AMONG THE SONS OF ENTROPY, there were many magicians; minor sorcerers who had trained for years to learn one bit of magick or another. Destructive energy, protective wards, healing charms, seductive glamours . . . Fulcanelli’s many acolytes excelled in various ways. But he’d always been a bit disappointed that so few of them pursued the more subtle magicks.
Most merely wanted power—murderous, devastating power. He couldn’t blame them, of course, but he had always believed that power was nothing without imagination. A magician who did not pursue subtlety as well as power would never be more than a novice. Some of his acolytes were quite powerful. But they were still novices compared to the man who founded the Sons of Entropy.
Which was precisely how he wanted it.
Several times in the centuries since he had set his grand plan in motion, acolytes had grown too powerful, and too curious, for their own good. Fulcanelli had been forced to take their lives before they could become a danger to him. He hated to do so, but there could be no question of who was master. No question at all.
He had spent hundreds of years adding to his arcane knowledge, studying the most unthinkable of spells. Fulcanelli, Il Maestro, had at his command a breed of sorcery very few humans in the history of that race had ever wielded. Subtle and transformational and devastating magicks, all at the whisper of a word, the flick of a wrist. And he had the black burn, La Brûlure Noire, which was unique among sorcerous powers because there was no known defense against it.
But for all his power, his acolytes feared him profoundly for one reason: none of them had the first inkling how he had accomplished the one thing they longed for more than anything else.
Fulcanelli was effectively immortal.
He did not age, and had not for a very, very long time. If he could manage that, his followers believed, he must be capable of anything.
It ought to have pleased him, that fear, that awe.
But it only frustrated him further.
For it was not through his own magicks that he had lived so long. Rather, his longevity was a gift, granted to him by his demon lord, to whom he had sacrificed a Slayer more than three hundred years before. He owed it all to Belphegor. No matter what he had achieved on his own, none of it would have been possible without the demon’s gift.
Even then, he had begun the research that had led to this night. Over the many decades, he had punched hole after hole into the Otherworld, weakening the barrier between that place of chaos and the Earth dimension. At first, he had not even been aware that his old enemy, Regnier the magician, was still alive. Then Regnier had created the Gatehouse and founded the dynasty of the Gatekeepers. The man never realized that Fulcanelli himself was behind the breaches into the Otherworld.
Yet still the sorcerer was thwarted by his old enemy—an enemy who grew more powerful with each passing year, through his descendants. Fulcanelli’s plan might have come to fruition as much as a century earlier if it had not been for the Gatekeepers.
But no matter. The time was here now.
Giacomo Fulcanelli stood, cradling his withered left hand against his body, and looked with admiration upon the enormous stone labyrinth before him. Its walls were nearly twenty feet high, and slick. It was vast, taking up nearly the entire parking lot of what had once been the Sunnydale Twin Drive-In.
It was beautiful.
“Yes, Maestro,” Brother Dando said. “It is that indeed.”
Fulcanelli’s brow creased. He must have spoken aloud, though he was unaware of it. The thought disturbed him. What else have I said in front of Dando? No matter, though. He had made enough promises to the man, particularly of late, to guarantee his loyalty. For one who was hungry for power, and could not be king, what better promise than the position of magistrate.
The very idea was ridiculous, of course. Even if Fulcanelli really meant to bring chaos to Earth, rather than Hell itself, the position of magistrate would be absurd. There can be no order in chaos, nor in Hell.
“Have I spoken out of turn, Master?” Dando asked, fear making his eyes widen.
“Not to worry, Brother Dando,” Fulcanelli said. “You are still my favored son.”
He looked back at the labyrinth. “And we are certain the Minotaur is inside?” he asked.
“As sure as we can be,” Dando replied. “This is the largest breach into the Otherworld we have been able to manage for years. I imagine that is due to the weakening of the Gatekeeper. It is logical to presume the beast is within, but to be certain, we took several people from the street and set them as deeply within as we dared to go.
“None of them have returned,” Brother Dando said happily. “And we did hear screaming.”
Fulcanelli nodded, pleased. “We’ll have to make certain soon. But it will wait.”
With that, he turned and strode away from Dando toward a concrete bunker that had once served as both concession stand and projection booth for the drive-in. When he had first arrived, the projection booth had been occupied by Brother Lupo, the man he had put in charge of the Sons of Entropy here in Sunnydale.
Lupo had given up the room without so much as a raised eyebrow. But something about him made Fulcanelli edgy. He would have to watch Lupo very closely.
As he passed through the bunker, his followers paid obeisance to him, and he waved them away as if it were not required. However, they all knew that if they failed to worship him in that way, he would take their lives as slowly and painfully as possible. When he went past the room where the Slayer’s mother was held, he was tempted to stop again. Instead, he promised himself that he would return, and went up the stairs to the projection booth.
In the darkness, and assured of privacy, he called out to his lord and master.
“Belphegor most insidious, I call to your majesty. I call to your blasphemy. I bow down before your hideous beauty, worship and revile you. I beg you, appear.”
The room was a bit claustrophobic to begin with, but as the air thickened and began to stink of sulfur, it only grew worse. A black, oily pool of energy began to coalesce in the middle of the room. Deep within it, something stirred. Fulcanelli didn’t look too closely, partially out of deference, and partially because Belphegor was wretched to look at.
And, of course, because Fulcanelli, the founder of the Sons of Entropy, a sorcerer nearly unmatched in history, was terrified.
“You called, Giacomo?”
“Yes, Master. There are—”
“Silence. You have much to answer for, my servant. The Gatekeeper yet lives. The Slayer is also alive. You know where to find her, and yet she still draws air. You . . . disappoint me, Giacomo.”
A tremor of panic ran through Fulcanelli, and he barely managed to keep it under control.
“The boy is still here in Sunnydale,” he said, turning at last to look—and trying desperately not to see—into the abyss in which Belphegor lived. “I prevented him from going home, and even now my acolytes in Boston have the Gatehouse under siege.”
“And the Slayer?”
“She has others aligned with her. Her Watcher is a much more formidable man than we were led to believe. The vampire and the wolf are with her as well.”
“Your daughter has also allied herself with the Slayer, has she not?”
Fulcanelli could not bring himself to respond to that.
“She must die,” Belphegor replied, his gravelly voice echoing within the projection booth. He sounded so close, and yet his voice was muffled, as though he were speaking to Fulcanelli through a wall.
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
“I will take care of Micaela,” the sorcerer promised.
“Yes,” Belphegor agreed. “You will.
“You have succeeded in drawing the Minotaur and the labyrinth into your world. Use the mother as bait for the Slayer, and the boy as well. Try to get them both. Send the Slayer her mother’s teeth if you must. Perhaps her eyes.
“But get her here.”
Fulcanelli nodded quickly, though his mind was filled with reservations.
“Speak your mind, Giacomo,” the demon commanded.
The sorcerer swallowed heavily. “The Slayer may not come. If she does not, I will send my acolytes after her. But it is possible that we will . . . that we will be unsuccessful.”
There was a long silence in the swirling blackness within that breach, the little window into Hell that Fulcanelli had opened. At length, a face seemed to surge forth from within, a face with savage-looking short horns covering it, and a long trunk like that of an elephant. Its eyes were lizardlike, a sickly green and glowing. There was a large, strange thickness in the center of its forehead. There was more to Belphegor, much more, and none of it remotely human, but this much was almost more than Fulcanelli could bear to see.
The face stretched the oily patch of darkness as though it were little more than thin plastic.
“You mean you may fail?” For the first time in the centuries Fulcanelli had served the demon, Belphegor actually chuckled. “It would be unpleasant for you, should that happen. But fear not. Even now, the barriers have begun to fall. Hell invades the Other-world. The Otherworld spills into the ghost roads. And there are breaches forming from the ghost roads into your world. We could use the blood of the Slayer to open the Hellmouth itself. But even without her death, the destruction of the Gatehouse will allow Hell to reign supreme eventually.
“It isn’t the most efficient way to destroy a world, but it will do if need be. Of course, if that happens, you will not be there to witness it.”
Fulcanelli forced himself to breathe evenly. “Of course,” he mumbled.
Belphegor was laughing as Fulcanelli stumbled from the room.
* * *
“It’s all a lie,” Brother Lupo said through gritted teeth.
They stood together in the parking lot of the skating rink just off Route 17, outside Sunnydale. Each had driven a separate car to this meeting, but Brother Claude suspected that Fulcanelli would be aware of their actions, wherever they went. Their cars were parked at the far end of the lot, nearest the trees, and farthest from the streetlights.
But darkness, Claude knew, could not hide them.
He stared at Lupo. The two men could not have been more different. Lupo was powerfully built, with a gleaming bald pate and a full, graying beard. A scar was slashed across the orbit of his left eye. Claude was taller, thinner, younger. He looked more like a high school teacher than a magician. Lupo was a killer, fearless in his sorcerous pursuits. Claude was vicious when need be, but in his magick he had always been a healer. It came naturally to him.
He only wished he’d had more opportunities to use that power.
Claude was stunned, not only by Lupo’s words, but by the fact that the other acolyte would have come to him with something like this—something so blasphemous.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Lupo added.
“Oh?”
“Indeed,” Lupo said. “And you’re right. It was a great risk, talking to you. But I have seen the suspicion and the dissatisfaction in your eyes. I knew you would understand.”
Claude considered this. Lupo was correct, about that at least.
“Still,” Claude replied. “You know that I have always hated you.”
“What better ally? We both know where we stand. Besides, what does personal conflict matter in light of what Il Maestro—and the very name itself makes me nauseous—has planned for our world.”
“He swore we would be Kings of Chaos.” Claude shook his head sadly.
“That was never his intention,” Lupo said. “I have seen him, I have heard him, and I know he has deceived us. From the start. He said we could not perform the black burn, that we were too weak. But I have practiced the black burn myself—”
Claude’s eyes widened. “You have achieved the black burn?”
“I have,” Lupo said, with what Claude considered to be an admirable lack of pride. “But that is nothing. A minor deceit. Fulcanelli intends for Hell itself to overrun Earth, and we are not a part of his plan. How could we believe it was so, the way he throws the lives of our brothers away so casually?”
“Fools,” Claude agreed, sighing heavily. “All of us.”
The two men stared at each other for a very long time. Claude knew what was in his own heart, and he knew that it was in Lupo’s as well. But neither man wanted to give it voice. Neither of them was willing to point out what needed to be done. But Lupo had been the one to broach the subject, and Claude supposed that it was only good faith that he be the one to make the next move.
“We’ll have to kill him,” Claude said.
Lupo only smiled. When, at last, he opened his mouth to speak, he was interrupted by another voice.
“Traitors!”
They turned as one. From the trees behind their cars, Brother Dando emerged. Rage was etched on the diminutive magician’s face. Eldritch flame crackled around his fingers.
“You bastards!” Dando fumed. “How dare you question Il Maestro?”
Lupo actually laughed. “Question?” he said. “You’ve been standing there listening to us for the past several minutes, Brother. And yet you are still so purposeful in your blindness? You are a sacrifice to him, nothing more. Fulcanelli’s only plan for us, his loyal followers, is to serve us up to Hell as an appetizer when he’s through with us.”
“Lies!” Dando screamed.
Fire leaped from his fingers and Lupo erected a magickal shield for himself just in time. Claude was not as quick. The flames charred his face, and he screamed as he felt one of his eyes give way to the heat, bursting in his head.
He fell to the ground, shrieking, even as he brought his hands up to his face.
Magician, he thought madly, heal thyself.
And he did.
Shuddering with the trauma of his injuries and rapid healing, Claude rose shakily to his knees. When he looked up, his eyes widened with surprise as he saw the ebony energy boiling around Lupo’s hands. He had seen it only once before, but La Brûlure Noire was disturbing in its perfection of darkness. Blacker than the night itself.
Brother Dando had always been arrogant, swaggering. And with good reason. Among the Sons of Entropy, he was considered quite a powerful magician.
Against Lupo, he didn’t stand a chance.
He wailed in agony as his very soul was burned to cinders.
“Fool,” Lupo said when the corpse hit the pavement.
“Indeed,” Claude said. “And he’s not the only one. I don’t think we can expect any help from our brothers.”
Lupo took a deep breath, then shrugged his shoulders lightly.
“We might just have to kill them all,” he said.
Claude considered that a moment. Then he reached into his pocket for his keys and walked to the door of his car. Before climbing in, he looked back at Lupo.
“I don’t have a problem with that.”
* * *
Buffy had to meet Angel back at the library by seven, but she wanted to make a run home first to make sure her mother hadn’t managed to call her somehow. In the back of her mind, she also sort of hoped the Sons of Entropy would be waiting to attack her. If she lost, they’d probably take her right to her mother. If she won . . . well, she’d make them.
But no such luck. No phone calls. No annoying zealots with daggers and spells.
Giles was still at the library, Oz was still in the cage, and Micaela and the boy were back at Angel’s.
Ethan Rayne, on the other hand, was out trying to figure out where Buffy’s mom was, and that was as freaky-deaky as anything else that had happened in the past few weeks. Maybe ever. But she wasn’t going to look a gift magick-man in the mouth. Ethan was a dangerous man, but it wouldn’t be the first time Buffy had accepted help from a dangerous man. In fact, it was getting to be sort of a habit.
I have to kick that habit. As soon as I have Mom back.
Frustrated, Buffy took one last buzz around the house, trying to see if there was anything that might indicate they’d been there. When she saw her bed, she was tempted to flop right down, curl up into a ball, and sleep for a month. It seemed like it had been that long since she’d last had even a nap. In reality, it had only been something like a day and a half.
Only.
She was running on fumes and she knew it. Even Angel had gotten a chance to sleep. If she’d been anyone but the Slayer, she would have collapsed from exhaustion by now. But she wasn’t anyone else. And her mother was missing.
Buffy looked longingly at the shower, but her mother was out there somewhere, and somebody still had to get Jacques back to Boston. Giles had already called to make plane reservations for himself and the boy for first thing in the morning.
She was not convinced that Jacques would be safe aboard a plane, but the boy had assured her he would be, that he knew, blah-blah-magick-stuff-blah. It was on her lips to mention to him that he’d been kidnapped once already, but if she pushed too hard, she’d just feel guiltier about not escorting him herself.
Besides, morning was a long way off.
She washed her face quickly, changed into a clean shirt, and headed out to find her mother.
* * *
Joyce sat against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest, and kept her eyes on the door to the room she had come to think of as her cell. The concrete was cold against her back, and she imagined it must be a rather chilly night outside.
She wondered where Buffy was. And how she was. And if she was even still alive. In fact, she explored those particular wonderings every fifteen to twenty minutes, always coming back to the morbid knowledge that if Buffy were dead, then she herself would have been dead long ago. As long as the Sons of Entropy kept Joyce alive, she felt it safe to assume that Buffy was in one piece somewhere.
After several days—she wasn’t quite certain how many—in the hands of these madmen, these sorcerers who wanted to bring the world to an end, everything else had ceased to be important. Food. Sleep. The gallery. Her very life seemed to be the last priority. All that mattered was Buffy. Her only child.
As long as they held her prisoner—
The locks were ratcheted back, and the heavy door shoved open, scraping the floor. Joyce stared at the door as it swung wide. He stood there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor, unmistakable. Giacomo Fulcanelli. Il Maestro.
“Mrs. Summers,” the sorcerer said, clutching his withered hand to his side. “Come with me.”
There was something awful in his voice, something so very final. She couldn’t help but think the worst. They were through with her. Buffy must be dead.
Joyce began to cry. “I’m not going anywhere with you, monster. If you want to kill me, you can do it right here!”
Fulcanelli turned slightly sideways, and the light from the hall lit up his features. He seemed to be scowling at her. But there was more to his appearance than that. He seemed greatly agitated, his features even paler than when she had first seen him, with great dark circles beneath his eyes.
“Get up, woman,” he commanded.
“Go to hell,” Joyce said, a quaver in her voice.
Then the sorcerer did something terrible: he smiled. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told her. “After all, why go to Hell when I can bring Hell here to Sunnydale?”
Watching the gleeful expression on his face, Joyce felt sick and cold. He moved across the room toward her. Though she remembered quite well the violence he had shown her before, she prepared to spring at him, her fingers already hooked into claws. Anticipating her, Fulcanelli raised one hand, flashing red, and tendrils of energy slithered from his hand and struck like serpents at her head.
They twirled in Joyce’s hair, and Fulcanelli turned and began to walk away. Joyce screamed and got to her feet, stumbling along behind the sorcerer, trying desperately to free her hair. If she refused to walk, or fell, it would be ripped out by the roots. She scrambled to keep up with him, and fresh tears began to fall.
“I’ll see you dead,” she whispered.
“That you might,” Fulcanelli replied. “Time will tell.”
After that, they walked in a silence broken only by occasional bursts of profanity from Joyce. They passed small groups of Fulcanelli’s acolytes as they moved through the building, all of whom instantly stopped whatever they were doing to pay him the proper respect.
“Please!” Joyce cried out to them. “Help me. Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s a madman. He wants the world to end. If he brings Hell to Earth, do you think any of you are going to escape?”
They ignored her. There were no taunts, no smiles, no questioning glances. They simply ignored her. She was there for one purpose and one purpose only, as bait for the Slayer. And at that, she was there at the instruction of Il Maestro. And Il Maestro could do with her what he wished.
Joyce screamed once. Loud and long, and more for her own benefit—for the release of it—than with any hope that she might be heard. Fulcanelli didn’t seem to think anyone would hear her; he barely reacted to her screeching.
Outside, she could see one of the screens from the old Sunnydale Twin, large holes torn in it where whole sections had collapsed. Odd, because the screens looked far worse than they had only days ago. Joyce wondered idly if their deterioration had accelerated because of the proximity of the Sons of Entropy.
That was what entropy was, after all. The universal rule of corruption and erosion: things fall apart.
Fulcanelli gave her hair another yank. Her scalp tore slightly, and a small trickle of blood slipped through her hair and down her cheek. Her head was down as she followed him, but when he stopped, he relaxed the grip his magickal tendrils had on her, and she was able to look up again.
She couldn’t see the other screen. In the darkness, she thought for a moment that it had been destroyed somehow.
Then, as her eyes adjusted, her brain began to take in what she was seeing. She let out a small sigh, but she wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of asking the question she knew he was waiting for.
“Yes, breathtaking, isn’t it?” he said, watching her carefully.
She didn’t respond, only stared at the enormous structure that had suddenly appeared in the parking lot.
He gave her a tug, and Joyce bit her lip.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is.”
“This way,” he said, and this time she stepped forward even before he started to move. Well trained, just like a house pet, she thought bitterly.
The wall was very high, at least three times Joyce’s height, and they walked around its outer edges for several minutes until they finally came upon a pair of huge iron doors. The doors were barred by a long iron bar that had been slid through rings.
“Don’t move,” he ordered her.
Then he released his hold on her hair. The red tendrils crackled and snaked out to grab hold of the bar and slide it back, then they pulled the double doors open.
“Go,” he told her.
“What?” she asked, staring at him incredulously.
Fulcanelli smiled. “There is another way out, Mrs. Summers. Joyce. If your daughter comes after you, I intend to capture her. If she does not, this is my gift to you. This door will be barred, but if you can find the other way out, I will not pursue you. By that time, your daughter’s fate will have been decided one way or another.”
Joyce stared at him. She did not, for a moment, think that he was telling the truth. But she could not know how much was truth and how much a lie. So she did the only thing she could do.
She walked toward the iron doors, just happy to be free of her captors’ presence for the first time in days. Whatever waited inside those walls was no more life threatening than the Sons of Entropy, that much was certain. The sorcerer watched her go, the smile slipping from his face only to be replaced by a look of eager anticipation. Almost hunger.
He barred the doors behind her.
“But I’m still alive,” Joyce whispered to herself. And as long as they kept her alive, that meant Buffy was still alive.
She turned to her left and began to walk along the inner wall of what she quickly realized was a huge labyrinth. She turned right. It’s a maze, she thought with astonishment. Then she smiled wildly to herself. They just wanted to make it harder for Buffy to get to her, and to keep her busy while they tried to kill her daughter.
Left again.
But Joyce didn’t mind. Joyce liked mazes. There’d been one built on the campus of a college not far from where she’d grown up. It hadn’t been anywhere near as large as this, but . . . yes, she could do this. All she had to do was think, and remember the turns. To concentrate, and try to map out the maze in her mind.
Right again.
She could do this.
Then she heard the bellow of a monster, some kind of beast, not far off. Here in the maze with her.
And it all fell into place. The things Buffy and Giles and Willow had told her about the Gatehouse, and the Otherworld, and all of that. This maze. This labyrinth. And the half-man, half-bull creature who lurked inside the labyrinth, preying on those who became lost within.
The Minotaur.
She began to sweat.
And worse, she began to wonder: if they would do this to her, put her life in danger in this way, perhaps her daughter was dead after all. Joyce didn’t let her mind wander too far in that direction.
But after that, she found it very difficult to concentrate.
* * *
Only a handful of his enemies remained alive outside his home, but the Gatekeeper could not raise a hand in its, or his own, defense. Even now, they were calling for reinforcements. For the moment, they were still frightened of him, still loath to come near. They had seen him on his knees before, seen him apparently beaten, apparently dying of old age or fatal wounds, only to emerge young and perfect to battle once more.
But now, as he dragged his bleeding and broken body up the stairs in front of the Gatehouse, Jean-Marc Regnier knew that it was over. He was finished. His frail form was too brittle to make the climb, but even had he been able to, the Cauldron of Bran the Blessed would have done him no good. When it had rejuvenated him, it had used part of his life force as a foundation.
He had nothing left to give. Not a drop of energy left to devote to the world.
For just a moment, as his enemies moved in behind him, he thought of his mother, Antoinette. He was pleased that he would soon join her in the spirit world.
But then, as a young magician loosed a spell of destruction upon him, crushing the bones of his legs to powder, Jean-Marc could think only of his son, Jacques.
As he screamed in pain, he knew that his agony was more than physical. The grinning magician thought that it was he who had brought down the Gatekeeper, but it simply wasn’t so.
It was just his time. No one was immortal, a lesson taught to Jean-Marc by his own father, Henri, so very long ago.
Jacques, he thought weakly. I’m so very sorry.
Then Jean-Marc Regnier’s head slumped to his chest. The Gatekeeper was dead.
The Gatehouse, and all the strange and horrible beings inside, groaned as one, mimicking the old man’s death rattle.
And the world held its breath.