"One more thing, class! The Sunnydale Museum is hosting a display of ancient Roman artifacts. Among them are some items with supposedly mystical properties. Now, before you laugh, the Nazis believed these rumors and sought just such artifacts during World War II. Extra credit to anyone who visits this display and writes a summary of what they find!" Miss Arnold said just as the bell rang, dismissing them to lunch.
Dawn followed Vincent out of the classroom, but he somehow managed to lose her in the crowd. She walked out to the yard in front of the school and saw him right where she expected to, however: under the same tree she found him on the first day, and every day since then. He was alone again, seemingly asleep. Dawn stood over him, looking down at his motionless form. "Forget your lunch again, Vincent?"
He slowly opened one eye. "Yes, I did at that," he mumbled. The eye closed again.
Dawn shook her head. "Well, you can have some of mine again, I suppose." She knew he wouldn't have his lunch. He never did. She had started packing an extra sandwich to share with him. She was beginning to worry about him; he always seemed a bit out of it, as if he were ill or overtired. He hadn't had a lunch any day this week, and was so shy about eating what she offered him. It was weird. Maybe he didn't have any food at home—she considered inviting him over for dinner. Buffy probably wouldn't mind.
"Tomorrow's Saturday," she said as she held out the sandwich she had prepared for him. He took it without opening his eyes and, after carefully opening it, ate it with small, slow, meticulous bites.
"Yes, it is."
"Well, I'm not so sure that we're going to do that well on this French Government project. Maybe we should go to the Museum and see these artifacts for the extra credit."
"Perhaps. It could be entertaining," he said noncommittally.
"Right. Interesting. Er, can I have your phone number, so I can call you and arrange a time to meet you there?"
His eyes opened. Odd, they never seemed quite the same color from day to day. "Uh… My phone, er, hasn't been hooked up yet."
Why did he always stammer when speaking in sentences longer than two words? He was so calm most of the time, but when he had to talk, he seemed all nerves. Weird boy. Hm…no phone. Maybe his family was poor… That decided it. Since she couldn't contact him after they separated after school, this would be a perfect opportunity to invite him over for dinner without offending him. "Well, then, can you come over to my place this evening? We can work on our project and come up with a time to meet tomorrow to go the Museum. I'll even throw in some dinner." Hopefully Buffy wouldn't mind. She could warn her at least. Besides, Dawn or Willow usually cooked. Buffy was usually out patrolling, while Tera was hopeless in the kitchen. If Dawn cooked tonight, there shouldn't be any problems with her having a classmate over for dinner. And, this way, she'd be sure the boy was eating—something she wasn't at all sure he was doing at his place.
"Very well. Where do you live?"
Dawn gave him directions to her house, then set to her own lunch. The lunch period ends without another word being spoken.
Xander was caught with his mouth open as he was about to say something when Dawn came bouncing through the door of the Magic Box. "Hi guys! Buffy, Vincent's coming over for dinner tonight and we're going to work on our project and tomorrow we're going to go to the Museum to see some new exhibit and get extra credit, okay?"
Dawn's guardians smiled at the exuberance behind this single-breathed exclamation. "So, Dawn, you've been seeing a lot of this Vincent boy lately. Do you like him?" asked Xander, teasingly.
Dawn froze, and may have had a hint of red in her cheeks. "Xander! No way! He's just my partner on a big History project! Anyway, I'm worried he may not be eating at home. He never has a lunch at school."
"So that's why you made that extra sandwich today," said Tera.
"Wow, she's even cooking for him," Xander continued to tease.
Dawn just glared at him. Buffy laughed, "Enough, Xander. She's cooked for you often enough. Should Anya be jealous?"
"Yes, Xander, are you cheating on me with Dawn?" piped in Anya, sounding almost angry.
"N-no! Anya, I was just kidding the kid! Honest!" Anya stormed off, and Xander followed, trying to appease his girlfriend.
After a collective "…" from the remaining Scooby Squad members, Buffy turned to her little sister. "You're welcome to have a friend over for dinner, Dawn. I'll be out on patrol, though, so I won't be there."
Tera spoke up quickly, "And Willow and I have a date tonight."
"We do?" whispered Willow, then she saw the look Tera was giving her. "Oh, yeah, we do. I'd almost forgotten."
Dawn laughed. "Guys, guys, there's no need for you all to leave. I'm not dating this boy, honestly!"
Tera smiled at Willow, and Buffy hid a grin behind her hand. "That's alright, Dawny," said Tera, "Willow and I do need to get out. So it will just be the two of you tonight."
Dawn sighed elaborately. "Okay, okay. Well, I'm going home. See you later, girls."
As Dawn walked out the door, her older sister followed. "Actually, I'll go home with you. I have some things to pick up before I go on patrol."
At 5:00 sharp, there was a knock on the Summer's front door. Since Dawn was in the middle of preparing dinner, Buffy answered it. "Good evening, Vincent. Nice to see you again. Dawn's in the kitchen." Buffy stepped back to allow him access, but he just stood there. "Well, come in…"
Vincent smiled—a brief upturning of the corners of his mouth. "Thank you, Miss Summers," he said as he stepped into the house.
"Call me Buffy. I'm Dawn's older sister, not her mother," laughed the older girl.
"Okay, Buffy."
The young man followed Buffy into the kitchen, and Dawn looked up from her cooking at him. "Oh, hi, Vincent. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Frozen pizza okay?"
"I am sure it will be fine. While we wait, shall we work on our project?"
"Um…I think that can wait 'till after dinner. But we should decide on a time to meet at the Museum tomorrow."
"What time would you like to meet?"
Buffy, on her way out the door, spoke up. "Why don't you stay the night? That way, you and Dawn will have plenty of time to work on your history project—and Dawn, you know you need it, you're not doing too well in history—and then tomorrow I could take the two of you to the Museum whenever you're ready."
"Well, if that's okay…" Dawn said. "You want to do that, Vincent?"
Vincent looked at the sisters thoughtfully. "Well, I will have to return to my home to retrieve a few things if I am to do that…but it sounds fine. I thank you for your hospitality."
"Don't worry about it," said Tera as she walked down the steps with Willow. "We're going out now, but we'll be back by nine or so." That last was directed at Dawn.
"I have to go to work now, too, Dawn. I won't be back until late, but you know how to contact Willow and Tera if you need to, right?" That was Buffy.
"Yes, Buffy," sighed Dawn in exasperation. "I'm a big girl now. Vincent and I will be fine until Willow and Tera get back."
"Okay, okay. See you tomorrow, Dawn." With that, the three women left.
"Vincent, why don't you go home and get your stuff now while the pizza's heating? I can go with you," suggested Dawn.
"N-no!" Vincent responded hastily. "That is, there's no need. I'll get it later tonight."
"You're sure? Won't your parents mind?"
"They won't care."
"Oh," responded Dawn in a small voice. She really felt sorry for this boy; he seemed to lack any sort of parental support. She was even beginning to suspect that he may be living alone.
Vincent was nervous. He had to feed tonight, but it took time to get from Sunnydale to the prison and back. He was going to have to find another source of food as well, since it wouldn't be long before the string of nightly deaths would find its way into the news, and that would be a bad thing. But it was the best option he had at this point—he had to kill to withstand the sunlight, and he was going to be out with Dawn and her sister tomorrow. Well, he'd have to hurry when he left to "obtain his stuff from home", and be sure to leave Dawn working while she waited for him.
He left sometime around 10:00, and walked into the night. Dawn was watching a TV show, taking a break from the project. She had, for some reason, been unusually willing to let him go on his own—her usual annoying tendency was to try to follow him and deny him his privacy—but this time, she just looked at him with what appeared to be poorly concealed pity. Oh, well, whatever she thought of him, it was unlikely to be the truth.
He really didn't have time for the long flight out to the prison. He had frequented it enough to be familiar with the place, so maybe this would work. After he found a suitable shadow to hide himself, he began chanting while tracing arcane sigils in the air before him. Then, the suburbs of Sunnydale vanished, to be replaced by the exterior of the prison. "Good. At the very least, I should be able to return to my coffin with that spell, if not Dawn's house. Now, to eat."
He dissolved into mist and entered a cell window. This one only had a single occupant, which would never do. He needed—no, wait. He could, perhaps, make this look like suicide. "Wake up," he said to his victim. When the man opened his eyes, they were immediately captured by Vincent's gaze. "Have you crafted yourself a knife?"
The man nodded, eyes vacant.
"Get it."
The man reached into a small hole in his pillow (which lacked a pillowcase) and pulled a sharpened kitchen knife.
"Now, slit your throat, being sure to puncture the artery in the left side of your neck."
Once the convict had done so, Vincent hurriedly stepped up and caught him before he could fall, pressed his lips to the cut, and began sucking. The taste of the man's spirit fleeing his body into the vampire's waiting mouth was exquisite. The eyes of the youth holding the dead body changed from red-brown to blue, matching those of the now-dead occupant of the cell.
His meal finished, Vincent let the man drop, his death-grip still holding the knife that killed him. Vincent chanted the words to the teleport spell, envisioning the Summer's home, and was gratified when the jail cell around him was replaced by the front yard of Dawn's house. Quickly checking himself to be sure there were no signs of his recent activities, he re-entered his classmate's home.
The Museum guide was a skilled storyteller. He had a dry British accent that reminded Buffy of Giles, but somehow he managed to catch and keep the interest of the people in the tour group as he related the histories and legends associated with the various artifacts in this exhibit.
"…and here we have what is perhaps the most mysterious of the items in this collection: the so-called Amulet of the Darkened Sun. During World War II, this was one of the legendary artifacts sought by Hitler. No one knows for sure what it was supposed to do, but a French family kept it hidden from the Nazi leader. After the war was over, they sold it to the British Museum to help rebuild their homeland."
This caught Buffy's interest. Anything called the "Amulet of the Darkened Sun" couldn't be good. Of course, it could just be a piece of junk, but it would be best to check with Willow anyway.
"Here it is, '"The Amulet of the Darkened Sun" is a dread device, whose history is lost in legend. Believed by many to have been of Roman origin, it is actually much older, probably created by the great vampire lords of Carthage,'" read Willow from a book in the Magic Box. "Oh, dear, this isn't good. It says here that, if it's invoked during a full eclipse, it can blot the sun out over an entire nation—forever. Is this what you saw at the Museum, Buffy?" She held up the book; on the page was a picture of the amulet described within.
"Yes, it was. And it sounds like just the sort of thing that a vampire would like to get his hands on," said the slayer worriedly.
Anya nodded. "Not to mention some of the other demonic creatures that would like to see the sun turned off."
"Great, just what I needed. I guess I'll have to include the Museum in my patrols now."
"That may not be enough, Buffy," said Willow. "Something that powerful would be a tempting target for any number of big bads. Tera and I had better set up some warding spells."
"You do that, Wil. And try to find out what else that thing is supposed to do. I don't even want to think about what it could do with the power of the hellmouth, but it is something we need to worry about."
The Scooby Squad nodded. The last time some powerful artifact had been dropped in their laps, it had been the Key, and Buffy had died as a result. Hopefully this time, things wouldn't be so serious…
