Resurrecting Ravana (9 page)

“No, really,” Xander went on. “They use all that stuff from the cows in experiments and tests.”

“Or for alien hot dogs,” Oz muttered.

Cordelia pulled away from Xander a bit and turned to face him. “What kind of tests would need all that stuff?”

He shrugged. “Hey, if I thought it would help with exams, I’d go out and get a cow’s tongue myself.”

“Not a bad idea,” Cordelia muttered. “You might find something you’re good at.”

“I’m quite familiar with the phenomenon of cattle mutilations, thank you,” Giles said, still pacing slowly, hands locked behind him. “What happened here was not the same.”

Willow turned and propped an elbow up on the back of her chair to look at Giles. “I think you were right yesterday,” she said. “We’re just going to have to wait and see what happens next.”

“Have you tried the Sci-Fi Channel’s Web site?” Cordelia asked, rolling her eyes as she stood.

“Hey, for some real scares,” Xander said, “let’s go to Cordy’s Web site.”

“You have a Web site, Cordelia?” Willow asked.

Xander stood, grinning. “Sure she does. Shrew dot com.”

Cordelia turned to him slowly with eyes narrowed icily. “Why don’t you www dot bite me dot com?”

Xander leaned over until he and Cordelia were almost pressed together, took both of her hands in his, and whispered, “I love it when you talk Internet to me.”

One corner of Cordelia’s mouth slowly curled upward. Xander kissed her on the lips, gently at first, but it quickly became more intense.

Oz cleared his throat. “Download otherwhere?”

Giles stopped pacing, faced them, and asked, “Does anyone know of Buffy’s whereabouts?”

Xander pulled back slightly from Cordelia. “I saw her for a minute right after school,” he said. “She was going home to study. At least, that’s what she told me.” Then he smiled as he put his arms around Cordelia and started to kiss her again, but she put both hands on his chest and held him back.

“Error, computer boy,” she said. “Your server’s down. Try again later.”

“What’s the matter?”

She lowered her voice, as if the others wouldn’t hear. “You want to make out with other people around?”

“You’ve never minded before,” Xander said, dropping his arms to his sides.

“Not now. It’s rude.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Oh, and that’s never stopped you before.”

Cordelia shook her head, annoyed, and leaned back in her chair again. Xander sat in his chair, too. Cordelia scooted her chair a couple feet away from him.

There were some hurried sounds in the front part of the library, and Buffy joined them, stopping abruptly in front of Giles. She was winded, as if she’d been running, and her hair and clothes were wet. Everyone said hi, but she ignored them, focusing on Giles.

“It’s happened again,” she said.

Giles said, “You mean more cattle have been —”

“No,” she interrupted. “Not cattle this time. A person.”

On the radio earlier, Buffy had heard that seventy-one-year-old Tom Niles had killed seventy-year-old Delbert Kepley with his riding lawnmower. Kepley’s sixty-eight-year-old wife had witnessed the grisly murder. Niles had casually driven his mower into his garage immediately afterward, then gone into his house.

Buffy pulled an empty chair away from one of the tables and flopped into it, flicking a strand of wet hair away from her eye.

“Is that the whole story,” Xander asked, “or are you trying to build suspense?”

“There’s more, there’s more,” she said wearily. “It wasn’t raining when I left the house, so I didn’t bring an umbrella. It started a couple blocks later and I got soaked. Then I had to make a few points with a bunch of vampires on the way through the cemetery. About two seconds after dusk, too, like they can’t wait to get out and raise hell. No stretching, no taking time to wake up . . . just out of the ground and off to work.”

Giles moved a chair and seated himself in front of her. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and said uncertainly, “Uh, Buffy, you did say there was more?”

She nodded. “When the police knocked on the killer’s door, they got no answer.”

“Duh,” Xander said with a chuckle. “Most people who puree their next-door neighbor don’t sit around waiting for guests.”

“He was there,” Buffy went on. “He just didn’t answer the door. The police searched the house for him and finally found him in the attic. I mean . . . they found what was left of him.” She turned her eyes to Giles. “From the description on the radio, he was just like the cattle. Eaten to the bone.”

“Are they sure it was the same man?” Giles asked.

“He was identified with dental records this afternoon. Or denture records, whatever. It was Tom Niles, the lawnmower killer.”

Giles stood, walked around his chair, and leaned forward with both hands clutching the back of it. He looked tense as he lowered his head slowly.

“A person,” he said quietly. “Eaten. But why? And by what?”

“Little chance he got attacked by a mountain lion in his attic,” Xander said.

“Or by any other form of wildlife I can think of,” Willow said.

Buffy spoke up: “You mean
natural
wildlife.”

Giles stood up straight. “Are you absolutely certain it was exactly the same as with the cattle? Were there any comparisons made in the report you heard?”

“No,” she replied. “Not yet.”

Willow turned to the computer and began clicking the mouse and tapping the keys.

“The radio,” Giles said as he spun and walked briskly to his office. He continued speaking along the way: “We must find out all the facts before we panic.” He got the radio, clicked it on, and turned the dial on his way back. “The remains could be different in some way.” Giles frowned at the radio as he found one music station after another. “Those cows were found in a very distinct condition, and if this man was not found in that exact — oh, here, Buffy, find the station, would you?”

Buffy found it in a couple seconds, just in time for the sports report.

“It’s in the afternoon paper,” Willow said, looking at the screen, scrolling with the mouse. “It’s not a very long article, but it’s something.”

“Do print that for me, Willow,” Giles said.

“Okay. What else can I do to help?”

“You should catch up on your studying.”

When no one else asked to study with her — or said anything at all, for that matter — Willow sighed quietly.

A copy of the newspaper article slid out of the printer and Willow handed it to Giles. His eyes ran down the page quickly, darting back and forth.

“Yes, it is short on details,” he said. “Perhaps there will be more tomorrow. For now, I’d like to consult some books I have at home.”

“That means we have to leave?” Cordelia asked, looking disappointed.

Giles headed for his office, saying, “Would you like to stay here?”

Xander lifted his arms in defeat and said, “He’s right. No television.” He turned to Cordelia. “What do you say we go someplace and study together?”

“I don’t think so,” Cordelia said. She stepped around him and headed for the door.

“You’ve got something better to do?” Xander called.

She looked back over her shoulder. “If it were the loneliest, most depressing night of my life, I’d have something better to do.” She went out the door.

“Hey!” Xander hurried out of the library after her.

Buffy went to the front desk and announced, “I’m going out on patrol, Giles.”

Giles was shuffling around in his office. “Very good, Buffy. And be on your guard.” He came out of the office as he slipped on his long, gray coat. “If something unique is out and about, you’re likely to be the first person to encounter it.”

“ ’Bye, Buff!” Willow called. But the library door had already swung shut behind Buffy.

“I’m going to stay and talk to Giles,” she told Oz. “I’ll call you later?”

Her boyfriend kissed her. “I’m good,” he said and headed out.

Willow picked up her books from the computer table and went up to the front of the library. Giles was switching off the lights.

“Giles, could we, you know, have a little talk? There’s something I really need to talk about.”

He thumbed through the keys on his ring, looking for the right one. “I’m terribly sorry, Willow, but I’m afraid I’m very preoccupied right now, what with . . .” He found the key, flipped off the last light, and ushered Willow out into the hall. “What with this new oddity we seem to be facing, you understand, don’t you?” He closed and locked the door and they started down the hall. “I’ve got some things I must do right now if I ever hope to sleep tonight, so I’m afraid I’ll be —”

“I know, Giles, but, see, this is something I’ve been trying to tell —”

“How about tomorrow? Would that be all right?”

Willow brightened. “That would be great! What time?”

“Oh, time? Actually, I wasn’t being that specific. I meant sometime . . . in the general area of tomorrow. Sometime.”

Willow’s smile wilted as they stopped at the doors and faced one another.

“Uh, can I give you a lift somewhere?” Giles asked.

He’ll have to listen to me in the car,
Willow thought as her smile quickly returned. She nodded and said, “Sure. Thanks.”

Rain pounded on Giles’s car in the faculty parking lot. He and Willow had been sitting in the car for nearly ten minutes. Giles had started the car and was about to pull out of his parking spot when Willow told him about the spell with which she’d tried to cure Oz’s lycanthropy. He’d put the gearshift back in park, killed the engine, and stared at her intensely until she finished.

Willow fidgeted silently, waiting for Giles to say something, to respond, to get angry . . . something. Too much time passed and she took in a breath to speak, but he beat her to it.

“Willow, why on earth didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” Giles blurted.

“I tried, Giles, really, I did, but you were —”

He closed his eyes and nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes, you’re quite correct, I’ve been terribly busy and I kept putting you off, I realize that now, and I’m sorry, but Willow, do you realize what you might have done?”

“Yes, that’s why I wanted to tell you.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to put off your studying for now.”

“Why?”

He took the key from the ignition. “We’re going back into the library. I want you to show me the exact spell you used, every last detail of it. If it is responsible for what happened to those cattle and to that unfortunate man today, I hope we’re able to reverse it.”

Buffy heard them before she even reached the edge of the cemetery.

Her hair and clothes were soaked, and her shoes squished loudly with each step. She’d considered getting an umbrella from Giles back at the library but decided to hope the rain would pass. The umbrella would probably weigh her down, anyway. And from the sounds she heard beyond the wrought-iron fence surrounding the cemetery, she didn’t need anything to do that.

Just beneath the sound of the falling rain were sounds of movement. And a few other sounds, like grunts and throaty gurglings.

Buffy walked along the fence to the double gates. A padlocked chain held the two gates together, but not very closely together, because the chain was loosely wrapped. She squeezed through the opening easily, and into the cemetery.

Buffy’s eyes had had plenty of time to adjust to the dark, but the darkness in the cemetery seemed a little deeper . . . to have a little more dimension.

And something in the darkness moved.

She walked along the cobblestone path, which was bordered, in places, by rose bushes and a couple weathered stone benches. There were tall oaks all around the cemetery, and Buffy was conscious of their branches overhead, listening for the slightest hint of additional movement.

To another person, Buffy would appear to be nothing more than a young woman taking a shortcut, a young woman who apparently didn’t mind that it happened to be through the cemetery.

But the movement in the dark knew better.

Buffy heard something overhead, on its way down. She took one quick step and stopped at the same instant its feet clumped on the cobblestones directly behind her. As she spun around, her foot found the target half a second before her eyes and crushed a cheekbone. She tried to follow through with her hands, but the thing grabbed her right forearm and threw her off balance.

The vampire jerked Buffy toward it and twisted her right arm behind her, clutched her throat tightly with its right hand, and held her close. Its face encompassed her field of vision. Male, dark . . . maybe even handsome once. But not anymore.

“Slayer’s blood,” the creature snarled through a grin of needles, squeezing her throat tighter.

“Not tonight,” Buffy said in a strangled whisper. “You’ve had enough. Time to go home.”

She brought her knee up hard between the vampire’s legs and stepped back. She had taken a stake from her belt a moment earlier with her free hand. As he bent forward in momentary pain, Buffy swung the spike up into his heart. The power of her swing stood the vampire upright again, its mouth yawning open, eyes burning with hatred.

A split second after Buffy jerked the stake back, the creature vanished in a sucking whoosh of dust.

Something running through the grass. To the right. Closing fast.

Buffy hurried toward the sound, stepped aside, and held out her right arm. She clotheslined the vampire — a female with long silver-and-black hair. The ground hit the vampire in the back, and Buffy staked it in the front.

Two coming up from behind. Hardly time to turn around.

A kick in the face for one, the edge of a hand to the throat for the other. Then she danced with them. It was a dance her Watcher had taught her, and one she was born to repeat, over and over. She used every part of her body as a weapon: twisting, jumping, kicking, hitting. Finally, staking. Both at once with a stake in each hand.

But others filled their place, and others after them. They kept coming. Too many for one cemetery. Had others come from different cemeteries to wait for her? But how had they known where she would be?

They don’t know, not necessarily,
Buffy thought, after staking a vampire on its way out of its grave.
They’re just . . . more active tonight, more stirred up than usual. Out and about, restless.