused. “We’re gonna have to fight to the death, aren’t we?”
“It’s the time-honored custom,” she said, and she felt a twinge of sadness.
“Wow, reality just shows up sometimes, doesn’t it? You know, I’ve got the bloodlust pumping, but you don’t seem as thrilled. Is it because we’re going to fight?”
“It’s because I’m going to win,” she replied, with another twinge.
He chuckled. “Do the words ‘superiority complex’ mean anything to you?” Before she could argue with him, he said, “All Chosen. All destiny. Who could live with that for seven years and not feel superior?”
> He continued. “Is it possible, even a little bit, that the reason you have trouble connecting to guys is because you think maybe they’re not worth it? Maybe you think you’re better than them?”
She glared at him. “Say, there’s that bloodlust I was looking for.”
And they fought, she grinding out at him, “I think I’m gonna kill you just a little bit more than usual.”
She kicked him, her momentum carrying the two of them through a stained glass window in a nearby crypt.
She whipped out a stake and got ready to pay her bill to the bloodsucking wannabe shrink, when he said, “Okay, are you killing me because I’m evil or because you opened up?”
“What is wrong with you!” she yelled. She got to her feet. When he tried to do the same, she kicked him in the face.
He laughed. “Nothing. I got no worries. Biggest thing on my mind is whether or not Tricia Waldman came to my funeral or not. Do you remember her? Ooh . . . bite-able.”
“See, this is what I hate about you vampires! Sex and death and love and pain . . . it’s all the same damn thing to you.”
He walked around her, looking curious, interested. He said, “Let me ask you this. Your last relationship . . . was it with a vampire?”
* * *
A night alone, studying in the library. Willow could barely contain her sorrow, remembering how much she and Tara had enjoyed talking about their classes and trading theories about life, the universe, and everything.
Maybe she dozed, or maybe it was just time for something weird to happen. At any rate, someone started speaking to her from the stacks.
“So, this is the U.C. library, huh? It’s so big.”
The figure came out from the stacks, and Willow startled, her eyes widening. Though she had never met Cassie, the girl who knew she was going to die on a Friday, she had stared at her face for hours on Cassie’s Web site, as she had tried to find a way to save her.
“Did I fall asleep?” Willow asked.
“No, no, I’m here,” Cassie assured her. “It’s kind of complicated.” Then she sat down and added, “I knew this would completely freak you out.”
Not so much, Willow thought. Ghosts . . . seen ’em before. But she was puzzled why Cassie was here.
“It’s just . . . she asked that I come talk to you.” She smiled sadly. “She says she still sings.”