Xander looked at his watch for maybe the third time in ten minutes. “Where could she be? You don’t think she got Vamperized, do you? Maybe on her way over—“
Willow cut him off. “Buffy’s not Vamperized. She’s just… late. That happens all the time… you know, Late Buffy, it’s like her nickname.”
Oz stroked Willow’s hair affectionately. “I don’t know, Will. I think with a gig like vampire slaying, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Well, no, we are being safe. We’re making up a nice, safe scenario for Buffy to be in. Maybe you’ll be the sorry ones when Buffy’s fine and you’ll feel guilty for thinking she wasn’t able to fight off vampires,” Willow argued.
Oz and Xander only stared at her.
“Okay, okay. But we can’t call her at home, her mom thinks she’s slaying whenever she comes to the Bronze anymore,” Willow remarked.
“Oh, hey, that’s right. Let’s call Giles, see if she checked in with him. Maybe there’s a new demon around that we get to research.” The hopefulness in Xander’s voice made Willow look at him curiously and just made Oz raise an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know, I need a life,” Xander said with a sigh. He sulked off in search for a payphone with Willow and Oz not far behind.
***
Angel left Buffy’s side reluctantly to help Giles with his research. It was the least he could do. Angel’s brooding was a constant side effect of his remorse on most occasions, but around Giles he just felt absolutely horrible. He wanted to apologize incredibly profusely, but at the same time he didn’t want to bring it up. Giles seemed to have put their differences aside for Buffy’s sake, and Angel didn’t want to surface them now. Also, he knew how little his apology would mean to Giles. An apology didn’t even begin to right his wrongs.
“I’m going to start on these volumes, and if you could make a dent in those over there. I have no idea what kind of demon we’re looking for, frankly, but the description you gave me sounds familiar… I think I’ve read about it somewhere very recently. These are all the books I’ve read in the past week.”
Angel looked with amazement at the stack of books in front of him and now in front of Giles. “And I thought I read a lot,” Angel said under his breath.
Angel had only just gone through the first few pages of the first book when the phone rang. Giles rushed to answer the phone and he and Angel both looked at Buffy instinctively to see if she’d awoken. Of course, she had not.
“Hello?” Giles said predictably.
“Hey, Giles. Have you heard from Buffy recently? She was supposed to meet us at the Bronze but never showed.”
“Xander, excellent. Buffy was attacked. Angel brought her over to my place where she’s still unconscious and we need help researching.”
“Attacked? When? By what?”
“We’re… not sure. That’s why the research is involved.”
“Well, shouldn’t we take her to the hospital?”
Giles sighed exasperatedly. “I’m hesitant to do that until we know there’s no supernatural side effect Buffy got when she was bitten.”
“BITTEN? So… she did get Vamperized?”
“…Vamperized? Xander, stop asking such tiresome questions. Can you come and help or not?”
“Yeah, sure. Hold on, I’ll see if I can get Will and Oz on board too.” Giles could hear Willow’s much more wan voice confirm her help the second Xander cover the receiver with his hand, and predictably, Oz followed suit. Xander returned with “We’ll be there in a clinch,” followed by a dial tone.
“Xander’s coming to help us,” Giles said to Angel. He couldn’t help but smile in amusement at the slight disgust on Angel’s face and added, “Willow and Oz are coming, too.” This made Angel relax a bit and return to work. After confirming that Buffy was still breathing, Giles did the same.
***
He could sense power. It smelled sweet. He turned around as much as he dared to avoid noise and followed the scent. After he was sure they were out of earshot, he shuffled his way out of the bushes and pursued the lovely, lovely person the smell was coming from. He climbed a tree and jumped his way through the oaks to follow the power scent. When he felt he was close enough, he prepared to lunge when he caught an entirely different scent, a terrible scent. He knew that if he could smell this kind of scent, then the source could most certainly smell him. He retreated through the trees as quietly as he knew how and slithered back beneath the ground. He must wait until the power source was alone. Then he could pursue her without the danger of the putrid source… the hound.
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