Author's Note: Apparently, I'm a glutton for punishment - because on top of the other three on-going fics I have on here, and the three novels that are currently in-progress, I've started another multi-chapter fic! This one is a crossover between Castle and the Buffyverse (I listed Buffy for archive purposes, though as you'll be able to tell, I borrow heavily from Angel as well. My three favorite TV shows all mashed up together in a massive AU fic that I can already tell is gonna be a blast to write. I hope it's a blast to read! Enjoy, and please review!
Interrogations didn't usually take place at four in the morning.
Then again, Kate Beckett wasn't like most detectives. In the nine years she'd spent working Homicide at the Twelfth Precinct, she'd lost count of the number of times she was the first detective to show up for the day. Even more often, she was the last to leave at the end of the day. More times than she cared to admit, she stayed overnight, letting one day bleed into the next.
To some, she was hyper-vigilant. To Captain Roy Montgomery, she was personally driven. To her best friend Lanie Parish, who spent her days in the morgue tending to the wrongly deceased, she was nothing more than a workaholic.
Fact was, every theory carried with it a nugget of truth. Not that Kate would ever give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that. Let them have their theories; so long as she put killers behind bars, that was really all that mattered.
Kate pushed her way into Interrogation 1, her hazel eyes burning a hole in the manila folder in her grasp. The young detective had a yellow pencil tucked behind her right ear, her hair short with hints of red and flared out at the ends. Her jaw was set, lips forming a thin line of concentration. She ignored the bald man sitting at the table, content to let him stew in the humid uncertainty of the room.
Interrogation was usually ten to fifteen degrees warmer than the rest of the building, and that was on purpose. The idea was to get anyone in this room as uncomfortable as possible, yet another tactic Kate and her team employed.
At this hour, there was no one in observation, and the cameras had been turned off for the night. That suited Kate just fine – so much so that when she slapped the manila folder onto the table, she also disconnected the wire attached to the microphone in the center of the table. The bald man flashed Kate a look of confusion and concern, and she allowed herself the tiniest of smiles.
Yet she refused to sit. Instead, Kate pulled the pencil from behind her ear and tapped the eraser against her open palm. She regarded the man with a quirked brow, biting on her lower lip. Silence hung between them for a beat, maybe two – silence was one of Kate's favorite interrogation techniques. Ryan and Esposito hadn't yet mastered it; as of now, it was her trick and her trick alone.
"Esteban Vargas." Kate shook her head. "Funny thing, you being here. Rap sheet says you're pretty familiar with cops. Nothing major, just some petty B&Es and some larceny from your teenage years. But see, here's where it gets interesting." Kate leaned forward, pressing her index finger into the manila folder. "Three years ago, it's like you just…disappeared. Poof, without a trace."
Something dark flashed in Esteban's eyes, and Kate saw the slightest uptick of his mouth in a snarl. His muscles flexed, his hands balled into fists. She smirked and straightened her posture, twirling the pencil between her fingers. "I have three eyewitnesses that swear you were at our crime scene two nights ago. I have a sworn affidavit that you sliced open Miguel Castadon's neck in that alley, and yet there is no physical evidence. No fingerprints. No trace DNA. Nothing. Not even any blood, which is odd."
The snarl returned. "Guess dat means I didn't do it."
Kate leaned forward again, the darkness in her eyes matching his. She leaned in until her face was inches away from his. Esteban didn't flinch, but his nostrils did flare, and she could see his shoulders tensing. Her gaze narrowed. "Really. Then how come I can smell his blood on you?"
"What?!" Esteban's face scrunched in disbelief. "Lady, you loco!"
"Am I?" Kate rose from her seat and began pacing again. "Because if I'm crazy, then so is the witness who saw our sketch artist." She produced a pencil drawing from the manila folder, a face-on shot of a man who looked remarkably like Esteban. "I mean, I think there are a few inaccuracies myself, but still, even you have to admit the resemblance is striking."
"You got nuthin' on me, lady." Esteban sank deeper into his chair, folding his muscular arms over his chest – stretching his dirt-stained white tank top to the fabric's limits. "You can't arrest me for shit."
"You're right. I can't." Kate shrugged. "Because truth is, we don't have laws to deal with people like you. And I used the word 'people' loosely."
More confusion and anger. "Lady, what're you—"
"Cut the crap, Esteban." Kate was hovering over the table again, her face inches from Esteban's. The stench of death wafted off of his pale skin, and Kate was silently thankful for her strong stomach. "I know what you are. So what say you come out and play, hm?"
Esteban shook his head with a chuckle. "Trust me, chica, you don't want dat."
Straightening once more, Kate smirked as she flipped the pencil into the air and caught it. "Try me."
Esteban snarled, and the sound morphed into a primal growl as he pushed himself out of the chair, muscles flexed and hands balled into tight fists. He bore his teeth, fangs springing from his upper gum as his dark eyebrows gave way to hard ridges, firm recesses of dead skin framing yellow, feral eyes.
Kate watched the metamorphosis with a bored grin, shaking her head once Esteban growled again, a trail of spit falling to the floor. "There, was that so hard?"
Truth be told, Kate knew Esteban was a vampire as soon as she laid eyes on him in that alley two hours ago. Everything between then and now had just been for show – and sometimes, using the resources her badge afforded her to take care of business proved beneficial on all fronts. This was one of those times, considering this monster just so happened to intersect with her most recent murder investigation.
Esteban snarled again. "You ain't no cop…"
Kate rolled her eyes and flashed the badge that was attached to her hip. "Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD." Darkness flickered in her eyes, and the woman crouched into a defensive posture, the pencil clutched tightly in her right hand.
Esteban finally lunged toward Kate, and she ducked his right fist, slamming her elbow against the back of his head. The vampire's momentum caused him to stumble face-first onto the cold floor, just missing the table. Esteban was on his feet by the time Kate closed the distance, grabbing the hem of her white blouse and shoving his right fist into her stomach.
She doubled over with a gasp, before an uppercut to the chin sent her barreling back into the table, breaking it in two and causing it to collapse on top of her. Esteban pushed the broken table aside, bearing his fangs under the harsh light before grabbing Kate by her collar and headbutting her.
Blinking the blood out of her eyes, and doing her best to ignore the throbbing in her jaw, Kate answered Esteban's headbutt with one of her own. She relished in the sound of the vampire's nose breaking, but not as much as she enjoyed being released from his grip. She pushed Esteban back to the corner of the room with a flurry of punches, her hands a blur as they connected with his stomach and his ribcage.
Esteban doubled over in pain, trying to brace himself against the assault. He gritted his teeth and sucked in a deep breath that he didn't really need before pushing back against Kate's fists and grabbing her left wrist. He grinned before licking his lips and bringing her wrist to his mouth.
Kate waited until his fangs were inches from piercing her skin before she jammed her pencil into his chest. It sunk just far enough, and she could hear the telltale shunck of her makeshift weapon hitting its intended target. Esteban released his grip on Kate's wrist, his eyes wide with shock and fear.
"Oh." Kate flashed a smug grin. "Did I forget to mention I'm also a vampire slayer?"
Esteban disintegrated before he could answer, leaving behind a cloud of ash, dust, and soot in his wake. Kate coughed and shook her head, brushing off her blouse before doing the same to her arms and hands. The janitor could vacuum Esteban away, but Kate would have to figure something out about the table.
Fortunately, Montgomery wouldn't be in for another four hours. She had time.
Officially, Miguel Castadon's murder would likely go unsolved. It would eventually become a cold case, little more than a box stuffed on a shelf somewhere deep in the bowels of the precinct. But Kate felt confident that she had actually dispatched of his killer, and even if the state of New York didn't see it that way, she enacted justice on Miguel's behalf.
She wouldn't be able to give Miguel's family that same comfort, though. They would likely go the rest of their lives not knowing who killed him, and for that, Kate was sorry. She knew all too well what that felt like, and she became a cop in part to make sure others never had to carry that burden.
So as much as Kate liked being able to handle New York's more unseemly elements, she hated that she could do so in a strictly unofficial capacity. Sure, the monsters were slain, but what of those the victims left behind?
Returning to her desk, Kate plopped herself into her swivel chair with an exhausted sigh. Resting her elbows on the wooden surface, Kate buried her face in her hands, giving herself a few moments to fight off the sleep threatening her eyelids. She could already feel her bruises healing, the soreness seeping out of her, and yet the fatigue remained.
Her shift was set to start in another three hours; she couldn't afford to go to sleep.
She needed a shower and a change of clothes. Coffee from somewhere other than the break room would also be nice; she'd make a run later that morning, once Ryan and Esposito showed up. But until then, she had one other personal comfort in mind.
Opening a drawer to her desk, Kate smiled as she pulled out a hardcover book, black silhouettes stark against a red backdrop. Leaning back into her seat, Kate released a contented sigh, her finger trailing over the spine of the book before she peeled open the front cover and started reading.
The book? Storm Fall by Richard Castle.
The New York offices of Wolfram & Hart were the largest, most sprawling, and most influential on this side of the Atlantic, and that power had only grown in the three years since the destruction of the Los Angeles branch. The Senior Partners had erred in handing the keys to that branch to a sworn enemy – what they thought would be a corruption from within wound up being their undoing.
Fortunately for the Senior Partners, such things were temporary. So, too, was death – as attorneys Lindsay McDonald and Lilah Morgan could attest. Lilah was roughly four or five years removed from her death, including a beheading at the hands of someone she might've considered a lover in different circumstances.
Lindsay was back in the fold with the law firm, the Senior Partners' one-time hotshot now their loyal servant – mostly because of his earlier betrayals. After all, the incantations burned into his back made sure that he would never walk out on Wolfram & Hart ever again.
So the two sat in the ornate conference room, their backs to the window that overlooked the Manhattan skyline. Lindsay wore his black tie loose around his neck, snarling as the pen trapped in his right hand flicked rapidly back and forth. Lilah maintained a perfect posture, brushing aside a strand of dark hair before flashing a polite smile at the man seated across from her.
"Rest assured, Senator Bracken," she explained, "everything is in order. The paperwork has already been filed with the SEC. This time tomorrow night, Future Forward will officially be a reality and you can begin your journey to the White House."
Lindsay offered a humorless smile. "And Wolfram & Hart will be there every step of the way."
"That's good to hear." William Bracken straightened his red tie, leaning back in his black leather swivel chair. His hair was cropped close, and even seated, Bracken carried an aura that made sure everyone realized he was the most important person in the room. "After what happened in Los Angeles, I was worried this firm had lost its way."
The two lawyers exchanged a glanced before Lindsay straightened his posture. "I assure you, Senator, the Senior Partners have learned from their mistake. L.A. was a simple case of poor management. There are no such issues here in New York."
"Excellent." Bracken allowed himself a true smile, glancing over Lilah Morgan's shoulder to take in the skyline. The midday sun shone brightly against the Empire State Building, and it reminded Bracken why he enjoyed New York far more than D.C. Sure, the nation's capital had its charms, but it wasn't home.
Then again, home meant baggage.
"One more thing," Bracken announced, leaning forward and leaning his elbows against the conference table. "There's some…baggage that needs to be dealt with before I go public with this announcement."
Lilah cocked her head to the side. "What kind of baggage?"
"Joe Pulgatti."
The two lawyers looked at each other, before Lindsay regarded the Senator with a frown. "The mobster who killed an undercover FBI agent?"
"There's a file out there that says otherwise." Bracken gave the lawyers a knowing smile. "It's actually a lot more complicated than that, but the fact of the matter is, that file needs to be destroyed."
"Sounds easy enough, Senator." Lilah shrugged. "Do you know where the file is?"
"If I had to guess?" Bracken shrugged. "With one Captain Roy Montgomery."