The Xander Years, Vol.2 Read online

  “You can die happy,” Buffy told her.

  Cordy didn’t seem to hear. She was too busy watching Xander adjust his goggles as he stood with his toes at the pool’s end, preparing to dive in.

  “What about Jonathon?” Buffy asked Willow, trying to get back to the earlier discussion. “He involved?”

  “Oh, no,” Willow answered. “He just, uh . . . he sort of peed in the pool.”

  “Oh,” Buffy said.

  Xander dove.

  Buffy realized what he was diving into. “Oh,” she said again. This time, though, her tone was much more distressed.

  Xander didn’t have a lot of experience with steam rooms. For that matter, sitting around any kind of room with a bunch of guys wearing nothing but towels was pretty new to him. The fact that no one was talking made it that much worse. A long silence could be uncomfortable. A long, naked silence was downright unbearable.

  So he filled the space. “Don’t you guys get claustrophobic in here?” he asked. “I mean, what’s the deal? You perspire a lot, you can’t breathe. Or read. I mean, you could, but the pages would probably get all wet . . .”

  In the locker room, just outside the steam room, there was a drain leading into the sewer system that ran beneath the school. Over the drain was a grate, a couple of feet square. Normally, the grate just sat there in the floor, as grates tend to do.

  But this was not “normally.” And also not normal were the clawed, scaly fingers that hooked through the grate, lifting it out of the way . . .

  Buffy paced. She pretended to read a No Smoking notice on the corridor wall. Then she got so bored she actually did read it. Then she paced again. Finally, she leaned against the wall.

  More finally than that, Xander came out of the locker room, a white towel draped over his head. If he’s going for the Lawrence of Arabia look, she thought, he hasn’t quite grasped the concept.

  “You gotta love this undercover deal,” he said. “Twenty minutes in a hot room with a bunch of sweaty guys.”

  “Where’s Gage?” she asked, getting right to business.

  “I don’t know. He was right behind me, putting his sneakers on. But they’re not the Velcro kind, so give him a couple of extra minutes.” Xander tapped her on the arm as he walked off. “Tag, you’re it.”

  Back to waiting.

  Inside the locker room, Gage was indeed tying his shoelaces. As he finished, he noticed a putrid odor coming from somewhere. He sniffed. Not his shoes. He raised his arms, checking himself. Nope. He was shower-fresh.

  He left the bench, walking through the deserted locker room. It smelled like a walrus had curled up inside one of the lockers and died.

  The disgusting odor was even more pronounced at one particular bank of lockers. He sniffed, followed the stink to a specific locker. He opened it.

  Buffy was beyond bored, and growing edgy. How long could it take for one swimmer to tie a pair of shoes? Maybe the chlorine does something to the mental processes, she thought. Or the steroids. Fast in the water, slow on land.

  She was on her millionth pace when she heard him scream.

  “Oh, God!” Gage called.

  She shoved through the swinging doors and ran into the locker room. He was still screaming, panic in his voice. “Help! Help me! Help me!”

  When she came around the bank of lockers, there he was. And there, also, was one of the fish monsters Xander had seen, closing in on him.

  Buffy shoved Gage back out of the way. He hit the lockers and slid to the floor, terrified. He looked like he was in pain, but Buffy’s first concern had to be the huge, slimy creature from the depths. She faced it, ready for it to make its move.

  But Gage let out another scream. Something was very wrong with him. The monster wasn’t attacking, so she took a calculated risk, and left it alone. If it wants to tangle, it knows where to find me.

  Gage was curled into almost a fetal position on the floor, his back against the lockers. When Buffy approached, he reached out for her. He seemed to be in big-time agony.

  “Gage?” she asked, concerned.

  He screamed again, convulsing. His shirt was open, and he clutched his chest. Food poisoning? Buffy wondered. Heart attack?

  Or something worse. His whole chest seemed to be heaving, skin rippling. He dug his fingers into his own flesh. Then, grabbing his skin in both hands, he pulled it apart. She’d seen that done on doctor shows, but those people had things like internal organs and rib cages beneath the flesh. Not Gage.

  Still moaning, he held his own hand up and looked at it. But the skin of his hand fell off, like a discarded glove, as something wet and slick pushed up through it. The same stuff forced itself through the hole in his chest.

  Buffy realized what was happening just before it rose to its full height. One of the fish monsters was erupting from inside Gage. It sloughed off his skin like a shedding snake. Everything that had been Gage was now an empty sack on the locker room floor, and a huge, and apparently unfriendly — gill monster was looking at Buffy.

  And, like most new monsters, it was hungry.

  It lunged for her.

  She backed up a step. And felt — or rather, smelled — the rank breath of the other one right behind her. Whoops!

  She was surrounded by sea life. My kingdom, she thought, for a fishhook.

  CHAPTER 9

  Both creatures growled. This was not a simple fish-family reunion, then. Their intentions seemed hostile at the very least.

  Buffy didn’t waste any time. She gave one a quick kick, and it reeled back. Continuing her spin she lashed out with the same foot, catching the other beast in the chest. Its legs flew out from under it and it hit the floor. She snatched up a metal garbage can, hurled it at the first one. It swatted the can away as she would a fly.

  She needed a weapon of some kind.

  There was a lacrosse stick in a corner. She had never really understood lacrosse, but she understood a long solid object with two ends that could be used to jab and strike. She grabbed the stick, swung it into the head of one of the creatures. It roared in pain, fell away. She swung again, driving it home on the other’s skull. Then, spinning around, she took a couple of swings worthy of Mark McGwire into the ribs of the first one she’d hit. It’s feeling the pain, she thought.

  This just might work.

  Which was when the other monster caught her from behind, buried its long teeth into her arm, lifted her in the air, and slammed her into a bank of lockers.

  Buffy was dazed, just aware enough to know that they were about to finish her off.

  But they didn’t, because then Coach Marin was there, helping her up and dragging her away to safety.

  And, as if scared of a fair fight, the two creatures hit the floor, sliding toward the still-open grate. They dove head-first down the drain, and were gone.

  The last time she’d been in Nurse Greenleigh’s office, it was to be reprimanded. This time it was to be bandaged. She sat in the same place as Cameron had, a few days earlier. Nurse Greenleigh, dressed in her white nurse clothes, looked like she had never moved away from this spot.

  “I don’t think that this’ll need stitches,” the nurse said. “But you might want to have your family physician take a look at it.”

  “How are you?” Giles asked her.

  “I’m definitely feeling the burn.”

  Coach Marin flanked Giles. The librarian turned to him. “Well, the good news is, it would appear none of your team actually died.”

  “But the bad news is, they’re monsters,” Buffy added.

  The coach seemed genuinely upset. “How could this happen?”

  “Are you saying you don’t know?” Giles asked.

  “Well, you work so hard, you start winning suddenly . . . you think it’s just you, you’re inspiring the boys to greatness. But in the back of your mind, you start to wonder.”

  Giles didn’t seem convinced. “You never asked the boys if they were taking anything?”

  “Maybe I was afraid to
,” the coach admitted.

  After school, Xander, Buffy, and Willow met in Willow’s computer classroom. Willow sat in front of one of the machines, which is fitting, Xander thought, because she actually knows how to use them. He and Buffy were feeling their way toward the twentieth century while Will had already jumped into the twenty-first.

  “There,” Buffy said, pointing to something on the monitor.

  Willow read. “‘Dodd McAlvy . . . torn tendon. Gage Petronzi . . . fractured wrist . . . depression . . . headaches — ’”

  “It’s all here in the school medical records,” Buffy pointed out.

  “All symptomatic of steroid abuse,” Willow agreed.

  Xander felt like he was still a step behind. “But is steroid abuse usually linked with ‘Hey, I’m a fish?’”

  “There must be something else in the mix,” Willow said. “But the point is, the boys were obviously drugged.”

  Buffy added, “And Nurse Greenleigh treated each and every one of them. She must have known.”

  “If steroids are that dangerous,” Willow asked, “why would they do that to themselves?”

  So naive, sometimes, Buffy thought. “They needed to win,” she explained. “Winning equals trophies, which equals prestige for the school. You see how they’re treated. It’s been like that forever.”

  Xander jumped in. “Sure, the discus throwers got the best seats at all the crucifixions.”

  “Meanwhile,” Buffy said, “I’m breaking my nails battling the forces of evil and my French teacher can’t even remember my name.”

  Which Xander could actually see an upside to, around report card time. But he kept that to himself. “So what’s the drill?” he asked. “Get Nurse Greenleigh?”

  “Let’s throw the book at her!” Willow said, maybe a little too enthusiastically.

  “She probably went home for the day,” Buffy said. “I think it can wait. Xander, why don’t you see if you can find out what these boys are taking, or at least how they’re taking it. Powder, pills, syringes —”

  “I’m looking-around guy.”

  “What about you?” Will asked.

  “Giles is loading up the tranquilizer gun,” Buffy replied. “We’re going fishing.”

  The ground beneath Sunnydale was honeycombed with sewer pipes tall enough for a person to walk through, but nasty enough that only the very wiggiest person would want to.

  Buffy supposed that the same could be said of any city. But when it’s Sunnydale, she thought, everything’s a little creepier, and ditto for the sewers. She was glad she had her Watcher with her. And more glad that, while she was armed with only a flashlight, Giles was carrying a big old gun. He was loaded for bear, as the saying went.

  Only in this case, more like loaded for barracuda.

  They both saw it at the same moment, a motion just beyond the beam of her light. She raised it, shining it at the movement. Giles brought the gun up, cocked it, sighting along its length.

  But she touched his arm. Only a big rat. Ooky, but hardly supernatural. It belonged here; they were the tourists. They kept looking.

  And as they turned a corner, moving deeper into the dripping, malodorous dark, neither noticed a shadowy form watching from the far end of the tunnel. Watching, and waiting . . .

  Back in the steam. Xander was getting used to the nearly naked bodies of his teammates, and the small degree of modesty that paper-thin white gym towels provided.

  The lack of conversation still bugged him, though. That, and the fact that, without conversation, information was hard to come by. So he did his monologue thing again, hoping to elicit a response from someone.

  “I feel good,” he said. “Loving this swimming. Had some carrot juice this morning, a little wheat germ mixed in . . . woke me right up. Nothing like it, huh? Breakfast of state champions, you betcha.” He pumped his fist for emphasis.

  He might as well have been in a room full of corpses.

  Except, come to think of it, he’d already done that, and they were much more lively.

  Subtlety isn’t going to work with this crowd, he thought. Time to be more direct.

  “Okay, so, when do we get our next dose?”

  And, bingo. Pay dirt.

  Sean, sitting catercorner from Xander, spoke up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who’s carrying?” Xander elaborated. “I need a little something to improve my performance. Give me an edge. Rrrr,” he growled.

  Sean looked away.

  Xander decided he’d been right about the subtle approach. These guys needed to be hit over the head. “The steroids? Where are they?”

  This time, Sean laughed. “You’re soakin’ in it, bud.”

  “Huh?” Xander asked, not quite following.

  Sean took a deep breath, blew it out. “Aromatherapy,” he explained. “It’s in the steam.”

  Coach Marin walked briskly around the pool, moving like a man with a mission. Behind him, Nurse Greenleigh rushed to keep up. “This has got to stop, Carl,” she said. “Those poor children.”

  He glanced back at her. “What, are you a quitter? There’s no room for quitters on this team.”

  “Do you even understand what’s happening? Listen to yourself!”

  “We’re very close to perfecting this. We just need to adjust the mix.” He reached a staircase and headed down.

  Nurse Greenleigh kept right on his heels. “Carl, you can’t be thinking of continuing to expose these boys.”

  “They’re gonna be the best,” the coach insisted. “I don’t accept anything less.” At the bottom of the stairs, he turned into a pump room that ran beneath the pool. Inside was a short staircase, and he climbed its three steps to a platform.

  “They’re gonna be monsters!” the nurse argued. “Carl, please. Don’t make it any worse. You’ve already lost three.”

  She was still right behind him. He stopped suddenly, and turned to her. “Lost? They’re not lost.” He grabbed her by her upper arms, gave a mighty push, and shoved her to where there should have been a grate in the floor.

  But the grate was moved to one side, and the hole was open.

  With a shriek, she fell through.

  And splashed into a dank, filthy grotto, about one flight down. The cold smelly water came to her waist.

  “Carl! What are you doing?” she demanded, tears in her eyes.

  The sewers!

  He smiled down from above. “I’m just looking after my boys. They may be out of the game right now, but they’re still a team,” he said. “And a team’s gotta eat.”

  “Carl!” she called again.

  But he simply pushed the grate back into place. “You quitter,” he said. Then he disappeared, and she heard his footsteps receding.

  She backed through the water. There has to be a way out of here, she thought. The water must come from somewhere. She’d find her way out. She was no pushover. And when she got out, she’d make Carl Marin pay —

  Which was when she felt clawed hands around her ankles. She was only able to let out a short shriek before she was yanked under the water.

  Within a few moments, the surface was placid once more.

  CHAPTER 10

  Xander paced the library floor, nervous. He wasn’t ordinarily a nail-bitin’ guy, but this was not an ordinary situation, and he worried them to the quick as he walked.

  “They’re absorbing the steroid mixture through the steam,” Giles said, as if he was telling anyone something they didn’t already know.

  “Not they,” Xander said. “We. Me. We need to find an antidote, don’t you think? The clock is ticking, people.”

  Willow was in a chair nearby, looking appropriately worried. Buffy sat Indian style on a table. Cordelia looked gorgeous on the steps — not especially useful, as she wasn’t mixing chemicals or anything. But cute, just the same.

  “I wouldn’t break out the tartar sauce just yet,” Buffy said. “It’s not like you were exposed more than once.”

  Xan
der looked at her, willing her to accept reality.

  “Twice?” she asked.

  “Three times a fishguy.”

  “Oh — whoa,” Willow said.

  “What am I gonna do?” Xander asked, making every attempt to avoid actual whining.

  “You, you, you . . . What about me?” Cordelia said. “It’s one thing to be dating the lame, unpopular guy. It’s another thing to date the Creature from the Blue Lagoon.”

  “‘Black’ Lagoon,” Xander corrected. His anxiety was apparent in his tone, which even he realized was verging on snappish. “The creature from the Blue Lagoon was Brooke Shields. And thank you so much for your support.” He sank onto the stair below hers, head in his hands.

  He was doomed.

  “I think we’d better find the rest of the swim team,” Buffy suggested, “and lock them up before they get in touch with their inner halibut.”

  “Yes, good,” Giles said. “We also need to know exactly what was in this steroid gas so the hospital’s toxicology lab can develop an antidote.”

  My new favorite word, Xander thought. “Antidote.” It was like music.

  “Well, I’ll talk to Nurse Greenleigh,” Willow offered, rising from her chair.

  “You’re really getting into this interrogation thing,” Buffy said.

  Willow smiled. “The trick is not to leave any marks.” She headed out to find the nurse.

  “On that note,” Buffy said, “I think I’m gonna go have a little talk with that coach. Somehow I doubt that all he’s been giving these boys is inspiration.”

  Xander watched her go. Giles’s talk of an antidote aside, he remained convinced.

  Any minute now, he thought, I’ll be breathing through gills.

  The pump room was an unpleasant place to visit. It was crowded and close and smelled like grease and sweat. Not as bad as the sewers, but still not Buffy’s idea of an ideal spot to pass the time.

  Which made it perfect for talking to Coach Marin, because he was not her ideal person to pass time with.

  “You’ve got quite an imagination, missy,” he said, leading her up a short flight of stairs.