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Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N: Just to let you know, this chapter doesn't have Buffy and Spike, simply to flesh out some other situations and characters. If this bothers anyone, sorry for that. This is slightly edited.

The other Watcher is based on a character in "Night Rider" and the actor who played him (Edward Mullhare). I don't own that series.
CHAPTER TEN

XXXXXXXXXXX

Dr. Rupert Giles reached his appointment at the top of Summitt Hill the following day. He went inside of the huge domed edifice, a playhouse-turned-museum which was privately owned and funded.

Giles went across the exhibit room which had tomes from the Shakespearean era in glass cases and sought the theatre where, in days long gone, people would perform works by the Bard or by some other well known playwright.

"Ahh, Rupert, there you are!" a scholarly British man greeted the younger Giles. The man gestured to some plush velvet seats at the middle section of the theatre.

"Please, sit down," he invited. Giles sat, wondering why he had been called.

Usually, whenever the White Council called him, it involved something serious: a mankind-will-die-unless-we-act-now situation. He regarded the person beside him. For Devon Myles-Smith, anything and everything was an emergency. Rupert had a feeling that if the man's alarm clock had not woke him up that morning Devon would have regarded that as a cataclysmic event tied into magic evil forces wreaking havoc with the Space-Time continuum.

At seventy, Devon Myles-Smith was still the picture of elegance. His snow white hair was perfectly curled at the ends, and his beard was neatly trimmed. His blue grey eyes never missed a trick, and his mind was still rapier sharp and able to detect falsehood or remember even the most minute details about people.

Although he walked with a cane, Myles-Smith didn't scrape or make a dragging noise; he glided. His dove grey silk jacket and blue ascot were meticulously arranged, and the handkerchief in his right pocket was not stuffed in, but was neatly folded and was a perfect match to his eyes.

"What is occurring that you wished to see me?" Giles asked.

Devon stared at Rupert sadly, saying, "One of our number has been eliminated. Merrick was destroyed, and you know his significance in the scheme of things."

Giles sat up straighter. This time, Devon Myles-Smith was not exaggerating the magnitude of what could occur.

"Merrick was to be the Chosen One's advisor," he said. Myles-Smith looked at him with agreement in his eyes.

"He had the training; he had the skill, and then the ground fell out from under us," Myles-Smith said in a grave voice. "Now, evil is gaining. To that end, you have been chosen. You are the next in line to assist her, and her Hunter."

Giles considered and, although he knew that a great responsibility had been thrust upon him, he was excited at the prospect of being the Advisor to the one chosen to stop evil in its tracks. He and Willow knew that she resided somewhere close, and that sooner or later, the locator spell would find her and the man destined to be her Hunter.

"We managed to pierce the evil influences which have clogged our attempts to find her," Devon was saying, "and we finally found a name. Elizabeth Anne Summers."

"Buffy?" Giles asked, his brows furrowing with worry. "But that's impossible. She's just a girl."

"And, it was deemed by the Powers that a girl, and those who are destined to receive her power, will stand against the Forces of Darkness," Myles-Smith was telling Giles. The older White One was in his element whenever he got a chance to make a speech.

"A girl was Chosen because of her innocence, and her purity. Her companions were also Chosen to make certain that she…" Devon reminded Giles.

"I know, I know, 'retains her human conscience'," Giles finished saying. "And the Hunter is chosen so that, if the Slayer dies young, he will be able to assume her place. He also fights by her side."

"Yes," Devon said. "You must alert Miss Summers to the fact that she is Chosen to do this! You must tell her as soon as possible! It is by the White Council's command, and it is her destiny!" Devon stood up and, having said his piece, left the museum.

Giles thought about Buffy and what this would mean to her. He knew she would not exactly be thrilled to have this information, especially given the fact that she might have to destroy Spike. He sighed as he ruminated over the best possible way to break the news to her.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Cordelia Summers went home the next night after an ordinary day with both excitement and apprehension in her veins. She had performed a rousing cheer for the game played that day in honor of those swim teammates who were still missing. She gave it her all; true, she wasn't the police (who were finally involved in the search,) and she wasn't the most popular girl in school like her friend, Harmony Blake, but no role was too insignificant if it helped boost morale at the University.

"Cordy, are you sure you don't want us to walk with you?" Harmony asked. Cordelia shook her head.

"Look, I'm not anywhere in town, and none of the beast sightings have been here in the parking lot. Besides, my home isn't that far away, you know that. You live in the other direction," Cordy told her.

Harmony shrugged, saying, "Well, if you're sure…I'll see you tomorrow, and after class, we'll go try on the cosmetics we got at my house! I'm having a slumber party!"

Cordelia was ecstatic. She always loved a party, particularly if Harmony and her blonde friend's exclusive, country club clique were going to be there. You never knew where Mr. Big Bank Account would show. It wasn't that she only thought about hooking a man with money. The senior also thought about how she could make her fortune so that she could help Buffy and her Mom financially. She just didn't want to do it for 10,000 years, working behind a counter at McDonald's or the Piggly Wiggly.

Cordelia wanted the fast, easy way to untold riches, and she knew that her looks and her outgoing personality were definite assets in achieving her goals. If a good looking male just happened to be at Harm's party, and if he just happened to be lonely enough to want to date and lavish some money on the brunette for her and for her family, well, so much the better.

"I wouldn't miss that for the world," Cordelia told her friend.

Harmony turned around and went in the opposite direction, looking dubiously back at her best buddy. When Cordelia kept on moving (albeit quickly,) the blonde thought, I guess she'll be okay. Harmony turned back around, walking toward her townhouse in the affluent section of Sunnydale.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Not too far from the University parking lot, C. G. Springfield and another cop were looking at the scant information they had gotten from Police Chief Walsh's vehicle.

"I dunno, sir," Reginald "Tater" Edwards, C. G.'s right hand man, was saying in his usual slow way. "The Chief's never missed a sick day, and if she was on leave, why didn't she phone it in?"

C. G. ran a gloved hand along the window, trying to see if he could spot anything the other cops might have missed. "Maybe there was something which demanded her total attention, and she couldn't phone," he said, trying to put his fellow lawman's mind at ease. The Deputy Chief decided that he would go to the pathology lab and communicated that to Tater. It was time to get some answers.

Dr. Nancy Wong bent over the body of the latest victim of the vampire beast. On another table, in a body bag, was a previous victim who had died only two nights before. Usually, the pathologist could bend under pressure and handle the burden of discovering any evidence that might help the police, but now, the forty-year-old plus sized forensic scientist was baffled.

**Maybe I've been working too hard,** she thought.

Her mind wandered for just a moment to the house in Marina Bay that she and her husband had purchased. At moments like these, the desire to visit there, perhaps even permanently live there was stronger than ever.

She heard the footsteps before she smelled the familiar clean scent of C. G. Springfield. Dr. Wong had never had a brother before, but she supposed that if she were ever in the market for one, the Deputy Chief would be more than adequate.

"Hi, Nancy," C. G. greeted with a grim voice. The raven haired pathologist murmured a similar greeting.

"Anything?" he asked curtly.

Doctor Wong unzipped the body bag of the latest victim, a young, blond man who had the arrogant look even in death of someone who had the world in the palm of his hand.

She motioned to the Deputy Chief to follow her, and they stood in front of the victim's neck. Wong pointed to two marks side by side on the upper portion of it. "Complete results haven't come back from this latest feast of the perpetrator, but the point of entry and the size of the marks indicate that both bodies came more than likely from the same killer." She put her hands on her hips, saying, "Frankly, I'm stumped."

C. G. gave her a look. "What do you mean? It's obvious that we're dealing with some sort of animal, like a mountain lion or something," he guessed. When Dr. Wong returned his look, C. G. frowned.

"Why, is there something you're not telling me?" he asked. Doctor Wong went to a table and got a plastic mold of fangs.

"Okay," she explained, "this is the cast of an adult mountain lion, which have sometimes been spotted in the area." Wong got an enlarged photograph from the same table.

"And this is a blow up of a computer photo of an x ray of the female victim from two days ago," she told the cop. He peered at the cast and the photo and looked at the doctor. "As you can see, the marks on her are not consistent with the marks which would be made by a mountain lion, or, according to the computer search I did, with any animal possessing teeth of this caliber."

C. G. waited patiently for her to divulge more information. "The bites are slightly wider and not as deep as a lion's or tiger's or some other animal. In addition, there were inconsistencies in the blood samples taken from both bodies with that of the creatures I described.

"Skin samples taken from the girl indicate a human factor," the doctor confirmed. "In addition, the blood lifted from around the dead girl's neck indicates a human killer who had apparently been in contact with several types of blood."

C. G. pondered the information. His grimace told Wong that he was not pleased with the results. "Could he have used an unsterilized fork from a hospital or butcher's shop with blood types on it or some other stabbing weapon on the victims?"

Wong shook her head saying, "Not possible. I sent the results to a fellow forensicologist in the area who specializes in metallurgy. There were no traces of any kind of metal having been used, and as I pointed out before, the markings are too close together and not deep enough to have been caused by a fork or other carving or pruning weapon. As for the different types of blood around the victim's neck, your guess is as good as mine as to why the killer had traces of so many."

Before C. G. could respond, Doctor Wong said something else in a voice so low he had to strain to hear it. "Not only that, but here is the clencher," she said. "Although there were different types of blood at the point of entry, the female victim was missing several pints from her body and there are no other marks on her body large enough to have caused this amount of blood loss."

She and the Deputy Chief exchanged worried looks between them. "I can get the results from this victim…" she pointed to the male body at that remark, "but having studied some computer records from both I can tell you that the data on the latest will be the same."

The cop could feel an ulcer coming on. He reached into his uniform and withdrew a tablet for stomach upset from his pocket. Swallowing it, he asked, "Is there anything else to go on?"

Dr. Wong responded, "The saliva samples extracted indicate that we are dealing with a Caucasian male, age unknown, and, based on the angle and point of entry, one who is approximately between five foot ten and six foot three inches tall."

"So the sample of saliva wasn't enough to give an approximate age…" C. G. mused, "but surely there must be a ball park figure."

Wong shook her head. She wore a confused, frustrated look as she said, "Normally, you would be right, but I put that through every test we have, and I even contacted a medical cousin of mine to cross check the information. Guess what?"

When C. G. gave her a blank look, Dr. Wong continued, saying, "The records indicated a young male, but the saliva indicates a young, DEAD male. "

"Explain that," the cop instructed.

"Normally the human mouth contains about 8 million human cells in its saliva, along with bacteria, electrolytes, enzymes, and other materials," she lectured. "In this sample, however, the cell count numbered less than 100,000 cells. Also, the amount of enzymes that were secreted in his DNA sample were too low to belong to anyone alive."

C. G. stared at the pathologist as though she were insane. "What are you saying?" he asked. "Are you telling me that although you removed an active culture of saliva the readings confirmed that the chemical compound of said sample was INACTIVE?"

When Dr. Wong nodded, commenting, "That, and the other factors are what make this case so baffling. I have studied and cross checked every piece of data at least three times, and it keeps coming up the same!"

C. G. asked in a gravelly voice, "So you're saying that there could very well be an actual vampire on the loose?"

Wong gave him a censuring look, saying, "I'm not alluding to anything of the sort, but if there is not one, let's just say that the killer is doing one helluva imitation of one."

The Deputy Chief could not believe the information he had just received. He also realized his job had gotten much harder.

He knew about vampires, and had even studied them on the side as a hobby in college, but the police man had never wanted to believe in their existence. He had always thought that they were the stuff of legends or fantasies. Now, he wasn't so sure.

Had the media been correct? WAS there a vampire beast? If so, maybe HE was the one who'd taken the one person from him that he cared about more than his own life.

Then again, maybe he was crazy.

"All right," he ordered the forensic scientist, "dig deeper. You find anything else, it comes directly to me. I don't want anyone else to see it."

Dr. Wong didn't ask about Chief Walsh. She knew that C. G. wouldn't have asked for her report without good reason. Nodding her assent, the doctor turned to the male body.

C. G. acknowledged the doctor's curt nod with one of his own and went upstairs. Tater was waiting at his desk with a manila folder.

"C. G.!" he exclaimed. "Records on the male blond who checked in downstairs. File states his name was Jacques Maracques, the son of one Stefan Maracques of the cosmetics firm in Paris."

The Deputy Chief murmured sarcastically, "Great! Now all we have to do is keep the paparazzi from finding out about the kid, which is next to trying to buy real estate on the asteroid Pluto."

"I thought Pluto was a planet," Tater told his superior. When C. G. glared at him, the bigger cop withdrew, saying, "Right, well, I'll hold down the fort if you're finished here."

"Looks like I am until we get more info," C. G. said with frustration in his voice. He got up from his chair and put on his jacket, saying, "Call me if Dr. Wong gets any more info."

"Will do, boss," Tater promised. As C. G. left, the second-in-command of the Sunnydale P. D. hoped that Chief Maggie Walsh didn't run afoul of the killer, vampire beast or not.





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