“Hrrrm,” Giles said. “Well.”
“Hello?” Buffy asked. “Yes?”
“A moment, please,” he replied, clearly irritated at being interrupted. Magnifying glass in hand, he was closely examining a strand of the clump of greenish hair Buffy had presented him with, ignoring the fact that by this late in the afternoon, it was beginning to stink like long-dead fish.
Of course, it wasn’t all that much worse than what the library had stunk like that morning, Buffy thought. Giles had been out all day, meeting with that demonolo-whatever guy, so they hadn’t been able to do anything until he got back but slog through classes and, in Buffy’s case, deal with a surprise quiz that apparently hadn’t been a surprise to anyone else in the class.
So unfair, she thought briefly. Even more so when Giles had corralled them after school to run some of the tests his friend had suggested. Willow the Junior Watcher might find all this stuff fascinating, but it was giving Buffy hives.
“Yes, this should work,” Giles said almost to himself, reaching for a big glass bottle, filled with a weirdly glittery clear liquid.
“Well?” Buffy prodded impatiently. She bet this stuff was going to stink, too. Why did everything this week have to smell so bad? She was never going to get it out of her pores.
Behind them, Ariel had started whining softly, like an overtired kid, and the sound was really getting on her nerves. “Calm down,” Buffy snapped over her shoulder, “we haven’t forgotten you.”
“Don’t be mean to her!” Willow scolded, rushing to the selkie girl’s side. “Poor Ariel isn’t feeling well, are you?”
But Ariel refused to be comforted, moving here, there, not exactly pacing, just—moving. She definitely wasn’t feeling well. Her once-sleek hair was dull, and her skin was papery and flushed. Even hours-long soaks in a tub weren’t a good enough replacement for the ocean. Buffy wanted to feel sorry for her, but right now things that liked to munch on people and vampires were a higher priority.
And that’s just the way Sunnydale works. Sorry.
Willow managed to coax Ariel back to a chair, one hand wiping a thin line of sweat off the selkie’s forehead.
“She’s got a fever!”
“I’ll go get her some water,” Xander said. “Dunk her head or something, maybe.”
“Put salt in it!” Willow told him.
“Hang on, I’ll go with you,” Oz said. “See if we can’t scrounge up a bucket or something.”
“Cowards,” Buffy said. “Running from a little smell?”
“Big smell,” Oz corrected her, in his typical laconic fashion.
Xander nodded his head emphatically. “And just when you think it’s gotten as bad as it could get, they do something that makes it worse.”
“Oh, go on. Bunch of wimps,” Willow said affectionately. Buffy wanted to join them as they escaped into the hallway, but anything Willow and Giles could stand, she could, too.
She thought.
“Based on our limited testing facilities,” Giles said, oblivious to the banter around him, “I think it is safe to conclude that this is, indeed, hair.”
Buffy sighed. “Well, gee, Giles, I never would have guessed. No, never mind. What kind of hair?”
He was dipping the ends of the strands into the clear liquid, which actually smelled sharply of spearmint. Okay, slightly better smell. But only slightly. “Well?”
Giles stretched the hair out on a sheet of white paper, watching for some kind of reaction. “Wait a moment . . .” The paper turned a watery blue-green color, then darkened into a gross brown. He glanced up, pushing his glasses absently back up on his nose.
“The pH balance of the strands, plus their reaction when exposed to—” he rattled off something many-syllabled that Buffy guessed had to be some, well, chemagical substance related to the sea “—would confirm that we are definitely dealing with a being that spends the majority of its lifespan in the ocean. Not that this was much in doubt, by now, but it is always good to have confirmation of these things.
“However, none of our research has turned up any creature, supernatural or otherwise, that will come out of the water to feed in such a frenzy—and off humans and vampires alike. Especially as food seems to be a lesser priority, since not much of the bodies was consumed.”
“That we know of,” Buffy said. “Maybe they like to drag their food off somewhere else to eat it, like crocodiles. Or maybe they weren’t real hungry when they got here. If they’re being drawn to the Hellmouth, like you said, then I bet they’ve worked up an appetite by now.”
“True.” He paused. “It would help cut down our research considerably if we knew if it was one creature, or many.”
“One would be better, right?” Willow asked hesitantly.
Buffy and Giles looked at each other, then Giles shook his head. “Ordinarily, having to deal with one such creature would be best, yes. However, the thought of a single creature that would cause this much damage and fear among the vampire population . . .”
“Oh.” Willow curled her arm protectively around Ariel and swallowed hard.
* * *
It was ironic, Angel thought, that his weakness—his vampire nature—was so often the one source of strength he could offer Buffy. What made their personal relationship impossible, strengthened their working relationship. Slayer and vampire, fighting the forces of darkness, side by side . . .
Or, in this case, apart. He had walked her home that morning, watching until she had gotten inside the safety of the house, then gone to catch some downtime himself. But all he could think about were those vampires, trapped in the sewer and torn apart by some creature or creatures that didn’t seem to have any trouble taking them down.
What could have done that? And how?
And so, the moment the early dusk had fallen, he had begun patrolling, keeping his body busy in the faint hope that his mind would slow down.
Buffy had brought the hair they’d found to Giles, to see what the Watcher might have to say, and was probably still with him, trying to figure out what it was they were facing. It was better that way. Better he not have to go into the library. Better he not have to see the rest of the Slayerettes, Giles . . .
“Don’t go there,” he told himself sternly, using Buffy’s favorite phrase of the moment. He was making a career out of Not Going There. It was a more active pastime than brooding, but nowhere near as poetic.
It hurt more, too. Everything seemed to hurt, these days. Except when he was with Buffy.
Okay, enough of that. Keep your mind on the job at hand. If anyone could figure it out, it would be Giles. Angel, unlike the Slayerettes, never underestimated the intelligence that fueled the Watcher, nor the resources he had available to him.
“Hey!”
The startled cry had him moving forward without conscious thought, ready to break up any human/vampire clinch he encountered. Swinging over a high backyard fence, Angel landed on his feet, crouching slightly as he prepared to do battle.
But what greeted him wasn’t the usual ridged face and fanged mouth of his demonic relations. Instead, the human male was caught unprepared in his own yard, gripped in a headlock by a slender, sexless creature, its skin glowing a faint silvery-green, long green hair growing from the crest of its bullet-shaped head. Round, black eyes, set slightly to the sides of its face, blinked once at him, and the pale mouth opened to show a double row of small, sharp teeth.
It was like falling into the mouth of a shark.
Like staring into the eyes of a viper.
And Angel, for all that he had died over two hundred years before, felt a sudden shake of fear.
This was malice.
The creature bent down and tore a chunk out of the human’s neck, its dead eyes never leaving Angel’s. It chewed, and the vampire felt his gorge rise as he realized that the man was still alive, moaning in disbelieving pain.
Angel backed up one step, moving cautiously, and felt hard, scaled hands come down on his shoulders from behind him.
* * *
Xander threw up his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “Well, how was I supposed to know that bucket was part of the sophomore art display?”
“The fact that it was in a display case?” Oz suggested mildly. “Or maybe—Hey, Cordelia,” he added, side-stepping just in time to avoid a collision.
She pulled away, smoothing back her hair and trying to look nonchalant. But the way her glance kept flicking down the hall, toward the library, gave away her purpose.
“Don’t you two have homes to go to?” she asked. “I mean, I know Xander doesn’t. But there must be someone who wants to see you, Oz.”
“Oh look,” Xander promptly retorted, pretending to be speaking only to Oz, “it’s Cordelia. Isn’t she a—”
“Whoa.” Oz held up his hands. “Time out. Play nice.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I didn’t—”
“Cordelia,” Oz cut in hastily, “what’s bothering you? Besides Xander.”
She bit her lip, turning so that Xander was excluded from their conversation as much as she could manage. “Whatever it is you’re doing, which I don’t want to know, by the way, is getting some interest you probably don’t want.”
“Who? Dr. Lee?” Xander forgot to be annoyed. “We know. We took care of him.”
“I know. I mean, you didn’t. Take care of him. He’s pretty sure you’re hiding something. Oz, he knows about Ariel! I don’t know how, but he does—”
“She probably told him,” Xander muttered.
“I did not!” she snapped, then turned back to Oz. “He figured it out himself. That’s a guy who’s not as wrapped as he should be. He thinks all selkies are the worst kind of monster, which proves that he hasn’t been in this town very long.”
Xander groaned. “Great, just great. Did you ever stop to think that Lee was probably using you to see how much we really did know, Miss Subtle?”
“Well, catch me warning you about anything again!” Cordy exploded. “You deal with it on your own, then. Or just let Buffy handle it for you. As always.”
Cordelia stalked off before Xander could come up with a coherent comeback.
“No time, Xander,” Oz warned, his gaze flicking down the hallway, where Dr. Lee was coming around the corner.
Xander groaned. “Great. Okay, follow me, and remember—when in doubt, act like an idiot.”
Pasting a false grin on his face, Xander rushed up to greet Dr. Lee. “Hi! I didn’t get a chance to talk to you before, and I really, really wanted to.”
As Dr. Lee tried to move past Xander, Oz moved in to block his path. “That’s right! We don’t often get a chance to ask questions of someone so important, who’s actually been out there and done stuff.”
It was practically a speech for Oz, and Xander was impressed, despite himself. Who knew the other guy had so many words in him? All at one time, too?
Dr. Lee, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be impressed. “I’m sorry, but I’m—”
“That’s right,” Xander agreed. “D’you know, just the other day I was saying to Oz, that’s this guy here, ‘Oz, I really need to learn more about fish.’ ”
“I really am in a bit of a hurry—”
“No prob,” Xander continued, interrupting the scientist gleefully. “It’s just that everyone tells us we don’t ask enough questions. You know, further our education and all that. So,” he continued with desperate cheerfulness, “what do you think dolphins are really saying?”
* * *
“Eeeuww,” said a sudden disgusted voice. “What are you doing in here?”
Buffy didn’t bother glancing up: Cordy. “New perfume. ‘Eau de Seaweed.’ ”
“Amusing. Un.”
Giles looked over his glasses at her. “Cordelia? Is there something I can do for you?”
Cordy hesitated, looking almost nervous. “I . . . Dr. Lee? The guy who was in here before?”
Buffy straightened. Oh great, I knew he was going to cause trouble. “What about him?”
“He wanted to have lunch with me.” She tossed her head so that her hair fell over one shoulder perfectly. “Not so surprising, I mean, older man, younger woman, you know . . .”
Giles frowned ever so slightly. “Cordelia, please. We’re rather busy here.”
“He’s hunting seal-people,” she burst out. “I know, anywhere else that would be like so crazed. But crazy’s kind of a way of life around here, right?” Cordelia took a deep breath, seeing she had their undivided attention.
“He told me he was married to one, and that she abandoned him and went back to the sea.” She stopped, blinking. “Is that, like, possible? I mean, a seal and—”
“Yes, yes,” Giles said, his expression changing from irritation to comprehension. “In the folklore, at any rate.”
“An abandoned husband,” Buffy murmured. “Out to get revenge. Ha, I bet I’m right! He can’t hate her, he still kinda loves her, so he’s going to get her family instead. Ariel—”
“That’s right!” Cordy cut in. “Giles, he knows about Ariel. I didn’t tell him a thing, I swear it, but somehow he knew that Willow’d been hiding her. He thinks she’s some kind of danger, which makes him really pitiful, being scared of a little kid—”
“He won’t get anywhere near her,” Buffy said shortly. “We’ll stop him.”
For a second, she was surprised at her own fierceness. But then she realized, All right, so I don’t feel comfortable about her. Built-in Slayer stuff, I can’t do anything about that.
But I am so not going to let some idiot of a human murder her, either!
* * *
After Cordelia left, any responsibility discharged and forgotten, Xander and Oz came back, having finally given up on their bucket quest, but pleased to relay their successful harassment and scaring off of Dr. Lee.
“For now, anyway,” Giles said. “But if he is as obsessed as Cordelia indicated—”
“He’s not going to give up,” Buffy finished for him. “Not unless we make him.”
“Maybe not even then,” Oz said.
“He’s such a comfort, isn’t he?” Xander asked the room in general.
Oz shrugged and went to join his girlfriend, who was sitting on the stairs, trying to calm the selkie down.
“Ariel, ciunas,” she said soothingly, trying to pass a dampened cloth over the little girl’s still-flushed skin. “Ariel!”
The selkie dodged her outstretched hand, continuing to move restlessly, whining.
“Ariel, please!” Willow held out both arms this time, trying to corral the selkie without making it look as though she was trying to catch her. “Guys, help me out here!”
“Casog!” Ariel insisted, eyes so wide Willow could see the white rimming the dark irises. “Cota!”
“That means ‘coat,’ doesn’t it?” she asked in despair.
“What? Oh, yes,” Giles said from where he and Buffy were trying to put together a strategy to deal with Lee.
“Coat. Right. Ariel, I know no one’s working on cleaning it right this very second. But we haven’t forgotten, honest!” As Ariel ducked under Xander’s arm, and evaded Oz’s grab, Willow called to Giles, “She’s getting hysterical! You’ve got to say something to calm her!”
“Ariel, you have not been forgotten . . . ah . . . dearmad no, which is highly ungrammatical but should get the point across. Yes, that’s right, Ariel. Dearmad no, aren’t forgetting. But if we don’t take care of this other difficulty first, you may not have a family to return to. And you probably aren’t getting a word of this, but frankly, I am all out of Gaelic! So sit down, and do shut up!”
“Gee, Giles,” Buffy said, “tsk. Losing your cool in front of students. Bad example.”
“Funny, Buffy. Really. Now—what is it?”
Buffy shook her head, feeling every nerve suddenly go on alert. “Not sure . . . Angel!”
The vampire staggered in, his usual grace completely gone. Although the cuts and welts on his skin didn’t appear to be too bad, there was an overall sense of exhaustion about him that made the three nearest humans start forward to catch him before he collapsed.
“What happened?” Buffy demanded as they lowered him into a chair.
“I didn’t know anything could whomp on a vampire like that,” Willow said, half in awe, from her location on the stairs. “Except you, of course, Buffy.”
“They can’t, as a general rule,” Giles said. “Being undead limits the kind of damage that can be inflicted on a vampire. Short of dusting one—”
“Their claws, some kind of poison. Hard to move . . .” Angel winced as Buffy helped him take off his long coat, revealing a long tear down the front of his shirt, as though he had been scored by sharp, talonlike claws.
Ariel took one look and hid her face under Oz’s arm.
“Neurotoxin. Some sea creatures use it to stun their prey. Fascinating, that it works on demons . . .”
“Giles, research another time!” Buffy demanded.
The Watcher, however, was clearly focused on the moment. “These were the creatures that attacked the vampires earlier? And the humans on the beach?”
Angel nodded his head weakly. “Either that, or we’ve got way too much company in town.”
“What did they look like?” Giles asked, while, behind him, Willow opened the Big Book of Marine Demons.
“Humanish. Green, scaled. Long hair, like Buffy found.”
“Told you it was hair,” Buffy grumbled.
“And teeth,” Angel continued, shaking off the remaining effects of the toxin. “Too many teeth for the size of their mouths. They fight in a pack, like wolves. One of them distracted me, the others closed in from behind. Hit me. They’ve got hard hands, fins, something, I don’t know. Took me out with one swipe. I came to, and they were all around me, like I was dinner . . .”
“Well, there’s a new sensation for a demon,” Giles murmured, not without some satisfaction.
Angel acknowledged the hit, but kept talking. “The one I surprised, it was . . . it was eating a human. Just taking chunks out of him, still screaming. When he died, it lost interest. They only like their food alive.”
“But then why attack vampires?” Buffy wondered.
“Not for food,” Giles said. “At least, not after the first attack, I should suppose. They must not be able to tell the difference without actual physical contact.”
“You mean . . . taste?” Willow asked in a small voice.
Angel nodded his agreement. “They didn’t seem to know what I was, at least until after they dropped me. Then they kicked me around some, while I couldn’t move, then just left me there.”
“Merrows,” Giles said in sudden realization. “Blast it, of course! We were so busy looking for something, someone, who would normally stay in the shallows or come out of the water, yes, and feed on vampires—We were totally misdirected!”
“Merrows,” Buffy said flatly, in her “someone had better explain it all to me now” voice.
“Unpleasant cousins to the traditional mermaid— who isn’t such a charming being herself, come to think of it—”
Buffy cut off a scholarly tangent at the source. “Giles? Merrows?”
“Right. They are humanoid, that is, biped rather than with bodies tapering to a tail—and they will catch and eat any humans they can drag off ships.”
“Geez. So much for ‘See the charming Pacific Coast by cruise ship!’ ” Xander said. “But what’s making them come in to land—whoa. The oil spill.”
“Exactly.” Giles removed his glasses and gestured with them. “The oil spill. Just as it interfered with other natural sea creatures, it must have interfered with the merrows as well. Evolution in response to environmental changes . . .” He drifted off in thought, his eyes looking somewhere else, the way they did when he got caught up in a really neat new idea.
“Can we talk Greenpeace later?” Buffy asked. “So we’ve got another big bad evil in town. Not a problem. I ask them politely to leave, and when they don’t, I kick their nonexistent tails.”
“It won’t be that easy,” Angel said, straightening up with an effort. “Giles, if you’re right, and the merrows are changing their feeding grounds, the vampires in this area aren’t going to just sit back and let it happen. And if they start fighting . . .”
“Oh dear.”
“What?” Buffy looked between the two of them. “Merrows, bad. I think we got that, Giles.” Her eyes narrowed as she caught the gist of what they were thinking. “Are you saying we’re going to have gang warfare breaking out among the undead and the unhuman?”
Angel nodded. “The Hellmouth as the prize. And humans caught in the crossfire.”
“Oh, great,” Xander said. “Sunnydale’s own version of the Crips and Bloods.”
“Alpha predators.” Oz had been quiet for so long, they’d almost forgotten he was there. Ariel still huddled under his arm, occasionally sneaking a peek at the long, jagged rip down Angel’s shirt, then hiding again.
“Yes, I suspect you’re right,” Giles said.
“Explain that for the rest of us, okay?” Buffy demanded.
“It’s a food chain thing,” Willow said. “You’ve got plants; then herbivores, the prey animals; then little predators that feed on the prey; then bigger predators that feed on the little predators. And they all live happily ever after—although not very happily for the ones who always get eaten,” she added with a frown. “Happily, I mean, only if the chain isn’t broken.”
“But the getting-eaten side’s being disrupted by the oil spill,” Xander said. “Hence, merrows in the water supply.”
Willow nodded. “Vampires are the alpha predators in Sunnydale. They’re tougher than just about anything else, they’re more efficient hunters, and they’re a lot stronger. Merrows come in, they’re not top dog anymore. There’s not room enough for both of them in this food chain.”
“There’s not room for either one of them,” Buffy said. “Not while I’m on the job.”
“Yes. Well,” Giles said. “I would suggest that we focus our attention on the merrows, for now. I hate to say this, but right now, vampires do seem to be the lesser of two evils.”
Xander shook his head. “And we really, really hate hearing you say it, Giles.”
* * *
It was false dawn, when the sky lightens just enough to make some early-rising birds think it’s time to start singing. But night still holds court, and vampires walk freely.
And on this night, there was a method to their walking.
“Seen anything?” a stalking vampire hissed to another. He moved with the powerful forward surge of the football player he had been in life. Anger was evident in every ragged line. He’d seen what these creatures could do, and he wanted a piece of them in return. Nobody took his prey. Nobody!
The second vampire, a gaunt-faced woman, gave him a snarl of disgust. “Nothing. Not even prey. You?”
The first vampire clenched his fists. “Nothing. Yet.”
Neither of them was happy so close to the other: None of them were, not without a Master to follow. But by unvoiced agreement, the vampires of Sunnydale were playing well together. For tonight. For as long as this state of siege lasted.
Then the wind changed slightly and brought them something.
“Salt,” the first said succinctly, and lunged.
The next followed a second later, catching the lone merrow, the foolish scout, between them. It snarled and clawed at them, biting at their flesh, but other vampires came rushing, pulled by the scent of ocean and blood. Not human blood, not something worth drinking, but they were after more this time.
There were snarls, screams, then the wet, soft sound of flesh being torn . . .
The vampires straightened, spitting to clear their mouths of the taste of that too-salty, too-alien blood, some of them staggering from the poisonous residue left by the creature’s claws. The body of the merrow lay strewn in ragged pieces over the ground.
Poachers could not be—would not be—tolerated.
The war had begun.