There were four police cars and two campus security cars lined up, lights spinning, in front of the Sunnydale University Library. Cordelia stopped her car at a discrete distance away. "Uh-oh. And I've got so many parking tickets that I haven't gotten around to paying yet."
"Doesn't look like the Traffic Patrol to me," Buffy muttered, and opened the car door. She was getting a strong, if dispersed, vamp "buzz" about the vicinity, which meant that there were more than a few of the undead about the place tonight.
"No ambulances," Willow offered hopefully.
"You guys lock the doors and wait for me here." Buffy hauled her ever-clanking bag out of the back.
A hoard of students was milling around outside the front entrance to the Library, chattering excitedly. Buffy collared the first one she could reach. "Hey, what's up?"
"A bomb scare, I think," he said. "Somebody said a pipe bomb exploded in the library."
"No, there was a fight down in the snack bar," the girl next to him retorted. "Look. They're hauling some of the guys out now."
Police officers were indeed bringing some surly students in cuffs out the front door. There was also a weeping young woman that an officer was trying to interview. Nobody here was striking off any vampire vibes. Buffy nudged her way in and caught the words "religious wacko" and "rapist", but most of the rest was blobbed into the woman's sobs and sniffles.
"Uh, can I go in?" Buffy asked the campus policeman at the door. "Or is there some kind of bomb thingie going on?"
The guy looked faintly bored, as if this sort of thing happened all the time on Friday nights. "Nah. One of the profs went postal and trashed some of the stacks upstairs, is all. I guess these jerks decided to get into the team spirit."
Buffy smiled at him and walked into the building.
There were a lot of people gabbling in the main lobby. She still couldn't pinpoint any sources for her vampire buzziness. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no sign of her Watcher either. Maybe the prospect of a book vandal on the loose had been enough to send him fleeing for home. The vampire alert had her worried though. She poked around briefly before deciding that whatever excitement had erupted here was gone now. The library staff had roped off the third floor; a student librarian firmly pointed her back down the stairs before she could discover the extent of the damage.
Buffy paused by the front door to check the library map. "Third Floor: Audio-Visual, Film and Script Archives. Rare Books Room." Shit.
She walked back to the car and knocked on the driver's side window. Cordelia triggered the automatic window.
"Everybody's stirred up over some unexplained freakiness," she reported. "No casualties discovered. Yet. My slaydar is really rattling though. I'm going to have a look around. You guys stay here. I think a lot of our toothy friends are out and about the place tonight."
Cordelia made some complaint about Buffy having "all the fun," but the Slayer was already on the move. She hoped the others would make her stay put. Buffy felt a lot better with a quick getaway waiting.
The grounds around the library were clear of anything more dangerous than gangs of drunken freshmen. It was pretty noisy out for the usual vampire's comfort level. She moved on to the parking lot.
There weren't so many cars out here that she couldn't spot Giles' car right off. Of course, it did tend to stick out like a cold sore wherever he parked it. Buffy hurried towards it with something like fear in her throat.
It was obvious that the Citroen wasn't going anywhere anytime soon: somebody had done a good job on the tires. Which was alarming in and of itself. There were still any one of a number of more attractive targets for vandalism in the lot.
She circled the car, alert for any shadowy presences about or within. Her vamp senses were still picking up only a medium background hum.
There was, however, an oddly parked car at one side of the lot. The headlights were blazing, Red Hot Chili Peppers blared from the radio, and she could see that all the doors were open.
Buffy approached slowly, her hand dipping into her bag. Several bodies were lying about the car. She bent to examine the throat of one of them.
"Hey, sweet tits." He leered boozily up at her. "Give Mikey a taste of your tongue."
Ick. Buffy jumped back and skidded on an empty beer bottle. The ground around the bodies was littered with them. The guy on the ground made kissing noises at her, but seemed too drunk to get up for any more active groping. Shoving beer bottles out of the way, she reached down to grab the guy by his jersey.
Has to be a jock, Buffy decided. "You see anybody come through here?" she demanded, giving him a vicious shake for good measure.
"Hey, you won't see an'body who can gif you wha' I ga," he grinned. "Com'eer, sweet tits."
She shook him again, and gave him a kick for good measure. He flopped about under this abuse, laughing hilariously.
"We kicked their punk asses!" he yelled.
"Asses!" one of his buddies roused from his stupor long enough to pipe in.
"Go Panthers!" another buddy hooted.
"Did they turn tail an' run!"
"Tail!" the first buddy yelled.
Buffy bounced the jock's head on the pavement. "Which way did they go?"
"Uh . . ." He looked about him, as if realizing for the first time where he was. He pointed in a seemingly random direction. "Tha' way." He made a grab for her chest. "Sweet tits, give me a hug -- Uh, I think I'm gonna puke --"
Buffy heaved him up several inches more and dropped him on the pavement. She pulled a very sharp and business-like stake from her purse and strode towards the building in question.
The slaydar picked up a lot when she entered the side door. There were, however, a surprising number of students wandering the halls, clustering in small, indignant groups, apparently comparing notes in the aftermath of some test. Buffy frowned as she passed by them. Friday night pop quizzes and drunken, lecherous jocks. And her mother was always going on to her about the benefits of going to college.
Buffy kept the stake in hand, although she did bury the hand towards the bottom of the bag. The vampire hum was dying again. She seemed to be always on the heels of it. She picked up her pace, chasing the feeling up the hall and out to the front entrance, where the students were pouring out into the night.
Two black Ford Thunderbird hardtops roared past the building, one driven by an individual with a head of very blond hair.
"Spike," she said, and threw in a few creative curse words in for good measure. She ran down the steps and dashed back towards the library, praying that the Slayerettes had listened to her and stayed put.
"There's a big, black Thunderbird tailgating us," Dr. Szell remarked from the front seat.
"Damned Friday night dragsters," Professor Anderson muttered and shifted gears. "With all the money we pay in taxes, you'd think they'd get a few more policemen patrolling this stretch."
"Hey, Wilson," Scopes said, craning to observe the car behind them. "I think that's that punk student of yours driving."
Wilson looked back. "So it is."
"You finally pissed one of them off enough to come gunnin' for you." The thought seemed to amuse Scopes greatly.
Giles slouched down in his seat, miserably aware that he may have very well put these men's lives into mortal danger.
"Thunderbird versus a Jaguar," Anderson cackled. "Piece of cake. Hold onto your asses, gentlemen."
The Jaguar roared and seemed to grab out for an imminent airborne takeoff.
"Hah!" Professor Anderson yelled, slapping the steering wheel. "Eat my dust, punks." He reached to shove a compact disc into the car's player and cranked up the volume. The thundering strains of "Siegfried's Funeral March" swelled out. "There's Laphroaig in the grocery bag on the floor, Szell. Pass her around."
Szell fished the bottle out, took a hearty swig, and turned to hand the bottle back to Professor Wilson. "Thunderbird's back," he said conversationally.
"Shit, they must know my mechanic." Anderson squinted at the rear view mirror. "What do you say, about six of them?"
"Uh -- I-I wouldn't advise --" Giles began, glancing back nervously. Six, at the least.
"Or seven," Wilson agreed cheerfully, gaining possession of the whiskey bottle.
"Scopes, there's a package under the seat in front of you. If you'd be so good?"
The old man hauled a heavy, brown bundled object out and unbound it. He whistled. "Krieghoff, 1936. Part of the Luftwaffe contract, if I'm not mistaken?"
"Bought it from the original owner," Professor Anderson said, smiling with a father's pride. "There's ammo for it in the other package."
"It's got some grip wear." Scopes sighted along the pistol's top. "Fucker must've put in a lot of time on the target range."
"I don't think that guns --" Giles tried to interject.
"Rudy, listen to me." Wilson patted him in a fatherly manner on the knee. "You'd best learn now. You've got to show these kids some spine, or you lose control of your classroom and after that you'll be nothing but a laughing stock."
"Damn right," Scopes agreed, still admiring the Krieghoff. "What else have you got, Andy?"
"Japanese officer's pistol, 1942 Nambu, in the third package," Anderson said. "I also bought a Erma submachine gun, but it was too big to fit under the seat."
"I suppose there's nothing resembling a crossbow in any of those packages?" Giles said faintly.
"No, that's McInerny's milieu," Professor Wilson loaded up the Japanese pistol. "I think he's got one somewhere in the back of his mini-van."
"He's got it strung with Dacron," Szell said scornfully. "McInerny has no respect at all for historical accuracy."
"What do you expect?" Wilson pressed the whiskey bottle into Giles' hands. "The man is nothing but a weapons slut."
The car shook as the Thunderbird nosed their rear bumper.
"Damn, now I'm going to get mad." Anderson looked back again. "I'm paying enough for collision insurance on this bitch as it is."
"Pantywaist kids trying to out-Hemingway us," Scopes said.
"You're right," Anderson decided, as the Thunderbird pulled up alongside them.
Giles caught a brief glimpse of Spike in full vampiric fury, and then the Jaguar abruptly swerved as Professor Anderson threw the steering wheel hard over.
There was a shrill of skidding wheels, and the Thunderbird swerved wildly about. Anderson threw the steering wheel over again and the black car dropped out of sight.
"Hah, good going, Andy!" Wilson crowed, looking back. "Hole in one. You ditched 'em. That'll teach them to play games with the big boys."
"Probably dug up my paint job good and proper," Anderson growled. "But that was worth it, may their souls rot."
"Their souls already have, I suspect," Giles said, and helped himself to the whiskey. He wasn't home yet, but at least the stiff drink was in order.
Buffy climbed to the hood of Cordelia's car and gazed up and down the empty road. The Thunderbirds were nowhere in sight.
"Hey -- hey!" Cordelia hung out the window, glaring up at her. "If you're going to climb all over my car, then take those shoes off. Not only are they totally last season, but they're not good on the paint. It took a whole day to get the last scratches fixed."
Buffy kicked the shoes off and climbed to the roof. All was eerily quiet at this intersection of Sunnydale. She knew their quarry had passed this way. Question was: left or right?
"Cordelia," she said. "Which way do you think they went?"
"Those losers? To the right, of course. There's nothing out that way but a lot of warehouses and sleazy nightclubs."
Buffy bit her lip, then jumped down from the roof and snatched up her shoes. "Go left," she told Cordelia as she slammed back into the car.
"Like hey, why do you even bother to ask?" Cordelia, however, turned as directed.