"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.
Disclaimer: See Part 1.
Part 12: "Grave Danger".
"Don't panic!" said Giles firmly. "Everybody stay calm".
'Don't panic?' thought Mulder, shaking his arm and wiggling his wrist where Buffy had grabbed him. 'With the dead rising to greet us?' At least the arm still seemed to be in more or less working condition.
'Don't panic?' thought Scully. 'Why the hell not? I hope to God these people know what they're doing!'
"OK, everyone get in a circle facing outwards", Giles said, "and remember, we may be considerably outnumbered, but we don't want this to end up like St. Custard's Last Stand".
"Giles, we realise you probably still think of us all as bloody colonials, but have you no respect for American History?"
'Or Practical Maths?' wondered Mulder irrelevantly.
"Buffy, I'll have you know that I am rather better acquainted with American History than most of you Americans are", Giles replied. "Which is probably not really saying all that much", he added under his breath.
As he was speaking, the librarian had yanked open the weapons bag he'd been carrying, and now he started quickly passing out extra weapons, murmuring to himself as he did so "Here's-a-sword-for-the-Rat, here's-a-sword-for-the-Mole, here's-a-sword-for-the-Toad, here's-a-sword-for-the-Badger!"
Mulder couldn't help being amused when he noticed that. How typically English! He listened to the joking and banter between the Slayer and her Slayerettes, observing how calm yet alert and confident they were, and realised that they must be following a routine they had all experienced before, and were well used to. There was no doubt in his mind that, whatever might happen next, they felt in command of the situation.
He discovered that he didn't feel so concerned or anxious any more. Rather, a sort of excitement had come over him. He looked across at his partner, to discover that the same feeling had apparently overtaken her as well. She too had a broad grin on her face and, like him, was gripping her weapon with more than average enthusiasm.
"Ready, everyone?"
There was a general nodding and murmur of assent, and they started to advance together as a group.
Mulder was now carrying a crossbow, cocked and ready, and Scully a crossbow pistol, each loaded with wooden bolts, of course. Scully glanced over at Mulder - he was now humming the famous bit from the 'William Tell Overture' to himself, and taking aim at the vampire scrambling out of the grave nearest to them.
"Remember to aim for the heart, Agent Skuller!" Buffy reminded her. "To your right! Quick!"
Scully quickly swung her aim away from the main bunch of graves. There to her right was one of the undead already out of the ground and advancing at a run, scattering clods of earth from its clothes as it came. She took aim quickly yet carefully, her FBI firearms training automatically coming into play. She squeezed the trigger, and there was a sharp, snapping twang! In the dim light she couldn't really see the bolt zip towards its target, but the result was spectacularly successful. The vampire clutched its chest, stumbled, and dissolved into a shower of dust.
Scully gawped at where it had been, then there was a similar snapping twang from beside her, and Mulder exclaiming "Jesus-H-Christ-on-a-bicycle! Did you see that?"
"Reload", Xander's voice reminded them calmly, and they both hastily tugged on the cocking levers, and slapped new bolts into their weapons.
Giles and the rest of them were already engaging others of the advancing horde of the undead in vigorous hand-to-hand combat. Buffy in particular had her own inimitable, spectacularly violent fighting style - alternately punching the living daylights out of one vampire, and kicking the hell out of another one, turn and turn about. Then, when she'd apparently punished that pair enough, she finished them both off with two brisk stabs of her stake, and quickly moved on to the next opponents to come lumbering into the fray.
Xander and his axe were working overtime, and Scully saw that even her young fellow redhead, Willow, was doing good work, splashing any vampires within reach with something from a bottle that made them screech, and stagger back clutching their faces, giving Xander and Giles an easy target to chop off bumpy-faced heads unopposed. Dust was flying everywhere.
For a moment Scully couldn't quite understand what she was using - was it acid? Then she remembered somebody's earlier remark about holy water.
And then she was suddenly seized from behind.
Buffy heard Scully cry out, dusted her current opponent in a single heartbeat, and sprinting across the grass, she dived at the vampire, which was trying to force the female agent's head back and sideways, so as to bite her neck. As she did so Agent Mulder also grabbed it, dragging it down to prevent it from getting its teeth into his partner. The four of them went down in a tangled blur of arms and legs as Buffy and Mulder both pounded the luckless ex-citizen of Sunnydale.
"Bad choice there, sunshine hater!" Buffy quipped as she twisted its head round, and further round, and further round, until there was a loud crack and it screeched.
"Eat your heart out, Regan MacNeil!"
Mulder looked round for something to finish it off with, and there on the grass, just within reach, was Buffy's stake, apparently dropped in the melee. He seized it and plunged it, hard, into the vampire's back. It howled again and cursed, and snapped at him like a mad dog, but didn't disintegrate.
"A little higher and to the left!" Buffy muttered through gritted teeth, still doing her best to wrench the creature's head clean off.
"Sorry", said Mulder, though not to the vampire, and had another go. There was a silent explosion, and he shouted "Bingo!" as they all fell on the grass, suddenly smothered in dust.
"Well done", said Buffy. "I think you're getting the hang of it". Then she bounced up and set off at a dead run for the next vamp, one which had just knocked Giles head over heels, causing him to drop his sword, and what was worse, his backup stake.
"Always remember 'It's behind you!'", she shouted over her shoulder as she charged into the brawl, and hurling the vampire against a tree, she grabbed up Giles's broadsword and chopped off its head, all in one smooth, continuous sequence.
Now more vampires were appearing, clambering out of the newly dug graves the Slayerettes had seen opening.
Giles scrambled to his feet, straightened his glasses, and looked around for someone or something else to hit. His sword was gone, but he'd picked up his stake again, and, if necessary, the weapons bag still held a small selection of surprises.
A figure lunged at him out of the deep gloom under the nearest trees, but he twisted out of the way of its attack, putting out a foot to trip it with, and jabbed upwards at the passing vampire. To his dismay the stake snapped in two with a disconcerting 'crack!', and the pointed half flew off into the darkness.
"Oh, did the little man break his pretty stake then?" a voice said.
"Yes", Giles said calmly, shaking his head and sounding mildly regretful. "You can't get the wood, you know. You just can't get the wood". And then, as the shadowy figure reached out again to grab him, he produced his 'spare' spare stake from the inside pocket of his tweed jacket, and smote firmly in the appropriate spot. After which a dustpan and brush was all that was required to deal with the remains of that particular individual!
-----
"Hurt?" asked Mulder, offering a helping hand.
"Only my dignity", Scully answered, looking round for her crossbow pistol. She retrieved what was left of it and got to her feet.
"I'm still in one piece, thanks, which is more than my weapon seems to be".
"Here, take this!" It was Xander, in hot pursuit of one of the enemy. He'd paused to pull the crowbar from his utility belt and hand it to her. "A good whack with that should slow them down. Then you", he looked at Mulder, "can perform the necessary last rites. Right?"
"Right! Got it!"
Scully took a firm grasp of the cold steel pry bar with both hands, holding it just like a baseball bat, and shook it, testing its weight. It felt good. Xander patted her on the shoulder, said "That's my girl!" and ran off after the hastily receding vampire, shouting "Come back, you coward! I haven't finished with you yet!"
A moment later he came trotting back, grinning from ear to ear, saying "We gotta keep together. Like Giles said, 'We really don't want this to turn into Custer's Last Stand'".
Scully laughed. "We certainly don't, Xander. Duck!" she added quickly.
"Quack?" said Xander, puzzled. Then her meaning dawned on him and he hastily flung himself down under the swing of her crowbar, rolling to his feet again behind her as if he did this every other night of the week. Which of course sometimes he did.
There was a crunching clang and a howl as Scully hit a home run, and another vamp staggered back, clutching its hands to its mouth and spitting out a copious shower of fragments of dental enamel.
"You broke all ma damned teeth, you bitch!" it exclaimed in muffled disbelief.
Scully shook her head in mock regret.
"So? Fangs ain't what they used to be", she said, and shrugged. Then there was a snapping twang from beside her, and the remains of the vampire blew gently away on the night breeze.
-----
"Where did Angel go?"
Giles paused, about to stake another vampire, which took the opportunity to wriggle hastily out of his grasp and do a runner.
"Damn! Was that the last one? It would have been my sixth tonight", he said, but he sounded only slightly irritated.
"Oh dear, the one that got away. Never mind Giles, you mustn't be greedy - five's quite a good score", Buffy told him.
Giles made a mildly rude response to that, and surveyed the battlefield, looking for the vampire that Xander delighted in referring to as Dead Boy, despite the fact that he knew it irritated the hell out of Buffy.
"I don't know where he went", he said. "I've been a bit busy recently. Didn't anyone happen to notice?"
There was a general shaking of heads and peering into the undergrowth, and Xander whistled for him as if he was a missing dog, which greatly entertained Mulder and Scully.
"Um... Did anyone have time to see who opened that grave?"
It was Willow, and she was pointing at the remains of the mound of earth which had originally been disguising the presence of the manhole cover they'd expected to find on their arrival. Since there were no more vampires visible in the vicinity now, everyone gathered round to peer at the hole where the cover had been. Soil was scattered about, and the heavy piece of cast iron had apparently been flung violently away into the nearby trees - Buffy could see where it had taken a great big chunk out of the bark of a pine.
"Three guesses what this means", said Xander.
'Two to spare then', thought Mulder. 'That Angel is obviously at least as strong as Buffy. I suppose they must need to be, or one of them would cause serious injury to the other when they got into a clinch!'
Scully directed her flashlight beam down into the deep dark hole. There were the familiar rungs leading downwards, that they'd last seen as they'd all scrambled hastily up them, only the night before. And down at the bottom, on the tunnel floor, was a small scatter of soil.
On the remains of the mound of earth at the edge of the hole was a tattered wreath. Someone reached down and picked it up, looked at it for a moment, and silently handed it to Buffy.
The Slayer glanced at it briefly. The label read 'Buffy Summers, RIP'! It wasn't signed.
"Obviously an optimist", she said lightly, and tossed it away over her shoulder.
That broke the suddenly sombre mood, and everybody burst out laughing.
"Right, never say die!" Giles said, and took off his glasses to give them an extra good polish.
"Except to a vampire!" Xander responded instantly.
"Absolutely", Buffy said. "How about the one that's watching us from behind that tree, right at this moment? Think I can get it?"
"You must have incredibly good eyesight", Mulder commented. "I can barely make it out".
"A bit far off in this low light, isn't it?" Scully asked. "I know you told Mulder you're Olympic standard, but...?"
"Nah. Hey Giles, a little help here? Something from your magic bag?"
Buffy retrieved her bow from where it had been dropped during the hand-to-hand fighting, and notched an arrow on the string. Giles took something from the weapons bag, touched it to the arrow tip, and Buffy bent the bow as strongly as she could. It creaked under the strain, and Scully wondered if it would be able to take the extreme stress. She remembered what else Mulder had told her about his first encounter with these young people, out on the road from the airport - that Buffy had already broken a bow that day.
"Fiat Lux! Sequere Vampirum!" said Giles, adding something else that was not in Latin, in a lower tone, which neither Mulder nor Scully could make out. Then there was a deep twang and the arrow sped off into the darkness towards its target.
And as it did so the arrowhead blazed into life like an exotic firework.
It flashed across the grass like a tracer bullet, a bright little patch of light following it swiftly along the ground. The vampire could see it coming, and hastily dodged behind the tree. The FBI agents immediately assumed Buffy had missed, and that would be an end to it, but to their amazement the arrow suddenly swerved round the tree and disappeared. Their mouths dropped open.
There was a shriek, followed by a big gout of flame, and Buffy leaped in the air.
"Yay! Bulls eye!"
"It worked!", Willow exclaimed. "Wow, Giles, that was amazing!"
"I'll bet you two wish your bullets could do that!" Xander said, grinning at Mulder and Scully, who quite obviously couldn't believe their eyes.
-----
"Having fun, Buffy?" said a voice from somewhere below them. Everyone jumped, and then quickly looked down at the disembodied head which had just spoken from about level with their knees.
It was Angel - only his head and shoulders visible in the manhole - looking for all the world like a satanic jack-in-the-box.
"You still want to find that second vampire agent, don't you?"
Everyone nodded in unison, particularly Mulder and Scully.
"They won't be expecting us to follow them down into the tunnels after ambushing us", Giles said thoughtfully.
"Right then. Follow me", and Angel's head sank from view and out of sight.
END OF PART 12. TO BE CONTINUED...