Carnival of Souls Read online

  If Ethan’s death came tomorrow, it would not be soon enough.

  Buffy had not checked in and Giles was a trifle worried. He still hadn’t figured out what the Rising was, and he wondered, not for the first time, if both of them were on a fool’s errand tonight: his Slayer, out looking for the Rising, and he, here to get information about it. Better to be near a phone, in case Buffy rang him up, than sitting here waiting for an unreliable informant who might or might not show.

  He moved his neck in a slow circle. He had a headache, and he was tired. He looked at himself in the mirrored wall beside his table. God, he looked old. Where had that angry young man gone? The one who had worn working-class clothes and an accent to match, and played the guitar like a very demon?

  That stuffy and proper man in the mirror had swallowed him up, forced him to be someone else, to grow up.

  Ripper, you’re not Peter Pan, he reminded himself. You have a slayer to guide. You have responsibilities. So get over it, as Buffy would say.

  “Giles,” said a voice, although there was no reflection of its owner in the mirror.

  “Angel,” Giles replied, swiveling his head toward Buffy’s vampire boyfriend. He was tall, handsome, and unsmiling. Precisely the sort of bad boy Giles had been in his day. However, when one was over 240 years old, one hardly qualified as a “boy.” And bad men were something else entirely.

  “Did you bring Clem with you?” Clem was the name of a demon Angel had located at Willy’s Alibi. This Clem had offered to tell Giles about the Rising—for a small price, of course. In this case, it was not too high, although it was rather off-putting: It seemed he was part of a floating demonic poker game that placed bets using kittens.

  Angel shook his head. “Said he couldn’t make it.” He glanced down at the table. “Black and tan. The black is Guinness. That’s from my part of the world.”

  “Have a seat,” Giles said, gesturing to the banquette across from him. “We’ll order up a round.”

  Giles gestured the perky, heavily tanned waitress over and ordered two more.

  As she left to place their order, Angel leaned forward. “Clem did tell me a few things over the phone.”

  “About the Rising?”

  Angel nodded. “It has something to do with a carnival.”

  Giles raised his brows. “Indeed? I haven’t heard anything at all about a carnival.”

  “Clem says that’s all they’re talking about at Willy’s Alibi.” Although Willy was a human—technically speaking; personally, Giles thought him a bit less than that—his bar was a favorite haunt for demons. More than once, he had provided valuable information that had helped Buffy immeasurably in her slaying duties—not because he was a good man, but because either he got paid for it, or to avoid the beating Buffy threatened him with.

  Also for money or to avoid physical pain, he had just as handily betrayed Buffy or her friends.

  “What are they saying?” Giles asked Angel.

  Their drinks came. Angel hesitated, took a tentative sip, and looked disappointed. Giles surmised that despite knowing he couldn’t taste it, Angel had hoped.

  “They’re excited about it,” Angel replied. “They say it’ll tear Sunnydale apart. Bring the Slayer down.”

  “Oh, well, they say things like that all the time. Bit of false bravado, to deny how much Buffy intimidates them.”

  Angel wrapped his hands around his beer glass as he leaned forward. “It’s real enough to keep Clem from being seen with me. Or you. Not that I’m real popular with demons to start with.”

  Giles considered. “So, are you saying the Rising refers to the arrival of this carnival?”

  “From the sound of it,” Angel replied.

  “So…Buffy needs to stop this carnival from coming here.”

  Angel nodded.

  Giles leaned forward, his Watcher brain going into overdrive. “How?”

  Angel shook his head. “That’s all I got. He didn’t even want to tell me that much. He’s scared.”

  Giles slid out of the booth, gathering his jacket from beside himself on the leatherette.

  “Where are you going?” Angel asked.

  “To the library. To my books. To look stuff up.”

  Angel drained his black and tan and set down the empty glass. Then he rose, as steadily as he sat down.

  “Where are you going?” Giles asked him.

  “Back to Willy’s. See if I can get more information to take to Buffy.” He cocked his head. “Did you bring kittens?”

  Giles looked mildly shocked. “I didn’t realize you were a gambling man.”

  “I’m not. I was just going to suggest that you give them back, if you can.”

  They walked out of the Lucky Pint, into cool, but not cold, air. It had rained earlier that evening, but as was usually the case with this accursed land, it had not lasted long.

  Angel stopped. He lifted his chin slightly, concentrating; when Giles began to speak, the vampire held up his hand for silence, and Giles complied.

  After a few seconds, Angel asked, “Did you hear that?”

  Giles cocked his head. “I don’t hear anything except the music in the bar.” Which was something far more current than “Piece of My Heart” and far less melodious.

  “It’s a calliope,” Angel said.

  “I can’t hear it,” Giles repeated, concentrating. He shook his head.

  “I can. It’s playing circus music.”

  “As in a carnival,” Giles replied. “So it’s already on its way here. Perhaps already setting up.”

  “I’ll skip Willy’s and take a look.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Giles said.

  There was no answer.

  He looked to his right, where Angel had been standing. There was no one there.

  “I wonder how he does that,” Giles muttered.

  He decided to take a two-pronged approach to the developments at hand. Angel could look for the carnival. Giles would begin the research.

  He walked to his Citroën and drove back to the school library, to do what he did best.

  In the backseat his two new pets mewed.

  From the backseat of her car with the license plate QUEEN C, Cordelia raised her head and said, “Wait. Stop. You’re distracting me.”

  “Distracting you?” Xander asked, peeved.

  “Listen.” She unleashed her patented you’re-existing-when-you-shouldn’t scowl. “That is music. Meaning that someone else is out here!” She put her hand on the armrest, about to wrench open the door and sail out into the night. “This is my place to park! If someone else is trespassing—”

  “There is no one out there,” Xander said, urging her back to the make-out zone.

  She wouldn’t go. She stayed as she was, lifting the tail of Xander’s dark blue plaid shirt to wipe the steam off the window. “There is, too. I can hear music.”

  “We’re fine in here,” Xander argued. “The windows are all steamed up. No one can see a thing.”

  She gazed at him as if he were the king of cretins. “Hel-lo? How many cars with personalized license plates that read QUEEN C are there in Sunnydale? One. And do I lend my car to my friends? No. So who would be in here? Me.”

  He reached for her hand. “Okay, but since no one knows we’re, um, seeing each other—”

  Her glare could have melted him, except she was one superpower short. “We are not seeing each other. Okay? There is no seeing each other going on. This, this insanity is not seeing each other!”

  “Okay! I get it! I’m only saying—”

  She batted his hand away, hard. “Look, I told you there would be no making out within two hundred yards of anywhere anyone could catch us doing…this.” She shuddered. “Except somewhere hidden, like a closet. That music means there’s someone nearby, and I, for one, have much to lose if anybody sees me with you.” She smiled at him without smiling. Back to the melting of his manly self.

  “Got it?” she asked.

  “Oh, I got it,” he s
aid angrily. “I’m just not keeping it. I’m not the one who said, ‘Oh, what the heck,’ and drove up here. I was perfectly happy to wait until we could sneak into your gazebo and go for it there.”

  “Excuse me?” Now she pulled herself up to a fully upright position and tucked in her shirt. “The gazebo is being painted, remember?”

  “Oh, sorry, Veronica Lodge,” he bit off. “It’s very difficult for me to keep track of all the many home repairs you invent so I won’t end up at your house.”

  She flared. “The only place you’re going to end up is in my trunk—”

  They stared at each other. There was that crazy moment that happened between them where their blood pressure skyrocketed and their eyes glazed and it was like…wow, talk about lust….

  And then they both shook their heads at the exact same time and said, “No. Too small.”

  “Besides, we might suffocate,” Cordelia offered.

  “Great minds think alike,” Xander said.

  “Our minds have nothing to do with this,” Cordelia retorted. “It’s just physical, pure and simple. Although when I think about it, when I’m not around you…” She looked away and muttered, “I just want to throw up.”

  “Hey, I feel the same way,” Xander said. “It puts me off my snack foods.” He reached down and held up a bag of Cheetos. Then he made as if to unroll the window—which he couldn’t do, because the windows were electric—and cast the bag out.

  “Oh, please.” Cordelia grabbed the bag from him and tossed it to the floor.

  “Ask me again,” he urged her.

  “What?”

  “Say please.” He grinned at her.

  “I loathe myself,” Cordelia said, moaning.

  Then she resumed smooching Xander for all she was worth.

  Which was, actually—especially if you counted all the money her father had set aside for college—quite a lot.

  Angel walked alone.

  As he followed the sound of the calliope, he strode down Main Street, past the Sun Cinema and the Espresso Pump. He thought about Buffy, aware that as he passed each storefront he cast no reflection—and equally aware that no one on Main Street noticed.

  Even Buffy had stopped noticing.

  Ever since the day he had taken her skating, he couldn’t stop replaying what had happened. It had shaken his world. The Master had sent assassins to kill her, and one of the Three had attacked her at the rink. Angel had vamped, and in the ensuing fight he had been injured. She had tenderly touched his cut, and kissed him with such sweetness…

  Kissed him while he still wore the true face of his demonic nature: fangs, glowing eyes, nothing there for her to love. He’d been overwhelmed with shame. But Buffy didn’t care.

  He paused.

  The feelings raised in him—hope, for himself; and intense fear, for her—had been almost more than he could handle. They still were. It was classic Beauty and the Beast. He had been at his most repulsive—the antithesis of everything she stood for—and she had loved him anyway.

  Was it weakness, to have a relationship with Buffy? She was only sixteen years old, a young girl.

  But she’s the Slayer. She’s not just sixteen years old. Her life moves faster; her life is different. Every night she stares death down. Every night she conquers it.

  I’ve conquered death.

  She moves in the darkness.

  Like I do.

  And she loved him.

  And I love her. I’m not leaving her alone in the shadows. She tries so hard to have a normal life, but it isn’t normal. Her friends think they understand, but they don’t.

  I do.

  So…would it be moral to abandon her because of what I am, or what I was?

  He didn’t know.

  He just didn’t know. She was still so young and unformed; she moved in a world that revolved around crushes and fashions that changed at lightning speed. Whereas for him, time dragged…or had dragged, until Buffy had come into his life.

  She was the sunshine that he had not been permitted to walk in for nearly two hundred fifty years. And to bask in her love, even when he was at his worst…it was a gift he had never dreamed he would ever receive.

  I have to put this out of my mind, he told himself. I have other things to do tonight.

  So Angel glided through downtown Sunnydale, brooding, ignoring the occasional smile that flickered over the mouth of a female pedestrian, or two, or three.

  A kid on a skateboard barreled past. A woman walked a toy poodle on a pink leather leash studded with rhinestones. The poodle growled at Angel.

  He walked on.

  Then he heard a scream from the alley to his left.

  Putting on a burst of speed, he ran into the alley.

  He saw a kid, possibly eighteen, and in the military, as evident by his camouflage uniform and cap. Marine Corps. His black lace-up boots were dangling off the pavement as two vampires in game face toyed with him. One of them had its hands around the soldier’s neck, squeezing the life out of him, while the other dove in for a bite—

  Angel vamped and rushed them, grabbing the one who was choking the marine, and throwing him against the alley wall. The soldier fell to his knees, coughing and gasping. His cap fell off, and his—her—hair tumbled over her shoulders. She was a girl.

  The other vamp growled and attacked Angel with a sharp snapkick to the face. Angel staggered backward from the impact, and took advantage of his own momentum to deal the vamp a roundhouse kick. Then he planted his palms on the ground and added a back kick for good measure.

  Next he executed a three-sixty backflip and landed on his feet. The soldier, who had recovered, was pummeling the vamp in the face with her fists.

  Angel grinned. Semper fi.

  Then the vamp Angel had thrown across the alley picked himself up and launched at the marine. She saw it coming and thrust the pummeled vampire in front of herself, like a shield. The other vampire couldn’t stop in time, and crashed into its partner.

  At the same time, Angel bodyslammed them both, sending the two flying. While the marine attacked the nearest one again, Angel grabbed a piece of wood off the ground and snapped it in two. Result: two sharp, if jagged, stakes.

  He rejoined the fight, to discover that the marine’s vampire had gotten the upper hand. The soldier was flat on her back and the vamps were bending over her, fangs glistening as they got ready to tear out her throat. He could smell her fear. Her heart was pounding into overdrive.

  Angel grabbed the first vamp around the neck, pulling it to an upright position, and staked it. It dusted.

  The second one lunged for him—what a moron—and Angel shot his hand through the dust to take it out as well.

  Then he turned his face into the shadows and said, “Are you all right?”

  “Yessir,” the soldier said in a deep Southern accent. She gathered her hair up, feeling around among the curls as if she might be looking for a barrette. “Thank you. What were those things?” the young woman asked as she walked across the alley to retrieve her hat.

  Angel said nothing. Apparently she hadn’t seen his face in vamp mode.

  “What’s the Rising?” she continued.

  “Where did you hear about that?” he asked her.

  “Those two. They said this town was going to bleed.” She found her cap and popped it back on her head. “Because of the Rising.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir. That was it. What was wrong with their faces?”

  “Gang,” he said. It was what everybody in Sunnydale said to explain away the reality of vampires.

  “I thought as much,” she drawled. “I’ve seen the same gang in Virginia. Where I’m from.”

  Angel hesitated, wondering if she was trying to send him a code. If she knew about vampires. He asked, “Are you stationed at the Sunnydale Armory?”

  “No, sir. I’m here on R and R.” Her answer came so fast, he wondered if she had practiced saying it.

  “In Sunnydale?” he as
ked.

  “It’s got a beach,” she responded casually. “And a nice mall. My cousin lives here. She goes to high school. Melody Nierman. I’m her cousin Claire. Maybe you know her?”

  “No.”

  “I guess it’s not that small of a town.”

  “No, it’s not.” He started walking down the alley, back toward Main Street.

  “Thanks again, sir,” she said. And then, “Do you know what the Rising is?”

  “No.”

  But he sure as hell was going to find out.

  Willow Rosenberg was having a hideous nightmare. Others might simply call it a dream, but to Willow it signified much that was very bad. For in it Xander was explaining to her that the reason Miss Jenny Calendar never taught her any spells was because the pretty computer science teacher at Sunnydale High was afraid of competition.

  “See, the only places where she comes out ahead of you are spellcasting, and hotness,” Xander explained. “And also fashion. But then, she has a lot of money to spend on her appearance because she has a job. Face it, Will, you are job-free.”

  “I have no job,” Willow sadly concurred.

  “When it comes to job-having, you’re not there.”

  “Maybe someday I could have Ms. Calendar’s job,” she said wistfully.

  He wagged his finger at her. “Then it wouldn’t be her job anymore, would it? Envy’s not a pretty color on you, chica.”

  “I’m not envious. I just want…her clothes and her job and her…hotness,” Willow told him.

  “All quite understandable,” he said, talking through a mouthful of Doritos. He was carrying a bag the size of a Miata, and stuffing his mouth so fast that sometimes she couldn’t actually see his hand.

  They were walking together through a multistriped tent, just Willow and Xander and his enormous bag of Doritos, like in the old days of elementary school when they had been best buds. Now they weren’t such best buds because Xander liked Buffy and not Willow. Not in the bud-liking way, but in the way of sweeties. It put a space between them, only Xander didn’t know it.