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Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part III

Against Nancy’s initial protests, we followed a prior suggestion from Selina and stole a motor vehicle, something called an SUV. My thought was that it would better serve to keep us together, and would provide an added increment of protection from whatever unpredictable hazards we might encounter. Indy’s concern at our uncomfortable proximity to a disapproving legal authority was allayed when I reminded him that local law enforcement would tonight have more urgent priorities than minor vehicular larceny. Selina effected the actual theft (though he had claimed to be proficient at such endeavors, Indy found himself frustrated by modern wiring schemes), so that she became the driver by right of conquest.

Nancy, I could see, would have preferred to be in control of our course, but to my mind Selina was the next best choice; I had no direct experience with navigating an automobile, and Indy — though he would have found it impossible to admit or even recognize the fact — was attuned to the traffic rules and rhythms of a different era. Selina drove aggressively but with perfect confidence and awareness, and we slid through the night streets to the accompaniment of a savage, snarling syntho-techno tune from a radio station I am positive Selina had selected purely to vex Indy.

I did not myself particularly care for her choice, but it allowed Nancy and me, posted next to one another in the SUV’s second row of seats, to converse with relative privacy. Her imperative might be the safeguarding of our unwanted companions, but mine was to extend and enjoy my time in her company. “I should be in the front,” she was saying to me. “At least there I might be able to steer her away from hot spots.”

“Really?” I had frequently wondered just how much awareness this town’s inhabitants had of the perils attendant to the supernatural latticework threaded throughout their environment, and here was an opportunity to investigate the question. “What kind of hot spots?”

“Well, it’s usually a good idea to stay away from the parks after dark. There’s a bunch of bars near the docks that can get pretty rough. Crawford Street, the north end, used to have a bad reputation but I don’t know how accurate that is.” Nancy frowned, her eyes distant as she assessed other possibilities. “There are a bunch of vacant warehouses, and a few factories that have closed down — my mom says the Mayor offers all kinds of tax breaks and zoning favors to attract businesses to Sunnydale, but there’s still a lot of turnover — and vagrants and PCP gangs have taken over some of the empty buildings. Other gangs vandalize the cemeteries after dark, so it’s better to stay away from those …” She stopped, and looked to me with sudden realization. “Actually, anywhere at night that doesn’t already have a lot of lights and a lot of people.”

I wondered if she included her coevals’ favorite, the Bronze, in her list of safe locales, despite its history. “From the sound of things, you haven’t much to choose from.”

“No, I don’t.” She glanced toward the front seat. “Maybe if I could get them interested in the Mall …”

That didn’t strike me as highly probable, but there was nothing to be gained by discouraging her. “You’ve lived here your whole life,” I observed. “You only have to get them through one night.”

“It’s worse than it used to be, though.” She sat back in her seat. “God, it’s been getting worse for years. How could I have not noticed —?”

In front of us, Selina turned down the radio, and spoke over her shoulder to Nancy. “Does this town have any expensive neighborhoods?”

“What do you mean?” Nancy asked.

Selina shrugged. “I was just planning to cruise around, kill a little time, and then hook some transport out of here, I’m for the big city life. But, as long as I’m around, I might as well check out possibilities.” My angle didn’t allow me to see Selina’s eyes in the mirror, but I suspected Nancy could. “So, how about it? Any mansions? High-end jewelry stores? Art dealerships? Stuff like that?”

I could feel Nancy’s tension through the hand I kept on her arm, but didn’t know its cause. “We’ve … got a lot of different things, for a small town,” she said carefully. “I guess because L.A. is so close. Were you wanting to, to do anything tonight, or just … scout the territory?”

This time I could see a corner of Selina’s smile. “I don’t run jobs out of a terrain-chewer like this, it’s not maneuverable enough. Plus, stolen. No, I’m just scouting.”

“Okay,” Nancy said, relaxing. “Well, there are some places you could look at —”

“What’s that?” Indy said suddenly.

I couldn’t tell what he meant, but a moment later Selina had swung the SUV to a stop, and the scene became clear. On the street ahead of us, a number of small demonic figures were scampering about two larger individuals, movement and shadows from the headlights making it difficult to ascertain if the latter were transfigured or merely costumed. At first I thought the beleaguered pair were allied against the diminutive swarm besieging them; but then the largest, apparently clad only in thick hair, reached out for the other one in obvious attack before being diverted once again as several small horned creatures attached themselves to his ankles. He bellowed and began trying to dislodge them with violent kicks, but they simply clung hooting to his calves. He lost his footing and went to his knees, the others immediately sprang to his shoulders, and his former companion (caparisoned like a gaucho, I saw now, and not truly much taller than the gnomish things they had been fighting) seized the opportunity and fled.

While I had been taking in this spectacle, the others had left the safety of the vehicle, and now Nancy was urging, “Stop them! You have to get them apart!”

“Why?” Indy asked, his voice carrying the same mystification I felt. Why couldn’t we just stay clear of all these extraneous entanglements, why was it necessary for us to —?

“They’re children!” she shrieked, fists clenched in frustration. “They’ll kill each other if you don’t stop them! Please, you have to help me!”

Our unlikely duo were moving before she finished, whips streaking and cracking through the chittering pack and its shaggy prey. By the time it occurred to me that I, too, should intervene for appearances’ sake, it was over; the imps had scattered, yipping and howling in thwarted rage, and when the seeming Sasquatch attempted to charge his rescuers, Indy snared his feet with the bullwhip and Selina looped kick after kick into the creature’s face, spinning again and again to slam them home in inexhaustible succession, until at last he fell and lay still.

With nothing else to contribute, I put my arms around Nancy as if ready to shield her from some yet-unseen threat. She jerked, startled, before realizing who I was, and shook me off. “Is he okay?” she demanded of Selina. “You didn’t kill him?”

Apropos, the thing on the street twitched a few times and let out a great blubbering snore. That settled that, I thought, but no. Nancy turned to me and said, “Help me tie him up.”

I said (reasonably, I think), “If he’s bound, he won’t be able to defend himself.”

“And if he’s not,” she shot back, “he’ll just attack someone else when he comes to. So we’re going to tie him up and take him with us.”

“Nancy …” I was so nonplussed by this irrationality that I couldn’t think how to react, but I did my best to keep my tone gentle. “We have no idea how many people this enchantment covers. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands.” I reached out to take her hands in mine. “You can’t save them all.”

She looked to me, her eyes searching; and then something happened to her face, it crumpled and hardened at the same time. She pulled her hands away from me, and stared at me as if trying to classify some species of insect. “We’ll save this one,” she said. “And every other one we can. Help or not, it’s your choice.”

How had this happened? I had only been pointing out what was obvious to an objective eye, and yet within moments I had seen the obliteration of all the companionship that had been building between us this evening. While I was still trying to understand, she turned to Indy and Selina, and spoke with that same diamond hardness. “That also goes for you two. They’re kids: this one, the ones that ran, who knows how many others. Some of them will die if we don’t do something. If you’ll help me, I need you. If you won’t, I can’t afford to waste any more time on you.” She paused, and added the word she had not deigned to give me: “Please.”

We bound the creature with battery cables and secured it in the back of the SUV. I gave myself fully to the task, lifting and heaving with the others to get our captive into the vehicle’s interior, but when I spoke to Nancy she either answered in single syllables or didn’t respond at all.

It must, I concluded, be something to do with humanity. But, struggle though I might, I couldn’t recall enough of the emotional underpinnings of my former existence to make any sense out of Nancy’s behavior. That disturbed me; I have always been more nearly human than my fellows, they have scorned me for it, and now I had a human body and human desires and, yes, undeniably human emotions, and still I was facing a mystery. Perhaps this was a greater gulf than the one between demon and mortal; perhaps I was trying to peer across the eternal chasm that has always separated man from woman …

If so, I would have to address it as men have always done: by persistence, alternating reasoned argument with abject pleas and fawning adulation. My ultimate task was not to understand her — even vampire masters have despaired of ever comprehending the workings of their females’ minds — but to persuade her, and that was a task best begun soonest.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her. Again we were in the back together (though only, I suspect, because Selina and Indy had resumed their former places before Nancy had thought to request a change). “I know how it sounded, but that wasn’t what I meant to say.” She sat without speaking, and I chose to take that as a noncommittal response. “If you must know, I’m afraid for you. You’re trying so hard, you’ve taken on so much … I worry that you won’t be able to bear the strain.”

“Right,” she said flatly; an answer, but the steel in her tone was less than wholly encouraging. “You’re an unfeeling bastard, but only out of concern for me because I’m so weak.” She turned in the seat to face me. “Who are you under that get-up? Larry? Andy? John Lee? God, I can’t believe I was such a chump!”

Chump? Once again I didn’t understand, and opened my mouth to say so, but hours of anger and resentment (initially at her situation, but now directed at me) boiled out of her in a scalding rush. “I’ve been dealing with guys like you since junior high, you’ve all got this whole routine for the sensitive chick with the nice tits: you listen and you sympathize and you’re SO caring and understanding, as long as it’s moving you toward what you want. Everything’s wonderful, everything is perfect, unless you don’t get your way … or maybe even if you do, and now there’s no challenge left, and all of a sudden Prince Charming is Mister Hyde, cutting me down in public and telling stories behind my back —”

“No, no,” I interjected. “It’s nothing like that —”

“Shove it!” she snarled. “Because I don’t care. I’ll fight that out some other day. Right now there’s no time. Right now it’s about lives, it’s about people who’ll die if we don’t stop it. What you think doesn’t matter, what I think doesn’t matter. What matters is what we’re doing right now.”

“Oh, boy,” Indy muttered from the front seat; Selina had left the radio turned down, and Nancy’s castigation of me had been more than loud enough to carry those few feet ahead of us. While I was still adjusting to this unexpected humiliation, Selina said, “Nice job, kiddo. You want to turn him over and toast the other side, or do you prefer your rat-bastards sunny-side-up?”

Our seat shook, and for a confused moment I thought Nancy had punched it out of anger; but then it came again, a more emphatic thump, and I realized that the vehicle’s fifth passenger, in the space behind us, was adding its own commentary to the conversation. “We’ve got trouble back here,” Nancy said, and the seat lurched with another impact. “You may need to pull ov–”

Perhaps the creature had freed one of its limbs, or perhaps its efforts had shifted it to a position of greater leverage, for the next blow tore the bench seat loose from its mounting brackets, and I was slammed into the back of the seat ahead of me. Shaken though I was, mine was the lesser effect; the force had been directed more upon Nancy’s side than on mine, and the jolt hurled her into the foremost space, tumbling so that her head fell into the floor-well on the passenger’s side and her legs kicked and swung blindly against Selina’s arms, head, and the steering wheel she held. Even if Selina had already begun to slow, it still wasn’t enough; she lost control for an instant, one wheel struck a curb, the steering wheel jerked free, and the SUV careened to the opposite side of the street, bounded across the sidewalk, and plowed through the front of the neon-lit building facing outward.

The final collision and sudden stop had again thrown me against the back of Indy’s seat, but I found myself uninjured; I got the door open and almost fell out, ominous sounds and unfamiliar odors assailing my senses; Indy emerged from the other door, pushing his way past some bulging fabric balloon that had somehow burst from the dash panel, and together we began to extricate Nancy from the inverted posture she had involuntarily assumed …

Human reflexes cannot match those of the undead, but the speed of a living brain is a marvel. I heard a deep, grating growl behind me, and long, long before I turned in its direction I knew where we had come to rest and how untenable was our position.

It was a small crowd at Willy’s tonight, even with the dim interior lighting I could tell that much: perhaps a dozen of various breeds, and none of them vampires. (Most of those would be occupied with whatever was the unscheduled activity Spike had called for tonight; I had been derisively exempted, but ventured out in uncharacteristic solitude simply from curiosity.) Other demons are less punctilious about the proper observances, but still would be likely to stay to their homes or lairs on this particular night. That meant that the ones slowly advancing would be atypical, unpredictable, and probably the more dangerous because of it, though their numbers and nature would already provide them with all the advantage they should need.

Selina rolled across the hood of the SUV, alighting beside me as Indy continued to pull Nancy from the front. She swept her gaze across the mismatched throng gathering to confront us, and breathed, “What the hell …?”

“Meat,” the nearest one grunted; he was barely four feet tall, and almost as wide, with pebbled skin. “Pink meat.”

“Gents, gents!” This was a high, anxious voice from the back. “You know the rules. No killin’ within ten blocks, it draws too much attention to this place.”

“Rules are off,” another wheezed; one of the few lights was behind it, I could only see an outline, but the shoulder fronds would make it a Velga, though they were supposed to be extinct. “Forget rules, they violated our space on Halloween!”

Indy was at my left now, and in a low voice he said to me, “Something tells me this isn’t your everyday gin joint.”

“Remember what Nancy told us about all the odd things being enchanted children?” I said to him and to Selina. “That doesn’t apply to this bunch. Kill as many as you want.”

“That’s a good thing to know,” Selina said, and then the first rank charged.
 

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