Chapter 8
"I'll be all right, really. Go on out and stake some stuff."
For several days following her return Fred had been subdued, furtive, leery of sleep, afraid to let Spike, and often the others, out of her sight. Angel and Gunn had called from the hospital on the third day, and she had wept and laughed and mourned into the phone with them, and after that she seemed to be a little more at ease. Now she stood in the bedroom of the cabin she shared with Spike, gripping her elbows with her hands and giving him what she hoped looked like a reassuring smile.
"You've been cooped up every night and day with me for almost a week. I know you're climbing the walls. I'd feel better if you'd get out and stretch your legs."
"Don't like leavin' you here by yourself, Kitten." He sat on the end of his bed and eyed her worriedly.
"I won't be. I'll spend the evening in Singh's cabin. We'll get drunk and watch dirty movies."
"Right." He still was unconvinced.
"The more of you that are out there hunting, the safer this town will be."
He couldn't argue with that.
"All right," he agreed, "But you stay in that cabin 'til we get back, understand?" He stood up and cupped her face in his hand. "I don't want to lose you again."
The words and gesture, and his serious expression, gave her system a jolt that was startling and unexpected and not at all unpleasant. She flushed to find herself wondering if his lips would feel as nice as his fingers.
"I promise," she managed to stammer.
He started to release her, then stopped and stared into her face.
"Come here a minute; over here in the light."
Puzzled, she did as he asked.
"Look." He turned her head toward the mirror with a smile.
"Your eyes. They're becoming brown again."
"WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION."
Two voices, one chipmunk-pitched, the other masculine and slightly off-key, hammered cheerfully along with the music from the car radio.
"WE DON'T NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL.
NO DARK SARCASM IN THE CLASSROOM.
TEACHERS LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE."
"You guys shut up for a minute." Paloma turned the volume down and hung her head out the window. They were passing through a little-used area of Ashcraft, one dotted with sheet-metal buildings originally designed for welding and auto repair and now serving as catch-alls, or standing empty. Spike glanced out at the darkened structures and looked questioningly at the young demon woman.
"All in all you're just a- / nother brick in the wall," Thu hummed softly. "How come we're going around this block again?"
"I thought I saw a light in one of those- there, see that?"
Nail holes in the side of one of the metal sheds were lit up like tiny stars. A pale green light leaked out from under the shed's garage door.
"Come on."
They pulled the car over and started up the asphalt drive on foot, when a smaller door of the building burst open and one, two, three adolescent boys flew out and thundered past them, eyes wide with terror.
Spike caught the last one by the collar. "Hold on a sec, what's goin' on in there?"
"It wasn't my idea!" the boy yelled hysterically. From inside the door came the sound of a throaty groan, almost like the lowing of cattle. The youth shrieked and struggled wildly. Spike studied the entryway for a moment, then released the boy.
"Go on, get out of here."
A shadow crossed the interior of the portal and disappeared.
When it failed to show again after several minutes, they entered cautiously. In the middle of the floor they found an electric lantern, which illuminated several small role-playing gaming pieces - griffins, harpies, a Pegasus - and some symbols chalked into the cement. Spike smudged one of the markings with his foot.
"Little pustules been playin' wizard. Wonder what the hell they hocused up?"
"WHUFF." A bovine snort issued from one of the unlit corners of the building. Thu craned her head toward the sound and replied in a baffled voice, "Elmer the school glue bull?"
"Goddammit," Paloma scowled, "If those piss-ants have dragged a cow in here..."
It stepped out of the shadows then.
A bull's head.
On a man's body.
A big, big body.
"Oh, SHIT!"
It charged.
It was wrong to get excited over a few color streaks in her eyes, Fred chided herself. They were all still in danger and still mourning their dead (Wesley; it's so hard to think of Wesley as dead. Or Cordelia. Is Lorne dead, too?), and yet it felt indescribably good to see a tiny part of what was taken from her return.
From the manager's living room window she'd watched the car carrying Spike and Paloma grow smaller and smaller until it vanished from her view. Then she turned on the television and went into the kitchen to feed the cat.
In the front office Dilip busied himself with a calculator and his account books, and became so engrossed that he failed to notice when dusk turned to twilight and the stars came out.
The front door opened and shut as he labored over a column of numbers.
"Be with you in one moment," he said without looking up. His fingers on the calculator's keys made a steady tac tac tac sound.
The only sound.
It occurred to him suddenly that the visitor had not uttered a word. He looked at his watch.
Sundown.
With icewater dread he raised his eyes.
The man on the threshold wore white nurse's scrubs and white sneakers. The uniform was smeared with grass stains, and dried urine yellowed the legs of his pants. He smiled down at the clerk.
"Little piggy," he said.
Dilip reached under the counter and snatched out a palm-sized cameo relief of a swastika - not the corrupted Nazi version, but the older, benevolent counterclockwise form employed by the rest of the world since ancient times to ward off evil. Holding it out before him, he lunged for the door that separated the public office from the private dwelling portion of the building.
"Mr. Singh?" Fred approached the doorway from the apartment side. "Would you like a san- OH!"
The nurse sprouted fangs and wheeled in her direction, leaped at her, and hit the parlor's invisible barrier. He fell backward and howled in rage. He then turned on Dilip again, grabbing him by the shoulders and baring teeth at his throat. Dilip threw his arm up and braced it against his attacker's forehead and mashed the cameo into the vampire's face. The skin smoked and sizzled. With a scream the nurse flung him away and began circling him in frustration, torn between hunger and the fear of the hot coal his prey held in its hand.
Oh God Oh God Oh God. Fred scrambled back through the apartment, pawing through drawers, across surfaces, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon.
desk the desk pencils in the desk it's oh shit it's a felttip WHERE'S THE PENCILS?
Into the kitchen now, digging through cupboards.
lighter fluid matches got to be something flammable brandy
She yanked open a drawer; silverware and cutlery clattered inside. Panting, she raked through the contents, and suddenly straightened up, a large butcher knife in her fist, never used and still wearing its protective paper sheath. Clutching it to her chest, she tore across the apartment once again, back to the office door.
The demon had Mr. Singh down now, hunger having won out after all. Fred gripped the knife with both hands and plunged it through the cotton cloth of the uniform, through skin, through muscle. The vampire stiffened, clearly in pain and surprised, but still intact. A thin thread of blood outlined the blade where it touched the white fabric. Fred gave a frantic scream and bore down with all her weight, and finally the blade shifted and struck the heart, and she collapsed on top of Dilip and a layer of dust.
Author's Note: "We don't need no education," etc., are lyrics from the song Another Brick InThe Wall by Pink Floyd, 1979.