"Mitch looked pretty bad." Xander heard Cordelia tell Harmony as he was trying to figure out if he could hear like he had when he'd been Hyena King.
"Will he be alright?"
"He was knocked unconscious with a baseball bat, Harmony. It'll be awhile until they let him go home."
"I guess that means he won't be able to take you to the dance tonight."
"No, but that's okay, he needs time to recover and I'll still shine, my dress is finished and I'll - Harmony!" Cordelia yelped as Harmony fell backwards down the steps from the second story landing and rolled down the steps. Xander was moving even as she yelped and racing towards her, he scrambled down the steps, Cordelia hurrying after him as others gathered around the fallen girl.
"Ow! Oh, my ankle! I think it's broken!" Harmony gripped the rapidly swelling ankle and Xander had to agree, it probably was.
"What happened, Harmony? You were just standing there and then you fell."
"I was pushed!" She insisted. "I felt someone push me!" Xander jerked his head and looked up toward the top of the steps. Someone was laughing. And he could hear them.
"Let's get you to the nurse's office, Harmony." Xander may have thought Harmony a mean bitch at the best of times, but he'd never just walk away from even her when she clearly needed help. He slid his arm under her knees and his other behind her back and stood up and started carrying her toward the nurse's office. He didn't notice the students or teachers that were around staring strangely at him.
"Mr. Harris, may I speak with you for a moment?" Rupert Giles asked him as he exited the nurse's office after getting Harmony settled and Cordelia, who'd followed them, had decided to stay with her until arrangements could be made to take her to the hospital.
"Only if you never call me that again." Xander muttered. "Something I can do for you, Mr. Giles?" Xander wasn't sure why he felt antagonistic toward the Librarian, because his feelings toward the man predated Mr. Giles' attitude toward Faith, which was making Xander even more antagonist towards him.
"Miss Lehaine's refusal to do her duty and insistance that you and Mr. McNally are doing most of the investigating in this matter means I must speak with you regarding this recent incident."
"Mr. Giles," Xander said, his annoyance now ready to boil out. "Faith is not in any condition to 'do her duty', a duty, by the way, that is also my duty, as I've agreed to training as a hunter. The difference, Mr. Giles, is I'm a recruit, she's a draftee. And whether you like it or not she has the right to refuse this so-called duty, especially when she has good reason to."
"It's selfish." Mr. Giles disagreed.
"It's none of your business. Keep your opinion to yourself." Xander snarled, ready to battle on Faith's behalf, not that she couldn't verbally smack the Librarian down herself.
"Very well." He answered stiffly. "Back to the matter at hand, Ms. Kendall appears to be the latest victim of the ghost?"
"Is ghost the only theory you have?"
"No, Magic is a possibility, such as telekinesis. My research did turn up a couple different demons that could be at fault, a gnarl for instance, is out of phase with us, but does interact with us. It eats skin though."
"Gross and there's no evidence of anything like that. I heard a girl laughing, up at the top of the steps just before I picked up Harmony and Mitch reported hearing a girl giggling just before he got hit with the bat. So, my thinking is, it's a girl."
"Yes, quite." Mr. Giles said dryly.
"So, either she's a ghost or she's magically invisible. If she's a ghost we help her figure out how to move on and if it's Magic that made her invisible, we figure out how to make her visible again."
"Either way, you'll have to find her first." Mr. Giles pointed out.
"Either way, she's roaming the school, which means I need to search the school to find some evidence of her and I'll have Jesse check into putting together a list of recent dead or missing people. If she's a ghost we have no idea how long she might have been dead, but it's a place to start. Excuse me, I need to start looking. In the meantime, if you could call the college and ask Diana to come help with detecting any Magic, that would help too."
"I'll do that." Mr. Giles agreed and hurried off to the security of his Library as Xander went to find Jesse and then began searching the school, practicing listening and wondering if he really was hearing better then before being Hyena King. He hadn't found anything yet when he heard a scream, from a voice he recognized. "Cordelia!" He broke into a run, racing toward the classroom the scream had come from and pushed the door open.
"Mrs. Miller was being smothered!" Cordelia exclaimed. "There was a plastic bag over her head and she was trying to pull it off."
"Mrs. Miller, maybe we should get you to the nurse's office." Xander suggested, helping the teacher up, glancing at the chalkboard as he passed it. The chalkboard had another message on it. Listen. The nurse's office was seeing a lot of business today. And somehow it was all connected to Cordelia. Her boyfriend, her friend and here she was finding a teacher under attack and another message.
First Look, now Listen.
Look at what and listen to what? And who was supposed to be doing the looking and listening? Cordelia?
Or did someone want people looking at Cordelia? That one didn't really make sense because everyone saw Cordelia, right? She was the Queen of the school, after all.