Title: Principal Wood And The Manifest Spirits Of Sunnydale High

Author: mispel

E-mail: mispel@email.com

Rating: PG

Summary: Lessons revisited. The truth about how the 'zombies' came to haunt the school and Spike and Wood's involvement in their appearance. Ch 3: Everyone has plans for the night before the first day of school. Xander engages in criminal activity. Wood engages in dark rituals. Buffy tries to prepare Dawn for a life of scarves and turtlenecks. Spike spies on Wood.

Spoilers: season 7

Disclaimer: I own none of it. Joss, ME and Fox own all

Feedback: Any comments would be welcome.

A/N: I filled in the blanks to try and explain a few things. I tried not to make this repetitive. Scenes that are not in the fic happened as they did on the show. The timeline is a tiny bit different. Here the training through biting happens on the night before school starts.

Chapter 3

It was night and Xander walked through the debris that was the usual ground cover at a construction site. Trying to be quiet, he was careful not to step on anything that would make a racket and draw attention. There was a guard around somewhere keeping out the thieves and vandals. Xander realized that he fell into the thief category. Despite that, he felt an urge to obey the sign and put on a hardhat. But bright yellow headgear wasn't really the thing for inconspicuous breaking and entering.

The lock on the door of the construction office wasn't much and Xander had the tools to deal with it. Once inside, he used the flashlight and searched through all the neatly filed plans. He found the ones he needed rolled them up and put them under his jacket. He hoped to return them after he checked them over.

"You've really been stepping up the training, what gives?" Dawn asked as she walked through the cemetery, next to Buffy.

"School starts tomorrow."

Buffy didn't even look at Dawn as she gave her the short and to the point answer. Dawn noticed that tonight Buffy was more no-nonsense than usual. She seemed to be looking very intently at the graves.

"Do I get to kill a vamp tonight?" Dawn asked eagerly.

"That will be up to you."

"Really? Then lets go for it."

"That's not what I meant."

Buffy still didn't look at her. They stopped by a fresh grave and Buffy dropped the bag of weapons.

She turned to Dawn. For a second she just looked at her.

"You know, I would never let anything happen to you."

"Yeah," Dawn said as she smiled and rolled her eyes.

Buffy just looked serious.

"But I won't always be around."

"That's why we have the training."

"Right. We're on the same page. Good."

Buffy turned back to the grave as Dawn looked at her wondering what was up.

Principal Wood steeled himself as he walked through the school halls. It was completely dark except for the red glow of the exit signs. When he tried to turn on the lights, nothing happened. He turned on his flashlight and moved quickly.

His research wasn't complete but he gathered that somehow, through no fault of his own, he had accidentally taken part in a ritual to raise malicious spirits that could take solid form. The inscription on the knife must have been a spell that was activated by blood. His research hinted at the place of concentrated evil that would allow for that ritual to be completed successfully. Wood tried not to let the honor of being principal of such a place go to his head.

Wood had to take several deep breaths before he stepped trough the basement door. He wedged the door open behind him. He tried the light here too, but the basement stayed dark.

He clutched the handle of the bag he carried too tightly and his hand started to hurt. He considered that maybe it wasn't the best idea to spend the night in the school doing ungodly rituals. Sure, he had a protective charm to keep the manifest spirits away. But as the darkness closed in around him, the homemade charm felt flimsy hanging on a string around his neck. Not to mention a little stinky from the dead insects that were crushed into it. It would have to be cast aside before the ritual or it would interfere with it. Then he would miss it, bug stink and all.

The door shut behind him making him jump. He didn't waste time trying to keep it open.

"It has to be done at the source," Wood reminded himself and continued into the pitch black basement.

His flashlight swerved around wildly as he tried to point it in every direction at once. He got hold of himself and started to wield the flashlight in a controlled pattern, covering the dark space from ceiling to floor and back up as he walked.

It seemed like he walked for hours, and he didn't know if he was anywhere near the large room where he had found the knife. He sighed and put the flashlight under his arm. He took the paper from his pocket. He would only have one chance at this. If he wasn't already close to the room, the paper would burn out too soon and be useless. He read the strange writing hoping that his pronunciation hadn't gotten rusty.

"Show me the way," he said at the end, trying to sound commanding.

Then he lit a match and watched the paper burn, then waft backward and around a corner. He ran after it and he was in the big room with the dirt floor. The paper turned black and filmy as it burned out, the words glowing for a moment then disappearing.

Buffy had turned out the light in her room. Her Mom's room. She had a feeling she wouldn't sleep tonight.

"I bet when you said to take care of Dawn, you didn't mean let her get bit by a vamp for her own good."

She lay down and thought back to the times when she and Dawn had cuddled in bed with their Mom. Her perfume still lingered somewhere in the room and stray wisps of air would bring it to her if she didn't move and held her eyes closed and just let it come to her. Like little sharp gifts. It wasn't that time yet when the memories would only be sweet to her. Every remembered moment brought with it a tightening of her chest. Maybe it was a myth that one day she could think of her Mom and feel happy.

She sure as hell wasn't going to lose Dawn like that. She hadn't meant for her to get bitten. Seeing blood on her neck had made her want to kill the vamp all over again, and again. It had occurred to her that Dawn would walk into the school - which was basically just the Hellmouth's tea cozy - and think she could handle anything just because she had a few lessons. She had to show her her limitations. Feeling kind of sick, she had watched Dawn try to fight off the vampire. All the time hoping that Dawn would stake him even if it meant the point of Buffy's lesson would be ruined. It just didn't seem right to tear down her confidence.

"Hey, a little less confident a little more alive, and in therapy for the rest of her life. I'm the best sister ever."

Buffy turned over and closed her eyes hoping she could trick herself into falling asleep.

It was the door. Or a mirage. Spike rushed to it feeling the rusty metal under his hand. He leaned on it in relief then opened it slowly.

He smelled burned paper. The smell mixed with something else. Someone was there. Spike followed where his nose led him. Into the big room. He stayed at the door.

He saw a man put a bag down and open it. The man used a flashlight to look inside it and pulled out a bowl. The man took something from around his neck and tossed it aside. A mumbling came to Spike's ears, repeating. The man opened a bottle and poured something into the bowl. He lit the liquid on fire then added something that looked like twigs or small bones. He sprinkled a powder, then cut himself on the arm and let the blood drip into the fire.

Spike wrinkled his nose at the smell of blood being burned, wasted.

The man then took some things and, while chanting, held them over the smoke. His hands nearly in the flames, he tied the things together. Holding the tied bundle in his hand, the man backed up, mumbling the chant, leaving the fire to burn itself out. He ran out of the room hardly giving Spike the chance to hide.

Wood could feel something closing in on him the whole time he performed the ritual. Not letting him breathe. He nearly choked on the acrid fumes of the fire but he continued. Then the talisman was finished and he couldn't take it any more - he ran out leaving his protective charm in the dirt.

To be continued