Day Four, Friday, 15 High Street, St. Treharne, Cornwall
Giles set a tray laden with drinks down on the table. "Coffee for Xander, Anya and Buffy. Decaffeinated for Willow, milk for Basil and tea for Darcy and myself."
"Thank you Mr. Giles." Said Darcy.
"Yeah thanks." The others echoed.
"Now Darcy, what can you tell us?"
"What do you want to know?" She asked.
"Well, we can start with your family." Buffy suggested. "How come you're a dhampir?"
"And then we can move on to the good stuff." Xander said, edging ever so slightly closer to Darcy. "You know, the personal stuff like what powers do you have? Why do you have a cat? What's your bra size?" Anya hit him. "Ow."
"Is he always like this?" Darcy asked Willow.
"Usually." Willow nodded, "Occasionally he's better. It's a sickness"
"You want to know everything? Ab initio?" Darcy asked.
The small group from Sunnydale looked at one another, confused. Slowly, Giles' expression began to clear and he nodded. The rest of the group, taking their cue from him, nodded as well.
Darcy took a deep breath and then launched into her explanations. "Well, my father's the vampire. Ever heard of Ramiculus?"
Giles got up and paced, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one hand whilst he held his glasses in the other. Willow noticed and slightly nudged Buffy to alert her to the impending apocalypse. "Anyway, barely seventeen years ago, Ramiculus fell in love with my mother. He wanted to have children with her so he didn't turn her into a vampire…" Darcy continued looking slightly puzzled as she observed the byplay within the group.
"Generous of him." Said Buffy, leaning slightly towards Darcy.
"He didn't make her into a vampire…straightaway." Darcy looked around at them. "First he impregnated her. He planned that as soon as the child was born, he would turn both her and the baby. But as soon as Mum found out what the man she loved was planning to do to her and her unborn child, she ran. But Mum was expecting triplets. My brother and sister and I were born in a small village in Wales and throughout my childhood, we were always on the run. And as soon as my brother and I were old enough to understand what our father was, and what we were, we planned the day we would kill him. Our sister, Maria, shut it out, refused to believe anyone, no matter how strong the evidence. My brother and I trained in all the deadly arts we could find… he was exceptional with a crossbow." Darcy told them, smiling faintly at the memory. "But he was best at fencing. His instructors wanted him to enter the Olympics but he refused. He wanted to kill Ramiculus first." She took a deep breath and began stroking Basil, who lay on her lap. He purred strongly, trying to comfort her. "My specialist fields were witchcraft and hand to hand combat." She looked at Willow. "I'd be interested in going over any spells with you."
"How did you know?" Willow asked.
"I know a lot about you all, and your presence helped me to heal faster. Of course the fact that there was also a Slayer, a Watcher and a half-demon present helped. Mystical energy speeds up our healing process you see."
"Oh, I'm not a demon any more." Anya informed the English half-vampire. "Not even half."
Darcy raised her eyebrows and continued. "Well, one day we moved and Ramiculus was there, waiting for us. He had an army of vampires with him. Straight away, they caught Maria. Mum was trying to help her when they caught her too. I was trying to free them when my brother was backed into a corner by several vampires and killed."
"But he revived, yes?" Asked Giles.
Darcy shook her head. "He was decapitated."
"What difference would that make?" Asked Xander.
"One of the two ways a dhampir can be truly killed is decapitation." Giles explained.
"The other is by fire." Darcy informed them. "Anyway, Ramiculus was furious when he realised what had happened to his only son. Especially because he had just turned Mother and now they couldn't have more sons." She hung her head. "So he didn't notice when I transferred my brother's spirit into the nearest living thing and ran as far as possible with it."
"What was it?" Asked Buffy.
"Hey, I said I used to be human." Basil reminded them.
"You're kidding."
"A millennia of no." Said Darcy. "I tracked Ramiculus here and waited. After a while vampires and other things began trying to kidnap me." She looked at Giles. "Tonight was the closest they've ever come. Took them a while to figure out they could come into my flat without an invitation you see. Most of them don't even know what I am. But there's one that does. He put those vampires tonight up to attacking me."
"Why do you put up with it?" Xander asked. "I mean you could be gone tomorrow. They'd never find you."
"But they would!" Darcy said earnestly. "And I'm tired of running. I'm going to kill Ramiculus here. On his home turf."
"What's behind the increase of mystical energy here?" Giles asked, reasoning that if anyone in the area was likely to know, it would be Darcy.
"Ramiculus. He's planning to create a Hellmouth and open it."
"Where?" Asked Buffy.
"The harbour." Darcy said, shrugging.
"What part of the harbour?" Anya asked, interested in Darcy's tale for the first time.
"As far as I can tell in the middle. Where the sea is." Darcy informed them.
"You're joking." Said Buffy.
"Wish I was." Darcy told her bitterly.
"Oh boy." Xander said, slumping in his chair. "Oh man that's bad."
"Tell me about it." Basil said as he stretched and delicately stepped over to his dish of milk.
"How do you know?" Asked Giles.
"A little witchcraft, a little spying." Darcy shrugged. "Nothing I haven't done before."
Basil looked up from his milk. "You know, this is really good milk."
"Uh, thank you." Said Giles as he looked at Darcy. "So what… 'powers' do you have?"
"Whadda'ya got?" Darcy asked, in the manner of all true teen rebels.
"P-Pardon?" Giles asked.
Xander and Anya looked at one another, confused as Buffy and Willow exchanged impressed looks at the ease that Darcy had slipped the quote into conversation.
Darcy grinned and shrugged. "Sorry." She apologised for the confusion she had caused. "What do you know about dhampirs?" She asked Giles.
Giles took a book from a shelf and began to read from it. "A dhampir is the offspring of a vampire and a mortal. As such they have certain abilities, one of them being the ability to come back from the dead. They usually live alongside humans and often have children with humans. Beheading and fire are the only things that can permanently kill a dhampir, but there is usually no need to destroy them as they have souls and as such almost resemble humans. Most dhampirs die of old age as their average lifespan is that of a human." He looked up. "All correct I presume?"
Basil looked at Darcy with as close a sardonic look as his feline features would permit. "At least someone knows we exist." He said.
Darcy smiled at him and looked around at the faces surrounding her. She had a feeling that she could become friends with every one of them. "Not quite." She said, and watched Giles' expectant face fall. "Most of it's true, but, we age as humans only until puberty ends. Which means I have about another year or so to go!" She laughed.
"Then what?" Buffy asked curiously.
"Our ageing processes slow down and we age at a ratio of about twenty to one."
"Huh?" Xander was confused.
"Every two decades she ages a year." Willow explained.
"Cool!" Exclaimed Xander. "You'd stay young forever."
"Only for a few centuries, then you're middle aged. And staying young forever isn't all it's cracked up to be."
"Yeah right." Anya muttered.
"And... and children?" Giles asked her hesitantly
"Oh yeah." Darcy said confidently. "But if second generation dhampirs' other parent is mortal they age at about ten to one after puberty and so on and so on. It's all in the genes."
"It's your jeans that make you live longer?" Xander said, attempting to lighten the mood. It was after all what he was best.
Darcy deliberately misunderstood him. "Basically."
"Anything else?" Buffy asked, anxious to get back to the part about the evil vampire.
Darcy wracked her memory. "We tend not to tan well, we get badly sunburnt."
"Obviously." Giles chuckled from his armchair.
"We don't have a problem with crosses, holy water, anything like that. When we 'die', it's just our bodies shutting down so that it can heal. We can generate our own blood, unlike vampires, and at a faster rate than humans. When we sleep, our bodies shut down, our heartbeat stops and we stop breathing. We can track specific vampires and demons from miles away and when we're awake we have a highly developed warning system. Kinda like bat sonar! We usually have a kind of spirit guide, to help them because they can be very passionate about the things they believe in. The spirit guide usually takes the form of an animal and acts a lot like a Watcher in some respects. Basil is the closest I've ever come to having a fylghi, as they're known. Oh, and dhampirs can turn people into vampires." Darcy looked around at them, hoping that that fact wouldn't put them off. "That's about it really. I can't think of anything else at the moment. If I do I'll let you know."
The Scooby gang collectively blinked as they returned to reality.