Resurrecting Ravana by Ray Garton Read Free Book Online Page A

mean?”
    Joyce’s worried frown slowly melted and she smiled a little. “Yes. I know what you mean. And I’m glad you’re here.”
    “Me, too,” Buffy said, just before she shoved another bite of the casserole into her mouth.

Chapter 4
    T HE NIGHT WAS DARK AND COLD AND WET, SO THE library, while not exactly warm, was a welcome shelter. It was also dark and quiet. Buffy heard the faint, erratic clicking of a mouse coming from the computer and the clock on the wall clicked the time away, but those were the only sounds. Apparently, Willow was still at work trying to find something on the Internet. Behind the front desk, the door of Giles’s office was open a few inches and a shaft of light spilled out onto the floor. Buffy rounded the desk and entered the office.
    Giles had two large books open on his desk, and another in his lap, all three of them old enough to have yellowed pages and spines that crackled when they were opened and closed. He was ignoring the book in his lap for the moment and leaning over one on the desk, the one to his left, running his finger slowly down the page, searching for something.
    “Hello, Giles,” Buffy said very quietly. He was swallowed up by what he was doing and she didn’t want to startle him.
    His finger continued to move down the page and he didn’t respond for over half a minute. Then he sat back in his chair with a sigh and looked up at Buffy wearily. He straightened his glasses as half his mouth curled upward, as if he were too tired to greet her with a whole smile.
    “Hello, Buffy.”
    “So . . . how’s the huntin’?”
    “Huntin’ . . . you say? Well.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes hard with thumb and fingers, then put his glasses back on and looked up at Buffy again. “I’m afraid I’ve not been able to find anything that resembles our particular problem. I have spent nearly four hours going over book after book, and I have come up with absolutely nothing.”
    “Not that it matters,” Willow said, “but I haven’t come up with anything, either.”
    They turned to see her standing in the open doorway of the office, leaning on the doorjamb.
    “Hi,” Buffy said, smiling, her voice so tentative, as if she were talking to a stranger, that it surprised her.
    Willow smiled back. “Hey, Buffy.” But her body was tense as she smiled at her friend . . . and she had no idea why.
    “If what we’re dealing with is in any of the books I’ve checked,” Giles said, “I shall need more information to find it. ‘Eating cattle to the bone’ is simply not enough.”
    “What does that mean?” Willow asked, taking a single step into the office.
    “It means there has to be something else,” Giles replied. “Some other trait, some other factor . . . something besides eating cattle.”
    “And since we don’t know of any other traits,” Buffy said, “we’ll have to wait for it, or them, to show us one, right?”
    Giles nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
    “Ooooh,” Willow said with a shiver in her voice, “You know, to be honest, I’m not too down with the sound of that.”
    “I’m not too down and I’m not very happy about it, either,” he said, turning to her. “But we have no choice. All we can do now is wait for something else. Some other characteristic that will help us understand what we’re dealing with, if we’re dealing with anything at all.”
    “What do you mean, if we’re dealing with anything at all?” Buffy asked as she leaned forward and placed both hands on his desktop.
    “We have not yet ruled out the possibility that this is just the work of some kind of wildlife. If not mountain lions, then perhaps something else.”
    “Tell me you don’t really believe that, Giles,” she said, leaning closer to him. “Tell me you’re just saying that to sound thorough, like you’re covering all the options.”
    “The incident that took place today was, without a doubt, very strange,” Giles said. “But there is no sign of it