CHILD of the HUNT Page 8

  No one in Buffy’s group was chanting. They were all looking very uncomfortable.

  Finally Xander said, “I think some sparkly jewelry is calling my name.”

  “Yeah.” Willow looked at Oz. “Me, too.”

  “So, we book.” Oz looked to Buffy. In fact, they all did, waiting expectantly for her to give the word. She wasn’t sure if they even knew they were doing it, but it bugged her a little whenever they put her in the fearless leader position during a non-Slaying event.

  “We book,” she said.

  To the howls of protest around them, they left the joust.

  Chapter 4

  THE CRYSTALS CAUGHT THE LIGHT OF THE HALF-MOON and cast reflections across a draped panel of blue velvet. Wind chimes caught the night breeze. Incense burned in a brazier. In the distance, an owl hooted.

  For a moment, Angel was transported back in time to the Romanian gypsy camp where he had first regained his soul. He felt a wave of vertigo, panic, really, and held tightly to Buffy’s shoulder without realizing it. He remembered a line from a book his father had once read aloud to the family, for such was the custom in those days: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” He believed an Englishman had written those words, but he couldn’t recall.

  The truth, though. He knew that when he heard it.

  He closed his eyes, listening to the wind chimes.

  The group, minus Giles, had been strolling down the rows of shop stalls, stopping to browse, stopping to chat. Now they stood at a jewelry counter, but for all that, Angel felt himself to be in another world. An older world. The scents of roasting beef and poultry, spiced and charred, merged with the sweet smells of cotton candy and the unmistakable aroma of fresh popcorn. The odors were almost enough to make Angel nostalgic for hunger. Would have been enough, if it weren’t for the fact that he could still remember what real hunger felt like.

  His memory of appetite faded slightly when he caught another scent. The light breeze carried just a hint of the stench of human waste from the line of portable toilets on the other side of the fairgrounds. But even that had its share of nostalgia. Modern plumbing was a miracle not merely of convenience, but of health and clean air as well.

  He had lived long after the Renaissance, true enough. But during his time in Eastern Europe, that part of the world was not very different from the history this Faire was supposed to represent. Romania again.

  “Angel?” Buffy asked quietly. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” He forced his eyes open and smiled at her. “I—I’m just . . .” What could he say to her?

  Willow took a step closer to Buffy. She looked concerned and glanced quickly at both of them. “Hi,” she said. “Ah, everything okay, Angel?”

  “Will,” Buffy remonstrated, but Angel touched Buffy’s hand to quiet her.

  “Yes, Willow. I’m okay. Everything’s fine.”

  But Willow had on her resolve face and was not to be deterred from asking questions that, posed on anyone else’s behalf besides Buffy, she might not be able to ask. “You’re not hungry, are you?”

  Buffy frowned. “Willow Rosenberg!”

  “No, I’m fine, Willow.” Angel gestured to their surroundings. “I guess this back-in-time thing is having a greater effect on me than I assumed it would. I mean, I never lived in these days, but . . .” He shrugged.

  “I know what you mean,” Willow said. “I’m feeling off-balance, too.”

  At that, Oz stepped over, looking concerned.

  Angel was moved. These were good people, kind people. They cared so much for one another.

  They cared so much for Buffy.

  “It’s this place,” Buffy said. “It’s weird. It’s wrong.”

  Angel frowned. It wasn’t what he’d been thinking, at least, not on the surface. But he felt it, too. There was a malevolence that radiated from this place that he couldn’t put his finger on. Something sinister, as though even the air had a darker purpose.

  He only wished he knew what that purpose was.

  “Look, it’s so sparkly,” Cordelia said with delight, as she held up a crystal necklace. “Kind of Lori Lori, only . . . newer.”

  “Or older,” Xander said, “sort of Merlinish.”

  They were all trying to have a good time, but the Faire had by now succeeded in losing almost all of its charm for everyone. It would be a far nobler thing to admit defeat and go home.

  Buffy was keenly disappointed. As lame as she had expected the Faire to be, she had looked forward to spending some time with Angel somewhere besides on patrol, at a time when he wasn’t only around to watch out for her. She had wanted to be a regular kid, poking fun at the crowds and spending too much money on stuff she didn’t really want in the first place.

  But this place was past weird and it was beyond wrong. And with each passing moment, her sense of the wrongness and weirdness was growing.

  It was the Faire people. Something about the way their eyes moved. Something about not really being able to see their faces as she turned to look at them. She felt disoriented, as if she had fallen asleep and been startled awake. Off-balance, as Willow had said.

  “Look, a human chess match,” Angel said, pointing. “They had those back in my day.”

  Buffy looked. On a huge board drawn in the grass, thirty-two people stood statue-still on the back two rows of each side. One side was dressed in red, the other in black. The back row of each side were dressed in fancy robes, some with crowns, others with tall, curved hats, and some dressed like the knights in the joust. The front row were dressed like peasants in rough clothes. Buffy looked for the court jester and didn’t see him. She was embarrassed to admit she didn’t know anything about chess, didn’t know if they had court jesters or what.

  “Whoa. Cool.” Oz smiled at Willow. “Will you be my queen?”

  “If you’ll be my bishop,” Willow replied fondly, and Buffy had to crack a smile. She was sure that meant something in chess talk . . . and obviously in Oz and Willow talk. Oz leaned forward and kissed Willow lightly on the lips.

  “Be my deputy!” Xander drawled to Cordelia.

  Willow grinned over at Buffy, who smiled back. Willow had clearly forgotten that Buffy had not grown up with her, Xander, and Cordelia, and though Willow and Xander had laughed over this phrase in reference to Cordelia before, Buffy still had no idea what it meant.

  Angel looked at her questioningly, as if to ask if she wanted to watch. Buffy shrugged. If someone moved wrong, she wondered, were they beheaded? She didn’t think she wanted to do anything but get far, far away from this place.

  And then she saw something that made her go limp with relief: the man who had been in the stocks, the man who had begged for water, stood on the chessboard. He was dressed in red robes with a curved hat and held a staff, and he looked great. He wore a wide smile and his eyes twinkled with mischief.

  He saw her and gave a cheery wave. She waved back. He made a gesture of drinking something, and she nodded. “Look, Angel, it’s my thirsty guy,” she said happily.

  But Angel wasn’t paying attention. He was looking over her head, his arm half-raised in greeting.

  Giles strode up. “Thank goodness,” he said, without preamble. “Buffy, I’m afraid I have work for you.”

  “What, is that darn bat signal broken again?” There was an edge to her voice that she knew no Slayer’s voice should have. Saving the world from the forces of darkness—over and over again—was her sacred duty, yada yada yada, her special treat, her so-impossible mission. “Well, what’s up, Alfred?”

  Giles looked mildly confused, but then he was all business. “Someone’s tampered with my hydraulics.”

  Buffy blinked at him.

  “My car,” he supplied.

  She blinked again. When he said nothing more, she tapped her chin and said, “Let’s spin again before we attempt to solve the puzzle, shall we?”

  “There are bite marks on my brakes, the same as in those autopsy
reports. And while it’s problematic to have a chance to look at the corpses, Jamie told me about some other things the police have kept quiet.”

  Xander said harshly, “Those nutty police, that’s why I love ’em.”

  “Other things,” Buffy prompted.

  Giles observed the chess match. As a piece moved, with stately grace, he murmured, “Ah, the Immortal Game,” Giles said, nodding. “1851. Adolf Anderssen won it in London.”

  “And you were there,” Buffy chided. “Still are, apparently.”

  “What?” Giles blinked. “Sorry. Other things such as ritualistic mutilations of small animals. That showed up first. Next, unexplainable but extremely destructive acts of vandalism—pipes twisted, electric lines cut, not at all childish pranks. I’d almost think we were dealing with gremlins if not for the murders. And tonight, cattle mutilations,” Giles said. “Such as one finds accompanied by UFO sightings, very stylized, with viscera missing—”

  “Wow, cool!” Willow cried. When everyone stared at her, she said, “Well, the viscera, no, because that means . . . organs. But it would be cool, to meet creatures from another world . . . unlike the creatures from other worlds we have met.” She stood up straighter. “Okay, not worlds. Dimensions, then. Raccoons from another dimension.”

  “Please, all of you,” Giles said. “My patience is truly at its limit.”

  “His outer limit.” Xander nodded wisely.

  “I didn’t know you were dating,” Buffy added, more gently. “I think that’s . . . good. How did you meet her?”

  Giles frowned at her. “What?”

  “Jamie.”

  “He’s a man.” Giles rubbed his forehead. “But that doesn’t matter, because—”

  “You’re right, Giles, it doesn’t.” Buffy nodded. “We don’t care, right?” Her expression took in the entire group. “We’re really happy for you.” Everybody else nodded.

  For a moment, Giles just stared at her. Then his lips parted. “Oh, good Lord, is that all you people think about? Buffy, this man is a police officer and his son is a runaway. It’s a terribly stressful situation for him, which is why he . . . wanted to speak to me in private.”

  “Oh. And not because he was spilling beer on the people around him in the bleachers,” Buffy said archly.

  Giles continued without responding. “He played back a message for me he’s just received from the woman who runs the shelter. She’s been searching for her daughter, and caught a glimpse of her recently with a boy matching Brian Anderson’s description. The girl ran away as if her mother were a demon. Actually, it was your mother, Buffy, who suggested she call him, as I’d mentioned him to her at the benefit, and . . .” He trailed off, no doubt realizing he was treading on very thin ice.

  There was a long pause before Angel said, “You were talking about cattle mutilations.”

  “With Jamie,” Xander supplied.

  “And UFOs,” Angel pushed on.

  Buffy cleared her throat. Fun and games and awkward moments aside, there were matters to discuss. “Okay, so Angel and I will—”

  Just then a hunched old man staggered up to them and Angel put a warning hand on Buffy’s shoulder.

  “Tuppence for a poor old man?” he said. His hair was filthy and matted, and he was missing most of his teeth. And two of the fingers on his left hand. “A penny, a pound, for no friend of the Crown?”

  “They sang this in Mary Poppins,” Xander observed. “There’s a possibility you’re violating copyright, my good man.”

  The beggar tugged on Buffy’s arm with his truncated left hand. “Can you spare something for an outcast then?” He leaned toward her and dropped his voice to a whisper. “My young miss,” he hissed at Buffy. “The boy. He is a—”

  “Well, old fellow, what tricks are you up to?” Robin Hood boomed as he strode up to the group. Some of his currently less than merry men accompanied him. A Friar Tuck type, only with a strange, artificial cast to his features, and a woman in a green flowing dress and deep, emerald-green eyes. Each took one of the arms of the beggar and began herding him away.

  “I said nothing,” the beggar said anxiously over his shoulder. “Tell them I told you nothing!”

  Buffy raised her chin as she regarded Robin Hood. “What’s the deal?”

  He raised his chin and matched her steely gaze. “I apologize for the scoundrel,” he said. “The man’s a thief and a rapscallion.”

  There was something about his look that put Buffy so very off. Oh, not the defiance or the rudeness, but something very deeply sinister. If she hadn’t been the Slayer, she might have taken a step or two backward, putting more space between herself and that look.

  But she was the Slayer, so she stood her ground.

  “Yes, let’s be off, then,” Giles said, motioning for Buffy to go with him.

  “The night is young,” Robin Hood protested. “Surely you can stay a while.”

  Buffy started walking in the direction of the parking lot. Angel caught up with her.

  Then Cordelia let out a bloodcurdling shriek that sent them rushing back in the opposite direction.

  “Look!” Cordelia howled, her hazel eyes wide with horror.

  Above her head she held her Renaissance costume. The gauzy ruffled blouse and crimson waistcoat were shredded. The brilliant red skirt was nothing but a collection of tatters.

  “Good Lord,” Giles said. He took the outfit from Cordelia and examined the damage. As Buffy approached, he held it out to her. Robin Hood and the rest of his posse had moved on. It was just the gang, staring at Cordelia’s ruined costume.

  “I’m getting my money back,” Cordelia said. “No way am I paying for that. Plus I should get damages for emotional distress. I really liked this dress!”

  “Me, too,” Xander said sadly.

  Cordelia stomped away.

  “Cordelia, perhaps that’s not a good idea,” Giles called after her. He regarded the kids. “I’ve not been here much today,” he said, “but what little I’ve seen, I’ve found off-putting, to say the very least.”

  “Tell me about it,” Buffy said, adding, “I’ll cover Cordelia.” She looked at Angel. “I’ll be right back.”

  Cordelia was already halfway down the row of stalls by the time Buffy caught up with her. She was a woman on a mission, and when Buffy suggested she forget about the dress, Cordelia would have none of it

  “You saw how expensive this thing was,” she said hotly. “You couldn’t even afford yours. If you went into Neiman’s and bought a pair of shoes—not that you would, obviously you do not know your way around a decent shoe department—and then you went over to lingerie for something in a bustier and maybe some matching tap pants, except those are so out, and you discovered that some demented psycholoony had cut up your shoes when you accidentally left your shopping bag in the bathroom, would you just sigh and go, ‘Oh, well’? I think not.”

  “Cordelia, this place is weird,” Buffy said. “Talk about psycho, just look around you.”

  “May I remind you, I didn’t want to come here.” Cordelia gave her raven hair a toss. “But I showed, and I entered into the spirit of things, and I am not going to be penalized for being a good sport. Here we are.”

  She sailed into the tent where she and Buffy had tried on their costumes and marched up to the makeshift sales counter. “Service!” she snapped, tossing her hair again. It amazed Buffy how many different emotional punctuations the girl could manage with her hair. It must have taken years of practice.

  “Aye, mistress. Anon, I come,” croaked a voice from deeper inside the tent.

  An elderly woman Buffy had not seen before slowly limped to the counter. One of her eyes was milky and her lower lip was turned down in a frozen grimace. The lines on her face seemed carved there, deep and painful. Buffy watched her as Cordelia wound up for the pitch, the perfect picture of righteous indignation.

  “I mean, look at it!” Cordelia held the dress above the counter.

  “Mistress, we cannot be re
sponsible for your goods after you leave our company,” the woman said.

  “What?”

  Cordelia looked as if she might leap across the counter and strangle the woman. Despite the strangeness, Buffy couldn’t help but grin. Cordelia had once told Buffy she, Cordelia, was the Slayer of dating. But she was also the Slayer of consumer abuse.

  As Cordelia informed the woman that under no circumstances would she keep this piece of garbage, etc. and so on, it occurred to Buffy to tell Cordelia to keep it and then cancel the charge on her AmEx. Situation solved. She was just about to turn around and tell her that when she caught sight of a blue-and-red jester’s cap disappearing behind one of the dressing room curtains.

  Buffy crossed and pushed back the curtain, but there was no one there. However, the back partition of the dressing room hung askew. Buffy stepped around it and found herself in a storage area. Rows of Renaissance costumes hung bagged in plastic from overhanging dowels.

  And the door—a real door—to this area was ajar.

  Hesitating, Buffy listened to Cordelia’s rant and figured she could hold her own for another minute or two.

  Buffy went through the door.

  Whoa, backstage.

  She stood in a sort of alley created by the backs of the stalls, which faced outward toward the lanes in two rows. Here were the plastic trash bags brimming with garbage and packing material. Someone’s rubber sandals were plopped onto a beach chair with a beer and a Sunnydale Press beside it. Suddenly, a bit of the menacing air that seemed to permeate the Faire dissipated.

  There was an old outdoor grill up on cement blocks, and a row of hot dogs cooking on top, already fat and charred. Nobody was cooking, but from the looks of it, they’d be back any moment. It made the people of the Faire a bit more real to her, and Buffy took a breath. Real. Solid. Which meant if they were causing some kind of trouble she needed to know about, she’d have no problem kicking some butt if necessary.

  “If it bleeds,” she whispered to herself, “we can kill it.”

  The distant jingle of bells drew her to the left. She followed, growing more cautious, wondering if this was a trap or a diversion, unsure if she should continue on or go back to Cordelia.