Chapter 28

Buffy yanked her hand back  from the rail of the broken bunk as though the twisted metal was too hot to touch.  Luckily everyone’s attention was focused on the shouting walrusmen and not her.  Guiltily, she stepped away from the wreckage of the bed.

“Are you all right, dear?”  William gave her a deeply concerned gaze.

She nodded, miserable liar that she was.  ‘All right’ was a condition she was currently very far from.  She flexed her hand, feeling the strength of it in her bones.  There was no doubt – somehow, she was the slayer once again.

Several passengers spilled from nearby compartments, rushing over to assist or gawk while William leaned over to help extricate a Shotwell from the wreckage of their bed.  The huffing man glared at William, but accepted a hand up.

Alexander the porter had arrived as well, and was attending to the brother who had landed on the floor.  The blustering man shouted to anyone within hearing distance about general overall shoddy bunk construction, the deplorable condition of the train, and above all, the poor quality of the staff.

Once the men were on their feet and it had been determined that neither of them were injured apart from their ill-placed dignity, Alexander approached Buffy.

“You’re all right, missus, sir?”

Buffy lied with another nod.

More porters arrived on the scene and began to light the lamps as the morning sun had only just begun to make its presence known.  Passengers milled about, casting very curious glances at the brothers, but even more so toward William and Buffy.

The ever competent Alexander leaned over and said in a lowered voice, “If you’d kindly follow me, I believe you’d be more comfortable in another car while we clean up this unfortunate situation.” 

Buffy and William gratefully followed the porter toward the rear of the train, passing through several cars until they reached one with an empty seat.  Alexander deposited them in a spot near the door.

“I believe I shall be able to find accommodations on a separate car for your seatmates,” the porter said with a knowing grin.

“You’re a godsend, Geor-Alexander,” William said, pressing a ridiculously large tip into the porter’s hand. 

“My pleasure, sir.  I will return your belongings to you as soon as I’m able.”  He tipped his cap before scurrying off towards the front of the train.

They were alone at last, and William wasted no time.  He reached over and squeezed Buffy’s hand.

She looked up to see him beaming at her.   His smile was so bright that it almost hurt her eyes.  She tried to smile back, but there was something stubborn just behind her lips, and it would not budge.

“You can remember, darling.  Everything?” he repeated.

She nodded with what she hoped looked like enthusiasm.  He was so heart-breakingly excited to have her back.  How could she tell him the rest of the story?  Didn’t he deserve just a few moments of happiness before she drug him through yet another pile of stones?

“Back.  The whole Elizabeth package,” she said.

“And the Buffy package as well?  You have all your memories of the ship and the time when you could not remember?”

She tapped the side of her head.  “I’ve got it all right here.”  If he only knew how much else was tagging along for the ride.  Now that she was the slayer again, her first obligation was supposed to be to her calling.  Not to him.   Even if she didn’t seek trouble out, now that she was the slayer, she wouldn’t have to.  Trouble would find her.  It always did.

Feeling like a coward, she cast her gaze out the train window.  If she looked at his hopeful expression for even one more second she’d fall into pieces, and she desperately needed to feel in control of one small thing in her life right now.

“It must be a terrible shock.  You’ll settle in time, love.”  William patted her hand reassuringly.

He deserved so much better than this.  So did she.  Wasn’t that the whole point of her deciding to stay in this time and place?  She’d earned a chance at a normal life at long last.  This life with him was supposed to have been her reward.

How could they take it away?

If being the slayer was a gift, then it was fruitcake – returning no matter how much you wished the damned stuff would just go away.

She bit her lip and dug down deep enough to find a smile for William.  “It’ll be okay.  We’ll be fine,” she said, hoping that it would be her last lie of the day, but knowing better all the same.  She knew too well that learning to lie was lesson one for a slayer.

~*~

Dru ignored the crumpled corpse of the slayer just behind her and held her dolly as though it was the body of a broken child.  She lifted her head, keening and wailing into the night sky.  It was the sound of an animal in pain, and each screech was an icy shard along Billy’s spine.

He rushed to the cabin.  Why – he couldn’t say.  Perhaps to distance himself from Dru, perhaps in response to the muffled cries he heard coming from the still open doorway.  Whatever the reason didn’t matter, for when he tried to enter the little cabin, some kind of invisible barrier prevented him from crossing the threshold.  He could hear the source of the sound: tucked down in a corner of the room in a crudely fashioned cradle, a crying babe waved an impotent fist in the air.  There was nothing to be done for it, however.  Whether he wanted to help the infant or eat him, Billy was not crossing the threshold of the cabin.

He looked to Dru, still sobbing, huddled over Miss Edith, then glanced nervously upward.  The eastern sky was brightening very slightly, and it would be daylight in not much more than an hour.  Since they weren’t getting in the cabin, their only option was to hightail it out of there.

Last night he’d noticed some sandstone cliffs a few miles before they’d arrived at the slayer’s shack.  He’d lived rough enough to know that that type of stone was sure to have a few caves and crevices.  It might not be ideal, but any kind of small hideaway would be a far sight better than burning up under the sun.  Billy walked back to where he’d tied up the mare and led the horse over to Dru, who was still sitting in the dirt and weeping.

Knowing that words would be pointless with her in this condition, he placed his arms about her waist and lifted her to the standing position.  She was compliant enough and didn’t resist when he set her atop the mare.  After prying the dolly out of her hands, he tucked the damned thing into a saddle bag, settled in behind her, and they lit out. 

He rode hard to the base of the cliffs.  The bay was wheezing by the time they arrived, but there was no help for that.  He knew where to look and found an unoccupied cougar den with very little trouble.  It wasn’t roomy and stank to high heaven, but it would provide enough cover for the time being.  Besides, he didn’t have the time or inclination to be choosy.

Since it wouldn’t do to leave the horse tied up all day, without water or feed, he unloaded the saddle bags into the cave, then smacked the mare’s rump and set her to find her own way.  With any luck she’d make it to Ogden or a nearby homestead.  When he led Dru up to the cave, she offered no resistance.  Her weeping had given way to a soft moaning, and she sat down in a corner of the cave like an obedient child.

And they waited.   As the sun made its agonizingly slow path across the sky, they waited.  Dru ceased making any sound at all just after sunup.  By Billy’s reckoning, the only thing worse than spending the day hiding out in a cave was to spend it with a living statue.  He didn’t have another word for what Dru had become. 

Waiting and watching her was disturbing enough, but as the day wore on he felt a powerful thirst growing within him.  It gripped, first his stomach, then set deep claws into his throat and mind as the day wore on.  

By late afternoon his patience was wearing mighty thin, and he rustled through the saddlebag, remembering the whiskey flasks he’d liberated from the unfortunate brakeman.  It wouldn’t slake his thirst, not really, but if a fellow ever needed a reason for getting drunk, his current situation would qualify.

The look on Dru’s face reminded him of his mother during those ugly last days, when the fever would come upon her and she’d have moments where she’d be as still as death itself.  He’d place a cautious hand beneath his mother’s nose, just to assure himself that she was still alive.  There was no breath in Dru, however, and he wondered if there was any Dru left in Dru.  Perhaps when her dolly left, the rest of Dru’s mind had departed as well.

Waiting for her to awaken wasn’t doing either of them a lick of good, and he knew it.  Screwing up his determination, he settled down beside her.  A faint heart never filled a flush, he reminded himself, and reached out to hold her hand.  He may look a damned fool, but in his mama’s final days, he would often just climb up into her bed and hold her.  They were mother and child – but strangely reversed.  And it settled her down in a way that no amount of laudanum ever could.

Billy wrapped an arm around Dru’s waist, tugging her up tight to him, and laid her head upon his shoulder.  He didn’t say anything – she wasn’t likely to understand a lick of what was said to her anyhow. He just held her tightly and stroked her hair.  It was a pleasant way to spend a few minutes as the sun finally began to set, laying long shadows across the ground.

Well, that was a bust, Billy thought, shaking his head at his own foolishness.  He gave Dru’s waist a squeeze and stood up, stretching his legs before placing a tentative foot outside the cave’s opening.  It was night at last.  He took a few steps, but as predicted, the bay mare had long since lit out.  Looked like he’d be walking to Odgen or, he turned back to look at Dru, he'd be walking and carrying an unliving statue.

Though Dru was still seated in the corner, there was a difference to her, and it took him a moment to register what that was.  Her face still wore the same, frozen mask, but now she was moving.  Very subtly, she was rocking, back and forth.  Even as he watched, her movements became more pronounced until she was swaying hard enough to scrape her back against the wall on the backswing. 

Billy scurried over and squatted in front of her.  “Dru?  Baby?”  Damn, bad choice of words.  He held her cold hand in his.  “Dru?  It’s me, Billy.  We need to get a move on Dru.”

She looked at him and her eyes flickered with something that looked like understanding, but she kept rocking.

“I know you’re feeling out of sorts, Dru, but we need to head back to Odgen and get some grub.  You’re gonna need to come with me now.  Do you understand?”

Dru nodded, very slowly.  Her movements were deliberate and wooden.  She moved like a trick horse answering a question.

Billy rose to his feet, tugging her arms so that she’d stand, but she resisted and remained tucked into her corner of the cave.

“Come on, Dru.  We need to get goin’.  I don’t wanna leave you here, but I will if you force me to it.”

She looked him in the eye and remained unmoved, saying simply, “Miss Edith.”  Fat tears began to roll down Dru’s cheeks and something twisted in his unbeating heart.  It was almost worse than seeing her keening and out of her mind, to see her crumbled in a corner, in the dirt, defeated and weeping.

“I’ve got her.  Here, in the saddle bag.  You can talk to her later.  For now, we need to light out.”

“She’s not there.”

Billy grit his teeth and reached into the bag, fishing out the dolly.  “She’s right here.  Now come along, Dru.”

“That’s not her.  You know that’s not her.  She left the moment I killed the slayer.” 

“Come with me, Dru.  We can figure out the dolly later.  For now come with me and eat something.”

“Not without Miss Edith.  I need to know what happened to her.”

“Well, I don’t know, Dru.  And unless this here cave is mighty good at keeping secrets, I don’t think it knows either.”  Since being kind and gentle was getting nowhere, perhaps what the gal needed was a firmer hand.  Besides, his patience dimmed as that unearthly thirst continued to claw its way up his throat.

Dru gave him a wounded look and wrapped her arms around her knees.  “He’d know,” she said petulantly.

“He?”

“The Shining Man,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, he woulda straightened this whole Miss Edith mess out, I’m certain,” Billy barked.  “We should have given him an invite.”

Dru leapt to her feet and wrapped her arms around Billy’s neck.  Moments like these he was grateful that he didn’t need to breathe.  As her cold arms wrapped around his neck, he felt a wave of relief that she had some … well, life back in her.

“That’s exactly what we should do, clever boy!”  Her lips curved into a delighted smile, and she clapped her hands maniacally.

Damn if being with her wasn’t like riding a horse that hadn’t been saddle broke yet.  Every time he’d think he had a path to something, she’d tear off in some other direction entirely.  He took a long pull from the flask, emptying it.  “So … Ogden?  We have a long walk ahead of us.”

She ignored him totally, spinning in a circle with her arms at her side and her nose pointed at the ceiling.  “Shining Man?  Please return to me.  You said you’d come when I asked.  I’m asking now.  Please, return to me.  I’ll be good.  Just please, please …”

Before Billy had time to work up a good head of disgust at her latest delusion, damned if the air directly in front of Dru didn’t begin to crackle and snap.  Small sparks of light appeared, and the only thing that came to mind was that she’d somehow conjured up a small lightning storm, the whole thing only slightly larger than Billy himself.

With another snap and a strange buzzing sound, the lightning storm took the shape of a person.  He’d never seen its like.  It was very clearly a man, dark hair, angry look on his face, but Billy could see clean through the fellow.  It was … some kind of spirit or spook she’d conjured up.  Would wonders never cease? 

“Drusilla,” the apparition snarled.

“You came!”  Dru was radiant.  “I was hoping you would.”

“You won’t be hoping that for long, you crazy bitch.  Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I killed a slayer,” Dru answered, with a hint of pride in her voice. 

“Oh, that’s not even the beginning of it.”  The Shining Man shook his head in disgust.  “Why did you do it, Dru?”

“Because she’s the enemy?”  Dru wavered.

“And how did you know where she was?  Jesus.  How thick are you?  Who led you here, Dru?”

“Miss Edith.”

“Fuck yeah, Miss Edith.  Now where do you suppose she’s gotten to?”

Dru looked at the ghostly figure and shrunk back into the corner.  “I … I don’t know.  I thought you might.  It’s why I called you.”

“Jesus Christ, fucking females.  WHY is it always the fucking females?”  The Shining Man screamed impotently at the ceiling, his translucent colors shifting to reds and oranges.

Dru collapsed into weeping, and though Billy felt a pull to ease her tears, he felt a greater desire to listen to this Shining Man fellow and try to figure out what the holy hell was going on.

“Dru, when the dolly was talking to you, did you ever stop to consider for a second that she might be playing for the other fucking team?  Did that thought just maybe cross your mind?  I don’t know, just for a second?  When you had a rare lucid flash?”

She looked at him through red-rimmed eyes.  “She gave me a prophecy.”

“Did she?”  The apparition cackled.  “Let’s hear it, Dru.  Let’s hear the prophecy.”

At that moment Billy reckoned there was precious little he wouldn’t do for a whole lot more whiskey.  The prophecy.  One more time.

“Miss Edith said that together William and I would kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth.”

The Shining Man looked over, noticing Billy at last.  After a derisive snort, he turned his ire back on Dru.  “Well, Miss Edith told the truth.  I’ll give her that much.  Told you the truth and made my job a metric fuckton more difficult.”

Dru shuddered.  “I don’t … understand.”

“Stupid and insane.  You’re a two-for, Dru.  Let me spell it out for you.  The dolly was working for the other guys.  The Powers That Be.  They wanted you to kill the slayer.”

“Why would they … what?  That’s not possible!  Miss Edith told me where to find food.  Helped me kill that boy on the ship.”

The ghostly man cackled out a laugh.  “Yeah, so you don’t think your crazy mind might have filtered the message that the dolly was trying to get across?  And what makes you think the Powers That Be are all hearts and flowers in the first place?  They let Angel eat your family, didn’t they?”

Dru nodded, but she still seemed unconvinced.  “Finding food is one thing.  But why would they lead me to kill a slayer?”

“So you’d awaken another one.”

“Another one?” Dru repeated numbly.

“Yeah.  So now when we try to open the Sunnydale Hellmouth, instead of having to battle little inexperienced Henrietta, I’ve got to deal with a grown slayer with a decade of experience.  Buffy.  You remember Buffy, don’t you, Dru?”

Dru shook her head.

“Sure you do!  She was the scrap of a gal on The Adriatic.   You attacked her husband, and she got the best of you and ran you off the ship when she was just a human.  Now that she’s got her powers back, she may be a little bit more of a problem.”

“But Miss Edith wouldn’t have …”

“It wasn’t Miss Edith, goddammit, Dru.  It was you!  When you killed the slayer, the next in line was called.  It’s just in this case, the next in line was Buffy.   I put a whammy on her, just to be safe, but it was intended for humans.  When you made her the slayer again, all my work went down the toilet.  She remembers everything, and she’s back in full slayer mode.  What’s worse?  She’s on a train headed for California as we speak.”

“And Miss Edith?”  Dru’s voice trembled.  With the arrival of this ghostly fellow she’d transformed into a kicked dog.

“Shut up about fucking Miss Edith!  Jesus!  She won’t be back.  She played you, and she’s gone.  I’ve got the White Demons in place, but having a powerful slayer on the loose isn’t what I needed.  You and Buffy - fucking cunts complicating everything. ”

Billy felt overwhelmed as he watched Dru shrink back against the sandstone wall, hugging her arms around her waist.  It was amazing how his glorious hellcat had transformed into this damaged, frightened creature.  Before he was quite conscious that he’d made a decision to say anything, he found that he was already speaking.  “Don’t put up with that, Dru.”

She looked at him, a flicker of recognition in her defeated expression.

“You have something to add, little man?”  The apparition’s mouth split into a wide grin that threatened to crack his face in half.  He turned to face Billy.

“I reckon I do.”  Billy turned to face the shimmering man, with one hand on his pistol.  He knew it would do nothing to a creature made of light and air, but it made him feel a powerful amount of better. 

Billy took a step toward Dru and thrust out his chin at the Shining Man.  “Dru took care of a slayer last night.  I reckon we could handle another one if we put our minds to it.”

“Dru’s done nothing.  She killed a baby slayer that was so new she'd only met her watcher last week!  You have no idea, boy!”

“You need to git,” Billy said through gritted teeth.  He nodded his head toward the cave entrance.

“WHAT?” the Shining Man roared.

“Get going.  Skedaddle.  You’re doing nothing here and you need to go.”

“You tell me nothing.  Who the fuck do you think you are?  You’ve been a vampire for how long?  A few days.  And you think you’re going to impart your wisdom … what are you doing?”

Billy had begun to unbutton the fly of his trousers.  At least that shut the ghost up for a minute.  Billy grinned and continued to unbutton his pants, then he leisurely reached down and pulled his pecker out.

“What the fuck are you doing?”  The Shining Man’s voice was wavering.  Yeah, Billy definitely had his attention now.

“I reckoned,” Billy pointed his cock toward the man, “if we’re going to get into a pissing contest, you and I, then the fellow with an actual pecker might have a slight advantage.  What do you think?”

The Shining Man watched Billy through narrowed eyes.

Billy grinned cockily and began to piss a stream directly through the center of the shimmering apparition, spelling out his name.  B…I…L… 

“Ya know, maybe you’re right,” Billy said.  “Maybe you shouldn’t get going.  Stick around.  When I’m done pissing on you, I can demonstrate some other fine tricks I can do with my dick.  Dru can help.  It must get mighty frustrating having a … whatever it is you’ve got.  Cloud dick?  I find my flesh pecker is damned handy.”

“You have no idea, child.  None.  Don’t come crying to me when this all turns to dust on you.  When you’re both dusted.”   With a crack that sounded almost like gunfire, the apparition faded.  Good thing too, Billy thought, as he was running out of juice before he’d begun the letter Y. 

He tucked his penis back in his pants and buttoned them, still grinning like a schoolboy.  When he felt Dru’s fingertips touch his elbow, he jumped and turned to her.

“Thank you, my William.”  Her eyes filled to the brim, but not with tears of sorrow.

He tipped his hat, an oddly formal gesture considering everything.

“My pleasure, ma’am.  That fellow was a damned cur, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“What…?”  Dru stuttered and bit her lip before she continued.  “What now, William?”

“Well, first thing, we get back to Ogden and get some dinner.  After that I reckon we need to teach that Shining Man fellow a thing or two about killing slayers.”

“We kill Buffy?”  Dru looked at him – a spark of life behind her blue eyes and it helped damp down any lingering indecision he might have felt.

“Damn right, we kill Buffy.  Two of us versus one gal?  We got this handled, Dru.”

“She’s not like the other one, William.”

“She doesn’t need to be.  We won’t be going at her directly.  When you’re facing a foe that’s bigger than you, it’s sometimes best to go around and hit ‘em from the side.  You’d recognize her if you saw her again?  More importantly, you’d recognize her husband?”

Dru nodded.

“This is going to be too easy, sweet.  We don’t even have to go to them; they’re coming to us.  We just sit in Ogden and wait.  This kind of plan practically writes itself.  Come along, dinner waits.”

Billy held out his arm, and Dru took it with a smile - just a courting couple out for a before-dinner stroll on a moonlit night.  He escorted her out of the cave, and they began the long walk back into Ogden.