Resurrecting Ravana (27 page)

“Buffy,” Willow said from the office doorway. “We’ll do some concentrated, industrial-strength studying together once this is over. Right?”

“You’re the best, Will,” Buffy said over her shoulder as she hurried out of the library. She left her umbrella behind again.

In the parking lot, she jogged through the rain to Giles’s car and unlocked the door. Before getting in, she stopped to watch an ambulance drive into the school parking lot, followed by two police cars.

“Uh-oh,” Buffy muttered. She got into the car.

When Giles arrived, he slid behind the wheel.

“What’s happening?” Buffy asked.

“Apparently, the janitor stabbed a sales rep from a cleaning supplies company to death,” he replied, a pained expression on his face.

“Do you think it was Rakshasa? Or do you think he was just tired of the salesman?”

“The janitor has disappeared.”

“Ah. Rakshasa.”

After giving Giles Phyllis’s room number, Buffy walked a step behind him as they went to the door of Phyllis Lovecraft’s motel room. She hoped to keep Phyllis from recognizing her from their one brief meeting at Buffy’s home.

Giles knocked on the floor.

“Lloyd?” Phyllis called inside.

Giles glanced at Buffy, then knocked again.

A moment later, the door opened and Phyllis faced them in a light blue terrycloth robe in need of washing and enormous furry pink slippers. The bruise beneath her eye was still there, but had grown smaller, lighter. She looked at them cautiously, paying more attention to Giles, and asked, “What do you want?”

“Miss Lovecraft?” Giles asked.

“That depends. Who are you?”

He smiled. “My name is Rupert Giles. I’m quite an admirer of your grandfather’s work.”

Phyllis’s eyes darkened as she took a step back and closed the door, leaving only an opening of a foot or so. “You work for my grandfather?”

“Oh, no, not at all. I’ve come to ask you a few questions. May we come in?”

She eyed them suspiciously for a long moment, then stood back and opened the door. As they walked in, she looked at Buffy and said, “I recognize you. You’re the gallery woman’s daughter.”

Buffy smiled, but it was an effort. “Nice to see you again.”

The bed had been cleaned off, and the rest of the room wasn’t quite as messy as it had been when Buffy and Willow were there.

“But I don’t know you,” Phyllis said to Giles. After closing the door, she walked past them, deeper into the room. She was still favoring her right leg.

“Well, I am a librarian. I have quite a collection of your grandfather’s books.”

“He doesn’t sign books anymore, so if that’s what you —”

“No, no, that’s not it. Miss Lovecraft, I have, um, very good reason to believe that you are in a considerable amount of danger.”

She frowned. “What are you . . . a gun salesman or something?”

“A gun sales . . .? Oh, no, not at all. Could you tell me, by the way, where is Lloyd?”

She was surprised by the question, and not very happy about it. “You’re a friend of Lloyd’s?”

“Well, I do need to find him.”

“Then you know him?”

“Uh, well no, I do not. But I know what he’s doing. And it’s putting all of us in danger, Miss Lovecraft, yourself included. So, tell me, please, where is he? Where has he taken the Ravana statuette?”

Phyllis clenched her fleshy fists at her sides and her mouth curled up as if she’d just bitten into a lemon. “You
are
working for my grandfather!” she exclaimed, and there was a slight growl in her voice. “Well, you tell him I’m not going back. You tell him I’ve found someone who cares about me, who
loves
me!”

“No, Miss Lovecraft,” Buffy said, “Lloyd doesn’t love you. He’s been using you to get to the Ravana statuette. He knew he would never be able to get it from your grandfather’s collection unless he had an insider help him. Like you. He never intended that collection to be exhibited in a gallery, and he —”

“How do you know all this?” Her pasty face became splotchy with bright red fury. “Who are you that you know all these things?”

“He’s got what he wants now, Miss Lovecraft,” Buffy went on, louder now. “He doesn’t need you anymore. That’s why he’s been hitting you lately. Beating you. You’re just in the way now, and if you don’t tell us what we need to know, he’ll —”

Phyllis stepped forward and raised a trembling hand high to slap Buffy, but Giles reached out and grabbed her thick wrist.

“No, Miss Lovecraft,” he said firmly. “Your anger is misplaced. Do you know what your friend Lloyd is doing with the Ravana statuette and its six accompanying pieces?”

She lowered her arm slowly and averted her eyes, but said nothing.

“You know . . . or you’ve got some idea,” Giles said. “Do you actually think you will survive what he’s doing?”

Still not looking at them, head bowed, she said, “He . . . he loves me.”

“This resurrection will plunge the entire planet into darkness, Miss Lovecraft,” he went on. “Do you really think you are any more important to Lloyd than anyone else?”

She mumbled something.

“What’s that?” Giles asked.

When she looked at them, she was baring narrow, crooked teeth and the angry red splotches had returned to her face, brighter, more vivid. “I said . . .
get out!”
she shouted.

Buffy and Giles flinched as Phyllis spun around and disappeared into the bathroom. There were shuffling sounds, as if she were going through a bag.

Buffy turned to Giles and said, “I’ve got a feeling we’re not gonna get a whole lot of valuable information out of her. Know what I mean?”

“I quite agree. We should —”

Phyllis returned. In her right hand, she held a large knife with shiny blade that extended about nine inches.

“You go tell my grandfather to leave me alone!” she roared.

Buffy and Giles backed away as she approached them.

“You tell him I’m not a little girl anymore!”

Giles quickly opened the door and gestured for Buffy to exit. “Shall we go?”

“You tell him Lloyd Kaufman is a good and decent man who loves me!” Phyllis screamed as they left. She stepped outside the door onto the balcony walkway. “You tell him he
loves
me!”

Buffy and Giles hurried down the stairs and across the street without looking back. In the car, they sat unmoving for a long moment. Finally, Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, exhaling explosively, cheeks bulging.

“See, Giles? That didn’t take very long,” Buffy said sarcastically.

“You were right about one thing. Miss Lovecraft is quite unstable. If Lloyd is actually hitting her . . . well, do you think it’s possible he’s done so in self-defense?”

“Are you kidding? You heard the way she talked about him. She seems to know something about what he’s doing, and still she says he’s ‘a good and decent man.’ ” Buffy shook her head. “She’s got it bad.”

“He is most likely the first man who has ever paid her any attention . . . shown her any affection.”

“That’s the sad part. I feel sorry for her. Even if she did pull a knife on us.”

“But who is he?” Giles asked. “For a while, I was certain Ethan was behind this. He has an appetite for power exceeded by no one, and sitting on the right hand of Ravana, ruling like a god . . . that is precisely his cup of tea.” He slipped the key into the ignition. “We should get back to —” He didn’t start the car or finish his sentence.

Buffy saw him staring across the street and followed his gaze to the motel parking lot.

Phyllis had come downstairs wearing a long green coat over her robe. Her feet were still swallowed by the large fluffy slippers. She got into a white Ford Taurus and started the engine. The car shot backward from the parking slot and nearly slammed into a pickup truck parked on the other side of the lot.

“Follow her,” Buffy said as Giles started the engine.

“That is precisely my intention,” Giles replied.

Phyllis’s tires squealed as she gunned the engine and sped out of the parking lot without pausing to check for traffic from either direction. She turned left, and the car swerved back and forth from one lane to the other for a moment before she regained control.

Giles waited for a car to pass them in his lane before pulling into the street. He followed her at a distance, with a Toyota between them and Phyllis’s car.

“Let’s hope she’s going to see Lloyd.”

Buffy replied, “Dressed like that, I doubt she’s going out for bread and milk.”

Phyllis’s driving was erratic and reckless. She sped up, swerved a lot, and went through stop signs without even slowing. Giles followed her at a distance because he didn’t want her to recognize them . . . and also because he wanted to stay the hell away from her.

She led them to the edge of Sunnydale, to a part of town were many of the buildings were unoccupied and boarded up. Buffy and Giles and the others had driven through that very part of town earlier in the week when they were looking for seedy bars and motorcycle-driving hellhounds. Phyllis’s wild driving slowed a bit as she rounded a corner up ahead.

Giles turned the corner just in time to see Phyllis getting out of the Taurus. She was parked in the potholed, muddy area in front of the dark, empty, burned-out bus station.

“I’m afraid if I stop, she’ll notice us,” Giles said. “Keep an eye on her as I drive by.”

Buffy watched as Phyllis slogged through the mud toward the building. She stepped into a pothole so deep, it nearly tripped her, but seemed to not notice it at all and just walked on. She went along the front of the building, then down the narrow alley between the bus station and a dilapidated building with a barely readable sign that read, Billiards. In a moment, she was out of sight.

“She’s gone,” Buffy said.

“Did she go inside?” Giles asked.

“I didn’t see her go in, but I think that’s where she was headed.”

“I believe we’ve found the location of our statuette.”

“Yeah, me, too. But that place looks about as stable as she is.”

“But it is no doubt large and roomy inside. With this ritual producing who knows how many Rakshasa, as well such a large, unwieldy demon, it is probably an ideal location. He’s hidden from view and I doubt anyone pokes around that place much, except for an occasional homeless person, perhaps, and there aren’t too many of those in Sunnydale these days.”

“No, we don’t have a homeless problem,” Buffy said. “Just vampires, demons, werewolves, and other assorted monsters.”

Buffy turned on the radio and they listened to a report on the killing at Sunnydale High. The janitor still had not been found.

“We’re going to go in there today, aren’t we?” Buffy asked. “Into the bus station?”

“The material I’ve been reading gives very few details on the process of summoning Ravana,” Giles said. “But it says that process takes up to seven days. Never more, but sometimes less. We aren’t certain when he began, but even so . . . that leaves us little time. We don’t even know how little. So, yes, we’ll go in there today.”

“Probably gonna be a whooole lotta Rakshasa in there, huh?”

“I suspect so.”

Buffy leaned her head on the window. “Great. I won’t wear my good clothes, then.”

“Your encounter with them in your bedroom . . . did you learn anything helpful?”

“Only that it’s a good idea to have something long and sharp. The machete worked well, but something longer would have worked better. Something like . . .” She turned to him. “You wouldn’t happen to have any swords lying around, would you?”

“As a matter of fact, I would. They’re in my apartment.”

“Let’s go get them now,” she said enthusiastically.

“I want to go back to school first. I suspect everyone will be sent home after what’s happened.” He looked over at her. “We’re going to need backup.”

Chapter 20

E
XCEPT FOR THE ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE
EMTs and police, which took place during classes, there was no sign within the school building that anyone had been murdered on campus. Two police officers entered Principal Snyder’s office through the side door to avoid going through the main building. In the office, the only witness to the murder, an assistant janitor, was interviewed. The killing took place in the basement, so the scene of the crime and the police officers tending to it disrupted none of the traffic between classes.

The biggest concern of the police was the fact that the janitor had not yet been found. A killer on the loose at the high school put the students and faculty in danger. It was decided to get everyone off the campus and close the school for the day. Again. But before the decision could be implemented, Principal Snyder’s telephone rang. What appeared to be human remains had been found in the basement of the gymnasium . . . freshly eaten.

The two police officers looked at one another knowingly. It was nothing new to them, not anymore. They told Principal Snyder it would not be necessary to close the school, because they were certain the remains were those of the janitor. They left to go to the gymnasium basement.

For Buffy, time moved along as slowly and tediously as a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She waited for the end of the next period, wanting to round up the gang before they headed in different directions. Or were questioned by the police.

She watched the day darken through a hall window. Clouds that started out a light gray became bloated and developed charcoal-shaded undersides. Rain that fell straight down to the ground slanted more and more as a strong wind grew. She wondered if it was just unseasonably bad weather these last few days, or something else.

With Ravana so close,
she thought,
and Rakshasa all over the place, maybe even the weather’s upset.

When the bell rang, Buffy was waiting in the hall for the others. As they each came out of their classrooms, she took them aside, and once they were all together, they headed for the library.

“You guys ready to kick some Rakshasa butt?” Buffy asked.

“Those little guys that look like they came out of Steven Spielberg’s nightmare?” Xander asked.