"I got possessed yesterday." Xander informed the group that night, looking freaked out.
"How? When?" His mother demanded to know.
"At the zoo. I went to stop Kyle's group from hassling Lance and accidentally triggered a transpossession ritual that the zookeeper had set up."
"That's why you went straight to your room yesterday when you got home from the zoo and skipped supper." Jessica said.
"Yeah, you made vegetarian lasagna. The Hyena wasn't interested in that. It really had only three interests. Eat, sleep and mate."
"That's why you were acting the way you were at the Bronze last night. Sniffing girls. Ew." Said Cordelia.
"Yeah, the Hyena wanted a mate. After it had me eat a raw pig and take a nap, it decided that Buffy was strong enough to be its mate. While it was doing that, the others were eating Principal Flutie. Fortunately, she was strong enough to fight it off and knocked me out and locked me in the book cage in the library while they figured it out. But I was the Alpha, so the others broke me out. Buffy got us to chase her to the zoo. Turns out, the zookeeper was a Primal Mage, he wanted to be possessed on purpose."
"A Primal Mage? I've read about them. A number of different forms of worship of the animal state have evolved, both here among Native American tribes and in Africa, but mostly in South America." Jessica said. "But then there's a lot of demon worshipping down there too. All that human sacrificing. I take it, the Watcher managed to reverse it?"
"No, the zookeeper knocked him out and took all five spirits into himself. He attacked Willow and Buffy threw him into the hyena pit. Both she and Willow think I don't remember anything. Giles knows I remember, but is willing to keep it a secret. He knows I wasn't in control. But something else is bothering me. Neither Buffy nor Giles seems to be reacting at all normally to her having killed someone. This is the second time Buffy's killed someone. She killed Catherine Madison in self defense and the zookeeper to try to protect Willow. Regardless of the reason, shouldn't there be a freak out? They're both calm and aren't even talking about it. Trust me, if they were talking about it even in private, we'd know. Buffy airs everything they talk about to the group. Which kind of annoys Giles."
"Nothing at all?" Coral Maxwell, Aura's mother questioned. "I may not be a psychiatrist, but that bothers me too. When we had to kill a demon worshiper when we were teenagers to stop him from killing a young girl, we all got blind drunk. We got each other thru the nightmares and what ifs? I have no doubt, the kids that ate the Principal are having problems dealing with it. If Buffy and the Watcher are not talking about it, then they're not acknowledging it or dealing with it. One suppressing it is concerning, both of them, implies something else is the problem."
"What's that military expression, once is happenstance, twice coincidence, three times is enemy action?" Charles asked.
"You think someone's whammied them?" Madelyn asked.
"It's a possibility. But we'd need to examine them magically to know and neither of them would let us do it. They don't knows us." Jessica said. "And we can't reveal ourselves anyway. This is a concern, one we need to keep a close eye on. Anything else we should know about?"
"The vampire that was watching Buffy from the shadows the night of the Harvest made contact with her. Apparently the Master sent a group of vampires known as the Three to attack her." Xander said. "This vampire saved her from them. He told her his name is Angel and that the other vampires don't like him. He hunts vampires, says his family was killed by them. But she doesn't seem to realize he's also a vampire. She thinks he's just a guy trying to help her out and hunting vampires for revenge."
"He probably killed his family, himself. It's usually their first meal after waking up. Easy pickings. What's he up to?" Charles asked.
"And why can't she tell he's a vampire?"" Tony added.
"She couldn't tell Jesse was a vampire either, until he went into game face." Xander said. "She doesn't seem to be able to identify any vampire by sensing them. She uses visual cues instead."
"I've never heard of such a thing. Every thing we know about Slayers says, sensing vampires is very much apart of them. Could there be some kind of spell keeping her from noticing?" Charles asked Jessica.
"Possibly. There's any number of different ways someone could keep her from noticing. Forget spells. Or someone else's problem field spells. Again, without examining her directly, we can't know."
"And we can't forget that the vamp himself appears to have an agenda." Aura said. "He's clearly trying to get in good with her."
"How far does he think he can take that?" Tony asked. "Won't she just dust him when she figures out he is a vampire?"
"Maybe not." Cordelia said. "On the surface, he appears to be exactly her type, brooding and mysterious. And you know how vampires are portrayed in movies and books. Tragic romantic heros. He may be able to take it quite a ways even after she finds out."
"I hope she has better sense then that." Charles said. "But everything I've seen says she's an airhead valley girl, so I'm not holding my breathe on that. Something else to keep an eye on. Damn, Madelyn's right, we need a score card to keep track of everything."