The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Three - SONS of ENTROPY Read online

  At about the same time that, here in Sunnydale, Xander had been shot.

  “When we get to the mansion, we’ll call the Gatehouse,” Giles said, as if he could read Buffy’s mind.

  “We call my mom first,” Buffy objected. “Then we’ll pick her up. We’ll move everybody up there and—”

  Giles said, “Oh, God, Buffy, you don’t know.”

  Buffy went numb. “About a lot of things. Which one is this?” She leaned forward. “Giles? What don’t I know?”

  He looked into the rearview mirror and she saw the reflection of his eyes in the ghostly light of the dashboard. It was one of those moments that freeze-frame in your mind; it was a moment when everything stopped and she waited for him to tell her something unspeakable.

  He didn’t disappoint.

  “Buffy, I’m afraid your mother has been abducted,” he said. “The Sons of Entropy took her and—”

  For at least five seconds, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. She couldn’t hear a word he said. She was a vast field of endless panic.

  “Buffy?” he said gently.

  She leaned forward and slammed her fist down on his backrest, very near his head.

  “Where were you?” she shouted.

  Micaela half turned, murmuring, “Buffy, I’m sorry.”

  Buffy glared at her. “Your father did this,” she hissed at her. “Your father.”

  “He isn’t really my father,” the woman replied weakly.

  Giles looked sharply at Micaela. She dropped her gaze.

  Buffy turned back to Giles. “Where is she? Where are they keeping her?”

  “Xander was shot trying to save her,” Giles said, and it occurred to Buffy in a vague blur of jumbled thoughts that she hadn’t even asked how Xander had been hurt. Everything was so bad and they had to move so fast that all she had done was register that one of her best friends might be dying—might be dead by now for all she knew—and then she had moved on to the next bad thing on a list of very bad things.

  “Where were you, Giles?” she accused him again, feeling everything slipping away from her. “Cross-indexing your stupid reference books? Making tea?”

  “Hey,” Angel said from the backseat. “Buffy, take it easy.”

  Buffy whirled on the vampire. “Don’t you defend him! I risked her life by going off to Europe to find Jacques. I left her alone. I couldn’t be here, but he was here. All he had to do was take care of her. We knew there were leaks in the Watchers’ Council security. We knew there were bad guys everywhere you looked!”

  She turned back to Giles. “So where were you?”

  Suddenly she was aware of a small hand moving over her closed fist. She looked over at Jacques Regnier. Tears were rolling down his face. He raised his other hand and made a circle in the air with his forefinger. Buffy felt a tingle against her cheek, almost like a kiss. There was another connection between them now: they each faced the potential death of a parent. But he had been prepared for his. He had known his father would one day die.

  “We all die,” he said softly, as if he could read her mind. “Even Gatekeepers.”

  Tears welled but Buffy fought them back. Fought down her anger and the terror that threatened to completely wipe her out.

  “They came to my apartment,” Giles said. “They disguised themselves as floral delivery men, and she let them in.”

  “Mom,” Buffy said, incredulous. How could she have been so careless?

  She lowered her head, about to apologize to Giles, when he went on.

  “They want to trade, Buffy.” His voice dropped. “And you know we can’t do that.”

  She raised her head. “I don’t know that,” she said wildly. “I don’t know that at all.”

  Micaela turned to her again. “No, Buffy. You can’t.”

  She shrugged. “One Slayer dies, another one is called. No big. My mom dies, that’s a really big big.”

  Micaela shook her head. “My father needs the blood of a Slayer to satisfy his demon sponsor. If you die under my father’s knife, the gates of Hell will surely open.”

  “They’re going to open anyway.” Buffy raised her chin.

  “And your mother will die then, too,” Micaela said mercilessly. “And she will suffer eternal torment.”

  Buffy took a breath and stopped the smart-ass retort that threatened to bubble over from her superheated nerves. All business, everything else inside herself tied down for the storm, she said, “When’s the trade supposed to take place?”

  “It already came and went.” Giles signaled to the right and they began to crest the hill that led to Angel’s mansion. “We tried to surprise them, get your mother back. But they were a step ahead of us. Two, actually,” he added in a defeated voice. “Buffy, you know that if I could have given my own life for hers, I would have.”

  “No.” She spoke the word as if it were a punch to her gut. “You wouldn’t, Giles. Because you’re my Watcher. And your first obligation is to me.” And she hated that.

  Giles did not respond. Buffy stared at her hands, at the smaller hand over hers.

  Giles could say nothing, because there was nothing to be said.

  Little Jacques said, “I have some magick, Buffy. I shall do whatever I can.”

  “Thanks,” she said dully.

  As he had helped load the unconscious werewolf into his van, Giles now helped Angel carry Oz up to the house. The vampire, though uncommonly strong, was very tired from a long night and countless battles with the Sons of Entropy, demons, and the dead who were frantic to escape their limbo dimension and reenter the world, tenuous as that harbor appeared to be.

  Giles was glad of the physical exertion required, for it gave him a way to slake some of the tension coursing through his body like a live electric wire. He was acutely aware of Buffy’s distress, for he shared it. Joyce Summers was not related to him; she was not his wife, nor his sister, nor his mother. Yet he cared for her deeply, and he felt entirely responsible for her kidnapping. Even though it had been she who had opened the door.

  He would never tell Buffy that their enemies had signed Buffy’s name to the card that had accompanied the flowers. The Slayer already blamed herself. It would serve no purpose to increase her grief.

  He was also acutely aware of Micaela. Incredibly, throughout all she had been through, she still smelled of a sweet floral fragrance. Her honey-blond hair still shone as it tumbled over her shoulders.

  His body still reacted to the sight of her.

  So it was with distinct relief that he helped Angel carry Oz into the very place where Angel, as the evil, soulless Angelus, had once delighted in torturing him. Where he had threatened Giles with a chainsaw and worse. Angelus, the one with the angelic face, who had stalked Jenny Calendar, the woman whom Giles had loved, and twisted her head too hard to the left, and killed her with a song in his heart.

  The last time Giles had come to this place, he could make himself stay only a few moments. It conjured too many painful memories. Now, if it helped in any way, he would gladly remain here for the rest of his life.

  He and Angel carried Oz to a corner in the large living room. After they had secured Oz with a substantial pair of handcuffs Angel had produced from a small, ornate box, Buffy demanded that Angel drive her to her home. From there the two would fan out and begin the search for her mother. Giles thought to protest; surely the Sons of Entropy would be watching her house, lying in wait for her appearance. The Slayer was the prize they sought; Joyce was mere bait. But Giles knew Buffy very well. She would not listen to his warnings and dire predictions. At best, they would only spur her on.

  She needed to do what she needed to do. He had never been able to stay her from her chosen course of action. And often, she had been proven right in her insistence upon stepping outside the boundaries of what was reasonable and prudent. It was not his place to stop her.

  Correction: it was his place, but there was no sense in even trying.

  Next, the po
or, tired child had lain down in what appeared to be Angel’s bedroom, a light on, and Micaela had sung him a lullaby. Giles knew that boys of eleven generally protested against such childish things, but, peering from the doorway, he had seen the whisper of comfort that had spread over Jacques Regnier’s features. Apparently his own mother had committed suicide when Jacques was a mere toddler. The prospect of life in the Gatehouse had been too much for her. Better death than madness.

  Next she whispered words of magick, raising wards around the mansion. Giles stood apart, reflecting bitterly that if it were not for her father, they would need no wards.

  Angel and Buffy were gone, and the boy was asleep in a room whose window was also heavily fortified with wrought iron. That left Giles alone with Micaela. As he stood by the empty, black windows, staring into the darkness and wondering if the Sons of Entropy knew they were here, she sat wearily on the couch facing the empty, black fireplace. He looked at her without turning his head. She was pale and drawn, and obviously as uncomfortable as he was. She trembled slightly, though from the chill air, fatigue, or nerves—or a combination of all three—he had no idea.

  After a long, pregnant silence, he said, “I’ll make some tea.”

  “Yes, thank you.” Her shoulders were rounded. She looked as if she wanted to do nothing more than sleep.

  And be forgiven.

  Abruptly he left the room and went into the kitchen. Each movement seemed strange to him, as if he were inhabiting another’s body, as he made the tea and got the cups. When the world was ending, the minutiae of life seemed ridiculous and self-indulgent.

  The kettle screamed. No milk or sugar having been located, he set the steaming cups on a small tray and put it on Angel’s coffee table.

  She lifted a cup and began to sip. Suddenly she put it down and covered her face with her hands.

  “I’m so sorry, Giles,” she said. “Fulcanelli . . . I didn’t know who or what he was. I was very little when he adopted me. He was very kind. He became my father. How could I know the things my loving father taught me were . . .”

  “Evil,” Giles finished for her.

  Micaela only wept.

  From her conversation with Buffy in the van, Giles had already deduced that the ancient nemesis of the house of Regnier, Giacomo Fulcanelli, was the creature she thought of as her father. And yet, it was a shock to hear her admit as much. To admit that she had set him up to be pushed down the stairs, or worse. And then, to have visited him in hospital in her bright red dress with flowers and a very nice volume of Sherlock Holmes stories, acting as if she’d been attracted to him. It wounded him deeply. It angered him.

  “Most demons are kind to someone, at some level,” Giles said after a beat. “That’s their seduction. The weakness they seek in order to recruit accomplices.”

  He heard her suck in her breath. Then she said, “Think about how it would be for you if you discovered now that everything you knew about Buffy was a lie. If you learned that she was more evil than the evil she was supposed to wipe out. This lovely girl you have been charged with protecting and guiding. If someone handed you a gun and told you to shoot her because she was a vile, base creature bent upon the complete destruction of mankind, could you?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly.

  “And if someone told you to shoot me?” she whispered.

  He turned to her, looked into her eyes. She had aged in the short time since he had last seen her, not very much, but more than she should have. He couldn’t help the wave of sympathy that washed through him. The slight softening of his heart.

  “Micaela,” he said, meaning his tone to be firm and authoritative. Instead, he spoke her name like a besotted lover.

  To his dismay, she began to weep again.

  “Rupert, I am so sorry,” she said. “I have so many regrets.”

  “Yes, well, now is not the time for that.” He examined the interior of the mansion—anything to avoid looking directly at her. “You must explain to me exactly what’s going on.”

  “Yes, of course.” She took a deep breath. “You see, my father . . . the man I called Father . . . is a very old and powerful sorcerer.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Giles said, frowning. “But what does he want?”

  “To do what another fallen one did.” Her lovely face was very grave. “To reign in Hell.”

  She rose from the couch and twisted her hands together. “For years, he told me and his followers about the Otherworld, where wonderful creatures dwell. The stuff of our myths and legends. Unicorns, sprites—”

  He interrupted her. “Monsters and demons. Flesheating ghouls, griffins and manticores.”

  She nodded. “From time to time, the use of great magicks in this world would weaken the walls between here and the Otherworld, many of which eventually cracked open.”

  “Creating a breach in that barrier,” Giles said thoughtfully. “A breach the Gatekeeper would then take it upon himself to close.”

  “Exactly,” Micaela concurred. “The Gatekeeper and his heirs kept up for a time, hunting for the breaches and binding the creatures that got through. Imprisoning them in the infinite rooms of the Gatehouse. It might have gone on like that for centuries.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier, that the Watchers were vital to the world, that the Gatekeeper was a good and valiant man. I suppose I just wanted to believe that the love he had shown me was . . . real.”

  Micaela looked at Giles. “But when I learned the truth, which he has successfully hidden from his followers, at least so far, I grew to hate him. For he is opening up the breaches not only between the Other world and this world, but between these two worlds and Hell itself. Even as we speak, the ghost roads, which the Gatekeeper traveled to collect and bind the mysteries of the Otherworld, are clogged with demons from the Pit. They are swarming, massing to march on us. To obliterate us.”

  “And Fulcanelli is aiding and abetting this madness? In return for what?” Giles asked, though he knew the answer.

  “Power,” she said simply. “He alone will survive the massacre. He will rule the earth.”

  “And you?”

  She exhaled and shook her head. “I suppose I was exempt as well. But surely now that I’ve betrayed him, I’m scheduled for slaughter just like anyone else.”

  Giles was silent as he took in all that she had told him. She extended her hand as if to touch him, then quickly withdrew it, cradling it in her lap.

  She said, “When I saw you at the library party, of course I knew who you were. I had your picture in my purse. I had my orders. But you . . .”

  She trailed off, then laughed shortly. “You made me feel warm, despite the cold.”

  “Come now,” he said, a bit impatiently. There was no need for her dishonest flirtation now.

  She tried to smile, and failed. “I have been alone my entire life.” She looked at him very steadily, although her cheeks turned bright red. “I was to seduce you, if necessary.”

  “How unpleasant for you,” he said unkindly. Wanting to be unkind. Wanting to make her admit that she didn’t mean it.

  “I wish . . .” Now she did smile, very sadly. “And now, it will never happen. You will never let me get that close.”

  Giles said nothing. He put his tea cup to his lips.

  The first sip was very bitter.

  After a time, he said, “It’s bloody freezing in here. We should have a fire. Then, to sleep. We’ll both need rest for what’s to come tomorrow.”

  The strong scent of ammonia shocked Joyce Summers awake. She tried to draw a breath through her mouth, then realized with a start that it was covered with tape. Panicking, she sucked air through her nose, struggling to cough as the searing odor brought tears to her eyes, which were blindfolded.

  But she knew the smells of her prison. She knew exactly where she was: back in the storage closet at the abandoned Sunnydale Twin Drive-In. An eyesore along Route 17, a good distance outside the Sunnydale town limits,
it seemed as remote from help as Mars.

  The rescue attempt had failed. She was sorry for that, not only for her own sake but because there was still the chance that Buffy would be tempted to trade her life for her mother’s. That must not happen. Joyce understood that and accepted it. Though she was very afraid to die, it was by far the best thing that could happen if it meant that Buffy would survive.

  “Mrs. Summers, hello,” came the soft voice. Joyce swallowed hard against her fear. It belonged to the deceptively gentle Brother Claude, the Sons of Entropy leader who had magickally burned another man to death. That he could do this was a secret, and one with which he had threatened her. If she spoke a word of it to anyone, she would be the next charred mass of flesh on the cement floor of the drive-in.

  “Do you know who I am, Mrs. Summers?” Brother Claude inquired gently. Joyce managed a nod, though her head was swimming. She wasn’t even certain that she was breathing.

  “That’s very good,” Brother Claude said pleasantly. “And now, I have a wonderful surprise for you. You are to be most honored.”

  No, she wanted to plead. She wanted to beg for her very life. She was grateful for the tape across her mouth, which allowed her to maintain her dignity.

  Then the tape was summarily ripped away. The blindfold was roughly removed from her eyes.

  At first she squinted against the nimbus of light around the figure before her. She wondered how long she had lain in darkness, how long she had been bound. For now she realized that her hands were tied behind her back. She was terribly thirsty.

  “Signora,” said the figure, bending toward her. “How exquisite to meet you.”

  She pulled back her head and stared at him. His features were sharp, and though his skin was unlined, there was an air surrounding him of incredible age. Long white hair gathered around his shoulders.

  But it was his eyes that startled her. They were an incredible, deep blue. Hypnotic. She found herself unwillingly falling into those eyes, and when she blinked herself back into focus, she had the sensation that a great deal of time had passed.