Resurrecting Ravana (29 page)

Buffy leaned closer to Willow and whispered, “Sounds like you impressed Giles. Maybe he’ll back off about the magic, you think?”

“I don’t know.” Willow’s voice was suddenly tremulous. “I’m really not sure if this is gonna work.”

“Don’t worry, Will. If it doesn’t work, it won’t matter, because we’ll all be dead.”

Willow stopped grinding with the pestle and looked over her shoulder and up at Buffy with big, frightened eyes.

Alarmed by the expression on her friend’s face, Buffy said, “I was only kidding!”

“I know, I know. But I feel like I’m under a lot of pressure now, and if it doesn’t work, then it’ll be my fault that we’ll all be dead.”

“Willow, you can’t think that way! Jeez, if I did, all my teeth would turn around in my head and eat my brain.”

“Then how am I supposed to think?”

“That you’ve done your best. And if it doesn’t work, then we’ll do something else that will!”

Thunder cracked in the sky, and Buffy, Willow, and Angel looked up at the ceiling, as if they might be able to see it.

“Great night for it,” Buffy muttered.

“You think you could clue me in on this?” Angel asked quietly. “Or, if you’d rather, I could always just leave.”

“No, no, Angel,” Buffy said. She went to his side and put a hand on his arm. “We need you, believe me.” She led him aside as she began to explain everything, leaving Willow alone with her work.

Beneath her sweater, Willow felt the tiny hand-carved Rama resting against her chest. She was relieved that Mila had never found out what Buffy had suspected her of, what she had accused her of doing. Mila probably would have had a good laugh over it, but even so, Willow preferred that she not find out at all.

As she worked, Willow thought about Mila’s brother. She wondered what he looked like, how many hours a day he spent carving the gods and devils of his religion out of stone. Mila had said that, unlike herself, her brother was a devout Hindu. To him, the carved figures Willow found merely pleasing to the eye and touch were images of beings he believed really exist, or existed at one time; they were a part of his deeply felt spiritual beliefs, not just wildly imaginative monsters and superheroes.

Willow supposed that the miniature carving of Rama she wore around her neck was just as important to Mila’s brother as a crucifix would be to a Christian, or a Star of David to her father. When Mila had told her about the many gods of Hinduism, and of the many other identities each god had, it had sounded so completely foreign to anything Willow knew, it was hard to not to think it was silly. But it was a legitimate religion that had been around longer than many, perhaps even most.

No wonder so many wars are fought over religion,
she thought.

She wished Mila’s brother were there with them. He would have a much better idea of what they were going up against, and he’d probably know of a way to vanquish Ravana, a prayer, or some sort of scripture, maybe. It would be better than the alleged dissolving potion she was whipping up. Even if it didn’t work, it would be his fault . . . not Willow’s.

The bus station stood in the rainy night like the dark ghost of a building once bright and full of life. Its boarded up windows were multiple blinded eyes, the cracks and holes in its blackened walls bloodless open wounds that had never healed. The muddy, pocked ground around it was littered with chunks of what had once been a paved sidewalk; in the rain, the ground seemed to bubble and churn like a poison swamp. In the dark, the building seemed to be still and hunkering, waiting patiently for something — or someone — to happen by so it could pounce and feed. But in those strobelike moments when lightning flashed, it became a monstrous face in great pain: window-eyes clenched shut, portal-mouth — deeply shadowed beneath its tall archway — yawning open in a silent, tortured shriek.

They sat in Oz’s van, looking at the bus station through the front window, none of them moving to get out.

“Looks hungry,” Oz muttered.

They had decided to take Oz’s van because Giles’s cozier Citroen would not hold all of them and the swords as well.

Willow had finished preparing the potion. In a nylon bag that hung from a shoulder strap, she carried two containers: one metal with a plastic lid containing the fine powder she’d ground by hand, and another of plastic containing a milky liquid that was to be poured in with the powder at the last possible moment before the potion was to be used. As she poured the liquid, she was to recite a brief incantation. The potion would become active the instant the liquid met the powder and had to be used immediately.

Giles had warned them that once inside the bus station, they would very likely encounter rats and stray cats. “Don’t let them startle or distract you,” he’d said. “If you hear them moving in the dark, that means they’re just trying to get away from you.” He’d explained to them, as well, that the Rakshasa did not regenerate very fast, and could be killed by repeated stabbing, cutting, or dismemberment. “The swords are ideal weapons, as Buffy suggested to me today. They allow you distance from the creatures to avoid being bitten, and you can hit several at once with broad sweeps.”

Back in the library, Xander had continued trying to convince Cordelia to come with them. Giles told him to stop trying to coerce her into doing something she didn’t want to do, and Xander pointed out that Cordelia had a reputation for needing no coercion whatsoever, at which point she swung a foot up, kicked him in the butt, and told him to beam himself up, adding, “And you know what I mean, Spaceboy.” She’d decided, in the end, to join them because she said she could always make another appointment with Froi. Even if she had to wait for it, that would be better than never having another hair appointment ever again, which was exactly what would happen if her friends failed to defeat Ravana because they didn’t have enough help.

“Reminds me of the fair,” Xander said absently, mostly to himself.

“The fair?” Cordelia asked. “Your syntaxes are misfiring again.”

“Synapses,” Xander corrected.

“Whatever.”

“It reminds me of the fair,” Xander explained, “because when I was a little kid, I’d go every year with my parents, and I’d always want to go through the spook house. So my dad would buy two tickets, while I stood there and looked at all the scary pictures painted on the side of the spook house. I’d get myself so worked up that, the second he handed over the money and got the tickets, I’d tell him I was too scared to go in. He’d pick me up under his arm and carry me through the thing. It was never as scary as it looked outside . . . wasn’t really scary at all. But it happened that way every year.” He frowned and scratched his head. “Maybe that’s why I like hanging around with you, Buffy. My dad traumatized me outside the spook house so many times that now I’m warped and I think I actually like being scared.”

Cordelia said, “I’m not carrying you in there, so don’t even ask.”

“I suggest,” Giles suggested, “that we not sit out here and get ourselves all worked up. Shall we gather our things and go inside?”

They got out, removed the sheaths from their swords and tossed them inside the van, and checked their flashlights.

“Everything’s boarded up,” Giles said to Buffy. “But Miss Lovecraft got in here somehow. Where did she go as we drove by today?”

Buffy pointed. “Down that little alleyway. To the right of the building.” She led the way, getting soaked in the process, and the others followed closely in the dark.

“Your swords are going to rust, Giles,” Xander warned.

“I doubt it. But even if they do . . . if they get us through this, they shall take on greater significance in my collection simply for having done so, and not for their appearance alone.”

They had agreed to not use their flashlights unless absolutely necessary; they did not want to be seen approaching the building. The long, heavy, black metal lights remained dark and clipped to their belts.

Their feet sloshed in puddles and squished in mud, Xander whispered to Cordelia to be quiet, because she kept saying, “Eewww!” over and over again.

The alleyway was narrow and littered with concrete rubble, blackened boards, and garbage that had been carelessly dumped around the building and would probably stink on a hot day.

Concealed between the two buildings, Angel led the way so no flashlights lit the dark alley. He stopped in front of a door set back a foot or so in the side of the building. It was a metal door covered with obscene graffiti, and it had a handle instead of a doorknob. Angel tried the handle. It moved, and the door opened inward a couple of inches.

“Here,” Buffy whispered to the others behind her. Angel pushed the door open farther and he and Buffy stepped inside. She stopped, giving her eyes a moment to grow accustomed to the deeper darkness.

Behind her, Giles knew exactly what she was doing, and whispered, “Let me know when you can see something.”

A moment later, Buffy said, “It’s a corridor. I think . . .” Angel nodded. She led the way and moved forward, then turned to the left. An open doorway with viscous darkness beyond it. She turned on the light. The beam slid over shattered tile floors, broken sinks and urinals, some of which lay on the floor, and the remains of stalls. “Restrooms,” she whispered. “We’re by the restrooms.” The beam of light disappeared with a click.

Their feet crunched on dirty floors as they moved along cautiously. The sound of rainfall outside faded, as other sounds grew up ahead. Similar sounds. Water running.

Buffy passed another restroom. Ahead, she could make out the open end of the corridor. Beyond it, there appeared to be . . . light? If so, it was impossibly soft in the vast darkness that lay beyond the corridor’s entry. As she drew nearer, the light seemed to move within the oppressive darkness . . . to dance.

Over her shoulder, Buffy whispered, “Okay, keep the flashlights off. Looks like there’s light up ahead.”

“I see it, too,” Giles said.

The sound of water was much louder, as if it were right in front of Buffy. Another step, and cold water doused her. She gasped and backed up, running into Giles.

“The roof is leaking,” he whispered. Over his shoulder, he whispered to the others, “It may get worse farther on, so don’t let it startle you.”

As their eyes adjusted, they made out the faded graffiti spray-painted on walls darkened by fire long ago; some of the graffiti had faded, and more had been painted over it. Amid the large spray-painted gang signs and crude pictures were smaller drawings and writings made with brightly colored, metallic ink: limericks, telephone numbers, meeting times.

As Buffy reached the doorway, Angel pointed to the light and whispered, “Candlelight.” When she stepped out of the corridor and looked to the right, she saw that he was correct.

She guessed there were a hundred candles, maybe two hundred. They fanned out from the rear left corner of the building. A path was cleared down the center of the mass of candles. In the corner itself, more light came from two sources: a pulsating blob about the size of a microwave oven that glowed a sickly green, and behind it, something that shimmered a dark, undulating red.

They stopped in a group, just outside the corridor, all of them looking at the strange lights beyond the candles.

“That’s what we came for,” Buffy whispered. She looked all around the cavernous blackness. Water spattered everywhere. There were piles of rubble here and there, and she saw what looked like two old pinball games lying on their sides. Other than the candles and the glowing objects beyond them, there was no sign of life.

Buffy moved forward, her boots crackling over the floor. She walked through another cold shower of rainwater. When it was behind her, she stopped and looked up.

There was no ceiling. No roof. At least, there appeared to be none. Overhead, Buffy could see the night sky. On the other side of the station, she could see a patch of dark clouds that, after a moment, flashed with lightning. Everywhere else, Buffy could see stars. Tiny, twinkling red stars.

Wait a second,
Buffy thought.
Stars? During a rainstorm? Red stars?

They were everywhere above them. Among the exposed rafters. Everywhere. Her upturned head moved back and forth slowly as she scanned the station’s ceiling. She now realized that, except for the hole through which she could see clouds, there was a ceiling high up there, however leaky. And she wasn’t looking at stars.

They were the red, watchful eyes of scores and scores of Rakshasa.

Chapter 21

“W
E’RE BEING WATCHED,”
A
NGEL WHISPERED TO
B
UFFY
.

“But not attacked,” she replied suspiciously. Buffy turned to face the others. “Walk very slowly. Don’t do anything that might look threatening, like arm movements. Don’t talk unless you absolutely have to, and then only whisper.”

“How do I whisper a scream?” Cordelia asked in an unsteady breath.

Buffy turned around and moved on very slowly, the rest of them moved with her.

Along with the leaks, there were the faintest of shufflings overhead, constant, waving across the station and back again slowly: the clicking of little fangs . . . the soft belching of well-fed stomachs, and the impatient gurgle of others that hungered . . . the shuffle of squat bodies . . . the slither of rat-pink tails sliding along rafters. Each sound spread a blanket of icy gooseflesh over Buffy. To her, it felt suddenly — now that she knew they were there — as if the creatures were much lower than they were, low enough to reach down and run claws through her hair, or curl a fleshy tail around her neck. For a moment, she wanted to slap them away and start swinging her sword. But she pushed it away like the flimsy mental obstacle it was, and moved on.

Up ahead, the glowing green object continued to pulsate, and a shimmer of red came from behind it. As Buffy drew slowly nearer to the corner, objects became clearer. The red shimmer was emanating from the Ravana statuette in front of it, a swirling funnel that was bigger than Buffy had first thought. It snaked and wobbled like a glowing Silly Straw, then widened and grew steady. It spun in place around a dark hulking object forming inside the funnel.