Eventually, with a frown, he glanced at his watch and pressed the b.u.t.ton to illuminate it. Nine-seventeen.

He hadn't checked the time before, but he had the impression it had been at least five minutes, perhaps closer to ten, that he'd been left standing out here on the stoop. He wondered if the old man had simply been pulling his leg, making a fool of him.

Giles stepped away from the door and glanced up the street at his car. It was dark inside, though, and he could not see Buffy. With a sigh he went back to his post and tapped his foot as he waited.

At nine twenty-two, he rapped on the door again, more loudly than the first time.

It took longer for the harbormaster to open the door this time. When he did, he wore a cruel smile.

"You're a persistent one, ain'tcha?" the old man grumbled.

"It's my job," Giles replied.

"You do yours," the harbormaster said, chewing his cigar and hitching up his ragged blue jeans, "and I'll do mine."

With that, his hands flashed out with inhuman quickness and latched around Giles's throat. The old man spat out his cigar as he hauled Giles inside the office and tossed him across the room.

Giles crashed into the harbormaster's desk, shouting as his back struck its edge, then went down on the dirty wooden floor.

The harbormaster hissed at him. Even under the scraggly gray beard, Giles could see the fangs.

CHAPTER 6.

This is taking too long,Buffy thought. She leaned over the dashboard and peered through the windshield.

Giles stood just outside the door to the harbor-master's office. As Buffy studied him, he glanced at his watch.So I'm not the only one who thinks this is taking too long, she thought.

A moment later Oz's van pulled up behind her. Buffy grimaced. This was complicating things even further, and she did not want that. With a glance up at the harbormaster's office to check on Giles and to make sure no one was looking out the window, Buffy climbed out of the car and went back to the van.

Willow was in the pa.s.senger seat. Buffy was simultaneously annoyed and pleased with her arrival.

Above and beyond the call of duty. The window was down.

"Hey," Willow began.

Buffy shushed her. "Open the back."

The back door popped open and Buffy went around and climbed in, only to find herself face to face with Xander.

"Hey," he said. "What's Giles doing, just standing there?"

Buffy narrowed her gaze, worried. "I don't know, exactly. Waiting for the harbormaster. The guy came to the door once, then shut it, and now Giles is just waiting. What are you guys doing here, anyway?"

Oz kept his eyes on Giles, but Willow turned around in her seat to face Buffy and Xander in the back.

"We thought we should back you up," Willow said. "When Oz told me you called, I tried calling back.

Obviously you're not there, so I called Giles's. Xander told me what was going on. We picked him up and came here. Just in case. Figured Anya could handle the research for a little while."

"Thanks." Buffy smiled. "But we've got it covered, I think. You guys should get back. Research. Pizza.

No worries."

"Already ate the pizza," Willow explained. "Or Xander did."

"Hey!" Xander protested. "Research makes me hungry."

"What doesn't?" Buffy asked.

"You didn't mention a spell," Willow said.

Buffy looked at her. "What?"

"When you talked to Oz. You didn't mention anything about a spell but Xander said Giles wanted me to get some stuff, do a locator spell or something. I could have gotten the ingredients together."

"You weren't around, Will. I thought we could just do the spell tomorrow. Besides, Giles wanted to talk to the harbormaster, see if he knows anything," Buffy replied.

There was a sort of tension in the van, but Buffy pretended not to notice and hoped Willow would just let it go. As if the conversation were over, she leaned forward slightly and looked past Willow through the windshield, to see that Giles still stood impatiently at the front door of the office.

"You think something's up?" Xander asked.

Buffy thought about that, let it roll around in her mind a little. This part of Docktown was deserted late at night. Just a short walk would take them to The Fish Tank, where there would at least be a few people stumbling in or out of the place. But down here . . . nothing. Too much of nothing, in fact.

Through Willow's open window, she heard a siren wail somewhere far off. Out on the sea, the bell of a buoy tolled on and on as if it were forever midnight.

Buffy studied the doors and windows of the buildings around them. In several, the silver gray flickering of television sets cast eerie shadows. Most were dark, though. A horrible, queasy feeling roiled in her belly and the fine, downy hairs on her arms and the back of her neck p.r.i.c.kled as though an electrical storm were about to sweep down upon them. Her heart beat a little faster.

"This isn't right," she said.

Willow and Xander also seemed spooked. They were staring out from the van as though at any moment the shadows themselves might come alive.

"You feel it too?" she asked.

Xander shrugged. "I don't know. I always feel a little bit like this when we're on monster duty."

But Willow met Buffy's gaze directly. "Something. You're right. I don't know exactly what it is, but. . .

something."

"So you've got spider-sense, too?" Xander asked her.

"There's nothing supernatural about it," Willow told him. "Maybe we're all just paranoid. It is a bit freaky down here. But I'm with Buffy."

"I never should have let him go up there. Look, you should all go home," Buffy said as she rifled through her bag, pulled out the crossbow and handed it to Xander. "You're riding shotgun. I just want to be prepared if anything -"

"Buffy!" Xander interrupted. He pointed past her head, out the windshield.

The Slayer turned around just in time to see the old man haul Giles inside the harbormaster's office with inhuman strength. The door crashed shut behind them.

"Back me up, but don't get out of the van unless I tell you to."

As she leaped out of the van, Buffy's heart felt like stone in her chest. A feeling of profound dread, bone-deep, welled up within her. Though she sprinted down the street toward the harbormaster's office, it felt to her as though the world had slowed around her, as though the small shack was miles, rather than feet, away.

"Giles," she muttered under her breath, her friends almost completely forgotten in the car behind her.

She heard the engine rattle to life and knew they would be following her in a moment.

But Giles might not have a moment.

Her legs pumped, the soles of her shoes slapped the cracked pavement, and her face felt suddenly cold, despite the exertion. The rest of the world disappeared and the only sound Buffy could hear was her own breathing. Everything else was m.u.f.fled, as though she were underwater.

Buffy sprinted up to the door of the harbormaster's office, whipped a stake out from its sheath, and kicked the door in with such force that the frame splintered and was torn off its hinges. The place was trashed. Paperwork was strewn about the huge oak desk in the far corner. A lamp lay broken on the floor next to a phone that was off the hook. Both had been knocked off the desk. An old framed painting of a schooner about to crash onto the sh.o.r.e by a lighthouse hung nearly sideways on its hook. A shelf of books had been knocked over. Two other lights still burned in the room, dim, but plenty of illumination to allow Buffy to see the horror that was unfolding before her.

In a narrow doorway that led into another part of the office, Giles lay half in one room and half in the other. His pants leg was torn and blood had begun to seep through the cloth. He tried to sit up, eyes glazed over as he shook his head, blinking rapidly. His face was already bruised and cut, blood dripping down his chin from some unknown wound inside his mouth.

The vampire was hunched over him. In his sharp-clawed fist he held Giles by the front of his shirt. With his other hand, the gray-bearded vampire gripped Giles's throat. When Buffy crashed through the door, the vampire looked up at her and snarled. His appearance was startling to her. Rarely did she see vampires who lookedold. Existing vampires usually bred only with the strongest and most attractive humans, which was why most of them looked so young and vibrant. Then it clicked in her mind; Camazotz's followers had made this man a vampire because he was the harbormaster. With his aid, their entry into the U.S. would be that much simpler.

The harbormaster hissed at her, bared his fangs. His brow was ridged and hideous, his eyes alive and feral, yet not burning like the others. Another mystery.

"Let him go," Buffy demanded.

The vampire laughed, a deep, throaty, gurgling sound. "Or what? You'll kill me? And if I free him, what then? You'll let me go? We're not all that stupid, you know."

With a grunt, the creature hauled Giles up and spun him around, holding him as hostage, as shield.

"Buffy . . . you must . . . go." Giles croaked.

The vampire rammed his head forward into the back of Giles's skull. The impact was loud, and sounded perilously fragile, as though something had broken. Buffy cringed and felt as though she might throw up.

Giles's eyes rolled up to white and he went limp in the vampire's powerful hands.

Fury kindled within her like a furnace. She gripped the stake in her right hand even more tightly.

"Maybe you don't know who you're dealing with, moron," she snapped. "Or maybe you're just too stupid to know better. I'm Buffy Summers. I'm -"

"The Slayer."

The voice came from behind her. Buffy spun, put her back to the wall so that she could see both the doorway and the harbormaster. Amidst the shattered remains of the door stood a creature whose appearance made her breath catch in her throat. Naked from the waist up, the tall, hideous thing was hunched over and a pair of skeletal wings jutted up from his back. They looked as though they had been torn apart, or ravaged by fire. On his chest was an enormous scar, and at the center of the scar an open wound that seemed partially healed, as though it might never close completely.

His hair was black and thickly matted, as was his long beard. He had a short, ugly snout with wet slits for nostrils, and his chalky, green-white skin was pockmarked all over. Upon his forehead were ridges that resembled those of a vampire. From his mouth jutted rows of teeth like icicles, and his fingers were inhumanly long and thin, white enough to have been little more than bones.

But what struck her most deeply were his eyes. Blazing orange fire, just like its vampire followers.

"Camazotz," Buffy whispered, hating herself immediately for the horror and awe she heard in her own voice.

"I'm touched you know me."

The monster grinned.

"No wonder you live in a cave," Buffy sniffed dismissively. "Who'd go out, looking like that?"

Out of the corner of her eye she watched the harbor-master, just in case her taunting of the vampire's master would cause him to do something rash - like snap her mentor's neck. But the creature remained impa.s.sive. For his part, where many others would have raged at the insult, Camazotz merely grunted with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"The man means something to you," the demon-G.o.d said. "Your Watcher?"

His voice was wet and thick, something trapped in quicksand and desperate to be free. There was an accent there as well, but nothing Buffy recognized, much like that of the bat-faces she had fought before.

Her gaze ticked toward Giles, still unconscious, and back to Camazotz. There was no percentage in lying. He was obviously far from stupid. But that didn't mean she had to tell the freak her life story.

"Not my Watcher. A friend," she admitted. She hefted the stake in her right hand, turned its point toward him. "So you're the G.o.d of bats, huh? Considering the job description, those are pretty pitiful wings."

Camazotz actually flinched. While he had not responded at all to Buffy's previous taunt, this seemed to have gotten under his skin. Curious, Buffy gazed at him again, took in the bony things that jutted up from his hunchback.

"Sore spot, huh?" She gestured with the stake at his back. "Someone gave you a good mangling. Can you even fly with those?"

Camazotz lost all of the cool reserve he'd shown, and a primitive snarl split his features. His eyes flared and sparked.

"I knew I would have to destroy you to reach the h.e.l.lmouth, cow. I am prepared. My Kakchiquels are bred and raised by me. They do not fear you, girl, because they have neverheard of you. They will face you without hesitation, down to the last of them, because they do not know what a Slayer is."

"They will," she promised, returning his snarl as she relaxed and tightened the grip on her stake. "I've killed bigger and badder and uglier than you. You want me? Come and get me." She stared at him, letting the moment of silence charge the air between them with crackling energy. Then she smiled.

"Let's get it on, stumpy."

The flesh of the ancient creature seemed almost to ripple with his rage. He shuddered, nostrils flaring, long needle teeth bared, and he rose up to his full height, about to lunge at her.

Then Camazotz smiled.

Buffy swore silently, her hopes dashed, her heart aching.

"You want to antagonize me into direct combat, believing you can destroy me and still save your . . .

friend," Camazotz said, slippery voice tinged with wonder. "And maybe you would at that, Slayer.

Maybe you would. But I have walked upon this Earth since before the human virus infected it, and I have grown cautious in that time."

Camazotz gestured to the harbormaster. "If she does not obey me instantly, kill him.Drink him."

Tongue flicking out over his teeth, Camazotz glared at her. All trace of humor was gone from his horrid countenance. "Throw the stake down. On your knees and crawl to me."

Her heart raced and Buffy tried not to let Camazotz see the effect of his words. For all her bl.u.s.ter, she knew he had her. But her mind raced along all the possible avenues of the stalemate in an instant, and she knew there was only one possible choice. If she did as he commanded, they were both dead. If she attacked, Giles would be savaged, possibly murdered, before she could reach him. She had to bank on Ca-mazotz's keeping Giles alive to use as a lure to try to destroy her.

One choice. He might still die, but it's my only choice.