Worlds Collide - Part VII

Something rustled again in the woods, and Xander thought he heard a pained groan again. Sure, he thought, I know this game. I’m not so easily fooled.

“I’m sorry,” a timid voice rose from just behind the tree line. “I fell.” A mousy girl of seventeen or eighteen emerged from behind a tree. The simple dress she wore seemed entirely out of place in Sunnydale and not quite loud enough to suit a vampire, but she was pale enough to pass.

Xander, quite sure of the vampire’s ruse at this point, stepped forward now with his fists raised awkwardly in front of his face. “You can’t fool me!” he said, his voice shaking a little.

The girl cowered.

“Xander, stop,” said Willow. “She’s not a vampire.”

Xander stopped where he was, his fists still raised, and he turned back toward Willow. “What do you mean? She’s all pale, and she’s certainly not from—“

There was a flash of shadow from the woods, and before anybody knew what was happening, Xander was pinned to the ground under a bristling vampire – one of the new arrivals. Xander’s face twisted in fear as he stared, paralyzed, into the vampire’s eyes.

“That’s a vampire!” Willow yelled, pointing helpfully.

The girl, on the other hand, didn’t move. She didn’t even react, apart from a mild look of awe on her face.

The vampire, snarling like a feral animal, looked into Xander’s eyes for a moment, then his face softened, and as soon as he had appeared, he was gone. He didn’t get up and leave, no; just like he appeared, he just… vanished.

Xander didn’t get up. A look of utter confusion joined the fear on his face, and he brushed his hands down and across his chest in a panic, like he was trying to rid himself of the memory of the beast on top of him. “What the… but he just… was that a… am I alive?”

“That was Edward. He can tell what you’re thinking,” said the girl. “He must not have seen a threat.”

“You know him?” Xander’s mouth gaped in disbelief. Then, a bit hurt, “What do you mean, he didn’t see a threat?” Then, disbelieving again, “He can read minds?”

“He’s not evil. Well, sort of. He doesn’t eat people, usually,” the girl explained. Then, she added, “He’s just eaten, anyway.”

“What’s going on?” Xander demanded. Willow helped him to his feet.

“Vampires. I was just on my way to—“ The almost surprised look of just having remembered something came to the girl’s face, and with that revealing bit of information, she stumbled back into the forest. By the time Xander decided to follow her, the sound of her crashing through the woods had faded.