Little Things Page 5

  At the drugstore, Buffy went straight to the toothpaste aisle. She selected a high alcohol content mouth-wash of the kind that promised to kill germs as soon as you unscrewed the cap. Next she got a tube of oral numbing gel, probably just an adult version of the stuff moms used on their teething babies. Next she went down the pain reliever aisle and picked up a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol. Last, she grabbed a box of salt from one of the food aisles and headed to the cash register to make her purchase. She waited impatiently as the chatty cashier rang up her items while talking nonstop about the mess of branches and leaves the recent storm had left in her yard, sports, the mysterious deaths of two teenagers in the park, and her plans for the weekend.

  “Excuse me, do you happen to have a cup?” Buffy broke in.

  The clerk never paused, but pointed to a stack of cups on top of a water cooler next to the prescription counter. Buffy paid for her purchases, thanked the clerk, and grabbed a cup on her way to the restroom at the back of the store. At the bathroom sink, she downed two Tylenol with a gulp of water. Next, she sprinkled some salt into the small cup, then filled it with warm tap water and swirled. When the salt was mostly dissolved, she swished the briny liquid through her mouth for a minute. The salt stung, and the tooth still throbbed, but Buffy knew that this was a good thing. Salt water had been her mother’s cure for almost anything to do with the mouth: a sore throat, a canker sore, anything.

  Buffy rinsed with the germ-killing mouthwash for good measure, then opened the tube of numbing gel and squirted a large glob onto her finger. She rubbed it on the tender areas all around the aching tooth. The inside of her mouth began to tingle. The pain didn’t go away, but it faded to a more manageable level. Now she could concentrate on slaying monsters—or at least start looking for them.

  Leaving the mouthwash and salt behind, Buffy tucked the Tylenol and the tube of gel into her pocket. She would start her search for the flitter vamps in Weatherly Park. Then after that, who knew? She might even check on Spike down in the sewers.

  * * *

  Her exploration of Weatherly Park was unsatisfying, to say the least. She wandered on and off the trails, around trees and bushes. She looked inside the stump of a rotted-out tree that had once been struck by lightning, but found nothing to indicate that fanged fairies had been there. If the fairies truly were vampires, then they should be sleeping, or at the very least hiding, during the bright sun of day.

  In a remote section of the park, beneath a low grassy hill, she found a set of steep concrete stairs leading down into the ground. Unfortunately, when she followed them down a flight into the shadows, she came up with nothing more than a dead end, a flat featureless concrete wall. Buffy had stopped being surprised about such oddities in Sunnydale.

  “Weird,” she said with an eyebrow shrug. “I suppose this seemed like a good idea to somebody.” Maybe the city had begun a project several decades ago, a storage area or a subway system, and run out of money.

  Feeling better now that the pain reliever had kicked in, Buffy bounded back up the stairs two at a time. She knew she ought to search some dark places where fairies might hide during daylight hours, but she wasn’t up to being chatty with Spike in the sewers. Instead, she decided to check out a few churches in the neighborhood of the park. If that turned up nothing as well, she would broaden her search.

  Chapter Nine

  Because Saturday was generally the busiest sales day of the week at the Magic Box, Giles and Anya never closed down the shop except in case of direst need. As far as threats to life and limb in Sunnydale were concerned, vampire fairies hardly qualified.

  A statuesque woman, six feet tall if she was an inch, entered the store and began to shop. The dark-haired Amazon wore half a dozen rings, an amber necklace, a swirling, multicolored skirt, and a broad smile.

  “Good morning, Miss Ray,” Anya greeted her. “May I offer you a soothing herbal tea? Please feel free to make copious purchases.” She leaned down and whispered to Xander, “Deb is one of our regulars. It’s always a good omen when she comes. She pays cash. We make lots of money.”

  “Thank you, darlin’. I’d love some tea,” the customer drawled. “Did my order come in?”

  Anya nodded. “The Pokémon tarot deck? They’re already behind the counter for you. And, if I might suggest, some komodo dragon scales and a package of bogweed incense would make a fine accompaniment.” Miss Ray looked intrigued.

  Comfortably seated at the table with his feet up on another chair, Xander watched the comings and goings in the shop with distant interest. He had chosen three of the most likely looking candidates from Giles’s collection of books on magickal creatures. They lay open on the table in front of him. Anya, as usual, staffed the checkout counter, and Giles roamed about the store helping customers find what they needed. “Don’t you think it’s the least bit strange,” Xander said during a lull in the store traffic, “that even the Giles International Library of the Weird contains almost no facts about fairies?”

  Anya straightened some items on a shelf behind the counter. “Not really. Most of the time they don’t want to be seen.” Several more customers jingled into the store and began browsing.

  “Of course, there was that account of multiple fairy sightings back in 1917 in England.” Giles picked up a newish-looking book and flipped it open. “Ah, here it is: the case of the Cottingley fairies. A couple of schoolgirls claimed to have seen fairies in the woods. Took photographs and everything.”

  “Fairies prefer forest habitats,” Anya said. She pointed Miss Ray toward a tabletop fountain fashioned from amethyst crystals.

  “There were real pictures?” Xander asked. “The point-shoot-and-develop kind?”

  Giles raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Well, good enough to fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, at any rate. He wrote an article about the fairies that appeared in The Strand in 1920. Of course, the whole thing was later proven to be a hoax. Much, much later when the two girls had both become grandmothers, they finally admitted they had made the whole thing up.”

  “Yes,” Anya said with a smug smile, “at least that’s what they said later.”

  “Hey, wasn’t there a movie about this?” Xander asked. “I mean, not that I ever saw the film—it being about fairies and all—but I remember hearing about it.”

  Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Yes, I believe it was called Fairy Tale: A True Story, or something to that effect. At any rate, it’s not applicable to our present situation.”

  “No fangs?” Xander asked.

  “Quite.” Giles picked up a slip of paper from the counter next to him and placed it like a bookmark into the book he was holding. Then, as if just noticing what it was, he scowled, folded it carefully, and tucked it into his shirt pocket. Anya helped a customer who came into the shop just then, and Xander went back to reading, but when he looked up half an hour later, Giles had not moved and was staring distractedly out the window through its curtain of hanging beads.

  “Hey, here’s a few tasty tidbits,” Xander said.

  “Do you have a gift box for these dehydrated frogs?” a slender, balding man with bright eyes asked Anya.

  “Of course,” she said brightly. Then to Xander, “Go ahead. We’re listening.” She bent down and rummaged behind the counter.

  “According to this,” Xander said, “fairies either live all by themselves—that’s a solitary fairy—or in large clusters called troops. This could just be my army instincts talking here, but I’d say we’re dealing with the troop variety. Big duh on that one, huh?” He glanced back down at the page. “Apparently fairies are matriarchal, and each troop is led by a queen. Of course in the army, our troops weren’t led by a queen.” He gave a sheepish grin. “At least, not that I can remember.” He looked at Giles, waiting for a reaction.

  “Yes, yes, that’s all very interesting, I’m sure,” the Watcher said absently, tapping a finger against his lips.

  Anya stood up with the gift box in her hand and wrapped the
bright-eyed man’s dehydrated frogs.

  Xander shook his head. “Anyone else? Yo, Tweed Man, something wrong?”

  The bell tinkled as the satisfied customer left the shop. Anya leaned across the counter toward Xander. “Giles got a parking ticket,” she said in a conspiratorial voice.

  “Whoa! Takin’ a drive on the wild side, eh, Giles?”

  “It wasn’t a speeding ticket, Xander. It was a parking ticket—and completely undeserved, I might add.”

  “He’s decided not to pay the ticket,” Anya said, sorting through and bagging a substantial pile of Miss Ray’s purchases.

  Xander gave a silent whistle of surprise. “Civil disobedience. Why, Giles, this is a side of you I’ve never seen before.” Like an eager child waiting for a story, Xander scrambled on top of the conference table and sat with his legs crossed, facing the Watcher. “Hold the presses. This is way bigger news than vampire fairies. So tell the truth, Giles. Did you do it? Did you park in a no-parking zone?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I mean, that is to say . . .” Giles glared at him in exasperation. “That area across the street has always been a perfectly legal parking place, but last week somebody at city hall decided it was time to lower the curb to make it more friendly for prams and wheelchair users. Apparently someone put up a temporary no-parking sign, but it was completely obscured by a tree branch.”

  Xander put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “How much is the ticket?”

  “Eighteen dollars. But that’s not the point, is it? It was a completely innocent mistake.”

  Xander’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, a completely innocent man on the run from the law. It’s a classic.”

  Giles sighed, removed his glasses, and glared at Xander again. “I am not, as you say, on the run from the law. I’ve decided not to pay the ticket because I am due to argue my case in court on Monday afternoon.”

  Xander gave him a disbelieving look. “You’re going to court for eighteen dollars? That’s barely two pizzas.”

  “Thank you,” Anya said, loading Miss Ray’s arms with bags and boxes. “Please return as soon as possible to make further purchases.”

  “It’s the principle of the thing, isn’t it?” Giles said defensively to Xander.

  Xander looked thoughtful. “I guess. Plus, there’s the two pizzas….”

  With a clinking of the bell, a new customer entered the shop. Giles glanced pointedly from Xander, to the conference table on which he sat, and back to Xander.

  Xander scrambled down and took his seat again. “Well, good luck Monday. We’ll all be rootin’ for you.”

  Giles slid his glasses back onto his face and browsed the page that was open in front of him. “Thank you,” he said absently. “Now, have you found anything about fairies?”

  Chapter Ten

  Spike, a.k.a. William the Bloody, was no stranger to the sewers of Sunnydale. In fact, he was no stranger to sewers in general. In almost any city, they were one of the safest ways for a vampire to get around during the day. Although he had a keenly honed sense of smell, he could avoid the stench altogether when necessary by choosing not to breathe. Today in the sewers? Definitely necessary.

  His eyes were naturally dark-adjusted, so he could see as well here in the sewers as humans could see in bright daylight. Of course, not all of the tunnels were completely dark. In the upper levels emergency lights attached to the rounded walls trickled dim light onto the sewer floor at regular intervals. Occasional patches of sunlight, mostly indirect, filtered down from storm drains, gratings, or manhole covers overhead to highlight the roots, leaves, and pools of standing water (or worse substances) that lent the brick and concrete passages such a festive air.

  As sewers went, this area wasn’t bad. Fat metal pipes ran along the wide corridors, and there was only enough liquid on the floor to come halfway up Spike’s shoes. All in all, it was nearly as cozy as Spike’s very own crypt. He would, of course, need to clean his shoes after his explorations. Spike was a fastidious vampire and had an image to maintain after all—an image that up until recently had included slaying slayers, not befriending them or offering to help them with their dirty work. Certainly not falling in love with one.

  His mouth twisted into an expression of self-ridicule. Ah, how the mighty had fallen. He supposed he could always blame it on the chip the Initiative had installed in his head. The chip did not allow him to harm humans in any way without bringing torrents of pain gushing through his head.

  From the corner of one eye, Spike saw a glowing flash toward one side of the tunnel. He walked over and crouched beside it, tweaking the long tails of his leather coat, so that they didn’t drag in the muck. The glow emanated from nothing more exciting than a child’s tennis shoe with a flashing light embedded in the sole. He glanced around. No bones. No child. No second shoe. It must have washed down into the sewer through one of the storm drains in the curbs that lined the street above.

  Strange thing to find in the sewer, Spike thought, continuing along the conduit. But then, he had often found strange things in sewers. A few years back he had seen a spider monkey in a New York City sewer. Then there was the time he had been walking through the sewers in Paris with Dru. There they had found a raised, abandoned chamber that, upon investigation, proved to be stocked with piles of hand-written sheet music, sheaves of blank paper, writing implements, a small cache of musical instruments, bits of candles, a flint to light them with, some straw, and a ragged blanket. Spike had often wondered if someone else had also found this room and related the tale to Gaston Leroux, who had turned it into his novel, The Phantom of the Opera.

  Spike nudged his foot against a half-submerged striped container, which turned out to be an empty bucket that had once held fried chicken. He realized that he was starting to feel a bit peckish. Maybe there would be time to stop for a shot of O-neg later this evening. Spike moved on.

  Perhaps his favorite unusual object he had encountered in his sewery sojourns was an entire horse-drawn hansom cab, minus the horse, with a nobleman unconscious on the passenger seat. How or why the entire carriage had gotten down into the London sewers was anyone’s guess, but Dru, Darla, Angel, and Spike—never ones to refuse an unexpected gift—had shared the teatime snack.

  Those had been the days.

  Spike came to the juncture of two sewer tunnels and turned left. Up ahead he saw what appeared to be a heap of dark rags and quickened his footsteps toward it. When he was a few feet away, he took a cautious breath and smelled sewage . . . mixed with blood. Spike bent over the ragged pile and pushed some of the cloth aside to reveal an unnaturally pale face. He searched for a pulse in the man’s neck and found none. His fingers came away wet; he smelled, then licked them. The blood was still fresh. Strangely, the man’s face was not contorted in agony. The smattering of dark stubble along the man’s gaunt jaw line framed an almost beatific smile, as if the man were having a pleasant dream.

  Spike pulled back another layer of rags and saw that the man wore army fatigues that appeared to have been “fatigued” for at least a decade now. A name patch above the breast pocket said Hoyt. A down-on-his-luck vet? Spike wondered. Or merely a homeless man with a preference for durable clothing? After a quick assessment of the man’s temples, neck, and wrists, Spike was forced to conclude by the tiny puncture marks there that this was again the work of microvamps. Within the past couple of hours, no less. Daytime. Though in the sewers the time of day hardly mattered.

  Something twinkled at the periphery of his vision. An oddly bright aqua color. He knew instantly what it must be. In a split second Spike was on his feet and in pursuit.

  The aqua light flashed and bobbed around a corner. Spike ran full tilt after it. Through one tunnel, down a level, to another passageway. So it went, with the aqua light always just out of reach.

  Spike jumped onto a shelf where two uneven tunnels connected to each other. Back up a level. The glow was farther ahead now. Rounding yet another corner, Spike increased his speed—only to sli
p and fall in a puddle of rank-smelling semiliquid goo. Covered with brownish slime, he looked up just in time to see the aqua glimmer disappear into a grating in the sewer wall.

  * * *

  Buffy’s search of the basements, catacombs, and rec rooms beneath the churches of Sunnydale proved fruitless. She kept her toothache under tight control with the Tylenol and the numbing gel, but boredom and discouragement seemed to amplify her pain.

  She was eyeing the holy water thoughtfully in a small Catholic church when a priest approached her from the direction of the altar. “May I be of help to you, child?” he said in a lilting Irish accent.

  Buffy glanced at the floor, decided that honesty would be the best policy, then looked back at the priest. “To tell the truth, I could use some more holy water.”

  “I suppose that could be arranged, dependin’ on why you’ll be needin’ it,” he said, an amused expression in his dark eyes. “And would there be anythin’ else I could do today to help?”

  Buffy sighed and lifted a corner of her mouth in a yeah-right expression. “Not unless you know an awful lot about fairies.”

  The short priest’s eyebrows went up. “The wee ones? The Irish have a long history with the Fair Folk.” He glanced around the church. “But perhaps we’d best talk about this in my office.”

  Buffy looked at the priest in a new light now: a resource. Bingo.