Description:

About the Author

Christopher Golden is the award-winning, L.A. Times best-selling author of such novels as Strangewood and Of Saints and Shadows, among others. He has written eight Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels (seven with Nancy Holder), including the recent hardcover Immortal.

Golden's comic book work includes the Marvel Knights restart of The Punisher, as well as Wolverine/Punisher: Revelation (both with Tom Sniegoski), The Crow: Waking Nightmares, and issues of Spider-Man Unlimited, Wolverine, and X-Man. He has also written a number of Buffy-related comics projects.

The editor of the Bram Stoker Award-winning book of criticism, CUT!: Horror Writers on Horror Film, he is the co-author of The Watcher's Guide: The Official Companion to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Sunnydale High Yearbook.

Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. He graduated from Tufts University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

"Pike?" Xander asked. "Like in 'L.A.' Pike?"

Willow turned to Xander with a mischievous grin on her face. "Like in hot-with-the-smoochies Pike."

Buffy shot them both a dark look, meant to quiet them, and it worked. The two of them glanced around innocently. Buffy turned her attention back to Pike.

With a dark tan and his hair shaggy on top, short on the sides, and dyed a patchwork blond, he looked better than ever. That was the first thing she noticed. Mainly because she was trying not to pay attention to the whirlwind of conflicting emotions that rose up at seeing him. Focus, Summers, she thought.

Her eyes lingered on the bright pink scar that split his left eyebrow, and her mind drifted back to the night he'd received it. The last night they'd spent together.

"Hey," she said. Eloquent as ever.

Pike smiled, shook his head, and strode across the few feet that separated them. He wrapped his arms around Buffy, and she let him. In fact, she more than let him. After a moment's hesitation, she returned the embrace, hugging him tightly to her.

"Buffy," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "It is so good to see you."

Suddenly, Buffy stiffened. For a moment, she'd nearly forgotten that Xander and Willow were standing there. Now she pushed back, a bit awkwardly, from Pike's embrace, and glanced nervously at her friends before looking back to Pike.

"These are my friends," she told him, feeling more weight on the word than she usually did. It meant more to her than almost anything: friendship. "Willow and Xander. Guys," she continued, looking at them, "this is Pike."

Xander stepped forward, held out his hand, and Pike shook it. Buffy smiled at the oddly formal sight, mainly because it was something she'd never imagined she'd see. Though she'd received a letter from him now and again in the past couple of years, after that last night in Vegas she hadn't expected to ever see Pike again.

Strange wasn't the word for it.

"Nice to meet you," Xander said.

"You too, dude," Pike replied, then glanced up at Willow. "Both of you."

"Buffy's told us a lot about you," Willow said. "Okay, not a lot really, but...so what brings you to Sunnydale?"

At that question, Buffy watched Pike closely. It would have been the next thing out of her mouth if Willow hadn't beaten her to it. And it was abundantly clear, watching Pike's reaction, that the question made him uncomfortable.

With a guilty sigh, his eyes stopped wandering and focused on Buffy's face, as if she, rather than Willow, had asked the question.

"Could we talk about this over coffee?" he asked.

They walked the half mile to the Espresso Pump. Buffy and Willow had pretty much declared it their spot to just sit and talk, something that wasn't easy to do at the Bronze. But the Bronze was about something else: dancing, flirting, meeting people, and more dancing. The Espresso Pump was coffee and conversation.

Xander and Willow walked ahead, and Buffy brought up the rear with Pike. With the purpose of his arrival in Sunnydale off-limits for the moment, she wasn't quite sure what to say to him. Thankfully, the others didn't have that problem.

"So, Pike," Xander said, with feigned nonchalance, "you're pretty good with a stake, and down with the ol' night beasties. Buffy said you traveled around a lot. I figure you for a fearless vampire hunter, or a homeless drifter."

Willow gave him an elbow to the side.

"No offense," Xander added quickly, gently touching his ribs.

Pike glanced at Buffy before replying. When he did, he was talking to her as much as answering the question.

"Not quite," he said. "Either way. Although I did the homeless drifter thing for a few weeks a couple of years back."

Buffy frowned, concerned and sad. Pike had never told her that, and the thought of him...no, he can take care of himself. That's what he's best at.

"And what've you been avoiding doing with your time since then?" Buffy asked.

Willow's eyebrows went up. Buffy knew she was surprised at her tone of voice, and didn't care. She had a lot of mixed-up feelings when it came to Pike, and it was up to her to work them out.

For his part, Pike didn't seem to notice. He shrugged.

"Last time I saw Buffy was the fall of sophomore year," he recalled. "Course, she'd totally been expelled by then, and I dropped out. After what I'd...well you guys obviously know what it's like. Once I found out what was out there in the dark, I couldn't really focus on school anymore. We went on a few road trips, checking out vamp activity and then...I sort of retired I guess."

"We both did," Buffy reminded him. "Only I didn't get the choice."

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" Xander grunted dramatically.

They all stared.

"Pacino," Xander said, rolling his eyes. "Godfather III."

Willow patted him on the shoulder. "It's important you keep believing you can do these impressions."

"But it's also important you stop doing them around your friends," Buffy added before looking at Pike again.

Pike glanced away. "I couldn't look at the world the same way after I knew what I knew. It's hard to concentrate on the future when you know any day it might just get taken away."

He paused, looking up as both Xander and Willow dropped back slightly to watch him curiously.

"Sorry," he said. "Guess you guys live with that every day, huh? Anyway, I was kind of hiding out from the world, which is how I ended up on the street. But I had friends, some family, people I could get a couple of bucks from. I got back on my feet, moved down to Pacific Beach, got a new surfboard and a job driving a rehabbed VW Bug as a taxi, met some new people. Got my GED."

"The idyllic southern California life," Willow said. "Surfing and meeting girls. Or, in my case, boys."

"Y'know, as I think of it, that doesn't sound half bad," Xander pointed out. "If I could remember the words to any song by the Beach Boys, I'd sing."

"God help us all," Buffy muttered.

"It's not for everyone," Pike told Xander. "And it isn't as perfect as Willow makes it out to be. At least not for me. See, knowing what I know, I can't even read the paper the same way everyone else does. Where one person sees a horrible crime and shrugs their shoulders, I always have to wonder whether there's something behind the story that makes the news."

"So you're like Batman," Xander said. "You're out there tracking down the truth."

Buffy laughed at that, and Willow looked at her with astonishment, obviously thinking her unconscionably rude. But she knew Pike, and they didn't.

For his part, Pike only looked at Xander as if he were out of his mind. "Dude," he said, giving it all the meaning in the world. "Please."

"Not Batman," Xander corrected.

"Not even Robin," Pike explained. "I see something nasty, and maybe I wonder if there's more to it. And then I grab my board and go surfing and try to find a wave sweet enough to make me forget all about it."

There, Buffy thought. That's the Pike I know.

It wasn't always like that, though. She wasn't about to forget what Pike was like when they'd first gotten to know one another. But that was a different story, a different time. He had a personal stake in what had happened at Hemery High two and a half years before. Not anymore.

Then Willow said something that surprised Buffy.

"Sometimes it doesn't work, though," she said, slowing almost to a stop as she studied Pike. "Sometimes you can't forget, and then you have to do something."

Pike shrugged. "There've been a couple of times," he admitted. "Maybe two years ago a little gang of bloodsuckers killed a bud of mine in the Gaslamp District in San Diego. That got personal. About four months ago, dude named Gorch and his girlfriend came through town, made a mess of a place I like to hang called Coasters."

"Lyle Gorch?" Willow asked, glancing at Buffy in surprise.

"We ran into him not that long ago," Xander added. "It wasn't the first time either. He's a member of Buffy's fan club, I think. Not to mention the first guy shot in every Clint Eastwood movie."

"Maybe he was on his way here. I don't know," Pike said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, 'cause the cowboy was long gone after that. Never ran into him again. And I don't really want to. I hate all of this. It isn't my world, it isn't what I want."

They were walking along the street, past storefront windows, and the Espresso Pump was just a few doors up. But Buffy couldn't ignore Pike's words. They infuriated her. With all he'd seen, all he could have done to help if he'd set his mind to it -- he was easily as capable as any of her friends, and even more so when it came to fighting vampires -- she couldn't help feeling a little bitter toward him.

"So what do you want, then?" she asked, barely able to disguise her anger.

Willow and Xander had reached the door to the Pump, and Xander held the door for them. Pike paused, however, and turned to look at Buffy.

"I'm in trouble," he told her. "I need your help."

When they'd all paid for their ridiculously expensive exotic coffees, they slid into a booth together, Buffy and Willow on one side, and Pike and Xander on the other. She'd held back her questions, her conflicted emotions, and her opinions, up until now. But Buffy was through holding back.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming here," she told Pike.

"Y'know," Xander piped up suddenly. "It's a nice night. Maybe Willow and I should take our coffees for a walk."

"You don't need to do that," Pike said, looking at Buffy sadly. "If anybody leaves, it'll be me. And that's up to Buffy."

With a deep breath, Buffy regarded Pike. Then she looked at Willow and Xander, who immediately turned away and struck up a gibberish conversation with one another, sipping their coffees.

"I guess I hoped you'd be glad to see me," Pike said, with a half shrug.

Buffy sighed. "I am glad," she said. "Maybe it wouldn't be so weird if you'd called or something -- "

"I couldn't call."

" -- but you skipped out on me at maybe the most confusing and difficult time of my life. The threat was over, and you were just gone."

"The only reason I stayed in the first place was to help you. I'd been wanting to get out of L.A. for a long time. You know that. And besides, you were done anyway. After what happened with Merrick and all, you didn't want to be the Slayer anymore."

Buffy glanced down at the table. Saw her coffee there, and had so nearly forgotten about it that she was almost surprised to see it. It was a mocha actually, a cappuccino with chocolate stirred in, and a bit of frothy whipped cream on top. A special treat. The kind of thing she only ordered when she was depressed or confused.

"You could've stayed. You could've said good-bye at least."

"Your mom had already decided to move anyway," Pike argued. "Look, Buffy, I'm sorry things worked out the way they did. And I'm sorry that you can't just walk away and live on the beach and surf and watch the fireworks over Sea World from the shore. But you're the Chosen One, not me."

"Yeah," she said bitterly. "The demons would love that. You'd be too busy waxing your board to sharpen a stake."

There was a long pause. Buffy could feel how tense Willow was at her side, and she glanced over to see that Xander was just as uptight. She didn't blame them. This was awkward for all of them. She should've taken Pike off and talked to him alone, but she honestly hadn't expected to react this way. In the few letters they'd exchanged, she'd felt only the barest hint of the hostility that rose up in her now.

Buffy shook her head, waved her hand in the air as if she could erase the previous few minutes. "Look, I'm sorry," she said. "You came here for help, and I owe you that much, at least. You were there when I needed you most, and that counts for something. No matter what came after."

Pike nodded gratefully. Then he looked directly in Buffy's eyes as if searching for something. He seemed quite melancholy in that moment. When it passed, he smiled tentatively.

"Would it help if I said I missed you?" he asked.

"Maybe a little," she admitted. She glanced down at the table, took a breath, and then looked up at him again. "How have you been? Really, I mean. Do you still have the dreams about Benny?"

Pike had lost his best friend to the vampires back at Hemery High, and nightmares had plagued him for months afterward.

"Once in a while," he told her. "But not like they used to be."

"I'm glad," Buffy said.

Simple as that, the past was behind them. For the moment.

Buffy glanced at her friends. "Now that we've ruined Willow and Xander's night -- "

"Are you kidding?" Xander asked gravely. "You can't pay for this kind of entertainment."

Willow and Buffy both shot him a withering glare.

"And now that we've moved on," Xander said urgently, "I'd still like to know what Pike is doing here. Not that you're not welcome, Pike, but...okay, guy from Buffy's past shows up suddenly, there's a bad precedent here."

"And, strangely for Xander, he's not just thinking about the competition for Buffy's affection that a new/old guy in her life represents," Willow added helpfully. Then, when Xander glared at her, she quickly added, "'Cause he's totally over that phase of his life and moving into a new and more mature Xanderhood."

"True," he agreed. "But I get a bit shy talking about my Xanderhood, so let's move on, shall we?"

Pike looked at Buffy. "Are they always like this?"

"Him, yes. Her, only sometimes," Buffy told him.

"Must get exhausting."

"Never really noticed," Buffy confessed. "But your usual crowd is a bit more laid-back."

"Wait till you meet Oz," Xander said. "You two are a match made in...whatever place laid-back guys come from."

"Great. I'll look forward to it."

Buffy sipped her mocha. "So," she said, her tone automatically moving the conversation forward from its stalled position. "You need my help. Now that I've vented my frustrations and might be willing to actually give it to you, what is it that you need me to kill?"

Pike blinked in surprise.

"Come on," Buffy prodded. "Why else would you come to me?"

He nodded, and gave a small shrug. "It was this friend of mine, Bone -- "

"Bone," Buffy repeated. "Your friend's name is Bone?"

"Yeah?"

"Nothing. Just never knew anybody named Bone before," she said.

"You won't," Pike told her. "He's dead."

They were all quiet a moment after that. It was Willow who urged Pike to continue.

"He'd started to get into all this witchcraft stuff, or warlock, or whatever you call it when it's a guy," he explained. "He was an older guy, maybe thirty, and he'd been on the beach a while. Few years back he lost it in a curl, and his board hit him in the back of the head. Guys who knew him before then would tell me he was never the same after that. But I hadn't known him before, so to me he was always just Bone.

"The end of last month, I dropped by his place. We were supposed to go over to Coasters. When I got there, I rang the bell and knocked for a couple of minutes. I was like, dude's not home, I'm outta here. I'm about to leave, and the door opens. Bone looks like he's been on a three-day bender and I've just woken him up.

"But I'd never seen him drink. Not even on New Year's Eve. So I started asking him what was going on, was he sick or something, and he tells me yeah, that's it. He's sick. He'll call, y'know? It was a total brush- off. I was getting a little pissed, and then I notice his T-shirt."

Pike paused then, as if the memory was difficult for him.

"There was blood on it," he said.

Buffy wanted to interrupt, wanted to rush him, but she could see that it was painful for him, and so she let Pike reveal the details of the story at his own pace.

"It wasn't splashed on, y'know? More like it was soaking through from underneath. I tried to ask him what happened, was he cut, all that. He started getting all jittery, like a junkie needing a fix, telling me we'd hook up later, that he had to get some rest. 'Cause he was sick and all."

Once again, Pike paused. He looked down at the Formica tabletop. Buffy, Willow, and Xander all looked at him, waiting for him to go on. Nearly half a minute passed before Buffy spoke up.

"What did you do?" she asked.

When Pike looked up, his face was contorted with pain and guilt.

"I left," he said. "Damn it, I left. I should have put him in the Bug, taken him to a hospital. Or forced my way into the house. Maybe I would've been able to do something about it then.

"But I didn't. That isn't the way we do things, y'know? Bone's business was his business, not mine. Live and let live, right? Only he didn't. Live, I mean. Two days later he was dead.

"It was driving me nuts the day after, wondering what was going on with him. He didn't show up on the beach at all that day. I tried calling him, he didn't answer. When he didn't show up a second day, I figured I had to go over there. Even if he was just sick, nobody'd heard from him, he wasn't answering the phone.

"So I head over there again and I'm banging on the door. 'Let me in!' I'm yelling out there, and the neighbor's dog is yipping like crazy and I wanted to find a real dog to feed that little furry bastard to, and Bone is definitely not coming to the door.

"So I broke in.

"The place is a mess. It stinks like crazy -- sour milk and rotten food and I don't even want to think what else. The shades are all drawn and stapled to the windowsill, and that's when I know for sure Bone's gone over the edge. I could barely move through the living room without tripping over all kinds of garbage. There were candles all over the place, black and white ones, and there were weird symbols written on the floors and walls. There was a bucket with a big sponge, and the wall was smeared like he'd been trying to wash it off.

"I'm almost to the kitchen when I hear Bone start shouting and crying like a lunatic. Part of me wanted to run. I'm not gonna pretend differently. But after what I went through back in L.A. with Buffy, well, I know there's evil. Real evil. And it was in that house. In my friend's house.

"And I've gotta tell you, evil pisses me off.

"Bone's shouting was coming from upstairs. I ran up, trying not to touch the walls 'cause they were so disgusting I couldn't even tell what was on them and I didn't want to know. At the top, I ran for his room. The door was closed, but I just hauled off and kicked it open, more afraid than I've been since the night Buffy burned down Hemery's gym.

"See, Bone had stopped shouting all of a sudden.

"When I kicked that door open, I saw why. There were black candles everywhere, and there were more symbols painted on the walls in blood. Bone's own blood, I figure. But he didn't have to worry about losing any more of it."

"He was dead," Willow said, speaking the words they were all thinking. After all, Pike had told them as much.

"He was stone," Pike told them. "Literally. Bone had been turned to stone, and the thing that had done it was right next to him. It was made of stone too, but this thing was moving. Not like Bone. The thing just looked at me, snapped off one of Bone's fingers, put it into its mouth and started chomping. I guess it figured it had me. I'd be too scared to do anything but die right there.

"It was so goddamn confident, it looked away over at the middle of the room. There was a pentagram there, drawn on the floor in chalk and something else, like sugar or salt, had been poured around the edges, and then there were candles. Inside the circle, the floor was glowing, kind of moving like water. All the candles were burning black smoke, and another one of those damn things started to climb out of the circle like it was a well or something instead of the wooden floor in a house by the beach.

"The thing that had turned Bone into a statue looked at the other one, the one coming through, and talked to it, but I couldn't understand any of it. It was like the sound of walking on gravel.

"I took one more look at Bone, and then I turned and ran down the stairs."

Buffy looked at Pike in dismay. She didn't blame him, couldn't blame him, but somehow, she had expected more. The idea that he had just run away without even trying to do something distressed her, though he'd already displayed more courage and calm than anybody could have expected. More than she would have given him credit for before tonight, when she wanted so badly to think poorly of him.

"You just left?" Willow asked, gently.

Pike narrowed his eyes. "Of course not."

Immediately, Buffy felt guilty for having judged him. And, ironically, furious at him for not having run after all. Bone was already dead, and he could have been killed.

"Is this one of those to-be-continued cliff-hangers?" Xander asked. " 'Cause I hate that."

Pike smiled weakly. "I ran downstairs, grabbed the bucket of water I'd seen when I first went in, and I went back up. When I got to the bedroom door, there were more fingers missing from Bone's hand. A little snack while it waited for its mate or whatever to come through. When I ran in, it was reaching down to help the other one out. It was maybe halfway through into...into our world by then.

"I took the bucket and heaved the water across the floor, and the candles went out and the chalk was washed away, and the passageway, whatever it was, closed right then, and it cut the stone demon that was coming through in half. The thing didn't even scream. The top half just fell over and shattered.

"The other one turned to look at me, started screeching in that gravel voice, and its eyes started glowing red like it had Superman heat vision or something. I turned and just bolted down the stairs. I could hear it coming after me, but I figured, a life for a life. And I needed to learn more about this thing if I was gonna fight it. I didn't want to end up a statue, y'know? So I'm down the stairs and on my Harley and burning out of there as the thing comes crashing out Bone's front door.

"Well, the thing's been after me ever since. Almost caught me a couple of times. I read up on it, too -- "

"You were right," Willow interrupted. "It is a stone demon. I read about them in the Codex. Good move with the water, by the way, washing away the portal. How did you know to do that?"

"I didn't," Pike said. "How do you?"

"She's a witch," Xander said calmly.

Willow seemed embarrassed. "Well," she hedged. "Not a witch, exactly. Just a minor spellcaster."

"But she'll be called up to the majors any time now," Xander added.

Pike studied Willow for a long moment, then shrugged. "Sorry if I'm staring. It's just...I have an image of what witches ought to look like in my head, and you're not it."

"Gotta get you some of them witchy warts," Xander told her.

"So you just got lucky?" Buffy asked Pike.

"I guess," he admitted. "I figured with the chalk and the candles making up the door, or whatever, if I could get rid of them, maybe it'd close the door. And it worked."

"And now you've made a friend for life," Xander said happily. "And, lucky us, you've come to share."

Pike looked a bit guilty. "That's about it," he admitted. "After I read about the thing, I knew how lucky I was to have even walked away from it. If it touched me...sayonara man. I knew I needed help, and you were the only person I could think of."

He addressed this last directly to Buffy. It took her a moment to respond. In her mind, she was still with him in his friend's house, with the stone demons, and Buffy was afraid for Pike. No matter how angry she might have been at him, she still cared for him, and didn't want any harm to come to him.

Buffy reached across the table and covered Pike's hand with her own, held it briefly, and smiled. "You did the right thing," she said. "I'm glad you came." She pulled her hand away. "Not glad you've got the big honkin' evil after you, but you came to the right place."

She glanced over at Willow.

"Giles?" Willow asked.

"Giles," Buffy replied.

When the four of them walked into the library, Buffy was more than a little surprised to see Angel sitting at the study desk reading a dusty leather book that had obviously come from Giles's private collection. He glanced up at her, and was clearly as surprised as she was.

"Buffy," he said. "I didn't expect you back this early."

Behind her, Pike whispered to Xander. "Giles?"

"Angel," Xander replied. "Vampire. Good vampire. Usually. Don't ask."

"You didn't...," Buffy began, and then blinked. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but, what are you doing here?"

Angel shrugged. "Giles called. He had to go out on short notice. Said it was important. He asked if I could wolf-sit for a while."

As if on cue, the library cage rattled, and they all looked over to see the werewolf slamming against the metal mesh. It was the third night of the full moon, and Oz was hungry.

"What could be that important?" Willow asked aloud. "I asked Giles if it would be all right if I went out with you on patrol tonight, Buffy. The whole point of the question was to make sure he could sit up with Oz."

Willow went over to the library cage and began to whisper softly to the werewolf, which only stared at her, growling softly.

"Wait," Pike said, more confused than ever. "That's Oz? The laid-back guy that I'm supposed to get along with so well?"

Buffy smiled. "Give him time. He's a whole different person after he's had his morning coffee."

Angel stood up, placed the book on the table, and walked over toward Buffy, waiting expectantly. It took Buffy a second to realize what he was waiting for.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "Pike, this is Angel. Angel, Pike."

"Pike," Angel said, raising his eyebrows. "From L.A.?"

"Used to be," Pike replied. "Not anymore."

Angel looked from Pike to Buffy. His face was expressionless, but Buffy could tell that he was jealous. Despite the fact that they could never truly be together as lovers, the idea that she might have something with someone else upset him. There'd been a time, however brief, when Buffy had fallen for Pike. It was a while ago, but Angel knew about it. Now he was looking for some sign from her, obviously hoping that those feelings were gone.

Buffy looked away.

"Well," Angel said to Pike. "Welcome to the Hellmouth."

Copyright © 1999 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.