Introduction
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| Restless | Real Me |
Buffy lies restlessly in bed beside Riley, unable to sleep. She gives up on trying, gets out of bed, and heads out.
Buffy races through the cemetery chasing a vampire. The vampire is fast, but not fast enough. Buffy vaults off a headstone and tackles it. They both sprawl on the ground and then jump back to their feet. Buffy kicks the vampire in the head, knocking it down again. As it picks itself up again she sweeps its legs out from underneath it, knocking to the ground a third time. Buffy pulls out a stake, and waits for the vamp to get up again. She does a cartwheel, giving it a couple more kicks to the head, knocks it back to the ground, and stakes it.
Buffy returns to Riley’s room, and gets back into bed. She snuggles up next to him and goes to sleep.
Buffy and Riley toss a football around on the beach. Riley makes the mistake of saying that Buffy throws like a girl. On her next throw Buffy puts a little muscle behind it. The football hits Riley in the chest and knocks him right off his feet. Riley gets back up and switches from a game of catch, to tackle.
Nearby, Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara are sitting around a barbecue pit which Xander is unsuccessfully trying to light. He is also watching Buffy and Riley playing. He tells the girls that he’s getting tired just looking at them. “Shouldn’t relaxing involve less exertion?” The girls all pretty much agree with him.
“I think we’ve just put our finger on why we’re the sidekicks,” says Willow.
Buffy and Riley return to their friends. The football game is over. Riley shows them the flattened ball. “Buffy slayed the football.” They are both hungry, and ask Xander how the burgers are coming.
Xander tries another match. “The fire’s not cooperating. It’s comforting to know that I lack the culinary finesse of a caveman.”
Willow waves her hand at the barbecue pit. “Ignis incende!” It bursts into flames.
“Willow, check you out!” says Buffy. “Witch-fu!”
“It’s no big,” says Willow. “You just have to balance the elements, so when you affect one, you don’t wind up causing—”
Dark clouds form rapidly over the beach, and thunder booms. It starts to pour rain. Everyone quickly gathers up their possessions, and runs for cover.
“I didn’t do it!” shouts Willow. “I didn’t do it!”
Two men in a truck pull up in front of a castle in the pouring rain. They want to get their cargo unloaded quickly so they can get to someplace dry. They start to pull a heavy coffin shaped crate out of the back of their truck. It’s even heavier than it looks, and they drop the end before it’s fully off the truck. They’re surprised to see dirt start leaking from the broken corner of the crate.
“Look at this. Guy’s carting dirt around,” complains one of them. “Man, rich people are—”
He doesn’t finish. An arm smashes through the top of the crate, and slashes his throat. The occupant of the crate quickly smashes the rest of the way out, and kills the second man too.
Willow helps Giles set up a Powerbook with a scanner in his home. They are in the middle of a project to scan and index his entire collection of books, talismans etc. Giles has been working on this project all summer, and Willow doesn’t really understand what his urgency is. At the rate he’s going he’ll be done well before winter. She tells him that once he’s finished he’ll have to get a life.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, actually, is, um, get a life,” says Giles.
“It might go better if you left the house.”
Giles realises that Willow needs some explanation for what he is doing, so he asks her not to tell anyone what he is about to tell her, especially Buffy.
“Uh-oh,” says Willow.
“You promise?”
“Oh, God,” says Willow. “I guess. Now that I know there’s something to know, I can’t not know, just because I’m afraid somebody will know I know. You know?”
“Did that mean yes?” asks Giles.
“Yeah,” says Willow.
“We’re doing all this because I want you and the others to have everything you need at your fingertips,” says Giles. “You see, I’m— I’m going back to England.”
“You’re…what?” asks Willow. “But you can’t. You’re Buffy’s Watcher! I mean, in a fired way, but…”
“It’s become quite obvious that Buffy doesn’t need me anymore,” says Giles. “And I don’t say that in a self-pitying way, I’m quite proud, actually.”
Willow thinks that they still need him, and Giles appreciates that, but he thinks that they can get along just fine without him, and they will still stay in touch. They can always phone him if they need his help.
“When are you going to tell Buffy?” asks Willow.
“Soon,” says Giles. “It won’t be easy, but, I know she’ll understand.”
Buffy finishes up eating supper with her mother. Joyce suggests that they go out and get some icecream for dessert, but Buffy has to go on patrol.
Joyce is getting used to having Buffy around the house again. It’s going to seem pretty empty once she goes back to school. Buffy suggests that they make a regular weekly date for dinner together, and heads out for her evening hunt.
Buffy encounters another vampire in the cemetery that night. This is a big one, and it takes her a little longer to bring it down than the one she fought the night before.
While Buffy fights with the vampire a mist gathers nearby and coalesces into a tall, very pale skinned vampire with long dark hair. He’s dressed in red and black, and wearing a long black cape with a red lining. He watches Buffy fight.
Buffy finally stakes the vampire she has been fighting, and looks around. She senses that something is watching her.
Buffy’s observer steps out of the shadows. “Very impressive hunt. Such power.” The vampire speaks with an eastern European accent. He reveals the points of fangs in his mouth, but his face remains smooth.
“That was no hunt,” says Buffy. “That was just another day on the job. Care to step up for some overtime?”
“We’re not going to fight,” says the vampire.
“Do you know what a Slayer is?” asks Buffy.
“Do you?” he asks.
“Who are you?”
“I apologise. I assumed you knew. I am Dracula,” he says in his best Bela Lugosi accent.
Buffy looks at the vampire for a second and then smiles. “Get out!”
Willow and Xander walk past the cemetery. She asks him what he thinks about people keeping secret things that other people have asked them to keep confidential.
“News flash, Will,” says Xander. “Everybody knows.”
“No,” says Willow. “This isn’t about me and Tara.”
“Oh,” says Xander. “Well, not that I wouldn’t be all ears if you wanted to tell me a secret about you two. Even if it was very, very naughty.”
“Sorry. This is of the non-naughty variety, and I’m not telling you.”
Xander doesn’t want to have any sort of deep philosophical talks right now, so he suggests that they check out the cemetery to see if Buffy’s there.
Buffy is having a little trouble believing that this vampire in front of her is who he says he is. “You’re sure this isn’t just some fanboy thing? ’Cause I’ve fought more than a couple pimply, overweight vamps that called themselves Lestat.”
“You know who I am,” says Dracula. “As I would know without question that you are Buffy Summers.”
“You’ve heard of me?”
“Naturally, you’re known throughout the world.”
Buffy is rather flattered to hear that she is building up a reputation, but she doesn’t want to spend any more time chatting with this vampire, no matter how famous he is. She plunges her stake toward his heart. Dracula vanishes into a cloud of mist, and then reforms behind her. Buffy spins around and tries again, but he vanishes again. “Okay, that’s cheating!”
Willow and Xander find Buffy, and ask what’s going on.
“Get out of here!” says Buffy. “Now!”
Dracula reforms behind them as they try to ask what’s got Buffy so worked up
“Behind you!” says Buffy.
Xander and Willow spin around and see Dracula.
“Nice,” says Xander. “Look who’s got a bad case of Dark Prince envy.”
“I have no interest in you,” says Dracula. “Leave us.”
“No, we’re not going to ‘leave you.’” Xander imitates Dracula’s accent. “And where’d you get that accent, Sesame Street? One, two, three— three victims. Mwa ha ha ha!”
“Xander,” says Buffy. “I’m pretty sure that’s Dracula.”
“Wow, really?” Xander moves quickly to put Buffy between him and the vampire. “Hey, sorry, man, I was just…joking around.”
Dracula doesn’t think that this is the right time for what he wants to do with Buffy. “I will see you soon.” He spreads his cape and swoops toward them, transforming into a bat as he does so. The bat flaps around their heads before flying off into the night.
Buffy, Willow, and Xander tell the others about their encounter with Dracula at Giles’. “I told you he’d heard of me, right?” asks Buffy. “I mean, can you believe that? Count Famous heard of me.”
“I couldn’t believe it the first twenty times you told us,” says Riley. “But it’s starting to sink in now.”
Buffy apologises for being so repetitious. “It was just the way he said it, you know. I mean, he made it sound so…”
“Sexy?” ask Willow. “I bet he made it sound sexy.”
“Kind of,” says Buffy. “He of the dark, penetrating eyes and lilty accent.”
Anya thinks Dracula’s sexy too. She used to hang out with him sometimes back in her demon days. He was pretty cool.
Riley, Tara, and Xander aren’t too happy that their girlfriends all seem to share the same opinion of Dracula.
“Please. He was no big whoop,” says Xander.
“No big whoop?” asks Willow. “What about that thing where he turned himself into a bat? That was awesome!”
“It must have been, yes,” says Giles. “I must admit, I’m sorry I missed that.”
“Me, too!” says Willow. “The whole time I was thinking, ‘Gosh, I wish Giles were here. He’d know what to do!’ Didn’t you guys think that?”
“Actually, I was more thinking, ‘Bat!’” says Buffy.
Xander asks how such a thing could be possible, but Giles has no idea. They are going to have to do some research on Dracula, and try and figure out how much of his legend is true, and how much is just myth. Buffy agrees. They should take things slowly, and try to avoid him until they know more.
Riley doesn’t agree with that approach. He wants to arm up with stakes and crossbows, and go hunting. Xander seconds that idea.
Anya doesn’t. She thinks Drac is too slick to fall for the usual tricks.
The more cautious approach carries. Giles hands out research assignments: He asks Willow and Tara to search the internet for all the information they can get on Vlad the Impaler. He will check the library.
“If the Initiative was still around, we’d be able to find everything on this guy in a few hours,” says Riley.
“We may not be as fast, but we’ll find him,” says Buffy. She tells everyone she’s going to bed for some sleep. They will reconvene in the morning.
“I’m kind of wired,” says Riley. “Maybe I should just let you get your rest.”
“Are you sure?” Buffy sidles up to him. “I mean, maybe if you just lie down with me—”
“Nothing you are about to say will lead to rest,” says Riley.
“I guess you’re right. I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Mm-hmm,” says Riley “With doughnuts.”
Buffy thinks that sounds wonderful. “A little sugar and I’m all yours. Dracula shmakula.”
Xander and Anya walk home while Anya reminisces about old times with Dracula. He’d been particularly impressed the time she made one guy incredibly fat, like a human minivan. Neither of them notices the wolf which is keeping pace with them, walking along the rooftops.
Xander is not thrilled. “Why don’t you just go sit on top of a crypt and flaunt your neck cleavage until Dracula shows up? Then you two can talk private.”
“Oh, please, don’t tell me you’re jealous?”
“Oh, no,” says Xander. “Just because you’re panting over the guy.”
Anya thinks Xander’s being silly. She gives him a kiss, and tells him she will see him tomorrow.
Xander is a little surprised that Anya isn’t planning to come home with him.
“It’s whites day, remember?” says Anya. “The bleach smell makes me nauseous.” She leaves him.
“Fine,” says Xander. “I suppose Dracula doesn’t use bleach, huh? He’s a darks-only man.”
Xander walks through the park on his way home, and straight into Dracula.
Xander pretends not to be too worried. “You know what? You’re not so big. One round of old-fashioned fisticuffs, I bet you’d fold like a bitty baby.” He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. “Okay, let’s do it, and no poofing. Come on, puffy shirt. Pucker on up, ’cause you can kiss your pale ass good—”
“Silence,” says Dracula.
“Yes, Master.” Xander shuts up for a couple of seconds. “No, that’s not—”
Dracula waves his hand toward Xander, and he shuts up again. “You will be my emissary. My eyes and ears in daylight. Serve me well, you will be rewarded. I will make you an immortal. A child of darkness that feeds on life itself. On blood!”
“Blood?” asks Xander. “Yes, yes! I will serve you, your Excellent Spookiness. Or Master. I’ll just stick with Master.”
“You are strange and off putting.” Dracula waves Xander away. “Go now.”
Xander turns, and starts to go. He turns back. “But, Master, how can I find—” Dracula has vanished. “Brilliant. What an exit. Guy’s a genius.” Xander starts to giggle as he walks away.
Riley enters Spike’s crypt. At first Spike isn’t in sight, but then he steps out of the shadows, holding a loaded crossbow. Riley suggests that Spike put it down, before he gets a headache. Spike says he can’t be too careful these days, he’s got a lot of demons after him.
Riley is looking for information, and he’s willing to pay for it. That sounds good to Spike. Riley asks what he knows about Dracula.
“Dracula?” asks Spike. “Poncey bugger owes me eleven pounds for one thing.”
“You know him?”
“Know him? We’re old rivals. But then he got famous, forgot all about his foes. I’ll tell you what, that glory hound’s done more harm to vampires than any Slayer. His story gets out, and suddenly everybody knows how to kill us. You know, the mirror bit—”
Riley asks about Dracula’s special powers, but Spike is unimpressed by them. He calls it a bunch of showy gypsy stuff, and asks why Riley wants to know. Riley tells him Dracula’s in town.
“Drac’s in Sunnydale-way?” says Spike. “I guess the old boy needed closure after all.”
“Actually, he’s gunning for Buffy,” says Riley, “but I’m out to find him before he gets another shot at her.”
Spike doesn’t think much of Riley’s chances, but if he’s going to find Drac, he’s not going to find him in any crypt. “No, the Count has to have his luxury estate and his bug-eaters and his special dirt, doesn’t he?” Spike thinks that what Riley really ought to do is go home to Buffy, and have a nice safe snog. Dracula is out of his league.
Riley doesn’t like Spike’s attitude, and reminds him that he is mainly still alive because he has been useful once or twice, and Buffy has a problem with killing him now that he’s helpless. Riley doesn’t have any such problem. He starts to leave the crypt.
“You’re never going to find him,” says Spike as Riley leaves. “Not before he gets to her,” he adds after Riley is gone.
Buffy sleeps in her own bed tonight with the window of her room ajar. Mist starts to flow over the sill, and coalesces into Dracula. A wind blows through the room. Buffy starts awake and sees him standing over her bed.
“You are magnificent,” says Dracula.
“I bet you say that before you bite all the girls.”
“No. You are different,” says Dracula. “Kindred.”
“Kindred? Hardly—” says Buffy.
Dracula orders Buffy to pull back her hair, and she complies, uncovering her neck.
“This isn’t how I usually fight.” Buffy is disturbed by how quickly she obeyed his order. “You think you can just waft in here with your music video wind and your hypno-eyes…”
Dracula slowly moves toward Buffy. “I have searched the world over for you.” He sits on her bed beside her. “I have yearned for you. For a creature whose darkness rivals my own.” He runs his hand over her neck, and sees the scars from where Angel bit her. “You have been tasted.”
“He was—”
“Unworthy,” says Dracula. “He let you go. But the embrace—his bite—you remember.”
“No.”
“Do not fight. I can feel your hunger.” Dracula’s mouth moves to Buffy’s neck, and he bites her.
Buffy wakes up the next morning, gets out of bed, and gets dressed. While checking her hair in the mirror she sees the twin puncture marks in her neck from Dracula’s bite. She gets a scarf to tie around her neck.
Buffy sits on the sofa in Giles’ apartment. Riley gives her first dibs on a jelly doughnut, but the sight of the red jelly oozing from it destroys her appetite. Xander quickly steps up to take it for himself.
Willow starts to report on what they’ve learned about Dracula, which isn’t much.
Xander is fidgeting beside the doughnut box. “Like any of that’s enough to fight the Dark Master.” Everyone looks at him in surprise. “Bater,” he adds.
Willow’s research into Dracula has just turned up the usual stuff. “Turn offs: wood, fire, crosses, garlic. Turn ons: nice duds, minions, long slow bites that last for days.” Riley adds the information he got from Spike about Dracula’s favoured abodes. He likes nice places.
“Ah, but he’s smart enough to figure out that we probably already know that,” says Xander. “I’m guessing he’s laying low.”
Willow doesn’t think so. Her research has confirmed what Riley found out. Dracula isn’t the type to lay low.
“So we can check out the nicer places,” says Giles. “Don’t you think, Buffy?” Buffy doesn’t answer him, she seems lost in thought. “Buffy?”
Buffy becomes aware of her surroundings again, and agrees they should check out the swanky places first. She asks what else they’ve learned. Giles tells her that Willow found most of it, which prompts Willow to say she only found the stuff because he told her where to look. Giles tells her to just tell them what she found.
Willow reports that while Dracula will kill just to feed, he likes to have a connection with his victims, and he has all these powers which draw them to him. He can read and control minds, and he can appear in dreams. She felt a little of that herself when she met him the night before, and asks if Buffy felt it too.
“No. No, I didn’t,” says Buffy.
“See!” says Xander. “Buffy didn’t feel it. I think you’re drawing a lot of crazy conclusions about the Unholy Prince!” Everyone looks at him again. “Bater.”
Giles points out that even though Dracula goes through the motions of an intimate seduction, the end result is the same. He turns his victims into vampires.
“Well, that is intimate,” says Xander. “Dracula’s gifting these ladies with his own blood. And blood— blood is life.” He sees a spider crawling along the table near him. He notices that everyone is staring at him again. “According to them.” When people look away, Xander catches the spider, and eats it.
“Just be aware that he tends to form a relationship with his prey,” says Giles. “It’s not enough for him to take her, she must want to be taken. She must…burn for him.”
Buffy finds all of this interesting, but she thinks it’s time for her to start hunting Dracula. She starts to leave the apartment. Riley doesn’t think it’s a good idea for her to go alone, but Buffy tells him she’ll be fine, and leaves.
Riley follows Buffy out into the courtyard. He’s beginning to suspect what is going on. He asks her to take off the scarf. Buffy refuses.
“You’re under the thrall of the Dark Prince!” says Riley. Buffy denies it, but Riley tells her to take off the scarf again. When she refuses he pulls it off himself, revealing the bite marks.
Giles, Willow and Xander have followed Riley outside. Giles is surprised by what he sees on Buffy’s neck, and asks why she didn’t tell them. Xander tries to pass the marks off as just a scratch that Buffy didn’t want to worry them about, but they are clearly more than that.
Buffy sits on the edge of the fountain and tells them that she doesn’t know why she hid the marks. It’s like she had some voice in her head telling her to do it, that she couldn’t resist.
Riley doesn’t want to take this personally, but it does seem to him that Buffy has a thing for tall, dark and broody immortals, what with Angel and all. Buffy tells him that Angel has nothing to do with it.
Xander is standing a little back from the others. His attention wanders to a fly buzzing around in the bushes beside him. When no one is looking he quickly catches it, and pops it into his mouth.
No one thinks it’s a good idea to let Buffy get anywhere near Dracula again. They need to get her out of sight. They can’t send her back home, since Dracula clearly has access there. Xander quickly volunteers to take her to his place. Everyone thinks that sounds like a good idea.
Giles says that he and Riley will take up the search for Dracula. He tells Willow that she and Tara should go over to Buffy’s house to do a protection spell to keep Dracula from getting back in there.
“Got it,” says Willow. “How’d he get inside anyway?”
“He seemed so nice and normal,” says Joyce. “A little pale.”
“A good Sunnydale rule of thumb: avoid white-skinned men in capes,” says Willow. She and Tara are working on casting a protection spell around the front door.
Joyce sits on the stairs. “I’m not like this. I don’t invite strange men over for coffee. It’s just… Oh, when you girls are older you’ll understand. It’s hard to date. Sometimes you just feel like giving up on men altogether.”
Willow and Tara cast a glance and a smile at each other.
Giles and Riley cross another mansion off their list. It’s getting late, and they still haven’t found any sign of Dracula. They still have a few places to check, but the sun is setting.
Xander paces nervously around in his basement while Buffy and Anya sit on the sofa. Buffy seems lost in thought again. Anya doesn’t appreciate being on Slayer watch. She wants to be out looking for Dracula. Xander asks Anya what time it is, and she tells him it’s six o’clock.
Anya gets up off the sofa and stands in front of Xander. “Look, I mean, I’m the one who knows him. I’m the one who had a really good look at him, and so, I mean—”
Anya’s cut off when Xander pushes her into a closet, and closes the door. He wedges a chair under the doorknob to keep her trapped inside.
Xander turns to Buffy, who hasn’t moved from the sofa. “I’m supposed to deliver you to the Master now. There’s this whole deal where I get to be immortal. You cool with that?”
“Take me to him,” says Buffy.
Xander leads Buffy into the main hall of Dracula’s castle. “Master? I deliver the Slayer. She who you most desire. Sorry, whom. So now comes the immortality, right? You do the thing and—”
Dracula just sends Xander away, and turns his attention to Buffy. “I knew you’d come.”
“Why? Because I’m under your thrall?” asks Buffy. “Well, guess again, pal,” she raises a stake.
“Put the stake down,” says Dracula.
“Okay.” Buffy puts the stake down on the table. She is very disturbed by that. She tries to convince herself that there was some reason for her doing it, but it doesn’t work. “Maybe I should rethink that thrall thing.”
Giles and Riley arrive outside the castle. “I’ve lived in Sunnydale a couple of years now,” says Riley. “Know what I’ve never noticed before?”
“Uh, a castle?” asks Giles.
“A big, honkin’ castle,” says Riley. He and Giles head for the entrance. Once they get inside they split up, to search it more quickly. Neither of them notices a female vampire watching them from the shadows.
Buffy backs away from Dracula. She has no desire to be bitten again, but she seems powerless to resist him.
“Do you know why you cannot resist?” asks Dracula.
“’Cause you’re famous?” asks Buffy.
“Because you do not want to,” says Dracula.
“My friends are—”
“They’re here,” says Dracula. “They will not find us. We are alone. Always alone.”
Buffy stops backing away, and Dracula slowly approaches, and then walks around her. “There is so much I have to teach you. Your history, your power, what your body is capable of. And you will have eternity to discover yourself. But first…a little taste.”
“I won’t let you,” says Buffy.
“I didn’t mean for me,” says Dracula.
Riley tries a door, but it’s locked. He turns away to check out the rest of the room. The door he tried opens, and Xander steps out. “Nobody harms my Master,” he says.
“Your Master?” asks Riley.
“You want him? You come through me,” says Xander.
Riley drops Xander with a single punch. “Okey-dokey.”
Giles forces open a door, and steps into a darkened room. He discovers too late that there is no floor on the other side, and falls into a pit. “Oh, good show Giles. At least you didn’t get knocked out for a change.”
Giles struggles to sit up, and hears a growling noise. He isn’t alone in the pit. He looks around in the dim light, and sees three female vampires approaching him. “Oh, ladies. You would be the Three Sisters, yes? Excellent. Right. Uh, I’d heard that you were myth. Obviously erroneous.”
The three vampires hold Giles down. One of them straddles him, and rips open his shirt, while another nibbles on his ear. The third puts his wrist to her mouth.
“Oh dear God!” says Giles.
Dracula rolls up the cuff of his sleeve, and cuts his wrist. “All these years fighting us, your power so near to our own, and you’ve never once wanted to know what it is that we fight for?” He holds out his wrist to Buffy. “Never even a taste?”
“If I drink that—”
“I have not drunk enough for you to change,” says Dracula. “You must be near death to become one of us, and that comes only when you plead for it.”
Buffy tells Dracula that she isn’t hungry, but he knows her craving is deeper than that. “You think you know. What you are, what’s to come. You haven’t even begun.”1 Buffy pulls his wrist to her lips, and sucks. “Find it,” says Dracula. “The darkness. Find your true nature.”
Buffy remembers the First Slayer. She remembers the hunt. She remembers the kill. She hears her heart beating, and senses the blood flowing through her veins. She pulls her mouth away from Dracula’s wrist. “Wow!” she says, breathless. She hits Dracula in the chest, knocking him back onto the table. “That was gross!”
Dracula snarls, and rolls off the table. He orders Buffy to come to him.
“You know, I really think the thrall has gone out of our relationship,” says Buffy. “But I want to thank you for opening up my eyes a little.”
“What is this?” asks Dracula.
“My true nature,” says Buffy. “You want a taste?”
Dracula snarls and charges at Buffy. She jumps over his head, spins around and gives him a kick, followed by a quick series of punches. Dracula hits back, knocking her flying through the air onto the table.
Riley steps through the door into the pit room, and barely manages to catch the doorframe in time to keep from falling. He pulls himself to safety and looks down and sees Giles with the three vampires below him. He pulls a cross and a stake from his pockets and calls out to Giles. The vampires look up, see the cross, and instantly back off. Riley tosses it down to Giles, and then reaches into the pit, and tells Giles to grab his hand.
Giles staggers to his feet, and Riley pulls him out of the pit. Giles sits on the ledge for a second to catch his breath, and feeling dazed. He notices that he’s missing one of his shoes, and tries to go back for it.
Riley grabs onto him. “No, no, no, sir! No more chick pit for you. Come on.”
Buffy rolls off the table and charges at Dracula. She tackles him and they both fall to the floor. They struggle together for a while, and then Dracula throws her off, and bounces her off the wall. He picks Buffy up and slams her down onto the table.
Buffy rolls off the other side as Dracula jumps onto the table. She picks up a chair and smashes it on his back, then continues to spin around, and sweeps his legs out from under him with her leg. Dracula knocks Buffy away, up against the wall next to a torch. Buffy pulls the torch from the wall and swings it at the table, Dracula rolls out from underneath it just in time.
Buffy walks around the table with the torch in her hand. “A guy like you should think about going electric. Seriously.”
Dracula looks at Buffy and the torch, and calls it quits. He dissolves into a cloud of mist. Buffy sees the mist flow across the room, and start to reform at the top of some stairs leading from the hall. She tosses the torch aside, and sprints toward where the mist is forming. She grabs her stake off the table as she passes it.
Buffy leaps up onto the stairway, and plunges the stake into Dracula’s heart as he reforms. “How do you like my darkness now?”
Dracula falls from the stairs, and explodes into dust.
Buffy walks back down the stairs as Riley and Giles come running into the hall. Riley asks if she’s okay.
“Yeah,” says Buffy. “Chock full of free will.”
“And Dracula?” asks Giles.
“Eurotrashed,” says Buffy.
Xander runs into the hall carrying a torch. “Where is he? Where’s the creep that turned me into his spider-eating man bitch?”
“He’s gone,” says Buffy.
“Damn it!” says Xander “You know what? I’m sick of this crap. I’m sick of being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment, it’s over. I’m finished being everybody’s butt monkey.”
“Check,” says Buffy. “No more butt monkey.”
“It could have been worse.” Riley tells Xander. “At least you weren’t making time with the Dracubabes like Giles here.”
“I was not making time,” says Giles. “I was just about to kill those uh, loathsome creatures when Riley interrupted me.”
“Really?” asks Riley. “You were going to nuzzle ’em to death?”
“Of course not,” says Giles, as they all start to walk out of the hall. Giles brings up the rear, limping because of his missing shoe. “I was in complete…control.”
Mist starts to gather where Dracula exploded into dust. Dracula reforms.
Buffy plunges her stake into his heart again. “You think I don’t watch your movies?” she asks. “You always come back.” He explodes into dust again.
The mist starts to gather again. “I’m standing right here,” says Buffy, and the mist fades away.2
Buffy drops by Giles’ apartment the next day. He’s asked to see her. There is something he wants to tell her, but first he offers her some tea and cookies, which Buffy takes as a sign that whatever it is he wants to say, it’s important. She says that she has something she wants to tell him too. Giles insists that she go first.
“You haven’t been my Watcher for a while,” says Buffy. “I haven’t been training, and I haven’t really needed to come to you for help.” Giles can’t disagree with that, since it was part of what he was planning to tell her. “And then this whole thing with Dracula,” says Buffy. “It made me face up to some stuff. Ever since we did that spell where we called on the First Slayer, I’ve been going out a lot. Every night.”
“Patrolling?” asks Giles.
“Hunting,” says Buffy. “That’s what Dracula called it, and he was right. He understood my power better than I do. He saw darkness in it. I need to know more. About where I come from, about the other Slayers. I mean, maybe…maybe if I can learn to control this thing, I could be stronger, I could be better.
“But I’m scared. I know it’s going to be hard. And I can’t do it without you. I need your help. I need you to be my Watcher again.” Buffy winds down. “Boy, I just—I just keep talking, don’t I? I’m sorry. You had something you wanted to say?”
“No,” says Giles, his plans for moving back to England blown out of the water. “It’s nothing.”
Buffy tells her mother that she’s going out to a movie with Riley, and goes into her bedroom. She is surprised to see a girl there, about fourteen years old, with long dark hair. “What are you doing here?”
“Buffy!” calls out Joyce from her room. “If you’re going out, why don’t you take your sister?”3
Buffy and the girl both turn toward the door. “Mom!” they yell together.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Vampire 1 | The cemetery | Staked by Buffy |
| Workman 1 | Outside Dracula’s castle | Throat slashed by Dracula |
| Workman 2 | Outside Dracula’s castle | Killed by Dracula |
| Vampire 2 | The cemetery | Staked by Buffy |