Resurrecting Ravana (3 page)

“You think they’re hiding in there?” Xander asked.

Cordelia let out an annoyed huff of breath and said, “No, Xander, they’re collecting frogs for a class biology project.”

“We’ve got to go in there after them,” Buffy said, ignoring the exchange in the backseat.

Giles pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as he let out a long sigh. “All right, then,” he said. “We’re hardly equipped for it, but . . . we’ll go into the woods.”

There was a long, tense silence in the van.

“Into the woods?” Cordelia asked. Her voice was a quiet whimper. “At night?”

“What are you afraid of?” Xander asked.

“Well, aren’t there . . . you know . . . snakes and spiders and —”

“Cordy, we’re going into the woods after hellhounds,” Xander said with a chuckle. “Snakes and spiders should be the least of your worries.”

Cordelia sighed and shook her head. “You people are so priority-impaired.”

Buffy smiled faintly at Giles, then at the others in the backseat, then at Giles again. “So . . . what are we waiting for?”

Things on the porch went downhill almost immediately.

As the creature flung the severed arm over the porch railing, blood spattered in all directions. Buffy raised her crossbow, aimed, and fired. But the hellhound had already leapt from the porch and flew over her head with a loud growl. The stake sliced through empty air and disappeared into the open doorway.

Buffy reached beneath her jacket for another stake as she spun around on the porch. Through the old wood slats beneath her boots, she could feel the stomping rush of the four other hellhounds hurrying toward her from inside the cabin, while loud rock music continued to rumble.

She had the second stake in the crossbow before she had turned all the way around, but she never had a chance to fire it. The hellhound in the tattered, bloody tank top rose up out of the darkness less than two feet in front of her. With a flick of his black, furry hand, he knocked the crossbow from Buffy’s grip and sent it tumbling into the night.

Buffy’s hand was already beneath her jacket, reaching for another stake — she had her fingers wrapped around it — when the snarling creature slapped a hand on her shoulder and another on her hip and closed his grip. She felt his claws pierce her clothing as he lifted her off the ground. With no apparent effort, the hellhound turned and threw Buffy away from the house. The cold night air hissed past her ears and her hair blew in her face as she flew through the air, the hellhound in furious pursuit.

Buffy slammed into the trunk of a tree. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

From the time the front door of the cabin opened, only seconds had passed.

As Buffy flew from the porch, Xander and Giles hopped over the railing and moved in from each side. They stopped beside the open door, stakes raised, listening to the snarls rushing toward them.

As if expecting them, the next hellhound out the door swung his arms open wide, knocking Xander and Giles in opposite directions.

By that time, Willow had climbed onto the railing at her end of the porch. She dove off the railing and over Giles, who had been knocked on his back, and onto the hellhound. Unprepared for the attack, the creature fell. Willow wasted no time.

She buried the stake in the hellhound’s neck.

The creature immediately began to convulse and released a painful shriek that echoed through the woods around them. The hellhound’s thrashing became so forceful, Willow was thrown down onto the porch. The creature stiffened after a moment and its back arched. It made a horrible gurgling sound in its throat as its dark, fanged muzzle began to shrink rapidly. Willow backed away on all fours, disgusted by the thick, wet sound of bones moving against bones, of muscle tissue shrinking, dissolving.

The body fell limp suddenly and released a harsh death rattle. It looked like nothing more than a vicious dog now. A dead one. His eyes were open and stared glassily up at the yellow porch light.

Willow released an explosive breath as she reached forward and pulled the stake from his neck.

While Willow had been diving for the unsuspecting hellhound, Xander and Giles had been getting to their feet. By then, three more hellhounds had rushed by them and off the porch. They were somewhere in the darkness, beyond the dull pool of yellow light cast by the bulb over the door.

“Where’s Buffy?” Xander whispered.

“I-I-I don’t . . . I don’t know,” Giles stammered.

In spite of the chilly air, perspiration glistened on their faces, and their hearts were trip-hammering in their chests.

Giles turned to see Willow backing away from the convulsing body on the porch.

Once she’d pulled the stake from the hellhound’s neck, Giles leaned down, gripped her elbow, and helped her to her feet.

“Hey, somebody help me!” Cordelia cried. “I’m stuck!”

Xander, Giles, and Willow turned to the other end of the porch, where Cordelia was trying to climb over the railing. She had one leg over, stake in hand, but her khakis had gotten stuck on the end of a shard of splintered wood.

Xander rushed toward her.

A clawed, furry hand slapped the top of her head, closed on her hair, and jerked her off the railing. With a scream, Cordelia was swallowed by the darkness.

“Cordy!” Xander shouted.

She didn’t hear him. The hellhound’s snout was next to her ear and its hot, snarling breath, smelling coppery of blood, drowned out all other sounds. It still held her by the hair, pulling it hard, as it turned her around. Its black lips pulled back over its fangs, exposing its long black-mottled pink tongue.

Cordelia barely saw the thing’s face. Her eyes were tearing from the pain of her hair being pulled so hard. All fear rushed out of her as anger welled up and made her clench her teeth.

“Don’t . . . mess . . . with the hair!” she cried as she drove the stake into the creature’s abdomen.

The hellhound released her hair and fell away, hitting the ground with a loud thud. It thrashed and kicked and made horrible choking sounds in the dark, but Cordelia turned away, and came face to face with Xander.

“Are you all right?” he asked, clutching her shoulders.

She winced as she patted her hair. “Yeah. I am now. No thanks to you.”

Giles went down the front steps of the porch cautiously, with Willow a couple of steps behind him.

Although the moon was almost completely full and shone through the tall surrounding trees in needles of electric blue, the night was dark with black shadows that grew even blacker when they overlapped.

A low predatory growl came from the darkness and seemed to be everywhere . . . to the left and right, straight ahead, even above them.

“Buffy?” Giles called.

An instant after he called her name, Buffy regained consciousness. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but knew it couldn’t have been long, because she was still alive. The stake was no longer in her hand. She sat up, leaned to her right, and began to grope for the stake on the ground. The tips of her fingers touched its smooth surface —

And she was knocked onto her back again as the hellhound suddenly straddled her waist and pressed her shoulders to the ground.

The creature’s saliva dribbled onto Buffy’s face, warm and thick and noxious.

Buffy reached out as far as she could with her right arm, her fingertips tickling the ground in search of the stake.

“A
Slayer,
” the hellhound said. The words were nearly buried in the deep growl that came with them.

Her middle finger lightly brushed against the stake’s silver tip. She reached farther, making her shoulder hurt. With the tip of her finger, she drew the stake a little closer to her . . . a little closer.

From the corner of her eye Buffy could see Xander and Cordelia join Willow and Giles, as the four of them moved away from the cabin, their eyes fanning out to look for trouble.

There was a low, quiet growl behind them.

All four of them spun around at once to see two sets of fangs and eyes glinting at them in the moonlight.

The hellhound on top of Buffy leaned forward until his cold, wet nose almost touched the tip of hers. Its lips pulled back and its long fangs dripped tepid saliva onto her chin. The creature’s foul-smelling breath washed over her face, hot and rank with the smell of decaying meat.

Buffy placed a second fingertip on the stake . . . then a third. She curled her fingers, pulling it a little closer. Then a fourth finger . . . and her thumb . . . until she was able to close her fist around the stake.

The creature pulled back a few inches and opened its snout wide, ready to plunge forward and sink its fangs into her throat.

Through clenched teeth, Buffy snarled, “Eat this!” She slammed the stake into its throat. The hellhound sat up with a startled growl. The stake remained in Buffy’s hand . . . with the silver pointed tip pointing at her. She’d stabbed the hellhound in the throat with the wrong end of the stake.

The hellhound grinned to reveal all its fangs as it grabbed Buffy’s right wrist and began to squeeze, trying to get her to release the stake.

Closer to the cabin, Xander tackled a hellhound without hesitation. As the two of them rolled, Xander shoved the stake in without even knowing where.

Meantime, the other hellhound pounced at Giles, who dropped to his knees immediately and thrust his stake upward.

Buffy swung her left fist around and punched her hellhound in the face once, twice, a third time. The second the creature was off balance, she rolled her body to the left and heaved it off of her.

The hellhound was on all fours in an instant, lunging for Buffy.

Buffy swung her right leg out and kicked the creature in the face. It tumbled away from her with a pained grunt, landing a few feet away. But it didn’t stay there long.

She was up on her knees as the hellhound rushed toward her again. She flipped the stake in her hand, so the silver tip pointed outward, then stabbed it upward as the hellhound pounced on her.

The stake went in deep, and the creature landed heavily on Buffy, making a horrible gurgling sound in its throat. It was immediately still as it lay pinning Buffy to the ground.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Buffy muttered as she rolled the dead weight off of her, “I don’t know you well enough, big guy.” She got up and brushed herself off, then looked down at the hellhound.

Blood was caked on his lips and chin, and his eyes stared flatly up at the moon.

Footsteps hurried toward her in the dark.

“Buffy!” Giles said with relief. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, but reached around and gingerly touched the back of her head. There was a large knot, but no blood. Her back hurt, and her legs felt stiff. She popped her shoulder back into joint. “I’ll live . . . it just won’t be fun. Not for a little while, anyway.”

“We’re going to have to leave quickly,” Giles said, “or we’ll have a great deal of explaining to do . . . and most likely to people who will laugh in our faces as they apply handcuffs to our wrists.” He turned and looked grimly down at the hellhound on the ground.

Buffy turned to the group and asked, “We got ’em all?”

The others said yes, all at once.

“Unless, um, there are more in the cabin,” Willow said.

“There are only five motorcycles,” Xander said. “I doubt they’d ride double.”

“Yeah, there’s only five, let’s go,” Cordelia said with a hint of an impatient whine in her voice.

“No, Willow’s right,” Giles said. “We need to be sure.”

Buffy leaned down and jerked the stake out of the dead creature on the ground. “I’ll check the cabin,” she said.

She limped a little at first, but recovered quickly, and covered the rest of the distance at a jog. Up the steps, across the porch . . . she stopped at the open door.

Inside, the cabin was a mess, and had a smell to go with it. Apparently, hellhounds had the same bathroom habits as regular hounds . . . none at all. They didn’t use the refrigerator, either, because their leftovers were scattered all over the place. A foot here, a head there . . . it wasn’t a pretty sight. She went through the entire cabin, careful not to step in anything. The place was empty.

Buffy got out of the cabin as quickly as possible, went down the steps, and joined her friends.

“It’s empty,” she said. “Let’s motor.”

Chapter 2

T
HE NEXT DAY WAS A BUSY ONE FOR
G
ILES
. E
VER
since learning of the cattle that had been eaten just outside Sunnydale, he had dropped everything to learn more about it, certain it was a sign of trouble. The week before had been spent with Buffy and the others ridding Sunnydale of a very ill-tempered voodoo priestess. In the meantime, his other work had gone mostly neglected.

Rupert Giles was Buffy Summers’s Watcher . . . but he was also the librarian at Sunnydale High School. There were returned books that needed to go back in their proper places on the shelves, new books that needed to be processed and placed, overdue notices that needed to be filled out and sent, and a calendar and several notices on the walls that needed to be updated. He didn’t use student volunteers to work in the library; too many of his volumes were a bit irregular. With the undead crawling out of the ground every night and all manner of evils popping up in Sunnydale, it was easy to forget the more mundane responsibilities that rested on one’s shoulders. Life went on . . . even at the Hellmouth.

Xander and Oz were seated in a corner, talking quietly over open textbooks. Giles hadn’t seen Buffy since early that morning, but she would probably be back soon with the others. Quarterly exams were coming up next week, and several students had come in throughout the day, looking for a quiet place to study. Usually the Slayerettes were press-ganged into service in the library, but Buffy and her friends had had little time to study for the tests lately, so he expected them to have their heads buried in books for the rest of the week. Unless, of course, something more urgent came up, something more ominous. At most high schools, one would be hard-pressed to think of something more ominous than quarterly exams, but not so at Sunnydale High.