Chapter 11: Teacher's Pet Part 2

Ms. Matthews," Principal Flutie said when he spotted her entering the outer office.

"I heard Dr. Gregory was missing. Is it true?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is," Flutie said. "Of course we're not mentioning that fact in front of students. We don't want them to be worried."

"So he didn't call in?" Paige asked.

"No, and it's unusual for him not to do so," Flutie said. "Dr. Gregory is one of the most professional men I have had the privilege of hiring. It's unlike him not to call in."

"Thanks for letting me know," Paige told him. "I'll make sure that the students don't know."

"How may I ask did you hear about it?"

"In the teacher's lounge," Paige lied. "I was getting my morning coffee and one of the other teachers mentioned it."

"Ah, of course," Flutie said. "I assume you will tell Mr. Giles so he can be sure not let slip about Dr. Gregory?"

"Of course," Paige said.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Xander, Dawn, Buffy and Willow met at the entrance to the cafeteria, and together they went to greet the midday meal with the usual sense of anticipation and dread.

A sign proclaimed the latest culinary disaster from the graduates of the Sunnydale School of Medieval Torture. Buffy read it aloud. "'Hot dog surprise.' Be still my heart."

"Call me old fashioned," Willow said, "but I don't want any more surprises in my hot dogs."

Xander smiled, picked up a tray, then looked at his reflection in the stainless steel finish of a napkin holder. "I wonder what she sees in me. Probably just the quiet good looks coupled with a certain smoky magnetism." The girls looked at him questioningly. "Ms. French," he explained. "You three are probably a little too young to understand what an older woman would see in a younger man."

"Oh, we understand," Dawn said.

"Good," Xander said.

"A younger man is too dumb to wonder why an older woman can't find someone her own age and too desperate to care about the surgical improvements."

"What surgical improvements?" He chose to ignore the rest of Dawn's diatribe.

"Well," Willow said to Dawn and Buffy, "he is young."

"And so terribly innocent," Buffy added.

With that, the three girls went off to fetch drinks. Xander called after them. "Hey, those that can, do. Those that can't—laugh at those who can do. Well, that wallowed in lameness. If I keep this up, I'll lose my membership in the Witty Rejoinder Club."

Before he could come up with anything better, Blayne went by, his tray piled high with inedible delights.

"Gotta carb up for my one on one with Ms. French today. When's yours? Oh right, tomorrow. You came in second, I came in first. I guess that's what they call natural selection."

"I guess that's what they call rehearsal."

Blayne wandered off, unable to muster up a comeback.

"Excuse me," Cordelia said as she passed by her friends and into the kitchen. She stood in front of one of the huge fridges, and held up a slip of paper like a cop holding a badge. "Medically prescribed lunch. My doctor ships it daily. I'll only be here as long as I can hold my breath."

Xander shook his head. He liked his girlfriend of course but this … Before he could turn away and go back to thinking about Ms. French, he heard her make an ear-piercing wail.

Buffy exchanged a glance with her sister and Willow, then the three of them ran into the kitchen. Xander followed about three steps behind them.

The minute they arrived they were sorry they did so.

Hanging in the fridge like it was a massive side of beef was a human body.

The body wore a lab coat with the words sewn on the chest.

The head was missing.

"His head! His head!" Cordelia cried as she turned into Xander. "Ohmigod, where's his head?"

Much later—after the police had been called, the body taken away, and statements given—Xander , Cordelia, Dawn, Willow and Buffy met in the library. The girls looked stunned, and Xander felt much the same way. Even Giles, who usually radiated calmness in the worst of situations, seemed a little off. So did Paige for that matter.

"Here," Giles said to Buffy, handing her a glass of water. "Drink this."

"No, thank you," Buffy said as she took the glass and drank from it.

"I've never seen—" Xander started, stopped, then tried again. "I mean, I've never seen anything like—"

Again, his mouth wouldn't work properly. Finally, he said, "That was new."

"Who would want to hurt Dr. Gregory?" Willow asked.

Giles shook his head. "He didn't have any enemies on the staff that I'm aware of. He was a civilized man. I liked him."

"So did I," Buffy said in an unusually small voice.

"Well, we're gonna find out who did this," Paige said.

"We'll find them, then we'll stop them," Dawn agreed.

"Count on it," Buffy said with a good deal more determination.

"What do we know?" Giles asked.

"Not a lot," Buffy said. She stood up and started pacing. "He was killed on campus. I'm guessing, the last day we saw him."

"How did you work that out?" Paige wondered.

"He didn't change his clothing."

Xander spoke up. "This is a question that no one particularly wants to hear, but—where did they put his head?"

"Good point," said Cordelia. "I didn't want to hear that."

"Paige," Buffy said suddenly. "Could this have been that vampire you warned me about?"

"He had claws on one hand," Paige said. "It's possible."

Giles wandered over to the table to pick up one of his seemingly infinite supply of musty reference tomes. "I've been trying to gather more information about the Master, our local vampire king. There was one oblique reference to a vampire who displeased the Master and cut his hand off in penance."

"Cut off his hand and replaced it with a fork?" Dawn asked.

Giles shrugged. "I don't know what he replaced it with."

Xander didn't get it. "So why would he come after a teacher?"

"I'm not certain he did," Giles said. "There was an incident two nights ago involving a homeless person in Weatherly Park. He was practically shredded. But nothing like Dr. Gregory."

"That was before my run in," Paige said. "Which also says we have two different demons to deal with. The vampire and whoever or whatever took Dr. Gregory's head."

"So there's something else out there?" Cordelia asked.

"Besides Silverware Man?" Xander added. "Oh, this is fun. We're on Monster Island."

"We're on a Hellmouth," Buffy reminded them. "The center of mystical convergence." Giles shot her a look, and she added, contritely, "I guess it's the same thing."

"Yes," Giles said, "unpleasant things do gravitate here, it's true, but we don't know there's anything besides this chap. He's still our likely suspect."

"Where was that guy killed," Buffy asked, "Weatherly Park?"

"Buffy," Paige said, "I know you're upset, but this is no time to go hunting. Not until we know more. Please, promise me you won't do anything rash."

"Cross my heart," Buffy said sincerely.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The minute it got dark, Buffy put on the jacket Paige had given her and made a beeline for Weatherly Park. It was a quiet night with no breeze.

"Buffy."

Buffy whirled to see Paige standing a foot behind her. She let out a small sigh, she should have figured that Paige would have been able to sense where she was. "I'm sorry, Paige," she said as Paige fell into step with her.

"Buffy," Paige said with a shake of her head. "I asked you to wait till we knew more."

"Fork guy, is something I can do without too much research," Buffy argued. "Vampire, stake, dust."

Paige sighed. "I guess you have a point there," she said as they turned a corner and found what looked like a body on the ground and he looked dead.

But after a second, he started snoring just as as a breeze rustled a nearby bush.

Buffy started toward the bush before she felt Paige's hand on her shoulder. "There's no breeze," Paige told her.

Buffy nodded as she moved to push the branches out of the way, she and Paige both realized that the plant wasn't rooted. It had been placed there to cover a storm drain.

"I'd say we found the entrance to fork guy's lair," Buffy said with a glance at Paige.

Then the vampire leapt at them.

At first glance, he looked like an ordinary vampire. He had the fangs, the sloped forehead, the lack of eyebrows, the hooded eyes. What made him really stand out from the crowd were the six-inch-long, razor-sharp claws where his right hand used to be.

The six-inch-long, razor-sharp claws that were moving toward Buffy's head . . .

Buffy ducked his swipe. He had lunged, so his back was now exposed. Buffy took advantage of this to land two kicks to his lower spinal region before he could take another shot. Again, she ducked; again, she got two kicks in, then added a punch to the jaw for good measure.

He took a third swipe. Let's not get too repetitive, Buffy thought. Claw guy was a one-trick vamp. This time she grabbed his arm, and used the momentum of his swipe to flip him in a classic aikido maneuver.

As he landed with a thud on his back, Buffy took out a stake and prepared to finish him off.

Unfortunately, he quickly rolled out of the way and started to get up. Buffy knocked him down with another kick, and then—

"Hold it! Police!"

"Oh, great," Paige muttered from where she stood. The cops had snuck up over the hill behind her.

They were led by, of all people, a homeless guy. Buffy and Paige realized that the police had someone undercover to try and catch their murderer.

Claw guy took advantage of Buffy and Paige's momentary distraction to bolt into the underbrush.

"I heard him—spread out!" yelled one of the cops.

Muttering a curse, Paige and Buffy chased after him. They made it to the fence just as claw guy finished climbing it to the other side. He was going after a woman walking on the sidewalk, carrying a bag of groceries in each hand.

Buffy was about to call out a warning and vault the fence when she saw something that stunned her.

The woman turned around. It was Ms. French, the bio sub.

She stared right at claw guy.

Claw guy backed off.

"What's going on?" Paige whispered. "He's not backing off, he looks terrified."

Buffy realized Paige was right.

Looking for all the world like a cat with his tail between his legs, claw guy scampered to a drain cover, threw it aside, and escaped into the sewer system.

Ms. French—whose facial expression hadn't changed—turned and continued calmly walking down the street as if nothing had happened.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"You went hunting last night," Giles said the next morning.

"Yep," Buffy said.

Giles wasn't finished. "When you promised Paige you wouldn't."

"Yeah. I lied. I'm a bad person. Let's move on."

"Did you see someone with a claw?" Giles asked a bit tartly.

"Yes," Paige said. "And we saw Ms. French, as we were chasing the vampire, and Ms. French is heading home. The claw guy takes one look at her and runs screaming for cover."

Giles blinked. "He what? Ran away?"

"He was petrified," Buffy said.

"Of Ms. French?"

"Uh-huh. So," Buffy said, "I'm an undead monster that can shave with my hand. How many things am I afraid of?"

"Not many," Giles said, "and not substitute teachers, as a rule."

"So what's her deal?"

"I think perhaps it would be a good idea if we kept an eye on her," Paige suggested.

"I'm in agreement," Giles said.

"Then I'd better get to class," Buffy said, turning and heading for the door. She had less than a minute before the second bell would ring.

As she dashed through the hall, she was intercepted by Principal Flutie. "You were there, you saw Dr. Gregory, didn't you?" he asked without preamble.

Since Flutie had been standing right there—mostly whining—while Buffy, Cordelia, Willow, Xander, and the kitchen staff all gave their statements to the police, this struck Buffy as an odd question. "You mean yesterday in the cafeteria, when we found him—"

"Don't say dead," Flutie interrupted. "Or decapitated. Or decomposing. I would stay away from D words altogether. But you witnessed the event, so this way please," he said, indicating the opposite direction from Science 109.

"Well, no, I'm gonna be late for biology."

"Extremely late," Flutie agreed, leading her down the hallway. "You have to see a counselor. Everyone who saw the body has to see a crisis counselor."

"I really don't need—"

"We all need help with our feelings," Flutie babbled on, "otherwise we bottle them up and before you know it, powerful laxatives are involved. I really believe that if we all reach out to one another, we can beat this thing. I'm always here if you need a hug—but not a real hug, because there's no touching in this school, we're sensitive to wrong touching."

He led her to a bench outside what was usually the school nurse's office, which Buffy refused to sit on.

From inside, she could hear someone's voice droning on.

"But I really really—"

"No," Flutie interrupted again. "You have to talk to a counselor and start the healing. You have to heal."

"But Mr. Flutie, I—"

"Heal!" he barked, pointing to the bench.

Defeated, Buffy sank into the seat. She leaned back and hoped that Willow would notice if Ms. French did anything weird. Normally, she'd include Xander in that, but he was obviously besotted. She had even noticed he hadn't even been paying as much to Cordelia since Ms. French started subbing.

She finally noticed that the droning voice belonged to Cordelia.

"I don't know what to say," she was saying, which was obviously not true. "It was really . . . I mean, one minute, you're in your normal life, and then, 'who's in the fridge?' It really gets to you, a thing like that. It was—let's just say I haven't been able to eat a thing since yesterday. I think I lost like seven-and-a-half ounces—way swifter than the so-called diet that quack put me on. Oh," she added quickly, "I'm not saying that we should kill a teacher every day just so I can lose weight, I'm just saying, when tragedy strikes, you have to look on the bright side. You know, like how even a used Mercedes still has leather seats."

Cordelia finally tired of hearing herself talk and exited. Upon seeing Buffy, she said, "You'll probably need a couple of hours in there. I mean hey, why turn down the free therapy, right?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Cordy."

"I know," Cordelia said with a sigh. "Sorry. I just mean with everything you see daily."

"If I could, I would," Buffy said. "But I've been down that road." When she noticed Cordelia's intense look she explained. "When my dad heard me talking about vampires, he had me institutionalized."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cordelia said. "That must have been terrible."

Buffy smiled at Cordelia. She thought back on the person who had been at one time the Queen of Sunnydale High. And how much with Jesse trying to turn her and Xander saving her, she had changed a lot. So much so that Cordelia was no longer Queen, that position had fallen to Harmony and Cordelia now dated her best friend. "Thanks, I better get in there and get this over with."

Cordelia nodded as Buffy went in.

Buffy answered all the counselor's questions with simple answers and was out of there in five minutes.

She ran to bio class only to see that the students were all hunched over tests. "Oh great," she muttered. "A pop quiz."

Two things grabbed her attention immediately after that. One was that her lab table was completely empty. Blayne also missed class.

The other was that Ms. French was standing with her back to the door.

This, in and of itself, wasn't unusual, but she turned her head around to look toward Buffy.

All the way around. Without pivoting the rest of her body at all.

At the last second, Buffy moved from out of sight of the bio class door.

This, she decided, is just too weird.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

After school, Buffy caught Paige, Dawn and Willow up on her day, ending with Ms. French's little neck trick.

Willow was, perhaps understandably, having problems with the concept. "She craned her neck?"

"No, I'm not saying she craned her neck," Buffy said, exasperated as they entered the library. "We are talking full-on Exorcist twist."

"Ouch," Dawn said.

"Which reminds me," Buffy said, remembering the other odd thing in class, "how come Blayne—who worked with her 'one on one' yesterday—isn't here today?"

"Inquiring minds want to know," Willow said, and immediately went for the computer.

Buffy and Paige went to Giles, who sat at the main desk, poring over a book. "Any luck?"

"Um, I've not found any creature as yet that strikes terror in a vampire's heart."

"Try looking under 'Things that Can Turn Their Heads All the Way Around.'"

"Nothing human can do that," Giles said.

"No, nothing human." Buffy said.

"What if Ms. French isn't human?" Paige pondered. "Upper level demons do have a human form."

"So you are saying that Ms. French is an upper level demon?" inquired Giles.

"It's a possibility," Paige said. "Though it doesn't explain how she can turn her head a full one hundred and eighty degrees. Nothing Piper, Phoebe or I have come up against has been able to do that."

"There are some insects that can," Buffy said. "Is it possible that she could be some form of giant insect demon in human form?"

"It's a possibility," Paige agreed. "Why don't you go look through the books on insects? See if there is a possible suspect?"

With that, Buffy went up the stairs to the stacks. After wandering around for several seconds, she came back out. "Where are the books on bugs?" she asked.

Paige rolled her eyes as she led Buffy to the insect books. "Aren't you glad we got your dad to take over Magic School?"

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy came running out to the railing that looked out over the main part of the library. She held a text on praying mantises in her hands. "Dig this," she said excitedly. "'The praying mantis can rotate its head a hundred and eighty degrees while waiting for its next meal to walk by.' Hah!" she finished, closing the book with a flourish.

Paige moved beside Buffy and looked over the book. "It would fit. Ms. French is her human form. The praying mantis is her demon form. It would explain how she could twist her neck a hundred and eighty degrees.

Giles started fiddling with his pen. "And you are saying these upper level demons can transform between the two?"

"Exactly," Paige said.

"I had a chum at Oxford, Carlyle, with advanced degrees in entomology and mythology," Giles said as he had an idea.

"Entoma-who?" Buffy asked.

"Bugs and fairy tales," Giles translated dryly.

Buffy nodded. "I knew that," she lied.

"If I recall correctly, poor old Carlyle—just before he went mad—claimed there was some beast—"

Willow interrupted. "Buffy, nine-one-one! Blayne's mom called the school. He never came home last night."

As Paige and Buffy walked around the table to join Willow at the computer, Giles asked, "The boy who worked with Ms. French yesterday?"

"Yeah," Willow said. "If Ms. French is responsible for—Xander's supposed to be helping her right now. He's got a crush on a giant insect!"

Willow sounded frantic. Quickly, Paige said, "Okay, don't panic. I'll warn him."

"In the meantime," Buffy added. "We need you to hack into the coroner's office for us."

"What are we looking for?" Willow asked.

"Autopsy on Dr. Gregory. I've been trying to figure out these marks I saw on his corpse. I'm thinking they were teeth." She pointed to a picture in the mantis book. "And these cuddlies should definitely be brushing after every meal." She turned back to Giles. "And you were saying something about a beast?"

Giles had his faraway look on. "Oh, uh, yes, I just need to make one transatlantic telephone call." He headed for his office, then stopped and turned around. "This computer invasion that Willow's performing on the coroner's office—one assumes it is entirely legal?"

"Of course," Buffy said with all the sincerity she could cram into two words.

"Entirely," Willow said at the same time.

Giles obviously didn't buy it for a second. "Right," he said. "Wasn't here, didn't see it, couldn't have stopped you."

"Good idea," Buffy said with more sincere sincerity.

As the librarian disappeared into his office, Buffy grabbed her new leather jacket and she and Paige went off in search of Xander, leaving Willow to her hack work.

It took several minutes to find him. He wasn't in the bio classroom, nor the student lounge or cafeteria, and he obviously wasn't in the library, which exhausted his usual haunts. They checked outside, finally finding him walking near the quad.

"Hey," Buffy said as they caught up to him.

He said, "Hey," back.

"So how'd it go with Ms. French?" Paige inquired.

Xander shrugged. "Well, it's a bit demanding being her absolute favorite guy in the universe, but I'll muddle through."

"Xander," Paige said, "she's not what she seems."

"I know," he said dreamily, "she's so much more."

"Xander," Paige said. "She's an upper level demon in human form and her demonic form is that of a giant praying mantis."

Buffy added, "This sounds really weird, I'm aware, but—"

"It doesn't sound weird at all," Xander said in a condescending voice. "I completely understand. I've met someone, and you two are jealous."

"What?" Paige and Buffy asked.

"Look, there's nothing I could do about it. There's just a certain chemical thing between Ms. French and me."

Paige rolled her eyes. "What about Cordelia?" she asked.

"What about her?" Xander asked.

"Paige," Buffy said. "He's under the influence of pheromones. It's a chemical attractant insects give off. He'd probably forsake his own mother at the moment."

"She's not a demon, she's a woman, okay?" Now Xander sounded exasperated. "Hard as it may be for you two to conceive, an actual woman finds me attractive. I realize it's no Paige handing out leather jackets."

"What does my giving Buffy my jacket that have to do with—" Paige started.

"Nothing," Xander said. "It just kinda bugs me."

Buffy looked into her friend's eyes and saw that there would be no convincing him. He hadn't paid attention to a thing they said, hadn't considered the possibility that they might be right. That was so wildly out of character—and, at the same time, completely in character under the circumstances—that Buffy knew it would be pointless to keep arguing. "Come on, Paige. We can't help him this way."

Paige sighed as she and Buffy headed back toward the library. "And how do you expect to do that?"

"I don't know yet," Buffy said. "But I'm sure we'll figure something out."