Buffy hardly noticed. Because now, she could see something up ahead, something that glowed through the darkness. Not a nice, comforting glow, like the lighted windows of your own house on a cold winter’s night, but a sickly green glare that in Buffy’s experience always meant just one thing.

  She had reached her final destination. The lair of the last monster.

  What would it be this time? she wondered. Demons? More vampires? Some Underworld buddies of Nemesis’s, along for the ride?

  As Buffy watched, her younger self slowed to a walk, then stopped and turned, her eyes expectant as they looked at Buffy. As if she were waiting for her, wanting them to make the final few steps of the journey together, the Slayer thought.

  Either that or she was simply afraid to go on alone. Understandable. And very likely. Buffy wasn’t all that wild about finding out herself. But that wasn’t going to stop her from doing whatever it took to save her mother.

  She threw down her useless torch. She didn’t need it anymore anyway. The glare was strong now, though she still couldn’t see what caused it. The basement turned just up ahead. Whatever was causing that sick green glow was just around the corner.

  Plainly, Nemesis was into a little suspense.

  Well, there’s no time like the present, Buffy thought. She stepped up beside her younger self and reached down to take Power Girl Buffy’s hand. Her younger self’s fingers were hot as they closed around hers, but their grip was determined.

  Together, the two Buffys stepped around the corner, then stopped short.

  Give me a break, Buffy thought.

  She supposed she should have known. It wasn’t her biggest fear, not by a long shot. But it went all the way back to her childhood, where it ranked right up there with fear of the dark.

  Not death. Not demons. Not vampires. Those fears had come much later. The thing that had stalked the nightmares of her childhood was . . .

  Spiders.

  Or, actually, in this case, simply spider.

  As in the biggest spider Buffy’d ever seen, and her nightmares back then had conjured up some whoppers.

  This one looked half as tall as she was at least, and a whole lot wider. Its segmented body was the soft white color Buffy always associated with cottage cheese. Its bulbous abdomen was covered with angry red splotches.

  It looked like some enormous bloodshot eye. Either that, or a really bad case of chicken pox.

  A case of chicken pox that glowed in the dark.

  A thing Buffy figured she could use to her advantage. It was pretty hard for things that glowed in the dark to sneak up on you.

  In the lower right corner of the web was what looked like a big, white lozenge.

  Egg sac, Buffy thought. How come she always ended up fighting something that was about to be a mother? The Bezoar, Natalie French, and now this. Maybe she needed Slayer family counseling or something.

  “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Charlotte, would it?”

  At the sound of Buffy’s voice, the spider scuttled forward. It lifted its forelegs, as if in answer to a challenge. Now Buffy could see what was behind the spider, in the topmost corner of the web, hidden by its great, splotchy body.

  It was Joyce.

  “Mom!” Buffy cried out. Beside her, she heard her younger self make a sound of dismay. Joyce’s head turned toward them. Buffy saw her mother wince as her action caused the spider thread to pull against her hair.

  “Buffy,” Joyce said. Her voice sounded thin and weak. Buffy felt a finger of pure ice slide down her spine. Another few minutes and she might have been too late.

  “Honey, if that’s you . . . don’t come any closer.”

  I don’t think so, Mom. Buffy hadn’t come all this way just to stand around and chat. She released her hold on her younger self’s hand and moved forward.

  Instantly, the spider moved, too, dancing backward, closer to Joyce. There was no way Buffy could get to her mom before the spider did.

  Buffy stopped. The spider stopped.

  Checkmate. Impasse.

  The Slayer considered her options.

  A little distraction might come in handy right about now. Too bad her chances of creating one didn’t look very likely. She couldn’t distract the spider and save her mom at the same time.

  Not even the Slayer can be in two places at once.

  Buffy felt a tug on her arm. Her younger self had moved to stand beside her once more. The younger Buffy looked up at the Slayer, as if she, too, was considering her options. Then she moved toward the web. Straight toward the corner that held the egg sac.

  Buffy felt a tingle dance along the surface of her skin. Watching her younger self was like experiencing déjà vu for a situation Buffy knew had never happened. She didn’t have to wonder what the girl in the Power Girl costume walking so steadily toward the giant spider web was going to do next. She already knew.

  She was going to provide the Slayer with her distraction.

  Without warning, a surge of fierce, unbridled joy shot through Buffy. She could almost feel a light bulb go off above her head. The coin drop. The background music swell as the chorus came in.

  About time, she thought.

  She got it.

  Got why her mom had wanted to put a scrapbook together in the first place. Got the thing this younger version of herself was trying to show her.

  She was that girl; she was all those other Buffys. The fact that she’d grown up to be something none of them could have predicted didn’t mean that she’d betrayed them, that she had to leave them all behind. She hadn’t grown up to be nothing more than a freak, a disappointment.

  She wasn’t her own nemesis. She didn’t have to fight herself. Be the opponent she could never hope to best. Instead, she could be part of a never-ending chain of Buffys. Every single one of them a part of what had brought her to this moment.

  If she won now, they all passed the test.

  And all she had to do was to genuinely embrace the things she was now. All the things that she had been. She didn’t have to beat her other selves to save her mother. What she had to do was join them.

  Buffy looked at her younger self. The girl was staring at the egg sac. Buffy reached into the pocket of her jacket, felt her hand close around the one stake she had left. She pulled it out and tossed it to the girl who caught it easily.

  For a moment, her younger self stared up at the Slayer. Then she switched her attention to the sharp, jagged end of the stake. She cocked her head to one side.

  “Go for it,” the Slayer said.

  The younger Buffy’s grin flashed out. She grasped the stake firmly by the thicker end, and jabbed the sharp end straight into the very center of the egg sac.

  The mother spider reacted at once. Rushing across the web, hissing as she pelted toward them. Halfway between Joyce and the two Buffys, the giant spider stopped. Her forelegs beat the air in agitation. Buffy could have sworn she read her mind.

  Always assuming spiders had minds, of course.

  Defending her captive or her children, which was more important? The spider inched closer.

  Children.

  Buffy smiled over at her younger self. “Nice going,” she commented.

  Her younger self looked up once more, her eyes shining. She held the stake out toward Buffy.

  “Okay, I’ll take it from here,” the Slayer said. She reached out to grab the stake. For one last time, Buffy felt the touch of her younger self’s fingers. Then, the contact was gone. Her younger self vanished. Buffy was left standing alone by the egg sac, holding the stake in her hand.

  Now that I’ve got myself together, she thought.

  It was time for action.

  “Get away from my mother.”

  Gripping the stake tightly in her fist, Buffy raised it above the egg sac, then brought it down.

  The mother spider abandoned Joyce and rushed to save her children as a gelatinous mass burst from the sac and began to spread across the floor. Ignoring the various blobs, Buffy skirted the bottom of the web, put the stake in her mouth like a pirate dagger, and began to climb up to reach her mom.

  The spider silk clung to her hands and feet, making her progress agonizingly slow. Hurry, she thought. Hurry.

  At any moment, she expected to feel the spider at her back. Buffy really hated to leave her back exposed, but it was the only way she could get to Joyce. Only one more part of the trial to go now.

  Buffy had discovered the trial’s secret. She was about to get her mother. That just left the part where they got out. Alive.

  She reached her mother, began to hack away at the strands that held her.

  “It’s all right. I’m here, Mom. Can you walk?”

  She saw Joyce swallow. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

  “Mom, I really need you to answer me,” Buffy said. “Do you think that you can walk when we get down?”

  Joyce nodded weakly. Managed to speak the second time around. “I think so,” she said. “But I . . . don’t feel very well. Full of spider venom, probably.”

  Don’t think about it, Buffy told herself fiercely as she freed Joyce’s arms.

  Spider venom. Her mother. How it got there. Not a combination Buffy cared to dwell on.

  “Maybe you should go first,” Joyce said, as Buffy sawed through the bindings on her legs. “Let me catch up.”

  “Forget about it, Mom,” Buffy said as Joyce’s knees buckled and she tumbled forward. Buffy scrambled down the web, the sticky strands pulling the skin from her hands, and caught her mother a split second before she hit the cement floor. She pulled her upright, then helped her peel away the web.

  “Maybe moving will help,” she suggested. “You know, get the old circulation going.”

  “Maybe,” Joyce muttered. “Only . . . Buffy . . .”

  “What?” the Slayer said, trying not to sound testy. Didn’t her mom get that this was a rescue op? “Mom, this really isn’t the greatest time for a heart-to-heart talk, you know.”

  “I know,” Joyce said. “It’s just—whatever the plan is, we should probably get right on it, honey.”

  Buffy spun around, instinctively making sure her mother’s body was blocked by her own.

  The spider was right behind her.

  Buffy could see the series of beady red eyes on the spider’s head. Swear she could feel putrid spider breath flowing toward her. The spider took one mincing step.

  “Uh uh,” Buffy said, raising the stake. “I don’t think so.”

  Lunging forward, she made a great diagonal sweep with her arm, slashing across the spider’s face. Several of the red eyes winked out. The spider fell back, beating its hairy forelegs in the air.

  “Come on,” Buffy said, grabbing Joyce by the arm. “We’re going.”

  She took two steps, making sure her mom went first, and then the spider was upon her, slashing at Buffy’s back and arms.

  “Mom, go!” Buffy commanded as she turned and lashed out with the stake. Green goo oozed where she connected with a spider foreleg. Buffy leaped back. The last thing she needed was to be covered in spider slime. Think of the dry cleaning.

  She connected sharply with her mother and stumbled.

  “Why are you still here?” Buffy said as she regained her balance. The spider scuttled forward once more, favoring its right foreleg. Buffy crouched, passing the stake from hand to hand.

  “I can’t just leave you,” Joyce answered from behind her.

  “Mom, you really need to trust me on this one. This is no time for parental heroics. The only way we’re both going to get out of here is if you go first.”

  Buffy watched the spider pull its legs in. Uh oh. She had a very bad feeling she knew what was going to come next.

  “But—”

  “Just go!” Buffy said. Behind her, she heard her mother take a few faltering steps.

  The spider jumped, landing precisely where Joyce had been just an instant before. Now, it was between Buffy and her mother. Good old divide and conquer. From the far side of the monstrosity, Buffy heard Joyce cry out.

  She took several steps back, then launched herself forward in a great running leap.

  She pivoted in midair, reaching up and to the right, aiming for the underside of the joint on the closest of the spider’s big back legs. Green slime gushed out around her as the stake bit deep.

  Buffy landed, her feet shooting out from under her as she hit ground in a pool of spider slime. She went down, hard, flat on her back on the floor of the basement, the air punching from her lungs.

  How come I never get to fall on anything soft? she wondered as she watched the spots dance before her eyes, then saw her vision dim.

  Why did it always have to be hard? Cement. Pavement. Stone floors of crypts. That sort of thing.

  Would it break some major Slayer rule if I got to land on something a little less potentially bonebreaking for a change? Something that didn’t help her adversary just by being what it was?

  One more thing to ask Giles, she thought. Assuming she ever made it out of here and so got to ask him anything. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision.

  But the dim, shifting mass in front of her didn’t disappear. She was under the spider. I really should try to get up. Because if she didn’t, she had a feeling the spider was going to do something totally disgusting.

  Such as squashing her like a bug.

  It was backing up, waggling its abdomen as if jockeying into position. No time to roll out of the way. Buffy barely had time to pull her knees up and roll over onto her side before the spider abdomen began to descend.

  I am not doing a Little Miss Muffet.

  Buffy pushed herself to her knees, then extended the arm holding the stake. She heard the spider shriek once more as the point connected. But in spite of its soft appearance, the skin on the spider abdomen was tough and thick.

  Still, the abdomen descended.

  It folded on either side of Buffy until the Slayer began to fear that she’d be suffocated.

  Who knew you could play chicken with arachnids?

  If Buffy pulled back now, she’d be squashed for sure. If the spider didn’t pull up, it ran the risk of being skewered.

  Whose will was stronger? The Slayer’s or the spider’s?

  And—did spiders actually have free will?

  Okay, Buffy thought. Enough’s enough. If she was so far gone she was beginning to contemplate philosophical questions in the middle of a fight, it was definitely time to get things rolling. She couldn’t crouch here all night. She had a mother to think of.

  She put her free hand down, using it to leverage herself up into a crouch. She could feel the arm holding the stake start to quiver as the pressure from the spider became greater. Buffy locked her elbow.

  I get to count on my own this time, Angel, she thought.

  One. Two. As usual, she never really got to three.

  The Slayer pushed up abruptly. She could feel the spider skin above her give as the point of the stake finally penetrated. With an ear-splitting shriek, the spider pulled up. Not much. But it was enough.

  Buffy released her hold on the stake and made a twisting leap into the air, rolling and kicking out with her right leg, jamming it into the part of the stake that was still exposed. She felt the give as it punched all the way through. The spider howled in pain, its body jerking upward. A great gush of slime cascaded over Buffy.

  There’s always slime.

  This time, she didn’t even try to keep her balance. She landed on her stomach on the floor of the basement and pushed herself forward with her arms, hydroplaning out from beneath the spider’s body.

  The wounded spider was going wild, scuttling back and forth, careening wildly. Its abdomen gyrated as it tried to shake the stake loose. Buffy heard a sickening splat as it connected with a wall. Bits of plaster from the ceiling rained down upon her head. The walls of the basement began to tremble around her.

  We’ve got to get out of here now, she thought. Before the spider brings the whole house down on us.

  “Mom!” she cried out.

  Silence. Or as silent as things could be when sharing a space with a giant spider in the midst of death throes.

  Buffy’s heart began to pound in her throat. Where was her mother?

  The spider was on its back now, beating its legs in the air. Buffy cut a wide circle around it. A few steps beyond, she found her mother crumpled on the floor.

  For one heart-stopping moment Buffy feared her mother was dead. That she hadn’t been fast enough. Then she realized she could see her mother’s chest rise and fall in shallow breaths, and that her eyes were open, staring up at her.

  “Mom, we really have to go now.”

  “I know that, sweetheart,” her mother said. “It’s just—I think I need your help.”

  “We’ll go together, Mom,” the Slayer said.

  She helped Joyce to her feet, then hurried her through the basement. The way grew lighter the farther they went, as if to acknowledge that Buffy was no longer in the dark. She had passed her tests. She could see her way now.

  No shards of Buffys. No Xander’s head.

  Now, there was only one thing left.

  Buffy and Joyce reached the bottom of the basement stairs. The first monster’s ashes were gone, the bottom stair replaced. “Come on,” Buffy urged. “Just a little bit farther.”

  Just these stairs, and then they’d be free. Buffy went first, pulling her mother up behind her.

  She reached the door. Tried the knob.

  It was locked.

  “Oh, give me a major break.” Buffy lifted one foot and kicked. The door crashed back upon its hinges. Then Buffy was through the opening, pulling her mother after her. She kicked the door closed, then let Joyce lean back against it as she once more slumped to Buffy’s feet. Her knees suddenly weak, Buffy eased down beside her.

  It was all right to relax now. She had done it. They were out of the basement. The trial was over. Her mom was safe.

  I did it. I won.

  She turned her head to look at Joyce and found her mother’s eyes already upon her.

  “I really hope that’s not some new skin-care product you have your heart set on using,” Joyce said weakly, wiping some slime from Buffy’s face. “Because I have to tell you, it smells just awful.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15