Author's Note: School Hard more or less ends here. Possibly some mopup next chapter.
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars belongs to Rob Thomas; Buffy to Joss Whedon; and the plotline to me.
Chaos ensued.
People began to run and scream and panic, and a good time was had by all.
That is, if by "all" you mean "a handful of vampires."
Spike's face was raw and scarred. He looked like he'd gotten a sulfuric acid facial. Still, while his face looked like he was ready to audition to play Two-Face in the next Batman movie, his attitude was as cocky as ever. "What can I say?" he said as Buffy came running in. "I couldn't wait."
While Buffy was still staring, Sheila took her Supersoaker and started spraying the invaders. Buffy turned and looked at her but didn't have time to gape at Sheila for more than a split second before she began herding everyone out of the room.
Spike avoided the stream, but a couple of he other vampires weren't as lucky and caught it square in the face. As they both started screaming, Spike said, "Get her!"
Sheila was smart enough to take this as a cue to run like hell. I was right behind her. I still had my Supersoaker in reserve; I hadn't pulled it out yet, I would have if someone had been in trouble enough to need it. I may not be a hero, but I'm not one to cross the street when I hear someone screaming for help. Mostly, it was because I didn't want Spike to realize that I was the one who'd shot him back in the alley -- and if there's one thing he'd know for sure, it was that Sheila hadn't been the initial shooter.
Somehow, though, we weren't following the main group, so we weren't going to end up in the room with Buffy and Snyder. Briefly I wondered if Celeste Kane was smart enough to stay hidden. I hoped so, for Duncan's sake, anyway. I had no use for the woman, but she was his mother.
Still, I bet she and Aaron were going to regret their decision to throw their weight around to make sure they got to go last.
One vampire was following us; the rest had peeled off. I guess Spike had remembered that this was supposed to be about chasing down the vampire slayer, not the chick with the holy water gun.
And speak of the devil.
Or the devil's cameraman, at least. The man stuck his head out of a classroom and said, "We're trying to shoot -- what the hell?"
Sheila didn't bother answering him or introducing herself, unless shoving past him can be counted as an introduction. "Move it, manhunter!" she yelled, and I slipped past the still-bewildered cameraman as the vampire got closer.
"Close the door!" I yelled to the man as I entered the classroom.
The man tried, but didn't make it in time. The vampire grabbed him from behind and yelled him away as he screamed.
Aaron, Logan and the teacher -- Mrs. Gellhorn, she was my English teacher too -- had gotten out of their chairs as soon as Sheila and I entered the room. Aaron had started to ask a question, but stopped when he saw the vampire grab the cameraman. "Peter!" he yelled.
"There are five of us," Logan said, rocking back and forth. "I think we can save him." That didn't surprise me. Even when a psychotic jackass by trade, Logan still didn't like to see genuinely innocent people get hurt.
Aaron looked at Logan; was that a modicum of fatherly pride working its way across his face? No. couldn't be.
The fact that I wasn't giving in to my urge to hit Aaron over the head and throw him out into the hall while the rest of us escape surely earns me a place in the afterlife of my choice.
Sheila held her holy water gun and crept closer to the now-closed door, peered out, then slammed it shut and put her back against it. "No," she said with a pale face, "We won't. Holy fuck, manhunter, what are they?"
"What did you see?" Aaron asked.
"He -- he was ripping his throat out. With his teeth." If I thought Sheila had seemed traumatized this morning after remembering being mugged, that was nothing compared to the emotions that were playing out on her face now.
It had to be hard thinking you were big and bad, and finding out that you weren't nearly as big and bad as you thought.
"Do you really want to take someone capable of that on?" I asked Logan. "Now isn't the time to prove your manhood. Now's the time to stay alive."
Don't take this the wrong way, but thank God we weren't still on camera. Otherwise, Aaron might have decided to prove me wrong by storming out there. Which wouldn't have bothered me in the least, except that he would have probably dragged Logan out there with him.
"Sheila has the right idea," I said. "We can't let him get in here. Barricade the door while he's -- busy."
If Aaron or Logan saw anything wrong with me giving orders, they didn't say anything. I didn't know if it was Sheila's reaction or something else, but they scrambled to move the teacher's desk in front of the door. I pulled Sheila out of the way and said, "Get chairs. The desk might not hold him." Behind me, Mrs. Gellhorn, also not having any objections to my being in charge, was already doing just that.
The screams from outside the door had died down. After we had the door well and truly blocked -- which might delay the vampire for a half a minute or so, maybe enough time to get him to want to give up and go home -- Logan said, "Okay, we've followed your orders, commandant Mars. Now, do you want to tell us what's going on, or would prefer that we speculate wildly?"
"Principal Snyder," I said, adding the honorific for Mrs. Gellhorn's benefit -- the woman didn't like Snyder any more than the rest of us did, but she was a stickler for things like that -- "Was just starting to close the lounge down when a gang burst in and started attacking. Sheila managed to fight a couple of them with her 'water' gun and we ran, with one of them right behind us. And you more or less know the rest," I said. "I didn't see what happened to anyone else."
"What do they want?" Aaron asked.
"I doubt it's your autograph," I said. "No offense. I don't want you getting any ideas that you can charm or buy your way out of it."
"Yeah," Sheila said, still shaken. "From what they were doing to your camera guy I don't think they were interested in money."
"So they're just here to cause trouble," Aaron said. "I can work with that too. If they break in here, I'm not going down without a fight." He patted Logan on the back. "Are you with me, son?"
"Right there, Dad," Logan said with mock enthusiasm.
"Nice thought," I said, "But, honestly? More interested in the 'living through the night' part of this scenario than the 'going down fighting' part."
"Me too," Aaron said. "But it doesn't hurt to be ready. Too bad I'm not allowed to bring my gun onto school grounds."
"Yeah, too bad," I said, I hoped not unconvincingly. While Aaron scoured the room for something he could use as a weapon, and Mrs. Gellhorn moved to the far corner of the room, Logan came over to talk with Sheila and me.
"He was really ripping out the woman's throat?" he asked in disbelief.
"You fuckin' think I'd make something like that up?" Sheila said.
"With your track record, it's not statistically impossible," Logan said. "But no, I don't actually think you're lying about this. Trust me. That was still me in stunned shock, not an attack on your credibility, however dubious it may be under normal circumstances. No, I was just going to ask both of you again, a bit more quietly, what the hell's going on out there."
"If I knew anything more, I'd tell you," I said. "No matter how big an ass you can be I haven't actually gotten to the point where I want you dead." I'd actually gotten well past that, of course, but none of that no-longer-existent history was really relevant now.
Sheila said, "You're missing something, manhunter. The guy leading the gang tried to mug me in an alley last night till you drove him off."
Logan said, "What?" With good reason. Guts? Them I had to spare. But I wasn't exactly an action hero. I wished Sheila hadn't mentioned that, but, there not being any convenient vengeance demons nearby, my wish went unfulfilled. "Do you think they came here after you?"
"No," I said. "Honestly, the leader seemed to recognize the Supersoaker, not me. I obviously wasn't going to stick around to let him confirm who I was."
"Guys like this, they don't need a reason," Sheila added.
"How'd you drive him off?" This from Aaron Echolls, who'd taken a trophy off a shelf along the back wall. It would probably make a halfway decent club, not that it would affect the vampire very much if he hit him with it.
I didn't want to give away my secrets to the man, but I'd been backed into a corner. "See what Sheila's carrying?"
"The big bad gang members were afraid of a water pistol?" Logan asked.
"Hey, don't hate on the Supersoaker," I said. "It's got super pressure action that can shoot a stream of water thirty feet." I paused, then added, "Anyway, it's not water in there." Well, not plain water, anyway. I hoped they'd resist the urge to drink it.
"Really?" Aaron seemed interested. "What is it? Some kind of acid?"
"That would probably melt through the plastic, father dear," Logan said.
"Call it a form of liquid pepper spray," I said. "Anyway -- is he still out there?"
"I hope not," Sheila said.
"I think it's fairly safe to say that's a hope shared by all of us," Logan said.
I wasn't sure of the timeline here. It had been -- I checked my watch -- about twenty minutes since the vampires attacked. Was Buffy in the ventilation system? I didn't know.
I did know that Xander had left early, trying to track down Angel. What I didn't know was how much our presence was throwing things off. Was keeping this one vampire here going to help or hurt Buffy?
Was she even in the ceiling yet?
We were in a second-story classroom without convenient roof access, and unlike the ones in the movie, these vampires couldn't fly, so barring one doing a Peter Parker imitation, the only access was through the door.
A pounding could be heard from the outside. I hate it when I'm right.
The vampire must have finished off the poor cameraman, because he was now doing his best to smash down the door. Aaron and Logan went over and put their shoulders to the desk. I had to give Aaron Echolls credit for physical courage, if nothing else.
While this door wasn't as sturdy as the ones in the science classroom where Joyce and Snyder had holed up, backed by three hundred pounds of furniture and two determined humans it was just strong enough to hold out one vampire.
For about ten minutes.
Then the desk gave way as Aaron and Logan scrambled to get out of the way of the flying chairs. Logan succeeded; Aaron didn't. One of them caught him on the back of the head. Sheila may have been somewhat traumatized, but she didn't let that stop her from using the last of the holy water to spray the vampire in the face and hands as he cleared away the chairs and finished shoving the desk out of the way. Mrs. Gellhorn was screaming.
Unfortunately, while this was enough to hurt the vamp, it wasn't enough to make him run away. Even as his face burned, he came storming into the room.
My turn. I pulled out the water pistol as he got closer and fired. All I can say is, I'm lucky I don't have to do that for a living. I only hit him once in three shots, but that once was right in the eye. He yelled and turned towards me.
Frantically, I backed away as he approached --
And tripped over the prone body of Aaron Echolls.
Logan, meanwhile, had gotten to his feet and now, with a chair in his hands, smashed the vampire in the back of the head as hard as he could.
He went down and stayed there.
Only a temporary reprieve, of course. I told Logan to get everyone else out of there.
"What are you going to do? Roll him for beer money?"
"You know me so well. Now move."
"Aye aye, Captain," he said.
Sheila left last. I didn't know how long I had -- maybe seconds. But I couldn't leave this vampire alive behind us. No, I'm not a vampire slayer. But I'm also not
I grabbed a pencil from the desk, then ripped open his shirt and took my Supersoaker -- unused, unlike Sheila's -- and emptied the tank directly over the vampire's heart. He woke up as his flesh started burning.
See, this was my thinking: I'm not strong enough to stake one. But some holy water should help. Before he could do more than scream, I shoved the pencil into his heart and he became dust.
I turned around --
And saw Logan standing there.
"What the hell?" he asked.
Well, great.