CHILD of the HUNT Read online

  “Dang cat.”

  He yawned and climbed out of bed with a groan. His hip was acting up—don’t tell the manager of the Sunnydale S&L, he might fire ol’ Bernie, and him so close to retirement—and he favored it as he limped down the hall.

  “Simon, dang it,” he called.

  Back when Vera was alive, the kitchen was always spotless. But with his job and his hip and all . . . well, who was he kidding? He just wasn’t the housekeeper she’d been. Not that it mattered too much. He didn’t get a lot of company, and the cat didn’t seem to mind.

  There was a clatter, like a cat food tin falling to the ground. Bernie grunted, envisioning a pile of garbage on the floor—coffee grounds, banana peel, wadded up circulars and junk mail—and he said, “Simon, stop it!”

  Another clatter.

  He sped up, and nearly fell over the lump in the middle of the hall.

  The lump gave a meow of displeasure and cocked his head at Bernie. It was Simon, who got up, stretched, and deigned to saunter out of Bernie’s way.

  Bernie was not very glad to see him.

  “If you’re out here, what the heck is in the kitchen?” he demanded.

  Simon said, “Meow.”

  Chapter 2

  SUNNYDALE HIGH WAS CONSIDERED AN AFFLUENT school district. Though boisterous, the students were, as a rule, well-behaved. The Mediterranean-style main building never bore unsightly graffiti for more than a few hours—and there was never much of it in the first place. No one put Kool-Aid in the Olympic-size swimming pool. Classrooms were not locked between classes, as was the case in many southern California schools, and teachers still welcomed their charges alone into their offices for conferences.

  So the fact that Sunnydale’s escalating runaway problem was put down to bad kids, and that the more numerous and escalating acts of vandalism were laid on the shoulders of “teenagers,” seemed patently unfair. That the principal felt the need to discuss it over the P.A. system for half of first period might have been a puzzle to some. But to others, they figured he was just covering his . . . reputation. He had a very small, toadlike reputation.

  The principal droned on about respect for property, zero tolerance, yada yada yada, taking so long that the history test was postponed until Monday. At least until the student uproar brought the teacher’s attention to the concept that Monday exams tended to put a damper on weekends. And they were seniors, after all. They felt they deserved a little slack.

  The teacher didn’t seem to agree.

  “If you can tell me one thing you’ll spend time doing this weekend that will teach you something,” she said, “I’ll postpone the test until Tuesday.”

  Willow raised her hand.

  “Miss Rosenberg?”

  “Well, there’s a Renaissance Faire in town,” she said brightly. “Which should be cool.”

  From the expressions on their faces, some of the other students were dubious. But when the test was postponed, Willow received a resounding round of applause.

  Oz met her after class, and they caught up with Cordelia and Xander in the hall. They were quite the mismatch, those two, Xander in Xander clothes (which Willow thought were just fine) and Cordelia so dressed up you’d have thought she was a French fashion model on assignment. Short plaid jumper, very crisp white blouse. Willow was glad she and Oz both did the cazh thing together, she in cords and a brown sweater, he in one of his many very cool bowling shirts. This one was green and brown, so they kind of matched.

  * * *

  Cordelia and Xander were in the middle of one of their frequent arguments, as the four elbowed their way through the between-bells mosh pit that was the halls of Sunnydale High. Finally Cordelia scowled at Xander.

  “Stop walking so close to me,” she snarled through gritted teeth. “You’re invading my space.”

  What is this thing called lust? Xander wondered, that I put up with this woman? But to the object of that lust, he said, “Yes, majesty,” and very purposefully took several longer strides so that he moved slightly ahead of her. Then he said over his shoulder, “Not that you complained about that last night. Or this morning.”

  Oz chuckled as Cordelia huffed.

  She said after a beat, “You weren’t, like, bashing into me then.”

  “I sure was.”

  “Shut up.”

  Now it was Willow’s turn to chuckle.

  “Cordy, honey, sweetie.” Xander slowed so that Cordelia either had to stop walking or run right into him. He made a show of taking her hand as she sighed and rolled her eyes. He pointed to a girl who was walking past them with a blank, almost zombie-like expression.

  “A quick look around, and one might notice the many students who have nothing in common with each other, but are forced to trudge these halls like cattle.”

  Cordelia jerked on her hand. “Xander—”

  He slipped her hand around his arm and patted it in a fatherly way. “Upperclass moos, sophomore veal calves, trudging into the slaughterhouses of independent thought also known as classrooms. And since this rampant stampeding might—just might— account for the fact that I am actually—gasp—in your vicinity, and yet you still live, guess what, Cor, no one notices, and no one cares.”

  Cordelia shook his hand away as if he had rabies. Oz may be the man with that problem—who knew?—but thus far, Willow had not accused her sweetie of all the terrible offenses Xander had apparently committed in his important new role as Cordelia’s official doormat. Tops of course was his bad fashion sense. Okay, he could cop to that.

  On the other hand, if that was all Cordelia could really find wrong with him—even though she gave it her all—somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she must actually find him . . . not despicable.

  When they were alone, she most definitely did not find him despicable. All this schizophrenia was making him dizzy. And very confused. And everyone said Angel and Buffy had the weird relationship. . . .

  “As if no one cares. You know gossip follows my every move.” Cordelia stopped walking and threw back her hair.

  Oz chuckled and Xander’s grin widened. He couldn’t help it. Schizo or not, sometimes there was something so darn cute about his imperious girlfriend. He was about to shoot something back at her when a clap of thunder boomed overhead and everybody around them in the hall whooped and applauded. A few seconds later, rain clattered on the roof.

  “Oh, great, what about the Renaissance Faire?” Willow said gloomily.

  “It’ll clear up,” Oz assured her. Then, as the rain intensified, he added, “Mmm. Or not.”

  “Not works for me.” Cordelia made a face. “I’m not tramping around in the mud looking at dueling midgets or whatever.” She caught her breath.

  Above, the rain spattered like buckshot. Xander shrugged as Cordelia gave him her heavily mascared evil eye. Like they said, a day without sunshine was like a day with Cordy.

  Though she was loath to admit it, Willow felt a little sorry for Cordelia. Perfect clothes, perfect hair, perfect body; add it all up and it still didn’t mean she had a perfect life. Willow was still baffled by the fact that Xander and Cordy had gotten together at all—they’d despised each other since kindergarten—and there was still some jealousy there of course. Willow and Xander had been best friends almost since diapers, and Willow had always secretly hoped that she and Xander . . . well, that he would notice her as a girl, instead of just his friend.

  But since that seemed about as likely as Giles watching MTV, Willow wasn’t holding her breath. Once she had acknowledged that, she was willing to give Cordelia the benefit of the doubt. After all, shallow as the girl might seem, she had risked her life with them time and again. Had to give her points for that. So when Xander went a little too far with his barbs, Willow felt bad for Cordy. Other than Oz, he was the nicest guy she knew, but his wit was sharp— sharp enough to cut sometimes. Willow knew that from experience.

  “If it will make you feel better,” Willow offered, smiling helpfully at Cordelia as she and Oz
caught up to her in the crush, “Oz and I will move away from you.”

  “No,” Cordelia said quickly. “It’s okay. Oz is cool and you’re with him. Just don’t, like, talk to me a lot, okay?”

  Oz slid an amused glance at Willow, took her hand, and gave it a squeeze.

  “You’re nice,” he said quietly. “I like that in a person.”

  Willow shrugged shyly, but her heart was thundering. Oz could do that to her so easily.

  “So, moving right along,” Xander said happily, clapping his hands and rubbing them together as they all slowed once more to a crawl. “The Renaissance Faire. Tomorrow afternoon. Dueling mud midgets for milady’s pleasure. Show of hands?”

  Willow raised hers. Oz shrugged and said, “Eating without utensils for a day? Sure, why not? Besides, I always wanted to know what knights did when they had to pee.”

  “Well, at the Faire they have those porta-potties,” Willow observed. “But I don’t think there was, y’know, a Middle Ages equivalent.”

  Cordelia stared at them all in amazement. “Are you kidding?” She shook her head. “Absolutely no way.”

  “Too tragically unhip, eh?” Xander asked.

  “Well, yes, since you put it that way. The only people who will be going to that are boring adults and role-playing tweekos.”

  “Cor, you’ll be missing out,” Xander said. “You can buy these really cool costumes there. They make your waist really tiny and your, ah, other attributes look really, really big. It would make a great Halloween getup for a stupendous babe such as yourself.”

  “Please, Xander,” Cordelia said wearily. And then she cocked her head. Willow could actually see the wheels turning as Cordelia imagined herself in a sexy Renaissance costume.

  “Also, they sell lots of jewelry,” Xander went on, tempting her. “Sparkly jewelry.”

  “And they have Shakespeare plays and lute concerts,” Willow added enthusiastically, but then fell silent as Xander flashed her a don’t-go-there look.

  “Maybe if we just meet there,” Cordelia said slowly. “Then if I see anyone I know—which isn’t very likely—I could say my mom made me go. Or something.”

  Giles sat in his office with a cup of cold tea at his elbow. Ostensibly, he was looking though a forensics reference manual on bite marks, but in reality, he was staring at a strip of pictures of himself with Jenny Calendar. They had been taken in one of those booth affairs when they’d gone to see the funny cars. Despite his sorrow, he was smiling faintly to himself. He had been grinning like a fool; she making silly faces. He remembered the thrill even now as she had told him to sit as far back on the stool as possible, then wedged herself half on his lap, half on the stool.

  “Don’t move,” she’d said fiercely, and then the first flash had gone off. “You’ll blur.”

  “Good heavens, can’t have that,” he’d shot back. “No blurring, no indeed.”

  “No talking, English. And sit still!” she’d commanded.

  He had tried to sit still. Oh, how he’d tried.

  He sighed. A happier time. Simpler? Perhaps.

  Memento mori, Jenny, sweet Jenny.

  He opened the top right drawer to put the treasured pictures back. His hand brushed the stack of sympathy cards tied with a black ribbon. His heart caught. The one on top was a proper condolence card, simple, elegant paper lined in black. From his father, who had once warned him that as a Watcher, falling in love could be a risky proposition. He had not elaborated, and Giles had not pressed.

  Jenny . . .

  He lowered his head to compose himself.

  “Hello?”

  Realized, with a flash of resentment, that someone was actually looking for him. May actually wish to check out a book in this godforsaken land of theme parks and strip malls.

  “Yes,” he said gruffly, then tried to sound more friendly. “May I help you?”

  It was a young, gangly boy with a fashionable haircut. “Um, I’m looking for something about . . .” He squinted up his face. “Um, some dude named after that guy in Titanic? An inventor dude?”

  Giles sighed. “Leonardo da Vinci?”

  “Yeah.” The boy nodded eagerly. “How’d you know?”

  Sometimes, Buffy wondered how Giles managed to keep his job. Sure, he was well-liked by the students and the faculty. But anyone who’d ever been into the library at Sunnydale High School would have to admit that he hadn’t exactly created an environment conducive to learning.

  The place was dark, dreary, and not terribly well organized. The magazines Giles subscribed to for the school, oddities ranging from Bon Appetit to The Fortean Times, weren’t things that immediately came to mind when one considered the needs and interests of high school students. In fact, it was rare that students actually attempted to use the high school library. It was far more likely that anybody with a research project due would head over to the town library instead.

  This, of course, suited Giles just fine. It also worked out well for Buffy and her friends, who used the library as their de facto base camp. Still, it baffled Buffy that Giles was still employed by the school. Granted, other faculty visited the library as infrequently as students, but it had to be more than that. In the end, she was forced to simply chalk it up to his Britishness. After all, he’d previously been a curator at the British Museum. For the school board, that was probably enough.

  Whatever the reason, Buffy was grateful. Though he could be infuriating at times, she didn’t know what she would do without Giles. Considering that, Buffy sat on the edge of the study table and watched him stamp “returned” without much enthusiasm on the few books that students had actually bothered to check out.

  After her outburst yesterday, things were a bit tense between them, and Buffy didn’t know how to fix that. Or if she should even try. But she hated not getting along with Giles. After all, he was her Watcher. And her friend.

  But not my father, she reminded herself firmly. And he had to learn to back off sometimes.

  “Giles, I’m sor—” she began in a rush.

  But she realized he hadn’t heard her as he said crisply, “So, no Slaying last night?”

  “Um, no.” She flared with guilt. “We, that is, I looked and looked, but no one wanted to poof! go up in smoke, I guess. Or ashes.”

  He looked intently at her, a familiar emerging-from-the-fog-of-my-own-mental-wanderings expression on his face. “I’m sorry, Buffy. You were about to say something?”

  “No, no,” she said quickly. She was hurt by his distant tone. “I was just wondering, um, if the Renaissance Faire thing is a thing that you would like to go to with other people.”

  Whoa. She had no idea where that had come from. But not a bad idea if she wanted to repair the bridge she’d played arsonist with yesterday.

  “People like me and other . . . people you know.” Buffy moved her shoulders—not quite a shrug. She’d started this. She’d finish it. “I mean, the other kids. That we hang with. I hang with.”

  Giles’s cool expression slightly defrosted. “Why, Buffy, how lovely.” He blinked at her. “I had assumed the Faire held no appeal for any of you.”

  “Well, surprise.” She swung her legs where she perched on the counter. “There’s just the Bronze and a theater that shows movies we’ve already seen on Pay-Per-View. And there’s Pay-Per-View. So.” She smiled hopefully. “Maybe it won’t be too dorky.”

  “I should think a bit dorky,” he said agreeably. “The people who put these things together mean well, of course, but they frequently make historical errors. Elaborate ruffs in the wrong decades, smooth-faced men when beards were in fashion, that sort of thing. But if one can suspend one’s disbelief, it can be quite entertaining.”

  “Oh, I believe that . . . you believe that,” she said with all sincerity.

  “Indeed.” His faraway look was back. “However, I did have some pertinent business to discuss with you. I’m afraid I have rather distressing new information about these ‘raccoon’ incidents,” he said.
<
br />   She groaned.

  On Saturday morning the sky was overcast with heavy, gray clouds, threatening downpour. The ocean breeze was strong, however, and just before noon, the last of the storm that had been brewing blew inland, and the sky was a magnificent clear blue, as if there had never been a single cloud up there at all.

  By dusk, when they had all agreed to meet at the Faire, Buffy had passed a long afternoon helping her mother uncrate the pieces of a new gallery exhibit before the two of them shared sugar-overloaded iced tea in the backyard. They didn’t talk about Timmy or any of the other runaways in town, but Joyce took several calls on the portable that were obviously coming from the shelter. Buffy squirmed with each call.

  “So, uh, Oz,” Ira Rosenberg said. He always stumbled over Oz’s name.

  Oz was cool with it. It was an unusual name.

  “Your plans for after graduation, do they include . . . anything?”

  They were sitting at the kitchen table. Willow’s mother was puttering around making grilled cheese sandwiches. She’d gone off on a tangent about not keeping an absolutely kosher kitchen, then let it go at a look from her husband.

  Mr. Rosenberg, Willow, and Oz were drinking iced tea. Willow looked not exactly scared to death, but not about to jump up and dance either.

  Oz wanted to tell her to be cool with it, too. They were her parents. They loved her. That was what all this was about. Not what kind of name Oz was and what he was planning to do post cap and gown.

  “Oz was the only other student recruited by that computer firm at Career Week,” Willow said eagerly. She’d told them that before. Maybe she was so nervous she didn’t remember.

  “Computers,” Mr. Rosenberg said expansively. “There’s always going to be good money there, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, sir.” Oz sipped his tea. “This is great tea, Mrs. Rosenberg. Those sandwiches. Do you need any help?”

  She half-turned with a surprised smile on her face, which she directed first at Oz and then at Willow’s dad, as if to say, See? He’s a nice boy after all, Ira.