Zombies.
As he removed his mask and held it against his chest, the voodoo king of Jamaica, Simon Lafitte, strode grandly into the room. He regarded the mummylike figure with great interest, circling it once, staring it up and down.
He looked at Roger. “You killed my mother viciously and cruelly. But something wonderful came of it. When my mother’s soul was freed from her body, she went back into the past. She found the ancestress of ours who gave my family our power, and then my ancestress found me.
“Her name is Cecile Lafitte, and she is a powerful priestess of the Black Arts. She serves a dark god with her consort, and they seek to feed it Slayers, for which it has a most intense craving.”
He stepped toward Roger. “We are looking for Slayers, old man. Can you tell us where we might find one? Or more?”
Roger fought very hard not to show his fear. “I’m no longer in contact with the Watchers Council,” he said evenly. “When Kendra died, I retired. Now . . .” he indicated his tumbler of rum.
“You know many things about the Council. You wrote a diary. Which I have read.” Lafitte’s smile was wicked. “I have a friend on the Council. I know there are two Slayers, for example. Cecile’s god will devour their souls.”
“Then . . . ” Roger murmured, ashamed at how his mind was racing ahead, trying to discern a way in which he might save himself; or at least, how he might cooperate sufficiently to be awarded a less painful death than the one Tutuana had endured. “Then why do you need me?”
I’m so weak, he thought, disappointed in himself. I don’t want to die at all.
“This is a Wanderer,” Baron Diable said, indicating the creature. “In point of fact, it is the Wanderer of the Earth. Did you know that Slayers can be divided into four elements? Kendra was of the Earth. Stolid and implacable. A worthy opponent.”
“She was a Slayer,” Roger said. His voice was strong, and he felt slightly more in command of himself. Perhaps remembering how fearless Kendra had been had inspired him.
“This poor creature has been searching for her for years,” Lafitte explained. “Its only reason for existing is to find the Slayer with whom it corresponds. Then it opens its little box, which you see, and takes out its axe, and hacks the Slayer to death.”
Roger regarded the box in the thing’s grasp. It seemed to be made of nothing but skulls and bones, and the top was glowing in the shape of a diamond. A bony handprint floated inside the diamond. As he watched, blue energy formed in a circle above it, and hovered chest-high.
“Here is the situation. Faith is a Slayer of Fire. And Buffy Summers is a Slayer of Air. My ancestress has been searching for the Axe of the Air, and happily, an associate of my Granddame Cecile claims to have it. But meanwhile, the Axe of Fire seems to have gone missing in Sunnydale.”
Roger closed his eyes. He wondered if Faith, who had taken Kendra’s place, was still alive.
“I can’t help you,” Roger said, growing cold.
Lafitte looked thoughtful. “I am in league with powerful magicians and sorcerers, and we’re exploring all avenues to give the two living Slayers to Cecile Lafitte’s god. It has a name, by the way. It is the Gatherer.”
Mirielle clapped her hands. “She is speaking to me,” she announced. “I hear you, Lady Cecile! You are beautiful!”
“I want you to get on the phone and call Rupert Giles,” Lafitte said to Roger. “My Granddame Cecile says the portents indicate that the Slayers are ripe for harvesting. Sunnydale is being assaulted by disasters of fire and water, which means that the Wanderers of Fire and Water are homing in on the Slayers. If they have a storm, it will be that the Wanderer of Air has shown up. Our colleague will be able to arm it.”
Baron Lafitte clapped his hands. The blue energy emanating from the box turned a brilliant blue-green. The sphere enlarged until it encompassed the entire box, and grew larger still to surround the draped figure.
Then it disappeared.
“The Wanderer of Earth should arrive in Sunnydale shortly,” he announced.
He pulled a cell phone from the folds of his robe. “Call Rupert Giles. Now. Find out where the Axe of Fire has been taken.”
Roger did not reach for the phone. Instead, he put his hands behind his back. He thought of Kendra, and though his eyes watered with fear, he clamped his mouth shut and began a litany: For love of her courage, for love of her courage, for love of her courage . . .
Lafitte snapped his fingers. The zombies walked forward. Roger Zabuto blinked, jerking visibly.
Among them shuffled Kendra’s mother and Kendra’s father.
“Ah, you recognize them,” Lafitte crowed. “Perhaps someplace inside them is the desire to rip you apart because their daughter is dead. I know I would like to rip you apart because my mother is dead,” the voodoo king hissed at him. “But if you’ll call Giles, I’ll kill you quickly. You have my word that I won’t turn you into one of my creatures.
“If you call him now.”
Roger tried to breathe. He couldn’t make his chest move, and for a moment, he thought Lafitte had paralyzed him. Then the urge to inhale became overwhelming, and he realized it was sheer panic that kept him from drawing in oxygen.
The other man shrugged. “Take your time, Zabuto. Think it through. And while you do . . . ” He took Mirielle’s hand. “I’ll have this place searched. Perhaps you’ve started a new diary, or made some notes.”
Roger ran for the window that looked out on the cane. He flung himself against the wooden blinds, was momentarily stunned, and hit them with his fists. Pummeling them, he began shouting for help. None would come, he knew. He and Mirielle lived alone on the plantation grounds.
When he had worn himself out, he turned back around to find Lafitte and the zombies moving toward him. The zombies were fanning into a semicircle, with Lafitte slightly in front of them. Mirielle stood beside him. Her eyes gleamed. Drool dripped from the corner of her mouth.
“You may begin,” he said to the beautiful madwoman. He snapped his fingers and chanted in a language Roger did not understand.
Wearing a frightening grin, moving with the jerking awkwardness of a zombie, she reached into the bodice of her white dress. Her hand disappeared among the lace ruffles to her wrist. For a moment she paused; then slowly, she drew her hand upward. A thin line of red began to appear, then to darken and spread. She appeared to be unaware that she was cutting herself as she pulled a long, sharp knife from her dress. The blade dripped.
She advanced slowly on Roger. His heart bruised his rib cage. He swallowed, remembering her own terror as Lafitte invaded his house, searching for her: Mon Dieu, my God, kill me, please.
“I’m so sorry, Mirielle,” he rasped.
Her eyes rolled back in her head. She swayed for a few seconds, speaking in the same language Lafitte had spoken. From inside his robe, Baron Diable produced a snake and held it up to Mirielle’s ear. She laughed and continued to chant.
Then she opened her mouth wide; her tongue flicked out; it was black and forked, a serpent’s tongue.
Mirielle closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were reptilian, yellow and round, the pupils narrow, vertical slits. Her tongue flicked and she slowly trudged toward Roger, like a sleepwalker.
She lifted the knife above her head.
She said, “Know me. I am Cecile Lafitte. And I will give the Gatherer all the Slayers I can track down, living or dead.”
“Can you be of any help to her?” Lafitte asked, with mock concern.
“No,” Roger whispered. He crossed himself.
“Make the first cut, ma belle,” the Baron invited Mirielle. “You should have that pleasure.”
Chapter Eight
“Well, that was pretty weird,” Buffy said.
Willow took a breath and let it out slowly. “The fact that we had the same dream, or the fact that the dream itself was weird, and also that we had the dream that was weird?”
The moonlight spilled over Buffy’s room, casting Willow’
s red hair with soft golden highlights that made her look almost like a different person. Buffy was beyond unnerved, and not just because she couldn’t figure out what Willow had just asked her.
“What do you think the mummy guys stood for in our dream?” Buffy asked her. “And what about the clay jars?”
Willow blew her bangs out of her eyes. She was wearing an oversize Dingoes Ate My Baby T-shirt. She and Oz had only recently gotten back together, and Buffy figured Willow was being conscientious about showing how much she valued Oz’s decision to trust her again.
“In ancient Egypt, when they mummified people, they took out the viscera and stored them separately, in canopic jars,” Willow explained. At Buffy’s blank expression, she added, “The guts.”
Buffy grimaced. “Yum. Okay, Egypt theme. Are the axes Egyptian? What do you think they meant?”
“That we should live life because we never know when we will be chopped down by death, and time will stop for us?” Willow shrugged. “As a wild, um, stab?”
“Do not start with the stabbing jokes, Will.” Buffy was seated cross-legged on the air mattress. “Also, you know, rainbows are not guts. One of the canopic jars had a rainbow in it.”
“Symbolism,” Willow suggested. “For um, optimism? It takes guts to be optimistic?”
“Or symbolism for rainbow sherbet ice cream?” Buffy asked. She gave Willow a questioning look.
“Absolutely,” Willow answered. “It’s gotta be the ice cream.”
As one, they both stood. Willow stepped into her traveling scuffies and Buffy glanced around for her bathrobe, which she’d left over by the window.
“Before the weird dream we shared, I had another dream of my very own,” Willow informed Buffy. “And I remember it,” she said proudly.
Buffy looked interested.
“I saved Matthew Broderick from radiation poisoning.”
Buffy flashed her a weak, lopsided grin. Her heart was still thundering, but the safety of reality was sinking in. No monsters here, no mummies. Just her very best friend.
“Was Matty grateful?”
Willow smiled in fond remembrance. “Extremely. So were our children.”
“Your children?” Buffy drawled, amused.
“Twins,” Willow said wistfully. “Redheaded girls.”
Buffy glanced through the blinds, seeing nothing but the pine trees, the stars, and the streetlamp. A blue Chevy truck drove down the street. In the still night, a dog howled. Crickets scraped.
“You pick the strangest guys to dream about, Will,” she said, reaching for the robe. “How come it’s never someone current? Y’know, like Seth Green?”
“Plus we lived in Paris,” Willow continued, belting her own robe. “Or maybe it was Hawaii. Anyway, gratitude was definitely involved. Chocolate, also.”
“Nice dream.”
“Yeah. And I remembered it,” she repeated proudly. “Oh. And I had a dream on the couch, earlier tonight before you came home.”
“Back in the good old hours, before I knew about Nat,” Buffy murmured. She wandered back to the air mattress and picked up Mr. Gordo and played absently with his nose. “I like the Matthew Broderick dream better.”
“Me, too,” Willow said. “Less complicated plus, you know, smoochies and food.”
“Smoochies, eh?” Buffy chuckled. “You didn’t mention the smoochies.”
“Hey, I’m entitled to some smoochie dreams,” Willow insisted. “Just cuz, you know, Technicolor with Angel, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have fantasies. Which are dreams,” she added hastily. “When I’m awake I am fantasy-free, and think only of Oz.”
“Since . . . all the past has become more pastly, I don’t dream as much about Angel,” Buffy murmured. “Lots of my dreams are like knock-knock jokes, you know? After I get to the ‘who’s there’ part, something of the bad’s usually behind the door.”
Willow nodded soberly. Then she gestured to the window and less-than full, yellow moon. “Sunday we were thinking of going to the beach to watch the grunion run. Oz is all done with the wolf-out for the month, so we’re going to do lots of relaxy stuff. Wanna come? It should be major fun.”
Buffy thought briefly back to a time when she, Natalie, and a bunch of kids from Hemery had gone down to Redondo Beach to watch the finger-long silvery fish wriggle through the wet sand, spawning their hearts out. That occasion had included a lot of laughing and a big bonfire, and Natalie’s confession that after graduation she wanted to try out for the Lakers cheerleading squad.
Willow’s hopeful smile became a bit uncertain. “Or do you have slayage with Faith on your calendar?”
“I think we killed all the Baffles, so it would seem some fun is in order.” Buffy grinned. “Of the non-slayage variety, at least for me. Cuz you know, Faith thinks all that chop-socky is just a hoot.”
Buffy’s smile drooped. “Unless we have to go to L.A. Mom and me, I mean. They’re having Natalie’s service on Wednesday, but we might go up early.”
Willow looked thoughtful, also faintly pleased. “That would be nice. People shouldn’t be left alone when they’re really going through something.”
“Mrs. Hernandez still has Irma’s brother Ernie,” Buffy continued, examining Mr. Gordo. “So she won’t be alone.”
“That’s true.” Willow smoothed her T-shirt and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “She’ll still have someone to fuss over. Remember when Mr. Gutierrez died, and we got Mrs. Gutierrez a puppy? That cheered her up.”
Mr. Gutierrez had been one of the school’s security guards. What Willow was avoiding saying, Buffy knew, was that Mr. Gutierrez had been vampirized on Faith’s watch. Faith had not known that the vampires in Sunnydale could waltz into Sunnydale High whenever they wanted. There was a sign out front in Latin that welcomed anyone who sought knowledge. Loophole, but it counted.
She decided to change the subject. “Did you check out Faith’s cheek? And can you say that three times fast? I wonder why she bolted out of my kitchen.”
“Too crowded?” Willow asked.
“I think she figured I’d want to be alone with my family,” Buffy said. “And she was right.”
“Oh.” Willow raised her eyebrows and her lips in her signature pleased expression. Buffy remembered the first few times she had tried to be friendly with Willow. The redheaded girl had been so used to being mistreated by popular girls that she hadn’t honestly believed Buffy wanted to be friends. “So, grunion for sure.”
“Grunions with onions,” Buffy said. “Yeah. I’m most definitely in.”
Willow smiled. “And thus we return to the subject of food, which means we still need the ice cream.”
“We still need the ice cream,” Buffy concurred.
They were quiet in the hall and on the stairs, which creaked anyway. Buffy led the way toward the kitchen, moving with caution once she realized that the light was on. She gestured to Willow to stay behind her. It would have signified a bit of overkill in just about anyone else’s life, but to quote an old saying from the Slayer Handbook, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.
“Oh, hi, honey. Willow,” her mother said guiltily. A carton of Ben & Jerry’s was open on the counter, and Joyce had a bowl in front of her. A big spoon was raised halfway to her mouth.
“Got the nervous munchies too, huh?” Buffy said, coming into the kitchen. “Hope you didn’t eat it all.”
“I didn’t,” Joyce assured her. Then she added, “We had some Nutter Butters in the pantry.”
“Mmm,” Buffy said, headed there.
“Had,” Joyce repeated.
“Oh.”
Buffy changed course and walked to the cabinet. She got out a couple of bowls while Willow gathered the spoons. With the fancy scoop her mom had bought in a cooking shop in L.A., Buffy dug in, piling ice cream high in the bowls.
“Did you by chance have a dream?” Willow asked.
“No.” She looked concerned. “Did I wake you two up? I called Irma
back.” She looked down at her bowl; her mouth clamped, a sign of distress. “Natalie asked to be cremated. Irma’s not happy about that. The family’s rather . . . traditional, I guess is the term. Catholics prefer to be buried.”
She touched her forehead. “Irma told me that Natalie spent her last days planning her own service, just in case they couldn’t get a donor.”
“Oh,” Willow commiserated. “Can you imagine what that must have been like?” Then she glanced at the two bowls in front of Buffy and said, “That’s enough ice cream, Buffy. For all twenty-eight of us.”
“Oh.” Buffy had unknowingly created two leaning towers of Chubby Hubby. She gave them a couple pats to keep them upright; for good measure, she licked the ice cream scoop.
As she ran the scoop under the faucet, Willow put the top on the nearly-empty container and returned it to the freezer. Willow’s shoulders were hunched, a sure sign that Will had moved squarely into wiggins territory.
Buffy wondered if she could lure her back by assuring her that she, Buffy, had not planned her own funeral. Not even what colors she wanted.
Which, it being a funeral, would probably be basic black.
Frankly, she had always figured funerals were more for the living than the dead. Unless, of course, you died from being bitten by a vampire, in which case you would be undead. Having had a lot of experience with death, she wasn’t exactly certain what happened to one once one died, especially if one were Chosen and all like that. But it didn’t seem like anybody knew what their own funerals were like—okay, zombies, maybe. And that’s debatable because their brains are pretty much not there anymore. Or ghosts, they could know, unless they’re stuck haunting where they were killed or can’t leave the house or something.
And maybe this is more complicated than I thought. Maybe I should plan my funeral.
Emphatically she shook her head. As a Slayer, I can’t afford to think about dying. Staying above-ground is the perfect shade for my amazing Technicolor dreamcoat, speaking of colors and what to wear.