THE BLUE BOY
by Lynn K. Hollander
Chapter 15 -- Locations
SUNNYDALE
Kailea woke at daybreak, but didn't remember at first where she was, or why she was up in this tree, which she didn't recognize. She had heard the local coyotes last night, and had mistaken them for wolves. Scrambling up the nearest tree, an oak, as it happened, she had tied herself to the trunk and passed an uneasy night.
Lowering her pack and following it to the ground, she wondered what to do now. She ate a travel bar and surveyed the lake below the hill her tree grew on. Her first move, she thought, was still to locate Gries. A quick cold bath first, then a hike, either back or up, so she could run the locator spell. A calmer look around amended that thought: either back and up or sideways and farther up. She decided on back and up, and went down to take her bath.
***
Magal spent the night on the coast, north and slightly west of Sunnydale, beyond the point that sheltered the north end of the harbor. He was awakened by a group of surfers, driving past in a pick-up with outriders on motorcycles. They parked north of him, and quickly unloaded their boards, pulled on their wet suits, and went out. Magal unobtrusively folded his survival blanket and put it in his leather duffel, removing his binoculars at the same time. Scanning as if for shore birds, first away from the surfers, then beyond them, he surveyed their transportation. Motorcycles were bigger than he remembered, but not impossible to steal, he thought.
Magal rolled the last body under the pickup truck.
Keeping the pickup between the road and him, he put his leather sports coat in the duffel and put on a black leather jacked he had found slung over one of the motorcycles. It was much too large for him, but he managed the zippers and pushed the sleeves back. Every motorcycle had a helmet and all the riders had been wearing one, so he put one on, strapped the duffel on the pillion seat, started the cycle up and rode out.
***
Kailea braided her hair and put on her sandals, then started up the hill, where she should cross the trail she had used yesterday. Once she found that, she would go in the direction of the sunset until she found paved streets. After that, she could cast the search spell for Gries, and go to her.
***
"Volvo," Cham informed Baudier and Antrag.
"This one is a BMW," was the novice's next statement.
"This is a Mercedes, but not the one we're looking for," Cham commented.
"What funny hair," Antrag said.
"That's natural."
"This is the right Mercedes," Cham said.
"How can you tell? It looks just like the other one."
"The letters, on the back. See. TAN-461, black and gold.
"Look, with the woman."
"That's Ingelram," Antrag said. "Purple hair and everything. But how did he end up with the strange Earth woman?"
"A standard Earth varietal," Baudier said. "I was watching the National Geographic Channel last night. A great proportion of Earth's population resemble her."
"Not here, on the other side of the world," Cham said.
"She's here," Baudier said. "And now she's leaving."
"And Ingelram stays." Antrag said. "It looks a little dirty, for children, but the fences are good."
"Dirt does not hurt kids. He stays till later in the day," Baudier said.
"That's a different wain, the non-yellow one," Cham said.
"It's bigger," Baudier agreed.
"Look at that: They're getting on," Cham said. "The children are getting on the bigger bus."
"Just the older children; and many of the teachers," Antrag said.
"And the guard is actually the driver. Good," Baudier said. "We're going to do it, now, while so many children and teachers are gone. We'll pick up the others, return, pick up Ingelram, go directly to the gate and return home. Can you open the gate later this afternoon?"
"Yes, it will take me about half a lyud.
"Then let's get Mante and Tivon, and the witch, so we're ready to leave as soon as we get the boy."
***
Kailea frowned as she found a trail running roughly north-south. This wasn't the one she had fled east on yesterday. After some indecision, she went south. The path kept to the hill crest, and shortly angled south-east. Eventually, Kailea arrived at a junction of three paths: the one she was walking, running more or less north-west--south-east, one running east-west, and a third, running west-south-west. Right. Kailea sat down on a picnic table and considered her options.
She rinsed her hands, using water from her canteen, and spread out her casting gear--a white cloth, a gold pyramid and a gold arrow. She listened, and hearing no one, proceeded. The arrow pointed south-west. She stowed her gear away and set out on the west-south-west path.
***
"What do you mean, you can't go?" Baudier glared at the witch.
"Cham, look at your jar."
The scholar did so: The black foil leaves were drooping against one another. "Ahhh! A gate, our gate. Our gate opened."
"Yes. And someone is searching for me."
"You or all of us?"
"All I can tell is me. So I think it's another witch, one who knows me from home. I can't go. I can't leave here, this place, where she found me, which is where she'll come. And we can't leave her here, possibly trapped and not knowing what's happened to us."
"All right," Baudier said. "I'll stay with you, in case it's not someone from home. You four, go get Ingelram and come back here. Once we have the boy and the new witch, if that's who it is, we're out of here."
"And if it's not a new witch?" Mante asked.
"Depends on who it is. You four, don't separate and don't hurt the hostage."
"We need to get gas."
***
Magal rode south along the coast highway, back towards Sunnydale. He debated going back to the area of the gate to operate his locator, but decided that since the gate was the end of his escape route, he should avoid it until he was ready to go.
So where could he stop for a moment, at least a quarter lyud or so? Not on the hill, not too near the beach either; after all, the bodies would be found eventually. Slightly inland, and still north of the center of town would be fine.
He came to the river. Fine. It was broader, shallower and slower than it had been under the old stone bridge he had run across yesterday. He'd wondered when he would recross it and there seemed to be a long park running along both banks. He turned off onto the southern bank and followed it upstream until he came to a place with many of the strange table-bench combinations. Good enough. He stopped the motorcycle in the parking lot and, taking his duffel, sat down at one of the picnic tables.
He got no results at first, and changed the scale, increasing it once, then again and again.
South. The target was far to the south. Magal thought for a moment, then decided to abandon his transportation. After running the motorcycle into the river, he walked over to a small, round sort of car. It would do, he thought.
***
"Are you sure he'll come to you?"
"He's always been a very good little boy," Antrag said.
"A teacher, sometimes two or three teachers, is always with them down by the pond," Mante said.
"But they get to and from the pond by that path, where they're out of sight for nearly a minute."
"Between the rock and the bushes, yes," Tivon said.
"All right, we'll get Antrag over the fence, and wait by the rock, she'll call Ingelram, we grab him--"
"Not hurting him," Antrag said.
"Not hurting him," Mante agreed. "--and get him over the fence to Tivon, who carries him off to the car. As soon as it's safe, Antrag and I go back over the fence and we're gone."
***
Since there was no summer school on Fridays, Dawn woke up late. Giles was finishing his huevos rancheros as she came down.
"Not kippers?"
"Carlotta gave us kippers last week. I hesitate to upset her by insisting again so soon. What are you going to do today?"
"Malinda was talking about the beach, with her older sister, after lunch."
"That's acceptable. Have you homework?"
"Just some reading."
"Get started on that this morning and be sure to carry your cell phone. Also, be home by five."
"Five? I was thinking of seven."
"No. Five."
"Oh, all right."
Dawn read two chapters of the first book and three chapters of the second, ate lunch and told Carlotta she was going to Malinda's. "And I'll be back by five."
"Is your bed made?"
"Yes."
"Then have a good time."
Dawn walked to Malinda's house, where Malinda's sister had changed her mind about the beach and had gone shopping. Dawn shrugged and said she was going for a walk. Malinda declined to go and Dawn, in a bad mood, set out alone.
***
"At least the children get milk and cookies," Tivon said.
"Also a nap," Cham said.
"You both can nap," Mante said. "They probably won't be out for a while. I'll cut through the woods again and keep an eye on the playground."
***
Kailea looked at the wall. Apparently taking the west-south-west path had been a mistake. She had continued on a direct course, following the arrow, and come up against a tall wall on the other side of a long street with many streets T-ing into it from the east. If there was a way west from where she was, she had missed it. There was a strange sliding door in the cement block wall and she approached it and peeped around its edges.
Well, she didn't want to walk there, anyway.
There was a wide road, with a greensward down the center, each half of the road being at least twice as wide as the street she had been walking along. Many cars, traveling at high rates of speed, went to and fro on the road. Some distance further south was what looked like a bridge over the road.
Should she go south or retrace her steps north? South, she decided, and walked south along the frontage road.
***
Magal drove the little car south along the coast. His driving was not as good as his riding, but he managed to blend with the traffic pattern, so thoroughly he went much farther than he intended. Making a successful turn off the highway, he parked and opened his locator.
The blue dot that was his target was now north of him and slightly to the east. There was a strange smudge on the screen, but he ignored it when it proved impossible to wipe off. He turned around and drove north.
***
Dawn, feeling annoyed with everyone from Ann Grove, who wouldn't take her to the No Mirrors Bar, to Spike, who was paying attention to Xiuling, to Malinda, who was too lazy to come on a walk, went to the south part of the harbor, which had undergone urban renewal. She had not attended the inauguration of the much publicized Sunnydale portion of the Coastal Trail, the Harborwalk, which ran the length of the western city limit at the highest tide marker.
She started at the very end of the harbor, where the new marina was situated. Two young men whistled at her and she decided to walk around the whole harbor, heading back to the center of Sunnydale. She passed the new sail-in-boatel and restaurant and wondered what sailing would be like and if Ann or Giles knew how. Probably, she thought.
The Harborwalk pathway changed to a pair of painted lines on the street as she crossed into the dry-dock and chandlery section. She didn't start dodging forklifts for another three blocks, but after one of them nearly ran her over, she decided to turn east.
She was passing a two-story, gray stone building when she saw the sign next to the door: WILLY'S. It wasn't the No Mirrors Bar, but Buffy, and even Xander had gone in here, when they were about her age, so she would too.
***
"Huixin said it was interesting."
"She and Claire Galen seem to regard any pathology as interesting," Spike said. "All right, we'll go; after we have something to eat. Willy's shouldn't be experienced on an empty stomach."
"I cooked breakfast yesterday," the yunü reminded the vampire.
"So?"
"You cook today."
"Uh..."
"Spike, you're over an eighth of a millennium old, you have an opposable thumb and a Cambridge degree. You can boil an egg. Four minutes."
Spike wondered how Xiuling had known he had gone to Cambridge. He hadn't been aware either Ann or Gang Long had known that. He said, "There's no hurry, in fact. The place never closes, and it hits its worst between three and six in the morning. How about it, Gang Long? We could go to the casino over in Sylvandale, where we could also have dinner, and then hit Willy's on the way home."
"We're going to Australia tonight, sorry."
"Boil Xiuling an egg, Spike," Binwen said.
"All right. How hard can it be?" the vampire asked.
"Four minutes, no more."
***
Ann, after having breakfast with Darcy and Roujin, who was watching him that day, and spending the early afternoon in Los Angeles, ported to Claire.
"So far," she said, "the pure demons with implants are easy, or at least easier. I can locate the chip and I don't think I will have any trouble porting it out. The only problem is that none of them wish to return home."
"What do you do then? Let a killer demon run loose in Sunnydale?"
"If they don't agree to repatriation, they don't get the chip out. So far, I haven't removed a chip from a demon's head. "
"That sounds like a reasonable compromise."
"But not helpful," Ann pointed out. "The whole point of the exercise is to gain facility in chip removal, which I am not acquiring."
"Have you found any vampires?"
"No. They seem to have disappeared soon after the collapse of the Initiative. I think the scarcity of food may have been why. Willy's didn't stock Cambells then, and there are only two custom butchers in Sunnydale. I think most vampires, implanted like Spike, would have gone elsewhere, looking for cheaper blood."
"So they're scattered."
"Possibly not beyond discovery. Lorne can't remember any arriving at Karitas, but he's willing to ask around. I'm going on to the lab from here, and to the No Mirrors Bar from there. They may know where the escapees are."
***