Chapter Seventeen
Jenny let the library grow dark around her, entirely absorbed in her work. She ran her latest line of coding, only to see the program spit out an indecipherable jumble of text. She tried again, knowing that every mistake only brought her closer to the solution.
Giles burst through the library doors. Reflexively, Jenny saved her work and closed the window, not wanting him to see her project, remembering what he had said about false hope.
She didn't have to, because Giles didn't acknowledge her presence. He headed straight for his office, turned on the light, and rooted around briefly before finding the old blanket he kept there.
"What's going on?" Jenny asked, concerned.
He glanced in her direction, and headed for the door. "Amy's dead."
Jenny followed Giles out of the school. She felt flushed, suddenly aware of every vessel in her head, in her arms, furiously pumping blood. Her limbs felt heavy. She thought maybe she was dreaming. "What happened?" she demanded.
Giles clenched his jaw and didn't look at her.
They reached the parking lot. Oz stood by his van, holding a cross and keeping watch. Nancy was weeping in the back while Jonathan tried to clean a wound on her neck. Larry sat dazed, tears silently streaming down his face.
Giles climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
Jenny turned to Oz. "What happened?"
"It was Xander and Willow," he said, in an agitated voice. Jenny started at the names of her former students. "They'd planned the whole thing. We got to Nancy before they killed her too. We ran." He stared into the middle distance, opened his mouth as if to speak, and then shut it. He blinked.
Oz climbed into the driver's seat, and turned to Jenny. "You coming?"
"Where?" she asked in a daze.
"To pick up the body."
With no emergency services after sundown, Amy's body would have lain in the cemetary until morning. Though she didn't see Giles or the kids talk about it, Jenny knew that none of them could allow that.
They drove into the cemetery, down the lane, as close as they could get to where Amy's body lay.
Giles got out of the van. Oz and Larry followed.
Giles stopped. "Stay here," he told them.
"No," Larry protested.
In the back of the van, Nancy tried to get to her feet, but wobbled, and sat down again.
"You need to be careful," Jonathan whispered to her.
Nancy buried her face in her hands. Not knowing what else to do, Jenny put an arm around her shoulders, and the girl leaned into her.
Outside, Oz told Giles, "Someone needs to watch your back."
From her place in the van, Jenny watched the three of them. Before they got too close to the body, Rupert told the boys to stand guard. Alone, he spread the blanket on the ground, moved the body onto it, and wrapped it tightly. He carried her, and laid her gently in the back of the van.
Nancy kept her face covered by her hands, and sat trembling and choking back sobs next to Jenny. Jonathan shut his eyes. All colour drained from his skin, and tears started running down his face.
Blood seeped into the blanket from the neck. The blanket bulged around her stomach, where Giles had placed her head, as if Amy had been obscenely pregnant. Jenny swallowed down vomit.
Larry stared, dead-eyed, at the body, all the way to the Madison house.
"What...?" Jenny heard Oz say, as he pulled up outside Amy's.
Larry opened the back door, and Jenny and the kids climbed out. They stood gaping at what they saw.
The house was as dark as ever, its sharp peaks reaching upward as if they could draw blood from the night sky. But there were no windows, no doors. The face of the house was a solid wall of brick.
"She already knows," Giles said.
Larry picked up the body from the back of the van. Giles approached him to take it, but Larry shook his head.
Solemnly, he walked up the path, and lay Amy's body on the porch, where the door had been. He stepped back, hands folded, head bowed.
A pillar of flame erupted around the body, and Larry scrambled back to the sidewalk. The fire towered over the house, screaming at the stars. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone, removing any trace of Amy along with it.
When the sun rose the next morning, the wrought iron gate was gone, the dark brick, the black peaks. There was only an empty lot, filled with litter, and waist-high grass that rippled like water when the wind blew across where the Madison house had stood.