Chapter 325
On Friday March 8th Buffy played her first game as pitcher for the Sunnydale Razorbacks. Giles let Buffy have her fun, for now. But he and Jenny researched what Pete and Debbie might've been involved in. Giles learned that their hideout was next to a floral store, yet the plants from this store were dying unexpectedly. Giles found a reference to the harbringers which said "For they are the harbringers of death. Nothing shall grow above or beneath." Jenny remembered that the ones who attacked Snyder had their eyes ripped out. Giles realized the connection, and was more terrified than he had ever been before.
Giles: For several months now potential slayers have been murdered by eyeless, hooded men.
Jenny: They're the harbringers of death, aren't they?
Giles: So it would seem. They claim there are as many bringers as there are grains of sand on the ocean floor. For our sake, I hope they exxagerate. But there's no question that we are greatly outnumbered. It would seem that Deborah and Peter were training other potential bringers.
Jenny: But they can be killed right?
Giles: Yes. Some potential slayers won their battles. A girl in India, Sumitra, survived. But the bringers butchered her entire family.
Jenny: Why are they doing this?
Giles: I fear it is at the behest of their master, the first evil. The first is the embodiment of all evil, beyond sin, beyond death. It was here long before the creation of the universe and will be here long after the universe is gone. Some believe it was the first being to have existed, ever. I thought it was merely a myth, or maybe I just hoped it was. The good news is that the First is not a physical being like Illyria or the Master vampire. It can't fight us directly, but the we can't destroy it. I don't know exactly what the First wants. It can be patient, it certainly has enough time. A being that powerful, that basic, that immortal. I'm not sure we can defeat it.