i took a tiny step and there conclusions were

She leads Willow upstairs, grabs a shirt, grabs the book the librarian gave her, and starts to explain.

"OK so when I went to get my books at school today the librarian was being super weird and told me I had to kill vampires or something and gave me this book and I thought he must be bullshitting me until I saw that dude chowing down on your neck and that's kind of a big coincidence so maybe something weird is going on and it seems worth a look."

"Ohh. You don't think - I mean he couldn't have been a - I mean I guess he was - well, well, why did he tell you to do that, why not get someone who's not, you know, a high school student?"

"Not a clue. I'm kind of thinking we - or I guess just I, you don't have to be part of this if you don't want to - either read this and hope it has answers or we look up the librarian in the white pages and go to his house and demand some."

"Well, uh, reading the book sounds - safer."

"Oh, um, of course. Right. I can take you home now if you'd rather."

"No no I want to help! Just, you know, if there's a way to help that doesn't involve going outside and getting bitten again, that would be swell."

"Oh, of course. Well then, let's get started."

She cracks the book open, looking for an index or table of contents.

The book does, in fact, have a table of contents:

I. On The Vampyres And Ther Kin

II. On The Slayer Of Vampyres

III. On The Council Of Wachers

IV. On The Mysticel Arts

V. On Other Demonic Beings

Appendices

"OK so I'm thinking the first thing to do is confirm this isn't all nonsense. Maybe figure out how this says to identify vampires and then check that they exist? Or maybe there's something obviously magical we could do in the mystical arts section. We'll want to split the work somehow but I can't think of a better way to do that than turn-taking for a single book that looks to irreplaceable to tear in half."

"Right, that sounds good, no tearing irreplaceable books. Or books in general. Maybe if we start at the beginning, with the vampires?"

They start there.

The book informs them that all myths which posit that the earth was once a paradise are false; the earth was once a hell. The remains of its hellish origins can still be found today, most notably in the form of the vampires, demons in human skin which walk the earth, killing and making more of themselves. They are beings that know no remorse or goodness, beings completely devoid of love or of human compassion.

A vampire is created when another vampire drinks the blood of a human and forces the human to drink their blood, before killing the human. Vampires are vulnerable to beheading, a wooden stakes through the heart, sunlight, fire, and the sacred objects of the Catholic Church, most notably crosses and holy water.

The book is much more verbose about saying this.

"OK, so we beheading's obviously out, wooden stake is out, fire's out. So it seems like a test would be finding someone all weird-faced and pointy and either tying them up and seeing if they melt at sunrise or, like, getting a spray bottle of holy water from a church?"

"I think the first one is, uh, slightly illegal. If we're wrong. We could probably find a church and see if they give the stuff out."

"No duh beheadings are - ohhh you meant tying them up. Right. I bet the churches are closed right now so if we're not doing illegal stuff we should probably do that tomorrow. Drive you home?"

"Yeah! Yeah that sounds - that sounds good."

She rifles around the living room until she turns up Vanessa's keys and drives Willow home.

That's good. That's very good.

They do not run into any more vampires on the way to Willow's house.