Summary: Certain books have found their way to Sunnydale, pre-Buffy.
Disclaimer: I dun' own nuttin'!
Feedback, it makes me write faster. (You know you want to do the feedback thing.)
* * *
Jesse looked nervously around. He had arrived at Ms French's house for those private lessons, and had thought it was going well when she gave him a martini. A drugged martini. Jesse was out like a light.
Next thing he knew, he was in a cage in her basement, with a jock in the cage next to him.
"Man, you've got to let me out!," the jock hissed. Jesse vaguely remembered his name -- Blayne. "She... she lays... and then she... oh God, I don't want to die that way!"
The walking hormone looked across the room. A giant Praying Mantis was doing... something.
"Ms French?," he asked, hoping against an affirmative.
"Call me Natalie," the bug replied.
"You've got nothing on shoggoths," Jesse said happily.
* * *
Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander were now hunting down Ms French, the wayward biology teaching bug lady.
They weren't doing too hot until they heard a little girl screaming.
"Let's go!," Buffy shouted.
"Err, how do we know it's Ms French?," Giles asked.
"Easy. Even if it isn't, it's win-win for us."
* * *
The gang burst into the basement, machetes and boombox in hand. Giles started the tape of bat sonar.
"... it is important not only to file alphabetically..."
"GILES!," everyone minus Ms French and Blayne yelled. He quickly flipped the tape while Buffy engaged with the Bug.
The Slayer was losing to the praying mantis' superior speed until Giles hit play. On the *right* side of the tape.
From there on it was a doddle. In no time flat, Buffy was knee deep in ichor and bodyparts.
"Well, I'm glad that's over," Giles said. "But where is the girl?"
"Girl?," Jesse asked, puzzled.
"We heard a girl screaming so came running like our butts were on fire," Xander said.
Jesse wordlessly pointed at the jock, grinning like mad.
Blushing badly, Blayne decided to make like a tree and leave. Buffy tailed him, to make sure he could get home safely.
"Proud of ya, Jess," Xander said. "I figured you'd be scared spitless. Or crapless. I was hoping for spitless cos well, that's cleaner."
Jesse continued his grin. "I remembered something. Praying mantises have *nothing* on Shoggoths."
Everyone groaned.
* * *
"Okay, you heard about Tremere?," Lasombra asked Elizabeth. They were curled up together in bed.
"No," she replied, legs wrapped around her mate. "What about him?"
"He's taken a childe," the shadow vampire said. "Physics student."
"Not a goth, I hope?," the female asked. "I can't stand them."
"Neither can he, Lizzy," Lasombra said, caressing her back. "It set me to thinking, though. We need more people if we're going to shoot straight to the top. Mortal servants, if nothing else."
"We'll start small," Lizzy said. If she heard someone else besides Lasombra call her that, she'd rip their face off. "Depose the Mayor."
"Sounds good to me," Lasombra said. His hands reached lower on her back, then they didn't talk for quite awhile.
* * *
Xander jumped up and down the next day in the Library, hassling Giles.
"Don't forget, you promised," Xander said. He still had a baseball cap on his head, hiding the black metal lines. The youth had replaced the metal plated glove for an unadorned black one while at school.
"I know," the Watcher said. "It's not as if I'd miss going to Omar's boot sale."
On Saturday, the two were going to a small, invitation only book trading event in Los Angeles. Giles had promised a ride to Xander, who was quite excited. Every other time Omar had arranged a boot sale, his parent's had been in Vegas, unable and unwilling to transport him.
"Have you sorted out your photocopies?," Giles asked Xander.
Neither of them ever let an original copy of something out of their hands, preferring to sell people photocopies of the original document.
Xander looked vaguely insulted. "Have you?"
* * *
Omar looked around the open space. While he called it a boot sale, in actuality it worked out to be a small market inside his bookstore. He cleared some of his trestle tables for use by his guests each year for this event. Omar was dressed in flowing blue and white robes, to stand out from the other occult book sellers. He looked out, seeing a familiar face come in from the chilly night air into the warm, heated shop.
"Ah, welcome Giles! Xander! It is /soooo/ good to see you able to turn up this year!," he warmly greeted the Sunnydalians.
"Hi, Omar," Xander grinned. "It's great to /be/ here. I hope you don't mind if we drag around a suitcase, rather than set up on a table? We're willing to pay a table fee."
"No!," Omar denied, waving his hands in the air. "You're a good friend, Xander, I can't take your money like that!"
The Arab spotted some more guests arriving. "A thousand apologies, but Armstrong and his wife have arrived, and I would be remiss to not greet them. Thomas!"
* * *
Half an hour later, Xander had swapped the photocopies in his suitcase for an equal weight of books and scrolls, and had swapped it for his other suitcase in Giles' old car. He was haggling for a copy of the John Dee translation of Alhazred's writings when the front door was kicked in. Two bikers marched in, shotguns in hand.
"Give us all the money, and no one gets hurt!," one yelled.
The other's canines lengthened as he snarled at the group of old men and Xander.
Xander stepped forwards. "Brujah?"
They looked at him, confused. "Yeah?"
"Get out of here," Xander said, exasperated. "Or I drain you. You know I can do it."
They got. They'd seen what the boy had done to that witch lady. They wanted no part of that.
Red Wilson marched over and handed Xander his photocopy and the Dee translation photocopy. "That's on me, after saving our butts like that."
Xander wound up getting a dozen more smaller photocopies, free, by the end of the night from some other men, all elderly.
* * *
On the way back to Sunnydale, Giles looked at Xander.
"We have to do something about the vampires from Metal Night," the Watcher said. "They're starting to stretch their legs."
"I know," Xander said. "I'm kinda hoping they'll go the nonlethal way, you know? I'll talk to Carl and that shadow student guy."
Giles nodded at that. "Very well. Did you get a copy of Berich's _Demonologie_?
* * *
Post-Fic Comments:
Wrote 'Buggy' instead of 'Buffy' for some reason... must be what my subconscious thinks of this fic. Crappy american standards, why can't they have 26 eps in a whole season, 13 in a half just like Japan? Please excuse my nonsensical rant.