Before them in the driving rain stood Cordelia, Buffy, and a half-bald Willow, who was wearing baggy jeans and a sweater. Oz was with them.
Xander and Faith crossed the street. Faith took a step forward. “I know who you are,” she said to the newcomers.
Cordelia and Willow nodded. “We have come back from the dead.”
“Oh.” Xander looked confused.
“I’m India Cohen,” said Willow.
“Oh.” Xander’s eyes widened.
Cordelia said, “I am Kendra.”
“Nice to see you again. Not. Not that it’s not nice, but that it’s not really you. But it is, isn’t it?” His voice was high and squeaky. He looked at Buffy. “This is creepy.”
“We need to go to the summit,” said Willow. “To prepare.” She looked at the other girls. “Kendra and I should go first. Alone. To get our bearings. Give us some time and then follow.”
“I can go with you,” Xander offered.
“Alone,” Cordelia said.
“That’s dumb,” Faith piped up. “It doesn’t make any sense. We go together, as a group.”
Cordelia shook her head. “Then we will be the Four. If the Servant summons the Gatherer, we will be engaged in battle too soon. And India and I need to learn to use our bodies.”
“Teaching?” Xander asked, raising his hand.
Willow chuckled, and Cordelia glared at her. “We have no time for jokes,” Cordelia snapped. “This is serious. We must concentrate.”
“You’re right,” Buffy said, trying to smooth things over. Boy, am I glad we’re not going to have a slumber party after this. Or go bowling. These guys do not get along.
Willow said, “Okay. So, you guys, we’ll gather at the battleground, okay?”
Buffy translated for Xander and Faith. “We’re going to the lighthouse. Giles knows where it is. He and Christopher are going up there together to get some magick stuff in place for us.”
“I’m checking around for Angel, see if he got that other axe,” Oz filled in.
“All right. Sounds like a plan.” Xander hugged Buffy. “Good luck.” He hugged Willow. “Good luck.” He hugged Cordelia, and yearned for the old days when he got to hug her all the time, and a few other things. But now she was Kendra, and he was afraid she was going to faint dead away. Kendra had not been around boys very much in her short, sheltered life.
Oz made his farewells and headed out toward Willy’s Alibi. Xander smiled ruefully and gave the two newly reanimated dead Slayers a wave.
Then he joined Faith and Buffy. “I still don’t get it,” he said. “Why the splitting up?”
“We’re Gatherer magnets if we’re all together,” she told him.
“Aw, the Gatherer’s just a user,” Faith quipped. “Guys are all the same. He’ll show, beat us up, eat our souls, and forget to call.”
“You are so cynical,” Xander observed drily.
“Just smart,” Faith responded.
After a few more minutes, they were in the forest, which was currently still on fire, but not in the section they had snuck into. Snuck, because the authorities had declared it unsafe and posted CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE signs all over it—most of which had been blown off whatever they were nailed to and were sailing around like kites.
Not on fire in their section, because there was nothing left to burn up. The trees were columns of cinders and ash, and the underbrush was gone.
Suddenly Buffy heard a low groan. She focused in on its direction, waiting for another. As she cocked her head, she slid her gaze toward Faith, who nodded.
“Heard it too,” the dark-haired Slayer murmured.
Xander looked around. “Heard what?”
“Over there.” Buffy pointed to some stubbly bushes on the other side of a shallow incline.
Faith nodded, and the two Slayers started bounding down the ditch.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Xander grumbled, stumbling after the agile girls.
He fell on his butt and slid a couple of feet, then regained his balance and continued on. Then the wind picked up, hard, and a dervish of ash whipped up around him. Before he had time to react, some of it blew in his eyes. It burned like crazy.
Xander swore and bent forward, reflexively pressing his fingertips against his eyelids. That hurt worse, but the swearing helped a little, so he did some more of that and cupped his eye sockets with his hands. The gritty ash washed over him; he thought about his Aunt Rhonda, who had been cremated and had her ashes spread in the woods—not these particular woods, but still, gross—and grimaced.
“Hey, guys?” he called. There was no answer. “Buffy?” He squinted, trying to open his watering eyes. “Um, gals?”
Then he heard a sound. He listened hard, trying to figure out what it was, a rustling of leaves? Or the movement of some kind of fabric? He cocked his head. It was unnerving.
“Buffy? Faith?” he called. His voice was shrill.
The sound came closer. Xander swallowed, wondering if he dared move when he couldn’t see.
“Guys? This isn’t funny anymore. Okay, it wasn’t funny in the first place, but now it’s really not funny. Because, um, guess what? I can’t see. My eyes are full of ash. You know, like when you stick your head up your—”
Closer.
Maybe it’s not my best idea to advertise the fact that I’m standing here basically helpless.
On the other hand . . .
“Help!” he screamed, as loud as was possible.
* * *
Buffy and Faith had been following the groaning noise. Buffy stopped and turned around, catching her breath. “Where’s Xander? I thought he was right behind us.”
Faith leaned forward, planting her hands on her thighs as she caught her breath. “I coulda sworn I heard him behind me.” She wiped her forehead. “Of course, the fact that you wanted to win the fifty-yard dash more than anybody may have had something to do with losing him.” She grinned. “You must have been a killer at doorbell ditch.”
“I was a TP-artiste,” Buffy drawled. “Nobody could toilet paper a front yard like me. A cheerleader thing, y’know?”
“I keep forgetting you were a socialite in L.A. Weird. Cuz you’re pretty much an outcast here.” Faith rolled her shoulders in circles as she stood up. “The slaying thing screwed you over, huh.”
“No news there,” Buffy replied, glancing around for Xander.
Faith looked down, kicked a pile of ash, and made a face. “Oh, God, that used to be something in the Bambi subspecies.”
Buffy was grossed out, but she kept silent.
Then she pushed aside some scorched pine tree branches as they flapped back and forth like the wing doors on a saloon in a John Wayne western. She moved between them and looked down at the highway about fifteen feet below the incline on which they stood.
“Faith?” she called.
“What?” the other Slayer asked, coming up behind her.
Wordlessly, Buffy pointed.
Like most of the roads, it had become a river. Debris and greenery swept along—boxes and shopping carts, and . . . a familiar car. The water was already to the bottom of the windows.
Buffy’s eyes widened. “That’s Xander’s mom’s Subaru. Oh, my God, Faith, she’s inside!”
Sure enough, Xander’s mother was behind the wheel, pounding frantically on the window and paying no attention to the road because, what was the point?
At that precise moment, Buffy heard a scream of such intensity it probably ripped out the vocal cords of the person who made it.
“That’s Xander!” Buffy shouted.
“Okay. I’ll get the mom,” Faith said. “You go for the big guy.”
They nodded at each other and parted ways, Faith heading for the river, and Buffy back into the forest.
“Hold on, Mrs. Harris!” Faith bellowed, but she didn’t know if the terror-stricken woman heard her. Xander’s mom had let go of the wheel and was slamming her fists against the closed window.
Why do
esn’t she just roll it down? Faith wondered. Then the answer came to her: It’s electric. The water’s shorted it out.
The water rushed around Faith’s thighs. Then there was a dip—pot hole?—and she was up to her hips. She gave up walking and dove in, swimming as hard as she could for the car.
What am I gonna do when I get there?
She thought about the months she spent in Albuquerque. With Carl the Total Dweeb Loser of All Time, but no need to dwell on the past during a 911 situation. What she was thinking about was flash-flood warnings, and people get swept away in their cars and drowning, and the fact that Xander’s mom was in trouble but not the biggest trouble yet, because there was no . . .
—Damn it, yes there is!—
. . . Water inside her car.
There was lots of it: Mrs. Harris was up to her waist in swirling water. Faith reached the driver’s side. She held onto the door handle and gave it a yank and Hey! Presto! it came off in her hand.
Faith swore and tried to put it back. No good.
Faith put one of her own palms up against Mrs. Harris’s and decided she’d better look for a different escape route. The door behind the driver’s door was locked, too.
Mrs. Harris was panicking. Faith gestured for her to stay calm, but Xander’s mom didn’t seem to notice her. Faith slogged around to the passenger door in the front. Her hand brushed open space. The window was gone, and that’s how the water was getting in.
“Unbuckle your seat belt,” Faith said.
Mrs. Harris was shaking her head. She was completely wigging out. She yanked her arm away and pointed with both hands behind Faith.
Faith turned.
Yikes.
* * *
“Xander, you have got to lay off the junk food.” Buffy grunted, as she and he walked along the highway bank. The “river” had become cluttered with floating debris—a couch, a bunch of cardboard boxes, and more than a few cars. Fortunately, those are empty. She was searching for signs of Faith and Mrs. Harris, but there was an awful lot of stuff bobbing around.
She had found Xander prone on the smoking forest floor, the fabric on his right leg and arm burned away, the skin beneath a charred mess of ow. Xander was in so much pain that he didn’t make sense; he kept talking about Boris Karloff, the actor who had played Frankenstein. What Frankenstein had to do with Xander’s burns Buffy could not figure out, unless there were some very quiet villagers with torches skulking around Sunnydale Forest.
His arm was draped across her shoulders. In fact most of him was. He said, shakily, and to the accompaniment of many gasps, “I’m not heavy, I’m your brother.”
“Wrong and wrong,” she said, with a faint smile. “Your arm weighs more than my entire body. And by the way, what’s with mumbling about Boris Karloff?”
“The Mummy. He starred in it,” he told her. “After you vixens took off, our own personal Sunnydale version came gliding along, singing a song. I touched it, and it burned me.” His eyes widened. “And it was just a touch.”
Buffy processed that while scanning the water. In the short time Faith and she had parted ways, more had rushed into the ravine created by the road, until it was an actual river. The top of the Subaru was all she could see of the Harrises’ car.
There seemed to be an awful lot of churning going on beneath the surface.
Distracted, she murmured, “Maybe Faith had to race her to the hospital. Or she’s behind one of those dumpsters, giving her CPR.”
“Huh? Who? Where is Faith, anyway?” Xander asked.
She blanched; she hadn’t told Xander anything, especially not that his mother was down in that water, probably dying by now.
It won’t do any good to tell him. It will be of the bad: He’ll freak out and try to save her, and he’ll get in Faith’s way.
“And my way . . .” she said slowly.
“What?” Xander turned his head. “Holy moly, Buff. What’s that?”
The waters were bubbling like a witch’s cauldron. Then the wrapped head of a mummy broke the surface, blowing out an enormous stream of wind that scattered the clouds and wind above its head.
Then Faith’s head appeared beside it. She was gasping for breath. “Buffy!” she cried.
“Stay here,” Buffy ordered Xander, undraping his arm. She ran toward the submerged highway as fast as her Chosen One legs could carry her.
On the bank, Xander waved with his good arm.
“Buffy!” he shouted. “Wait! Right behind you, boss.”
“No!” she insisted.
Farther on down to the right, he noticed a woman’s body bobbing against what looked to be a crate of clear plastic boxes in fashionable designer colors. She was wearing a dress just like one of his mother’s, and her hair was the same color, and—
“Oh, my God!” Xander shouted. “Buffy, save my mom! My mom’s in there!”
Maybe later, I won’t know how I did this, he thought, as he ran-walked as fast as he could to the water and splashed in. Or maybe later, I’ll be laid out in my coffin wearing one of my dad’s cheesy sports jackets, the final humiliation of my life.
The water on his burns hurt like hell, but physical pain and abject terror evaporated as soon as he reached his mother’s side. Her current condition was hideously ambiguous. She might be alive, barely alive, or very dead. He set her chin in the crook of his arm to keep her face above water, begging her not to be behind Door Number Three.
He got to what had become the shore and staggered out, carrying her all the way out of the water. Her face did not look good. Her chest was not moving. Xander dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse. Nothing.
I brought Buffy back with CPR, he told himself, as his heart triphammered against his ribs. His panic was so intense he began to hyperventilate. I made her live again. I can do this.
Choking back his fear, he leaned over his mother and started pumping on her chest. One, two, three, four, five. Breathe. Listen. Check for pulse. One, two, three, four, five. Breathe.
No pulse.
Oh, God, Mom. How long was she under?
His arm and leg hurt so badly he wished they would fall off. With every compression of her chest, pain bulleted from his wrist to his shoulder and sent a fire alarm through his brain.
As he counted, a portion of his mind left the building and wandered down the hall of old medical TV shows. Up until E.R., CPR usually did the job. A more optimistic era of doc shows. Hair-raising snippets of Dr. Green and Dr. Carver grimly announcing “Let’s call it” made him redouble his efforts. Retriple, even. After all, this was his mom.
Xander didn’t know if the water rolling down his face was tears, highway river water, or sweat. All he knew was that he had turned into a machine that went onetwothreefourfivebreathelistenbreathepulse—pleaseGodplease. The pain in his arm had gotten so bad that his brain had given up trying to tell him about it, and he had begun to shiver almost uncontrollably. Maybe I’m going into shock. I wish I hadn’t skipped health and safety all those times to make out with Cordelia in the closet. If my mom dies because I was a stupid, horny truant, I’ll repeat high school so I can become a doctor.
“Mom,” he called. “Mom, damn it, wake up!”
Doggedly he pushed on her chest, doing his utmost to ignore the searing pain shooting through his arm. Perhaps just as stubbornly, she did not breathe. Then with an abrupt, choking cough, her stomach contracted and water spewed out of her mouth. Xander rolled her onto her side and more water came up. She kept coughing, and then she vomited.
Kneeling, Xander curled protectively over her. “It’s okay, Mom,” he said. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
“Xander, what?” She gazed around with a terrified look on her face. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot and her face was mottled and scratched.
“Mom.” Xander swallowed down his emotion. There was more going on inside him than he knew how to express, either to his mother or to himself. “Looking for a catchy bit of ironic self-reflection, here,” he blurted, knowing
he sounded goofy.
“You saved me,” she said. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She gasped and closed her eyes, coughed a few times, and tried to clear her throat. “You dove in and saved me.”
“No, it was . . .” And he realized he couldn’t tell her about Faith. Well, he could, but doing so would open the door to a lot of questions in the category “Slayers for $200” that he didn’t want to answer. Figuring silence was not the same as telling an outright lie, he cleared his throat and stood up to see what was going on.
Whoa.
Buffy was pummeling the hell out of the mummy that had attacked. His mother turned her head and saw as well; she began to scream at the top of her lungs. “What’s happening? What is that?” she shrieked.
“Store mannequin,” Xander told her. “It must have washed in from the drug store.” He hurried down to the edge of the water. “Buffy? Do you need a hand? With the store mannequin?”
“Xander, stay back!” Buffy shouted. “You just might lose a hand!”
“Thanks for your faith in me,” he muttered, and, saying to his mother, “Stay,” he limped toward the water for what he sincerely hoped was not his own personal grande finale.
“Xander, you’re hurt. Back off,” Buffy yelled, as she thrashed in the water with the thing from another nightmare.
Faith, clinging to a buoyant piece of wood, was groaning. She put her hands over her midsection and drew up her knees. Her face was gray.
“Oh, God. I’m dyin’.”
Buffy was alarmed. “Hold on, Faith, okay? Just lie still while I take this thing out. We’ll get you some help.”
Faith said, “Try the axe. I’ve got the axe. In my jacket.”
“It’s the Axe of Fire, right?” Buffy asked. “If the Wanderer gets it away from me, it’ll kill you.”
“Then don’t let it,” Faith groaned. “God, I’m dying anyway.”
Buffy moved into action mode, slogging over to Faith and feeling for the axe.
She pulled it out, and gave it a summary glance. It looked evil. It felt evil. She didn’t like touching it.
The mummy stared at her. Its gaze traveled down her arms to the axe in her grasp. It came toward her, rising above the water, gliding, its bandages bursting into flame. It became a torch, headed toward her; steam gushed beneath its feet and the water nearest it began to bubble.