Little Things Page 7

  Giles put his glasses back on. “Well, I suppose I’d just assumed that you’d gotten that information through research.”

  Anya shrugged. “You never asked for more information, so I figured it wasn’t that important. And you were worried about your traffic ticket—”

  “Giles, you got a ticket?” Buffy said, looking at her mentor with shock.

  “Easy there, Sheriff Buffy, it’s just a parking thing,” Xander said. Buffy looked at Giles for confirmation.

  “I’m innocent,” Giles said.

  “—and Xander was doing research and I was helping the customers,” Anya continued as if she had never been interrupted. “I figured if you wanted to know more, you would ask.”

  “I think we’d all like to hear what you know about fairies,” Tara said with a smile of encouragement.

  “Yeah, and how do you know?” Dawn asked. “Did you see them?”

  Looking pleased at their sudden interest, Anya began to talk. “In the past thousand years, I’ve only seen fairies three times.”

  “So, I take it this was all part of a vengeance-demon gig, then?” Xander asked.

  Anya smiled proudly at him. “Yes. The first time was at a christening ceremony.” Anya made a face. “The father had been unfaithful to the mother while she was pregnant, so I was there in my usual capacity. And since the mother had called me to take vengeance, she invited fairies to the christening ceremony.” She looked around at the rapt listeners. “Fairies give the best gifts, you know—when people are kind to them. At least they used to. The second time was on midsummer’s eve. I had been following a man who was having a tryst with his wife’s cousin and there they were dancing in the glen—the fairies, I mean. Not the man and the cousin.”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “I only saw them for a minute. But the last time was in sixteenth-century Italy. A powerful sorceress named Devara called on me to take vengeance on her fiancé, who had disappeared. I can tell you she was madly in love with him, but after he was missing for a week Devara suspected the worst: infidelity. So I went after her fiancé to find out what happened.” She sighed. “It turned out that some mischievous fairies had led him astray in the forest.”

  “Oh, well, that doesn’t sound too serious,” Willow said.

  “It is if Sabina—a notorious and lusty female vampire—just happens to be hiding out in that forest,” Anya said.

  “Way serious,” Buffy agreed.

  “So . . . then what?” Dawn said. “You found the body?”

  “Worse,” Anya said. Dawn frowned in confusion.

  “He was a vampire, Little Bit,” Spike said. “Sabina sired him.”

  Dawn’s mouth formed into a little O, and she fell silent.

  Buffy took a deep breath. “So what happened when you broke the news to the sorceress?”

  “She didn’t take it well,” Anya said. “Devara made herself a stake from a broomstick and set off into the forest to find her fiancé and Sabina. I went along—strictly for moral support, since I was duty-bound to help her. You see, technically, her fiancé had strayed, though he really didn’t have much choice about it. When we found Sabina, the fairies were hovering overhead just to see what would happen. The sorceress fought Sabina and staked her without mercy. But for some reason Devara’s fiancé didn’t put up a fight, and she couldn’t bring herself to kill him. Together we worked a spell, an old magic that goes back almost to the dawn of time. As powerful as we were, it almost killed both of us. We shattered the vampire demon into a thousand pieces and drove it from her fiancé’s body.”

  Dawn had a small, hopeful smile. “So he was saved, then?”

  “No, Dawnie. He was dead,” Buffy said gently.

  “I didn’t realize what she was going to do until it was too late,” Anya went on. “The sorceress was so angry with the fairies for leading her fiancé into danger that she sent the shattered demon spirit into the troop of fairies.”

  “You can do that?” Xander asked.

  “I can’t,” Anya replied, “but she did. Then she took her fiancé home, mourned him, and buried him.

  Buffy gave a sour smile. “And they all lived happily ever after.”

  “So,” Giles said at last, “these vampire fairies are most likely the same troop of fairies you met in that forest in Italy.”

  “Probably,” Anya agreed with a confident smile.

  “Ahn,” Xander said, “aren’t you at all afraid that they’re here for, you know, revenge?”

  “On whom?” she asked. Her wide-eyed gaze was completely serious.

  “You?” he said. “You know, Doctor Frankenstein’s right-hand demon? You made it possible for the sorceress to curse those fairies.”

  “Oh,” Anya said, looking surprised. “I suppose. But only in the most literal sense. And anyway, fairies are migratory. It could just be a coincidence that they’re here in Sunnydale. After all, it has been five hundred years.”

  “Am I alone in this, or does anyone else think it’s some sort of colossal coincidence that these things just happened to show up in the same town where Anya lives?” Xander asked.

  “Sure, if you call demons showing up in Sunnydale a coincidence,” Buffy said. “Xander, if they migrated here, maybe they were drawn by the Hell-mouth. Happens to vamps all the time.”

  Xander brought out a box of toothpicks from the kitchen and started chewing on one while Anya passed out fortune cookies.

  Dawn broke her cookie open and pulled out the narrow strip of white paper from inside. “ ‘Fortune smiles on the diligent,’ ” she read. Dawn rolled her eyes. “Do you think they get frustrated teachers to write these things?”

  “Or parents, maybe,” Willow said. She shared hers next. “ ‘Your greatest strength may be your greatest weakness.’ ”

  Xander gave a sage nod. “Ambiguity. Always a fine choice in fortune telling. Mine says, ‘Conformity is the refuge of the undeveloped personality.’ I think I’ve got that one under control. What about yours, Ahn?”

  “It’s very strange.” Anya frowned. “It says ‘A gift from the heart carries no price tag.’ That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “In a way,” Tara said. “About as much sense as mine makes. ‘A kind word now may save a harsh word later.’ I’m not so much of a harsh-word person, anyway.”

  Spike made a face. “Better advice than ‘Remain alert to the feelings of those around you.’ ” He glanced curiously at Buffy.

  “ ‘Deal honestly with your friends and justly with your enemies,’ ” Buffy read. “No arcane meanings there—although I’m starting to wonder if maybe these are written by watchers with too much time on their hands.” Buffy bit down on her fortune cookie and instantly regretted it. Pain rocked her back in her seat and she dropped the unfinished portion of cookie onto the table.

  Xander scooped it up and stuffed it into his mouth. “Waste not,” he chided.

  Giles opened his fortune cookie and read, “ ‘Change lies just around the corner.’ ” He looked serious and introspective.

  “Here, save yourself a trip.” Xander fished briefly in his pocket and plunked a few coins on the table in front of Giles with a grin. “Change is everywhere.”

  Dawn’s hand hit the table with a loud slap. Everyone looked at her in surprise. She turned her hand over and looked at it. “Eew—ants! They were trying to get into the hot-and-sour soup.”

  Anya stood, a look of alarm registering on her face. Xander scrambled into the kitchen for glass cleaner and towels. Everyone moved leftover Chinese food out of harm’s way while Xander and Anya squirted and wiped. “That’s the third time,” Xander said.

  “Really?” Willow asked. “Hey, I could try a toned-down version of a teleportation spell if you want me to. I’ve been practicing.”

  “Willow,” Tara said with a look of deep concern in her eyes. “You shouldn’t be using magick to solve simple everyday problems. It’s not right.”

  Willow looked a bit disappointed. “It was just
a suggestion. No big. We don’t have to.”

  Xander grabbed the phone and started dialing. After a short and slightly heated conversation, he turned back to his friends. “They’re sending out an exterminator tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow?” Buffy said. “On a Sunday?”

  “All preliminary attempts at negotiation with the hostiles failed. No more Mister Nice Guy.” Xander shrugged. “The manager said she would arrange it.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Okay, what do we do about these microvamps? You think we could get Herbie the elf to pull out all their teeth?”

  Willow seemed to consider this seriously. “Not unless they were much bigger.”

  Xander sighed. “Can you say, ‘Honey, I shrunk the vamps’?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  After dodging into Xander and Anya’s bathroom to reapply numbing gel to her tooth, Buffy was ready for a war counsel. Muttering something about a headache, she also downed two Tylenol. Spike caught her eye and she could tell that he didn’t believe her excuse for a moment. He knew her tooth was still bothering her.

  Before Spike could make a comment that might give her away, Buffy said, “So what’s the plan?”

  “But—,” Spike began.

  “Well, the usual, I suppose,” Giles said. “I mean, it’s vampires, isn’t it?”

  Spike cleared his throat. “I have—”

  Willow yanked at a strand of her red hair. “Oh, but they’re fairies too. Maybe they’re not totally full of vile evilness like, you know, human vampires.” She glanced over at Spike. “Present company, uh, excepted—kind of.”

  Spike looked affronted. “What’s a bloke got to—”

  Tara frowned. “But they killed those two high-school students in the park, so we know they’re dangerous.”

  Spike spread his hands as if to say, I told you so. “That’s what I’ve been—”

  “Well, on the bright side, no new bodies,” Dawn said.

  With an impatient growl, Spike stood, climbed onto his chair. “Hello? Talking here.”

  “Whoa, there, Albino Boy—and by that I mean no disrespect to melanin-deprived Americans,” Xander said. “What’s got your dander up?”

  Spike stepped down from the chair, twirled it around, and sat facing the table on the backward chair with his arms resting on the seat back. “I spent the entire day slogging through bloody sewer tunnels and nobody even bothers to ask me?”

  “Aww,” Buffy said with mock sympathy. “How was work? Rough day at the office?” In all honesty she had, in the aftermath of Anya’s shocking revelations, forgotten to ask the blond vamp what he might have found. Besides, she had never expected his day to be any more successful than hers had been, though, granted, without the tooth problem.

  Willow, in a slightly kinder tone, said, “I’m sure you were very thorough.”

  “Damn straight,” Spike said. “Found another victim from those winged rats.”

  “Who?” Dawn said, looking disappointed. “Are you sure?”

  Spike gave her a meaningful look. “Scads of twin puncture marks. Temples, neck, wrists. Dead only a couple of hours by the look of ’im. Few pints low in the blood department.”

  “Sounds like our minivamps,” Buffy said, taking a toothpick from the box on the table and gingerly poking at a piece of chicken stuck between two teeth.

  “Who was it this time?” Xander grimaced and crossed his arms over his chest. “Another hapless teenager filled with raging hormones?”

  “Naw. Homeless man, I’d say. Probably a war vet. Found him in a tunnel about a block from Weatherly Park.”

  “Any sign of the teensies?” Buffy asked.

  Spike pursed his lips. “Right after I found the bloke, I saw one of them little twinklies. Tried to follow it, but it disappeared through a grate in the sewer wall.”

  “I see. Also near the park, I suppose?” Giles asked.

  Spike nodded.

  “Very well, then. It seems our work is cut out for us.”

  “So—what? We kill vampires?” Dawn asked. She glanced apologetically at Spike. “Little ones, I mean.”

  “But what should we use for weapons?” Willow said. “I’m not sure Mister Pointy will be of any use.” She held up one of her chopsticks. “Even if we sharpened these, they’d be too big.”

  “Well, there’s always holy water for starters,” Tara offered.

  “On it,” Buffy said, holding out a large sports bottle filled with clear liquid. “Courtesy of Father Murphy.”

  “We have crosses,” Anya said.

  “But I’m thinkin’ we can pretty much rule out crossbows,” Xander said.

  Giles frowned. “Which brings us back to stakes. We’ll need something small enough to be effective on such a diminutive threat.”

  Buffy glanced from the bottle of holy water in one hand to the toothpick she still held in the other. She stabbed the toothpick into a half-eaten egg roll on a plate at the center of the table. “We’ll improvise.”

  Spike rested his chin on his hand on the seat back. “We don’t know where they are. Last time they came to us.”

  “Then we make them come to us again,” Willow said.

  Xander looked at her. “You’re suggesting… ?”

  “Bait,” Willow said.

  “Fine.” Anya tried to sound confident. “I volunteer.”

  “No offense, Anya, but you don’t exactly look like Helpless-Victim Girl,” Buffy said. “And if these are the same fairies you knew, they may smell a trap.”

  “I’ll do it,” Willow offered.

  Tara looked worried. “Willow, no!”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Buffy said.

  Dawn leaned over to Spike and said, “At least you’re safe from them. Tonight I’m going to wear long sleeves.”

  Buffy looked at her sister, knowing how close she had come to real danger the night before. Their mother would never have let Dawn go out with the Scoobies to set a trap at night, but Buffy felt no safer leaving her sister at home. As long as Dawn was with her, she could protect her sister. “Right,” she said. “Everybody wears long sleeves and pants. No dresses.”

  “Guess my Dolce and Gabbana is out then,” Xander quipped.

  Willow grinned. “What about me? Shouldn’t I be, you know, more baity?” She and Tara had each brought a change of sweaters and jeans to the debriefing, in case they were called upon to patrol.

  “No problemo. Here’s the plan,” Buffy said, switching to commando mode. She asked Giles to drive her, Willow, Tara, and Dawn to her house, with a swing by Giles’s apartment to pick up some clothes in basic burglar black. After everyone changed, Xander, Anya, and Spike would meet them at the park. “That’s it, then,” Buffy concluded. “See you all in thirty.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later the Scoobies descended on Weatherly Park, which they had decided was the best venue for luring the fairies out. Buffy just hoped they wouldn’t run into any garden-variety demons or vampires who might interfere with the plan.

  Giles drove Willow, Tara, Dawn, and Buffy to Weatherly in his convertible. Unfortunately, there were several no-parking areas close to their chosen rendezvous, and Giles, not willing to risk another parking citation, was forced to drop his charges off and park more than a block away. He joined them a minute later.

  All of them wore long sleeves and slacks and high-necked sweaters. The girls had their hair pulled into tight pony tails or braids.

  All but Willow.

  Everyone except Willow hid in bushes or behind trees. Meanwhile, the appointed Bait Girl, dressed in a skimpy sheath and strappy sandals from Buffy’s closet, shivered slightly as she walked in circles in a grassy area of the park not far from where the dead couple had been found.

  “Such a beautiful evening,” Willow said to no one in particular. “Full moon. But I’m so . . . so lonely . . . walking all, um, alone here in the park.” She whistled a rough approximation of “Blue Moon.”

  Beside Buffy, Dawn drew in a sharp
breath. Buffy, squinting into the darkness, saw the flash of light just a few yards away from Willow. Then another flash, and another. Soon Willow’s face was clearly visible in the magical glow of dozens of twinkling lights in gold, silver, cherry, apricot, rose, brass, aqua, and purplish black. Willow seemed absolutely enchanted, as if she hadn’t seen these fairies turn into vampires just the night before. Buffy hoped her friend was acting.

  About twenty fairies gathered close to Willow, who seemed to be talking to them in a low, cooing voice.

  Willow held up a cupped hand and several fairies landed in it, then took off again. A couple more fairies took their place. They too pushed off, executing aerial twirls in front of Willow’s face. Soon there was a line of hovering, glowing fairies near Willow’s hand. Each one in turn landed and took off again, performing some sort of airborne acrobatics solely for Willow’s benefit. Willow smiled and swayed, as if to the rhythm of some unheard music. The fairies swirled about her in clouds now, and her eyes began to drift shut. Willow spoke to the creatures again, this time in a sharper tone.

  “Wait for it,” Buffy warned as Tara made an impatient move.

  “That’s it,” Spike whispered. The change had been almost imperceptible. Buffy couldn’t see the faces of the glowing tinks, but she saw the gem-toned translucent wings change to a spider web of black veins.

  The microvamps swarmed around Willow. Hungry.

  “Now,” Buffy said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Willow Rosenberg watched the charming, delicate fairies drifting around her like rainbow bits of dandelion fluff.

  Communication here, Willow, she told herself. Keep trying. Communication would be good.

  The melodic hum of beating wings changed to a menacing drone, like the buzz of twenty overgrown hornets. Instead of feeling afraid, a dreamy sort of lethargy settled over Willow. The fairies’ eyes changed from lambent colors that matched their sheer clothing to pure black, and the ethereal creatures turned into vile, menacing bundles of evil on wings.

  “I want to help you. I’m sure you all mean well. But, you know, not helping with the buzzing and the wrinkly forehead thing.” She tried to back a step away but found that she was surrounded now by the fairy vamps. The buzzing grew louder. She held her hands up in front of her as if trying to hold them back, and spoke slowly, with great effort. “All right. It’s only fair to warn you that I’m a powerful witch.”