Table Of ContentThis book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.
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Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
About the Authors
This one is for my mother.
—C.G.
For my sisters, Elise and Leslie Jones.
—N.H.
Acknowledgments
Christopher and Nancy would like to thank Joss Whedon, Caroline Kallas, and
the cast and crew of Buffy; our editor, Lisa Clancy, her assistant, Elizabeth
Shiflett, the Pocket team, Debbie Olshan, and each other. Christopher would also
like to thank Connie and the boys; his agent, Lori Perkins; Tom Sniegoski, Jose
Nieto, Stefan Nathanson, and Jeff Mariotte. Nancy would like to thank Wayne
and Belle; her agent, Howard Morhaim, and his assistant, Lindsay Sagnette; the
Babysitter Battalion; Stinne Lighthart, Brenda Van De Ven, Lydia Marano,
Maryelizabeth Hart and Jeff Mariotte, David Hinchberger, Charlie and Kathy
Grant, Yvonne Navarro, and many other dear friends who have been so good to
me.
SONS of ENTROPY
Prologue
WILLOW SHOUTED TO THE GHOSTS SHE KNEW WERE lingering in the
ether around them. “Come back! We need a little help here!”
“You guys!” Cordelia screamed, looking wildly around at the numbingly gray
landscape. “You dead guys, where are you guys?”
They were alone on the ghost roads, a place filled with nothingness. Xander’s
still form dangled between them, and a demon raced toward them from an open
breach.
So there was nothing to do but fight it.
Willow tried to lower Xander gently to the ground, but his ankles slipped
through her fingers and his feet hit pretty hard. She sucked in her breath and
said, “Oh, Xander, I’m sorry.”
The demon lunged. “Cordelia, look out!” Willow cried.
“Oh, my God!” Cordelia shrieked. She let go of Xander’s wrists and his head
whapped the ground very hard. Then she arced around in a circle like a shotput
thrower with her hand in a fist, and smacked the end of the nearest tentacle.
To Willow’s complete amazement, the piece broke off and whirled away like
a Frisbee.
“Willow,” Cordelia said, with a look of shock, “Willow, this thing is like,
defective!”
Cordelia hit it again, and another tentacle broke off and shattered as it fell to
the ground.
“Wow!” Willow said excitedly. She raised her fists and ran up to the demon.
“Come on, monster thingie! We’re ready for you!”
They both shouted with disappointment as it whirled around and hastily
retreated.
“Willow!” Cordelia’s eyes shone. “That was incredible!”
“Yeah,” Willow said, shaking a little. Now that the battle was over, she
couldn’t believe how brave Cordelia had been. “It was.”
Cordelia picked up Xander’s hands. Willow looked down at him. He looked
terrible. The blood on his chest from the gunshot wound had dried, but there was
so much of it. They had to get him to Boston, to the Gatehouse and the Cauldron
of Bran the Blessed, as soon as possible. Which was why they were on the ghost
roads.
Giles had not been positive that regular humans—those not touched by the
supernatural—could walk the ghost roads and live. Was simply being here
killing Xander? Was that why the ghosts had already tried to lay claim to him?
Were she and Cordelia going to die here as well?
Cordy murmured, “Sorry about the bump, sweetie.” To Willow, she added,
“Let’s get out of here. I hate this place.”
Then, like the chickens they were, the phantom walkers of the ghost roads
reappeared. Now that the demon was gone, their translucent faces and bodies
blurred and flickered as they swarmed around the three friends.
Almost hungrily, the dead tugged at Xander’s body.
“God, Willow, stop them!” Cordelia shrieked. She turned her attention to the
spirits who harried her boyfriend’s still form, pulling at his clothes, lifting his
limp hands, and she screamed. “Leave him alone! He’s not dead yet! Not yet!”
Willow felt hysteria begin to swirl up inside her, thought she might throw up,
wiped away hot tears that had begun to spill down her cheeks. And then she
stood her ground.
“Back off! We have safe passage! Leave us alone!”
Around them, all was gray light, as though it were permanent dusk. The
featureless landscape of the ghost roads stretched out forever, and yet they could
only see their immediate surroundings, as though some invisible fog blotted out
all else.
But their immediate surroundings were bad enough. The faces of the traveling
spirits—many of whom were lost here on the ghost roads—coalesced around
them, some into full-bodied form. One, who in life had been a very old man with
a bushy beard, drifted close to Willow.
“We are giving you safe passage, girl,” he said, in a voice that came from
everywhere and nowhere, from all the mouths of the traveling dead. “Or shall
we simply stand aside for the creatures who even now tear these walls down
around us?”
Willow swallowed. She knew what it meant. What he meant. Below her feet
was solid ground, or what passed for solid ground here. She had done enough
research to form a hypothesis about that, about the ghost roads existing so close
to the real world, shimmering with energy an eyeblink out of reality, that
oftentimes the ground beneath their feet was real. If that was so, then the farther
one went into the fog on either side of the road, the farther one drifted into the
limbo nothingness between the ghost roads and what waited for those traveling
or lost souls at their final destination.
Deep in the fog, Willow could see ghosts battling demons. It was surreal, a
mist-enshrouded ballet between the dead and the undying that made her feel like
a tiny girl again, staring into the black abyss of her closet. She tried not to look.
The dead were protecting themselves, of course, but they were also giving
Willow and Cordelia safe passage.
“He’s one of us, now,” the old man’s ghost said, pointing at Xander. “He
must stay.”
“Dammit, I said he’s not dead!” Cordelia shouted, before Willow could
respond. “What? Are all ghosts deaf, or just you?”
Willow glanced at her. Now Cordelia was dragging Xander by his arms, as
best she could. Her muscles were straining from the effort, and Willow wanted
to help, but it was up to her to make sure they weren’t stopped. That was more
important right now.
“Move, Cordy,” she said in a low voice. “Get him out of here.”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she snapped, eyes wide, on the verge of
crying or laughing or screaming, but—Willow observed—on the verge of
something.
“He is ours,” the old man’s ghost whispered.
The last thing Amy Madison wanted to be doing that night was standing in an
alley across the street from the entrance to the Fish Tank, which was just about
the sleaziest bar in Sunnydale. But the past couple of weeks had been ones of
terrible fluctuations in magickal energy in the area, with monsters of every shape
and kind flooding the town.
She’d done her part. While she didn’t really hang out with the Slayer and her
friends—in fact, she kept to herself mostly—and she wasn’t about to start
dedicating her life to protecting the innocent like Batgirl or something, well, it
was her world, too.
So instead of trying to link up with Buffy and the others, all of whom had
plenty on their minds, she was sure, Amy decided to just back them up. To keep
her mind and her power as a witch magickally attuned to Sunnydale, and step in
if it seemed the Slayer and her Watcher had overlooked anything.
With all that had been going on, how could they not?
And there had been plenty going on. In fact, Amy was certain that she didn’t
even know the half of it. Frankly, she didn’t want to. It was enough to just do
what she could, and leave saving the world to the one who actually had the job.
She had a hard enough time getting her homework in on time and giving her dad
the kind of quality time he liked. Well, and she liked, too.
Now it had started to drizzle a little, and the salty smell of the ocean not far
away was pungent on the breeze. It helped cover the urine and garbage smell of
the alley. Pretty much the old trademark alley smell, as far as she was concerned.
Her magickal searches had located something the others had not encountered,
something lurking in disguise, keeping a low profile. Something inhuman. She
didn’t know if it was a demon or a monster, but she’d used her power to track it
here, to the Fish Tank. The thing was inside.
Problem was, Amy wasn’t old enough to go in, and the bouncer sure wasn’t
going to let her by.
She was pondering what to do about that problem when the screaming started
inside the bar. A woman crashed through the blacked-out windows of the bar
and landed in the street. Her face had been torn off and her abdomen ripped open
through the trampy dress she wore.
The bouncer ran screaming from the bar, then turned down the street and
booked it, not even looking back.
So much for not having ID, Amy thought.
Then she hesitated. This wasn’t her gig. She wasn’t brave. Not really. But
somebody had to do something.
As Amy was sprinting across the street toward the entrance to the Fish Tank, a
dead man flew through the window and landed in a broken heap. It slowed her
slightly, and she thought about turning back. Then there came a long, chilling
hiss, and Amy looked up to see it standing there, inside the open door, holding
another corpse behind it. Its fingers were thrust into the eye sockets of the dead
man, dragging the body behind it like a little red wagon. Vitreous fluid dripped
from its hand.
The creature stopped when it saw Amy.
Eight feet tall, it was dark green and brown, covered with scales and gills and
spikes that dripped poison. A stingerlike tail swung in the air behind it. It was
like nothing Amy had ever seen before, not even in her arcane texts.
When it laughed, it sounded as though it had phlegm in its throat.
It dropped the eyeless corpse, which hit the damp pavement with a wet slap.
The rain continued to fall, ran down Amy’s forehead, flattened her hair. The
monster flicked out a long, forked tongue like it was a New Year’s Eve party
horn.
Then it came for her.
“Goddess Hecate, work thy will!” she shouted, raising her hands, contorting
