Fic: Teacher's Pet, Part 2/3

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Title: "Teacher's Pet": Chapter 3 of In a Corner of My Soul
Author: Dragon's Phoenix
Rating: PG
Word count: 12766
Summary: Giles as the Big Bad of Season 1
Note: Apologies for the font change; LJ does stupid stuff like that to me.
Note: LJ didn't put in my paragraph breaks. I've tried to fix it but if you see two scenes merged together without a line break, please let me know.

Rupert counted the room numbers as he strode down the hall, 105, 107, ah, yes, Science 109. Giving the door a quick rap before pushing through, Rupert called out as he entered the classroom. “Stephen? I told you scones were harder to bake than you'd thought. Just because you tried and failed, don't think you can hide here and get out of our bet.”

Rupert's second step fell short as he stopped just inside the classroom. “The cup of white gold at Patera.” The words fell from his lips but they were nothing compared to the beauty before him. This Venus would put even Troy's Helen to shame. Her lips, as dark and as red as pomegranates, were just as likely to doom a man to Hell as to deliver him to Heaven. Her arms, white wings that would whisper softer than the tenderest down, would encircle no comforting paradise but would instead beat against him in a wild mating of two aggressors, each vying for dominance.

“Can I help you?” Her voice, the briefest cooing of morning doves, left him wanting more.

Help? Ah, yes. “I was looking for Dr. Gregory.”

“He's not here.” The words were a brash squawk. Rupert noticed Tucker sitting next to the woman at Dr. Gregory's desk.

Mine, Eyghon growled.

The woman? That would certainly explain his attraction.

Mine. The boy. Save him.

“I'm afraid Dr. Gregory isn't in today. I'm the substitute teacher, Miss French.” Shielded by Eyghon's mistrust, Giles struggled against the siren call of her voice.

Save him.

“Mr. Wells, shouldn't you be in class?”

“It's my lunch period.”

“Tucker was helping me plan out egg sac designs for the science fair.” The woman's smile mimicked a feminine frailty.

Unfortunately Tucker seemed to be completely under the spell of that smile. “Yeah, buzz off old man.”

“Ah, of course. I'll catch up with him, Dr. Gregory that is, some other time.”

Out of sight of the classroom, Giles plastered himself against the wall. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just escaped some dangerous beast although he couldn't be quite sure what until the image of a giant praying mantis flashed across his mind. “Do you mean Carlyle was right?”

Mine. Giles saw an image of Tucker. Save him.

“I'm not sure what I can do.”

Save him.

“Fine, but it'll need research.” With a stabbing pain, the lights in the hallway grew so blindingly bright he had to raise an arm against them. “Look, she's hardly going to attack him here at the school. I need to know how to kill her if I'm to save the boy.”

The pain receded but slowly as if Eyghon were reluctant to stop torturing him. Giles was just able to push himself off the wall when the wail of a siren drew him toward the cafeteria.

“Giles, Giles.” Buffy ran up, closely followed by Willow and Xander.

“What's happened?”

“It's Dr. Gregory. They found him.”

“Found him?”

“In a fridge. His head is missing.”

Once again Tucker flashed across Giles' thoughts. Save him.

Tucker stared at the white picket fence and pale stucco walls and checked the address: 857 Weatherly Drive. It had to be wrong. Miss French couldn't live in this bland suburban hellhole. There wasn't even a red light much less girly curtains or anything. He tried peering through the curtains but they were heavy and shut. He rang the bell and brushed a hand over his hair, hoping he had the right place as the door opened and …

Breasts. He could see breasts. Two of them, right there, hanging out of her dress. They were huge and … breasts. Miss French's breasts.

“Come in Tucker and, please, call me Natalie.”

Breasts. So close he could reach out and touch them but then she turned and the breasts were gone but, oh God, curves. There were curves and … lower curves. He followed the curves and found himself sitting. The breasts were back and they were handing him a drink.

“Don't you like your martini? I could make you something else if you'd prefer.”

No, no, then the breasts would go away. He downed the martini. The breasts smiled their approval. That … didn't seem right. Breasts … breasts didn't smile, but these did.

A bell rang and Miss French's eyes narrowed and the eyes were scary somehow, much scarier than the breasts, and something, something was wrong but he didn't know what.

“Miss French?” The words were far away, terribly, terribly distant.

“Blayne? Just a minute.” Miss French was so very far away, and the breasts, he couldn't touch them. He couldn't reach out. He couldn't move.

The chair rushed past him and he was on the floor. The ceiling was so white, like a great milky void, but it was moving and the walls closed in on him and he didn't know where he was but it wasn't where he'd been before.

“Blayne.” He heard her voice, the voice that went with the breasts but he couldn't see the breasts or the curves. He could only hear the voice. “You're early. Come in.”

“I hope you don't mind.” A voice but not the voice of the breasts.

“Not at all.”

“I couldn't wait to get my hands on …”

The voices had faded. The room was gone. Dark. Oh God, what was hap …

Even in the middle of the afternoon, the Zeitgeist's red ceiling and dark walls held the light at bay. Not that the restaurant was actively dark, but to Cecil it suggested a hidey-hole, a place where he couldn't be found. Of course that's not what he told himself. The best Käsekrainer this side of Berlin and as much lager as he could put back. The restaurant wasn't currently offering up much in the way of company. That was a shame given that he'd just escaped from more than a whole week stuck in the middle of nowhere with mother, but the lack of company couldn't be helped. Low profile, he was meant to be keeping a low profile so uncle Quentin would think he was stuck at home working on that damned indexing task. Of course that didn't mean he couldn't hit a couple of clubs later on. It wasn't as if Quentin or any of his stick-in-the-mud compatriots would catch Cecil there. He might run into a few of his own friends, some of them Watchers, but they'd never narc on him.

When a shadow loomed over his table, Cecil looked up with a grin, expecting that friendly little waitress. It wasn't a pretty girl. It was mother. “What … what are you doing here?”

She sat down across from him. “Busy at your assigned task I see.”

Fuck. How did she always manage to make him feel as if he was three with his hand caught in the sweetie tin? “It's just lunch, mother. Surely you can't expect me to starve myself.”

One look at his beer said she knew exactly how many he'd had.

“I can't continue until I have a list. You told me you'd provide a list of names, mother.”

“I have a contact. I presume you can handle extracting the names from him yourself.”

Shit, that was fast. He'd thought he'd have a few days in London before she had him back in the salt mines. “Of course. Who is it?”

“The Wyndam-Pryce lad.”

Cecil's heart sank. No, she couldn't mean … “Wesley?” No, it wouldn't be Wesley. That'd be too easy. Besides, Wes was too young to have known Rupert back in the day.

Mother raised an eyebrow. “No, his cousin Alan.”

Damn. “But you told me I shouldn't speak to Watchers.”

“And you won't. Unless I specifically instruct you to. Alan can be trusted.” Which meant mother knew one, or rather more than one, of Alan Wyndam-Pryce's secrets. “He will provide you with a list of know associates. You will take it from there.”

Cecil stared at his beer. He didn't want to leave it but felt uncomfortable finishing it off before mother. He wished she'd leave.

“Well? Get going.”

With a grim frown, Cecil called the waitress over for his check.

Over an hour before homeroom was due to start, Giles stood, alone, in the empty library. He didn't know why he bothered to arrive early. Buffy would waltz in whenever she felt like it and not a moment sooner. The girl had no sense of duty, especially when it came to the meditative practices. The situation was spiraling out of control. Giles needed her to meditate, she would meditate, and once she'd finally managed to access a trance state, he'd tap into her subconscious and locate that damned Scythe.

At least her lack of enthusiasm gave him time to step into his office and check his purportedly forbidden bookshelf. Hmm, The Wisdom of the Beast was still missing. Not surprising, really. Of the books he'd put out to tempt Willow, Wisdom was the most serious, outside of The Rose and the Thorn. A quick cantrip revealed that Willow had pulled The Rose from the shelf but had quickly put it back. He could almost picture the twitchy little virgin reading the subtitle, A Tantric Guide to Sex Magic, and shoving the book away as if it had burned her. He'd have to see what he could do to correct that. Untrained magic didn't flow smoothly, but Giles was not about to fight for control each time he had to access Willow's power. She was already meditating regularly, which would smooth down the flow of her magic over time, but the more she practiced, the faster her magic would become usable. There was nothing to get a teenager to practice, well, anything like wrapping it up in sex.

“Giles? Don't tell me I made it here before you.”

Giles glanced at the clock as he closed up the shelf. Buffy wasn't late? Would wonders never cease. “I'm in here,” he said as he stepped into the library's main room. “I take it you have something important to report?”

“Huh?”

“Presumably you're on-time for a reason.”

She grimaced as she dumped her coffee and some sort of flaky, sugary concoction onto the table, but she didn't disagree. “So I was in the park last night.”

“The park?” Gods, could she just get to the point? He hadn't even put on the water for his tea yet.

“Yeah, Weatherly.”

“You went hunting last night.”

“Yes.”

“When you assured me you wouldn't.”

“Yes, I lied. I'm a bad person. Let's move on.”

And she'd been looking for whom? Right, Fork Guy. “Did you see someone with a fork?”

“More like a jumbo claw.”

He checked to see if she'd been hurt. Apparently not. “And?”

“And I saw something else. Something much more interesting than your average run-of-the-mill killer vampire.”

Oh, please, do pick up the pace. “Oh?”

“Do you know Miss French, the teacher that's been subbing for Dr. Gregory?”

The giant praying mantis creature? “Ah, yes.”

“Well, I'm chasing Claw Guy last night and Miss French is heading home. Claw Guy takes one look at her and runs screaming for cover.”

Well, he would, wouldn't he? Of course Giles couldn't tell Buffy that. “Ah.”

“Ah? That's it? I tell you rampaging killer vampire is afraid of a substitute teacher and all you can say is ah?”

“This will require research. Why don't you meditate while I gather my books?”

“Meditate? There's not only Claw Guy but also a really scary substitute teacher … Okay, that doesn't sound as bad as it should, but we don't even know what she is and you want me to sit back and meditate? I should be following her, checking her out.”

“If she frightened off a vampire, she's terribly dangerous. I don't want you hunting her until I have a plan of attack.” Based on Buffy's expression, his words had gone in one ear and out the other. “Did you manage to kill, um, Claw Guy last night?”

“Huh? Oh, no, he sort of got away.”

“And yet you believe you can chase after an unidentified creature? If you can't even sit still and tune into your Slayer powers, how do you expect to defeat Claw Guy much less anything more dangerous?”

“Fine.” She took a bite of her croissant and a swig of coffee before settling into lotus position. Ah, yes, because sugar and caffeine would be so helpful as she tried to calm her mind.

Giles walked into the stacks before calling on Eyghon. “What do you know of this creature?”

Mates. Eats. Young ones, those untouched by corruption only. Lays eggs and leaves. Invincible enemy. Strong. Deadly.

“Perhaps I can delay Buffy until the creature has left town.” Pain lanced through Giles' mind. “What was that for?”

He saw an image of Tucker. Save him.

“We don't even know that she's targeting him.”

Eyghon showed him an image of Tucker in the science room with Miss French. Save him.

“Yes, well, if the demon is that dangerous you may have to choose between the Slayer line and Tucker as an acolyte.”

Both.

When Giles stepped out of the stacks, Buffy's foot was twitching a mile a minute. Wonderful. She couldn't even still her mind for two minutes and yet Eyghon was forcing him to send her after a demon that would almost certainly kill her. Giles felt trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, and Eyghon would most certainly take it out of his hide once the Slayer was dead.

Five children were listed on the morning roll as absent. While Kris reviewed the list, she wondered how many were actually dead. In Sunnydale, it was unlikely they were all out sick. As if to prove her point, in rolled Detective Young, the high-school's contact with the Mayor's Task Force on Missing Children. Kris wasn't surprised to see that his cup of coffee had come out of the high-school's cafeteria. The detective almost always stopped in to see the lunch ladies before coming to the main office. “Detective Young.”

He shook his head as if disappointed. “Kris, I've asked you to call me Dan.”

And I've told you to call me Miss Mansfield. She stood just far enough behind the counter that he couldn't reach out and take her hand. “No new missing students I hope.” But of course there were. He wouldn't have come in person if there weren't.

“Blayne Mall,” he replied. “The father's some sort of hot-shot lawyer, thinks he's a big deal. The mother called in last night, hysterical. Garcia took the call and let the woman hold up the line for a good forty-five minutes and, to add insult to injury, the father's office called this morning. He demanded to speak to me in person, if you can believe it. I got him off the phone in less than five, but then I'm not Garcia. I didn't bother to offer him a Kleenex each time he sniffled at me.”

“Did his parents mention any after school activities?” Kris made a mental note to stake out the Mall house that evening. If Blayne were a newly risen Fledge, he'd likely be drawn back to his home. Family members were the most common victims of newly Turned vampires.

Detective Young leaned on the counter with a pleased look, as if he though she was asking just to draw out the conversation. “I'd have to check my notes.”

“Please do.”

“Well, only because you said please.” He didn't actually look through any papers. “He had some science thing in the early evening with one of the teachers. I'll need to talk to him.”

“Her,” Kris said. Young's eyes lit up at the correction. “Miss French, a substitute, is taking on Dr. Gregory's classes. You'll have heard he was found, headless, in one of the refrigerators.”

“Yeah, little Nellie was quite shaken up about it.” School had started less than a month ago and Kris had already seen him out at night with two of the lunch ladies. This despite his wedding band. Apparently he'd made a third conquest in the cafeteria. It was quite remarkable if a bit nauseating. Late forties and balding didn't generally manage to juggle at least four women at once.

“Miss French doesn't have any students at the moment. You should find her in Science 109, either that or the Teacher's Lounge.” Kris didn't offer to call the woman to the main office. The detective could hit on at least three women at once, and Kris was not going through that again.

“French, eh? Does she live up to her name?” When Kris didn't respond, he added, “Don't know why we bother. It's not like we'll find any of the little monsters. These boys, they head off to Tijuana and we never see them again.”

“How do we know they're alright if no one sees them?”

“Hey, if I was down with that many hot taco-tails, I'd never come home either.”

Wait, he'd said monsters. As in more than one? “Are there any other missing students this morning?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, um, Melanie Hart and Tucker Wells.”

Wells, wasn't he also taking biology? “If you leave now you'll have a good ten minutes with Miss French before the next class starts.” Letting Detective Young find his own way out of the office, Kris brought up Tucker's schedule. Yes, there it was: biology with Dr. Gregory, the teacher who'd been replaced by Miss French. She brought up the substitute's records. Born in 1907. So much for staking out Blayne's home. Looks like she'd be keeping an eye on the teacher.

The last bell had run a good minute ago but Mrs. Miller had them trapped in the classroom. “You're not going anywhere until I'm sure you all understand the assignment.” When they were finally released, Buffy had to shove only a few of kids out of the way to be first out the door. Of course she was a couple of halls and one staircase down from the science classrooms. Forcing her way through the halls was like swimming against a stream. Everyone seemed to be going the other way.

When she peeked her head around the corner, she was just in time to see Xander leaving Science 109. She was thinking about asking him if he'd noticed anything odd about Miss French when he pumped both fists into the air and shouted, “Ooo, yes!” Okay, and maybe he wouldn't have a useful perspective.

After about two minutes, Buffy started to wonder if Miss French was even in the classroom. Maybe she'd gone for the day and Xander had been all happy because he, you know, hadn't had his head bitten off by a demon. After four minutes, she couldn't stand not knowing. Buffy walked past the classroom and peered through the window in the door. Nope, Miss French was there all right, eating an, ugh, white-bread sandwich. At the six minute mark Buffy told herself that Miss French had not climbed out the windows. Someone would have seen her. She was just taking her time getting organized or something. Maybe heads took a long time to digest and she had an upset stomach. Finally, after more than ten minutes, Miss French left the classroom and, yay!, made her way out the front of the school.

Good, now all Buffy had to do was follow her home, keeping her distance so Miss French didn't see her, and maybe she should be wearing a hat and sunglasses as a disguise or something. Scrounging through her backpack as Miss French walked down to the sidewalk, Buffy found a hair-tie. She threw the rubberband back in and looked up to see Miss French walking into the parking lot. “No. No no no no no.” She caught up just as Miss French drove off in some sporty little red number. So much for surveillance. Buffy turned back to the school. Maybe Willow or Giles had come up with something.

In the library, Buffy found Willow on the computer and Giles, what a surprise, going through a pile of musty books. “Hey, Buffy, I thought you were going to follow Miss French.”

“She what?” So much for keeping the surveillance a secret from Giles.

As she spoke, Willow glanced toward Giles as if she thought he was about to explode. “Or, no, of course I didn't think that because, um, why would you be following a teacher even if she isn't really a teacher and only a sub?”

Thanks Willow, Buffy thought. “I lost her,” she explained to Giles.

“Lost her as in the demon is aware you were trailing her and has now gone into hiding?”

“No,” Buffy replied. “Lost her as in I didn't know she'd have a car.”

“Gods.” Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. “And I'm left having to applaud your lack of preparation since it has, quite likely, saved your life.”

“I wasn't going to confront her.”

“Oh? Well, that's alright then, because naturally she'd never attack if you hadn't confronted her. Demons are so considerate that way.”

“She let Claw Guy go.”

Before Giles could respond, Willow's computer beeped. “Buffy, 911! Blayne's mom called the school. He never came home last night.”

“The boy who worked with Miss French yesterday?” Giles asked. “That would fit with the demon's modus operandi.”

“Her what?”

Willow leaped to her feet. “If Miss French is responsible for … Xander's supposed to be helping her right now! He's got a crush on some kind of a demon.”

Buffy grabbed her hands. “It's okay, Willow. I saw him. He left her classroom. He was fine. Completely head-having and everything, and she's left campus for the day.”

Willow dropped back into her chair. “Oh. Good.”

“So Giles, come up with anything?”

“As you know, Dr. Gregory was decapitated. Since there has been no sign of his head, I have been investigating creatures that would, um, eat the head of their victims. I believe we are dealing with a She-Mantis, the demonic form of the praying mantis. The female assumes the form of a beautiful woman and lures innocent virgins back to her nest where she mates with them and literally bites their heads off.”

“A praying mantis?” Bufy asked. “Isn't that sort of, um, tiny?”

“Ah, no, sorry. Left that detail out. The She-Mantis is as large as a human.”

“Xander's gonna die!”

“She doesn't have Xander, Willow. I saw him. He's fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'll find Xander and make sure he knows. You two, go through all the info you can find on praying mantises. Do they have any natural predators? What makes them go wiggy?”

“Buffy, you can't assume that a demon could be harmed by the same creatures that would kill an insect. If that were the case we could merely step on it.”

“We can't assume not either. Just look it up.”

Xander woke behind bars. As he rose, wiping the straw he'd been sleeping on from his face, he scanned the room. It seemed to be a basement, with stairs to his left and old refrigerator and something … large moving in the background. His mind flashed to an image of a serrated hand. “Miss … French?”

“Please, call me Natalie.” It spoke with her voice.

Okay, this was bad. He backed away. Something grabbed him from behind. “Ah!” He turned and backed into more bars. Something else grabbed him. “Ah!” He jumped away from both of them, toward the big bug creature. “Tucker! Blayne!”

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” Blayne was freaking. Well, he sort of had reason to.

“You gotta save me, man.” Tucker grabbed his collar.

“Hey, back off.” Xander brought his hands down on Tucker's arms to release the hold. “What's going on?”

“She, she, she gets you, and, uh …” Blayne was no help.

“What?”

“She gets you, man, and ties you up and these eggs come shooting out and then …” Tucker made a choking sound.

“I don't wanna die like that!” Blayne added.

Okay, it seemed to involve mating and death, sort of like in English class with Mrs. Gluck rambling on about sex and death and how they always go together or are always associated with each other or something which, frankly, had never made any sense, but this was less literature-like and more happening any minute in real life like. “Blayne! Chill! It's okay. It's gonna be okay. We'll get out of this.”

“You gotta plan? What is it?”

“Just, uh, let me perfect it!”

“Oh, God … Oh, God … Oh, God …”

“It's okay,” Tucker muttered to himself. “I got out of the last one. I can get out of this one.”

“The last what?” Xander grabbed Tucker's arm. “What did you get out of? How?”

It didn't take much arm twisting to get Tucker to talk. “Okay, okay. A bunch of us were hanging in this abandoned mansion and some … thing came out of nowhere. It tore into them. There wasn't anything I could do.”

“And?” Xander twisted harder.

“I snuck out, uh, while it was eating them.”

“That's so less than helpful.”