Here Be Monsters, page 8
Willow opened the largest of the volumes. The print was so small, it took a magnifying glass to read it.
“Nemesis,” Willow read aloud. “An agent or act of retribution; someone or something that defeats or destroys one; an opponent whom one cannot best.”
“Nice,” Buffy said. “I’m thinking ignorance just might have been bliss on that one.”
“Well,” Willow said, her tone encouraging. “Then there’s the historical stuff. They almost all say the same thing. Nemesis was originally a Greek deity. A goddess.”
That thing I saw in the alley was a goddess? Buffy thought.
“Of what?”
“Retribution,” Willow answered. “Also, evil deeds, as in avenger of.”
“Well, everything should be okay, then.” Oz spoke up from his place beside her. “Buffy did what she was supposed to do. Dusted vamps. Not exactly my definition of an evil deed.”
“I tried that line of reasoning,” Buffy said. “I didn’t get very far. The vampire mother called upon the Powers of Darkness, and this Nemesis thing answered the call. I’d say it doesn’t look real good for our definition of evil deeds.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Willow protested.
“Well, actually—” Giles began.
“I knew there was going to be a catch,” Xander muttered.
Buffy shot to her feet. Enough of this sitting still thing. It was getting her nowhere, and the clock was ticking. Less than half an hour to go to the trial now.
“Actually, what?” she asked.
“Well, logically speaking,” Giles said, “there’s only a discrepancy if you try to place Nemesis within our own framework of right and wrong. But if you place her outside that framework—”
“Or inside the framework of the Powers of Darkness—” Willow broke in.
“Exactly,” Giles nodded. “Viewed that way, there’s no discrepancy at all. In fact, it makes perfect sense, if viewed in that light. The Slayer would be the one perpetrating an evil deed, to an agent of the Powers of Darkness. We may not agree with the perspective, but the reasoning does have its own internal integrity.”
“Does he ever explain things in English?” Xander complained.
“I am English,” Giles answered shortly.
“But, she called herself the Balancer,” Willow said. “Shouldn’t that help our side?”
Giles slid his glasses back into place. “It should, but I’m far from certain that it’s going to,” he replied.
“In fact, I think it’s safe to assume that Buffy herself has already raised the salient point. Nemesis was summoned by the vampire mother. Whatever Nemesis’s original purpose may have been, she is now an agent of the Powers of Darkness. The safest course is to assume the trial she’s set up may not be fair and may be very unpleasant.”
“Great,” the Slayer muttered.
“Well, then, we’ll just make it more fair. You know—even the playing field,” Willow said hotly. She got up from her chair and moved to Buffy. “We won’t let you go alone. We never let you go alone, if we can help it. Now is not a good time to start. Not a good day to start new things. I read that in my horoscope.”
Buffy put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I have to go alone, Will,” she said softly. “That four-faced thing has got my mom. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get her back. That means following her rules: going alone and unarmed. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”
“But—” Willow said.
“No buts,” the Slayer answered. “This has to be my fight, Will. My fight alone. If you really want to help me, you’ll stay safe.”
And out of my way.
“Well, okay,” Willow finally gave in. “But I don’t have to like it.”
“We’ll keep researching,” Giles promised. “Maybe we can come up with something more.”
“Fine,” Buffy nodded. A strained silence fell across the library. Nobody asked how they were going to get the something more to her once they’d found it.
“And stay focused,” Giles spoke up just before Buffy reached the door. “Don’t let yourself be distracted by potential tricks Nemesis might offer. Get to the trial. Get your mother. Get out.”
“Got it,” said Buffy.
“And keep your wits about you.”
“I was pretty much planning on taking them along.” As they’re about the only things I can take, the Slayer added silently.
“And—”
“Giles,” Buffy said, as she pulled the library door open.
“Yes?”
“I’m going.”
“Yes, well—good luck,” he said.
“Thanks,” Buffy answered. She released the door, heard it click closed behind her. Shutting out her friends, her Watcher.
I’m on my own now, Buffy thought. Not even Angel, who could often go where the others couldn’t, could help her.
She was the only thing that stood between her mother and an uncertain fate.
Don’t just stand there, get moving, she told herself.
Now, more than ever, every second counted.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Buffy was at home, moving through it with the single-minded determination of a heat-seeking missile. She rifled the contents of closets, pawed through drawers. No weapons, Nemesis had said.
But that isn’t the same as going empty-handed, is it?
The trouble was, with Nemesis making all the rules, it was awfully hard for Buffy to know what qualified as a weapon and what didn’t. And she didn’t want to weigh herself down with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. There was no telling what she might be called upon to fight during the course of her upcoming trial.
Exasperated, she shut the door of the bathroom medicine cabinet with a snap of irritation. What did she think she was going to find in there? Did she think she could save her mother by brandishing her toothbrush?
Try as she might, Buffy just couldn’t bring herself to believe that the fact that she brushed so hard the bristles all stuck out sideways was going to be all that terrifying to things that could be summoned by the Powers of Darkness.
She opened a drawer, snatched out a scrunchie to replace the one she’d forgotten at the library, yanked her hair back in a ponytail and secured it.
Streamlined is best, she thought, as she headed back to her bedroom to change her clothes. Fewer things for the whatever-they-weres she was about to encounter to grab onto.
She smiled a little grimly as she realized she was giving herself the same advice she’d given Suz Tompkins at the mall. Never give your enemy a handhold.
Quickly, Buffy changed into a pair of tight black pants, pulled on a shirt, and slipped into her sturdiest pair of boots. The boots made her feel a little better. If she was going to kick the ass of the Powers of Darkness, she wanted to make as big an impression on it as she possibly could.
Her mother never liked it when she did the basic black routine. But then, Buffy had to figure this was one time when even her mom would have to admit that what Buffy wore didn’t make a difference.
She shivered, suddenly. The truth was, Buffy felt a little naked without something from her Slayer’s bag of tricks. On impulse, she returned to her closet, pulled out the leather jacket Angel had given her a lifetime ago and slipped that on, too. The fact that it had pockets was somehow comforting.
Not that she had anything to put in them, of course.
She looked at the glowing numbers of the digital clock on her dresser. Ten minutes to midnight. Time to get going. Trying to ignore the way her heart was pounding like a bad bass line, she headed for the front door.
She got as far as the living room, then stopped dead.
There, on the couch, illuminated by a pool of light from a nearby lamp, lay her mother’s scrapbook project. Exactly as Joyce had left it, looking for all the world as if she had simply stepped away of her own accord and would return to it at any moment.
Buffy felt her racing heart shudder, her breath clog in her lungs.
Her mother hadn’t stepped away of her own free will. She’d been snatched by the Powers of Darkness. Taken from her home because of something Buffy had done. A thing she’d had to do. Because she was the Slayer. She was the Chosen One.
Because of Buffy, her mother was in danger. It wasn’t the first time, and it might not be the last. Neither of which made Buffy feel even one bit better.
She knew time was of the essence, could practically hear the minutes till the trial would begin ticking by inside her head. But still, her feet carried her to the couch, her eyes glued to the scrapbook her mother was creating as a tribute to her. The one designed to celebrate Buffy, honor her passage from child to adulthood.
Buffy looked down at the page on top, the one her mother had been working on when she’d been so rudely interrupted. Several photos were already inside the clear, sticky film. One more sat on top as if just waiting to be added. Buffy stooped and picked it up.
A picture of herself at about age ten looked back at her. The young Buffy was cocky, full of life. Grinning straight into the eye of the camera.
I remember that day, Buffy thought. The whole family had gone to a park, and her dad had pushed her on a swing, higher than she’d ever gone before, until the young girl she’d been had shrieked with a sound that only came from the throats of children: terror and laughter inextricably mixed.
Going so high, high, high up in the sky had been terrifying and wonderful all at once. Because, in her heart, Buffy hadn’t really been frightened at all. She’d known her parents were right there, beside her. With the certainty of childhood, she’d known what that meant: that nothing bad could really happen, no harm could truly befall her.
Buffy set the photo back down beside the ones already in the scrapbook. She remembered these, also. There she was with her cousin, Celia, who’d died too young. And there was Buffy on her eighth birthday, when her father had taken her to the ice show for the very first time.
A thing he didn’t do anymore, no matter how much her heart might want him to. But then, she hadn’t told her father what was in her heart for a very long time.
Because now, little Buffy Summers was all grown up. Her parents were divorced. Her father was far away. Now, he sent her a card with a check in it for her birthday. If he remembered. If she was lucky.
And her mom, who’d stuck by her no matter what, her mom was the one who was in harm’s way. Because the child in that picture had grown up to be the Slayer, the Chosen One. A thing over which she’d had absolutely no choice.
And her mother hadn’t either, Buffy realized suddenly.
She’d kept what she was from her mother for a long time. For a lot of reasons. Had this been one of them? Had Buffy instinctively known that, while Joyce might freak, she would never walk away? That she would cling to her daughter, claiming her for her own no matter what she was?
Buffy’s friends had made a conscious choice to be part of her world as the Slayer. Sure, she would have been hurt if they’d decided to turn their backs on her and walk away. But she would have understood, been unable to blame them for it.
The world was a more comforting place, an easier place, if you didn’t know what Buffy knew. If you didn’t have to face the fact that it wasn’t always a safe one.
Joyce Summers had never had a choice but to face facts. Joyce was bound to Buffy because of who Joyce was: nothing more nor less than the Slayer’s mother.
Buffy moved to stand in the center of the living room, staring at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. Was that little girl, the one her mother was preserving so lovingly, still somewhere inside her?
Perhaps the whole purpose of the scrapbook was to remind her that it was. Perhaps her mother had understood more than Buffy had ever given her credit for or realized.
Understood what it felt like to have your past cast into doubt by a future you’d never asked for and couldn’t control. A future which had revealed her to be the Chosen One.
And now her mother had been chosen, also. As an instrument of retribution, of revenge, a way to get back at Buffy. And there was only one thing Buffy could do about it. Not screw up. The scrapbook sitting behind her on the couch all but screamed aloud her mother’s faith in her. Her mother’s love.
Now it was Buffy’s turn to prove her own. And to prove her mother’s faith was justified.
She was just about to turn, filled with fresh determination, when her eyes caught sight of something resting on the mantel. The box of matches her mom always had ready, for lighting candles for special occasions.
A series of images exploded behind Buffy’s eyes.
Her mother, lighting candles for Thanksgiving dinners, for birthdays, for no reason at all. No reason except she wanted to make something special for herself.
For me, Buffy thought.
She took two quick steps, snatched the box of matches from the mantel, and stuffed them into her jacket pocket. Nemesis has forgotten something, she thought.
Something that Buffy herself had almost forgotten. Something she might not have remembered, if not for her mom.
A Slayer didn’t need to bring any weapons with her. Because a Slayer’s best weapon was always herself.
CHAPTER 8
Who does Buffy Summers think she is? Suz Tompkins wondered.
Crouched in the bushes of the yard across the street, the camouflage jacket she’d chosen blending in with the shrubbery around her, Suz watched as Buffy left the house. Noted the way she moved down the sidewalk at a brisk walk, not rushing, but definitely not wasting any time.
In the glare of a streetlight, Suz could even see the expression on Buffy’s face. Determined. Set.
She walks like she knows where she’s going.
Well, as far as Suz was concerned, that was just fine. Because Buffy wasn’t the only one who knew where she was going. Suz knew, too.
She was going to the same place Buffy was going.
Wherever that was.
When they got there, Suz was going to do the thing she’d wanted to do ever since she’d let Willow, Oz, and Xander take her home.
She was going to take matters into her own hands. Make up for what had happened at the Bronze.
Buffy turned the corner and Suz eased from her hiding place, then sprinted across the street, determined not to lose sight of her quarry for long.
She’d screwed things up once. She wasn’t about to do it again. The pain, the humiliation of the events of earlier that evening still lodged in her chest, solid as a fist. Burning like a fireball.
Spilling her guts to Buffy had been one thing, maybe bad enough. But agreeing to let Buffy’s geek friends drive her home like she was some six-year-old in need of a baby-sitter was something else entirely. Something that couldn’t be taken lying down. Couldn’t be left alone. She had a reputation to maintain, after all, not to mention two friends to avenge. A thing she should have already handled on her own.
But she could hardly do either once word got out she’d let Willow Rosenberg drive her home. The fact that it had actually been Oz behind the wheel wouldn’t make any difference. Everyone would know that Suz Tompkins was slipping. Had slipped. She couldn’t afford to let that happen.
Not at all.
She rounded a corner, then ducked down as Buffy turned her head.
Where on earth was Buffy going?
Not that it made all that much difference. Wherever Buffy went, Suz was going to follow.
The way she had it figured, it was a meeting with whomever was really responsible for what had happened to Leila and Heidi. Because, in spite of the strange reaction of Buffy and her friends, Suz had a hard time believing her own friends had been taken out by the twin guys she’d seen earlier that night at the Bronze. They looked too young, for one thing. For another—
What had that incredibly annoying insect Xander Harris called them?
The Pillsbury Doughboys.
Errand boys, more likely, she thought. Could they have been less threatening? Suz didn’t think so.
And I let them get to me, she thought.
She’d let them sneak around after her for days, giving her the wiggins so bad she’d broken one of the first rules she and her friends had ever made. She’d taken her troubles to someone who wasn’t one of them: an outsider. Then she’d agreed to let Buffy handle things while she’d practically been sent home to bed.
If I’d asked Willow to come in, would she have read me a bedtime story? she wondered. While Oz and Xander prowled around in her mother’s always spotless kitchen on a late-night raid for cookies. Got milk?
Could she have been more of a wimp? Not likely.
But things weren’t going to end this way. Not if she had anything to say about it.
* * *
Buffy was pretty sure she was being followed.
She’d felt it as soon as she’d left the house. The sense that there were eyes upon her. That prickle right between her shoulder blades, the one that almost always meant there was someone, or something, back there. Watching. Waiting. Following.
Ordinarily, she’d have taken the time to find out who or what it was, remove the possibility of any threat. It wasn’t smart to leave your back exposed. Any Slayer, and a whole lot of non-slaying people, knew that.
But that would take time, and time was a luxury. One she didn’t have. For all Buffy knew, she was being followed by something deliberately sent to distract her. It was the sort of thing Giles had warned her might happen.
Do I get points off if I’m late to the trial? she wondered. Could she default, and if she could, what would happen? Would Nemesis turn Joyce over to Mrs. Walker, the vampire mother?
Buffy picked up her pace, Giles’s assessment of her situation ringing in her head.
The trial wasn’t likely to be fair, and it was likely to be very nasty. Or words to that effect.
Great, she thought. Just what I need. A trial that sounds like a dentist appointment.
She caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head. Nothing. Either her Slayer senses were playing tricks on her, or something else was.
Don’t waste time thinking about it, she told herself as she broke into a light jog. Just keep going.
