BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

INNER LIGHT

Part One

Warning Signs

Buffy hated mornings. At night she could slay the odd vampire or two, do battle with strange mystical forces every other week or so and even prevent the apocalypse on a fairly annual basis. Why was it then that she simply could not face the mornings? Despite all her Slayer skill and strength the ability to get out of bed on time just eluded her. Willow on the other hand was up bright and perky as was the norm.

"Rise and shine sleepy head." Said her red haired roommate grinning as she pulled the covers up over her head.

"Go away." she muttered snuggling down deeper into her pillows and trying to get back to sleep. It took her a full three seconds to get the feeling Willow was still watching her. Slowly she pulled the covers down to see her best friend staring back at her expectantly.

"Can't you let me sleep in peace?" she demanded sitting upright in the bed as she did so.

"Not when you've got a lecture to attend in half an hour." Willow said with a grin. "Or did you forget that you asked me to get you up this early?"

"I guess I forgot little miss "I can't sleep in bed another five minutes"." she said swinging herself out of bed and tramping through to tiny room that passed for a bathroom. The water from the taps seemed colder this morning and served to wake her up faster than a brisk walk through a cemetery filled with vampires. She lifted her head and stared at herself in the mirror. She was one hell of a mess. Could she make herself presentable to the world in just half an hour? She smiled. She'd had greater challenges in life but not by much. She let out a long yawn as she reached down for her toothbrush and began to brush her teeth. After several minutes vigorous scrubbing she decided her teeth were as clean as they were going to get and leaned forward spitting the toothpaste out into the sink, then running water into it to wash it away. At the same time she reached over to place her toothbrush back in the glass that rested on the top left corner of the enamel basin.

Suddenly a strange dizziness overcame her and as she struggled to grip the sink for support the reflection in the mirror changed. A pale well muscled man with short black hair and soft grey eyes appeared standing just behind her. A look of weariness seemed to emanate from as if it was part of his being. 

"Buffy…" his voice was soft as falling leaves and as chilling as the grave. His lips barely moved as he spoke her name. So subtle was the movement that at first she wasn't even sure if he had spoken at all. Then he spoke again and this time she was certain it was him.

"I need you…" The sound of glass shattering sounded in her ears and the figure disappeared.

*****

She awoke with a start to find herself lying in bed, her sheets drenched with sweat from and breathing heavily from the disturbing experience. Gingerly she sat up and opened the blinds that covered the nearby window. Outside, the first rays of dawn were only just beginning to chase away the blackness of night. Slowly she turned and let her head sink down into her hands.

"Just a dream Buffy." She whispered, trying to comfort her frayed nerves.

"It was just a dream." She didn't sleep well for the rest of the night.

*****

"Oh yeah." Said Willow as they stepped out of the room and began to walk off through the dorms to their morning lectures. "Giles rang while you were asleep this morning and asked me to tell you to stop by his house after your lecture today." Buffy was puzzled. It wasn't like Giles to ask her to stop by unless the fate of the world depended on it.

"Any idea why?" she said as they reached the stairs.

"Nope." Answered Willow.

"Well did it sound urgent."

"Define urgent."

"You know what I mean," said Buffy. "Was it Rain of fire, vampire plague sort of urgent, or just my books are out of order and I need you to help me sort them, kind of urgent?"

"I'd say it was in between rain of fire and help me sort my books." Said Willow with a grin.

"Mmmm, a halfway house," laughed Buffy. "I didn't know such a thing existed when it came to Giles."

Outside it was a typical day in Sunnydale. The Sun shining brightly down on throngs of young people making their way around the college campus as the birds sang the usual array of chirpy little melodies in the trees around them. If only they knew what lurked in the darkest corners of their pleasant town, Buffy was sure none of them would seem quite so satisfied with their lives. As her eyes travelled over the throngs of students she couldn't help but feel a little lonely. All these people depending on her to hold back the tide of evil that was constantly waiting on their doorstep and they didn't even know it. She let out a long sigh and continued to scan the crowd as she moved through it.

He was there! Buffy nearly fell over from shock at the sight of the figure watching her from the trees. The shadows they cast fell across his face making his features seem a little indistinct but that didn't stop her being able to make out his hardened features, tall muscular frame and piercing grey eyes that seemed to hold her in their gaze for far longer than they really did. He was definitely the same man she had seen in her dream. Who was he? What did he want with her? All questions that she hoped he would be able to answer. She was about to make her way over to where he stood when she heard Willow speak.

"What are you looking at?" Distractedly Buffy turned to her.

"What did you just say?" she asked.

"I said what are you looking at?"

"Oh," said Buffy turning to look back at the spot where the man had been stood moments earlier. She wasn't sure why she was surprised that he'd disappeared again. "Nothing." She said continuing on her way towards the main college building. "Nothing at all."

*****

Giles' house was not at all what Buffy had expected when she had first seen it. She had imagined him to live in some crumbling old mansion on the outskirts of town. The kind of place kids steered clear of because they swore it was haunted while old cracked stone gargoyles warded off all who came near the terrifying place. The truth had come as something of an anti climax when she had first come here. A rather plain little flat built in the suburbs of Sunnydale, far away from the school where he had worked, not to mention any centres of mystical convergence.

Adjusting her bag strap so it rested more comfortably on her shoulder she stepped up to the front door and rapped loudly on it. Even after this amount of time she was still a little depressed by the lack of a big doorknocker she could use to bang on it ominously. The door was opened and the familiar, slightly creased and bespectacled face of Giles appeared.

"Buffy!" he said sounding vaguely surprised. "What are you doing here?" he finished.

"You asked me to come." She said feeling a little confused.

"Well of course," He paused. "I just didn't expect you to arrive so soon. Please come in." He opened the door wider allowing her to enter. As usual inside Giles' house most of the curtains were drawn allowing very little light to enter. Clouds of dust swirled visibly in what little light there was, disturbed by her movements and the whole place was musty, smelling faintly of old manuscript and papyrus that Giles seemed to spend every waking hour studying.

"Have a seat." He said waving at his dusty old sofa. Buffy sat down, sending up a fresh cloud of dust that caused her to sneeze loudly.

"Bless you." Said Giles automatically.

"Don't you ever clean in here?" she asked him, eyeing the floating dust suspiciously.

"Not really, no." he said with his back to her as he rummaged through a pile of books stacked in an untidy pile on a nearby table.

"Anyway, your cleaning aside, what did you want to see me for?" she asked.

"I beg your pardon," he said turning to face her then suddenly realising what she had said. "Oh yes, well I just wanted to ask you if you'd seen anything strange recently, either out on patrol or even during the day, anything unusual at all." Why did Giles suddenly want to know if anything strange was going on? She thought that they had gotten past the stage of him holding information back from her.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked.

"Are you saying you have seen something strange?" said Giles, raising his eyebrows behind his glasses.

"Maybe but I want to know what you know first Giles."

"Well if you'll just bare with me one moment." The ex watcher turned and went back to hunting through the books. Suddenly he slapped his hand down hard on an open tome.

"Ah hah!" He exclaimed, picking up the book as he did so. "Here we have it." He passed the book to her and watched as she stared down at its tattered old pages. A strange flowing script was spread across the cracked paper along with odd sketches of what appeared to be a series of dots with lines interconnecting them.

"What's all this about?" she asked. She hated it when Giles went cryptic on her, which unfortunately was most of the time.

"Well recently I've been looking into various forms of astrology, more of a passing interest than any serious research really." Buffy arched her eyebrows at him.

"And this has something to do with my seeing anything odd how?" she asked.

"Those symbols," he said pointing at the strange interconnected dots on the page. "Do you know what they mean?" Buffy glanced at them. They were as meaningless to her as just about every other strange symbol she had ever seen.

"Haven't the foggiest." She said.

"They are star alignments Buffy, very rare star alignments. This one in particular," he pointed at one in the lower corner of the page. "Has not been seen in over two thousand years."

"So what's the big deal." Giles looked at her as if he was talking to a small child.

"They are all going to occur within the next three nights." His voice was deadly serious.

"And that's not good. Am I right?" she said.

"No it isn't." he said then pointed at the writing on the page. "I translated the script."

"What does it say?" said Buffy becoming more concerned about the whole business with each passing second. Star alignments tended to speak of prophecies and mystical goings on that she could really do without at the moment.

"I'm not entirely certain how accurate the translation is or even what it means. It's all a tad long winded and unusually phrased but basically what it says is that when these three star alignments occur back to back then light will come and evil will walk abroad."

"That's a bit vague isn't it?" said Buffy her brow knotted. "I mean this is the Hellmouth. Evil walks abroad every night. Usually in gangs." Giles nodded in agreement.

"Yes, but a vampire going out to hunt for the night, while it is evil, is hardly the kind of Doomsday forecast one would expect to find in these books. I think we can safely say that something at least slightly out of the ordinary is about to occur and due to our fairly unique position here on the Hellmouth we had best be prepared."

"How?" said Buffy. Another apocalyptic prophecy it seemed. Whoever wrote these books was one hell of a cynic.

"I haven't the faintest idea. But until we know what we're dealing with I would suggest the utmost caution when patrolling at night. We don't know who or what might be out there, which is why I asked if anything you'd seen anything out of the ordinary." Buffy took a deep breath. She hadn't intended to tell anyone about the man she had seen in her dream or later by the trees as up until now she hadn't been sure whether or not the latter of the two was in her head. This being Sunnydale though she should have known better. The strangest things you could imagine happened here on a regular basis. When you got down to the nitty gritty of it, it was really quite disturbing.

"I did see something," she said looking intently at the floor beneath her feet, "a man."

"Really," said Giles sounding suddenly very interested. "Where?"

"In my bathroom…"

"In your bathroom!" Giles interrupted. "What was he doing in your bathroom?!"

"It was only a dream Giles, and then I saw him out on the college campus. That wasn't a dream though."

"Are you sure it was the same man?" asked Giles. He looked concerned. She didn't blame him. She had a tendency to dream things that came true. It was little bit annoying to say the least.

"Yeah." She lifted her head to look him in the eyes. "Giles, he knew my name."

"He spoke to you!" Buffy nodded.

"Only in the dream though."

"What did he say?" Giles was positively on edge now.

"Just my name and that he needed me."

"And you have absolutely no idea who this man is?" Buffy shook her head vigorously.

"I've never seen him before in my life." Giles stood up and began to pace agitatedly.

"It would seem we have something of a mystery on our hands as to the identity of this strange individual." He said.

"If you mean we don't know who he is then I'm with you on that." Said Buffy. Giles cast her the disapproving glance he had mastered so well over time.

"Yes, well, he's obviously not a vampire due to the fact you have seen him in daylight. I believe I have some research to be doing."

"There's not much to go on," said Buffy, "and we don't even no if he's out of the ordinary."

"True," said Giles as he went back to looking through his books, "but you do seem to attract the unusual, so the chances of him being a perfectly normal human being are shall we say a trifle slim." Buffy stood up and began to walk out.

"Where are you going?" asked Giles.

"Tonight's patrol night," she said "and I don't really want to hang around looking through dusty old books for a reference to some weird guy I've only seen twice." Giles gave her a knowing look.

"I take it this means you're going to go and look for him tonight." Buffy grinned.

"You got it one." She said.