Chapter 11
"Whoa!" said Xander. "That's a zombie all right. I've met zombies before - but this is your larger economy size zombie."
Everyone clustered a little closer together and stared at the apparition before them. The zombie stood on the carpet of the Summers' living room, his head looming against the ceiling, his shoulders bulking massively against the flower printed wallpaper. His clothes, hair, and face were a nasty pasty green, and his skin seemed to have slipped down his skull, giving the phrase 'bags under the eyes' new force. Meanwhile, his right foot and arm were clumsily smothered in bandages, giving him the look of a partly unwrapped mummy.
No pentagram constrained him, and no magic wards. He looked at the assembled Scoobies, took a step forward, opened a mouth like a nasty gaping wound and hissed, showing a mouthful of very sharp teeth.
Buffy stood squarely in front of the zombie troll, her arms crossed and her axe resting against her shoulder. "Don't even think about it."
"You know," said Giles, "when we discussed the possibility of zombies, I did assume it would be a human zombie, as it were. Whereas, our guest..."
"...is a troll," nodded Willow. "Yeah, I noticed that."
"Why was this a good idea again?" whispered Xander. He was standing by the living room door, fiddling nervously with the handle.
"It's not a good idea, it's a lousy idea," Anya whispered back. "I suggested we leave the room, and ideally also the town, the moment that Tara suggested it, if you remember. But no, you wanted to stay and get killed along with all your friends."
"Buffy?" Tara put a gentle hand on her shoulder, the one without an axe resting against it. "No need for any confrontation. We're all friends here." She smiled at the zombie. "It was very kind of you to, uh, drop by."
"Exactly." Giles stepped in front of Buffy, and adjusted his spectacles. He cleared his throat nervously. "Um, how do you do? I'm Rupert Giles, Watcher. This is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, erm, she's very attached to her axe... it's an occupational thing. And her companions and supporters." He waved to indicate the rest of the party, and frowned at Buffy, who reluctantly put the axe down and leant against it, like a woodchopper taking a breather.
The zombie's mouth opened, and it spoke, its deep voice muffled and distorted. Saliva and other unsavoury detritus sprayed from his lips. "Not friends. Hate humans."
"Oops," said Xander, opening the door a crack.
"Just for the record," said Anya quickly, "I'm not a human. Demon all the way."
"Oh, human hating is cool." Willow tried a friendly grin, "Hey, we can dig that. I have severe issues with Pat Robertson, for example. But the question is," she spoke slowly and carefully, "which humans do you hate most?"
The zombie's eyes flashed, and flecks of spittle flew from his lips like bullets as he roared, "The Brotherhood of the Orb!"
There was a silence, as everyone surreptitiously stared at the green gobs of zombie spit on each other's faces and tried not to shudder.
"Well, then," said Giles after a moment, taking off his glasses and wiping them vigorously. "I believe that we will be able to do business."
Vimes opened the front door. After a long, fruitless day hunting the dragon, and a spectacularly useless interview with Arch Chancellor Ridcully, followed by a long and painful interview with Lord Vetinari, he had dragged himself home for some peace and quiet, and a good cigar. As he stepped in he heard the rise and fall of female voices, and he groaned. Sybil had a visitor, and probably a ghastly one, because she generally saw her actual friends at Sunshine Sanctuary meetings, or the Ankh Morpork knitting and crochet club. He slipped off his boots and was tiptoeing down the corridor, hoping to get to the safety of his study, when the conversation was punctuated by a high pitched giggle. Vimes stood stock still, frozen in his socks. Lance Constable Bott! In his living room. Would she give him no peace?
He flung open the door, to find Buffybot and Lady Sybil sitting cosily side by side, a pile of dragon stud books on the floor beside them. But what they were examining now was worse than stud books. It was the dreaded family iconograph album, which after pages and pages of floridly overweight and interchangeably stuffed-looking Ramkins, included no fewer than three pictures of himself in fancy dress, including the last and most ghastly picture, which involved a ruffled lace shirt, skin-tight pantaloons, and shoes with huge buckles on them.
"Hullo, Sam," said Lady Sybil, "I was just showing dear Buffy your court picture. You look jolly dashing there."
"You've got funny shoes on!" said Buffybot, pointing happily. "And frilly bits on your shirt." She giggled.
Vimes growled.
Lady Sybil smiled at Buffybot, "She's very sweet, isn't she?" She patted Buffybot's shoulder. "Buffy has agreed to come and volunteer at the Sanctuary regularly, which will be splendid. She'll make a wonderful addition to the team."
Vimes clamped a cigar between his teeth, and began to chew it. If he ground his teeth any more today, he was likely to start a small fire in his mouth.
Buffy stood on the back porch, tapping her axe against her boot and waiting for the crack in space time to appear. Things were working out, though their new ally Porphyry the zombie troll had proved to be a tougher negotiator than she'd expected.
When it had become clear that he would create a hail of sticky saliva every time he spoke, the negotiations had moved to the backyard. Tara had produced a plate of home baked cookies (on the Summers' best china of course, Buffy noted) and offered him herbal tea and/or formaldehyde - and once the zombie had established that they had no sulphuric acid, he had accepted all three. Then he had sat himself on the attractive wooden bench in the arbour - which she would probably have to burn now - tossed off the formaldehyde and tipped the plate of cookies down his throat, accidentally taking a bite out of the plate as he did so, and settled down with tea in hand for some serious horse-trading. Buffy scowled. She could only hope the zombie's saliva wouldn't kill the grass. If it was as toxic as it looked there would be a large scorched semicircle on her lawn when she got back.
Still, painful though it was to host a flaking, undead zombie in her home, she had to admit that Tara's initial idea, which was simply to send a polite invitation for tea, biscuits and chat to the owner of the large hobnailed boot that had broken their pentagram, was a good one. After all, Tara had argued, even a creature magically powerful and shielded enough to break such a circle would find it intensely painful, so there was an excellent chance that it hadn't done so voluntarily. And consequently might want a bit of revenge.
It turned out Porphyry had a great deal it wished to be avenged for. Enslaved by the Brotherhood of the Orb through the use of their leader's magical garnet ring, he had been fetching and carrying, and robbing and assassinating at their beck and call for more than a decade. Being forced to endure the vortex between worlds, and now to breach magical pentagrams, acquiring a number of weeping burns in the process (he pointed to the bandages), was only the latest, and most intensely uncomfortable phase of his miserable existence.
Anyway, he was willing to transport one of their number to his native world - and even to help everyone leave again, but not until The Brotherhood of the Orb was smashed, and the garnet ring destroyed. After that, he said, cracking his knuckles, you could leave the tidying up to him.
So here she stood, dried zombie spit still on her jacket, waiting to be transported through a crack in space time to another world apparently chock full with necromancers, power mad dictators and savage trolls, just so that she could rescue her perky metal doppelganger and the most annoying vampire in existence. She sighed. Sometimes she really hated her job.
Vimes looked around the guard room of the Watch House. After rousting the Lance Constable from his living room, and eventually retiring to bed, he had found himself after all unable to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, elusive dragons, idiotic wizards, sardonic patricians and giggling bots swirled in front of him in a nauseating swirl. Eventually, he had thrown back his bedclothes with a curse, and set off for his old night-time haunt.
He looked around the empty room, which was as scruffy and insalubrious as ever. A kettle and some plates rested beside the fireplace, and mugs and crumpled copies of the Ankh Morpork Times were strewn about the tables. "Where's Bott? I told her to come here."
Detritus looked up from his place at the front desk. "She did come here, Mr Vimes, like you say. And then she went to find the dragon. Wants to give it der orb back."
"And you let her?"
Detritus shrugged, "She off duty."
Vimes resisted the temptation to bang his fist on the desk. Experience told him this simply led to splinters. "And did she say," he enunciated through his teeth, "just how she planned find the dragon?"
"No, sir." Detritus looked straight ahead. "But she a free Bot, sir. Free to hunt for dragons if she so chooses to do, being e-man-cipated. She made the lads sandwiches before she went." He indicated a huge teetering pile of beautifully cut ham and mustard, and rat and mustard sandwiches in front of him, and a pile of rocks beside the desk, cut neatly in half and buttered on one side. "and den off she went."
Vimes made a little annoyed sound. "Oh well," he said after a moment, "never mind, at least that remarkably stupid idea won't come to anything. The orb's locked up safe and sound in the Watch House safe." He took a large bite of a ham and mustard sandwich. What with one thing and another he'd been skipping meals.
"Actually, no, sir," said Captain Carrot, appearing behind him. "Lance Constable Buffybot has the orb. She asked for it back."
Vimes stopped dead, sandwich between teeth. He put the sandwich down and turned to his deputy. "She asked for it back," he said, a note of wonder in his voice.
Carrot nodded, a gently benign expression on his face. "Yes, sir, that's right."
"And you gave it to her," said Vimes, a twitch beginning under his eye.
"Yes, sir. Remember, you said we'd keep it safe for her until she needed it?"
Vimes took a deep breath. "You gave an extremely rare and powerful magical object, that has the power to convey creatures between worlds - and who knows what else, probably to destroy cities - to that pea-brained, giggling, little tin can on legs?"
"Well, yes," said Carrot, "it's hers, after all. Keeping it would be stealing."
End chapter