Vampires and Sentinels

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

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June 17, Cascade

Giles called Jim (well, technically, Xander and Willow, but it was Jim's phone) to let them know he'd succeeded in conn ... er, convincing ... Angel to come to Cascade.

"Do I even want to know what you told him to get him to come, Giles?" Xander wanted to know, trying very hard not to snicker. "Since we both know he'd refuse to come just for show and tell?"

"I may have hinted that the creatures that attacked you headed that way, and that if he wanted to prevent Buffy from going on a three-state rampage, he might wish to go with me to deal with them." Giles admitted. "Given the state of mind she was in when she learned of your disappearance, it was very easy to convince him it was the truth."

"Especially since it probably would be." Xander admitted. Buffy tended to get a wee bit on the grumpy side when he or Willow was threatened. Granted, she had tried to get them to stay on the sidelines a lot too, especially at first, but she finally got the hint that that wasn't going to happen, and had settled for beating the hell out of anything that messed with them.

"Quite. We shall be arriving tomorrow evening, and have already made reservations at a hotel." Giles then rattled off the relevant information.

"Cool. See you tomorrow night then, Giles." Xander said as he copied the information down. Then he handed the phone over to Willow, who said a quick goodbye, and then they hung up.

"Three state rampage?" Jim asked.

Xander grimaced. "Let's just say Buffy really doesn't like it when her friends get messed with and leave it at that, right?" Which, thank god, wasn't a lie. Fortunately, Jim seemed to be willing to let sleeping dogs lie, at least for the moment, and they went on with their day.

June 18, Cascade

The next evening, they all piled into Jim's truck (Xander was doing well enough that as long as they didn't get into a crash, a loose seatbelt wouldn't hurt him) and headed for the hotel Giles and Angel had decided to stay at. Xander grumbled mentally about Angel seeing him in a wheelchair, but the brutal facts were that he just wasn't up for a walk that long, and wouldn't be for a while. Oh well, he had the whole 'Angel as show and tell' thing to cheer him up.

Jim started feeling twitchy and grumpier than normal pretty much the minute they walked into the hotel, but couldn't for the life of him figure out why. The ride up the elevator just saw him getting worse, jaw clenching, shoulders tensing, one hand dangling down by his gun as he glared at the smooth metal doors. It got bad enough that Xander and Willow both were blatantly staring at him. Finally, Blair broke the uneasy silence.

"Jim?" Blair asked quietly.

Jim just shook his head, unable to articulate what was bothering him. Something was just ... off. Wrong. And as they piled out of the elevator on the floor Giles was waiting for them on, the tension and 'wrongness' just kept getting worse.

The hotel room door opened, exposing two men, one shorter and visibly older, the other tall and broad and dark-haired. Which observation was about as far as Jim got before instinct overtook reason. He let out a noise that was remarkably close to a pissed-vamp roar, grabbed Xander's wheelchair and shoved it (and Blair) behind him. Then he lunged straight at Angel, completely forgetting the gun he was packing in favor of an immediate attempt to kill something every instinct he adamantly insisted he didn't have saw as a threat.

Not that Angel was reacting any better. He vamped out and met Jim's attack, and for a minute there, Xander was terrified that Jim was going to get pounded into mush. Thanks be, Giles kept a level head. He pulled a stake from god-knows-where, grabbed Angel by the collar of his coat, and pressed the stake against Angel's back over his chest. Angel froze instantly, allowing Giles to forcibly haul him away from Jim.

That allowed Blair to get to Jim, and Jim grabbed him and hauled him well away from Angel, where the two had a hush-voiced conference. While Xander and Willow traded stunned looks, Blair and Jim had a hushed conference. After about five minutes, Jim managed to calm down.

Angel seemed to have got control of himself as well, and the two men shared wary, distrustful looks.

Giles looked both pissed and pained, finally warily releasing his hold on Angel, though he kept the stake in hand. "Perhaps we should get this over with, before we garner more attention than we want." He advised. "Can the two of you control yourselves in close quarters, or shall we remove ourselves to different environs?"

Jim took a deep breath. "I'm fine." He growled. The fact he'd put himself between Angel and Blair, Xander, and Willow, and was grinding his teeth sort of gave away the lie, but he at least seemed game to do this.

Angel didn't say a word, just scowled blackly and backed further into the room, allowing the rest of them to enter. Willow pushed Xander's chair in.

"Right." Xander said, in a falsely chipper tone. "Introductions. You already know Giles. The tall broody one is Angel, a vampire. Angel, this is Jim Ellison, and this is Blair Sandburg."

The two men were still engaged in a staring and intimidation contest. Xander was hard pressed to decide who was scarier at the moment. Both of them looked like they would be quite happy to commit a murder.

Blair seemed to be recovering from the surprise Jim and Angel's mutual attack had caused. And, consequently, going into geek overload. He was wide-eyed and starting to bounce on the balls of his feet. He took a deep breath, and a highly amused Xander braced himself for the onslaught.

"Why did your face change? How old are you? Who were you before you became a vampire? Who made you one? Do you have to sleep in a coffin? Does garlic bother you? What about holy water? Or crosses? How strong are you? How much blood do you have to drink? Xander and Willow said you don't eat people anymore, so do you raid bloodbanks or what?" Blair fired the questions off with nary a breath between them.

By the time he finally wound down, Xander was grateful he was sitting down, because otherwise he'dve fallen on his ass, he was laughing so hard. So was Willow. Even Giles and Jim looked amused. Angel just looked like someone had smacked him in the head with a mallet.

After a few moments of silence while Angel decided which of Blair's questions to answer and how, he finally spoke. "My face changed because of the demon. It's how vampires feed. I'm over two hundred years old. A vampire named Darla. No. Yes, but it's not lethal, just really painful. Yes, and it *is* lethal, if we get hit in the right spot, or with a lot of it. Yes, but again, it's not lethal, just painful. And I mostly drink pig blood. And before you ask, yes, vampires can live on nonhuman blood ... it's just not as good and doesn't last as long."

Far from having all his questions answered, Blair looked like he was about to launch another salvo when Jim, grinning tolerantly, clapped a hand over Blair's mouth. "Chief, how about we let them get a word in edgewise?"

Blair gave Jim a huffy look but finally nodded agreement, and Giles settled down to give Jim and Blair 'Demonology and Slayers 101'. Having heard it before, Xander mostly tuned out, grinning over at a highly amused Willow. It took the 'adults' about an hour to cover the absolute basics before Giles started asking questions of his own ... about Jim and his reaction to Angel. Which, of course, led to 'Sentinels and Guides 101'.

"I must say that I while I have read Sir Burton's works, I have never heard of the Sentinel mythos being corroborated." Giles said. "Though that could simply stem from having not taken a great interest in the subject at the time it was introduced to me." He'd been far, far more interested in the minutiae of demons and slayers. Sentinels had been of no real interest to him. "Nor have I heard anything about anyone other than a Slayer protecting ancient peoples from demons, but I must say that your supposition seems to be correct, given Angel and Jim's response to one another." Giles eyed both men, who were still giving each other death glares.

It was, Giles was willing to admit, the sort of information the Council would not willingly divulge. He had never been much of a fan of the way Potentials and Slayers were raised and trained. Isolation was not the answer. Granted, a pair of untrained teens as backup wasn't the answer either, but Buffy was faring better thanks to their presence than she would have otherwise. She'd be dead if it wasn't for Xander ... he'd never have gotten there in time, after she knocked him out. The Council's insistence on isolation and a sole focus on duty to the detriment of all else would take quite a hit if Slayers were informed of the existence of people who could and would stand guard over humankind in their stead. Granted, from what Blair had said, a full Sentient had not been seen in well over a century ... at least, not one that civilized man knew about. It was entirely possible that Sentinels were still cropping up among the more remote, primitive tribes in places like Africa and South America. Since such tribes saw very little or nothing of 'white man', there was no way of knowing when or if they'd had a Sentinel among their numbers.

For the sake of badly frayed tempers, it was decided to conduct further information exchanges over the phone, and the meeting was ended before either Angel or Jim gave in to the temptation to attack each other. Jim herded everyone out the door, then, still keeping a wary eye on Angel, followed them out. He didn't relax until he was out of the hotel.

Once back at the loft, Jim collapsed onto the couch and gave Xander a long look. "Blair told me you wanted to go back. Didn't quite believe him. But you do, don't you?"

Xander sighed. "I have to. I can't ... I can't walk away from this. Not now that I know. Not with people I know and care about in the line of fire." He motioned to Willow. "I ... I really do want to get to know you, because trust me, having a decent parent is not something I'm going to turn my nose up at ... but ... "

Jim wanted to argue, badly. But at the same time, if someone told him he'd have to give up watching out for 'his' city? Yeah, he'd be getting a good bit nastier about it than Xander was, so he could understand, even if he really, really didn't like it. He sighed. "If you're going back, you're not going back until you're a hundred percent ... and I'm going to be teaching you a thing or three before you go. Like hell I'm letting you go back there not knowing how to defend yourself." And maybe, just maybe, by the time Xander was back to one hundred percent and being taught self-defense moves, he might just decide to stay in Cascade for a while. Jim could hope.

"Fair enough. I'm nothing but an easy victim at the moment anyway." Xander said.

"And you for damn sure aren't going back to Jessica. We'll find an apartment for you to rent or something." Jim said, leveling a finger at Xander.

Xander was more than a little ok with that idea ... not having to be in the same house as Tony was always of the good, and given recent events, he sincerely doubted his mother would welcome him home with open arms. "Works for me." He agreed.

June 18, Colorado Springs

The first Jon knew of anything being wrong was when he made the mistake of opening his front door to go get his mail. The sudden flood of sunlight after several days of having the curtains closed and no lights on brought him to his knees, eyes clamped closed and one arm thrown across his face to shield his eyes further. It was all he could do to keep from crying out in surprise and pain. Somehow, he managed to scoot back and slam the door, then collapsed against it, waiting for the throbbing agony to ease. It was a good five minutes before he could think straight.

What the hell? Yeah, he'd been in fairly dark surroundings for a couple days, and yeah, walking out into bright sunlight was always going to twinge a bit, but not like that! He rubbed at his temples, attempting to ward off the massive headache he could feel headed his way, then scratched at his arm. He'd gotten bitten by a bug or something yesterday, since his arm'd been itching almost constantly since then.

He put the itch out of his mind and tried to figure out what the hell his deal with light was. That was not normal, not by any stretch. Still, he was hesitant to call his older half. Not only did the problem sound stupid as hell, but the older half would think he was just whining. Jon thumped his head against the door lightly, and now that he wasn't being dazzled, got to his feet in search of some Tylenol. He'd need it for the headache.

June 18, Cascade

That night, Xander dreamed of the hyena again.

He was jogging tirelessly across the savannah, ignoring the myriad of prey species all around him. Then, without warning, a soft sound reached the hyena's ears, a sound of pain. Furry ears flicked forward, and the hyena altered course and sped up, anticipation beginning to hum through its frame. The waiting was almost over. Soon now ... very soon.