“See? I told you she was going to be mad at me,” Dawn said to Tara and Willow. “Why did you make me tell her?”
“Well, she’s your sister. She… she needs to know these things,” Willow pointed out. “Buffy, please don’t be mad at her.”
Buffy shook her head, trying to will away the pain. “No, not mad. Pretty unthrilled that I’m the last to know, of course. Mostly, I’m disappointed.” She chose her next words more carefully. “School is… is… important. At mid-semester a D-plus isn’t an emergency, it’s just a… an indicator, a red flag, right? No big. But we’ve got to deal. I mean, it’s only a little pothole at the moment, but it could become a great big sinkhole—in which you would, uh . . . sink. So we just need to do something before it gets worse. Okay?”
Dawn nodded. “Monday’s a teacher workday, so I’ve got a three-day weekend to study.”
“Good,” Buffy said. “We can’t let a little problem become a big problem. After all, this is Problem Solver Central, right?”
“Sure,” Willow said. “And Tara and I, we can help her study.”
Tara smiled. “That sounds fun. We were going to hang out at the Bronze tonight, but we can do that anytime. Dawn is much more important. We could start right away.” A sense of relief rose in Buffy.
“Ah. Sounds like the perfect solution, Buffy,” Giles said, unwrapping an envelope of seeds that had come in today’s shipment of specialty items. According to the packing slip, the seeds came from a peculiar plant that has belonged to an infamous Danish vampire. “And if Tara and Willow need a break, I could always lend a hand. Unless of course, it’s an obscure bit of American history… ?”
Dawn shook her head. “The Colonial Period.”
Giles’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Excellent. It’s all settled, then. Problem solved.” He laid out neat rows of each kind of incense he was taking out of the box.
“Well, it’s a start anyway.” Buffy had been a bit shaky herself on the whole history thing during high school and wasn’t sure she would be a big help to Dawn. But Willow and Tara loved history. And Giles—well, Giles practically lived with his nose in a history book. Still, Buffy was Dawn’s sister and felt like she ought to lend some kind of support.
A bell jingled as the shop door opened, and Xander walked in and scuffed down the three steps into the main retail room. Anya came out from behind the counter and greeted him with an enthusiastic kiss. “Giles and I made $736.22 today.”
Xander flashed a grin at his friends, then looked into Anya’s eyes with a mock serious expression. “Now, Ahn, we talked about this, didn’t we?”
Anya thought, brightened, then said as if reciting, “I had an extremely successful day at work, financially speaking. How was your day, Xander?”
Xander smiled graciously. “Stunk. Spent ten and a half hours fixing flashing and replacing roof tiles that were damaged by the windstorm. Our construction schedule’s shot. I’m redoing work that I already did last week. And yet, no one to blame. You can’t fight the wind.”
Willow pressed her lips together in a sympathetic expression. “Frustrating.”
“Big time,” Xander agreed. “So I’m thinking to myself, what’s the best way to get rid of a little pent up aggression?”
Anya blinked. “I understand. Although I still have some work to do, I suppose I could take a break and—”
“Whoa—who’s for patrolling?” Xander cut in.
Buffy hesitated. “We were kind of working out a solution to a little problem.”
“Which, actually, we pretty much did,” Willow pointed out. “Don’t worry, Buffy. Dawn’s in good hands.”
“I know.” Buffy gave her friend a wry smile. “Didn’t you get me through high school?”
“I’ll order a pizza,” Tara said. “We can eat while we study, and then we’ll walk Dawn home.”
“Thanks. You guys are the best,” Buffy said, then looked at Xander. “Okay, I’m in.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured,” Xander said. “Anyone else? Ahn, want to come with?” Xander asked. “A little bit of healthy slayage to top off the day?”
“I still have work to finish. I need to calculate sales tax totals for our quarterly report. Then I have to update our Web site to add the new inventory. You two go ahead and enjoy yourselves. I’ll meet you at home in a couple of hours. After all, you left so early this morning, we didn’t really have a chance for—”
“—for dessert,” Xander cut in quickly. “After breakfast. I had to get to work early today to fix that roof that was damaged by the wind.”
“Dessert?” Dawn seemed intrigued by the concept. “I don’t get dessert after breakfast.”
“Well, what about pancakes?” Buffy said. “That’s like dessert.”
“Ooh, or waffles,” Willow added.
“And I suppose scones with clotted cream might be considered a sort of dessert,” Giles offered. A glint of amusement showed in his hazel eyes. He carefully set aside a matched trio of focusing crystals he had unpacked. “Although, I must say I rather prefer them at tea time instead.”
“There’s donuts. Or toaster pastries,” Tara said.
“See?” Buffy smiled at her sister. “Throw in some sweetened cereal and a few cheese Danish and you pretty much have a whole dessert fest in the morning.”
Anya gave them all a how-dense-can-you-be look. “Xander wasn’t talking about food,” she said helpfully. “He meant the sex.”
Xander sighed, lowered his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose as if suddenly overcome by a tension headache. “Subtlety, thy name is anything but Anya.”
Buffy pulled on a cropped leather jacket. The early spring evening wasn’t cold, but she often wore leather to keep from getting quite as scraped up when, in the course of normal business, demons and vamps decided to throw her against walls or stomp her into the dirt. Trying to ignore her still-aching tooth, she picked up a couple of stakes and stuffed them into her pockets. “Okay, time to get back to your history,” she told Dawn in a firm voice.
While Xander collected a stake and a crossbow, Buffy turned to Anya. “I’ll have junk-food boy home in plenty of time for dessert.” Then to Xander, “Let’s rock.”
Chapter Two
After leaving the Magic Box, Buffy and Xander grabbed a couple of burgers and headed out on patrol. Although Buffy ate quickly and chewed only on the side that didn’t hurt, by the time she finished, her tooth was throbbing worse than ever, and she shared Xander’s need to take out a little bit of aggression on something. They had walked less than a mile before trouble found them.
A pair of Tyrloch demons emerged from the shadows in the cemetery and confronted them. The demons had mottled, greenish-blue skin, bulging muscles, and a row of straight, sharp horns sprouting from their foreheads.
Xander assessed them with interest. “So . . . now we know what it would look like if the Incredible Hulk and the Statue of Liberty ever had kids.”
One of the Tyrlochs growled and raised his six-fingered hands in a threatening gesture. A four-inch talon sprang from the end of each digit.
“Just so we’re perfectly clear,” Buffy said, holding up a cautioning finger, “are you evil, or is this just some sort of tragic failure to communicate?”
There was the barest hint of insincerity in Xander’s voice as he said, “ ‘Cause we’d really hate to kill you over a misunderstanding.” He held his crossbow at the ready and flexed his free hand.
The taller of the two demons lunged, claws outstretched. Xander shot an arrow that went wild as the Tyrloch bore him to the ground. Xander smashed at the demon’s hands with the crossbow, shattering several talons.
“You should try the acrylics,” Buffy said conversationally. “They’re really quite reasonable—not to mention a stand-out fashion statement.” She was ready for the second demon. When it sprang at her, she threw herself to one side and mule kicked it as it tumbled past. She turned before it could regain its feet and went on the offensive with a kick to its chin. T
he Tyrloch used the momentum to tuck into a backward somersault and pop up in a defensive crouch. Buffy could hear Xander and the first demon tussling, but the sounds seemed far away. When she spared a glance in her friend’s direction, she saw that Xander was nearly a block away.
Buffy’s opponent chose that unguarded second to bound forward and catch her with an open-handed wallop to the side of her face. Agony exploded from her tooth and she spun and reeled, temporarily blinded by the pain. She tried to strike back with a right cross and missed.
Apparently as surprised as she was, the demon took advantage of her disorientation. It grabbed her and tossed her in reverse down the sidewalk. She skidded ten feet along the concrete on her back in her leather jacket. Trying to gather her wits, she pushed up to a kneeling position and grumbled, “Being a slayer sure is tough on the wardrobe.”
The Tyrloch made a flying leap for her, taloned hands spread, dagger-toothed mouth open wide. Buffy reacted on sheer instinct. She pulled a stake from her pocket with one hand and fell backward, supporting herself with the other. When the jaws were less than a foot from her face, Buffy plunged her stake through the creature’s open mouth and deep into its throat. The demon exploded into several gallons of smelly bluegreen goo. Panting, Buffy got to her feet and wiped globs of Tyrloch slime from her clothes.
A voice just behind her left ear said, “Out of baddies so soon? Pity.”
Spike.
Buffy whirled, trying not to show her annoyance at how thoroughly he had surprised her. The sardonic blond vampire should not have been able to sneak up on her so easily. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, and clamped her teeth in anger—an action she instantly regretted, as another lightning bolt of pain struck her tooth.
Spike gave her a knowing smirk. “Tooth hurts, does it, love? Are you simply being macho, or do you find that the pain helps you fight?”
“Neither,” Buffy snapped, irritated that he had already noticed the chink in her armor when none of her other friends had. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. Anyway, even if I wanted to I couldn’t go to a dentist. Mom didn’t have dental insurance, and I’m not a student anymore.” Then, as if realizing she’d just told him more than she’d told anyone else, she added for good measure, “Not that it’s any of your business.” To her chagrin, she saw a softening look on the vampire’s face.
“Insurance or not, you need to get that fixed, love.” Spike flashed her a rueful smile. “We all need our teeth, don’t we? And it could get much worse. Got to take care of yourself if you’re going to save the world.”
“Save the . . . Oh!” Buffy looked around in alarm. “Xander?”
Spike shook his head. “Wouldn’t worry about that one. Been watching you both, but neither of you seemed to need any help. Actually seemed to be enjoying himself, Xander did.”
“You’ve been spying on us? Of all the weasely, fang-faced, parasitic—”
“I’ve got something to show you,” Spike said in a quiet voice.
“Like what? Your etchings?” Buffy scoffed. “Or maybe you brought in some new bones to redecorate your crypt. No, thanks.”
Spike didn’t rise to the bait. “No, it’s in Weatherly Park. Something you need to see. As the Slayer. Bit more interesting than this lot.”
A hoot of triumph echoed through the night, and Xander came bounding up to Buffy, a gleeful grin on his face. “Demons, take a number. The Xan Man is on a roll.” Then, spotting Spike, he said, “And the line forms here.”
Buffy sighed and shook her head. “Maybe later, Xander. Right now he’s here on business.” She shot Spike a dangerous look. “And this better be good.”
Spike gave her an ambiguous half-smile. “Thought you should see it before the cops carted the bodies off.”
Chapter Three
It was a short, brisk walk to Weatherly Park with Buffy setting the pace. She was determined to find out what Spike had gotten his fangs in a twist about. In all likelihood, he wouldn’t leave her alone until then. She found the very thought of working with him distasteful, especially since Spike had decided he had the warm fuzzies for her. But she had to admit that he had been helpful more times than she could count now, and she couldn’t afford to ignore him completely. Learning to deal with people, especially dead people, was just one of the challenges she had accepted as part of her slayer duties.
Even though she liked to stay ahead of Spike both mentally and physically, she had no idea what he had brought her here to see, so she stopped at the edge of the park and gestured for him to lead. “Your party.”
Here and there streetlamps melted the night, leaving warm yellow puddles of light around the park. Spike’s black leather trench coat fluttered like a dark moth as he led them away from the path.
When they got to a cluster of bushes in a quiet section of the park, Spike ducked between two of the bushes, and Buffy and Xander squeezed through after him. Xander’s reaction to what he saw was instant. “Whoa! Are they—”
“Dead, yeah. I checked,” Spike said.
Buffy stared down at the ground, trying to understand what she was seeing. By the light of the almost full moon, she could tell that a couple was lying on a pale piece of cloth on the dark ground. Tiny dark spots marred the skin at their throats, wrists, and temples, and at the girl’s knees and ankles on her bare legs. “Do you have a light?” Buffy asked of no one in particular, kneeling down to get a better look. She heard a snicking sound and a cigarette lighter appeared in the air about a foot above the male victim’s face. Buffy shot Spike a withering look. “That’s it?”
“Photon man to the rescue,” Xander said, producing a flashlight. “Be prepared. I learned that in the Boy Scouts in the oh-so-brief time they allowed me to be a member.”
Spike took out a cigarette, lit it, and put the lighter back in his pocket. Xander turned the flashlight on and held the beam so that it illuminated both bodies.
The girl was pretty in a dark and exotic sort of way, as if she might have played Mata Hari in an old film. The boy was tall and high-school-jock handsome, though not remarkable in any other way.
Buffy slowly shook her head. Every time she thought she had seen everything and couldn’t be surprised anymore, she discovered she was wrong. The small spots and smears she had seen on the bodies turned out to be tiny wounds and dribbles of blood. But it didn’t look like there was enough blood loss to kill them. Buffy touched the girl’s neck, feeling for a pulse. There was none, but the body was still warm. An hour earlier and she might have been able to save her, but Buffy had been oblivious to whatever had caused this. Had she let a little thing like a toothache interfere with her slayer radar? Impossible. At least she hoped so. She turned her frustration on Spike.
“Okay, so you brought me here to show me what, that some sort of murderous pest is on the loose now? As if Sunnydale doesn’t have enough trouble with vampires, demons, and the occasional werewolf, now we have giant mosquitoes? Did you ever consider that this might not be a job for the Slayer? Maybe we just need an exterminator.”
“Hold on, Pet. Don’t stake the messenger.” Spike held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Whole situation’s wonky, and you know it.”
He was right. Still, Buffy was not ready to give him the satisfaction of admitting it yet. This wasn’t about Spike, though. It was about death, about protecting the innocent. She let her slayer instincts kick in. “Do we know who they are?”
“Not by name,” Xander answered, “but the girl looks familiar. I think Willow knows her.”
Spike blew out a puff of smoke from his cigarette. “We could check for IDs.”
“You haven’t even looked yet?” Buffy asked, incredulous.
Spike shrugged. “Didn’t want you accusing me of trying to steal from the dead.”
“Did you see what happened?” Buffy said.
Spike shook his head. “Found them like that ’bout half an hour ago.”
Buffy leaned closer to get a better look at the wounds, dozens of paired, pi
n-prick fine holes. “I think we can rule out drugs,” she observed wryly. “And if these were poisonous insect stings, there should be swelling.”
“Right,” Spike agreed. “And that wouldn’t explain the loss of blood.”
Buffy touched one of the puncture wounds. “It doesn’t look like they’ve lost much, a few drops here and there.”
“What about this?” Xander said, pointing to a dark patch on the towel that the couple lay on.
“Naw, burgundy,” Spike said with a derisive snort. “Bottled circa… last month, I’d say.”
Xander picked up the Wilma Flintstone cup and sniffed it. “Say what you will, but I’ve got to admire the man’s taste in stemware—though I’m actually more of a Betty Rubble man, myself. What’s this?” He bent over a small duffel, looked through it, and held up a handful of condoms. “And I’d always heard these went better with a cheap white zinfandel.”
Buffy sighed. “Candy is dandy…”
“Well, whoever this guy was, he wasn’t poor,” Xander observed.
“Oh, how do you figure?” Although Xander and the blond-haired vampire were usually at odds with each other, Spike sounded intrigued in spite of himself.
Xander considered. “Well, there’s the shoes for starters—not to mention the rest of his clothes. Let’s see. Cross-trainers: a hundred and forty dollars. Designer jeans: a hundred and sixty. Warm-up vest: ninety. T-shirt: sixty-five. . . . Beating heart? Priceless.”
Little Things Page 2
