Chapter Nine: A History of Twentieth Century Vampires - Part One

The following afternoon, Dawn was sitting in the dinning room with Giles, going over some books.

"So?" she asked, leaning across the table and staring down at the text he was reading. "Find anything?"

"Not in the past five minutes, no." He didn't even bother to look up at her.

"Do you really think the Slayer line is dead? I mean, that Buffy's the last one? Kind of sucks, doesn't it?"

Giles looked up at her. Their faces were just inches apart. "Don't . . . you have . . . your own books, to look through?" he asked, through gritted teeth.

"Oh, I'm finished," she said, pushing herself off the table and back down into her chair. She picked up each of the books he had given her and proceeded to re-pile them on the table. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing," she said, as she moved each one. "They're all a big bust. Nothing on the Slayer line, no prophecies, nothing that's going to do us any good. So any new theories on this Slayer business?"

Giles sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. Removing his glasses, he began to clean them thoughtfully. "Well, there was one thing. If there is a new Slayer out there, I'm rather concerned about how she would be called."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, without a Watcher to find her - train her, apprise her of her duties - she may just be floundering. The Slayer may be out there, but she may be Watcherless. And that's as good as having no Slayer at all."

"Wow, way to go with the egotism Giles."

"It isn't egotism. A Slayer needs her Watcher. It's always been that way."

"So, you think that now that there's no more Council, there are no more--?"

"Watchers. That's right."

"Yeah, but you're a Watcher. Wesley's a Watcher. Surely one of you could . . ."

"We've both had our chance. The bond between Slayer and Watcher is a sacred thing. It can't be forced. Just as a Slayer is called, so is her Watcher. He or she was chosen before time to lead the girl on her path."

"Then how do you explain the Council firing you and playing a little game of 'insert the Wesley here?'"

He put his glasses back on and gave her a censorious look. "The Council was never known for its liberal thinking. It seemed easier to them to force Wesley on Buffy as a Watcher, than to accept what they saw as the rather unorthodox relationship I had with her. I was never a favorite with the Council to begin with. And in recent years, it had degenerated into a pompous, blowhard bureaucracy. They'd rather ignore known mystical truths, than not have their paperwork filled in correctly. All the 'i's dotted and such."

"I see. But how do you really feel?"

"There may be a Slayer out there just waiting to be discovered, but without a Watcher, who knows if she'll ever be found? Ever reach her potential?"

"And how do they make new Watchers?" Dawn asked.

"They don't. You're either born one, or you're not. I come from a long line of Watchers. Usually it's carried through a family line. There are certain families who have always been associated with the Council and the Slayers. If a new Watcher is called, he'll be from among those ranks."

"How will we know?"

"We won't. Not unless there's some miraculous sign from heaven or Buffy gets a vision. This may be the end of the Slayer mythology as we know it."

Giles leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes, lost in thought. "Maybe you should go find Buffy," he suggested, as he began rubbing his temples in frustration. "Perhaps she's having better luck."

"All right." Dawn got up from the table and moved to leave the room. She stopped in the doorway. "Hey Giles?"

"Yes Dawn?" He opened his eyes to look at her.

"Are you all right? Can I get you anything?"

"No, I'm fine. Just fine. Now run along and see if Buffy needs your help."

Dawn crossed over into the kitchen, where she found Buffy sitting at the island staring, misty eyed, at an open volume of text. "Okay, what's the deal? Some sad epic about demons and bloodshed?" Dawn moved behind her sister and tried to look over her shoulder.

Buffy snapped the book shut. "It's nothing," she said, as she raised a hand to swipe at her teary eyes. "Just got something in my eye, that's all. I think it's allergies. You know, they said the pollen count was really high today? Don't you watch the Weather Channel?"

Dawn reached out and slowly pulled the book from her sister's grasp. She read the title off the spine label, A History of Twentieth Century Vampires.

Buffy grabbed the book from her. "Nothing about Slayers in here. At least, not from this century. I don't even know why I picked it up really. Guess I just thought it might give us some insight into where this whole thing was going."

Dawn sat down beside her sister and stared at the book in her hands. "He's in there, isn't he?"

"Who?"

Dawn leveled her eyes at Buffy in answer.

"Yeah." Buffy sighed. "He's in here." She opened the book and laid it flat on the table. "Pages sixty-seven through seventy-three. William the Bloody." Buffy stared coldly at the page.

Dawn craned her neck slightly so that she could see too. There wasn't even a picture, just a heading that read, "William the Bloody," with the word "Spike" under it in quotation marks. Beneath that, there was a timeline and several dense paragraphs of text.

"You know, I don't think I've even done any reading about him since he first appeared in Sunnydale," Buffy said flatly. "Never thought about it really. Thought I knew everything there was to know," Buffy said, her voice breaking.

Dawn heard her sniffle quietly.

"Maybe you should read it," Dawn suggested, staring back at her sister with genuine concern.

"Nah." Buffy closed the book and pushed it away from her. "Nothing in there I need to know. I already know how the story ends."

"Buffy, I . . . I just want you to know that it's okay. In spite of everything - what happened last year and all? I miss him too."

"It's just, we never really had a chance, did we?" Buffy asked, her eyes misting with fresh tears. "It was over and we never even had a chance to begin. It was over before it started. And now he's gone."

Buffy broke into a steady stream of tears, and Dawn moved forward, wrapping her in her arms. "It's all right Buffy. It'll be all right. I promise." A stray tear caressed Dawn's cheek as she leaned down to kiss her sister lovingly on the head. "I promise Buffy. I promise."