Resurrecting Ravana (21 page)

“It wasn’t us, though,” Buffy said. “It was them. They wanted one of us to kill the other. Then the survivor would be dinner. Their dinner.”

“But, how could we not know?” Willow asked.

Giles said, “We all have dreams that we forget upon waking, but those dreams are still with us, in our subconscious. They come from the subconscious. I suspect it was to your subconscious that these creatures were speaking, so that you would have no conscious memory of their visitations. Just a cloudy, dreamlike recollection.”

Willow turned to Buffy. “Um . . . thank you for not taking my head off and pulling my spleen out through my neck-stump. I know you could have if you’d wanted.”

“I probably would have if Giles hadn’t stopped me.” When finished treating Willow’s wounds, Buffy sat in a chair and Giles started cleaning and bandaging her injured forearm.

“This is precisely what the Rakshasa have been doing all over town,” Giles said. “They have been working people up into a hateful frenzy, inspiring people to kill their friends. For all we know, it’s happening somewhere right now.”

Buffy said, “Giles, you mentioned something you read in one of your books. You said the presence of the Rakshasa alone affects the personalities and behavior of people in the surrounding area.”

“Yes,” Giles said with a nod.

“Well, it’s not just people. All the vampires in town have their panties in a bunch, and I bet that’s why. It’s worse than a Marilyn Manson concert out there.”

“Yet another reason for us to stop this before it goes any farther,” Giles said. “Willow, I need more details from you. We must get to work on stopping this now before more people are killed.”

“And eaten,” Buffy muttered, her arm wrapped neatly in crisp gauze.

Willow stood slowly, made her way carefully to the table, and took a seat. The others joined her as she reached for her bag and pulled out several sheets of paper that had been folded over once. “Here,” Willow said, handing the papers to Giles. Her voice was still hoarse. “I printed them up off the Internet.” She turned to Oz, who sat beside her. “Could you please get me a glass of water?”

Oz was gone immediately and returned seconds later with a paper cup of water.

Willow took a few sips, cleared her throat, winced, then drank some more. “Why would anyone want to raise something like that? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be anything to gain from Ravana coming back and turning the whole world into his own personal hellhole. Who would do such a thing?”

“I’m afraid I might have some idea,” Giles said as his eyes scanned the pages for a moment. He set them down and looked at the others. “I ran into Ethan Rayne in the grocery store tonight.”

“Rayne?” Buffy asked. “What’s he doing in Sunnydale?” She picked up the sheets Willow had printed and flipped through them, stopping on the grainy photograph of the Ravana statuette and the six Rakshasa.

“The very question I asked him. He said he was just passing through. I don’t believe him, of course. But neither can I imagine any reason he would have for resurrecting an ancient Hindu demon. He does nothing that doesn’t benefit him directly.”

“That’s an odd image,” Xander said, frowning. “Ethan Rayne in a grocery store. He was actually shopping for groceries?”

“Yes, it was odd. For one thing, he told me he’d fallen in love just before walking away. As for groceries . . . he seemed interested in nothing more than bottled water. He took two bottles of distilled water from the shelf. As far as I know, that was all.”

Willow covered her mouth as she yawned, and groaned at the pain the motion caused her. A couple seconds later, Xander yawned as well.

“It’s much too late for this,” Giles said. “I’ll take you all home and we can continue tomorrow. We all need our sleep.”

“What about the nightmare?” Willow asked. “I mean, we know that it’s not a nightmare now, but that doesn’t mean those things won’t be back again tonight.”

“I wish I could tell you some way to hold them off,” he said, shrugging helplessly. “If such a thing exists, I don’t know what it is. Yet.”

“We’re on to them now, Willow,” Buffy said. “We’ll just have to be prepared. Lock your bedroom door and windows. Sleep with all the lights on so they can’t hide in the dark. And if they do show up . . .” she trailed off. She had nothing left to offer.

Giles stood with a sigh. “It’s very late. Shall we go?”

When Buffy got home, her mother was in bed and the house was dark and silent. Buffy hadn’t eaten any dinner and was famished, but by the time she entered the house, she was much too tired to even think of eating. After going through the house to make sure every door and window was locked, she went to her bedroom.

Buffy closed and locked her bedroom door, then checked the locks on both windows. Out of her clothes in seconds, she slipped on a long nightshirt that had the kids from
South Park
on the front. With the overhead light still on, she got into bed, turned on the bedside lamp, and made sure her alarm was set. She snuggled under the covers and rolled onto her side, away from the light. But she knew even the light wouldn’t keep her awake.

If anything could keep her from surrendering to her fatigue, it would be tightening knot in her stomach. It had relaxed somewhat once things had settled down in the library, but it was back now, bigger and harder, deep in the middle of her gut, a hardening lump of worry and anger and fear.

Buffy closed her eyes. The sound of rainfall outside was soothing, comforting. In spite of the lump in her hungry stomach, Buffy felt herself gliding down toward sleep almost immediately. It was the slippery sliding feeling that always came just before she lost all awareness of the room around her and the bed she was in, just before sleep embraced her and carried her off . . . to dreams or nightmares, or that one particular nightmare . . .

Something jarred her out of her almost-sleep. Buffy opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly from the pillow. She heard nothing. The bedroom’s doors and windows were locked, the whole house was sealed up tight. She was as safe as she could be, given the nature of what she was, and there was no reason not to sleep.

Her eyes closed again and her head settled back on the pillow.

The bed moved.

Buffy’s eyes snapped open wide and all thoughts of sleep disappeared. She rolled onto her back and sat up halfway, propped up by both arms with locked elbows.

She felt movement beneath her. Under the bed.

A shiver passed through Buffy as realization flooded her mind. While she was going through the house locking all the doors and windows, and while she was locking the door and windows in her bedroom, the Rakshasa had already arrived and were waiting for her under the bed.

Buffy thought fast. The wooden stake had taken too long to finally kill the two creatures in the library. She guessed there were several of them huddling under the bed. A sharp knife would do much more damage in less time.

She turned her head slowly to look over at her dresser. There was a knife with a very sharp nine-inch blade in her equipment drawer.

Something moved under her bed again. Just slightly.

Buffy carefully peeled the covers back and turned on the bed so she was facing the dresser. She took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, then jumped off the bed to dive toward the dresser.

The second her feet hit the floor, a rough-skinned, clammy hand jabbed out from under the bed and grabbed her left ankle in an iron grip.

Chapter 16

T
HE BEDROOM FLOOR SWEPT UPWARD IN A BLUR AND
slammed into Buffy. A second hand clutched her right ankle, and this time, she felt sharp claws press against her skin, coming very close to breaking it. The creature began to pull on Buffy’s legs to drag her under the bed. Its clawed hands had a powerful grip, and in spite of its small size, the creature was very strong.

Buffy clutched at the carpet and tried to pull herself forward, but without something to get a firm hold on, she could not do it. Instead, she rolled over onto her back and sat up. The creature was beneath her legs suddenly, caught off guard, and its grip loosened. She spread her knees, grabbed the creature’s ears, and pulled its head up between her thighs, then closed her legs on its neck.

The creature made a strangled gurgle and began to struggle.

The bed jostled as the other creatures beneath it scrambled to get out.

Buffy reached up, took a pen from her desk, and stabbed it into the creature’s right eye, then the left. The Rakshasa released a horrible mewling cry of pain, but she did not stop. She stabbed the creature’s face and neck repeatedly, holding the head by the left ear to keep it as still as she could. The familiar yellowish-green slime splashed onto her legs and hand until the creature collapsed into a viscous mass. As Buffy got to her feet, the thick substance evaporated instantly.

More small, clawed hands swept out from under the bed, reaching for Buffy’s feet but grasping only air. A reptilian snout appeared as one crawled out from under the bed, then another.

Buffy opened her dresser drawer, snatched up the knife, and spun around to face the Rakshasa.

Four had come out and were getting to their feet, with a fifth right behind them.

“Buffy?” her mother called out in the hall. “Buffy, what’s wrong?” The doorknob rattled, but the locked door didn’t open. “Buffy, open this door!”

“Hang on, Mom, I’ll be with you in a sec.” She turned to the drawer again and dropped the knife back in before rustling around for something else. She took out a small machete and removed the leather scabbard. “Okay,” she said as she faced them again, all five now, “batter up.” Holding the machete like a baseball bat, she stepped foward and swung low.

Her first strike lopped the head off the closest Rakshasa. The head thunked to the floor as the body dropped and convulsed. Both melted away in seconds.

Buffy swung the machete low and indiscriminately. She felt the impact of the blade on the creatures with each swing, but wasn’t sure what kind of damage she was doing; her eyes squinted and sometimes even closed against the splash and spatter of warm viscous fluids that came from the wounded creatures. Their cries of pain blended into one single shrieking squeal.

“Buffy!” Joyce screamed outside the bedroom. She pounded on the door frantically. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”

“Hang on, Mom!”

One of the creatures latched on to her leg and tried to climb up her body. Buffy bent down and grabbed the pink, fleshy tail with her left hand and jerked the Rakshasa off her leg. She lifted her arm high and let the creature dangle for a second, then swung the machete hard. It cut through the creature diagonally, and the top half of the body dropped to the floor with a thunk.

The room fell silent. Buffy looked around but only saw yellowish-green goo evaporating rapidly on the floor, bed, nightstand, and wall.

“Buffy, open this door!” There was more anger than fear in Joyce’s voice this time.

Buffy unlocked and opened the bedroom door. Joyce was in a nightgown, hair splayed, eyes puffy. She put a hand on each side of the doorway and leaned into the room, looked around cautiously, settled her eyes on the machete in Buffy’s hand for a moment. When she looked at Buffy, it was with an expression that said she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had just happened. She embraced Buffy and said, “My God, what was all that noise, what was happening in here?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” The yellowish-green substance was gone, leaving no sign it had ever been anywhere in the room or on Buffy.

Joyce pulled back with her hands on Buffy’s shoulders. “I’m fine, Mom? That answers neither of my questions, Buffy. And why do you have that —” Her attention was caught by something behind Buffy. Her eyes widened, and she stumbled backward as she screamed.

With her heart still hammering from her experience just ended, Buffy turned, ready for anything.

One last Rakshasa had just crawled from under the bed and was running toward her on stubby legs. Buffy bent her knees and leveled the machete’s blade with the creature’s abdomen an instant before it reached her. The Rakshasa’s eyes widened as it realized it was running too fast . . . and it impaled itself on the sharp blade.

Buffy clutched the machete’s handle with both hands, raised it over her head with the small creature still skewered on the blade, and brought it down hard like a club. The creature’s feet hit the floor first, and the machete cut downward, coming out between its legs to hit the carpet. A second after the Rakshasa’s life fluids began to gush from the deep wound, it decayed swiftly, spreading in a puddle. A moment later, it too was gone.

“Good Lord, Buffy, what was that?” Unspilled tears glistened in Joyce’s eyes and her face was drained of color.

“C’mon, Mom, let’s get out of here.” Buffy set the machete on top of her dresser, then put a hand on Joyce’s shoulder, gently turned her around, and eased her out into the hall, then pulled the bedroom door closed. “Now, wait right here, I’ll be back in a second.”

“B-but what are you —”

“Just a second.” Buffy went into her mother’s bedroom and checked under the bed and in the closet. She made sure the windows were locked, then went back into the hall, still unsure of how much to tell her mother of her ugly, disturbing story. She smiled and said, “Okay, Mom, you can go back to bed if you want.”

“Back to bed?” Joyce put her hands on her hips. “Buffy, with the sounds I heard coming out of your room, it’s a wonder I didn’t wet my bed.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. That won’t happen again.”

“At the risk of sounding glib, did you bring your work home with you tonight?”

Buffy closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes, a Slayerrelated problem that came in under the radar. But it’s all gone now.”

Joyce’s eyes widened as she frowned and gently touched Buffy’s forehead. “Where did you get that bump?” she asked breathily.

“Oh, that. I fell. In the library. Hit a chair.”

“Mmm, well . . .” Her arm dropped to her side, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly through puffed cheeks. “There’s no way I can sleep,” Joyce said with a sigh. “My heart feels like a disco band.”