Halloween Rain Read online

  INTO THE DARK . . .

  Down Buffy went, listening to her own heartbeat. There was the mildew smell of standing water mixed with the smell of dirt and perfume. She heard low laughter.

  Candlelight glowed against the wall as she reached the foot of the stairs. There was soft music playing. She reached the corner, paused for a heartbeat, then three. Finally, she poked her head out and saw four or five couples cuddling on some old couches draped with bedspreads. She hesitated. Maybe this was her cue to mutter, “Sorry,” and tiptoe back upstairs. But she knew that something funky was going on. Something unnatural. Evil.

  Then she heard the whimpering.

  And the slurping.

  Buffy turned on her flashlight and held it high above her head.

  Five vampires, five human victims pinned beneath them on the couches. The vamps raised their faces and hissed at her. Blood glittered on their lips.

  “Get her!” one of the vampires shouted, and they moved toward her as one, a wall of living darkness.

  Upstairs, the door slammed shut.

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  For Nancy,

  who honored me with this collaboration,

  and for Sarah Michelle Gellar,

  who makes it all look so easy.

  —C.G.

  To my beloved daughter, Belle.

  I hope you’ll grow up to be as strong and brave as Buffy,

  as clever as Willow,

  and as silly as your dad.

  To Chris, my wonderful coauthor. You’re the greatest.

  —N.H.

  Acknowledgments

  No novel is ever completed without a supporting cast and crew. Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder would like to thank the people who helped us with our excellent adventure in Buffy Land, AKA Boca del Infierno. They are: our agents, Lori Perkins and Howard Morhaim; Joss Whedon and everyone connected with our favorite Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar; our wonderful families, especially Connie and Wayne; and our Pocket posse, Lisa Clancy, Liz Shiflett, and Helena Santini. A thank-you, also, to Alice Alfonsi, for the jump-start.

  And to Isabell Granados from Nancy, muchas gracias.

  PROLOGUE

  It was getting late. In the dim moonlight, the statues atop the gravestones in the Sunnydale Cemetery cast strange shadow-shapes across the dark mounds under which the town’s dead lay. How long they might stay buried was in question, of course, since Sunnydale had another name. Early Spanish settlers called it Boca del Infierno. Buffy Summers didn’t need to habla to translate: she lived in the Hellmouth.

  Literally.

  The cemetery provided the clearest indication of the town’s true nature. Weeping stone angels became laughing devils. Hands clasped in prayer looked like ripping claws. Crosses hung upside down.

  Way boring.

  Buffy the Vampire Slayer stood just outside the cemetery and scanned the darkness among the gravestones for trouble. She sighed heavily as she leaned her elbows on the cemetery’s granite wall. October 30th was almost over. She’d been out on patrol for hours, and she hadn’t seen one vampire, one demon, one witch, one anything.

  Well, okay, one witch. In gym. But Cordelia didn’t count. She wasn’t supernaturally evil. She only acted like a broom rider. Buffy understood. Poor Cordelia was cursed with popularity, great clothes, and, no lie, she was a babe. Naturally she had to take her frustrations out on everybody who didn’t have it as good as she did.

  Buffy supposed she should count her own blessings. She and Giles, her Watcher, had both expected the Halloween season to be the equivalent of finals for her Slayer diploma. All through October she’d trained hard, kept in shape, and sharpened up some very thick and sturdy pieces of wood. She was psyched for slaughter. She was pumped for pounding.

  The little things a teenager gets excited about.

  But now, standing outside the graveyard, the only monsters she was fighting were major Godzilla yawns. Buffy was so not thrilled. She hadn’t seen any extreme vampire action for three weeks. Or much of anything else. Zip. Zilch. Nada. She’d been so bored she’d actually started to study. But that novelty was so over.

  Still, no vamp sightings. Wasn’t this cause for putting on a happy face?

  Ever since she’d found out she was the Chosen One, all she’d wanted was to be a normal teenage girl. Maybe even a cheerleader. To have a honey of a boyfriend, hang out with her friends, and try to graduate from high school while doing as little actual studying as possible.

  Instead, her extracurriculars centered around staking vampires, wasting monsters, and trying to keep her friends breathing long enough for them to graduate from high school. Much joy, what a treat. Smart, cute chick in desperate need of a life. But did she try to get a life? No, she wandered around looking for something undead to re-dead.

  Pathetic much?

  It isn’t bad enough I have to pull the night shift, Buffy thought, but how much more of a waste of time is it to be the Slayer when all the slayees are of town or something?

  “Yo, dead guys,” she called mournfully. Then she shrugged. What the hell. Her mom would tell her not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Good symbolism: teeth were a big issue in Buffy’s life. If you had long, sharp, pointy ones, she killed you.

  Not tonight. She was a soldier without a war. All dressed up and no one to destroy. Time to call it a night, she figured. Maybe Willow would come over for some American history tutoring and they could scarf all the Halloween candy Buffy’s mom had bought at the store. Or they could curl up with a good gory horror movie, the way Buffy and her mom used to do before Buffy had to burn down the gym at her old high school to kill a bunch of vampires, and they had to move to Sunnydale.

  Out of the frying pan, into the mouth of hell.

  From deep within the cemetery, a bloodcurdling scream pierced the night. Without hesitation, Buffy vaulted over the cemetery wall. She scanned left and right as she raced in the direction of the scream, dodging broken headstones, bushes, and tree roots. Just in case, she yanked open her shoulder bag and pulled out a stake. Boy Scouts and vampire slayers should always be prepared.

  Another scream, this one louder and more frantic.

  She ran faster, wondering what she would be going up against. One vampire? Two? A tribe of them? Or something she had never encountered before, a Halloween treat from hell? For half a second, she wished she had an elsewhere to be, but she brushed the thought away. She’d been looking for trouble. Now it had found her. She was the Chosen One, after all.

  Another scream—shriek, more like. Now Buffy could tell it was a girl’s voice. Screaming.

  “Oh, God, stop!” it went on.

  Afraid she might be too late, Buffy charged around the nearest headstone.

  A blond-haired girl was struggling and kicking on the long, marble slab top of a tomb. A dark figure held both her wrists in his clutches, and he laughed and lowered his head, aiming for her neck. The girl shrieked even louder.

  Buffy put one sneaker on top of a headstone and launched herself through the air. She tore the figure off the girl and they tumbled to the ground beside the tomb together. She threw him on his back, wrapped her hands around the stake, took aim, and—

  “Stop!” the girl on the tomb screeched in abject terror. “Leave him alone!
”

  Buffy glanced up at the shadowed face of the girl’s attacker. It was John Bartlett, who sat across from her in trig class. And his “victim” was Aphrodesia Kingsbury, his girlfriend.

  “What’s your damage, Buffy?” Aphrodesia yelled, as John scrabbled away from Buffy. Aphrodesia threw her arms around him. “Insane much? Are you, like, asylum bound or what?”

  Buffy moved away from John, put the stake in her bag as calmly as she could, and cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I, ah, thought you were someone else.”

  She got to her feet. The two kids stared at her. She tried to smile, her face twisted into a grimace of acute humiliation. “Sorry,” she said again. “Ah, happy Halloween.”

  She turned around and squared her shoulders, walking back the way she had come with as much dignity as she could muster.

  “What a psycho,” Aphrodesia said, and didn’t even bother to whisper.

  “Way psycho,” John replied. “She’s a hotty, though.”

  “Jo-ohn!” Aphrodesia whined.

  Buffy could hear them bickering all the way to the cemetery wall. It was that disgustingly sweet bickering people did when they actually had a someone to bicker with. Buffy the Chosen One, the Slayer, the complete moron, went home to concentrate on eating all the frozen yogurt in the house.

  After all, tomorrow was another day. And another night.

  Halloween night, actually.

  And there had to be something to keep a Slayer busy on Halloween.

  CHAPTER 1

  Buffy hadn’t slept well, and as if she wasn’t tired enough already, the sky was crowded with dark clouds, the air heavy and damp with the threat of rain. It was the kind of day that just made you want to pull the covers over your head and snooze all day. Like a vampire. It was the kind of day when guys and gals too hip to get cancer got all broken up because they couldn’t work on their tans.

  Actually, sometimes Buffy thought it would be better if tans hadn’t suddenly become as uncool as smoking. It’d be a lot easier to tell the undead from the brain dead.

  Resolved to stay awake in first period, she forced her eyes open wider. Backpack over her shoulder, Buffy marched toward school, a little early as always. Well, not always. She was never even on time at her old school, but she was trying to reform. And besides, when she showed early, she got to hang with Willow and Xander for a few minutes before the whole grand delirium of the school day began.

  “Happy Halloween!” Xander cried as he caught up from behind.

  Buffy smiled slightly as he fell into step with her. “Xander, isn’t Halloween, like, prom night for ghouls? The night when, all over the world, the forces of darkness are set free for their annual block party?”

  “Well, yeah, but it’s all costumes and parties and trick-or-treat and—” Xander began, but Buffy cut him off.

  “And where do we live?” she prodded.

  “Okay, I get the point,” he surrendered. “But things have been pretty quiet lately, so I figured, why not be a little festive during my used-to-be-favorite-before-I-knew-all-this-stuff-was-real holiday?”

  Buffy gave up. “Happy Halloween to you, too, Xander.” She winced inside. The last person she’d offered season’s greetings to had called her a thundering psycho.

  Xander Harris offered her a charming, crooked smile and pushed his somebody-get-me-a-comb hair away from his forehead. It seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but by then they had reached the bench where they met each morning. Willow was already there, her nose in a huge, dusty old book. The title was something about arcane rituals.

  Xander peered over her shoulder. “Willow, dear Willow, you used to read such wholesome things.” He feigned almost parental disapproval. “Now you’ve just fallen in with the wrong crowd.”

  Willow closed her book. “Giles loaned it to me,” she said. “Fascinating stuff, actually. Apparently, there was this sixteenth-century alchemist who—and you guys really don’t want to hear this anyway.”

  Buffy and Xander exchanged innocent looks—Who, us? Not enraptured? But it would be a cold day in a place like, well, here, when they could put anything over on her. She tutored both of them in different subjects, was an Internet commando, and once in a while had to serve as Giles’s translator, when the stuffy British librarian forgot he was speaking to people who hadn’t spent their entire lives locked up in the Twilight Zone library.

  “Happy Halloween, Willow,” Buffy said warmly.

  “Yeah, trick or treat, chica,” Xander added.

  With her long, straight chestnut hair and sad eyes, Willow Rosenberg was every bit as sweet yet, um, unelegant, as her name might suggest. But she and Xander were the best friends Buffy had ever had. They knew everything about her, about her being the Slayer, and they stuck by her. In fact, time and again, Willow and Xander put their lives on the line for her, and for the town.

  Buffy was the Chosen One. Slaying was her job. Willow and Xander did all the crazy stuff by choice. As far as Buffy was concerned, her friends were a lot braver than they ever gave themselves credit for.

  “I don’t know,” Willow said, as Buffy and Xander sat on the bench on either side of her. “Halloween isn’t a big deal anymore. I mean, when we were kids, we got to dress up and go trick-or-treating. Once you’re in the double digits, it’s so over. I think I’m in mourning for my childhood, and I’m only sixteen.”

  “Clone that,” Buffy said.

  “Remember bobbing for apples at those killer Halloween parties your mom used to throw?” Xander asked Willow, and she smiled at him.

  The two had known each other their whole lives, and Buffy had only come along this year. But they never made her feel left out, even when they talked about things they’d shared in the past.

  “I remember you trying to drown me while I was bobbing for apples,” Willow replied, then turned to Buffy. “It’s amazing the selective memory guys have.”

  “Well, you know guys only tease girls when they’re trying to get noticed,” Buffy said, and raised an eyebrow.

  “I noticed him when I was, like, five years old,” Willow said under her breath. “I’m waiting for him to notice I noticed.”

  “I loved those parties,” Xander went on, oblivious to Willow’s comments. “I always used to win the pumpkin-carving contest. Big fun.”

  He sighed. “You’re right. Halloween sucks now. Even the horror movies on cable aren’t as fun anymore, ever since . . .” He hesitated. “Ah, ever since—”

  “I know,” Buffy said, sighing. “Ever since I came to town. I feel the same way. My mother and I used to watch all the classic fright flicks together and gorge ourselves on popcorn and leftover Halloween candy. Somehow I’ve lost interest in the movies. Now we just gorge ourselves.”

  Buffy felt a drop of rain on her arm and was about to mention it when Willow tapped her leg.

  “Wicked witch and winged monkeys at ten o’clock,” she murmured.

  Buffy looked up to see Cordelia and her fan club about to pass by. Cordelia paid no attention to them, but Aphrodesia Kingsbury was with her, and Buffy glanced away as the girl spotted her.

  “Well, if it isn’t my stalker,” Aphrodesia sneered. “I told them all about it, Buffy, so don’t try to deny your after-hours bipolar wig out to anyone on campus.” She glared at her. “Isn’t there some kind of medication you’re forgetting to take?”

  Before Buffy could respond, Xander snapped angrily, “Careful, Miss twenty-five-watt. I wouldn’t make Buffy mad if I were you.”

  “Xander,” Buffy hissed, and Willow elbowed him in the stomach.

  “Excuse me? Are you threatening me?” Aphrodesia said, zooming in like a heat-seeking missile on Xander. “Because my sister’s fiancé is in law school and, like, he told me he would serve anybody I asked him to.”

  “You know, I’d love it if he served me. I can’t seem to get my own waiter’s attention and we don’t even have menus yet,” Xander mocked. “Good help. Hard to find. So.”

 
“Oh, you people are so . . . not,” Aphrodesia said, wrinkling her nose as if she’d smelled something nasty. “You two.” She nodded toward Xander and Willow. “It’s like Cordelia says. You’re just run-of-the-mill losers. With a lot of effort, you might actually evolve into primates. But not if you loiter with Buffy. Her weirdness is like some brain-eating virus, and it’s seriously infected your chances for a normal social life.”

  By then, Cordelia and the rest of her crew had moved on, and Aphrodesia spun in a huff to follow.

  “Y’know, I’ve seen Heathers,” Buffy said aloud. “I just want to know why Christian Slater is never around when you need him.”

  The three of them were quiet until the others were out of earshot. Then Willow turned to Xander with her eyebrows raised.

  “What?” Xander asked.

  “Miss twenty-five-watt?”

  “Well, Aphrodesia’s not very bright,” Xander explained. “Twenty-five-watt. Get it?”

  “Got it,” Buffy and Willow said simultaneously.

  “Who writes your stuff?” Buffy asked, and the girls laughed together.

  “Well, I thought it was funny,” Xander mumbled snippily.

  “We’re just kidding, Xander,” Willow said. “You know we love you.”

  “Good thing, or you’d both be in deep can’t-say-that-on-television,” he replied menacingly.

  “Witness our trembling,” Buffy drawled.

  “I have that effect on women,” Xander announced.

  “So,” Willow said, “you guys both coming to the Bronze tonight?”

  “The masquerade! Wouldn’t miss it!” Xander said excitedly. “I’m going as Indiana Jones.”

  “Oh, I’m so not surprised,” Willow said. “You’ve dressed in that stupid hat every Halloween since you were nine.”

  Xander stared at her, horrified, and Buffy stifled a laugh to save him from further embarrassment.

  “If adventure has a name, my dear, it’s Xander Harris,” he said proudly. “Well, actually, it’s Harrison Ford, but women confuse the two of us all the time.”