Part 3
#
"God, will you stop it with the PDAs!"
Buffy looked up at Cordelia's complaint, remembering that they were currently in the Bronze along with their friends. Angel, with his arms still around her, seemed to come out of his daze as well.
"Sorry," Buffy mumbled, again looking at the man in whose lap she sat, "we got kinda distracted."
"No details please!"
They had taken over one of the couch corners in the club, they being Angel, Buffy, Cordelia, Willow, Oz, and Faith. Two of whom were currently absent, as Oz was playing on stage with the Dingos and Faith was in the middle of the dance floor, where she was rapidly becoming the center of all male (and some female) attention.
Willow, sitting beside Cordelia, had her eyes glued to her boyfriend and seemed to have missed most of the conversation.
"This is their new song," the redhead said to no one in particular, her eyes shining with admiration. "They'll be sending it to a record studio on LA."
"Sounds ... nice," Angel offered, not really sure that the noise he was hearing was actually music. He wondered if Buffy, too, was reminded of some of the demon howls they had heard down in Hell during their long journey.
Looking around the club, looking at the many people present, it was strange. It was over a month now since their return, a month of getting used to life on Earth again, but seeing so many people all in one place and not a single one of them screaming in pain or undergoing hideous torture ... it was unusual for them.
Buffy leaned against his chest, knowing how Angel felt. He had never been the most social of people, even before hell, and after spending thirty years with no human contact except each other it was hard to remember that there were other people here in this world. Especially, she grinned, when she got absorbed in Angel's kisses.
"You think your mom will mind if Faith brings home a friend," Cordy asked Buffy, drawing Angel out of his thoughts.
"Huh?"
"I mean the boy toy she seems to have nagged."
Buffy looked where Cordelia was pointing and saw that Faith was dancing (using the term very loosely) with a guy. Said guy looked like he was nearing the bursting point, his hands busily roaming over Faith's skimpily clad body.
"Isn't that Scott Hope?" Willow squinted her eyes. "I think he's in my chemistry class."
"Whatever," Cordy shrugged. "I really have to land myself a new guy, too. This is getting depressing."
For a moment Buffy wondered if Cordelia was missing Xander. She knew that the former cheerleader had broken up with him after hearing what had happened after Buffy and Angel's return. To be honest she had not expected that, at least not from the Cordelia she remembered from before.
People change, she mused, even in three months.
"Let's dance," she told Angel when the Dingoes left the stage and a slow dance came on. "It's been too long since we did that."
Willow and Oz quickly followed them, the redhead having seen little enough of her boyfriend tonight. Which left a lonely Cordelia sitting on the couch, thinking about the boy she would like to dance with right now.
If only he wasn't such a big immature idiot.
#
"So mote it be," Amy whispered. For a moment the liquid in the kettle sparkled and glittered, only to vanish a moment later. The young witch sighed and sat back, rubbing her tired eyes.
"Did it work?" Xander came up behind her.
"It should."
"Good," Xander said, nodding in satisfaction. It had worked, which meant that right about now Angel should get a really nasty surprise.
"No more hiding, bastard," he whispered to himself. "Now everyone will see you for what you truly are."
#
Dancing in the arms of her Angel made Buffy forget about the people all around her, all those unfamiliar scents and noises that had her predator senses in an uproar. A bit earlier she had found herself looking at the long, inviting neck of a young woman, her belly rumbling with thirst. It was at times like this that the changes she had undergone frightened her a bit.
Nothing could frighten her when she was with Angel, though.
They moved to the slow beat of the music, ignoring the rest of the club, only the two of them. They had been a world all to themselves for a long, long time and while Buffy relished being with her friends again she also found that sometimes she just wished for everyone to leave them in peace, just the two of them.
Said peace was disturbed, though, when Buffy looked up into the face of her boyfriend (which was a horribly inadequate word for what he was to her) and found something strange.
"This is not a good idea," she whispered to him.
"What?"
"Slipping into game face in the middle of a crowd."
Angel frowned, his ridged forehead furrowing. "I didn't."
Buffy was about to say something else when someone behind her screamed. The two of them immediately turned toward the source, hands automatically reaching for weapons they did not have with them. What they saw stunned them for a moment, though.
"Oz!" Willow was standing beside her boyfriend, who had fallen to his knees. His shirt had ripped open, exposing a back that was beginning to grow fur like crazy.
"This is impossible," Buffy whispered. "It's not the full moon for another week."
"Buffy!" Angel pointed in another direction, where she saw the boy Willow had called Scott stumble back in terror, looking at something with wide eyes. Said something being Faith, who was looking clueless as to what was going on. Faith, whose eyes were glowing silver.
"A monster!" Yet another scream joined the others and Buffy realized that people were pointing at Angel. And at her, too. Looking over to the big wall mirror Buffy saw that her eyes were glowing amber, glowing brighter than she had ever seen them. What had happened to her contact lenses?
"Something strange is going on here," Angel said as the crowd around them began to panic, running for the exits as fast as they could.
"Gee, you think?" Buffy watched in fascination as someone who had appeared as a teenage boy a moment ago suddenly transformed into a vampire, looking confused as hell as he did so. Oz was growling where he knelt on the floor, his clothing in tatters all around them. Faith had spotted herself in the mirror and was looking at her own silvery eyes in fascination.
The unveiled vampire, seemingly realizing that everyone now knew what he was, jumped for the nearest panicking teenager.
"Oh no, you don't!" Buffy was on him a moment later, chagrined that she had left her sword behind tonight. Long steel blades did not really match with party clothing. She dropped the vampire with two quick punches, then looked around for something to kill him with.
"Here!" Angel had jumped onto the stage, throwing her one of the drumsticks the band had left behind. She quickly caught the wooden object and jammed it into the prone vampire's chest, reducing him to dust.
"What is going on here," Willow was inching back from Oz, fear for her life warring against concern over her boyfriend. "Why are you all changing?"
"Not just us," Angel mused, looking around at the nearly empty room. "That other vampire and I both slipped into our true faces without wanting to. Oz is transforming into the wolf without the full moon. Both Buffy and Faith have changed, too."
"This is so cool," Faith was still looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were glowing like stars.
"Maybe ... maybe it's some sort of spell," Willow tried to think despite her heartbeat going into overdrive. "Something that ... I don't know ... unveils the supernatural?"
"Could be." Angel and Buffy were both hovering close to Oz, ready to grab him the moment he tried to attack any of them. The werewolf just rose, though, awkwardly standing on legs that bent the wrong way.
"For the record, it's so not cool," Oz growled, his voice barely human, the words just audible.
"You can talk?" Willow was by his side again in an instant.
"It's ... strange," he simply said, looking down at his transformed hands. "By now I should be ... unconscious. Not remembering a thing until I transform back."
"None of this is natural," Buffy concluded. "I think Willow is right. Someone or something is stripping away all disguise from all those who are not quite human."
"What do you mean?" Faith turned toward her suddenly, the light from her eyes almost blinding. "Not quite human?"
"You are human, Faith," Angel calmly told her. "You are also the Slayer, though, touched by some kind of higher power. I guess that is what we are seeing in your eyes right now."
"You guys look really strange," Cordelia commented, one of the few people that had not fled from the Bronze when the monsters had suddenly appeared in their midst.
"I guess so," Buffy commented, looking around herself. Faith with silver eyes that glowed like stars, herself with amber demon eyes despite the fact that she could still feel the contact lenses firmly in place, Angel in game face, Oz in full wolf-mode, and even Willow was looking a little strange. There was a touch of black in her eyes, a sparkle around her hands. Buffy knew that her friend was practicing magic as of late. Had that also become visible some way?
"We need to do something about this," Angel clenched his fist as he tried to force his face back into its human shape, but was met with no success. "We can't exactly go out like that."
A scream sounded from outside.
"But I guess we have to," Buffy sighed. If this was happening all over town she doubted that even Sunnydale's ample supply of happy ignorance would be able to cover this up. There were just too many things around here that were quite definitely not human, no matter how they looked at first glance.
"Let's go!"
#
Part 4
#
All the way to the Bronze Xander was imagining how great everything would be. Thanks to Amy's spell Angel would no longer be able to hide what he was. Everyone would see his face, his true face, see the monster that pretended to be a man. No more masks and pretty half-smiles.
Oh, he was not so stupid as to think that Buffy would go running from him upon seeing his true face. She had seen it often enough, had even gone so far as to kiss it. Hell, her own face was pretty well on the way towards resembling his.
Everyone else would see him now, though, see his true visage. Angel would no longer be able to walk among humans as if he had any right to be one of them. He would have to hide in the shadows all the time, hide from the real people.
Xander did not know whether it would be enough to break him and Buffy apart, but it was a good start at the least. Let Willow and the others try and pretend that Angel was really a human being when he was stuck looking that way. Oh yes, this would be great.
Amy was walking by his side, wanting to see the result of her spell for herself. She had a very bad feeling about the entire thing. Had she done the right thing? She knew nothing about this Angel except what Xander had told her, which was probably a biased point of view, she figured. Still, the spell would do nothing but reveal his true face. If he was really a demon then ...
There were screams somewhere ahead of them.
"What is that?" Amy looked around. Okay, she knew that this was Sunnydale, where there were lots of things that went screaming the night, but still ... it sounded awfully close. God, how had Xander convinced her to do this? And why after dark?
"I guess a few people caught sight of deadboy," Xander said with a satisfied grin. They were approaching the Bronze. "I overheard Willow saying they would go dancing tonight. Wouldn't it be great if he vamped out right in the middle of the dance floor?"
"Yeah, great," Amy mumbled, not really seeing the greatness in something that would no doubt cause a mass panic.
They were about to round a corner that would lead them toward the Bronze when a big mob of people suddenly came running from that direction, all of them looking very much spooked. There were an awful lot of them and they seemed in a hurry, too.
"Out of the way!" Xander pushed Amy to the side, flattening the both of them to the wall of the building just in time to keep from being trampled. The people rushed past, not paying any attention to them at all, fleeing as if the devil itself was behind them.
"That the kind of reaction you wanted?" Amy looked at Xander, pressed close to her. Uncomfortably close.
"Well, something like ...," his voice failed when he looked at her face, really looked at her for the first time since they had left her house to go to the Bronze. With a yelp escaping his lips he took two steps back.
Amy's eyes were gone, replaced by dark purple orbs that glittered with tiny sparks. More of the sparks were swirling around her hands and forehead, like tiny fireflies that raced each other in circles around her body.
"Amy ...," he mumbled, not sure what to say.
"There is another of them!" The yell brought them both back to their senses, Amy still clueless why Xander was looking at her so strangely. That question vanished, though, when she saw that some of the fleeing mob had turned to look at the both of them, looking at them with fear in their eyes.
"I think your spell didn't work exactly like we planned," Xander said.
For a long moment they just stared at each other, stared at the people fleeing from the Bronze, then decided it might be a good idea to run as well. Not in the same direction, though.
#
Diane Steepson had worked as a secretary at city hall for coming up to ten years now and could honestly say that she liked her job, very much so. The hours were decent, the pay was good, and her boss was a friendly and easygoing man. Sure, there were things about Richard Wilkins III. that one had to get used to first, like his phobia about germs of any kind, but all in all she could not have asked for a better boss or for a better man to be the Mayor of Sunnydale.
So it was that she did not mind too much when, just as she had been about to pack up and leave, said boss called her at her desk and asked her to come to his office. She shrugged. Diane did not have to do many hours of overtime and those she did were recompensed quite nicely. Only about a minute after he called she arrived in his office, a genuine smile on her face.
"Mr. Wilkins, what can I ...," her voice died in her throat.
Mayor Wilkins stood in front of the window, having turned toward her as she entered. His office was lit only by the lamp standing on his desk, but that was more than enough for Diane to see his face.
A face that was quite definitely not human.
Her scream was short-lived, cut off after but a moment when someone grabbed her from behind and broke her neck.
"I will dispose of the body, boss," the vampire said, looking at Wilkins for confirmation.
"Please do so," Wilkins said, turning back to look out the window.
So it was confirmed, he thought. Diane's reaction was all the proof he needed. For some reason he could not quite fathom people (and non-people) could suddenly see that he was not quite as human as he always appeared to be. Wilkins was not a man prone to self-deception. The things he had done to ensure himself a long life and power had cost him, he knew that. He had been a human being once, long ago, but these days he was something quite different, looking to become something even more different very soon.
And for some reason people could see that now.
He shook his head. Decades of work had gone into this beautiful town, many years of grooming and cultivating the various beings and forces at work in this deceptively mundane suburban community. It was, after all, not by chance that the public had never found out about the Hellmouth and all the creatures it attracted.
There was a limit to everything, though, even to the blissful ignorance of the citizens of this town. Wilkins had eyes and ears all over Sunnydale and by now he knew that all of the things that normally hid behind human masks and shapes had suddenly lost the ability to disguise themselves. The demons and monsters were out in the open and while people might often be stupid and short-sighted, they were seldom completely blind.
There were slurping noises behind him where the vampire (Tom was his name, if he recalled correctly) was draining the late Diane Steepson. God, he wished he would have taken her out of his office before doing that. Not enough that he would have to go looking for a new employee to replace what had been an above average secretary, no, now he had to worry about bloodstains in the carpet as well.
"This will not do," he shook his head, sighing deeply. "Really, this will not do."
Something had to be done about the quality of his help. And, of course, about this strange new magic that was causing mayhem all over town.
#
Of the various demon species that called Sunnydale their home the vampires were by far the most numerous. They lived in warehouses, abandoned factories, and the caves underneath the town. They traveled through the sewers by day and went out on the hunt at night, easily blending with the population due to the human forms they had stolen, the dead bodies they had taken as their own.
Now things had suddenly changed. For some reason the vampires found themselves unable to slip into their human masks. This was a strange occurrence indeed. Most vampires needed a bit of time after rising to learn the trick, that was true, but once they did learn it they never forgot again. It was just like riding a bicycle.
Hunger being what it was, though, the vampires (as well as quite a few other demon species) quickly came to a decision. Since it was obviously impossible to blend anymore they would not bother trying.
Needs had to be feed, after all.
TO BE CONTINUED
#
"God, will you stop it with the PDAs!"
Buffy looked up at Cordelia's complaint, remembering that they were currently in the Bronze along with their friends. Angel, with his arms still around her, seemed to come out of his daze as well.
"Sorry," Buffy mumbled, again looking at the man in whose lap she sat, "we got kinda distracted."
"No details please!"
They had taken over one of the couch corners in the club, they being Angel, Buffy, Cordelia, Willow, Oz, and Faith. Two of whom were currently absent, as Oz was playing on stage with the Dingos and Faith was in the middle of the dance floor, where she was rapidly becoming the center of all male (and some female) attention.
Willow, sitting beside Cordelia, had her eyes glued to her boyfriend and seemed to have missed most of the conversation.
"This is their new song," the redhead said to no one in particular, her eyes shining with admiration. "They'll be sending it to a record studio on LA."
"Sounds ... nice," Angel offered, not really sure that the noise he was hearing was actually music. He wondered if Buffy, too, was reminded of some of the demon howls they had heard down in Hell during their long journey.
Looking around the club, looking at the many people present, it was strange. It was over a month now since their return, a month of getting used to life on Earth again, but seeing so many people all in one place and not a single one of them screaming in pain or undergoing hideous torture ... it was unusual for them.
Buffy leaned against his chest, knowing how Angel felt. He had never been the most social of people, even before hell, and after spending thirty years with no human contact except each other it was hard to remember that there were other people here in this world. Especially, she grinned, when she got absorbed in Angel's kisses.
"You think your mom will mind if Faith brings home a friend," Cordy asked Buffy, drawing Angel out of his thoughts.
"Huh?"
"I mean the boy toy she seems to have nagged."
Buffy looked where Cordelia was pointing and saw that Faith was dancing (using the term very loosely) with a guy. Said guy looked like he was nearing the bursting point, his hands busily roaming over Faith's skimpily clad body.
"Isn't that Scott Hope?" Willow squinted her eyes. "I think he's in my chemistry class."
"Whatever," Cordy shrugged. "I really have to land myself a new guy, too. This is getting depressing."
For a moment Buffy wondered if Cordelia was missing Xander. She knew that the former cheerleader had broken up with him after hearing what had happened after Buffy and Angel's return. To be honest she had not expected that, at least not from the Cordelia she remembered from before.
People change, she mused, even in three months.
"Let's dance," she told Angel when the Dingoes left the stage and a slow dance came on. "It's been too long since we did that."
Willow and Oz quickly followed them, the redhead having seen little enough of her boyfriend tonight. Which left a lonely Cordelia sitting on the couch, thinking about the boy she would like to dance with right now.
If only he wasn't such a big immature idiot.
#
"So mote it be," Amy whispered. For a moment the liquid in the kettle sparkled and glittered, only to vanish a moment later. The young witch sighed and sat back, rubbing her tired eyes.
"Did it work?" Xander came up behind her.
"It should."
"Good," Xander said, nodding in satisfaction. It had worked, which meant that right about now Angel should get a really nasty surprise.
"No more hiding, bastard," he whispered to himself. "Now everyone will see you for what you truly are."
#
Dancing in the arms of her Angel made Buffy forget about the people all around her, all those unfamiliar scents and noises that had her predator senses in an uproar. A bit earlier she had found herself looking at the long, inviting neck of a young woman, her belly rumbling with thirst. It was at times like this that the changes she had undergone frightened her a bit.
Nothing could frighten her when she was with Angel, though.
They moved to the slow beat of the music, ignoring the rest of the club, only the two of them. They had been a world all to themselves for a long, long time and while Buffy relished being with her friends again she also found that sometimes she just wished for everyone to leave them in peace, just the two of them.
Said peace was disturbed, though, when Buffy looked up into the face of her boyfriend (which was a horribly inadequate word for what he was to her) and found something strange.
"This is not a good idea," she whispered to him.
"What?"
"Slipping into game face in the middle of a crowd."
Angel frowned, his ridged forehead furrowing. "I didn't."
Buffy was about to say something else when someone behind her screamed. The two of them immediately turned toward the source, hands automatically reaching for weapons they did not have with them. What they saw stunned them for a moment, though.
"Oz!" Willow was standing beside her boyfriend, who had fallen to his knees. His shirt had ripped open, exposing a back that was beginning to grow fur like crazy.
"This is impossible," Buffy whispered. "It's not the full moon for another week."
"Buffy!" Angel pointed in another direction, where she saw the boy Willow had called Scott stumble back in terror, looking at something with wide eyes. Said something being Faith, who was looking clueless as to what was going on. Faith, whose eyes were glowing silver.
"A monster!" Yet another scream joined the others and Buffy realized that people were pointing at Angel. And at her, too. Looking over to the big wall mirror Buffy saw that her eyes were glowing amber, glowing brighter than she had ever seen them. What had happened to her contact lenses?
"Something strange is going on here," Angel said as the crowd around them began to panic, running for the exits as fast as they could.
"Gee, you think?" Buffy watched in fascination as someone who had appeared as a teenage boy a moment ago suddenly transformed into a vampire, looking confused as hell as he did so. Oz was growling where he knelt on the floor, his clothing in tatters all around them. Faith had spotted herself in the mirror and was looking at her own silvery eyes in fascination.
The unveiled vampire, seemingly realizing that everyone now knew what he was, jumped for the nearest panicking teenager.
"Oh no, you don't!" Buffy was on him a moment later, chagrined that she had left her sword behind tonight. Long steel blades did not really match with party clothing. She dropped the vampire with two quick punches, then looked around for something to kill him with.
"Here!" Angel had jumped onto the stage, throwing her one of the drumsticks the band had left behind. She quickly caught the wooden object and jammed it into the prone vampire's chest, reducing him to dust.
"What is going on here," Willow was inching back from Oz, fear for her life warring against concern over her boyfriend. "Why are you all changing?"
"Not just us," Angel mused, looking around at the nearly empty room. "That other vampire and I both slipped into our true faces without wanting to. Oz is transforming into the wolf without the full moon. Both Buffy and Faith have changed, too."
"This is so cool," Faith was still looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were glowing like stars.
"Maybe ... maybe it's some sort of spell," Willow tried to think despite her heartbeat going into overdrive. "Something that ... I don't know ... unveils the supernatural?"
"Could be." Angel and Buffy were both hovering close to Oz, ready to grab him the moment he tried to attack any of them. The werewolf just rose, though, awkwardly standing on legs that bent the wrong way.
"For the record, it's so not cool," Oz growled, his voice barely human, the words just audible.
"You can talk?" Willow was by his side again in an instant.
"It's ... strange," he simply said, looking down at his transformed hands. "By now I should be ... unconscious. Not remembering a thing until I transform back."
"None of this is natural," Buffy concluded. "I think Willow is right. Someone or something is stripping away all disguise from all those who are not quite human."
"What do you mean?" Faith turned toward her suddenly, the light from her eyes almost blinding. "Not quite human?"
"You are human, Faith," Angel calmly told her. "You are also the Slayer, though, touched by some kind of higher power. I guess that is what we are seeing in your eyes right now."
"You guys look really strange," Cordelia commented, one of the few people that had not fled from the Bronze when the monsters had suddenly appeared in their midst.
"I guess so," Buffy commented, looking around herself. Faith with silver eyes that glowed like stars, herself with amber demon eyes despite the fact that she could still feel the contact lenses firmly in place, Angel in game face, Oz in full wolf-mode, and even Willow was looking a little strange. There was a touch of black in her eyes, a sparkle around her hands. Buffy knew that her friend was practicing magic as of late. Had that also become visible some way?
"We need to do something about this," Angel clenched his fist as he tried to force his face back into its human shape, but was met with no success. "We can't exactly go out like that."
A scream sounded from outside.
"But I guess we have to," Buffy sighed. If this was happening all over town she doubted that even Sunnydale's ample supply of happy ignorance would be able to cover this up. There were just too many things around here that were quite definitely not human, no matter how they looked at first glance.
"Let's go!"
#
Part 4
#
All the way to the Bronze Xander was imagining how great everything would be. Thanks to Amy's spell Angel would no longer be able to hide what he was. Everyone would see his face, his true face, see the monster that pretended to be a man. No more masks and pretty half-smiles.
Oh, he was not so stupid as to think that Buffy would go running from him upon seeing his true face. She had seen it often enough, had even gone so far as to kiss it. Hell, her own face was pretty well on the way towards resembling his.
Everyone else would see him now, though, see his true visage. Angel would no longer be able to walk among humans as if he had any right to be one of them. He would have to hide in the shadows all the time, hide from the real people.
Xander did not know whether it would be enough to break him and Buffy apart, but it was a good start at the least. Let Willow and the others try and pretend that Angel was really a human being when he was stuck looking that way. Oh yes, this would be great.
Amy was walking by his side, wanting to see the result of her spell for herself. She had a very bad feeling about the entire thing. Had she done the right thing? She knew nothing about this Angel except what Xander had told her, which was probably a biased point of view, she figured. Still, the spell would do nothing but reveal his true face. If he was really a demon then ...
There were screams somewhere ahead of them.
"What is that?" Amy looked around. Okay, she knew that this was Sunnydale, where there were lots of things that went screaming the night, but still ... it sounded awfully close. God, how had Xander convinced her to do this? And why after dark?
"I guess a few people caught sight of deadboy," Xander said with a satisfied grin. They were approaching the Bronze. "I overheard Willow saying they would go dancing tonight. Wouldn't it be great if he vamped out right in the middle of the dance floor?"
"Yeah, great," Amy mumbled, not really seeing the greatness in something that would no doubt cause a mass panic.
They were about to round a corner that would lead them toward the Bronze when a big mob of people suddenly came running from that direction, all of them looking very much spooked. There were an awful lot of them and they seemed in a hurry, too.
"Out of the way!" Xander pushed Amy to the side, flattening the both of them to the wall of the building just in time to keep from being trampled. The people rushed past, not paying any attention to them at all, fleeing as if the devil itself was behind them.
"That the kind of reaction you wanted?" Amy looked at Xander, pressed close to her. Uncomfortably close.
"Well, something like ...," his voice failed when he looked at her face, really looked at her for the first time since they had left her house to go to the Bronze. With a yelp escaping his lips he took two steps back.
Amy's eyes were gone, replaced by dark purple orbs that glittered with tiny sparks. More of the sparks were swirling around her hands and forehead, like tiny fireflies that raced each other in circles around her body.
"Amy ...," he mumbled, not sure what to say.
"There is another of them!" The yell brought them both back to their senses, Amy still clueless why Xander was looking at her so strangely. That question vanished, though, when she saw that some of the fleeing mob had turned to look at the both of them, looking at them with fear in their eyes.
"I think your spell didn't work exactly like we planned," Xander said.
For a long moment they just stared at each other, stared at the people fleeing from the Bronze, then decided it might be a good idea to run as well. Not in the same direction, though.
#
Diane Steepson had worked as a secretary at city hall for coming up to ten years now and could honestly say that she liked her job, very much so. The hours were decent, the pay was good, and her boss was a friendly and easygoing man. Sure, there were things about Richard Wilkins III. that one had to get used to first, like his phobia about germs of any kind, but all in all she could not have asked for a better boss or for a better man to be the Mayor of Sunnydale.
So it was that she did not mind too much when, just as she had been about to pack up and leave, said boss called her at her desk and asked her to come to his office. She shrugged. Diane did not have to do many hours of overtime and those she did were recompensed quite nicely. Only about a minute after he called she arrived in his office, a genuine smile on her face.
"Mr. Wilkins, what can I ...," her voice died in her throat.
Mayor Wilkins stood in front of the window, having turned toward her as she entered. His office was lit only by the lamp standing on his desk, but that was more than enough for Diane to see his face.
A face that was quite definitely not human.
Her scream was short-lived, cut off after but a moment when someone grabbed her from behind and broke her neck.
"I will dispose of the body, boss," the vampire said, looking at Wilkins for confirmation.
"Please do so," Wilkins said, turning back to look out the window.
So it was confirmed, he thought. Diane's reaction was all the proof he needed. For some reason he could not quite fathom people (and non-people) could suddenly see that he was not quite as human as he always appeared to be. Wilkins was not a man prone to self-deception. The things he had done to ensure himself a long life and power had cost him, he knew that. He had been a human being once, long ago, but these days he was something quite different, looking to become something even more different very soon.
And for some reason people could see that now.
He shook his head. Decades of work had gone into this beautiful town, many years of grooming and cultivating the various beings and forces at work in this deceptively mundane suburban community. It was, after all, not by chance that the public had never found out about the Hellmouth and all the creatures it attracted.
There was a limit to everything, though, even to the blissful ignorance of the citizens of this town. Wilkins had eyes and ears all over Sunnydale and by now he knew that all of the things that normally hid behind human masks and shapes had suddenly lost the ability to disguise themselves. The demons and monsters were out in the open and while people might often be stupid and short-sighted, they were seldom completely blind.
There were slurping noises behind him where the vampire (Tom was his name, if he recalled correctly) was draining the late Diane Steepson. God, he wished he would have taken her out of his office before doing that. Not enough that he would have to go looking for a new employee to replace what had been an above average secretary, no, now he had to worry about bloodstains in the carpet as well.
"This will not do," he shook his head, sighing deeply. "Really, this will not do."
Something had to be done about the quality of his help. And, of course, about this strange new magic that was causing mayhem all over town.
#
Of the various demon species that called Sunnydale their home the vampires were by far the most numerous. They lived in warehouses, abandoned factories, and the caves underneath the town. They traveled through the sewers by day and went out on the hunt at night, easily blending with the population due to the human forms they had stolen, the dead bodies they had taken as their own.
Now things had suddenly changed. For some reason the vampires found themselves unable to slip into their human masks. This was a strange occurrence indeed. Most vampires needed a bit of time after rising to learn the trick, that was true, but once they did learn it they never forgot again. It was just like riding a bicycle.
Hunger being what it was, though, the vampires (as well as quite a few other demon species) quickly came to a decision. Since it was obviously impossible to blend anymore they would not bother trying.
Needs had to be feed, after all.
TO BE CONTINUED