Author's Note: This story is set very early in season five of Buffy. The Scoobies have met Dracula, but this is before Glory shows up and the truth about Dawn is discovered.
Something was haunting the UC Sunnydale library. Specifically, something was haunting the east wing on the second floor. After the first couple days, students knew to avoid the area, or quickly adjusted to the regular occurrence of books flying through the air and disembodied wailing. College students can be a resilient bunch, especially when your school is in a town on a Hellmouth. Still, it was becoming increasingly annoying. To make matters worse, the traditional methods of contact and attempted exorcism had resulted in nothing but a peal of bubbly laughter.
"There are so many other things I would rather be doing than getting a ghost out of the library," Buffy muttered.
She, Giles and Willow were clustered around a map of the country that Willow had set out on table. They were on the first floor of the library, with the hope of avoiding any disturbances, or causing them. They'd found a spot without many other students, and the few scattered around were too focused on their own work to pay them any mind.
"It's better to get it out before it becomes more than just a nuisance," said Giles in a hushed voice, "What is this all about, Willow?" he gestured to the map.
"Well, since we haven't been able to figure out anything about the spirit and it isn't responding to the usual ghost-repelling stuff, I thought it would help if we knew where it came from," she placed a small crystal on Sunnydale's rough location on the map, "This spell should illumine an area on this map, unless it's not a ghost. Then I don't think it'll work at all."
"What if it's from Sunnydale?" Buffy asked.
"Then we'll know to focus on local history."
"What if its origin isn't on the map?" Giles asked.
"Then we'll know to try again with a bigger map," Willow smiled. Some words in Latin were followed by, "Show me the origin of the spirit within this place. Where in life did it call its home?"
A blue glow appeared within the crystal. It expanded across the map, pulsing almost hesitantly before condensing back again to a dot on the other side of the country.
"Maine?" Buffy asked, "That's anticlimactic."
"That's a lot more specific than I was expecting," said Willow, "it's just a pinpoint."
"Can we do the spell again, with a map of Maine?" Giles asked.
They could, and this time the glow illuminated a single tiny town on the coast. Giles leaned in close to read the name. "Collinsport. I wonder… There's a town called Collinsport that's sort of an urban legend among Watchers. The town on the edge of realities, this place where the rules of magic are warped to strange behaviors, things that don't make sense even to the most experienced practitioners of magic. Of course, every Watcher that's ever gone there has reported nothing more than a small fishing town with a mediocre tourist industry and superstitious secretive locals who don't trust outsiders… which is fairly common for isolated small towns."
"But the legends are true," said Willow.
Giles shrugged a little, "There's apparently something to them, yes. We won't learn anything here. I'll catch the first flight I can. I'll call as soon as I discover anything."
"What do we do while you're gone?" Buffy asked.
"Continue patrols, keep doing what we've been doing, call if anything changes. I won't be gone more than a couple days."
Collinsport appeared exactly as he'd said, a small town with superstitious locals with a love of ghost stories. The lady working at the inn had been kind, and the people at the only bar in town were friendly in a distant sort of way. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that the whole town felt like it was holding its breath.
His search of local public records didn't do anything to help. There were a lot of things left unexplained, a lot of explanations of tragedies that were simply rote excuses, the same sort of thing he'd expect to find in any police record of Sunnydale. Further discussions at The Blue Whale Tavern started to become fruitful, though at the same time his prying was making people wary. The founders of the town, the Collins family, tended to be spoken of in low voices. Many rumors ranged about the great house up on the hill, and in a town where deaths and disappearances were often inadequately explained, it was as good a place as any for Giles to focus his attention.
He'd just decided on this course of action when a young woman entered The Blue Whale and took the seat at the bar next to Giles. Her silk scarf came loose as she removed her jacket, revealing a glimpse of two bite marks on her neck before she re-wrapped it. There really was something supernatural in town after all, and the rumors concerning one Collins family member in particular started to make a lot more sense.
The Collins family estate was called Collinwood. Giles' destination the next morning was not the larger main house, Collinwood proper, but the smaller 'Old House', the original building before the bigger house was built a century later. It was a grand old Colonial brick structure, shuttered windows and overgrown vines notwithstanding.
As he approached, he saw a white-haired older man in rough clothes coming around the side, toolbox in his callused hand. "Hello," Giles said, "is this the Old House?"
"It is," the man said, eyeing him warily.
"Are you the caretaker?" Giles asked, gesturing to the tools.
He nodded. "Yeah, guess you could say that. Keep the place in shape as best I can. Getting on in years, can't do hardly as much as I used to. You're a new face in town."
"Yes, my name is Rupert Giles," he held out a hand.
The caretaker shook it, "Willie Loomis. What brings you up here?"
"Research. I was hoping to speak with Mr. Barnabas Collins, is he in?"
Willie blinked, surprised, "How'd you hear about Barnabas?" he asked with suspicion.
"The people in town. I'm doing some research on the supernatural legends of the area, and his name came up. I understand he's a historian himself?"
Willie smirked. "Yeah, I guess that's what he calls himself these days. He ain't in right now. Come back tonight."
Giles spent the rest of the day in town gathering as much information as he could on Barnabas Collins. If the townspeople had found his questions odd before, now they were nervous. Giles persevered, and found a few willing to talk frankly, especially after he made it clear he wouldn't think they were crazy. They gave him all the information he needed to paint a fascinating picture of Mr. Collins.
He returned to Collinwood right after sundown. Dogs howled in the distance as he approached the old house, its facade black with shadows and foreboding. His knock was answered by a dark haired man in a charcoal suit, possibly in his thirties but it was hard to say with any certainty. He gazed at Giles with wary curiosity. Giles couldn't help but think his eyes looked much older than the rest of him.
"You must be Mr. Giles."
"Yes."
"I am Barnabas Collins. I was told you came by earlier today. I understand you're doing some sort of research?"
"Yes. I'm sorry for the intrusion, but I wondered if I might ask a few questions."
"Please come in." Mr. Collins showed him into a parlor room that looked like it had been transported straight from the late 18th or early 19th century. The room was illuminated by a multitude of candles and a small fire in the fireplace. "May I ask the nature of your research?"
"Ah, sort of a paranormal history."
"That would explain your interest in Collinsport."
"Mm. Well, actually, it's an interest in your family in particular. I've spent the past couple days researching the town, and almost every mention of supernatural rumor is connected to the Collins family somehow."
"I am not surprised. Collinwood has been the site of a great many tragedies over the centuries. Its haunted halls have been the source of stories in the town for ages."
"You think the house is haunted then?"
"I know it is. As was this one for some time, though that ghost has since moved on."
"Interesting."
Mr. Collins gave him a wry smile. "You weren't expecting me to be so candid."
"Well, no."
"It's something of an area of interest to me. Do sit down."
"Thank you," Giles sat in the proffered chair, his host sitting across from him. "Do the rest of the Collins family share your acceptance of the supernatural?"
Another small grin. "Let us say, rather, that they are… resigned to it. Have you met them yet?"
"No, not yet. I had the impression that they wouldn't welcome my sorts of questions."
"You're probably right."
"I must admit, my primary reason for calling on you at all was the rumor of you being a vampire."
"I'm rather fond of that rumor. It has done a great deal to ensure my solitude here."
"You prefer being alone?"
"It suits me. That is not to say I don't enjoy company, but mine is a solitary life."
"I see. How did the rumor start?"
"The way all rumors of vampires start, I suppose. Mysterious deaths are blamed on the odd figure in the community. I am rarely seen during the day, I frequent the cemetery near here many nights, and I bear an uncanny resemblance to the first Barnabas Collins, whose portrait hangs in the foyer at Collinwood. Many have said we are identical, apart from the clothing."
"Ah. And yet, there is a vampire in Collinsport."
Mr. Collins' brow rose. "Is there?"
"There is at least something drinking the blood of young women, leaving two marks on their necks. Whoever it is, they're being very careful not to deplete their food supply, which suggests a great deal of self-control. Vampires tend to take what they want and not give a damn about the consequences."
Silence stretched as Barnabas Collins stared at him darkly, "You are suggesting that not only are vampires real, but there are multiple in existence."
Giles continued to speak as if he were discussing the weather. "Oh yes, a great many. There's an entire civilization's worth. That's how I know the rumors about you can't be true, and why I find them so interesting."
"Indeed?"
"You see, a true vampire is in reality a demon possessing a human corpse and creating a sort of demonic-human hybrid. It has all the memories of the host, but whoever the person was is gone. Aspects may remain, but it isn't ever truly the same person. There is no soul. You, Mr. Collins, are not a demon, as far as I can tell. Yet, you aren't human, either."
Mr. Collins' face remained impassive. "How can you be certain I'm not a demon?"
"I've read a number of reports of people being rescued from accidents and attacks of various sorts over the past couple decades, and each mentioned you, either by name or as a 'man in a black caped coat' I imagine much like the one hanging by the door. You've made yourself the protector of this place. Demons don't typically make a habit of saving lives."
Mr. Collins inclined his head in modest acquiescence before meeting Giles eyes, a skeptical expression on his face. "Then what, pray tell, am I?"
"I think the rumors of you are true as far as the fact that you are a creature that must drink human blood to live and you cannot exist in daylight. Beyond that, I have nothing to go on without knowing more about your origins. You weren't sired by another vampire, that much is certain."
"It was a witch."
Giles was surprised. "I beg your pardon?"
"A witch cursed me, I was bitten by a bat, and the night after I died I woke in a coffin, hungry for blood."
Giles was again taken aback by his host's candidness. He had the impression that, despite his claims of being suited to a solitary life, Barnabas Collins was secretly eager to be able to talk frankly about himself with someone. "A curse," Giles leaned forward a little, intrigued, "that is fascinating."
"I'm glad you think so," Mr. Collins' sardonic tone shifted to more genuine curiosity, "and you fascinate me as well, Mr. Giles. How do you know all of these things about so-called true vampires?"
"I was a Watcher. The Watchers are guardians of occult knowledge of a sort, and my primary duty was to train the Slayer, a young woman destined to fight evil in all forms. At the moment, she lives in Sunnydale, California, the location of a dimensional portal called a Hellmouth."
"I take it it's exactly what it sounds like?"
"Yes.
Mr. Collins was silent a moment. "Well. The question now is what brought you to Collinsport in the first place."
"There's a strange force terrorizing one of the buildings in the university. Its origin is Collinsport. Beyond that, we know nothing about it apart from it being troublesome, wailing occasionally in frustration, and having a bubbly laugh that makes the hair on the back of one's neck stand on end. It is likely a ghost, but none of our attempts to contact it or contain it have worked. We don't know if we've failed because it is simply too powerful or too stubborn, or if it's because it's not a ghost at all. As it comes from here -"
"You came looking for answers."
"Yes."
"You've given me much to think about, Mr. Giles. I will need more information to be of any assistance," Mr. Collins stood, "but I have kept a record of events surrounding Collinwood, and if your spirit comes from Collinsport, it is almost certainly tied to the Collinwood estate," he led the way to a small study, lighting candles and oil lamps. It was clear the house had no electricity. He gestured to a set of volumes on a shelf. "Feel free to take a look if you like. I will return shortly."
It didn't occur to Giles until after his host had left that the "vampire" had gone to eat. He was uncomfortable with the idea, but as Barnabas Collins wasn't a demon and seemed not to make a habit of killing, Giles forced himself to ignore his trepidation and sat at the desk to peruse the handwritten volumes.