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Part 2
Sunnydale High, History class
The heat, Buffy considered, was stifling. Why couldn´t the teacher ever turn on the air conditioning in here?
Most of her classmates were just sitting there like a colection of sacks of potatoes, staring vaguely at the projector screen. Her historicalness´s favorite little pupil, Kenny, was pushing the button, making ever new suits of armor appear as she nattered on about the periods and qualities of what was, to Buffy´s mind, hardass clothing.
One exception though, that new kid. Cas...? Cassiel something. Mr. Flutie had brought him in just after the beginning of class, introducing him. He´d actually made everybody say 'Hello, Casiel' and been completely oblivious to the smirking.
Cas hadn´t been. His eyes had gone... cold. Very cold. Very blue eyes, too. He wasn´t exactly bad-looking, but then he wasn´t very good-looking either. He was just... just so.
Not that she had any plans to date a guy fresh from England. She grimaced; a little friend for Giles to talk to. There was a scary thought! Not just an adult guy blathering on in that stupid accent, but a guy closer to her own age...
'And this,' the teacher said, 'is a special gauntlet made for Tsaar Peter the Great, for the occasion of his marriage...'
'It is not,' a cool, even voice remarked. The class started to snicker, and Kenny went red with anger.
'Don´t you interrupt the flow!' Kenny spat. 'She´s talking, you know!'
'Yes, but she´s incorrect,' that reserved voice replied. 'This particular gauntlet is of too old a manifacture to have belonged to Peter the Great. If I might hazard a guess, I´d say it was made in the late Middle Ages, or it might be an advanced early Middle Ages. It bears some resemblance to an artefact that was reputed to have been made for the use of Charlemange.'
The teacher turned around and had a look at the picture. She yelped in indignation: 'Kenneth! This is not the picture that´s supposed to be shown! What have you done with my slides? I put them all in pristine order just this morning, what have you done?'
'Nothing, ma´am!' Kenny stuttered. 'I swear, I never touched them!'
'Except when you were picking them up, after you´d dropped them,' the calm voice added.
Buffy craned her neck around to see who was talking. Of course, the new English guy.
'You couldn´t have seen that!' Kenny screamed. 'You weren´t here! I... I... er...'
The teacher was tapping her foot, and went off in a tirade about how Kenneth had ruined her entire teaching plan, how the big test next week would have to be postponed for an indefinite time until she could manage to redo this lesson, and how very disappointed she was in him. Didn´t he know how much she relied on him doing his job?
Despite the heat, the class enjoyed the show. Kenny, better known as `Fink´, `Stooly,´ `Rat´ and any other amount of nasty nicknames you´d care to think of, was just standing there, whimpering. At one point, he looked as if he was gonna cry. Then at another point, he looked as if he wanted to lash out at Cas, who regarded him with stoic contempt.
'This is... um... new,' Willow observed. 'A shame about all the armory things, though.'
'I don´t know,' Buffy replied with a shrug. 'Maybe now I actually stand a chance of beating the odds. Maybe now I can actually find the time to memorise what piece of curvy metal belongs to which obscurely named period. You think?'
'I think Kenny´s very angry,' Willow observed, quietly.
The Master´s Lair, 12:00
Drip. Drip. Drip-drop... Drip. The rhythm of water falling, just outside the Master´s reach, was almost musical. It had its very own tune, an irregular, haunting sound, amplified by the spacious, rocky roof that curved overhead.
It was maddening, for those that couldn´t bear its continuous sound. To the Master, however, it had become a solace. Apart from his incompetent servants, it was the only thing that ever changed around here.
The room, the objects within it, even the Lake of Blood, they al remained the same, Constant. Boring. Mind-dulling. But the drops of water never settled into a regular pace, always stayed slightly discordant.
Of course it made him wish for the power to go out there and wring the source of its dripping shut, but at least it was fresh. Nothing else here was ever... fresh.
Except for his dinners. And the pests that served him.
'Master...' an obsequious voice drifted down the stairs, into his lair. 'Master, are you there?'
'Come on down, Valentine,' the Master replied, wearily. Making a vampire out of Valentine, a used car salesman, was probably one of the greatest mistakes that his onetime favorite, Luke, had ever made.
Still, the wheedling, whining mongrel was strong, fast and obedient. If only his voice and demeanor had been less oily, less subservient... Less disgusting.
'I bring you news from the surface, Master,' Valentine squeaked as he oozed into the lair. 'One of your servants flung himself from the bridge.'
'What´s that?' the Master exclaimed. It was... aggrivating. His creatures should not die until he was done with them. But it was also exciting, a puzzle. Vampires almost never committed suicide, not unless their masters ordered them to.
'For what reason?' he asked. 'And did he die?'
'Not at once, no,' Valentine purred, 'but his bones were broken. He regenerated, but didn´t get up. The sun found him.'
'What reason, Valentine?' the Master repeated himself, his red eyes narrowing dangerously.
'He saw him, Master,' Valentine whimpered, 'he screamed it to all who would hear before he jumped. He saw his face.'
'Whose face?' the Master snarled.
'The face of the Executioner, Master,' Valentine replied.
'The Executioner... here? Now?' the Master asked with growing urgency. 'Go. Gather up a group of the strongest warriors and bring them here. Come sundown, I want them out and hunting for him. I want the Executioner, and I want him as soon as possible.'
'Of course, Master,' Valentine purred, 'we´ll bring you his bleeding carcasssss...'
The Master backhanded him in the face and roared. 'Not dead, you fool!'
he hissed. 'Bring him to me alive! I want you to invite the Executioner.
Tell him that I have a business proposition that he can´t refuse...'