Chapter 10

"What do you mean, can't be killed?" Buffy demanded.

"Just what I said love. The ambitious, and insidious Captain James Kidd has found a way to cheat death. And if you intend to rush off, battle the forces of darkness and so win glory and riches, you'll have to get around that."

"And just how, has this guy managed to do that?"

"No idea." Jack admitted.

"Willow!" Buffy yelled. "Call Giles again!"

Buffy was in luck. Willow was already on the phone with Giles.

"Was that Buffy shouting?" he asked.

"Yeah, better see what's going on. Hang on." When she got to the living room, she handed the phone to Buffy, and waved at Jack.

"So! What do you think of the modern world?"

"It smells funny. There's less human filth in the air I suppose, but you've only replaced it with inhuman filth."

"Yeah, we're working on that. What's going on?"

"Dire omens darling. Undead marauders who don't play fair. I like them."

BRITISH MARITIME MUSEUM

"Josiah Gibbs?"

The bespectacled man looked up from the ship in a bottle he was studying, and gaped in disbelief.

"Rupert bloody Giles, as I live and breathe." He removed the glasses, tucked them in a shirt pocket, and rose to greet his old colleague.

"It is you." Giles said, smiling. "I only saw you from the back, and you've changed your hair. Piece."

Gibbs snorted. "Urbane as ever you reprobate. I've missed your half-witticisms. It was a great shame when the council sent you off to the colonies."

"Yes well I can tell you there were times when I desperately missed the 'boring tedium of the museum'." Giles sighed. "And to think I was all raring to go off on the adventure."

"Adventure always sounds good." Gibbs agreed. "Until you actually go on one. Why do you think I opted for the quiet of the archives?"

"Well I'd always assumed it was a healthy dose of cowardice." Giles grinned.

"Just for that there will be no rum for you in your tea. Now then, what finally brings you by to visit?"

He and Giles had not only gone through Watchers training together, but had both been given cover jobs at the British Museum. Right around the time Giles had been transferred to "Active" status in America, Gibbs had switched museums. They both assumed that it was his unobtrusive position as assistant archive coordinator that had saved him from the First's minions.

"Your expertise as it turns out."

"Mine? Has your Slayer stumbled upon Deep Ones?"

Gibbs' family had, as far back as he'd been able to discover, been involved with the sea in some way shape or form. Be they sailors, dock-workers, ship builders light-house keepers, or in Josiah's case, curator of a maritime museum, they'd never loset their connection to the ocean.

Which was why they had been, for a few generations now, the main (if not sole) keepers of the Council's knowledge of all things maritime when it came to the supernatural.

"It's Slayers now, actually. Plural."

"So it is, I'd heard rumors to that effect. That'll take some getting used to I suppose. But tell me the nature of your dilema, land-lubber."

Giles began to tell him what was happening in San Francisco. He hadn't deliberately timed mentioning Sparrow's name for when Gibbs was sipping his tea, but he had to admit it was a nice bonus.

"Captain Jack Sparrow?!"

"Ah, you've heard of him I see." Giles understated.

"Oh yes you might say that. My great great and then some Grandfather literally wrote the book on him."

Josiah pulled a book down from a shelf in his office. It seemed a bit too modern to have been written so long ago.

"The first edition is in the vault. Along with most of the Council's surviving records." Josiah explained. "My illustrious ancestor was a born story-teller it seemed, and his prose, along with the fantastic elements of the adventures themselves were popular enough that the tales were reprinted from time to time. This latest edition was published in the 1960's."

He opened the well thumbed through tome to a picture of the notorious captain Sparrow. It was the only portrait ever done of the man, Jack had had it done once after a particular run of good luck. The original of that was in the vault as well. Giles searched it for traces of Xander, but could see little resemblance. Well, maybe in the grin.

"It was all presented as fiction of course." Gibbs went on. "But aside from the occasional exaggeration, every word was true."

"How can we be sure-"

"The council double checked everything." Gibbs interrupted. "Standard procedure remember?"

"Ah yes." One of the tasks assigned to Watchers early in their careers was fact checking. Making sure that any new paranormal report, be it 'real' or fiction wasn't based on fact.

"Of course the council rarely concerned itself overmuch with events transpiring at sea. So I'm not surprised if you haven't heard of him. Sparrow I mean. But it seems to me that the bottom line with him was immortality. If not physically, than that of his name. And you say he's found a way to return from the grave?"

"Not exactly. It was an accident." He explained precisely how Xander had come to be possessed by the spirit of his ancestor. "But Willow is dealing with that." he went on. "What's currently worrying us, is this idea of Vampires who have cheated death."

Vampires, who've cheated death? "My God..." There were many ways of unnaturally prolonging one's life, perhaps even indefinitely. But most of those involved deals with various devils or demons. "Tell me more."

So Giles told him what little Sparrow had told them. About James Kid and his faux-Flying Dutchman.

"Ah, sea-borne Vampires now. The picture begins to form. Well that gives me an inkling. I think we can narrow the field of research to maritime legend. And since I've a natural distrust of coincidence, I know just where to start. Ever hear tell of a town in Massachusetts by the name of Kingsport?"

Before Giles left, he had one more question for Gibbs. "Sparrow...can he be trusted?"

"Well now that's a good question. Jack always did was was best for himself first. But he could be remarkably, sometimes shockingly loyal to his friends. At least twice he passed up opportunities to gain at least partial immortality, to save those he cared about."

"So I suppose the question becomes...in the past few days has Jack managed to get attached."

To be continued...