The Angel Chronicles, Volume 1 by Nancy Holder

Author:Nancy Holder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse

CHAPTER 3

In the library, Giles read a printout of the Kent School News.

“Callie Megan Anderson … missing for over a week. No one’s seen her, no one knows what happened to her,” he said.

“This being Sunnydale and all,” Willow observed, “I guess we can rule out something good.”

That must have activated Giles’s sense of Slayer duty, for he thought a moment, reached for the phone, and announced, “I’m calling Buffy.”

“No!” Willow shouted.

He looked confused. “Why not?”

Stay calm, think fast, Willow told herself. “Because Buffy and her mother—”

“Are sick,” Giles finished. “You’re right. We shouldn’t disturb them until we know more.”

More, Willow thought. Oh, no, not more. “You mean like if there are others?” Because there were, lots of others, scrolling up the screen.

“Brittany Oswald, junior at St. Michael’s, disappeared a year ago. So did Kelly Percell, sophomore at Grant.”

“A year,” Giles said, musing, as he read over her shoulder.

“Almost to the day.”

Giles’s neural net was making its clever Giles connections. She could see it in his eyes. “An anniversary. Or perhaps some other event significant to the killer.”

Willow ascended shrill mode. “Killer? Now there’s a killer? We don’t know there’s a—”

“No. But this being Sunnydale and all…”

Her own words, back to haunt her. “Gulp.”

“We need to know where Buffy found that bracelet, and then we can begin a search from there.” Giles again reached for the phone.

Willow said quickly. “Good idea. Call Angel.” Giles looked at her. She was working overtime; the last time she’d covered so thoroughly for anyone had been in the fifth grade, when she’d played lookout so a bunch of girls could smoke in the bathroom. Now she’d graduated to lying about frat parties. Prison was surely next. “He was there when Buffy found it. We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

It must have made sense. This time she said nothing as he picked up the phone.

* * *

The party was over. The drunken stragglers were stumbling out. Xander, still attired as Sunnydale’s answer to Demi Moore in one or several of her films, got shown the door by his old friends, dark-haired frat boy and blond-haired frat boy. They threw him his clothes and started to shut the door.

“Party’s over, jerkwater,” the blond frat boy said, laughing.

Xander said, “Wait. A friend of mine was here.’

Dark-haired frat boy paused, gave him the onceover. “You know, in all that light, with the wig ana all”—he let the thought hang as he gave Xander a mock admiring glance—“you’re still butt ugly.”

He and his good buddy chortled at this most awesome display of rapier wit as they slammed the door in Xander’s face. Fuming, Xander dropped his clothes onto the porch and whipped off the bra and wig.

* * *

The party was over.

It had served its purpose, and now it was time to fulfill the promise.

A male figure, stripped to the waist, knelt before the dark pit. His upper body was a mass of raised diamond-shaped scars. The others, robed and hooded, kept a respectful distance.

A cup

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