“Buffy here,” she said, as perkily as possible.
“Okay.” He stared hard into her eyes. “Tell me what the hell is going on. Because I think you know, Buffy. And I want to help.”
She considered. Xander had had a flare up, but he appeared to still be Xander. She decided to level.
“Here it is. I think people are getting possessed,” she said. “No one’s acting like themselves.”
He dropped the act. His shoulder slumped a little and he looked older. It startled her to realize he had a five o’clock shadow, just like a grown-up. Over the years, Xander had been busily turning into a man.
“Yeah, I’ll say.”
Yes. “So you’ve noticed it too?” she asked him.
He folded her arm around his. They started walking side by side. “Sure. Possessed by terror. Talk about everybody being somewhere else. Buffy, think about it. Some guy takes out his parents, then blows away half the kids on the quad. It makes for a major group wiggins. People are jittery, to say the least. So maybe the rest of us are just very, very tense.”
“Tense?”
“Remember my working definition: ’Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven’t fallen asleep yet.’ Some people get awfully tired of murder, you know? They’re just wacky that way.”
She nodded slowly. “Giles just showed me some very gross autopsy pictures. Another very bad death.”
“In Sunnydale. How new,” Xander said. “And the winner is?”
She took a breath. “That girl I was looking for. Lindsey Acuff.”
Xander was clearly shocked. “Oh, my God. She was just a little kid.”
“It was horrible. It’s like Jack the Ripper came to town.”
“Well, I hope he stalks Broadman. And I hope he eats her liver,” Xander muttered.
Buffy shook her head. “Xander, if you had seen these pictures, you wouldn’t even say that.” At his bruised expression, she said, “I know she was completely unfair to you. And yeah, she was enjoying lording it over you. I think you should take it up with the school board, since we already know Snyder won’t back you. Rat-headed little gnome,” she added bitterly.
“Oh, I’ll take it up with her.” Xander’s mouth twisted. “And I’m serious, Buffy. I wish someone would take her out.”
“Xander.”
They walked a few more steps, during which all cheerfulness ceased and Xander looked like he wanted to bite the chain-link fence.
“You’re just . . . also tense,” she said quietly.
“All I’ve got to say is, she’d better watch her back.”
The muscles in Xander’s arm were bunched up. Very contracted. Very battle-ready.
“Take it easy, okay?” she asked. “For me?”
Xander patted her hand. “For you, Buffy dear, the moon.”
The moon.
Oz had lost track of time. He looked up, even though he could see nothing. The cage in which he was imprisoned — for cage it was, of chain link — was in a cold, wet room that smelled of mold and alcohol. It was a strange combination, and he couldn’t place it. He knew nothing about where he was, who had captured him, or what they wanted.
He only knew that someone had faked that car accident. When he had slammed into the overturned vehicle, his seat belt had saved him, but given him a very nasty jolt. He passed out. For how long, he had no idea.
When he came to, he was in another van, this one speeding, and he had on a blindfold. His overdeveloped sense of smell detected a very heavy perfume odor, and as he sniffed, a woman laughed in his ear. Sharp nails ran down his neck and across his right collarbone.
The scent of blood — his — had touched the air.
“So. You’re finally awake,” she’d whispered. “What glorious fun we’ll have.”
“Um, I need to tell you I’m committed to somebody,” he said. “So I’m not much into the dating scene.”
Several other people had laughed at his remark. There had been cruelty in the sound, and anticipation, and Oz pretty much wished he had been paying better attention to the road instead of stewing about Devon and searching for the perfect background track for his own personal angst.
Not to mention that my insurance rates are going to go up.
“Moonchild, when is your transformation due?” she had asked him.
“Excuse me?” he’d tried. The hard punch to his jaw told him they already knew all about his werewolf gig. So no sense pretending otherwise.
“When is it?” she demanded.
Would they kill him before? During? After? A dozen scenarios ran through his mind.
“When is it?” she said again, bellowing in his ear.
“Excuse me, I’m a little disoriented. What day is this?”
“Friday,” she’d replied.
“I’ve got eight days to go,” he informed her.
“Oh, good. Then we can train you.” She kissed him then, running her tongue down the side of his face and breathing hot, moist air in his ear. He hoped she wouldn’t be offended by the fact that it wasn’t doing much for him.
Sitting blindfolded in a speeding van in fear for his life tended to take all the fun out of being hit on.
“Train?” he echoed uncertainly.
“Yeah. We need to housebreak you,” a man said in a very cultured British accent.
And that’s all anyone had ever told him about what was going on. So far.
He knew a few things: that he was in a metal cage, much like the one in the school library. That he might be underground. It smelled earthy and dank, like the town crypts and tunnels. He also knew his captors had plans for him, and that they were very eager to set them into motion.
His world became a strange routine of dozing and waking for the arrival of food, which was some kind of gruel heavy on the carbos — brown rice or something. And pills, which at first he hid, until someone shined a flashlight on his face and said, “They’re just vitamins. Take them.” Then they had waited for him to put the pills in his mouth.
He had obeyed, straining to make out the features of the person behind the flashlight. But after the hours — days? — in darkness, the brightness of the beam made him squint. The identity of the figure remained a mystery, although it sounded like a young guy, maybe someone his age.
It was difficult to keep them hidden inside his upper and lower lips while he ate, but he managed. After flashlight guy left with the bowl, he spit them into his hand and crawled around his cage, trying to find a place to hide them. Eventually he’d located some dirt and rubble, and starting sticking them in there.
But now someone was coming. It was perfume woman. He heard the squeak of a door and turned to the sound, hoping that at least a crack of light would reveal his surroundings.
No luck.
She was wearing hard-soled shoes; by the click on the concrete, probably heels.
As she drew near, he tensed.
“Oz,” she whispered, and he grimaced. She knew his name. He shouldn’t be surprised. After all, she knew he was a werewolf. Knew he was going to be driving on Route 17.
Which no doubt meant that she knew he had a friend named Buffy, who was a Vampire Slayer.
“Oz, don’t be coy,” she continued, a slight edge to her voice. “I know you’re awake.” Then she laughed, and ice water poured down Oz’s spine. It was a crazy laugh. Perfume woman was two tacos short of a combination plate.
So not good news for someone in his position.
He was about to speak when more footfalls joined perfume woman’s.
“Maybe he’s dead,” the other voice murmured. It was the flashlight guy again. Oz frowned, trying to figure out who it was.
“Don’t be stupid, Jordan. Why would he die?”Perfume woman said angrily. “We feed him and water him regularly. Although we obviously don’t bathe him.” Her voice was laced with disgust. “In my day, the stock was treated much better than this.”
The stock? Like livestock?
Oz did not like being the s
tock.
“Maybe being in captivity,” the other voice — Jordan — Jordan who? — said. “Like a jungle animal.”
“Grrrr,” said perfume woman. She laughed again. Oz was not charmed.
He heard the jingle of keys, the scraping of metal on metal, and realized they were opening his cage. His heart started racing. This might be the only chance he got to escape. He had to take it, even if they punished him for it. He doubted they would kill him, at least not before they did whatever they had in store for him. And on the other hand, if what they had planned was something that made perfume woman laugh, maybe he was better off dead.
As quietly as he could, he got to his feet. Despite his current tour of duty in one Slayer’s army, he hadn’t mastered the art of planning escapes, and he was getting so amped he was having trouble thinking. He had to find a hole in their offensive line, get through, get out first, and, possibly, lock them in. Oh, and maybe he should knock them out.
What I wouldn’t give for a Stratocaster right now. It would be a good bludgeoning tool.
“Turn on your flashlight,” perfume woman said to her companion.
Yes, Oz thought, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.
The micro millisecond that he saw the beam, he lunged at the guy who was holding it, yanked it out of his hand, and slammed it into his face. Then he swung it around, wincing when he made contact with what had to be perfume woman’s face. Someone grabbed for him; he ducked and ran through the open gate, then took the time to shut it after himself and put the pin in place. An opened padlock dangled from it. That must have been what the key was for.
He took off in a dead run, barely registering that he was in some kind of subterranean complex. There were stacks of cardboard boxes and wooden crates along the walls. Then he ducked into a tunnel carved from rock and hunched down, bulleting through as fast as he could go.
He was weak from being in the cage. Next time I get captured — if there ever is a next time — I’ll do like all the convicts do and exercise to stay in shape.
“There he is!”
It was perfume woman, and not too far behind him. It would do no good to look over his shoulder unless he aimed the flashlight at her, and he figured there wasn’t much he could do about anything she might be doing, anyway. The twisting tunnel had no other corridors; there were two ways to go, forward and backward. If he stopped running, she’d be on him. So even if she had a gun, all he could do was keep going.
As he ran, he stumbled, then realized the earthen floor beneath him was canting slightly downward. Pointing the flashlight downward, he saw a murky pool of water only seconds before he splashed into it. With a shout, he slipped down to his waist, then almost to his chest. He had the presence of mind to hold the flashlight over his head, but he realized he’d just given perfume women warning about what to expect.
He flicked off the flashlight and began to dog paddle across the pool. The cold water numbed him, and his sodden cords were like weights on his legs.
Something darted against his leg and he jerked, wanting like anything to turn the flashlight on. Instead, he swam harder.
“Okay. Pull him up,” the woman shouted.
Before Oz had time to react, something enveloped him, tightened around him, and yanked him out of the water. It was a net.
Bright lights on poles flashed around him, blinding him. As he blinked and struggled, he heard the mad laughter of the woman, joined by several others.
“Not bad, for your first session,” she said.
Oz shaded his eyes and squinted. “My first session?” he repeated.
“Of your training.”
He saw her then, a tall figure, very muscular, with dark hair that curled and tumbled over her shoulders. She wore a dark robe that sparkled as she raised her hands and applauded him. She made a show of touching her jaw. He couldn’t make out her features, but her voice was filled with amusement.
“Okay, put him back in his cage.” She turned on her heel. The robe billowed around her.
Shivering, Oz clung to the ropes as slowly he was lowered toward the pool. Then a man carrying a board sauntered into Oz’s line of sight. Bald, with scars extending from the CENTER of his head down the sides, he was dressed in a sleeveless black leather jacket, black leather pants, kicker boots, and gloves. He set the end of the board at his end of the pool and let the board fall forward. It spanned the pool easily, slamming to the ground on the other side.
When the net was waist high, the man pulled a knife out of his leather pants and started cutting. His face was scarred, too, and one eye was missing.
“I’m Antonius,” he said gruffly. “I’m your instructor.”
“And I was hoping for the personal trainer of Brendan Fraser. Or perhaps the muscle stylings of Madonna.”
Antonius grunted. “You got spunk, kid. Spunk’s good. It’ll help you last.”
Last. Oz didn’t like the notion of “lasting.” It smacked of not lasting.
“I gather you’ve done some lasting in your day,” Oz continued.
“Some.” He shrugged. “Several centuries of it.” Grimacing, he sawed at the net, then huffed, sheathed his knife, and grabbed a torch. He drew it across the net. The section nearest Oz sizzled and smoked. As Oz struggled, his wet clothes gave off steam and scalded his flesh. He cried out, struggling hard, managing to free himself only by grabbing the fiery sections and yanking them apart.
Shouting, he splashed back into the pool, plunging underwater. He stayed submerged, swimming as hard as he could, searching for one of the sides. This water had gotten in here somehow; maybe he could use the same pipe or hole to escape.
Whatever had darted against him before now slithered across the backs of his legs. Then it clamped hard around him and began to contract. Oz could no longer swim. He flipped over and grabbed at the creature, his fingertips making contact with a smooth, undulating mass approximately two feet wide. It was some kind of snake.
Some kind of snake with big, sharp fangs.
They sank into Oz’s wrist and bit hard, nearly taking off his hand. Oz gasped in shock, inhaling water. His body contracted, struggling to expel what was so clearly not oxygen, but as there was no air to replace it, it was a useless effort.
Oz’s eyes rolled back in his head. When the thing bit him again, he didn’t react.
As he felt himself go flatline, he thought, So much for lasting.
In Sunnydale, tension became a living creature. It was a monster that searched for hosts and spun webs inside them, gluing their nerves into glommy masses of confusion and sewing their brains to the backs of their spines.
Like the water tension in a glass, where the liquid appeared to defy gravity, tension defied logic. Like the tremors preceding an earthquake, it neither created nor sought relief. The beast, tension, could shake cars apart. It could rip the soul right out of a person.
Tension grew, multiplied, and divided.
It mutated.
It spread.
It killed.
Willow sat in the glare of her computer. She had to type one-handed, but she could still manage it. She had been shot once in the side and once in her left upper arm. Her head hurt.
Her heart hurt.
She kept wondering if she had had some kind of bad dream, or if she had actually been so awful to Buffy. It seemed impossible, yet the words, the memories, lingered.
Willow reached for her chamomile tea and sipped. Then she pushed back from her computer and stood. Stretched, and winced as the stitches pulled.
She went outside and smelled the night-blooming jasmine in her yard. The Santa Ana winds had finally died down, and she was a little chilly in her sweater and corduroy overalls as she walked to the driveway and down to the sidewalk. It hurt a lot. She wasn’t supposed to go out yet.
She was halfway to Hammersmith Park when she realized she was actually going to Buffy’s house. To apologize.
That made her smile, and she picked up her pace, even though she was already
tired. It isn’t too smart to be alone in Sunnydale at night, especially when you’ve recently been shot.
The moon was hidden by clouds, but every night, it grew rounder. In two days, Oz would transform. She swallowed hard against her fears.
She crossed the street and looked up to Buffy’s bedroom.
Silhouetted against the light, Buffy was sitting against Angel. Then she leaned her head against his shoulder and he stroked her back. They kissed. The kiss grew very passionate.
Willow clenched her fists. Oz was missing, by now presumed dead, and she was up there making out with her vampire boyfriend?
She was so furious she started to shake. She turned on her heel and stalked back home.
As soon as she shut the French door to her bedroom, her mother knocked on the other door.
“Willow? Do you need anything?”
“Go to hell,” Willow muttered.
“What, honey? I can’t hear you.”
Willow sat in the darkness and seethed.
“You’re losing it, Buffy,” Angel said. “What’s up?”
“Me?” She ran her hands through her hair. “All my friends are acting like total jerks and I’m losing it?”
He nodded.
She sighed. “I . . .” I let them down, because I was with you, she thought. “I didn’t . . .”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
He looked at her.
“Really.”
Kept looking.
Helen stepped from the shadows below the home of the Slayer. She clenched her scarlet-coated fists. Tonight was a special night: they had sacrificed the eleventh human of the sacred number to satisfy the Dark Mother. Seven to go.
To commemorate the event, she had decided to go on a killing spree. A private bloodbath all her own. But now, by pure accident, she saw this.
A century of longing for Angelus, dreaming of him, lusting and planning to get to him, and he was in the arms of a Slayer.
She bit through her own lower lip. Tasted her own blood. She shook from head to toe. As always, betrayal stalked her. Why did I expect anything different from him?
She stared at him, her eyelids flickering as she remembered his caresses. What terrible thing had happened to him?