Resurrecting Ravana (30 page)

Buffy looked at the bottom and saw the enormous, powerful legs; dark, muscled, and glistening, crossed in the lotus style. The rest of the body formed before her. Gold and brown shorts covered the tops of the thighs and the waist, above which a matching, low-cut vest displayed developing abdominal and chest muscles that seemed to have been carved out of dark stone. Twenty arms quickly grew out from all the way around the top of the upper body, hands resting on the body, elbows jutting outwardly sternly. Ten heads faced all directions in a carousel of open mouths that talked rapidly, teeth flashing, tongues working, but made no sounds. The spinning funnel ended at the eyes. The thing continued to form.

The eyes were finishing up, the brow about to begin, leaving only the top of the head to go.

Buffy looked down at the pulsating green blob. It was attached to the six pieces accompanying the Ravana statuette; a green tentacle of the same glowing substance extended from the open mouth of each of the small Rakshasa and came together to form the blob.

There was a sudden tremble in the shapeless green glow, and lips formed in the gelatinous substance, opened with a wet peeling sound. A Rakshasa came out of the opening, as if it had been kicked out. Beads of the green goo were attached to its small body. It hit the floor running, and as it ran down the aisle down the center of all the candles, it expanded and lengthened rapidly until it was the same size as the other Rakshasa Buffy had seen.

With the creature running toward her, Buffy stopped, took a couple steps back. But it seemed not to notice her. Once past the candles, it turned right and climbed up out of the way as another Rakshasa came from the green blob. It did the same thing.

Buffy looked at the hole open to the rainy sky above. They were shadows as they crawled like flies up the wall and over the ceiling to the hole. For an instant, she saw one silhouetted blackly against a bluish-silver flash of lightning. Then it was gone.

She didn’t know how often they came out, or if it was always two at a time, but Buffy was certain there would be more. She didn’t understand why the two new Rakshasa had ignored them. Maybe their senses were weak at first . . . or maybe they were in too big of a rush to get outside and start spreading big bundles of vicious hatred and bloody slaughter like the eager elves of some twisted Santa Claus.

There was a click somewhere in the dark, and Buffy was blinded by light pointed directly at her face. Her feet made abrupt
chitch
sounds as she stopped suddenly, squinted, and turned her head away. Footsteps came toward her hard and fast.

“You kids mind telling me just what you’re doing here?” a deep male voice said.

The light lowered and Buffy blinked her eyes several times. A uniformed police officer with a flashlight stood in front of her.

Giles put a hand on Buffy’s shoulder and stepped forward.

“Excuse me, officer,” he said, “but I can explain this, I assure you.”

The police officer put the light on Giles’s face for a moment. He passed it over the faces of the others, then returned to Buffy. He smiled and his head bobbed a few times.

“That’s quite a blade you got there, young lady,” the police officer said. He held out a hand. “Why don’t you hand it over before you hurt somebody? C’mon, you first.”

Buffy looked to the right of him, into the corner, and focused her eyes carefully on Ravana’s face. The twenty eyes were finished and glowed a dull red, but it seemed the red glow was getting stronger, brighter. The mouths were still yammering, but as she watched them, she realized suddenly they were no longer entirely silent.

She heard a distant, ghostly sound, voices, speaking rapidly, even wildly, in an unfamiliar language. The faint sound was synchronous with the movements of Ravana’s mouths. Buffy turned to Giles.

“It’s almost done,” she said.

“Hey!” the officer barked. He sounded angry, but his eyes twinkled mischeivous, and the spirit of a smirk darted around the corner of one corner of his mouth. “I thought I told you to give me that sword!”

When Buffy looked at the cop again, she noticed his badge for the first time. Something about it didn’t look right; without moving her arm, she flicked on her flashlight and aimed it at the cop. His badge reflected a flash of light. There was nothing engraved or embossed on the badge . . . it was a shiny, star-shaped piece of perfectly smooth metal.

“Give it to me, dammit!” the cop snapped again.

“Okay, take it.” Buffy drove the long blade straight through the middle of his upper body.

The cop’s mouth fell open and he made a groaning, gurgling sound. Willow and Cordelia stifled screams, and Giles gasped.

She pulled it out just as fast as she’d put it in, and dropped her flashlight to the floor as she clutched the handle with both hands. Stepping clear of Giles and the others, she spun around as she moved toward the cop.

The blood-streaked blade caught and reflected a strobe of lightning as it flashed first through air, then through the cop, just above the waist. He shrieked as he hit the floor in two pieces.

Giles was the first to be splashed with green goo.

Both pieces of the cop fluttered, dreamlike . . . shifted and warped as the horrible scream continued. The cop’s appearance broke down, liquefied, became taut, then reformed. The Rakshasa abruptly stopped shrieking and used its arms to crawl toward the stubby, kicking legs.

Buffy didn’t let it.

She brought the blade down on the head rapidly, repeatedly. It melted into a mound of the green gelatinous substance. Buffy stepped back from it and watched as it disappeared.

But the legs did not.

All of them stared down at the hairy, scabrous legs, which continued to kick wildly. At the top of the legs, though, from just above the waist, something was growing.

The rest of the Rakshasa’s severed body was being replaced.

“Evil flatworms,” Xander whispered. “Are we done yet?”

Buffy swung her sword like an ax until the growing, kicking legs were gone.

As she stood up straight, wet strands of hair stuck to her face. The babbling voices were louder, their words more distinct, though foreign. She bent down, picked up her flashlight, and turned it on Ravana as she stood.

Lips writhed in fast motion. No longer still, the arms reached and stiffened and swept up and down, back and forth; palms opened, fingers pointed, fists clenched and hammered air. She was watching a passionate but silent orator one didn’t need to hear in order to know it was malignant.

And the voices were louder, clearer. All the same voice, but gibbering differently at the same time.

“We don’t have much time,” Buffy said. “Willow?”

Willow came to Buffy’s side, unzipping her bag.

“You ready?” Buffy asked.

Willow nodded. “Sure, the sooner the better. ’Cause I think I’m gonna need to get to a bathroom soon.”

Buffy turned to the others. “Spread out a little. Verrry slowly.” She looked up.

The endless red eyes were still there. She couldn’t tell if they were watching her . . . they were just there.

“Okay, let’s go,” she muttered as she turned and walked toward Ravana. Willow was right behind her.

They stopped at the opening of the path between the candles. It was too narrow for them to walk it side by side, so Willow went first.

The instant Willow’s foot moved forward to step on the path, there was a gut-churning shriek, like heavy metal being twisted and torn, crushed and ground together, a cacophany of high squeals with throaty growls behind them, coming down from overhead, making the air convulse, growing louder, closer . . .

Hell opened up on them from above.

The horrible screaming from above frightened Xander so much, he felt as if his bones were melting inside him. He didn’t look up, because he didn’t want one of those creatures to fall on his face. But as he bowed his head and hunched his shoulders, he had the presence of mind to raise his sword so the blade was pointing straight up. It suddenly became much heavier in his hand and Xander raised his head.

A Rakshasa was skewered on his blade, screaming and kicking, glaring at Xander with the promise of death in its red eyes. Xander quickly lowered the sword, and the creature slid off the blade and dropped to the floor.

“Good start,” Xander said as he cut the creature into as many pieces as he could before the next came along, and the next and the next. Up ahead and to his right, another blade flashed in the darkness.

Oz hopped onto an old pinball machine lying broken and black on its side. It made him even taller than the small creatures that ran toward him, jagged mouths snapping. He swung the blade downward; it went through a neck and a horned, reptilian head tumbled through the air. Ran another through, severed an arm from a third. But there were too many of them coming too fast.

Angel became a part of the darkness. Instead of fighting the creatures off, he did what he did best . . . moved through shadows like a ghost and attacked them, leaving none remaining in his path.

The same thing was happening to Cordelia. Her back to a wet, dripping wall, she held the sword in both hands and swung it hard in wide half-circles from side to side. She did some damage with each swing, but not enough. They kept getting off the floor and coming back, with others rushing in behind them.

“Would at least some of you go away!” she screamed.

Something closed on her left leg and sharp points pierced her pants. Then her skin. Cordelia bent her knees so she could reach the creature and beat it with the heavy flashlight, while still holding off the incoming.

Buffy did the same thing in front of the candles, where the majority of the Rakshasa headed upon hitting the floor. More skilled with the sword, Buffy’s movements were quick and economical, and very effective.

“Do it, Willow!” Buffy shouted over her shoulder. “Do it now!”

The soul-chilling cry from above had frozen Willow in place, but Buffy’s shout snapped her out of it. Willow forced her legs to propel her forward along the candle path.

Two more fresh Rakshasa popped from the green blob and ran toward Willow. They darted around her as if she were merely an annoyance, eyes staring straight ahead, hurried to the walls, and started climbing toward the hole to go out for a night on the town.

Willow lifted her sword and brought it down on the pulsating green blob again and again, until it was a thick, liquid puddle and connecting tentacles had collapsed.

No more newbies.

But Buffy couldn’t hold off all of the Rakshasa so eager to stop Willow.

“Look out, Will!”

One of them slammed onto her back, clutched her shoulders, and snarled into her right ear. Its hot, moist breath washed over one side of her face and into her mouth and nose, as its snout opened wide to bite.

Willow screamed as she swung her left arm around and plunged the long, fat flashlight into the creature’s mouth, down its throat. It made a belching, gagging sound and dropped off her back, taking the flashlight with it.

Willow turned around and chopped the creature a couple times with the deadly edge of her scimitar before kicking it aside. The thing was cut nearly in two diagonally, from shoulder to hip, but still in one piece as it tumbled into the mass of small flickering flames, knocking candles over, throwing angry shadows around the floor.

Realizing its body was virtually in two pieces, the creature pulled itself together with one arm and tried to get up. But it was already in flames. It released a high, guttural shriek before dissolving into a sizzling, smoking mess.

Another was on its way toward her, having shot between Buffy’s legs.

Heart pounding rapidly, adrenaline flooding her body, Willow shouted, “The flame is quicker than the sword!” She swung the sword with both hands, sliced into the oncoming Rakshasa, and knocked him into the other blanket of flames.

“Good one, Will!” Buffy called back as she turned sharply to her left, swung the sword around, and threw the creature impaled on it into the candles. “Thanks!”

As the creatures screamed, Willow walked backward clumsily with one hand in her shoulder bag. She found the cold metal container, peeled the plastic lid off. She wrapped her fingers around the container and turned around.

The Ravana statuette was directly in front of her, not two feet away. She lifted the container from the bag, held it a moment in front of her as she looked at the gesticulating, chattering creature.

It stopped moving for a heartbeat. All the heads that could suddenly turned to Willow, their burning eyes locked onto her. Fingers pointed to her. The lips moved and the voices — closer now, louder — spoke furiously as one.

Willow stepped forward and poured the powder over the statuette. It clung to the damp surface, making the statuette look like some ghostly octopus.

Ravana’s voice became sharply louder as it screamed at her, wailing like a thousand mad wolves.

She removed the plastic container of liquid from the bag.

A creature hit the back of her legs and buckled her knees. She dropped to a kneeling position until another hopped onto her back and knocked her to the floor. Her sword slipped from her hand and clattered over the floor as another of the beasts jumped on her.

“Buffy!” Willow shouted.

Upon hearing the hellish cry from their materializing lord and master, the majority of the remaining Rakshasa had stopped what they were doing and rushed toward the corner. Having removed the creature that was clamped onto her lower leg, Cordelia found herself free to strike at the oncoming creatures more effectively, because there were fewer of them. So did Oz, still standing atop the old fallen pinball machine. As did Giles and Xander, who were moving in slow circles, their backs to one another, to fend off the beasts.

Buffy backed up the path, swinging and plunging the sword, missing some, hitting quickly enough and often enough to make them drop. But another wave of them came.

Willow screamed, “Buffy! Bufffeeee!”

Turning her head as far as she could, Buffy looked over her shoulder and saw Willow fighting desperately beneath a mound of Rakshasa. Willow’s left arm was raised, the plastic container in her hand.