Disclaimer: If you've seen it on TV, it don't belong to me. All characters but Ralph belong to Joss Whedon, or the WB, or whoever the heck they belong to.
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Part Two
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"... and I looked at the bite. It was glowing. Then I blacked out. A janitor jimmied the lock, woke me up, and let me out." Ralph had been stammering and stuttering so bad when he started that they had barely been able to understand him. But as he progressed, he had calmed somewhat, and was now intelligible. From the beginning, Giles had had a sinking feeling. This whole thing began on the night the Hellmouth had opened. He had already begun to fit pieces together. Then the boy said something that gave him pause. "It's getting worse. Look." He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt. A small bite mark could still be seen. However, what was really frightening was the fact that the skin around the wound had paled to a dull gray. "More skin is gray every time I look at it. And sometimes, I get hunches about people or things, and they're always right. They're getting stronger. But the really bad thing is the voice." He took a sip of the water Willow had gotten for him. "I can hear it inside my head. At first I couldn't, but it's getting louder. It tells me to do things... " He shivered. "Yesterday, Cordelia said something about me, and I almost... you saw what I did with the books, I almost-" He stopped, unable to go on. After a brief period of silence, he started to speak again. "That's why I came here. I thought there might be a book on demons that could cure me."
Xander spoke, sounding annoyed. "Is there a person in this town who DOESN'T have something mystical about them?"
Giles was worried. This sounded very much like a demonic possession. But he had never heard of one quite like this. Hmmm.... "Xander, Willow, would you make sure Ralph gets home all right?" They nodded. "Buffy, may I speak to you privately?" They walked into Giles' office.
"Okay Giles, what does he have, and how do we cure it?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I've never heard of anything exactly like this before. Of course, Mankind and creatures like the demon which manifested itself on the night the Master broke free haven't coexisted for millennia." He was silent for a moment. "I do have a theory."
Buffy watched him expectantly. "Spill."
"Well, as you may have noticed, he displays many characteristics of a possession. However, it was begun when he was bitten. I believe that when he was bitten, some of the demon's saliva may have entered his bloodstream. Now, I have already told you that vampires are a sort of crossbreed between humans and vampires."
Understanding dawned on Buffy. "It's the same as when someone is turned into a vampire!"
"Not exactly. For one thing, Ralph isn't dead. For another, He seems to have his soul intact. At least for the time being. However, you are close enough. I fear he may be becoming a demon."
"So let's just call the exorcist and get the demon out."
"Therein lies the real problem. There is no demon possessing him. There is a very good chance an exorcism would kill him. I am going to research, see if I can find anything like this. You should probably go hunting, considering that if tonight stays true to form, there should be quite a few vampires about tonight."
* * *
Ralph lay in bed and listened to the sound of insanity. A voice gibbered nonsensical sounds in the back of his mind. Except he could here messages in the nonsense. killripcuttearkillslash...
He had a sudden vision. His mind was like sand. He was trying to hold it, but it was sifting away, through his fingers. But it wasn't just going away. It was being replaced by something black, and disgusting. He could feel it, a darkness forming in his mind. Ralph closed his eyes and wept silently.
* * *
The vampires lounged around the room. The Master had once occupied this place, but now it was nothing more than a dining room. The vampires brought their victims back here to feed. There were a lot of victims. More and more vampires had begun to show up in Sunnydale. The Hellmouth was drawing them like flies to carrion. The door had been ajar when the Master was alive, but now, even though the door was closed, power was leaking out, in a greater amount than ever.
"Hello, corpses."
The vampires looked up in shock. They couldn't believe it. They had heard no approach, and now a form stood in the shadows in the corner of the room. They leapt to their feet.
"All right, you wastes of good bodies, I am now in charge around here." A grin split the interloper's face. "Anyone who disagrees may feel free to make their opposing views known." The attack was instantaneous. The vampires fell on him in a pack.
Thirty seconds and twelve dead vampires later, the rest retreating and wounded, he spoke again. "That was lesson one. If you are smart there won't have to be a lesson two." The grin formed again. "There won't be a lesson three."
* * *
That night at the library....
Buffy was tired. She had spent the better part of the night hunting. And, as an added bonus, she had never gotten to study for that math test. Damn. Her mom was going to go Defcon 4 when she saw that grade. She walked into the library. "So Giles, what have you got on Ralph?"
"Not anything useful. It appears that Mr. Johnson is a unique case."
Xander broke in. He sounded worried. "Don't we have more important things to worry about? Like the fact that he apparently fell of the edge of the Earth."
Buffy was confused. "What?"
Willow looked even more worried than Xander. Well, Buffy thought, the guy was sweet on her, that probably helps. She wondered what Xander would do if he knew about that. "Ralph wasn't in any of his classes today. His mom sais he left for school today, but he never came home. We're afraid something happened to him."
The library door swung open. "Something did." Buffy recognized the voice as Ralph's but that was the only way to tell who had just walked in. He had on a long coat with the collar turned up, there was a scarf around his face, he had a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, and he was wearing sunglasses. "You saw what I looked like yesterday. Well, let's just say it got a little worse, and I couldn't come in today." With this he pulled of the hat, scarf, and sunglasses. There was silence as everyone, even Xander, was shocked into speechlessness.
His entire face was a pale shade of gray. It had gained a leathery appearance, almost like a reptile. His mouth was practically dripping fangs. Bone white spikes protruded several inches from the sides of his chin, and horns were growing on the forehead above his eyes. His eyes were, in fact the only thing which looked the same.
He walked up to the table they were gathered around. "OK, I want some answers. One, why am I not shy anymore. If I had been talking to you three days ago, I couldn't have finished a sentence without saying um. Two, and this is the really important one, just what the hell is this town? You remember when I told you I get feelings about people sometimes? Well, now I can feel whenever there is something really different, or odd about someone. Do what I saw walk past my window last night?"
Buffy and Giles looked at each other. They had a feeling they knew what was coming.
"I saw a dead man walk down the sidewalk. I could sense it. The guy was a fucking walking corpse. Care to illuminate? Oh, and another thing. Now that I'm in the room with you, Buffy, I can tell that you aren't a normal person either. You aren't dead... it's almost like you're more alive. So, would someone care to tell me exactly what the hell is going on?"
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