Worlds Collide - Part VIII

Giles sat in a chair at his desk, tapping an open book with his fingers. Books surrounded him – they were stacked two or three deep on his desk, all open to about the middle, and he had a stack next to him on the floor. The coffee table had half a dozen volumes spread open on it where Willow and Xander and Buffy had been researching. Giles, though, wasn’t looking any of the books. He was watching the door.

These new vampires appeared about a week ago, but Giles hadn’t figured out where they came from. He also didn’t know for sure if they were actually vampires – from what he could tell (by Spike’s account, mostly), they were significantly more powerful than the vampires he knew. There was something in their eyes, too, some red inner fire. Rumor also had it they were immune to sunlight and holy water. Immune. This, alone, had Giles thinking they were some creature other than the true vampire. A hybrid, perhaps? He could find nothing in the texts about actual vampires immune to sunlight apart from a few passages alluding to stories from the sixteenth century, and those were unreliable, at best.

On top of their strange physical characteristics, their behavior was also extraordinary. They hunted in very specific areas – normal enough – but instead of killing primarily to feed, it appeared these newcomers were hunting for sport. Some of their victims were hardly drained at all. Only the cruelest vampires of lore would behave like that (Spike had made sure Giles recognized that he, in fact, knew plenty about being a cruel vampire of lore). Beyond that, their hunting areas were moving in a clearly organized fashion from east to west. To top it off, it’s like these demons were made for the hunt. They attracted their prey with uncanny ease, like a neon mosquito light.

He hoped that by spreading books all about, the gang would get the idea he was knee-deep in research and excuse him from odd behavior. He did get a bit odd when he was onto something, he knew. Shooing Buffy and Willow and Xander from the apartment was a bit extreme, but they didn’t seem to question him. As it happened, Giles wasn’t actually knee-deep in research – in fact, he had scoured most of his volumes already, and he had come up utterly dry. There was nothing in there about vampires immune to sunlight or with blood-red eyes or with the ability to run at what appeared to be light speed. He just needed the kids out of the apartment. Perhaps it was rash and irresponsible to send them into danger, but for all he was unable to find in his books, Giles had a lead.