It was already dark and there was no trace of the three of them when Sherlock got outside. Luckily, Sunnydale was a small down, and he knew how to get to the Bronze from the school. He headed quickly in that direction, grimacing at the thought of having to listen to only marginally talented bands while his fellow students rubbed their bodies all over each other. Tedious pastime, but he was fascinated by Willow, Xander, and Buffy. He wanted to know if this was all just some extensive game of make believe that they were playing, or if perhaps they all shared in the same delusion. He was inclined to think it was a game, or a very bizarre extracurricular activity (a club, maybe?) given that the librarian seemed to be in on it as well. It could also be some kind of cult — perhaps the whole town was under the same strange thrall, he thought, given how insistent Harmony's parents were that he get home before dark, at least initially. Sherlock was so engrossed in examining his existing theories that he was quite taken aback by the dark, slight figure that suddenly blocked his path.
"Hello, dearie…" A soft, lilting voice (English accent, lower class) came out of the shadows, followed by a frail young woman dressed in what looked like a nineteenth century gown. "Oh, you'll do. You'll do very nicely." She smiled at him. She was, Sherlock noticed distantly, very beautiful, but she looked odd in the alleyway, as if she'd stepped out of a painting done a century ago.
She was short, slender, and pale, with long, curly dark hair and strange bright eyes that seemed oddly yellow. The muted light of the alley she came from seemed to enhance her otherworldly appearance. The soft white of her dress rustled translucently, and he could see the outline of her thin legs through the fabric. Sherlock swallowed hard and shivered - the woman herself didn't appear to be cold, though the breeze through the alley was certainly picking up. It was cold, he realized, so suddenly that it was as if she had brought the chill with her. That's absurd, he thought. But when had it gotten so dark?
"You're not from around here, are you, pretty?" She opened her eyes wide at him, and they looked almost hungry. There was a curious stillness to her as she watched him that suggested an affinity with felines - not of golden, lounging lions, but rather of panthers that slip among shadows to spy on their prey. Sherlock felt his pulse pick up slightly — why? She's tiny, hardly a threat…— Predators and prey seemed entirely too appropriate a comparison, and the thought made him shiver again.
"No," he said hoarsely.
She tilted her head, her smile widening. "You sound like home," she said, swaying a little on her feet. "I miss home, I do. It's been years since I've gone back. Ages..." Her head snapped upright on her neck and Sherlock couldn't help it, he flinched. "Want to give mummy a taste of home? It's been ever such a long time…"
She reached up suddenly — so quickly he could barely see the movement — to lay her hand against his cheek. Her hands were icy. He pulled away.
"Don't," she mewed. She pressed a cold thumb to his lips, then slid her hand down to his neck. Her eyes narrowed in amusement and she licked her pale lips. "Bump, bump. Bump, bump. There's a little bird heart shuddering in you. Are you afraid?"
"Of what?" Sherlock clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.
She didn't answer. Instead, she crawled her fingers up the side of his face and laid her palm instead against his temple. "Oh…" she said, beginning to hum with excitement. "O-o-oh." She pulled her hand away slowly, and the look in her eyes seemed to beckon him. He took a step forward. She smiled again, sweetly this time, and held up a finger to wag under his nose. "Naughty, naughty, Mr. Holmes," she said. "Shan't have you over for dinner, not tonight." She made a sound like a growl and wrinkled her nose at him. "Too much going on inside your lovely head. Pretty things, new and exciting." She snapped her fingers, and he fell back into himself, blinking.
"Who are you?" he asked. "How do you know my -"
She clucked her tongue at him disapprovingly, and turned, making her slow, frail way back where she came from. "You shouldn't walk about alone, dearest," he heard her sing-song, before the shadows enveloped her.
Sherlock stood at the entrance of the alleyway for a few moments before it occurred to him that there was nowhere for the woman to go — the alley was a dead end. He strode forward a few steps to search for her (how had she known his name?) but found only rubbish bins and trash bags. The woman was gone. He turned around to head back out to the street and finally make his way to the Bronze, when his path was blocked yet again, this time by a large, Neanderthal looking man. As Sherlock got closer, he saw in the light that the man wasn't just the victim of an unfortunate bone structure — his face was actually deformed. The heavy wrinkles of his forehead curved downward into a vicious looking snarl, and his eyes were the same burning yellow of the strange vanished woman's. He was also, like her, unnaturally, sickly, deathly pale. He bared his teeth, the incisors of which were two long, narrow, shining fangs. There appeared to be blood dried on his lips and chin, and also stained across his white shirt.
A vampire, then.
"Impossible," Sherlock said to himself, his mind scoffing at the very thought of the existence of vampires while his legs took an automatic few steps back into the alley. "Vampires aren't real." Regardless, his felt his stomach clench in fear, his breath hitching and his hands becoming cold and clammy.
"Wrong," the man said gleefully. Sherlock took another step back and reached for the cover of a bin to his left. While he wasn't convinced — he refused to believe, even — that this man was a supernatural creature, he didn't have any trouble believing that the man was intent on hurting him. He did the first thing that came to mind:
Holding the lid of the rubbish bin in front of him like a shield, he rushed the man.
This, while perhaps ill-advised, did have the element of surprise. Sherlock brought the lid up sharply to catch his assailant under the chin, then ducked under his outstretched arm so that, if anything, at least he wasn't trapped with a dead end behind him. The man shook his head angrily, dizzy. This might, Sherlock thought, be an appropriate moment to run away.
"What's wrong with your face?" he asked curiously.
"You're lucky I need to work up an appetite, boy," the man snarled, "or I'd snap your neck right here."
"Not very agile for a vampire," Sherlock muttered to himself, raising the lid again as the man took a step forward. Although, he realized, belatedly, a hit like that should have knocked an average man out cold… He swung the lid again when the man was close enough, but to his dismay, it was caught easily and torn from his grasp.
"It doesn't take much for me to work up an appetite," the man said, mock-apologetically. He grinned and grabbed Sherlock by the collar, lifting him straight off the ground.
"'Not very agile for a vampire'?" Sherlock heard a familiar voice behind him, and flinched as something small and made of glass exploded in the vampire's face below him. Sherlock felt himself splashed with liquid as he was dropped to the floor, and heard something start to sizzle above him. He hissed and covered his face, afraid that whoever had just added herself to the fray had thrown a vial full of acid. Looking up from between his hands, he realized he was fine. He licked his lip tentatively and tasted only water.
The man who attacked him, however, was decidedly worse for wear, clutching his face and howling.
"Is 'don't taunt the vampires' something we really have to start teaching tourists?" the girl muttered, marching forward and delivering a sharp kick to the already incapacitated man.
"Watch out!" Sherlock shouted as the man reached out to grab her ankle when she lifted her foot to deliver another kick. He felt two pairs of hands on him — one under each arm — pulling him up and away from the fight.
"Relax, she's got it covered."
Sherlock looked to his right to see Xander.
"Guess we were wrong about you, huh?" Willow said from his left, smiling slightly. "Not a vampire."
"No…" Sherlock turned, wide-eyed, back to the fight.
"Are you okay?" Willow asked.
"Stake please!" Buffy yelled, her legs pulled up in front of her. She kicked out and sent the vampire flying to land in a heap against a dumpster, which dented in the middle like it was made of paper. Xander reached into his jacket and tossed her a piece of wood.
"Impossible," Sherlock groaned.
Willow grinned. "Welcome to Sunnydale," she said brightly, wincing as Buffy took a right hook to the face.
"Maybe we should…"
"…get out of the way? Good idea," Xander interrupted, pushing Willow and Sherlock to the side as Buffy kicked the vampire back toward the mouth of the alley. Just then, a rickety old car pulled up and Giles the librarian got out, holding a loaded crossbow. He pulled the trigger and a bolt flew and lodged itself in the vampire's shoulder. The vampire spun, roaring in pain and surprise.
"Hi, Giles!" Buffy chirped, plunging the stake through the vampire's back and presumably into his heart. He froze, and a moment later exploded into dust. Good aim.
"Not your best shot, Giles," Buffy said, picking up her stake and tucking it into her back pocket. She dusted off her hands on the front of her jacket.
"Yes, well, I only intended to distract him," Giles said, looking over to where Willow, Xander and Sherlock were huddled behind her.
"A likely story," Buffy teased.
"What is going on?" Sherlock snapped.
"Oh, dear," Giles said. "I expect this is rather a bit of a surprise for you."
"What's the big surprise?" Xander asked. "Vampires are real. They live in Sunnydale. Buffy fights 'em. Don't go yapping about it."
"It is pretty self-explanatory," Willow said, gesturing to the pile of dust that even now was being dispersed on the breeze. Buffy caught her eye and smiled deviously, and Willow made a disconcerted squeak and stepped away from Sherlock. For his part, he was still at a loss to explain what just happened.
"It's not possible."
"Okay," Buffy said cheerfully. She tapped her fingers against her thighs and rolled her shoulders, wired from the fight. "It's impossible. Just try not to go walking into alleys after dark the rest of the time you're here, okay?"
"We should probably get him home, Buffy," Giles said. "I'll give you a ride. Who are you staying with?"
"Harmony," Sherlock said.
"Wow, it is really not your lucky night, is it?" Buffy said grimly.
"Completely impossible," Sherlock muttered.
"Well, as a wise Vulcan once said: if you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth," Xander said.
"Must be the truth," Willow corrected, giggling when Xander made a face at her and ruffled her hair.
Buffy rolled her eyes in the rear view mirror and turned to look at him. "Basically, vampires are real, and Sunnydale's dangerous," she said. "Try to get used to it."