Chapter Two: Dangerous Surprises
Buffy walked quickly towards Giles' apartment. It was late afternoon, she'd just finished her last class of the day, and there was something she needed to consult her Watcher about. In the past week or so, she'd been dusting vampires in a few unusual places. She'd found a few by the beach and some had been trying to break into the campus library. Very strange for a vamp. There had even been one, a few nights ago, that she'd found in the cemetery. While that in itself was quite normal, it was what the vamp had been doing that was weird. She'd caught him in the act of what looked to be spying on other vampires. She had of course, proceeded to dust the vampires being spied upon as well, but she couldn't figure out why the lone one had been lurking in the first place.
This was obviously not normal vampire behavior. If she had to guess, Buffy thought that perhaps a group of vampires were looking for information on something. Possibly something hidden at the beach since the ones she'd found at the shore had been going through some caves, seemingly searching, though for what she had no clue. So she figured a visit to her Watcher was in order. Giles would look through his books and find out exactly what this group was doing. Then they'd go out and she could stop them from doing it. Dusting them all in the process of course.
Turning onto Giles' street, Buffy got the feeling that something was not as it should be. As she'd learned never to ignore that kind of feeling, she sped up, jogging swiftly to Giles' door. She knocked once and waited impatiently for an answer. When that answer obviously wasn't forthcoming, she tried the knob. The door swung open, which wasn't a good sign. If Giles was home, why hadn't he at least called out that he was unable to come let her in. If he had left on an errand, he would have locked up. Something was very wrong.
Then Buffy entered and her eyes widened. The entire place was in shambles. Furniture was strewn around, there were several of Giles' weapons lying on the floor as well as a half dozen telling piles of dust. Lamps were broken and books were lying on the floor in ungainly heaps. There had been a fight here, that much was certain. And Buffy knew from the dust piles just what her mentor had been fighting. Apparently, he'd lost. But what had happened to him? Had the remaining, undusted vamps taken him with them? What did they want with him?
Buffy swallowed nervously. She really hated the idea of having to stake the vampire version of Rupert Giles, but she knew that it was a distinct possibility. Another was finding his body in the morgue, drained of blood. But if the vampires had wanted to kill Giles, why hadn't they done it already? So they probably wanted him for something else. But the best person to help her figure out why Giles had been snatched was Giles! The Slayer hurried to the phone, intent on assembling her friends. They had to find Giles, and quickly.
Early that morning:
It had been barely a half hour before dawn when Giles had awakened. He'd decided that staying in bed was just lazy and so had risen, dressed, and then headed downstairs to make breakfast. He'd been drinking a glass of orange juice, waiting for the toast to be done and watching the eggs to make sure they didn't burn, when he'd been surprised by a knock. The only person he could think of who might be at his door this early in the morning was Buffy. Perhaps she'd run into trouble on patrol the night before and needed help.
Rising quickly, the Watcher made his way to the front of his apartment. His young Slayer and her friends may have been too involved in their new post-high school lives to see him much anymore, but that didn't mean he'd ignore them. On the contrary, he welcomed any visit, even if it did mean another Hellmouth crisis was at hand. He opened the door with a welcoming smile on his face.
His expression quickly turning to surprise and shock, Giles was pushed hard back into the center of the room by a rather small but very strong demon of indeterminate race. It's skin was light blue and it sported spiny ears and a horn in the center of its head. Giles had never seen anything quite like it and was briefly overcome with a desire to rush to his books and look the thing up. That desire was quickly overcome by outrage and survival instincts as the demon smirked at him and then turned and calmly invited in the group of vampires that had been waiting at the door.
Eyes widening, Giles turned and ran to the chest in the corner of the room, where he kept his weapons. He made it just in time to open the chest and pull out a rather large and wicked looking dagger before the first vampire fell upon him. He twisted out of its grip and slashed the dagger at the next vampire, which was close behind. Despite not having Slayer strength and speed, Giles had been trained to fight and it showed. His first swing caused a cloud of dust to appear as he beheaded his opponent.
The rest of the group growled their outrage and they all tried to grab hold of him. Fortunately for Giles, their numbers worked to their own disadvantage as they kept getting in each other's way. The small blue-skinned demon just stood off to the side, watching the battle. And battle it was. Giles had managed to grab a small crossbow in the moment of surprise following the first death. Then he made his way behind a chair in the corner, keeping it between him and his attackers as he fired off a few bolts, reloading as quickly as possible. Two of the wooden missiles found their targets and more dust ended up on the floor. But that cleared the way for two more of the vampires to grab the chair and toss it across the room.
Giles dropped the now-useless crossbow and, swinging at the nearest vampire, jumped the small table to get more room to lay about him with the dagger. He managed to wound several of the group around him, but nothing fatal. As the fight ranged through the entire room, books were tossed around, furniture knocked about, and a few more dust piles created. But Giles was fighting a losing battle. The vampires managed to back him up towards the nearly forgotten demon who reached up and around the human to place a soft cloth against his mouth. Tired from his exertions, Giles couldn't stop his frantic panting and inadvertently inhaled the sickly sweet vapor. As his grip on the dagger loosened, causing it to fall to the floor, and Giles himself began to drop, his last conscious thought was what kind of demon uses chloroform?'
The vampires, now faced with nothing to fight, all growled menacingly at the demon. Smiling back at them, it bent down and easily hefted the limp form over its shoulder. Then it proceeded to lead the way out of the apartment and down into a sewer tunnel that would conveniently lead right back to their headquarters. The last vampire out made sure that the door was closed so no neighbors would happen to see the demolished living room.