Resurrecting Ravana (11 page)

“No,” Buffy said. “They’re not children.”

She broke into a run, heading straight for them. The children turned and ran away from her, onto the sidewalk, down the side street, and out of sight for a moment. Buffy picked up her pace, hit the sidewalk, followed their path for several yards, then stopped.

Up ahead, the sidewalk was empty, all the way up to the next streetlight and beyond. They were gone. Hiding in a yard? In a house? Buffy didn’t think so. She suspected they were truly gone.

Jogging footsteps slapped on the wet sidewalk behind her, and she turned around to see Angel.

“They weren’t real children,” she said. “Haven’t you ever seen them in the streets on Halloween? They yell a lot, to each other, to strangers. They spew profanity. They threaten to egg-bomb people’s houses. But they don’t walk around laughing all the time like they’re in a Kool-Aid commercial. The things we saw . . . they wanted us to
think
they were children.”

“Why?”

Buffy thought about it a moment. “Because they knew we’d be less likely to harm children,” she said. “Just like you were.”

Angel shrugged as he looked around, searching for some sign of the small figures they’d seen.

“C’mon,” Buffy said, walking. “There’s a gas station around the corner up here. I want to call Giles and tell him what happened. He’ll want to know.”

At the gas station, Buffy entered the phone booth, fed some change to the telephone, and called Giles at home. She told him about the remains she’d seen through the laundry room window, and the laughing children.

“You think the children did it?” Giles asked.

“I know they did,” she replied. “They came from the house. Angel saw them. But they weren’t children. I mean, they looked like children, but they disappeared too fast and they were just . . . weird. All kids can be weird but these were just unnatural!”

“Angel is there with you?”

“Yes.”

There was a noticeable pause on Giles’s end.

“He’s helping me,” Buffy explained. “It’s like a vampire riot out here tonight. Something’s really stirred them up. I mean, they’re bolder than usual.”

“Do you think it could have something to do with our problem?” Giles asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“All right. I will see if the presence of these odd children at the site of another killing will help turn up anything in my books. Good work, Buffy. And keep your eyes open. Anything you see could be the clue we need to find out what we’re dealing with. If anything else turns up, don’t hesitate to call me again. I’ll be up late.”

“Late? What’s late to you? I mean, are we talking Conan O’Brien late, or are we talking that infomercial with the guy in all the ugly sweaters who gets excited by kitchen appliances late?”

“Er, just anytime of the night or morning, Buffy. Anytime.”

After Buffy hung up, she and Angel headed for the next cemetery. As they walked, they speculated on the origin and purpose of the children they’d seen, until they heard a car coming up behind them. Normally, Buffy would have paid no attention to it, but it was moving so slowly that it got her attention. She looked over her shoulder.

A glimmering white limousine cut through the night like a shark through water. It was wet from the rain and beads of water sparkled on the tinted glass. As it passed them, it slowed down even more, nearly coming to a stop.

She could see no one through the glass, but Buffy sensed eyes watching her closely from inside the car. After a long moment, it picked up a little speed and drove on, turning right at the next corner.

Something about it bothered Buffy, but she didn’t let on. Instead, she muttered, “Well, there goes the neighborhood,” as she and Angel walked on.

Chapter 9

W
ILLOW WALKED TO SCHOOL UNDER A SKY THE COLOR
of steel, a small collapsible umbrella in her bag just in case it started to rain again. She’d hoped to get a ride with Oz, but there’d been no answer at his house.
Probably had band practice
, she thought, and headed for the library first to see if there had been any news.

The library was dark and felt empty. Willow turned on a couple of lights, letting the door swing closed behind her.

“Giles? Buffy?” Her raised voice intruded on the book-padded silence.

It was empty. Apparently, Giles hadn’t even arrived yet. Probably stayed up most of the night with his books.

Willow didn’t turn off the lights. The library was such a sad place when it was dark; she didn’t want to leave it that way.

“Hey!” Xander called as Willow walked away from the library. “What’re you sneaking around for?” He was walking close to Cordelia, playing one of their games of slap and tickle. He put his arm around her waist and dropped his hand to her behind, and she knocked his arm away with a sharp elbow and an insult.

“I’m not sneaking around,” Willow said, following down the hallway.

“You look like you’re sneaking. Like some secret agent. Y’know, like La Femme Nikita. So, what’re you doing today? Foiling terrorists? Infiltrating a dictatorship? Making sure people with ten items or more stay the heck outta the nine-items-or-less lane?”

“Just looking for Giles. He’s not here yet,” Willow responded as she leaned against a locker.

“I wonder if he’s heard the news,” Cordelia said.

“What news?” Willow asked.

Xander seemed surprised. “You haven’t heard yet? A murder sometime late last night . . . and the suspected killer was found, uh . . . y’know, like the guy with the lawnmower.”

Willow’s chest tightened, as if she were pinned against a wall and someone were pressing with great strength on her chest, crushing her lungs. Was it her botched spell again? Maybe that was why Giles hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe he was working on something, on the verge of finding a way to reverse the spell.

Or maybe, as so often seemed to be the case, something bad had happened.

“Willow!”

Surprised that someone was calling her, Willow looked around until she saw Mila coming out of the teachers’ lounge with Miss Gasteyer and Mrs. Truman. They were Sunnydale High School’s art teachers. New students often thought they were sisters because they were almost always together and even shared an office upstairs, but they weren’t related at all. Both were in their mid-forties. Mrs. Truman — short, plump, and rosy-cheeked, with short light-brown hair — had been widowed years ago when a car fell off a jack onto her mechanic husband. Mrs. Truman wore a sailor-style outfit with navy blue skirt and blue and white top; her clothes were typically on the silly side. Miss Gasteyer, on the other hand, had never married; she was four or five inches taller, not really fat but very sturdy, with slightly buck teeth, large round glasses, and long strawberry-blond hair that she kept in a braid or bun. Today, Miss Gasteyer’s hair was in a braid, and she wore her usual, a plain blouse and a pair of baggy chinos; as always, a large bag hung from her left shoulder by a strap and her hands were stained with paint.

Xander pointed at Mrs. Truman and whispered, “Oh, look! The fleet’s in!”

Willow smiled, happy to see Mila.

“Come to my office sometime today,” Mila said. “I have something for you.”

“Really? Okay!” She grinned.

“Have a good day, Willow!”

“Thank you, you too!”

Xander and Cordelia turned and looked at Willow curiously.

“I saw you with her yesterday, too,” Xander said. “Are you becoming friendly with the most beautiful woman in the world?”

Cordelia rolled her eyes up into her forehead. “Oh, Xander, she is not the most beautiful woman in the world. That is such a . . . boy thing to say.”

“Boy thing? What the hell does that mean? I am a boy, that’s what I’m supposed to say. What’d you expect me to do, admire her shoes? That’s your job. You notice what she’s wearing, and I’ll notice what’s in it.”

“The real tear-jerker,” Cordelia said, “is that she doesn’t even dress that well.”

Xander started to say something very emphatically, but stopped himself. “Okay, look, I’m not even gonna argue with you about this. I’m not.”

“Well, good. It’s ridiculous. Just because she’s from India and has a little accent, every guy on campus thinks she’s beautiful and exotic. It’s just sillier than putty and I’m sick of hearing about it.”

“See? That’s what I mean. I can’t argue this with you, because there is no argument. It’s like arguing about gravity. I know she’s beautiful, everybody I know says she’s beautiful, and if you push this anymore, you’re gonna turn a bright shade of green.”

“Green is a good color for me.”

“Not for your skin, it isn’t. I meant you’ll be green with envy. You’re just jealous, that’s all.”

Cordelia made a breathy sound of shock, but Willow spoke up before she could say anything.

“Well, whatever else she is,” Willow said, “she’s very nice.”

Xander and Cordelia said nothing more as they headed for their first class.

“I can’t believe it,” Buffy said with genuine shock. “You overslept?”

Giles stood in the half-open door of his apartment wearing a gray and black terrycloth bathrobe. Somehow, he managed to look groggy and frantic at the same time.

“Well, it appears that my alarm no longer functions,” he said, pausing to yawn. “And I fell into such a deep sleep . . . I only got two hours as it is.”

Buffy pushed her way past him into the apartment. “Time to rise and shine, Giles. I’ll make the coffee while you dress.”

“Why don’t I meet you at school, Buffy? I’m going to —”

She turned to him and interrupted. “What I saw last night? Well, it’s on the radio now. And television, probably.”

“That’s hardly surprising.”

“Yeah, but it’s the second one, and now that it’s out, people are going to start worrying, and they’re going to keep an eye out for something, anything. And that’s going to make my job difficult. There’s nothing more dangerous than amateurs crashing a Slaying.”

He nodded, tugging thoughtfully at his chin. “I see what you mean, Buffy.”

“You said you might need to talk to the wife of that guy who got killed by the mower? I think we should do it right now.”

“What, you mean this morning?”

“As soon as you slip into something probably even more ancient than that robe.”

He rubbed his forehead as he tried to come up with some argument. Instead, he said, “Buffy, I’ll have you know, this is a brand-new robe.”

“Really?” She crossed her chest with her left forearm, rested her right elbow on her wrist and walked around Giles slowly, tugging on her lips thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes as she inspected the robe. “Did they have a clearance sale at Fifties-R-Us? You look like Ward Cleaver. Did it come with a pipe?”

“Ward . . . who?” he asked.

“Never mind. Too early for pop culture references.”

“Buffy, should you be missing any school so close to exams?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve been studying.” Buffy wondered if she managed to keep her doubt from her voice.

“That was a rhetorical question,” Giles said. “Go to school, Buffy, I insist.”

“If we go now, I’ll miss maybe fifteen minutes of my first class. We could —”

“We have no idea how long this will take. Besides, the woman probably has a houseful of relatives. It’s too early for a stranger to pop in and start asking questions. I’ll go later in the morning.”

“Okay. I’ll go with you then, but I still think we should go right now.”

Giles frowned. “Buffy, it’s not necessary for you to accompany me.”

“It’s not necessary, but I want to, Giles. And I want to do it as soon as possible.” She talked gradually faster as she continued. “Whatever this thing is, it seems to be getting worse. I have this feeling of . . . urgency about it. The less time we waste, the less chance another person shows up looking like yesterday’s buffet.”

He nibbled at his lower lip as he stared at her a moment. “Very well, then, Buffy. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“And I’ll make coffee,” Buffy said as Giles disappeared down the hall. She went into the kitchen, talking to no one in particular. “Everybody would save a whooole lotta time if they’d just agree with me in the first place.”

 *  *  * 

Madge Kepley came to the door alone, and from the looks of it, she was alone in the house, too. There were no cars parked bumper to bumper at the curb, no people dressed in black carrying casserole dishes and foil-covered baking pans to the door.

“I realize this is going to seem quite irregular,” Giles said, “but I am here to ask you a few questions about your husband.”

Her eyes looked exhausted and physically worn from having tears wiped from them. But they brightened a little at the mention of her husband, for just a moment, and she even tried to smile.

“Did you know him?” she asked.

“I regret to say I did not.”

“Hello, young lady,” she said, her smile growing a little for Buffy. She looked at Giles again. “Oh, you must be from the church, then.” She stepped back and pulled her front door all the way open. “Please come in.”

Buffy felt bad for the woman. There were still a few bits of yellow crime scene tape stuck to the outside of the fence. In her state of mind, Mrs. Kepley probably hadn’t noticed the tape . . . but hadn’t anyone been by lately, anyone who cared enough to snatch those remaining pieces of tape from the fence? She smiled at the old woman as she entered. Giles followed her uncertainly.

“I have a pot of hot coffee in the kitchen,” Mrs. Kepley said, heading out of the living room through an archway. “Why don’t you come in and have a seat?”

They followed her into a small but very well-appointed kitchen with yellow-and-white-checkerboard curtains and a sunflower clock on the wall. The smell of coffee hung in the air, and a weary, old-looking black-and-white cat was draped bonelessly over the edge of the windowsill over the sink. They took a seat at a small oval table with a blue Formica top and chrome legs, and exchanged a glance of surprise. They had both expected the whole thing to be much more difficult.

Mrs. Kepley went about getting coffee at the counter.

“We used to eat most meals at that table,” she said. “It was meant for breakfast, but that’s not what happened. Funny, really. We have a lovely old oak dining set in the living room. It was left to us by Del’s mom. But we’ve only used it for holidays.” She turned to them with a small tray with three cups of coffee on it. There were already a cream pitcher and a little bowl of sugar cubes in the middle of the table, flanking a small arrangement of silk flowers in a narrow vase. She smiled and said quietly, as she seated herself, “Funny how things turn out like that.”