Beneath the Surface
By Saberi

Century 4, Quatrain 7

When the enemy breeches the mouth of hell
To deal men havoc and evil swells
Betwixt them and the earth will stand;
The Chosen One and the Twice-Blessed Man.

Cade's Journal:

The latest Quatrain mentions 'the mouth of hell'. I had Eddie look it up, and he gave me the name of a town: Sunnydale, California. Better known to the original inhabitants as 'La Boca del Inferno', the Hellmouth. Evil attracts evil, I suppose. If the Gua are indeed running experiments in the (seemingly) unassuming town of Sunnydale, I intend to stop them. Just as soon as I figure out who this 'Chosen One' is, and if they are an ally.

Cade Foster picked up the ringing cell phone.

"Foster, it's me," the familiar voice of Eddie Nambulous said from the other end of the line. "I've got some information you may find interesting."

"Okay, shoot."

"I was looking online for news articles that mentioned Sunnydale, and any unusual occurrences. Almost every single major incident involves-" The alien hunter cut off his friend.

"Get to the point, Eddie,"

"Patience, Foster. As I was saying: almost all the incidents mention a girl, Buffy Summers being present or nearby while they occurred. Her high school record is longer than… well, it reads like a novel. To top it off, near the end of her junior year, she was accused of murder." Cade winced, he knew what that was like. Eddie continued, "she disappeared, and then came back three months later with the charges dropped. At her high school graduation, the school blew up."

"So you think this girl has any connection with the Gua?" Cade asked. He could almost hear Eddie shrug over the phone line.

"Could be. The Gua have targeted teenagers before. Anyway, she's going to UC Sunnydale right now, so I'd say keep an eye out for her,"

"Right Eddie, thanks," Cade clicked the cell phone shut, leaving the paranoid genius on the other end fuming.

I hate when he does that! Eddie sighed, and started up the Caddy's engine.

Back in Sunnydale, Cade Foster found the UC Sunnydale campus and went directly to the 'Employment' desk. An hour later, Lawrence Kincaid, the newest addition to the campus security force, exited.

* * *

Buffy was out on patrol, and so far, the night had been slow. The Slayer had dusted maybe three vamps, and from the fight they'd put up, they couldn't have been more than mere fledglings.

Maybe they're finally clueing into the fact that it's not a good idea to hunt where the Slayer goes to school, she thought with a snicker. The sound of a struggle interrupted that train of thought, "or maybe not!" she said out loud.

Reaching the scene of the fight, Buffy found herself face-to-face with a man in his thirties, wielding a gun… at a vampire.

"That's not going to help much," she informed him while kicking the vampire, sending him flying several feet away. She left the man standing there, staring at her with confusion evident on his face, while she fought the vampire.

He was strong, but not unusually so. Buffy had him pinned to the ground and staked in less than a minute.

She turned to see that the vampire's intended victim was still standing there. He was staring at her with a kind of fascination. Strangely enough, unlike most people she rescued from vampires, he didn't seem afraid.

"Buffy Summers," she said, holding out a hand.

"Ca- Lawrence Kincaid," the man said, shaking the proffered hand. "What was that?" he asked. Buffy just sighed.

"If I said it was a vampire, would you laugh?" He didn't, and Buffy took that as a good sign.

Cade's mind whirled as he processed the events that had just taken place. He'd been jumped, and this girl- whom Eddie had warned him about- had saved him. When she'd killed the… vampire… it had exploded into a cloud of dust. It was at once both like and unlike the way a Gua husk dissolved into nothingness when it died.

Buffy regarded him for a few moments before she seemed to come to a decision.

"Come with me, there are some people you're going to have to meet."

Wordlessly, he followed her, wondering just what he was getting himself into.

They half-ran, half-walked through the streets, until finally Buffy paused at an apartment complex.

"Giles!" She didn't even bother to knock as she burst in. Cade stood at the open door, unsure of whether he should follow her in.

Giles looked up from the book he'd been reading to see his Slayer and an unfamiliar man standing in his doorway. He raised one questioning eyebrow, and Buffy looked at him, confused. She then turned to see Cade standing nervously in the doorway.

"Oh! Don't worry, Giles. He's not a vampire," Buffy said brightly. "You can come in by the way."

"That's me, just a human," Cade said.

"So what is he doing here?" The unemployed librarian asked with a sigh. "Wait, don't tell me. He saw you kill a vampire."

"Well, yeah," Buffy said. "He didn't do the usual 'panic and denial' shindig, though. I figured it was safe enough to give him the whole story."

"The whole story?" Cade echoed.

"Oh, yeah!" Buffy practically chirped. "Giles has the speech memorised, I think, but it goes like this: One chosen girl in all the world, and blah blah blah," Cade's eyes widened. One chosen girl, the chosen one. Could this young woman be the ally that the quatrain was hinting at?

"And Giles is my Watcher," Buffy continued, interrupting Cade's train of thought.

"Let me guess, he watches?" Cade said as he sat on the couch. Buffy snickered.

"No, ah, actually- my job… well it isn't even technically my job anymore really, entails research and training," Giles felt the need to defend his position.

"You know, normally when people find out about the whole 'the undead do exist and they're out to eat you' deal, they tend to freak, or go into denial. You aren't doing either." The Slayer regarded Cade quizzically.

He just shrugged. "Believe the unbelievable," he said cryptically.