Here Be Monsters, page 10
Then Suz had realized the light was too even to be candlelight. It didn’t waver or flicker. It burned steady and low. It was just one more mystery in a night full of them. From her hiding place, the shadow of a big tree in the backyard, Suz felt her determination grow.
She didn’t like mysteries. She liked things up front, spelled out, in the open, where you could look them in the eye as you took them down. It was the things you couldn’t see, the things you didn’t know about, that could hurt you.
I’m not leaving till I find out what’s going on.
Suz shifted position, eyes glued to the house. Any minute now. She’d been watching for about fifteen minutes after Buffy’d gone in. In that time, Suz had seen no movement at all. Nobody going in. Nobody coming out. No one even moving around, as far as she could tell. If she hadn’t seen the door swing open and Buffy go in herself, Suz would have figured there was nobody home.
Fine. The fewer people there were inside, the fewer she’d have to beat the snot out of to get the answers that she wanted.
Okay, enough waiting. Now it’s show time.
Satisfied that the room she’d targeted was empty, Suz began to move forward, keeping her body low. She stayed in the reaching shadow of the tree for as long as she could. When it ended, she sprinted for the back of the house. Plastering her back against it beside two of the windows, she waited for her pulse to slow.
She hadn’t come this far to give herself away by being a mouth-breather now.
Just call me Suz Tompkins, Commando.
When her breath was quiet and even again, Suz crouched down beside the window she’d chosen, considering her options. I might as well try the simplest approach first. One of the few classes she’d actually liked had been sophomore geometry. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
Angling her head away from the window, she reached out with one arm and gave the window a quick shove upward, then whipped her arm back.
The window slid open, silently.
Suz felt her heart give a leap of triumph even as she held her body motionless. That had been awfully easy. Maybe too. In Suz’s experience, things that looked too good to be true usually were.
She waited. Nothing happened. Finally, she decided she’d waited long enough. With a quick surge of movement, she thrust one leg over the window sill, ducked her head in, then pivoted and brought the other leg inside. She stood up and turned to face the window once more.
Swiftly Suz lowered it back into position, leaving a gap just wide enough for her to get her fingers through at the bottom. She didn’t want to take time to discover if all the windows were unlocked as well, and this was as good a way as any to identify the one she’d come through.
She turned around, adrenaline coursing through her.
I’ve done it. I’m in.
* * *
“You’re absolutely certain you want to do this,” Giles said, his tone hovering between a statement and a question.
On the opposite side of the fireplace, Willow nodded vigorously, her red hair swinging. “Absolutely. Positive.”
The group was standing in what Giles supposed he should consider Angel’s living room. Can one have a living room if one is dead?
A useless exercise to ponder such a question, of course, but still, it served to keep his mind off one thing.
I’d rather be anywhere than here. Within reason, of course.
Still, Giles’s sense of fairness forced him to admit, if only to himself, that Angel had already been helpful. He’d stoked the fire, making it burn clear and hot, just the way it ought to for the first phase of the spell. I suppose I ought to feel grateful for Angel’s assistance.
Not very likely, all in all.
Standing with Xander on one side of the fireplace, Giles studied Willow, as she stood just opposite. She looked nervous, but determined. Silent as usual, Oz stood beside her. Angel stood alone, back from the fire between the two groups. The point of the triangle. The fulcrum.
Those of us who willingly seek the vampire’s help on one side, and those who don’t on the other, thought Giles.
Though he’d done his best to come up with an alternative, Giles had to admit that Willow’s plan to cast a scrying spell was a sound, though dangerous, one. He’d even go so far as to admit perhaps he should have thought of it himself. He just wished Willow hadn’t insisted the spell be cast at Angel’s mansion. Giles didn’t like asking Angel for help. It went against every instinct he had, every rule he’d ever learned.
The fact that he was the Watcher to a Slayer who’d pretty much broken every rule in the book wasn’t helping any, but then it seldom did. Particularly when one of the biggest rules she broke on a regular basis was a pretty basic one: never trust a vampire. Let alone love one.
Vampires were the enemy. Good only for one thing: staking. Though even Giles had to admit Angel was hardly ordinary, as vampires went.
Still, he’d had a difficult enough time trusting Angel before his unfortunate return engagement as Angelus. It was almost impossible to trust him now, after what he’d done to Jenny Calendar.
And thinking that way puts your needs first, Rupert, he reminded himself. Which meant he was breaking a rule of his own.
The needs of the Slayer came first. Always.
“All right, then,” he said, looking again toward Willow. “Since you’re so determined, we might as well get on with this, I suppose. You have the herbs to purify the room?”
Willow nodded once more and moved to a low table Angel had placed in front of the fire. On it was the collection of items needed to cast the scrying spell.
A bundle of sage. A clear quartz crystal as long and thick as Giles’s forefinger. The jug of spring water and the copper bowl. The book that contained the scrying spell. Angel had also supplied a cushion for Willow to sit on. In order for the spell to work, she had to hold the bowl.
“I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating,” Giles said as Willow picked up the bundle of sage and moved toward the fire. “Scrying spells are very powerful things, definitely not to be undertaken lightly. Casting a spell of this nature takes absolute concentration at all times. One slip—”
“And we’ll be no worse off than we are right now,” Angel broke in, breaking his long silence. “The spell can’t change what’s happening to Buffy, Giles; it can only show us what it is.”
“I don’t need you to—” Giles came back hotly. He broke off, inhaled a slow, deep breath.
Arguing with Angel was hardly useful. Particularly when he was right. So far.
“I am aware that the spell won’t impact Buffy,” he said. “It’s the impact on Willow I’m worried about. Scrying isn’t like other spells. The person casting the spell, the scryer, for lack of a better term, doesn’t just summon energy, bring it into being. She literally becomes the conduit for the energy itself. There are historical accounts of scryers being driven mad by the power of what they summoned.”
Giles took his glasses off, wiped the lenses, then settled them back onto his face again.
“Are we all clear on my concerns now?”
“Giles, I have to do this,” Willow said after a moment. “It’s . . . a . . .” her forehead wrinkled, as if she were searching for the right words to convince him. “Thing I have to do. For Buffy.”
“That clears that up,” Xander muttered, putting in his two cents for the first time since he’d arrived.
Giles sighed. Well, I tried. And now he would do his best. As always.
“You have some personal item of Buffy’s? You’ll need that to focus the images you summon.”
The redhead dug into her jacket pocket and produced the scrunchie Buffy had pulled from her hair during their research session in the library earlier that night.
“Okay, so it’s not a personality-filled personal item,” she acknowledged. “But it’ll work. I know it will.”
“If you say so.” He moved the table and picked up the book that contained the scrying spell.
“Everybody ready? Right. Let’s begin with purifying the room.”
Willow cast the bundle of sage into the flames.
“Whoa,” Xander said. “Nobody told me it would smell like spaghetti.”
* * *
I can do this.
In front of Angel’s fire, Willow sat cross-legged on the cushion he’d provided, holding the copper bowl between her knees. To one side of her, Oz stood ready with the jug of spring water. One in each hand, Willow held the quartz crystal and Buffy’s hair tie. Giles stood behind her, ready to prompt her with the words of the spell, if she should need it.
Hardly.
She was about to call upon Isis, an ancient deity so powerful she’d brought her murdered husband, Osiris, back to life.
One doesn’t forget to ask a girl like that nicely.
“Okay,” Willow said. “I’m ready.”
She cupped the quartz in her hands, breathed on it, then placed it in the bottom of the bowl. At her nod, Oz poured in the spring water. Willow waited until the water in the bowl was still enough so that she could see the crystal in the bottom clearly. Then she cast the scrunchie on top of the water, trying not to notice the way it floated like a tiny fabric doughnut.
“Mighty Isis, Giver of Life. Hear my plea.”
Willow bent and blew upon the surface of the water, making it ripple. Slowly, the scrunchie sank to the bottom. Once more, she waited until the surface of the water was still.
“Breathe life into the image of the one I call.”
A shower of sparks shot from the fireplace as a gust of wind roared down the chimney, then flowed over Willow. The surface of the water roiled.
“Hear now the name I give,” Willow called out.
The room became completely still. The surface of the water, smooth as glass. The air above it began to shimmer, ever so slightly. As if just waiting for Willow to say the words that would make it coalesce, give it a true form and substance.
“Buffy Summers.”
* * *
Buffy stood at the top of the basement stairs, coughing to clear the dust from her lungs, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Talk about a lost cause.
The darkness was total. Absolute.
Why didn’t I bring a flashlight? the Slayer wondered.
Well, gee, if I’d known the trial was going to consist of being shut up in a pitch dark otherworldly-type basement, I probably would have, she thought.
But she hadn’t known. And she’d wanted to leave her hands free for whatever came at her. Though, at the moment, the thing that looked most likely was giant dust bunnies.
Gripping the handrail tightly with her right hand, her left hand extended out in front of her, Buffy started down. Every sense she had screamed at her to hurry, but she forced herself to go slowly, testing each step in front of her with her foot before she put her weight on it.
If ever she was going to make Giles proud of her by using the power of her Slayer’s brain as well as the strength of her fists, Buffy figured now would be the time.
The stairs had looked solid, as far as Buffy’d been able to see them. Which hadn’t actually been that far. She could hardly save her mother if she injured herself by losing her footing and tumbling to the bottom.
Always assuming that there is one. This wasn’t a normal basement, after all.
Buffy took another step down. Light as gossamer, sticky as flypaper, something brushed against her outstretched left hand. She jerked it back before she could help herself. The thing that had brushed against it came too, settling in a great clinging cloud over Buffy’s head, sticking to her hair and eyelashes.
Cobwebs. Gross.
Quickly, Buffy brushed them away, wishing once more that she had a source of light. It was going to be a pretty tedious trip if she had to feel her way through the basement with her hands in front of her the whole time.
“You idiot,” she said suddenly.
She had a source of light, in her own jacket pocket. The one thing she’d brought along. It might not be all that powerful, but it was a whole lot better than the nothing she had going for her right now.
Quickly, Buffy dug out the book of matches she’d taken from the living room mantel. She eased the matchbox open, careful to keep it cupped in one palm. It was so dark, she couldn’t even see the box, couldn’t tell which side was up. The last thing she needed was to spill her matches down the stairs before she’d even managed to light one.
Her fingers found a match. Got it out. She slid the box lid closed, located the match tip by feel, then ran the fat knob down the rough side of the box. The match caught the very first time. Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t a lot of light, but it was enough.
She slipped the box of matches back into her pocket and lifted the lit match, high.
Above the feeble golden glow of the match, a pair of eyes the color of split pea soup was staring down.
* * *
“Buffy!” Willow cried. “Look out!”
She could feel the energy of the scrying spell pouring through her. A headache pounded, right behind her eyes. But she knew she couldn’t look away from the image she’d helped conjure. If she did, she could break the spell.
“What is that thing in there with her?” she heard Xander mutter. “The Jolly Green Giant? A guy like that should be on our side, shouldn’t he?”
“It’s big,” Oz agreed.
There’s nothing I can do! Willow thought. She couldn’t help her friend. She could only watch.
The image moved slowly, at times making Buffy appear frozen.
Am I doing that? Can I make it go faster?
“Is this the part where I get why those historical guys went crazy?” she asked aloud.
She felt Oz’s hands descend upon her shoulders.
“Steady,” he said quietly.
“You don’t have to continue, you know, Willow,” Giles answered from his place beside her. “We can end this at any time. Buffy wouldn’t want you to risk yourself unnecessarily.”
But this is necessary, Willow thought. Buffy’s friends, her support team, needed to know what was happening to her. And I’m the one who can show them.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I can keep going.”
“Buffy’s a fighter,” Angel said. “She’ll think of something.”
She knew that.
“I know that.”
Come on, Buffy. Think of something.
* * *
She did the first thing she could think of.
Her Slayer’s instincts sizzling through her like a thousand volts of electricity, Buffy bent her knees and jumped. A split second before it burned out, she buried the flaming tip of the match in one of the bright green eyes above her.
An agonized howl split the air of the basement. Instantly, the eye winked out. Buffy landed hard, felt the step begin to give way beneath her. She stumbled several steps forward, her hands clutching for purchase on the handrail.
She felt herself slam into something thick and fuzzy. It howled again. Buffy felt long claws scrabble against her shoulder. She jerked back, turned her body sideways, put both hands on the rail, then leaped up, kicking out with both feet. She felt her heavy boots connect. With another howl, the thing fell backward down the stairs. Buffy heard a bone-breaking crunch as the whatever-it-was hit bottom.
That’s one question solved, at least. Now I know there is a bottom.
Then, to her astonishment, the thing burst into flames. The acrid smell of burning dust filled the Slayer’s nostrils. It smelled exactly the way the heater did when her mom turned it on for the first time every winter.
Maybe she hadn’t been so wrong about those giant dust bunnies.
Buffy held her position on the staircase, one hand raised to shield her face from the flames, as the thing at the bottom of the stairs blazed like a bonfire.
Flame retardant not, she thought.
It had stopped howling by now, so she was pretty certain that it was dead. Buffy hadn’t worn her watch, but she figured she’d taken care of whatever this was in under a minute. If this was as good as Nemesis could dish out, the trial would be over in next to no time.
And wouldn’t that be just dandy?
Not only that, the thing she’d killed was actually going to help her in her quest to find her mother.
The blazing pile at the bottom of the stairs was a little smaller now. The thing’s death-throes thrashings had caused it to roll to one side. Now Buffy could get to the bottom of the stairs, and beyond, without actually having to walk across hot coals. She appreciated that. The boots were pretty new. Not only that, she really liked them. She’d just as soon not do anything that would cause the soles to do a tuna melt if she could help it.
Buffy sprinted down the staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused. She turned back, raised one foot, and brought it down on the bottom stair. Hard.
Again, again the Slayer slammed her foot against the stair tread. On the third try, the wood of the stair cracked, then splintered, then broke apart. Buffy stomped once more, just for good measure, then knelt and selected a couple of likely stakes from the pile. She thrust them into her empty jacket pocket.
Hey. Why not?
The rules of the trial had said she couldn’t bring any weapons, but they hadn’t set any restrictions on picking up or even creating weapons as she went along.
Xander had made her watch enough “Star Trek” that she’d seen the episode where Captain Kirk battled a reptile captain on an alien desert planet. He’d made gunpowder and a hand-held cannon, for crying out loud.
Buffy bent once more, retrieved the largest of the pieces of wood, then straightened and turned around. The flames of the monster dust bunny had settled down to a cheerful campfire sort of glow.
And here I am, without the makings for s’mores.
Feeling confident now, Buffy strode forward and thrust the end of her board into the fire, holding it there until it caught. She knew her improvised torch wouldn’t last long, but it was a whole lot better than carrying a match around. At least now she could see a little more of where she was going.
