"Are the handcuffs really necessary?" the vampire asked, still confused at the situation it found itself in but willing to go along with it for the promise of a quick death from *shudder* the insane human beside him.
"It makes them feel better and you get to snap them dramatically, showing off your strength before sharing some of your amusing stories with a room full of cops who can't do anything to you," Xander told him.
The vampire perked up at that. Sure, he was going to die soon, but he'd get to scare an entire room full of bloodbags, brag a little, and go out on his feet.
Xander set a stool out for the vampire to sit on, so it would be slightly off balance and never in his blind spot while the rows of seats were filled up by uniformed police officers and detectives. He heard a high pitched whine for a brief moment and his eyes caught the red LED near the ceiling marking the camera filming the lecture being turned on.
Detective McKay stepped out in front of the two and the vampire tensed.
"Relax," Xander ordered.
"I know... but he's right there," the vamp complained, licking his lips.
"And when I'm done with the lecture none of them will ever turn their back on a vampire again," Xander assured him.
"Thanks," the vampire said, reigning in his instincts for the moment.
"Everyone, settle down and get ready to take a load of notes," Detective McKay ordered, "we have an expert in vampire detection and elimination who has agreed to speak with us today." He turned and took a seat in the front row.
"Why do you have a blood covered teen, handcuffed on the stage?" someone called out.
"Because he's not a teen and none of the blood is his," Xander replied. "Introduce yourself," he ordered the vamp.
The vampire grinned, showing off his fangs. "My name is Simon Weiss and I'm a vampire."
"Hello Simon," came the reflexive reply from over half a dozen places in the auditorium making a number of the higher up's groan.
"Tell them about yourself, your lineage, when you were turned, your hobbies," Xander said, deciding to ignore the fact that a number of officers were recovering alcoholics or at least attended AA.
"I was turned over a decade ago, I'm of the line of Aurelius, and directly from William the Bloody of the Scourge of Europe," Simon said proudly. "Hobbies... Well, I like a good hand of kitten poker like any other demon, I play the saxophone, and I enjoy torturing and raping young girls with curly black hair who remind me of my sister."
You could have heard a pin drop as all the eyes in the house focused on him.
Simon inhaled deeply through his nose. "Oh, there's the hatred and anger."
"Simon is a blood demon commonly called a vampire," Xander said. "No morals, no pity, no remorse, no mercy."
Simon actually blushed as if he'd just been complimented, the fresh blood in his system allowing him to ape humanity a bit closer than was usually possible.
"Those handcuffs he's wearing are standard police issue," Xander said. "Simon, break them."
The vampire stood up, held his hands up in front of him for everyone to see before bringing out his game face and snapping the handcuffs like they were made of plastic. "And there's the fear," he growled out, nearly all of the audience reaching for their guns.
"Would anyone like to shoot Simon in the chest so he can demonstrate how little he cares?" Xander asked.
Simon chuckled. "I swear the writer on that one Eddie Murphy movie must have known about us, because it's true, they only itch a little."
"I'd prefer not to have firearms discharged inside the building," Detective McKay said reluctantly, slowly removing his hand from inside his jacket.
"Pity, it's a good visual lesson," Xander said. "I promised Simon a quick death for assisting in my lecture, so I won't be demonstrating the effects of holy water, crosses, or open flame on him."
"And I appreciate it," Simon said, quickly sitting back down.
"Simon, thanks to age and lineage, is, I'd estimate, about four times as strong and as fast as a normal human, which would grow in time as he reached Master level," Xander said. "He can see in the dark, has enhanced senses of smell and hearing. He doesn't need to breathe or eat, only needing blood to survive and regenerate from what would be fatal wounds on anyone else."
Simon beamed like a proud student.
"Any mental gifts?" Xander asked. "You're a bit young to develop them, but you are of the Aurelius line."
"Nah, I can kinda charm young girls to follow me to places they really shouldn't go, but I don't think it's a mental power," Simon replied with a shrug.
Xander nodded. "You are young yourself. Now, tell us about your family and what you did to them."
What followed was ten minutes of some of the most horrifying crimes the audience had ever heard, several having to leave the room.
"And then she just made squeaking noises whenever she saw me out of her remaining eye," Simon said with a laugh. "The fun had went out of it at that point since she was completely broken, so I used her one last time for sentimental reasons then drained her and snapped her neck." He turned to Xander. "Think that's why I got turned on by the sound of dogs playing with squeaky toys?"
"Wouldn't surprise me," Xander said, not at all surprised at what he'd heard.
Simon shifted on his stool as he eyed a female patrol officer with dark curly hair and as his eyes locked with hers, he began to get up.
"Sit!" Xander's voice snapped out and Simon shrank back down on the stool, shivering.
"Why are you so afraid of him?" someone asked, wondering what the monster knew that they didn't.
"Because I'm not an idiot," Simon said. "My line produced the Scourge of Europe who were responsible for about half the deaths that were attributed to the Black Death and they all talked about him. Well, not Darla as she ran into him and his friends and was dusted, but the others did."
"The Scourge of Europe... Are they still a threat?" Detective McKay asked.
"The Scourge of Europe was four Master level vampires most active a couple of centuries ago," Xander replied. "Darla is dust, Angelus is... Inactive. I'll tell you about him later, he's a special case."
"You all but called him a pussy... to his face!" Simon exclaimed. "I don't know how you walked away from that."
"Because he is in fact a pussy," Xander said.
"I've seen him tear apart people with his bare hands! And I'm not talking about bloodbags, I'm talking demons!" Simon said in disbelief.
Xander shrugged. "He threatened someone I cared for and I may have been a bit out of my mind with anger."
Simon just shuddered.
"The final two members were Drucilla and Spike," Xander said. "Drucilla has recovered from some serious injuries recently, but is still pretty insane and a seeress, so good luck trying to catch her. Spike-"
"William the Bloody," Simon said proudly, interrupting him to add what he knew. "He's called Spike because he likes to torture people to death with railroad spikes and he's claimed two Slayers!"
"Looks like a Billy Idol fan and claims Billy stole his look," Xander said, "he is insanely good at surviving things that should kill him. We had to make a deal with the two, getting them to turn on Angelus so we could prevent the world getting sucked into Hell."
"He captured you and your witch girlfriend, tortured you to make her cast a spell for him," Simon pointed out.
"That was earlier in the year," Xander said, "a month or so before Angelus tried to end the world. The pair fled Sunnydale."
"Yeah, but he had you for hours, worked you over good and rather than break you told him how you were going to fuck Dru and make him watch from the cuck chair. He kept having to leave to keep from killing you and when he returned, he'd find you making out with your girlfriend," the vampire said.
Xander shrugged. "We couldn't escape, we had to do something."
"And when he finally began to get through to you, you started asking what would happen if a vampire decided to feed on other vampires," Simon said, horrified. "He said even when you were delirious you were trying to figure out how many vampires you could drain in a night!"
"I don't remember that, but then I was pretty out of it," Xander admitted. "What can I say, I'm not a big fan of vampires."
"Yeah, I know," Simon said timidly.
"Let me write something on the board," Xander said, walking behind Simon who burst into ash as he passed, before the dark-haired young man wrote on the board 'VAMPIRES' in big letters, ignoring the shock and confusion of the audience.
"Did you just..." Detective McKay asked, voice trailing off.
"Yeah," Xander agreed. "He served his purpose, and I did promise him a quick death, not that you can kill a vampire as they are just corpses possessed by blood demons who are so weak they think they are the body they are wearing. Does anyone here think I shouldn't have staked him after hearing what he had to say?"
Silence fell on the room for a minute as no one wanted to say out loud that they would have killed Simon themselves after listening to him speak about his hobbies and history, even if he'd still been human.
"The soul, and they do exist, departs the body and the blood demon moves in," Xander said. "Vampires are not misunderstood souls, lonely figures of romance, or sparkly teen stalkers. They are demons who are so stupid they think they are the body they are possessing."
The audience seemed to relax as Xander continued his lecture, ignoring the pile of ash surrounding the stool as he explained how to identify and destroy vampires.
Ten minutes later as he was wrapping things up, someone asked, "What about Angelus? You said you'd explain about him."
"Deadboy," Xander said with a nod. "Angelus pissed off the Romani who ripped his soul out of the afterlife and stuffed it back in his corpse. He was a dick when he was alive and now he's an angsty dick as a vampire. He changed his name to Angel and hunts vampires to try and make up for all the death and destruction he caused as Angelus. I'm not allowed to stake him, and I suppose I should discourage you guys from staking him as well. He doesn't feed on humans and stakes vampires; those are his only two good qualities."
"How do we recognize him?" Detective McKay asked.
"Big forehead, tons of hair gel, wears all black, and lurks in the shadows moping," Xander said with a shrug. "Vampires don't show up on film and I can't draw to save my life so that's about the best I can do for a description. Call him Deadboy and see if he responds."
"This... has been very informative," Detective McKay said, "thank you for your time."
"It's no problem," Xander said, "anything that saves lives and dusts vamps is well worth doing."
After he left, one of the detectives in the back of the room asked, "Is he insane?"
"You saw the vampire dust," McKay answered.
"I didn't even see him stake him," the detective complained, "but that's not what I meant, I believe everything he said about vampires, I just mean... Is he sane?"
"He hunts demons and scares the shit out of them," McKay replied, "and apparently has been doing so since he was fifteen, I wouldn't call that sane."
"I'm just glad he's pointed it at vampires," the young woman who the vampire had leered at said.
"Amen to that," someone said.
The Watchtower
"How'd your training go?" Willow asked Oz as they sat down to eat dinner in the cafeteria.
"I bit my trainer," Oz replied.
"Oh no!"
"He's a werewolf," Oz told her.
"Oh... Um," Willow frowned. "Good then?"
"Turns out you can catch lycanthropy by biting werewolves," Oz told her.
"But you're already one?" she asked, confused.
"And now I'm a different one," he said with a shrug.
"Will that make your training easier?"
"Yes," Oz agreed.
"Okay, that's good then," Willow said with a smile.
They ate quietly for a minute.
"You have 'but' face," Willow noted. At his raised eyebrow, she explained, "It's when you want to say something but haven't yet."
"You guys didn't mention Xander and Cordelia to the heroes," Oz pointed out.
"Cordelia considers us all freaks and wouldn't have been involved if she didn't have to and in this case she didn't have to," Willow replied.
"And Xander?" Oz asked, knowing that despite his girlfriend's dislike of the formerly rich girl she did have a point.
"He's been planning his road trip since we were kids," Willow said wistfully, "and he didn't have any magical maladies requiring him to come with us to get fixed."
Oz nodded. "And not mentioning him to the heroes?"
"Opsec," Willow replied. "I'm not going to talk about him until he says it's okay."
"He has given us lectures on the subject," Oz admitted, feeling a bit better about things.
"He's probably having a blast hitting tourist traps all up and down the coast," Willow said with a grin. "If you didn't need to deal with your 'furry little monthly visitor' and I didn't have another dozen cleansing rituals to go through I'd probably have asked you if you wanted to do the same."
Oz's lips twitched at Willow's use of Xander's description of his Lycanthropy. "I lean more towards forests and weird museums, but I'd have agreed."
"Weird museums?"
"Berkeley has a museum dedicated to wingnuts," Oz replied.
"Really?" Willow asked, surprised. "That... I actually want to see that now."
"The station has a teleporter," Oz pointed out.
"It's a date," Willow said cheerfully.
Typing By: Abyssal Angel
Beta By: Abyssal Angel, Mist of Shadows, and Kyrin Fireheart
AN: How much of what Willow said was truth and how much was rationalization after the fact? Not even she knows.