Chapter 10: Running

The gang was still running.

"How long have we been running?!" Castle demanded.

"About 15 minutes!" Alexis answered.

"How much longer?!"

"Well, I think they let us get a bit of head start for the thrill of the chase, so, uh…about 15 more seconds."

"Well, we've gotta hide!"

Buffy then caught sight of their getaway: an old abbey down the road. "Follow me!" She quickly led everyone in. As soon as they were all in, she closed the doors and sealed them. "The lock should hold them off for an extra 20 seconds, but this isn't a place of human residence so they don't need to be invited in."

"Then why'd you lead us into a dead end?!" Beckett demanded.

"Instinct!"

"Oh, here we go again," Spike groaned.

Buffy tossed a quick glare and then discreetly looked back through a window.

Outside, Lela and her gang were finally catching up to them. But as soon as their feet touched the ground of the church plot, they began to burn. She growled and pushed everyone back, leading them off to re-pursue the next night, as soon as the sun was no longer a problem.

Buffy considered this. "You guys all saw that, right?"

"What?" Giles asked.

"As soon as they got on the grounds, their feet started burning."

"Maybe because there were crosses and holy water in the vicinity?" suggested Esposito.

"No, that wouldn't make any sense, they'd have to come in contact with those things for it to burn," Angel explained.

"Well, I don't know," said Giles, "This is a whole new breed of Vampire we're talking about; they probably live by all-new rules." He then got it. "Oh! Their kind must not be able to stand on holy ground!"

"Oh, finally! Something good happens!" Dawn exclaimed.

"So, what? We wait here until sunrise and then run for our lives?" Beckett asked.

"Unless you can deploy a chopper to get us out of here and out of their range first," Willow suggested, sarcastically.

"You're a Witch!" Ryan declared, "Can't you just…I don't know, teleport us out?!"

"I could try, but I can't guarantee that all of us will make it."

"Can't you just make a few trips?"

"Oh! No! I'm not saying someone might get left behind…I'm saying part of someone might get left behind."

Ryan blinked. "…I'm good to wait."

"Yeah, me, too," Esposito concurred.

"In the meantime, we need to start compiling a plan of attack," Xander suggested, heading over to collect a supply of crosses and holy water.

"What do we do?" Dawn pointed out, "We've never faced these guys before! We don't know how to handle them!"

"We'll figure something out," Gunn said, "The important thing here is to not panic."

"Hey!" Ryan jumped back in, "Under these circumstances, it's pretty hard not to panic!"

"Well, look on the bright side," Alexis suggested.

"What's that?"

"…I don't know. I was kind of hoping you had something."

Meanwhile…

Snake led Drusilla back into their new lair, several new Vamps and Viper Vamps following.

"So much death and chaos," Drusilla smiled giddily as she twirled her way into the darkness, "I love it so."

"I take it that's the best hunt you've had in a while?" Volcano smirked.

"In a decade."

Snake smirked at Lela and Volcano as they clung to each other. "You two sure have proven yourselves. How'd you like to be first lieutenants?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Lela smirked.

"And why should you? The world is about to be ours." Snake then turned to the army of Viper Vamps (and Drusilla's new Vamps). "Alright! We need to be ready to attack the Slayer and her buddies! Now, the Vampires—especially the little redhead girl—don't kill them, leave them for me and Dru. But with the rest of them…" He smirked. "…do what you want. Especially the Slayer!"

The next day…

"OK," Beckett said, pacing in front of the murder board, which now held a chart bearing info for the two kinds of Vamps, "we know that neither can survive in sunlight, we know that neither can stand crosses or holy water, neither has a reflection, and the Viper Vamps can't stand on holy ground at all but regulars can."

"That's about it so far," Angel said.

"What about decapitation?" Castle asked, "I don't think anything can survive that."

"Some demons can." Everyone looked at Angel. "One of them has nine lives. It's quite acerbating."

Beckett just wrote "cut head off" on both sides. "That only leaves three things: Viper Vamps are stronger and faster and have superpowers but regular Vamps don't…" She wrote that down. "…and what about garlic and the classic stake to the heart?"

"And the showing up in pictures thing?" Ryan asked.

"Well, we know the garlic thing and the picture thing are myths for regular Vamps but the stake to the heart is one of the only surefire ways to kill a true Vamp," Angel explained.

"But for the VVs, we're still in the dark," Alexis said.

Giles groaned. "How could this happen? A new breed of Vampire? The first ones were created through Lilith herself! They've been around for thousands of years and nothing like this has happened before!"

"This Chaos Jewel was clearly forged by the Old Ones for a reason," Willow suggested. She then looked at Illyria. "Anything else you wanna share?"

"The Jewel was meant to combat the light should it grow too strong for our dark kinds," Illyria explained, "To create a new breed of dark kind from it…it is beyond what we expected. What I do not understand is why it remained dormant and untouched for so long!"

"It wouldn't call it 'untouched' if it ended up in museum," Andrew pointed out. That's when he realized… "Wait, how did it get there in the first place?"

"I do not know. It's power is so strong…" She sighed. "It is meant to spread darkness like a poison through anyone that dares to touch it. When it was forged, it drew power from each Old One, enough to manifest the dark kinds themselves. Contact with a jewel such as that would kill any mere mortal such as your species."

"So how was it retrieved and why did it get sent to the museum and how come no one ever heard about random death to everyone that suddenly touched it?!"

"Are you saying that whoever put in the museum was a demon?!" Buffy demanded.

"That would certainly explain that situation," Dawn pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but…do you think they planned this? Wanted this to happen? Wanted Snake to find it and make these 'Viper Vamps'?"

"Wanted Drusilla to have control of them?"

That said, several people turned their gazes to Spike.

Spike took a moment to catch sight of this. "WHAT?! It wasn't me! I didn't do it!"

"Oh, please!" Xander growled, "The culprit always says 'it wasn't me, I didn't do it!' Except in the rare case when they say 'it was me, I did do it!' Or the even rarer cases when they say 'it was me, but I didn't do it' or 'it wasn't me, but I did do it!'" That just made everyone look at him.

Buffy sighed. "So the question becomes…who's setting us up?"