---

Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part II

Andy left, starting back to prepare the lodgings for his new guest, and the others quickly discussed their immediate course of action. There was not, in fact, a great deal they could do without further information, and Doc reluctantly decided that he would need adequate sleep in order to conduct daylight inquiries upon which the Slayer could act the following night. “I’ll drive her back to the motel,” Katie volunteered. “No, better, I’ll show her around town some, it’ll take Andy a while to get things ready.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Doc said.

“What?” Buffy asked scornfully. “You think she’d be safer with you than with me?”

“I definitely think she’d be safer at home than out hunting trouble,” Doc replied, even and firm. “Which is precisely what she’s suggesting. If you really want to reconnoiter, the town itself is small enough for you to do that on foot. Which, as I understand it, is your standard approach anyhow.”

Katie was mortified. “Dad! Sure, she can cover everything, but who’s going to tell her what it means, what everything is, who lives where? She’s right, there’s not much we could run into that a Slayer couldn’t handle … and you know I can take care of myself.”

“I still don’t see the purpose,” Doc said, shaking his head. “It’s an unnecessary risk, to little point.”

“Somebody’ll have to do it sooner or later,” Katie argued. “Waiting is just more time Judith stays missing. I know, we can go check out the stables, where the horse was taken. Maybe we can find something there.”

Doc sighed. “I’m not being deliberately obstinate, but I fail to see what you could accomplish. Even if there were something at the stables that would have meaning to a Slayer, any clues would have been muddled or obliterated by the normal daily routine there.”

“I don’t know,” Buffy said with a shrug. “She said there was blood inside the stall. You can tell a lot from blood … if, like, you’ve got special Slayer senses the way I do.”

Doc wasn’t happy, but even he could see that this was a valid action. After further urgings of caution onto his daughter — and a pointed stare at the Slayer to be sure she understood her responsibility — he relented, and Katie ran to make quick preparations, and a few minutes later the two girls departed.

As they pulled out of Doc’s double-wide garage, Katie promptly asked, “So, what’s it like, being a Slayer?”

“It totally rocks,” Buffy replied cheerily. “I’m at the top of the heap, One Girl In All The World. Nobody can tell me what to do, I’d rip ’em a new one if they tried. The good guys — the ones that know, and there’s more of those than you might think — treat me like a queen, ’cause they all know I’m the best. The bad guys practically pee themselves at the thought that I might decide to go after them.”

Katie made a couple of quick turns, and they were cruising down one of the rural routes that led into (or in this case, out of) Cromwell. “It’s just … I have to keep telling myself this is real, that you’re actually a Slayer.”

“I’m still getting used to it myself.” Buffy glanced over at Katie and said, “Okay, I have to ask: what’s the deal with that get-up you’re wearing?”

Katie grinned, uncowed by the fashionista disapproval in the Slayer’s tone. “It’s a Blackhawk tactical vest,” she said proudly. “Keen, huh? I went over all the specs on their Web site, and picked out exactly the model I wanted. My dad got it for me for my birthday, and then I customized it a little more.”

Buffy shook her head. “You’ve got some weird kind of dad. What are you, thirteen?”

Katie made a face. “I’m seventeen. I’ve always looked young for my age. My dad says I’ll be glad of that when I get past thirty, but right now it’s a major ache in the you-know-what.”

“Right.” Buffy gave her a tilted look. “What do you need all that junk for? Better yet, what is all that junk?”

Still grinning happily, Katie began a running inventory, pointing with one hand while she steered the sporty Rav-4 with the other. “Glock 17 in a front-mounted Serpa carbon-fiber holster, trigger-guard retention system instead of straps. Spare 9mm magazines, three on each side, so with one in the chamber I’m carrying over seventy rounds. Spyderco folding knife. Garmin Rino GPS/radio. In these front flaps I’ve got a compass, in case the GPS craps out, some energy bars, Zeiss 12×25 compact binoculars, and a digital camera. Mounted on the web belt, I’ve got a mini-maglight, some glow sticks, compact first-aid kit, Gerber Fairbairn-Applegate lockblade, zip ties for handcuffs or to lock things in place, and a Leatherman folding multi-tool kit. Oh, and you can’t see it but there’s a two-litre Camelbak secured to the back of the vest, with the drinking tube looped over here so I can hydrate on the move.”

Buffy was silent for perhaps half a minute. At last she said, “So, no Kevlar?”

Katie laughed. “Maybe next birthday. Or maybe I’ll try to get a folding-stock Kel-Tec carbine, the model that’ll accept the same magazines as the Glock.”

“Okay.” Buffy settled back into her seat. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, you can ask me anything.”

“All right. So, are you, like, a lesbian or something? Or are you just crazy?”

Katie looked wounded but not surprised; this was, perhaps, not the first time she had heard the accusation. “Not a lesbian,” she said. “I have a boyfriend, and besides, other girls are dumb. And there’s nothing crazy about being prepared.”

“Prepared for what? Sneak attack from Canada?” Buffy shook her head. “I mean, jeez louise, you look like Barbie’s little sister, Scooter or Skipper or whatever, but you’re decked out like that bull-dyke Ripley in Aliens —”

“She wasn’t a dyke!” Katie protested. “She’d had a daughter, and you could see she was sweet on Michal Biehn’s character —”

“— sure, after that big wet kiss she laid on Winona Ryder —”

“— that was Ripley’s clone, and it was two movies later, James Cameron did Aliens but I don’t know what Hollywood hophead cranked out Alien Resurrection —”

“— and you rattle off all these brand-names like they’re important, like, like, like shoes, and it’s just so many different kinds of total freakishness!”

Katie slumped slightly behind the steering wheel, but the set of her mouth was disillusioned rather than embarrassed. “I never would have thought I had to explain this to a Slayer,” she said.

“Explain it,” Buffy said. “I really want to know.” She looked thoughtful. “Huh. I actually do. Weird.”

“I just love this stuff,” Katie said. “And why shouldn’t I? The whole world expects girls to be a certain way, and that’s fine if they are that way, but I’m not. I don’t want anybody protecting me; helping, sure, but it starts with me. If I need a guy, I get a guy. If I need a truck, I borrow a truck. If I need a gun, I have a gun. But all the way, it’s me doing it.”

She spoke with the earnest intensity of a child, one who knows what’s right and is convinced you’ll agree if she can just make you understand. “I’ll never be big, like Andy,” she said. “I’ll never be strong, like you. — Well, not unless I get called as a Slayer, and I can’t actually wish for that, can I? ’Cause you’d have to, you know, die first. — But I can learn how to fight, and I can learn weapons, and I can learn first aid and CPR … I guess what I mean is, I can be female without having to be helpless.”

“Oh.” There was a slight uncertainty to the way Buffy said it, and one might have wondered if she had quite grasped the nuances of the other girl’s point. “So, your dad bought you this, this Ghost Recon gear, but he didn’t seem very happy about you coming out with me.”

“My dad worries about me sometimes, but he says I should be what I am instead of what other people want, as long as I don’t totally go around the bend.” She shot the Slayer a quick sideways look. “Besides, I think he knows there’s no way he could keep me from hanging out with you as much as I can. I mean, the Slayer, here … you know what a big deal that is!”

Buffy nodded brightly. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool having me around, isn’t it?”

*                *               *

Katie parked on a side-road, and led the Slayer to the pertinent stable by a circuitous rear approach that took them clear of the main house, lights, and possibly dogs. She noted with happy approval that Buffy moved surely and comfortably in the night countryside. Struck by a thought, she asked, “Can you see in the dark?”

“Sure,” Buffy said. “Well, some. Better than humans, anyway … regular humans, I mean.”

At the stable itself, Buffy didn’t bother to go in; she stood outside, head cocked to the side, nostrils slightly flared. “Are you smelling the blood?” Katie asked her.

“Well, naturally,” Buffy said. “I’m not about to go in and taste it, it’ll be all mixed with horse poo.” She evaluated the scent for a few more seconds, then said, “Well, the horse is dead, not that there was much doubt about it. They pulled him apart and carried off the parts they didn’t eat. At least three of them.”

“Pulled him apart?” Katie repeated. “That’s awful.”

“Oh, he was dead first,” Buffy assured her. “There’d be a lot more blood, otherwise.”

“Okay.” Katie studied the other girl. “Vampires?”

“Please,” Buffy scoffed. “Vampires, feeding from horses? Never happen. Besides, I said they ate part of him. Vampires just drink.” She stopped. “Well, usually. I mean, I knew this one who really liked hot wings, and cheesecake still tastes pretty good —”

Katie wouldn’t be repressed. “So what was it, if not vampires? And how do you know how many of them there were?”

“The blood has some kind of noxious drool mixed in with it,” Buffy explained. “From at least three different whatevers. Once it’s in the blood, I just know.”

“But you don’t know what did it,” Katie insisted.

“No, not just from smelling their slobber.” Buffy had the expression of one who was becoming very annoyed, but was being quite virtuous about controlling it. “But we can, like, narrow it down.”

“Really? How? Tell me.”

“Well, we know they can work together. We know they can be pretty quiet … I mean, you said nobody realized the horse was gone till morning. We know they like meat; not all demons do, some of them eat the grossest things … We know they weren’t after anything special here, probably — no virgin’s toes, or gallstone of a thrice-cursed frog or anything like that — ’cause there is, like, nothing special about a horse.” Buffy gave the other girl a look. “A Watcher would know all this stuff, and know what books to look in. You should be able to get some idea from that demon Web site you were talking about.”

“You’re right.” They had started back for Katie’s vehicle, moving toward the trees that bordered the stable grounds. “As soon as I get home, I’ll go online —”

Buffy put out a hand to stop her, and the two of them stood quietly in the darkness for a moment. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Buffy said.

Katie’s hand was resting on the butt of the Glock. “Is something out there?” she asked.

“Couple of big, sweaty, heavy-breathing somethings.” The Slayer looked over at Katie. “I don’t know about the pistol … it’s noisy, and we’re close to the house, and I think you’d need, like, an elephant gun anyway. Did you see anything back there we could use? A sword would be dandy, but I could get by with an axe —”

“There was a shovel leaning against the door of the next stall down from where we were,” Katie said.

“Oh, sure, I remember. Okay, wait right here.” And she was gone with appropriately supernatural quickness.

Katie stood in the abruptly terrifying night, rooted as much in disbelief as fear. They Slayer had left her? But, no, she had to know what she was doing; she worked with other people all the time, the stories said as much, so she must be trusting Katie to hold steady, cover her back, not panic … Katie eased the Gerber lockblade out of its nylon case, mindful of Buffy’s admonition against gunfire, but she kept her right hand on the Glock all the same.

Then the Slayer was back, appearing silently from the gloom. “Okay, girlfriend, are you ready for some mayhem? Because it is so happening now!” She twirled the shovel nonchalantly in one hand, effortless as if it were a plastic baton, and her face was split by a wide smile of bloodthirsty glee.

Katie’s heart pounded, but underlying the real fear and tension there was something else, something new, something … “I’m ready when you are,” she said with deceptive evenness.

“Then let’s get our Slay on,” Buffy said, and charged the fringe of trees with a sharp expulsion of breath that had to be a war-shriek barely restrained.

The struggle in the dark lasted less than a minute, and Katie’s impressions of most of it were confused: fast-moving bodies, thuds of impact and low growls, the chuffing sound of claws scoring moist earth as a hooking swing just missed the Slayer. Katie hung back; she could tell that Buffy was flashing back and forth between her opponents, holding her own and inflicting damage, but she herself wasn’t at all confident that she could do anything that wouldn’t endanger the Slayer as much as her hulking foes. At one point an indefinite shape broke free of the fray and lunged toward her; Katie cut at it with a tight arc of the Gerber, it drew back from the glint of moonlight on the five-inch blade, and an instant later Buffy had engaged it again.

Perhaps twenty seconds of combat took place in a small open area clear of overhanging branches, and Katie was at last able to follow the action visually. Seen in battle, Buffy was at once impressive and slightly disappointing. She fought in ceaseless, inexhaustible motion, but there was no flow or continuity to her technique; it was choppy, disjointed, fast and powerful and incorporating moves recognizably drawn from taekwon-do and wushu, but without their unifying fluidity. Katie herself was getting ready to test for her red belt in taekwon-do, and was already at fourth kyu in Budoshin Jujitsu (within shouting distance of brown belt), and watching Buffy she knew two things with total certainty. First, she would never, ever be able to match the Slayer’s speed, power, or effortless flexibility; and second, apart from those things, Buffy’s skill was nowhere near her own.

It was sufficient, even so. Back in the trees again, Buffy felled one of her foes with a devastating swing that sent the top third of the broken shovel spinning past Katie; the Slayer clubbed the remaining figure with the metal handle, then jumped onto its back, scissoring her legs around its midsection, and snapped its neck with a sharp, savage twist of her arms.

The thing collapsed beneath her, and she wasn’t able to unlink her ankles quickly enough. She fell to her side with an oof! of surprise, then was on her feet again a second later, brushing leaves and loose grass from her dress. “Do you see my shoes anywhere?” she asked. “I know I jumped out of them somewhere around here.”

“Wow,” Katie breathed. “That was … that was just …” Choosing the right words would have required a delicacy that was beyond her at the moment. “I just watched the Slayer kill two demons,” she said at last. “I mean … wow.”

“Hel-lo,” Buffy said peevishly. “Shoes? Prioritize, already. Those puppies were four hundred and seventy bucks’ worth of genuine Danica Carlisle. Not that I actually paid, but still —”

“I think that might be one over there,” Katie said; then, peering at the limp shape sprawled on the grass, she added, “So these are the things that killed the horse.”

“Oh, not even,” Buffy said, without looking away from her search for the second shoe. “Totally not the same.”

“Huh?” Katie stared at the foraging Slayer. “You’re sure?”

“Different drool,” Buffy announced confidently. “I mean, smell it. Also, these guys? All ‘rarhh, hulk smash’. Not the sneaky raiding type at all.” She straightened, suddenly indignant. “Well, I’ll be … They weren’t just after us, they were sent after us!”

Katie looked around her. “Okay, now I’m starting to feel insecure. After us there’s-a-Slayer-in-town-and-we’re-going-for-her, or after us good-thing-you-happened-to-be-here-or-I’d-be-shredded-cheddar?”

“Beats me,” Buffy said. “But I know demons. Different types working together, especially dim-brain specimens like these? Doesn’t just happen. Somebody around here is pulling strings.” She sighed. “I hate evil masterminds. I mean, they always have to go on about all their diabolical schemes. Doesn’t anybody just want to kill people and have a good time —?”

“We should carry one of these things back so my dad can get a look at it,” Katie said. “Could you maybe …?”

The Slayer vetoed that thought with a half-raspberry. “Think again. Killer here, not carrier of corpses. You said you had a camera, take some pictures.”

Katie wasn’t happy with that (surely there was something useful her father could learn from a demon autopsy), but she wasn’t up to dragging one of the bodies back to the highway, and there was no way to thread the Rav-4 in between the trees. She took a dozen photographs from different angles, hoping the flash would be enough, even rolling the corpse onto its back to make sure she didn’t miss any distinguishing features. If nothing else, she’d have plenty of physical characteristics to check against the listings at ‘Demons, Demons, Demons’. Finally, when she could think of nothing else to do — and when the thought of other things out there in the uncharted night began to fray at her nerves — she and Buffy traveled back to where she had parked.

“That was … pretty awesome,” she said as they began the drive back to Cromwell. “The way you fought those things.”

“That’s the Slayer life,” Buffy answered, smiling. “Amazing is what we do every day. Well, every night.”

After another minute, Katie said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t more help.”

Buffy let out a little laugh that might have been called nasty. “What, jump in and have me tripping over you? or get in trouble and I get messed up having to rescue you? No, thanks.” That hung unpleasantly in the air; and then, as if reminding herself, Buffy added, “You did okay, Midget. I saw that thing go at you, and I saw you turn it back with the knife. I thought that was pretty stupid, actually … but, you know, a brave kind of stupid.”

“Thanks,” Katie said. “I guess. Uh, ‘Midget’? What’s that about?”

Buffy laughed again. “Well, me and you are like some kind of freaky Saturday morning cartoon. You know, the Vampire Slayer and the Midget Commando.”

Katie bit her lip, uncertain how to take that. “So, did you want to go back to the house, or do that patrol of the town you were talking about?”

“Just drop me off when we reach the city limits,” Buffy told her. “I know the way now, I’ll scope things out, see if there’s anything else shaking, maybe grab a bite.”

“I think everything’s closed right now,” Katie said. “Even the waffle house doesn’t open till five.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Buffy’s smile broadened. Her teeth were very white. “I’ll scare up something.”

*                *               *

Andy was surveying the windows when cool fingers touched his arm, and only long experience in maintaining appearances kept him from jumping. Yes, it was the Slayer, regarding him with smug satisfaction (she knew something herself about projecting an image) and a certain interest. “So, this is the place you’ve fixed up for me?” she asked.

“Just finished covering the windows,” Andy said. “I couldn’t manage any unicorns, sorry, but I’ll pick up something as soon as the shops start to open.”

“I guess that’ll have to do,” Buffy said, and followed him into the motel room. After a quick glance around, she said, “Okay, the windows? Do it again, on the inside, I don’t want sunlight diddling up my Slayer mojo. You got cable in here?”

“Till the end of the month,” Andy explained. “Once we get the funding —”

“Oh, I’ll be gone before the end of the month,” Buffy said. “One way or another.”

“That’s good, then,” Andy said. “Does the rest of the place meet with your approval?”

“I’m used to better,” she said. “But I’ve lived with worse. When you go out tomorrow, get me some running shoes, okay? These —” she dangled the stilettos from one thumb by their straps “— will just not cut it for patrol. I’m a seven narrow … and make it Reeboks, I don’t do knockoffs.”

“I’ll see to it,” Andy assured her. “Anything else?”

She thought about it, frowning with the effort. “Jeans, I guess. Stone-washed black denim. T-shirts, I don’t care what kind, just not white, and at least half a dozen.” At his look, she explained, “One gets splattered with monster goo, I just throw it away and pull on another one. Which reminds me, weapons. Everybody needs weapons.”

“On it,” Andy said. “I have a shotgun, and I can borrow another one —”

“No, no, no,” Buffy interrupted. “Weapons. I mean, a shotgun is okay, I guess, for backup, but you’ve got to have the right stuff for close and nasty. You know: sword, axe, crossbow, that kind of thing.”

“Crossbows,” Andy said. “I think I can manage that. And axes, except probably not the kind you’re thinking of. Swords, real fighting swords, and on short notice … that could be a problem.”

“Look, do I have to think of everything?” Buffy snapped. “Watchers are planning and supply, Slayers handle the bloody stuff. How can I do my job if I’m trying to do yours, too?”

“Right,” Andy said. “I’ll check it out. What size on the jeans?”

She sniffed dismissively. “You can’t trust store sizes. Just look at me, guess, and buy that and two sizes on either side. One of them is bound to fit.”

“Okay,” Andy said. “And I already know where I’ll be taking your tires to be repaired.” He paused, smiled. “I might pick up a couple of swimsuits for you while I’m clothes-shopping. I seem to remember something about a date by moonlight. I wasn’t joking about that.”

Buffy smiled, too, but hers had an edge to it. “Sure you’re not forgetting something?”

He thought about that. “I don’t believe so. I’ve paid close attention to everything you’ve said. To everything about you, as a matter of fact.”

The Slayer’s eyes danced with knowledge and amusement. “You didn’t maybe forget to ask if I ran across anything that might give you some idea of what happened to your wife?”

Andy’s smile faltered, but held, and he recovered quickly. “I’m trying to shut off that part of my mind until we have something solid we can work with. And … well, you have to know it’s hard for a man to think of anything else when you’re around.”

She laughed. “What I know is you’re a gorgeous, muscle-y, lying stud-muffin who’ll hump anything in skirts, and then two-time her with the next piece of fluff that walks by.” She stretched, arching her back in a way that pulled the fabric of the thin dress taut across her breasts. “But guess what, Randy Andy? You’re in luck even though I don’t buy your load of crapola for a second. And you know why? it’s because I ran into a couple of soldier-type demons tonight and tore ’em right up, and after a good kill a Slayer always has to work off the rush with a few hours of hard sex, or she’s just worthless for days.”

“Really?” Andy said. He was pleased to hear no tremor (or gulp) in his voice. “That’s … fascinating.”

“Oh, totally,” she assured him. “Ask anybody from Sunnydale, they’ll tell you Buffy Summers is the biggest slut in southern California. Now you know why.”

Andy nodded gravely. “I’ll certainly be glad to help you any way I can.”

She held up her hand as he started toward her. “Not so fast, eager beaver. You still have to fix those windows. And that’ll give me time to warm up in the Jacuzzi.” She pulled off the dress, and reached for a hanger from the closet, watching him with shrewd, mocking eyes. Her underclothing was near-translucent, and covered quite a bit less than the swimsuits Andy had envisioned. “Ten minutes should be about right. Don’t rush … but don’t keep me waiting, either.”

“No, ma’am,” Andy said through the roaring of blood in his ears. “I think you’ll find that this establishment puts the satisfaction of our guests ahead of everything else.”
 

|    Next Part     |    Previous Part    |    Chapter Index     |