The Book of Fours Read online

“Yeah, yeah,” Buffy gruffed. “Dream on.”

  She limped behind, by the light of the wrinkled paper moon.

  Chapter Three

  See the White Eagle soaring aloft to the sky,

  Wakening the broad welkin with his loud battle cry;

  Then here’s the White Eagle, full daring is he,

  As he sails on his pinions o’er valley and sea.

  —EDGAR ALLAN POE, A Campaign Song, 1844

  Rupert Giles was not in his cups. His walk was steady and his senses were keen. He had taken one neat, one only; and a nice single malt at that, in the closest thing Sunnydale had to a pub.

  Despite the excellence of the whiskey, however, the bar had been a bar, with throbbing music and furnishings of cold glass and sleek chrome; nothing homey or publike about it. Nor was it in any way conducive to conversation or camaraderie, the main attractions of a pub. Tonight he would have loved to talk—about ideas, and art, and whether or not he and Jenny Calendar should marry. But it had not been the proper place, nor the time. No one in the bar had cared two wits about oil paintings or marble statues.

  And his Jenny was dead.

  Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Giles walked the fog-choked streets of Sunnydale. It was Friday night, and he still had on his librarian tweeds. Upon occasion, his condo was too quiet for him. He was an Englishman in exile, the British Watcher currently charged with the care of not one, but two living American slayers.

  He had been sent to Sunnydale two years before, in anticipation of the Slayer’s relocation from Los Angeles. Merrick, her first Watcher, had been killed. Buffy Summers herself had been thrown out of Hemery, her L.A. high school, ostensibly for burning down the gymnasium.

  Buffy had detested moving to Sunnydale as much as Giles had. At sixteen, it was rather a lot for any young girl to properly handle, much less a Slayer who had been inadequately prepared for her destiny.

  The petite blonde was in no way a typical Slayer—she had friends, lived with her mother, and not to put too fine a point on it, had had no interest in being the Slayer whatsoever. She had never heard of slaying before she was chosen, and all she wanted was a normal teenage life centered around boys, shopping, and gossip.

  When she and her mother moved to Sunnydale, she had thought she was free of the entire affair.

  Alas, that was not to be. She was a Slayer, and would be until she died. Or so Giles assumed . . . now that there were two Slayers, it did make the future unpredictable. Technically, Buffy had died, which had called another Slayer—Kendra. Kendra had died, thus calling Faith. Now Faith was in Sunnydale, with Buffy and him, and who knew what that meant? The Watchers Council was still trying to puzzle it out.

  Giles began to climb the hill and stopped halfway up. He turned around, surveying the horizon, his gaze sweeping the landscape below. The cool air was bracing. A matrix of orderly city lights twinkled in the fog. Sunnydale seemed like such a pleasant place to live.

  But looks are so deceiving.

  “Oh, little town of Sunnydale, how you lie,” he murmured. “So . . . innocuous. Unremarkable. But you’re the mask the monster wears.”

  People walk their dogs here in Sunnydale, as if nothing’s amiss. But you lie in wait, beneath a shroud of darkness spun of starless nights and death. Evil chokes your harbor and presses down hard on the gravestones of the dead and the restless. It sneaks into tombs and takes up residence among moldy bones and mildewed grave clothes.

  You lie; you are the lie that things are as they should be. But the shadows devour them all—dogs, and cats, too, and high school students and toddlers. Vampires rule the night, rent apartments, and play in garage bands. Demons congregate at Willy’s Alibi, trading information for shots of rather nasty gin.

  You lie in wait. For my Slayer, Buffy, and the new one, Faith. I know you want them. Your voracious appetite and your evilness lust for their destruction. You can’t wait to taste the souls of the Slayers.

  I shall never let you have them.

  A wind whistled sharply. Rupert Giles drew his houndstooth jacket around himself as the fog swirled around him, caressing his cheeks and clutching at his ankles; he could almost hear mocking laughter at his ear. As in London, ghosts lived in the fog of Sunnydale, and they could not be dispelled with one shot of single malt, neat, or a bouquet of roses on a carefully tended grave—Jenny’s grave, his first stop this evening.

  “You shall never have them,” he said aloud.

  The fog clung to him, and the wind laughed softly. He almost heard the words:

  But I took Jenny. And her roses are already beginning to fade into moonlight.

  “Jenny,” Giles whispered.

  Eyes welling, he glanced upward at the stars. Almost directly above him, an unusual cluster of four lights moved together as they crossed the sky. Airplane lights, he thought, or helicopters.

  Or something else. He checked his watch; it was just about eleven. I’ll check my books, see if there’s anything about autumnal star groupings.

  Then one of them flashed with ice-blue brilliance, plummeting toward the ocean.

  A wind whipped up. Giles cocked his head as the sharp, bitter breeze slapped his cheeks. His hair was ruffled, his clothes tugged at. Dark gray clouds scudded across the sky, choking the moon.

  To his right, storm clouds gathered; a bolt of lightning issued from the base of a thunderhead, a jagged electric connection that disappeared behind a ridge. It was the Sunnydale National Forest.

  Like the fuse leading to a powder keg, a row of distant pines ignited, one after the other, washing the night sky with an orange glow. As Giles watched, more and more trees went up.

  Giles stayed no longer. He hurried home to alert the fire department.

  Books and stars, for the moment, forgotten.

  Chapter Four

  Willow bolted upright as loud voices startled her awake.

  “Lucy?” she called softly.

  Alone in the Summers living room, she put her hand to her forehead as if she could keep the rapidly dissolving fragments of what might have been a simple dream from dissipating altogether. Did I dream about Lucy Hanover and some other Slayer? Were they trying to contact me?

  But it was no good; Buffy could remember her own dreams, but not Willow. She’d never been good at it, despite the fact that now that she hung out with Buffy, dreams had taken on a sense of importance. She slid off the couch and followed the noise into the kitchen. Buffy and Faith were there, Faith in some kind of “fear me, I wear black” getup and Buffy, very fashionable as always in white vinyl and otherwise dark colors.

  I don’t get why Cordelia rags on the way she dresses, Willow thought. Just because Buffy doesn’t kill vampires in designer clothes doesn’t mean that she dresses . . . like me.

  Joyce was bustling around the girls. The two were extremely disheveled, both covered with blood and slime. Faith’s cheek was bleeding badly, but except for bruises and scratches, Willow saw no major damage to Buffy.

  Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Buffy hurried to Willow, saying, “I’m so sorry. We got cornered by these demons—well, actually, not cornered, but we had to fight and—”

  “What happened?” Willow asked.

  “It was the Baffles,” Buffy told her breathlessly, laughing. “Will, they do look like ice cream cones.”

  “Did,” Faith cut in, grinning. “We took ’em out.” She gestured a one-two rock-em sock-em at the air.

  “Oh, good!” Willow clapped her hands together. “You have to tell Giles. Well, in the morning, because it’s really late.”

  “I know.” Buffy grimaced, crossed over to the sink, and unrolled the kitchen towels. “I am so majorly sorry about the sleepover, Will. As usual, Sunnydale Video will make a mint off the movies I did not get to see. Is it my imagination, or do the forces of darkness seem to actually know when I rent vids, thus ensuring I waste my hard-earned money?”

  She wrinkled her nose and glanced at her mother. “Big slip of the tongue there. My mom’s hard-
earned money.”

  Joyce, Willow noticed, was not smiling. She looked ashen, and she had been crying. Willow was even more confused. When had that happened? While she was asleep on the couch? Had she said something that had hurt Joyce’s feelings, or frightened her?

  Faith noticed, too. She blurted out, “Jeez, who died?”

  Buffy fell silent and stared at her mother. All three girls waited anxiously. The problem with being one of Buffy’s friends was that a lot of people did die, and some of them were people Willow knew and cared about.

  “Mom?” Buffy demanded, in a frightened, pleading voice. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  Willow watched Joyce Summers visibly calm herself down and pull herself together as she gently approached her daughter. Buffy’s mother took her child’s hands in hers and gazed into her eyes. Buffy paid attention now. Wordlessly, Willow kept watching. So did Faith.

  If it was Oz or Xander, she would have told me right away, Willow reminded herself. Or Cordelia. Or Giles. She was panicking. I’ve lived here all my life. I know so many people, despite being a social outcast and a computer geek.

  “Buffy, Irma Hernandez called,” Joyce began. Her lower lip was trembling and her eyes began to well. She inhaled sharply.

  “Mom,” Buffy blurted, as if to keep her mom from continuing. “Mom, um . . .”

  Mrs. Summers swallowed hard. “Oh, Buffy, Natalie was very sick. I didn’t know. No one else knew. But she’d been in the hospital for a long time. And she . . . she died tonight, honey.”

  Silence fell, thick and suffocating. The kitchen clock ticked. Outside, a car backfired. A dog barked, and another answered.

  Nobody I know. Willow’s relief was overwhelming, but so was her guilt. By the stunned, blank look on Buffy’s face, Natalie was someone very dear to her.

  Awkwardly, Willow sat in one of the kitchen chairs. Faith, her legs crossed at the ankles, leaned against the dishwasher, wet paper towels pressed against her cheek. Blood was leaking into the wet clump, spreading like a rose. She looked more curious than anything else.

  Buffy began to cry. The tears rolled down her cheeks and she moved away from her mother, her friends, everyone. She stood beside the sink, sobbing.

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  “Hey, we all gotta go sometime,” Faith muttered. Still holding her wad of bloody paper towels, she turned abruptly and headed for the door. Before Willow realized what was happening, Faith was gone, leaving the kitchen door ajar.

  Willow got out of her chair. She went to the door and looked out.

  Spotlit by a neighbor’s patio light, Faith was loping through the backyard and into the fog. Willow stood in the doorway as a chilly, misty night breeze swirled across her face and lifted her hair. Tears stung her cheeks.

  What if the call had been about Faith? she thought. Or Buffy? About if she was . . . if she . . .

  Unable to complete the thought, she shut the door and came back into the kitchen. Buffy and her mother had their arms around each other. They sobbed together for several minutes. Buffy’s head was on her mother’s shoulder and Joyce’s arms were tight around her.

  After a time, Joyce walked Buffy toward the living room. They shuffled along like two little old ladies.

  Awkwardly, Willow followed behind. Mother and daughter curled up together on the couch and wept. Their mutual sorrow rose around them like a wall, and Willow kept her distance, respectful, and feeling out of place.

  “Natalie’s my best friend,” Buffy sobbed. “My best friend in all the world. She’s . . . she . . .”

  “I know, honey,” Joyce Summers murmured gently as she held her daughter. “She was a lovely girl. The nicest girl in the world. It’s horrible that this happened.”

  For a time Willow stood, feeling entirely invisible. Then she went back into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea because she didn’t know what else to do.

  She opened an art magazine on the kitchen table and stared at a shiny color photograph of some broken plates. Her heart was thudding.

  Every time I think I’m used to all the death, it finds a new way to scare me, she thought. Because I had a dream, which I don’t remember, but here we are, with someone dead, someone the Slayer cared about, and that usually means it’s more than just the dying. And the dying is plenty.

  In fact, it’s way, way too much.

  “Hey, Will,” Buffy said, coming up behind her. Her eyes were swollen and her nose was red.

  “You want some tea?” Willow asked her.

  Buffy blew her nose on a piece of tissue and nodded. Willow got another cup out of the cabinet and put the kettle on. Buffy took lots of sugar, so she checked the bowl.

  “She was a friend of mine back in L.A.,” Buffy began. “We were on the squad together. Natalie was the captain.”

  Squad, Willow processed. Captain. Cheerleading.

  Willow nodded. “At Hemery.”

  “Yeah.” Buffy swallowed hard and looked lost, as if she had no idea what to do next. The kettle whistled, and Willow dropped a peppermint tea bag in the cup while Buffy, moved to action, took the lid off the sugar bowl and got a spoon out of the drawer.

  “I didn’t even know Nat was sick. She used to be my best friend, and I didn’t even know she needed a liver transplant.”

  “Times change,” Willow croaked. That sounded cold, and not for the world was she lacking in sympathy. “I mean, maybe she didn’t want you to know. There wasn’t much you could do to help her.”

  “I could have done something.” Buffy heaped sugar in the tea and stirred it. “Given her a liver.”

  “You only have one,” Willow said gently.

  “Oh. Yeah. Kidneys, two. Lungs. You’d think I’d remember stuff like that, with all the ripped-open dead bodies I’ve seen.” She gestured to her cup. “Besides, with all this sugar, she probably couldn’t have used mine. If I wasn’t using it, I mean.”

  Buffy carried the cup to the table. As she sat, she ran a hand through her hair and grimaced big-time, looking very miserable and forlorn as she picked up a paper napkin and wiped some of the goo and blood off herself. “I’m so gross.”

  “You look okay.” When Buffy frowned skeptically at her, Willow shrugged and added, “On the scale of grossness, you’re, well, actually, an eight or nine. Taking that into account . . . you look okay.”

  “She should have told me.” Buffy’s voice was thick with hurt as she wadded up the napkin. She put it beside her on the table and brought the tea cup to her lips. Making a quick face, she pushed back her chair and rocked back on the legs, reaching for the sugar bowl, very much not paying attention to anything she was doing. “Confided in me.”

  She looked at Willow. “I mean, am I wrong?”

  Willow thought for a moment. “It’s confusing when you feel helpless. When someone you care about is in danger, and all you can do is sit and worry, maybe it’s better not to know what they’re going through.”

  But I don’t believe that.

  “So maybe she was trying to spare you,” Willow concluded.

  “I guess. But I was her best friend.” Buffy added the additional sugar, tasted, and put the sugar bowl on the kitchen table. She exhaled heavily. “I just hope . . . ” She looked at Willow, stricken. “I hope she didn’t suffer.”

  Willow said, with all her heart, “Me, too.”

  They sat for a while, staring at their cups. Willow’s mind wandered to the many times Buffy had risked her life to save hers; to all the girl-gossiping, first about Xander and then Oz, and of course, Angel, to the cookies they’d baked and the monsters they’d killed. She felt small and mean to be even the tiniest bit jealous of a girl who had not shared any of that, and never would.

  “Where’d Faith go?” Buffy asked suddenly. “Maybe I should have asked if she wanted to stay over with us.”

  Willow stifled a reaction. She had decided she didn’t like Faith all that much. She wasn’t sure the other Slayer was that good an influence on Buffy. Faith was really wild and extre
mely cynical about men. Plus, she’d dropped out of high school. In Willow’s world, that was incomprehensibly wrong.

  Ashamed, she swallowed down her discomfort and said, “I don’t know what happened. She just took off.”

  “I’ll go by her place tomorrow,” Buffy said. She gave her friend a rueful smile. “Some sleepover, huh? I’m sorry, Will.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Willow assured her. “Friend of Slayer, you know.” She pursed her lips together and smiled. “I’m good for the hard times.”

  “I know. Thanks.” Buffy leaned her chin on her hand and stared back down at her tea. “It’s just . . . I mean, I know people die. I see it all the time. But if she can die . . . ” She trailed off, her eyes ticking toward Willow, as if to gauge if she was boring her or bothering her. Willow tried to convey her sympathy and willingness to listen, and Buffy sighed pensively.

  “Miss Calendar was the first, really. I mean, you know, we’ve lost friends. There was Jesse, right when I got here. I didn’t know him all that well, but you did. There’ve been others, too.”

  Willow ventured, “Angel.”

  Buffy nodded. “I thought I would die when I killed him.” She looked hard at Willow. “I really thought I would. In a way, I did.”

  “I know,” Willow replied.

  Buffy moved her shoulders. “If I did, I mean for real, if I died, there would be another Slayer.”

  But there wouldn’t be another Buffy, Willow thought. Oh, please, Buffy, outlive me. Outlive all of us. You’re the best we’ve got.

  Only, be real old when you do it, okay?

  They sat together for a while. Willow said, “Did your mom go to bed?”

  “Yeah. Don’t know why. She won’t sleep. When my parents split up, Irma was there for my mom. Really there.” Buffy looked defeated. “This is the stuff I can’t do anything about.”

  “Not beating anybody up about,” Willow agreed. “But your mom and you have a bond over this. You’re here to help each other with the grief.”

  “I suppose.” She smiled sadly and said, “Go on to bed, Will. I’ll be up in a little while.”