How I Survived My Summer Vacation

by Various

  The librarian nodded. “And finding it out was nearly as bad as the crime, because they realized that for decades many patients had been prematurely interred. Many were subjected to autopsies, obviously killed during the procedure by unknowing doctors. Others were veterans without families, buried without autopsies or the benefit of embalming. Their fate — waking within sealed coffins — was, perhaps, worse. These could be the soldiers we saw reanimated tonight, resurrected by the spell and grasping at the rest of lives they were wrongfully denied.”

  Angel made a strangled sound in his throat. “Buried alive? Too close to personal experience for me.”

  “Oh my,” Jenny said. Her expression was filled with sadness as they watched two more men, older, carry a fallen comrade into the shadows at the edge of the cemetery. “It’s yet another instance where the residents of Sunnydale manage to look the other way in the face of what really happened . . . in more ways than one. How sad.”

  “Well,” Giles said, “that does seem to be a habit with Americans.” He couldn’t keep the disdain out of his voice. “I always thought that’s probably what happened in 1776.”

  Angel cleared his throat. “Actually, I knew some people who were there and they said —”

  “Never mind,” Giles interrupted.

  “Rupert, don’t you want to know the truth?” Jenny asked sweetly.

  “Spare me,” Giles said, raising his chin. He’d never admit it, of course, but despite the unexpected excitement of the day, he still felt quite tall and proud in his military uniform. “A man needs to hold on to his fantasies.”

  “Really,” Angel said. His dark gaze cut from Giles to Jenny, and he smiled slightly, just before he faded into the darkness at the side of the school building and left the two of them standing there.

  “Maybe yours need to be updated. . . .”

  “Life . . . commandment . . . death . . . bloody . . . view . . .”

  “He’s talking gibberish,” Jenny said, cradling the man in her arms.

  “carnal . . . unnatural . . . slaughters . . . mistook . . . heads . . .”

  “I’m not surprised,” Giles said, “after witnessing this massacre.”

  “voice . . . wild . . . plots . . .”

  The man’s words made little sense to Jenny. But then, neither did the slaughter surrounding them. It seemed heartless to say that they found only four bodies in the Sixteenth-Century Hall of the Sunnydale Museum. But, after the scenes of horror arranged by the Master and the summer that they had already shared, only four bodies made for a minor murder scene. It was not the body count that was horrific. It was how the bodies were arranged. This was not some random vampire feeding, it was thought out and planned.

  “Can’t we do something for him?” Jenny asked, and wordlessly added Please.

  The man had been blinded by his attackers. He was left stumbling through the room, bleeding, unable to find the exit. Unable to do anything but scream the same few words that Jenny had heard, that had brought them into this section of the museum.

  They had been visiting the latest traveling exhibit at the museum, an Ancient Greek display of the artistic renderings of mythological figures. The event was being held during the museum’s Midnight Madness Summer Hours, which were a thinly veiled ploy to get in some more summer dollars. It didn’t seem to be working because only a handful of people showed up for the non-event. In retrospect, she thought, this was the one good point since it meant less people to stumble over.

  “There is little that we can do to ease the pain,” Giles said, wishing that he had another reply. “Surely others have heard the commotion and will be coming soon. We have to find out as much as we can before the scene is disturbed.”

  That line sounded as cold and callous as the thought of only four bodies. But it was those four bodies that they needed to focus on. They needed to know who they were and what the deaths signified to ensure that there would not be more. While Giles’s training prepared him for this sort of carnage, Jenny’s lifestyle was not one that included experiences in this category. When Jenny released the man from her arms, the volume died down to a strained whimper of despair. This was far worse than listening to the screams.

  “Where do we begin?” she asked.

  It was obviously the work of vampires as the bodies had been drained through the telltale two puncture wounds per neck. But it was like no vampire attack Giles had ever witnessed before. The bodies weren’t simply bled, they were arranged in some ritualistic fashion that Giles could not identify. One woman lay beside a chalice with the remnants of what appeared to be wine. Did she drink it, he wondered, or is it for show? After debating the best way to preserve the liquid so that it could be tested, Giles decided that he may as well just take the chalice. Technically it was illegal to remove evidence from a crime scene, but his type of investigation would surely come up with more accurate results than anything the police would be looking for. He would also be able to research the chalice itself. In general, a chalice had many meanings in ritualistic lore. Most of them were positive, but this was far from a positive scene.

  After covering the chalice with a handkerchief to keep the wine from spilling out, he switched his investigation to the three men in the middle of the room. Between them were two foils, the type of weapons used in fencing. While there were numerous references to ritualistic swords, Giles could not recall any mention of the use of foils in his studies. By its very nature, a foil was not a ceremonial weapon related to the magicks. It was a dueling device, used for sport or battle in only the most chivalrous of circles. Even more confusing was the fact that the three men had each been cut by the swords, but the little scratches were not deadly. The cause of death was obviously the draining by the vampires.

  Giles handed Jenny a pen and his copy of the museum’s brochure for lack of anything better to write on. He instructed her to take down the ravings of the madman. The words may have just been a reaction to what he had seen and not actually mean anything, but they would not rule that out until every possible angle had been reviewed. Of the words, he noted, most are in reference to death and carnage. It was the two that were not, “mistook” and “plots,” that intrigued him the most. What kind of mistake or plot could the man be referring too, if, in fact, he is referring to anything at all?

  While Jenny took her morbid dictation, Giles checked the bodies for identification. According to their licenses, three of the four victims had the same last name and address. Father, mother and adult son? he wondered. Jenny can run their names through her computer to see how they were related. The other body bore a different last name, which gave no indication of relationship whatsoever. After Jenny recorded the names for him, Giles attempted to go for the identification on the lone survivor, but he had grown fidgety and would not let the Watcher near him. As Giles tried to get closer to the man, he heard the echo of footsteps growing louder over the sounds of his whimpering.

  “We’d best be going,” Giles said. “Lest we be delayed by the police for interviews.”

  Jenny could not help but take one last look at the man in agony. She did not want to leave him to the Sunnydale authorities, but knew that she could do more good for the other residents of Sunnydale if she did.

  Giles, however, could not bring himself to look at the man again. He knew that he would not be able to sleep for days. And it was not just because of the researching he had ahead of him.

  The next afternoon, Giles was still in the Sunnydale High School library. He had sent Jenny home a few hours earlier after apologizing for work getting in the way of the evening. Naturally, she had said that she understood and promised to come back and help after getting some rest. Giles hoped that he would have some information to tell her when she came back. It was beginning to look like he would have to bring in Angel to do the hunting while he and Jenny did the reading.

  One thing was working in the Watcher’s favor. He did not have to fear any interruptions from Willow and Xander. The pair had gotten temporary j
obs on the backstage crew of the Shakespeare Players, a traveling theater troupe that went from town to town over the course of the summer performing various Shakespearean plays. In every town, they would fill out their cast and crew of mostly college-age students with local teens and have an intense two-week rehearsal period culminating in three nightly performances of the chosen play. The jobs made Giles’s life easier as he had two weeks in which he did not have to worry about the summer of slayage encroaching on Willow and Xander’s lives. In addition to barely seeing Willow, Giles was happily aware of the fact that he had not seen Xander at all during the time. It’s not that he didn’t like Xander, but it was much easier to do his Watcherly duties without the young man around.

  Noting the time, Giles picked up the chalice and left the library with it. He had waited for the summer-school students and teachers to clear out before moving to this next stage of research. While he did have a ready-made explanation if anyone asked what he, the librarian, would be doing at the school in the middle of summer, he didn’t have any good lies prepared to explain what he was about to do. Naturally, this was the point when he turned a corner and ran right into the one person he did not want to see.

  “Principal Snyder!”

  “Let’s cut the chit-chat. What are you doing here?”

  “Restocking the library,” Giles responded with his prepared answer while deftly hiding the chalice behind his back. The chalice itself was not the concern, but the remaining wine would lead to too many difficult questions, and possible suspension from his job.

  “Oh, yes,” the surly principal said. “I still don’t understand how that earthquake managed to destroy the library and not touch the rest of the school.”

  That was the weak cover story he and Buffy had concocted to explain the destruction resulting from the opening of the Hellmouth. With the exception of this one mention, it was a sufficient explanation for a town where most odd occurrences were overlooked.

  “It was strange, wasn’t it?” the Watcher replied.

  “No more strange than anything else that happens in this school,” the principal said, looking as agitated as he usually did. “I promise you, next semester things will be different.”

  “Under your guidance, I’m sure that they will be.” Giles did his best kissing-up in the hopes that it would end the conversation.

  “Lock up before you leave,” Snyder complied with the Watcher’s silent wish. “I don’t want any more vandals getting into the school. We’ve had enough of that this year.”

  As he watched Snyder continue on his merry little way, Giles brought the chalice from behind him, careful not to spill the remains of the wine. He still had the handkerchief covering the top. It had soaked up some of the wine, but there was still enough in the chalice for the tests he needed to run.

  In the science lab, he put the chalice down on one of the lab tables before going through the chemical closet. Naturally, the closet had been locked, but that was of little concern due to the fact that earlier in the year he had made a duplicate of the school master key. As the librarian, there was no reason for him to have a copy of the key, but in his role of Watcher, it was quite helpful. Once he found the jar holding the right chemical, he returned to the table.

  From the shelves before him, Giles took an eyedropper and the glass slide from a microscope. He placed the slide on the table and used the dropper to extract a small amount of the wine.

  Now let’s see if my suspicions are correct.

  Placing a drop of wine on the slide, he repeated the action with the chemical he had taken from the closet. The result was instantaneous and as he had expected. The mixture began to bubble. The wine had been poisoned.

  His satisfaction from the findings was short-lived. He now had new questions to add to his growing list pertaining to this mystery.

  Why would vampires use poison on their victims and then drain their blood? Wouldn’t the blood be tainted?

  Angel was pondering that same thought hours later as he patrolled the cemetery. Since Giles had clued him in on the events of the previous night, Angel offered to fill in for the vacationing Slayer and go on patrol so that Giles and Jenny could continue researching. Nothing the Watcher had told him made any sense, and he had many years of experience in the area of death.

  A commotion brought him out of his thoughts, but by the time he reached the area of the cemetery from where the noises had come, they were replaced by an unsettling silence. Commotion was easy to handle, but silence required additional stealth. Carefully, Angel crept up to a clearing to watch from behind some bushes.

  What he saw raised even more questions in his mind. Twelve dead bodies along with five undead ones. He arrived just in time to watch the last body fall from the lips of one of the vampires. It was too late for Angel to save anyone. Since taking on five unknown vampires alone was too much of a risk, Angel remained where he was and continued to watch as the scene played itself out.

  The five vampires, all dressed in black, moved to a pile of metal folding chairs. One by one, they opened the chairs and placed each on top of a gravesite in three rows of four chairs each. Then they propped each of the bodies on the chairs. They seemed to be taking special care with one of the victims. The body of a woman was posed in a variety of positions before they decided that having her with head tilted down was the best. The vampires then took a moment to admire their handiwork before leaving.

  Things have just gotten stranger.

  Once Angel felt it was safe to proceed, he came out from his hiding spot to examine the scene. He started with the body of the girl since she had received the most attention from the vampires. Upon closer examination, he found nothing out of the ordinary about her. Two bite marks appeared on her neck, but she was otherwise untouched. He did notice that she was atop the gravesite of a woman named Emily. Just to make sure that the genders being the same was not a coincidence, Angel checked the rest of the bodies and found that each of them matched the gender of the person in the grave. The victims had been selected based on the layout of the graves.

  This is a new one to me.

  As Angel was examining the last headstone, he noticed a clipboard lying on the ground behind it. He picked it up and found the layout of the graves, each with a name written on the gravesites. With the exception of Emily, none of the graves matched the names on the sheet. Angel was trying to figure out this latest clue when a fist slammed into the back of his head, knocking him down and the clipboard out of his hand.

  “I believe that is mine,” the voice that owned the fist said.

  When Angel looked up to the speaker, it was with his vampire face in full bloom.

  The other vampire was roughly Angel’s height but with a more gangly build. His dyed black hair was in stark contrast to his pale face.

  “Well, this is certainly an interesting development,” the vampire said.

  “Not as interesting as what you’ve been up to,” Angel said as he launched himself up at the vampire, knocking him over one of the bodies. One dead and two undead fell to the ground.

  The vampire pushed Angel off him and jumped to his feet. Likewise, Angel ended his roll standing up.

  The vampire threw a fist, which Angel blocked with his arm. Shifting from defense to offense, Angel grabbed the vampire’s fist and used it to flip the vampire end over end.

  As before, the vampire used his balance to land on his feet.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” the vampire said. “But shouldn’t we be on the same side?”

  “You mean the maniacs-who-like-to-play-with-the-dead side?” Angel slammed his fist into the vampire’s head. “I don’t play that g —”

  Swinging around, the vampire slammed his foot into Angel’s chest, knocking him back ten feet and into Emily’s lap. The metal chair buckled from the impact.

  The vampire snatched up his clipboard and fled.

  The following afternoon, Giles was back at the research table after having gone home to get some rest in a proper b
ed and to change clothes. In his mind he went over the facts of the latest plague to Sunnydale, incorporating the details Angel had supplied from the previous night. Generally, vampire behavior was simple to follow. They would attack, eat, and kill. There was usually little variation on that theme, unless they were siring new vampires. Very rarely did they use sketched-out attacks with predetermined results unless there was some greater plan. It was that greater plan that Giles feared.

  Until the Watcher could figure out that plan, there were plenty of contradictory clues to keep his mind occupied. The man left sightless on the first night was obviously meant to bear witness to the act, but they left none of the victims alive on the night of the second attack. On the first night, three of the bodies had been cut by swords before dying. Last night there were no visible signs of attack besides the puncture wounds on their necks. Then there were the foils, which paled in comparison to the metal chairs that Giles was sure were never used in any ritual in history.

  It was two hours to sunset, and he could feel the time running out. The minutes grew even more precious because he had promised Willow that he would come to the final performance of the play that evening. While he knew that she would understand that he had to back out due to Watcher duties, he had no intention of telling her what really was going on if he could help it. He had hardly seen her in the past two weeks but knew that she was enjoying herself at the theater. There was no way that he intended to spoil it by introducing demons to her summer.

  As if on cue, the library doors swung open on Willow’s entrance.

  “I knew we’d find you here,” she said as she came in with a young woman whom Giles did not recognize.

  “Sad but true.” He closed the book he was reading, lest Willow think that there was researching to be done. “I was just trying to catch up —”

  “Oh, you don’t have to explain,” the unidentified young woman said. “Willow told me all about everything.”

  “She did?” He performed the appropriate raising of the eyebrow, wondering what exactly Willow had told this stranger.