"Y'know, usually people run away from vampires. I think we're the only ones who actually run toward them," Willow remarked, fighting her way through the dense brush.
"I don't want to let him get away," Buffy replied, "and I think I saw him run over here--" Buffy's words were abruptly cut off as she entered a small clearing.
"Buffy? What is it? Are you ok--" Willow caught up to her friend, and saw what had silenced her. The forest clearing wasn't large, maybe 15 feet across. A makeshift altar dominated the center of the clearing, and on the altar was the body of a man. A rather unfortunate man.
Buffy advanced to the altar, cautiously. Her slayer senses weren't tingling, which usually meant that whatever did this was long gone, but she didn't survive this long by taking unnecessary risks. She reached the altar, and checked the dead man's pulse. Not surprisingly, there wasn't one.
"What do you think caused it?" Willow asked, drawing up beside the Slayer.
"Offhand, I'd say that he was strangled," Buffy responded, quietly. "Either that, or the braided rope choker his girlfriend gave him for Christmas was way too tight." She pointed at the obvious cause of death: a slim, waxed cord tied tight around the man's neck. "Strange, though..."
"Strange? I'll say it's strange," Willow swallowed, nervously.
"No, it's strange that he didn't put up a struggle." Buffy examined the scene carefully.
"Well, maybe it happened too fast. Maybe it was like, bam!, he was choked to death."
"I'd believe that if he were slashed to death, or stabbed, or something. But strangulation usually takes a little while," Buffy replied, frowning. "C'mon, we'd better go tell Giles."
As the girls left the clearing, a shadow detached itself from the other shadows at the edge of the clearing, and followed them.
"Well, he was dead--" "Strangled--" "It was some kind of cord, or rope--" "And he was on this altar--" "Yeah, altar, and he didn't struggle or anything--" "No, no struggle--"
"All right," Giles held up his hand, and the two girls stopped. "It sounds to me like a ritual sacrifice of some sort, although the fact that he didn't struggle hints towards some type of mind control. Did you notice anything else about the scene?"
The girls thought for a moment, then shook their heads. "All right then," Giles continued, "I don't think there's anything else we can accomplish tonight. I do think we should meet in the morning, however."
Buffy nodded. "I'll call Xander and tell him to meet us. I'll have him bring Spike, maybe he'll prove useful."
Giles agreed. "Yes, well, goodnight ladies. See you tomorrow."
Buffy and Willow headed home in companionable silence. The girls had been best friends for over three years, from when Buffy and her mother first moved to Sunnydale. Buffy was a typical teenage girl; she liked fashion, makeup, boys, and music. She was also the Slayer, which was completely atypical. She had lost many friends because of the secret she had to keep.
Willow was completely the opposite. She was a brain and a computer geek, which meant that she occupied a level of social strata in high school which was below that of even goths and skateboarders. Her fondest wish in high school was to be ignored, but she never got that wish. The popular girls would see her and make cruel jokes about her clothes, or the fact that she never went on dates. The popular boys would see her and sneer, or make crude jokes at her expense. And then she found out the truth about the Slayer.
Buffy was glad to finally have a friend who knew the truth, someone she could talk to and not hide things from; Willow was glad just to have a friend, period. She had known Xander for a long time, but having a guy friend, especially a perpetually-distracted-by-the-oppposite-sex guy friend, just wasn't the same.
Spike gave her a disgusted look, and said in his best sarcastic voice, "Oh, yummy. Finally, something to dunk in my mug of warm blood." Spike was a vampire, but he had been "defanged" by some experiment of a secret organization known only as the Initiative. Not literally defanged, but whenever he tried to take a victim, he would get massive pain shooting through his skull, rendering him incapable of killing. Needless to say, it added to his already cheery disposition.
Giles wandered in from the back room, as usual with a book in his hand. "Ah, good, you're both here. I've been doing a fair amount of reading on ritual sacrifice, but unfortunately it's a very broad topic."
"Can we skip the boring stuff and get right to the virgins?" Xander quipped, around a mouthful of doughnut. Buffy shot him a look.
"Well, actually," Giles continued, "Most every culture and belief has, at one time, flirted with the idea of human sacrifice, some more than others. Of course, most people are fairly familiar with the Aztecs and Druids--"
"Oh, I know!" Willow broke in. "An ancient priest caste of the Celtic tribes, right?"
"Yes, Willow, that's correct." Willow smiled, delighted. Giles continued, "But other religions have based some beliefs and myths on human sacrifice. Christianity and Judaism, to name two of the most popular."
"So what do we have here, some sort of priest who is getting too literal with the 'this is my body, this is my blood' type of thing?" Spike drawled. It wasn't easy to drawl with an English accent, but Spike managed.
Giles glanced over at the vampire, "Well, no. At least, it's much too early to tell."
"Well, I wish I could say that we had more luck, but the news this morning didn't have a whole lot of details," Buffy added.
"Hey, I can crack into the police computers, to see if their investigation turned up anything," said Willow, excitedly. Giles nodded at her, and said, "That would be a good idea I think, you can set up over there." He nodded at a corner table.
Willow jumped up and started setting up her laptop. "Great, our resident hacker strikes again," Buffy grinned at her friend. Willow, in mock-indignant tones, replied, "A hacker is someone who writes code. A cracker is someone who breaks into computers." She grinned, and winked at Buffy before continuing, "It just so happens that I can do both."
"Well, I will continue my research while you do that, Willow," Giles said. "And Xander will watch the telly--"
"All right!" Xander jumped onto the couch, grabbing the remote as he did so.
"--local news only, please," Giles continued, unfazed. "We want to see if they have released any more information."
Buffy rose to her feet. "Well, there's no slayage to speak of yet, so I think if it's ok with you, I'm going to meet Riley. We have a lunch date."
A spasm of...anguish? pain? overtook Willow. It was gone almost as soon as it began, and no one caught it. No one, that is, except for Giles.
"All right Buffy, we'll let you know if we find anything." Giles smiled at the girl, but that look of Willow's troubled him. Was it something about Riley? Was Willow's wiccan intuition bothered? He would have to ask her later. There was something about the man he didn't quite trust. This whole business with the commando squad, and the secret organization called "The Initiative" that they served didn't sit well with the ex-Watcher. He was always something of a techno-phobe, preferring old, dusty books to net research, but there was something genuinely disturbing in the experiments the Initiative was allegedly conducting. Giles resolved to ask Willow about her unease at the first opportunity.
"...so I decided to get the Accord. Better gas mileage," Riley finished. "You ok, Buffy? You look..."
"No, I'm fine!" Buffy said, just a little too quickly. *Got to think of something to say...* "So, did you hear about that murder last night?" Oh, now that was romantic...Good one, Buffy.
"Yeah, I heard about it, but it's nothing we're getting involved in," Riley replied. "We'll leave that for the locals. Probably some kind of Satan-worshipping psycho, anyway."
"Ah, I see. You don't deal with Satan-worshipping psychos, only demons?"
"Only what? Subterrestrials, you mean?" Riley looked at the Slayer, quizzically.
"Why do you call them that?"
Riley shrugged. "I dunno, that's what they are. Subterrestrial animals."
Buffy nearly choked on her soda. "Animals? Oh, they are SO not animals."
"What would you call them, then?"
"They're demons. You know, otherworldly evil creatures. Subterranean animals...those are like moles, or...or gophers. When you're staring at a nine foot horned...thing... you know that it's not a gopher," Buffy concluded.
Riley looked at Buffy. Was that a patronizing look? "There are no such things as demons, or any of that hocus pocus stuff. Magic, demons, devils, it's all a cop out for things people don't want to deal with. They're animals, plain and simple."
"Well, some of them used to be human. How do you explain vampires?" Buffy challenged.
"A disease, transmitted through the bloodstream, that alters the victim's DNA."
"Werewolves?"
"A lunar-based psychosis that is so powerfully believed in that it can occasionally slightly alter someone's appearance. Mind over matter."
"Demons?"
"Just a different species of animal."
"Hellmouths?"
Riley shrugged. "It's just a crack in the earth. Nothing mystical about that."
Buffy sat back in her chair, bewildered. These past few years of her life had all been about demons, vampires, prophesies... She had seen magic first hand, and watched as her friend Willow slowly mastered her powers. And here was Riley, dismissing it as so much superstition?
Guess it goes to show... Buffy thought, Only a few people in this world really understand. Speaking of which... Buffy looked at her watch, and said, "Wow, I've got to go. I'm meeting up with some friends, and you've probably got some...commando stuff to do or something." She rose quickly from her chair in front of a bewildered Riley.
"Yeah, sure, ok, I'll call you," Riley rose, and watched as Buffy left. Sometimes, I don't know if I'll ever understand her...
Willow took a deep breath, and began. "Well, it looks like Buffy was right about the victim not struggling. The autopsy turned up no evidence of a struggle, no blood under the fingernails, nothing. Also, their toxicology report turned up no drugs or other medication."
"I see. Well, it does lend credence to our mind control theory."
"Yep. Also, look at this..." Willow pointed at a sketch she had made on the tablet. "This sign was found carved into the top of the altar...That's why we didn't notice it before, the police had to move the body to find it."
"Hmm, let me see..." Giles reached for the sketch, examining it closely. "It's very familiar. Could you fetch me the Piggott book, Willow? Oh, and Willow?" Giles stopped her, just as she was getting up to retrieve the book.
"Yes? What is it, Giles?"
"Well, I couldn't help noticing your reaction when Buffy mentioned meeting Riley."
"Oh." Willow dropped her head, slightly. She had hoped no one noticed, especially Giles.
"Well, I'd like to know if there is something about him that bothers you, something you're getting from your power. A Wiccan intuition, if you will."
Willow cleared her throat before answering. "No, nothing like that," she answered, weakly.
Giles seemed unconvinced. "Please, Willow, if there's anything that makes you uncomfortable about this man, I'd like to know what it is. It's possible you're sensing something the rest of us cannot."
"Well, it's not like that exactly..."
"Willow, please..."
"Ok! It's...it's not any bad, evil vibe or anything. I'm just...I'm just jealous, ok?" Willow dropped her head even further, her hair covering her face.
Giles nodded. "You're jealous of Buffy for having Riley. It will be alright, I'm sure you'll find--"
Willow let out a self-pitying laugh. "I'm not jealous of Buffy. I'm jealous of Riley."
"Oh, I see, well..." Giles did a mental double-take. "OH, I see...well." He wished he could say something comforting, but he was quite out of his element and unsure as to how to proceed. "Willow--"
"That's ok Giles," Willow cut him off. The sadness in her voice broke
his heart. "I've got some more research to do..." She rose, and went back
over to her laptop. Giles looked at her speculatively for a long moment,
and then left to retrieve another book.