CHILD of the HUNT Page 4

  Giles sighed and began to sort through a pile of his latest research books, moving a stack of green paper. “Now then,” he said after a moment, “how did you fare last night?”

  She glanced down at the stack. They were flyers for the runaway shelter. Her mom’s art gallery was listed at the bottom. Her mother must have given them out at the benefit last night. Which meant Giles must have gone. She felt even guiltier that she hadn’t shown.

  But then who would have destroyed Timmy?

  “Buffy?” Giles prodded.

  “Oh, last night? Just super,” Buffy said harshly.

  Xander stared at her. “Super?”

  “Should I have said ‘swell’?” she retorted, glaring at him.

  “No. Please.” Xander held up his hands. “I just figured anybody in a mood like yours . . . would be, um, looking for someone to hit a lot harder than Willow hit me. That’s not what we call a super mood, at least among my people.”

  Buffy raised her chin. She did not want to tell them, felt unaccountably ashamed. “My people do.”

  “Super,” Giles repeated, and looked at her expectantly.

  “Okay,” she caved. “I staked a twelve-year-old boy, but not before somebody else died in Weatherly Park. His mother was at my house this morning sobbing in my mother’s arms because she has no idea that he’s dead. Isn’t that super enough for everyone?” she asked.

  All three of them seemed momentarily uncomfortable.

  “Yes, well,” Giles said finally, clearing his throat, “I know it’s difficult for your mother these days . . .”

  “For my mother?” Buffy echoed, astounded. “My mother?”

  “Buffy,” Willow said gently, touching her friend’s arm, “if there’s anything we can do . . .”

  “Yeah, maybe you should take a little R and R,” Xander said. “Leave the staking to us.”

  Giles cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that brings us to a topic I believe we need to address. I’m not sure now is the time, but I suppose one must confront these things head on.”

  Buffy cocked her head and looked at Giles more closely. He did seem agitated, but as far as she knew, nothing had happened the night before that ought to concern him. Concern her, yes.

  “Buffy,” he said, and then hesitated, pushing his glasses up on his face. The library was dingy gray with the rainstorm outside, only the dimmest of light filtering in. It seemed to have made everyone a little sad today. And a little slow-brained.

  “Giles,” she prompted.

  “Yes, well, regardless of the tragic nature of your accomplishment last night, it does seem to me that you found this . . . vampire because you were able to focus. This is but one example of an issue that has begun to concern me of late. I think we may be getting a bit carried away with this whole business of ‘Slayerettes.’”

  “Uno minuto, Señor Libro,” Xander said, raising his hand. “The family that slays together . . .”

  “Not now, Xander,” Giles warned.

  Xander lowered his hand and looked at Buffy and Willow. Willow bit her lower lip and frowned nervously, clearly waiting for the next part.

  Giles perched on the edge of the study table and crossed his arms. It was weird, but sometimes Buffy almost forgot that he had come to Sunnydale specifically to be her Watcher. Hers. As in Buffy. There he was in England, filing things—bones—whatever—in the British Museum, then . . . what? He gets a call from HQ and grabs a jet to California? Giles, old man, the Slayah’s relocating. See to it.

  It still wigged her that she and her mother had assumed their move here was through random chance, and not because this cursed town sat atop a mystical convergence swirling and whirling with every kind of evil thing you could possibly think of, both generic nasties and the name brands.

  “As you know, traditionally the Chosen One works alone,” Giles continued. “In fact, there is a school of thought that says that the Slayer should be required to work alone. I don’t adhere to this theory, of course.”

  “Of course,” Xander said urgently.

  “As your Watcher, I have accompanied you on an irregular basis,” Giles persisted. “And, given their enthusiasm and the fact that they came into the knowledge of your true identity and your obligation through a threat to their own lives, I was content to allow Willow and Xander to join you when the threat seemed to warrant that risk.”

  “Yes, and that was a good thing,” Xander said. Moving beside him, Willow nodded earnestly.

  “But now that Cordelia and Oz have also begun to participate, it all seems a bit much,” Giles concluded. “I know that it is rare for your entire group to be on patrol together, but we may have to begin weighing each crisis in order to determine if the risk is great enough to involve your friends.”

  Xander leaned back in his chair. “Giles, in case you haven’t realized it yet, it isn’t as though Buffy invites us along for kicks. Or even invites us at all.”

  “Right,” Willow said, looking slightly hurt. “We help because . . . well, I know I couldn’t sleep at night, knowing what goes on in this town, if I wasn’t doing something to help. If that means research, then research. But if that means going after the bad guys, well, I’ll do that too.”

  Buffy had heard enough. She stood, walked over to Giles, and snatched from his hands the book he was glancing at. He looked up at her in surprise.

  “You know what, Giles, you’re right,” she said. “Most nights, I should be on my own. Or maybe just with Angel.” She caught the flicker of unease on his face and decided to ignore it for now. She knew he had mixed feelings about Angel. Who didn’t?

  “And you know I don’t want anything nasty to happen to my friends. But when it starts raining vamps and demons, I’m the first one to admit I might not be able to do it all myself.”

  Her gaze took in her friends and a dozen images flashed through her mind, each one of a time when one or several of them had come to her aid and saved the day. Even though they had no special obligation to patrol and fight, as she did. Even though they had no sacred duty.

  They did it simply because they were her friends. And because somebody had to do it. In that way, Buffy often felt they were far more heroic than she was. If she wasn’t the Slayer, she might not even . . . but she was the Slayer. It wasn’t healthy to wonder what might have been.

  “It’s not like we’re having beach parties when we work together,” she went on, feeling a little angry. “We do what we have to do because we have to do it. Don’t give us a hard time about it.”

  Giles didn’t respond at first, but Buffy could see that he wasn’t finished. That there was something still on his mind. He began to glance at the books stacked on the table and kept flipping at the cover of the one on top until Buffy couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Spit it out, Giles!” she snapped. “You’re making me a little edgy, here.”

  “Actually, you were edgy when you got here,” Xander ventured. “You remember, the rain, your mom, and all?”

  Buffy shot him a withering look.

  “Not now, Xander,” Xander said to himself.

  “Well,” Giles said, “several nights ago, it seemed to me that we were, all of us, having a bit too good a time at this. It’s no game, you know. What you do is horrifying. Dreadful. The things we face are evil incarnate, and well, the kind of caprice evident during the hunt the other night could get you all killed.”

  Buffy knew exactly which night he was talking about. It seemed there was a strange little group of vampires who were into numerology or something, or maybe they watched too much Star Trek, but they had given each other wanky names like “Seven” and “Twelve B Two.” They had somehow decided that the seventh of the month was the perfect time to make a sweep of the beach and chomp on kids partying around the fire rings. After the first time, Buffy and Giles probably would have passed it off as a particularly hellish night on the Hellmouth, but Angel had heard about this latest little sub-cult, and Angel had told Buffy.

  So the next mo
nth, they had all saddled up and headed for the beach, Xander mangling ancient Beach Boys lyrics while the rest of them just generally made far too many jokes. Maybe because they’d known one of the girls who’d died the night before. That was what the gallows humor was all about, wasn’t it? Laughing so you didn’t cry?

  Giles knew it, but it had been obvious that even with that understanding, he’d still thought they were going too far. His facial expressions and his reserved commentary had made that abundantly clear. But Buffy hadn’t expected any long-term repercussions. Not like this.

  After all he’d been through himself, all the pain he’d suffered, Buffy would have thought Giles would understand. Even a little bit.

  “How dare you?” Buffy asked, offended not only for herself, but for all of them and all that they did.

  Giles seemed taken aback. “I’m your Watcher, Buffy. It isn’t a matter of daring at all. I have an obligation to . . .”

  Buffy angrily slapped her palms on the big study table in the library.

  “That’s it!” she said. “I’m done for today.”

  He reached out a hand. “Buffy—”

  She whirled on Giles. “I can’t believe you!” she cried. “Never once did you get one of those little light-bulbs over your head that told you that maybe we’re just blowing off steam? Maybe this whole thing is so disgusting and awful that the only way we can deal with what really goes on in our lives is to laugh about it? To make the kind of jokes you’re always giving Xander a hard time about? Maybe that’s how we make it from one day to the next, Giles. Because it isn’t by hanging out at the Bronze or the mall or gossiping about what you-know-who wore to the dance!

  “We . . . no, let me just speak for myself. I, Giles, . . . I don’t go to the dances! How many times do we have to go over this? If it helps me be the Slayer, helps me get through the night—and my nights are very, very long—to have my friends around and to make jokes, why can’t you just leave it alone?

  “If you want to wallow in your own pain, to . . . savor every moment of suffering, hey, crunch all you want, we’ll make more! But don’t get all pissy if the rest of us want to run away to the Bahamas for a few seconds. Don’t try dragging us down to your level of misery, Giles. I think you’ll find that, speaking just for myself, I’m already soaking in it!”

  Buffy stood glaring at Giles, breathing heavily from her tirade and waiting for a response.

  Giles blinked several times. “It was merely an observation,” he said at last.

  “Well, stop with the observations. You’re as bad as my mother half the time.” She flushed, feeling guilty again, but she stood her ground. She had a point. That she was making.

  Now it was Giles’s turn. He took his glasses off, which usually meant he was getting serious.

  “Well, Buffy, if you want to see it that way, that is your prerogative,” he told her crisply. “In fact, when you compare me to your mother, you’re not far off in some ways. As the only adult among you, and as your Watcher, I am in many ways responsible for your well-being.”

  Buffy turned and walked to the door in a huff. “You know what, Giles? My dad is gone. Absentee father. I’ve adjusted, and I don’t need you to take his place. You want to be my Watcher, fine! You want to be my friend? Okay. But do not try to be a parent to me!”

  Then she stormed out.

  When Buffy was gone, all Giles could do was stare after her.

  “I didn’t say anything, didn’t voice any concerns I haven’t brought up in the past,” he said, after a few seconds had ticked by.

  “Today just isn’t the day for it, Giles,” Willow explained.

  “Yeah,” Xander agreed. “Parents are from Mars. Teenagers are from Venus.”

  At that, Giles was truly speechless. A rare and wondrous thing.

  “So, Giles was talking about this Renaissance Faire thingy,” Buffy whispered.

  She crept across Mrs. Calhoun’s backyard, feet squishing in the damp ground, hoping the lady’s yippy dog wouldn’t start barking like crazy. At least it had stopped raining. But it was cold and damp, and it occurred to her to wonder—not for the first time—if she would ever make it to a fine old age where she could complain about rheumatism, arthritis, or— worst on her list—have to start wearing glasses.

  Angel was at her side, hidden in the night, as she was, in all black clothing. Both of them were keeping their eyes peeled for vampires. The bad kind.

  “Before my time,” Angel replied. “The Renaissance.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” Angel admitted. “Wow.”

  “I teased him about it—before I yelled at him for something else—but I don’t know. Knights and swords and ladies in those beautiful gowns, it does have a certain appeal,” Buffy admitted. “I thought maybe we could go.”

  “I don’t know,” Angel replied softly. “I try not to think much about the past, even if it’s further in the past than I can personally remember.”

  Buffy paused. Glanced at him. Noted briefly the glint of moonlight on his hair and pale features, framed in blackness. Like Angel’s life: washes of light, and so much dark.

  “I guess I don’t blame you,” she said.

  And she didn’t. But she did wish that he’d go with her to the Faire. She’d thought it would be very romantic, after she’d cooled down from her argument with Giles long enough to give it some consideration. Not that romance and Angel made a comfortable pair these days. But she’d kind of thought Angel would like it, to remember another time like that. A time that was probably a lot more like the era he grew up in than Sunnydale was at the turn of the millenium.

  “Maybe we can hit the museum?” Angel suggested.

  “I think I’d like to stay away from the museum for a while,” Buffy replied. That was where Angel had stolen the statue of Acathla, back when he had not been . . . himself.

  Angel looked at her. “Yeah,” he said. “I see your point.”

  Willow hung up from her conversation with Oz and lay on her back, angling her legs so that her bunny slippers hung over the edge of her bed. She wore an oversized T-shirt, and her red hair hung freely down her back. Oz had told her he liked the color of her hair.

  Her stuffed animals lounged in their places on her bedspread. Her fish burbled in their tank. Life was good.

  Well, except for the part of the phone conversation where Oz realized he would have to cancel out of the next Dingoes gig at the Bronze because he would be a werewolf that night. That kinda sucked.

  “Willow?” her mother called from the hall. “It’s a little late for phone calls, don’t you think?”

  Willow sighed. She got calls from Buffy and Xander much later than this, and on a regular basis, too. She wondered if her mom had picked up the extension and listened in. If she was doing stuff like that, they would have to be careful with what they talked about. Willow tried to think if she’d said anything tonight that might have freaked out her mom.

  She winced.

  Oz, you’re such an animal, she’d said. He’d chuckled and replied, Only sometimes. Her mother would definitely misinterpret that kind of thing. Great, Willow thought. Something else to worry about.

  “Willow?”

  Willow sighed. “Sorry, Mom.”

  Her mother moved on.

  “College,” Willow reminded herself, setting her jaw. “One that’s far, far away.”

  Flipping open Cordelia’s cell phone, Xander waited for the connection and said, “Hi, it’s me.”

  Queen C herself was at the wheel. At the corner of Bartholomew, Cordelia made a sharp left, tires squealing. They were late for her curfew, as usual. And she had made a big deal about the fact that he lived awfully far away from her—translation: not in the snooty part of town, where Rapunzel here dwelled—so much so that he had suggested she just let him out so he could hitch home.

  “Maybe not a good idea,” she had said tentatively.

  So he was already in the not very best of moods when his mom said, distractedly,
“Yes?” with no obvious notion of who “me” was.

  “Xander.” He exhaled. “Your son.”

  “Hi, honey.”

  She was watching TV. He could always tell. Sometimes when he thought of it, he made sure he called her during the commercials. Only she liked to watch some of those. At least she had some outside interests.

  “I have a terminal illness and I have decided to end my life by jumping off a train,” he said.

  Cordelia rolled her eyes. She narrowly missed a Miata as she zoomed around to pass, pointing frantically at the digital readout on the instrument panel. As if his talking on the phone were going to slow her down.

  “Are you on something?” Mrs. Harris asked suspiciously.

  “No, Ma, just high on life,” he quipped.

  “Okay. Well, be home soon.”

  She disconnected.

  “And so, we will not be taping the news for tough guy,” Xander said, flicking the phone shut.

  “What?” Cordelia took her eyes off the road. Not a good thing. “Why didn’t you just come right out and ask her?”

  He shrugged. “Willow will tape it.”

  There was a slight chance they were going to run a piece about the escalating runaway situation in Sunnydale. Giles had suggested they all watch it, and Xander, eager to remind the Watcher that he and the Slayerettes were useful and productive citizens of the Hellmouth, had wanted very badly to comply.

  Well, so much for that. It wasn’t his mom’s fault, not really. He could have made sure he and Cordy knocked off the smootchin’ a little earlier.

  “We could catch it at my house,” Cordelia suggested. “I’m closer.”

  “Oh, right. You’re coming in late again and I’m walking through the front door? And I still need a ride? Not the best plan.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed and checked her makeup in the mirror for telltale smears. “I wish you’d move.”

  He looked out the window. “Yeah, well, we can all dream.”

  “Whazzat?”

  Bernie Sayre sat upright in the bed he had once shared with his wife, long gone, and frowned in the darkness. Was Simon pawing through the trash again?