Professor Gerhardt had been murdered the same night as the unveiling, her throat had been sliced from ear to ear in a violent attack. It was very gruesome to see, and no one had any idea why, all they knew was that whoever killed her was someone who was completely consumed by rage. Most people thought it was cultural activist that were angered by her lack of care, others thought it was a robbery. But the Scooby Gang thought it was more supernatural, no cultural activist would kill someone as violently as this.
Eris, Buffy and Willow had snuck into her office where she died to check it out, and hopefully find clues into what exactly caused her death. "You know I'll never get used to it," Buffy whispered as she shined a torch into the room, scanning various glass cases in the hopes of finding something that would connect to the murder, "one day she's at the friendship ceremony and the next day she's on the news."
"The coroner's office said she was missing an ear," Willow also shined a light but starting to look at some of the papers the Professor wrote as she spoke, "so I'm thinking maybe we're looking for a witch. There's some great spells that work much better with an ear in the mix."
"You need to stop reading so many books, Will" Eris spoke from her spot looking over all the shelfs, a little creeped out by the ginger witch's words but also morbidy curious.
"Or…or maybe an ear-harvesting demon that…it's like, building another demon completely out of ears," Willow's mind was running wild at all the possibilities and effectively taking her imagination away from the murder, "or…Oooh! Thought! We're just assuming some else cut off the ear. What if it was self-inflicted like Van Gogh?"
"So, she brutally stabbed herself, dumped the body and then cut off her own ear?" Buffy decided to play along with her friend, even if it was a little silly.
"No. She cut off her ear, then killed herself. Then dumped the body…I'm really off my game, aren't I?"
"A little, but the ear demon is accurate, there are a lot of demons that do that," Eris had walked over to Buffy who stared intently into one of the glass cases, it was filled with various native american weaponry and tools, each item was paired with a card that explained its use and carbon date, "whatchu found?"
"Something's missing from this case. Early 1800s Chumash knife. There's a picture," she pulled up a drawing of its likeness, showing how the blade was short but serrated on both sides to cause maximum damage, "it looks pretty darn scary. Poor Professor."
"So you think it was a robbery?" Eris asked as she looked around, making sure no one was around to catch them.
"I'm not sure, killing her was one thing but the ear suggests a motive."
"Like someone is angry?" Willow asked.
Buffy nodded, a grim expression settling on her face as she stared at the drawing, her mind running a mile a minute about why the professor was killed in such a gruesome way, "very angry if they are wanting to do that. We should go to Giles, though I need to do a Thanksgiving shop first."
"I thought I was gonna have to use Slayer moves on this one woman who was completely hoarding the pumpkin pie filling," Buffy and Eris had gone to Giles after their chaotic shop, managing to get everything they need. Both women hated the shops during thanksgiving and never wanted to go in there during this time again, hundreds of women rushing around and forcing their way through to get what they want. They saw one woman get shoved to the ground by and older women who wanted to grab the best looking squash, sometimes humans were scarier than vampires.
"I thought she was going to murder the woman with how much she wanted to get that pie filling," Eris grabbed some of the food from the bags and started to load it into Giles fridge.
The man in question was leaning again one of his counters, watching the two women scurrying about, "and speaking of murder, at some point, you are going to tell me about the murder of the Professor?"
"Oh, right. Uh, the knife was some sort of Indian artifact. Chumash, I think. That's all we got," Buffy replied as she put the bread away.
"Oh, Chumash Indians, they were indigenous to this whole area. That's interesting," Giles recollected his knowledge as best as he could about the history of the Chumash as he too began unloading the food, "then, of course, the, uh, the murder weapon might have just been a convenient choice."
"Uh-uh," Buffy disagreed, "there was a big ol' scissors lying right there. That knife was picked for a reason. Do you even own a turkey pan?"
"He's British Buff, he doesn't do Thanksgiving," Eris defended the older man, not wanting him to take on the brunt of her cousins stress. She had to deal with it during their shopping trip, the slayer would not stop complaining about everything small things and wishing death on the other shoppers who took what she wanted.
"Tell me again, why we're not doing this at your house?"
Buffy stared Giles down with as much intimidation as she could, which wasn't much when using it on the British male, "Giles, if you would like to get by in American society, then you are going to have to follow our traditions. You're the patriarch. You have to host the festivities, or its all meaningless."
"And this is in no way an elaborate scheme to stick me with the cleanup?"
The watcher had very easily caught on to Buffy's agenda, but not wanting to be told off and deal with Eris' laughter, she quickly changed the subject, "how about that ceremonial knife, huh? Pretty juicy piece of clueage, don't you think?"
"Yes, all right. I'll look into the Chumash connection, see if there's any ritual significance to the ear removal," the watcher said, deciding it was easier to let the Slayer do as she wished.
Finishing up the Thanksgiving precook, the girls quickly went out to grab a few things, missing Angel who had been watching them from the shadows.
"It's clear we're dealing with a spirit of some kind," Giles was standing in his, a grim look on his face as he helped Buffy prepare food. The Summers girls had returned to Giles' house the next day to explain to Giles and eventually the gang that Buffy had been attacked by a Native American hell bent of murdering her as brutally as he could the night prior, "It's very common for Indian spirits to change to animal form."
"Yeah, well it's plenty uncommon for me to freeze up during a fight. I mean, I had the guy, I was ready for the takedown and I stopped. And 'native American'."
"Sorry?"
"We don't say 'Indian'."
"But you said Indian artifact last night Buff."
"Shh Eris, I didn't refer to a person" the Slayer put a dish into the oven before returning to the conversation, "I like my evil like I like my men: evil, you know. Straight up, black hat, tired to the train tracks, soon my electro-ray will destroy Metropolis bad."
"Good Superman Reference."
"Thank you, I like it like that, not all mixed up with guilt and the destruction of an indigenous culture."
Giles turned around from his vegetable peeling to focus fully on the Slayer, "this, uh, spirit warrior, Hus, you called him, has killed innocent people."
Buffy, ever the escape artist of awkward topics, decided to ignore his comment in favour of the cooking, "okay, you know what, we need to boil those and then put them through the ricer."
"Uh, I don't think I have a ricer."
"You don't have a ricer? What do you mean? How could someone not have a ricer?"
"Wel, do you have one at home?"
"I don't know. What's a ricer?"
"We'll mash them with forks, much like the pilgrims must have."
"You could grate them with the cheese grater, works pretty similar," Eris chimed in as she grabbed the potato out of Giles' hand and looked for a grater in his cupboards.
"Thank you Eris, but did you both catch the part about the innocent people?"
"Yes, Okay? And I do wanna stop him," Buffy replied exasperatedly, "I'd just like to find a non-slayey way to do it."
"I'm sure we will Buff," the conversation was stopped by a knock at the door, most likely one of the Scooby Gang.
Opening up, it was Willow with a tone of books on the Chumash and some frozen pees that Buffy didn't really like. It was discovered that the Chumash had suffered many atrocities like imprisonment, forced labor, herded like animals into a mission full of bad European diseases. The few Chumash who tried to rebel were hanged and when groups were accused of stealing cattle, they were killed. Men, women and children alike. And for the proof they brought back to their accusers, they had their ears cut off instead.
It was a horrible history but sadly, Giles and Willow were different sides of the coin. Willow wanted to help him bring the atrocities to light, whilst Giles only wanted to focus on making sure this spirit was back into the ground. Buffy was super stressed and ignored the verbal battle and Eris just stood there like a deer in headlights, not exactly a great start to Thanksgiving.
Luckily, they were saved by the door knocking once again, though this moment of relief didn't last long, "Happy Thanksgiving," Xander was standing in front of them with Anya struggling to hold him up. He looked incredibly sick, his skin was pale and clammy, almost taking on a green colour, and there was so much sweat pouring from his skin that his hair had become almost as wet as if he had just stepped out of the shower.
The others eyes had widened in concern as they took in his appearance, all giving various different responses, "you look like death."
"Are you ok?"
"Are you contagious?"
"You didn't bring rolls?"