Blackout
by Rob Morris
July 12, 1977
Twelfth Precinct, NYPD
New York City
Emerging from his small haven of an office into the outcropping of chaos called a squad room was Captain Barney Miller. Although he didn't know it, his small crew of detectives had almost settled into the shape it would have for the rest of the precinct's existence.
The two exceptions sat in front of him. One was a detective soon to be forced out despite a very capable mind. The other was a man who would simply die far too young. That said, one of the things Barney would not miss about this man was on display right then.
"Nick, could you perhaps tell me why you are reading the astrology section, say, as opposed to the manpower reports? Could you give me one good reason?"
Detective Yemana looked up.
"Well, not a good reason. Could I get by on a bad excuse?"
Barney's grimace indicated that this was not a possibility. Nick pointed to the newspaper.
"I get a lot of valuable information from this, Barney. On days it says I shouldn't bet---I don't bet anywhere near as much."
Captain Miller glanced at the predictions.
"Avoid trouble. Seek happiness. You think these are vague enough?"
Yemana did not take the sarcasm as well as he usually might.
"You're just gonna stand there and rule out the possibility that there's a world beyond ours?"
Barney glanced over at Philip K. Fish, engaged in yet another phone struggle with his wife, Bernice.
"Nick, the world we have is more than complicated enough for me."
Fish rolled his eyes at the repetitive query.
"Bernice, the Doctor's tests can't be rushed. He'll tell me the results, and then I'll tell you. It's the way the world works. Trust me. I'm a policeman. I know these things."
Sighing at the familiar turns of this situation, Fish tried again after she responded.
"Then he'll call me back, if I'm out. No, Bernice. I won't have him calling you first with the results. No. No. Bernice--you stay out of my blood. We had a daughter together, and that's all the mixture I'm allowing. Okay, Bernice. First thing when I hear..."
Fish half-covered the receiver, then yelled at someone who wasn't there, briefly worrying his superior and former rookie partner.
"Wojciehowicz, will you please shut up? I don't care if you need--ahhh...I gotta go, Bernice. Bye."
Barney looked over.
"You *are* aware that Wojo's out on call with Harris?"
Fish nodded, smiling.
"And God Bless him for being there when I needed him most!"
In a few seconds, Wojo was there once again, this time for real. A young black woman was with him, and to Barney's eye, the attractive near-girl looked like a younger version of an actress he'd seen in a drive-in movie with Liz and the kids, name of Pamela Grier. Wojo gestured gently towards his desk.
"You can sit down over there. I'll be right with you."
She nodded appreciatively.
"Thank You, Detective."
The stance was that of a grown woman, but the voice was all girl. Barney knew without knowing that Wojo had become more involved than the Captain might care for. Wojo walked over to Barney. Miller nodded.
"Solicitation?"
Wojo shook his head.
"Not hardly. Barn, we got her for attempted murder. Assault, too. Lots of witnesses."
Barney looked at the suspect, sitting quietly straight and seeming almost to meditate.
"Except for the clothes she's wearing, I'd put her more in prep school than reform school. She's almost supernaturally well-behaved. Usually, anyone we bring in that young is shouting about something by now."
Wojo looked over, and met her broad smile with a light one, and a small wave.
"Barn, she's as strong as an ox. She only came here willingly 'cause Harris is bringing in the guy she was fighting. Folks say he started it. Not for that, I don't think my whole unit back in Nam' coulda dragged her here. And don't ask me about drugs, cause she just ain't on em'."
"You don't know that."
"C'mon, Barn. Since when have I ever been shy about sayin' somebody was high? Plus, she was talkin' all street when we got there. Soon as we agreed she was comin' here, she gets like you said. Prep school."
Miller withheld comment, choosing instead to let his junior detective get to work. Wojo sat down across from the suspect, at his desk. A familiar syndrome had begun, one that the officer always found a bit unsettling.
"You must work out, Detective. You have a powerful physique."
Wojo opted for kind but firm.
"I also got cousins about your age."
But her lightly batting eyes showed she was in no mood to back off.
"I'd hate to be your cousin. All those possibilities lost."
Cutting this back and forth off was the return of Detective First Grade Ronald Harris, who quite uncharacteristically had his weapon drawn—and at the suspect's head.
"Slowly. Get over to the cage. Wojo, block his side."
Wojo was confused. The white-haired punk in the disheveled punker clothes seemed no real threat. In fact, he had been barely conscious as Harris had cuffed him. Then, all saw the broken handcuffs on either free wrist. Wojo then did as his friend asked, and the young woman stared hard, looking ready to strike at any time. The punk chuckled.
"What a dump! Do they ever give you constabulary types a decent place to do your work? The thin blue line is looking all scuffed up."
Looking out-and-out enraged, Harris shoved him in the cage, closing it with Wojo's help when the grinning suspect held the door with one hand. Harris handed Nick his weapon.
"Watch that cage. And Nick--I'm not joking."
Yemana stared incredulously at the weapon.
"He comes through that cage--then this or me isn't going to stop him. I need something really scary."
Nick reached over, and grabbed the fresh pot of coffee. As he brought it near the cage, the prisoner reacted in revulsion, as though he could already taste it.
"What is that crud?"
Nick shook the pot, gripping it tightly.
"Trust me--you don't ever wanna find out. Most people don't."
Barney looked harshly at the still-flustered Sergeant Harris.
"Harris--in my office."
Barney and Harris entered, and Miller shut the door quickly. He looked at his friend in bewilderment.
"Tell me you didn't discharge it."
The suave policeman was now just a little less so.
"No, I just wanted to. Barney, I had to do it. He snapped those cuffs about a second after he realized they were on him. He gave a name as William Sanguine, calls himself 'Spike'. That girl Wojo brought in is the only thing he seems concerned about."
Barney nodded, but still felt put off.
"Still, to hold the gun at the man's head? The DA just may want to know why one of my officers felt this kind of measure was necessary. What should I tell him?"
Harris leaned over the desk, a bit of fear in his voice.
"Captain, I don't think that man is Human."
Barney rolled his eyes. One of those nights was surely in full swing.
"So who is, nowadays?"
------------------
Outside, Spike in the cage saw Fish finish another conversation with Bernice.
"That your little wife, Detective? Y'know, one day, she might just up and disappear--poof--without leaving a trace."
To Spike's shock, Fish smiled at him.
"You're a nice boy."
The vampire was beginning to feel like he had walked into a police station as imagined by his beloved Drusilla. He looked at Nick.
"I got cash. Can I order from a deli?"
Nick nodded.
"You can call whoever you want, just once. But what about a lawyer?"
"Oh, I don't keep to solicitors, Detective. They tend to be sleazy bloodsuckers. Best avoided at all costs."
Nick got him the phone.
"So you've met Arnold Ripner?"
As Wojo took her information, his youngish suspect sang a little song he knew of from his childhood.
"Josefa Claricz, not in her right mind, Josefa Claricz, Bane Of The Night-Kind, Josefa Claricz, darkness never neared her, Josefa Claricz, Wamphiri they feared her..."
Wojo looked up.
"My grandmother taught me that song, and she only remembered some of the words. How do you know it?"
She tilted her head.
"Maybe, in another life, I was Josefa Claricz. Care to find out the rest of that song? It talks about her prowess."
Wojo moved for the water cooler. The one located downstairs from him.
Detective Dietrich walked in, and took immediate note of the prisoner. He walked over to the cage.
"Some things don't change, do they William?"
Spike laughed a little, and nodded.
"A policeman, now. No--I 'spose they don't change at that, Arthur. What is this, career number one-seventy-five? And that's just since I've known you."
Dietrich remained unflustered.
"You look unkempt. Need a mirror?"
Spike frowned as he walked away.
"Still the sodding know-it-all."
Harris angrily held up the small package in front of his prisoner. He glared at Nick, who shrugged.
"It was his one phone call. Plus, I needed some potato salad."
Harris sometimes wished he'd become a minister, like his aunt had wanted. He checked the delivery.
"Ham-buster with heavy mayo and black pepper, on rye. A pack of cigarettes--not the light kind. Grape Ne-hi?"
Spike bit into the sandwich with relish, and gulped down half the bottle in one swig. Harris held back remarks about prisoners not ordering out, generally speaking. In fact, it had happened before. Most things had, at the 12th Precinct.
"Yer kidding, right? This Nehi has more grape taste than some wines I know As for all the ham--let's say I like the taste of salt. Sokay, Mister Harris--I'll be good. Ready to book me?"
His weapon in careful view, Harris guided the suspect/victim to the chair by his desk. Spike shrugged.
"Nice toy pistol. Most likely wouldn't stop me."
Harris was trying his best to keep his cool.
"And if it were to say, take your smart-mouthed head clean off its shoulders?"
Spike looked over at Dietrich.
"Well, then you'd be infringing on your mate's patent, wouldn't you?. Heads? That's all him. Me, I just go for the jugular."
With Officer Carl Leavitt standing at the door, Harris went to ask Dietrich a question. Spike mockingly eyed the diminutive policeman.
"You supposed to be dangerous?"
Leavitt had a ready response.
"I'm looking for a permanent promotion to Detective."
Spike nodded.
"Office-seeker is dangerous enough for me. It's always them that haven't made it that do the real work."
Leavitt silently mused that he didn't know the half of it. He also glanced at the door behind him a lot.
Harris asked his somewhat new comrade a question.
"Just how do you know that lowlife?"
Dietrich shrugged.
"Let me ask you instead, Ronald. Are there people you know that you'd just as soon not?"
The query was concise, and it clearly bespoke Dietrich's desire for privacy in this matter. None of which seemed to be hallmarks of his personality.
"I guess. Can I ask if you've known him long?"
Arthur Dietrich seemed to be calling up his normally free-flowing responses.
"A gang he used to hang out with caused some trouble in China--town. My regi-my squad was looking for Boxers--people running an illegal fight ring. We weren't able to bring Spike or Angel--any of the Hell's Angels--in, so we chased them off. William and I got into it a few times before that happened. Nothing to write home about."
Harris kept hearing few words from the man of a million, and it would have kept his attention, but for what he saw back at his desk.
Meanwhile, Barney, at a nervous Wojo's request, had the other suspect in his office.
"Ms.---Nicolette Wood-French? A married name?"
If Captain Miller had been of a mind to take on the few hardcore racists he had encountered in the NYPD, then this well-spoken girl-woman would have been right behind Harris as his best evidence of mistaken beliefs.
"French is my adopted name, Captain. My Watcher formally adopted me. He's a very great man, and I bear his name with the same pride I bear my father's. Also, my friends call me Nikki."
Barney took off and cleaned his reading glasses.
"And how would your--Watcher--feel about you attempting to murder that man out there in the squad room?"
Nikki never batted an eye as she responded.
"He would be upset chiefly that I didn't succeed in driving a stake through that animal's unbeating heart when I had the chance."
Barney sighed.
"Ms.--French, by what particular standard is he an animal? Did he attempt to sexually assault you, or someone you know?"
"Captain, you seem like an intelligent man. So I will give you the truth of the matter, and hope that Mister French forgives me. That man in the cage is not Human. He is a vampire, like in the old stories. I am a Slayer, and it is my chosen task to rid the world of his kind until such time as I die, and the one after me is created. If you don't believe me, wait till the sun comes up, then expose him to its rays. He'll burn like he was doused in gasoline."
On some occasions, Barney came around to the causes of his crusading officers without too much effort. He now understood Wojo's concern for this young person. He also understood how her intensity had thrown him off.
"Let's just say that all this is for real. Wouldn't hunting vampires be an inherently dangerous occupation, even for someone tapped on the shoulder by destiny?"
Nikki merely nodded.
"In fact, I am rapidly approaching the high average for the best longevity of a Slayer. Twenty-two would be nice. Twenty-Three would be amazing. Twenty-Four or more? There'd better be tons of prophecies about you. Twin siblings don't hurt, either."
Barney thought of his own daughter, and of Liz at that age.
"I think your friends and family might miss you."
She smiled lightly.
"Mister French violated the rules to adopt me, Captain. In memory of a little girl he cared for who eventually overdosed. But even so he maintains a certain detachment. It's necessary. Slaying has become my world. My friends are found in the kind eyes of people like you and Detective Wojohowiecz. Do you have any idea how blasted pure he really is? I hit on him and others like him because for that short time together, I know that he'd make me his world. His eyes don't contain a hint of true judgment. Just acceptance. As for family? I have a little boy, and his father was not some fugitive from a shotgun. He fell trying to help me in my mission. That's why Slayers work alone."
Barney shook his head.
"I like Wojo. But you might want to check that statement on another given day. It may not hold up. And Nikki? If you have a son, I'm sorry, but shouldn't you be with him?"
Nikki leaned over and picked up Barney's framed picture of Liz, then put it down.
"The basics don't change, Captain. Ask her and she'll tell you. My son knows, too."
Barney ached once more for the wife he was temporarily separated from.
"That's a trifle problematic at the moment, Ms. French. But I'll keep it in mind. Now let's have Wojo finish your statement."
She grinned in a slightly predatory manner.
"Tell me, do many women find him so intriguing?"
Barney shrugged and spoke a blatant lie.
"I've--never really noticed any trends."
When she was back with Wojo, he looked at her.
"Ya know, Josefa Claricz died when she was like fifteen. And the song kinda went on that nobody who does what she does lives all that long."
She gently squeezed his hand.
"Stan? A lot of people say the same things about police officers. But can you imagine letting those streets go unprotected? The point becomes about living the life you have, and living it in full. So I ask again if what I'm proposing is impossible."
Wojo was in a very, very bad way. Her strength alone attracted him, and that was hardly the only thing in play. But he just as gently pushed her hand away.
"Girls like you get the quarterback. You should be with some guy your own age, beggin for a touch under yer bra. You should have twelve guys a year who you're sure are the one. Me, I'm just something the Nam' spat back into the world."
She looked down.
"There are all kinds of wars, Stan. Thank you for your words. But you see, all I have is this stake. That, and people like our friend at Mister Harris's desk. And my Robin. He'll be four, soon."
He put his finger under her chin, and looked her directly in the eyes.
"I know. I'm just saying that maybe it shouldn't be that way. You go back to your son. God, I still need my Ma."
She made a request more startling than her carnal innuendo.
"If I fall, will you help Mister French take care of him? I know who the good guys are, Stan. I want him to know, too."
The rest of the statement was all business, and both seemed glad for it.
At his desk, Harris grabbed the sacredly-held manuscript from Spike's hands.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Spike shrugged.
"Reading your novel. It's good. Compelling. Real. Reads well. Kind of like Laura Ingalls Wilder hits the squad room."
Harris lost his anger rapidly, and sat down.
"You really think so? I heard this one legend about her that says she was paid to suppress a dark novel about four Bronze Age barbarians."
"Wasn't a legend. I read a copy. Beautiful. If she'd gotten that published, no one would have ever heard of Walnut Grove. I even met one of the Immortals she wrote it about. The Oldest of his kind."
Harris shook his finger.
"You? You read a copy? How?"
Spike waved his hand in the air.
"It was a bribe. See, Laura's little girl was in the same business as our tricky Nikki. So she let me read 'The Four Dark Riders', and I left town for good. Fair exchange. It's that frontier life. That woman knew death."
Harris was lost in the flattery.
"And my work compares favorably to that?"
"Well, yeah. Cept for the title. It's weak."
Harris was taken aback.
"What's wrong with 'Sweat On The Shield'?"
Spike took a pen, and crossed it out.
"Life is about Blood. There are no shields. There are just symbols. Like your badge. 'Blood On The Badge'. Works better, doesn't it?"
Harris was all smiles, now.
"That works. I mean, that really works!"
Spike turned and looked at Wojo's desk.
"Hey, Slayer? You want him to put more sex in his book--or am I enough for you?"
She ignored him, so he kept on.
"I'm up for another go-round, Nikki. That sandwich got my blood sugar back up."
Nikki tried not to turn around. But she did respond.
"Your kind doesn't have blood sugar."
Nick looked at Spike, and shook his head, speaking in a low voice.
"Mebbe you don't wanna be pushing her, right here and now."
Spike reacted predictably.
"Blood I got plenty of. Howzabout you provide the sugar--sugar?"
He looked back at Harris.
"Slayers are an unsure lot. Sex, death--they never know which they want and when, except that they always want one of them. That, and the man who can deliver them both."
Spike trailed off as he felt the thrown stake sink into his shoulder. Nikki rose, and pushed Wojo back like he weighed nothing at all.
"Since when are you a man?"
Nick Yemana tried to reseat Spike, but was nearly thrown against the cage. The impact, while stunted, did not do him any good. He fought off an urge to clutch his chest as the chaos kicked in. He saw Harris too stunned to move. Nick then feared a full-blown heart attack as he saw something flicker. At least that turned out not to be health-related.
"What's with the lights?"
Yemana's query rang through the air as the first in a series of cascading brownouts hit the greater New York City area. There was a sound of two figures moving for the door, and a fumbling for flashlights. Harris cried out a real curse-word as Spike eluded him with ease. Barney walked out into a lightless squad room, the suspects having long since escaped. Only the voice of Detective Fish rang out.
"Barney? The bulb went out in the bathroom. And I'm just not sure where everything is anymore."
The emergency generator soon had at least the 12th Precinct back in lights. Long before that, though, Harris, Wojo, Fish and Dietrich were armed and out in pursuit of the two suspects. Nick Yemana was taken away by medics who seemed to think he'd be fine. Nick wasn't so certain. Barney and Leavitt were left holding the fort, with Zitelli as their back-up in case of a call. And there were calls, to be certain. Yet while the city was in chaos, the girl and the punk had proven to be potentially very dangerous, and apprehending them could not be prioritized away.
A well-kempt, older man of regal bearing came through the door. He was heavy-set and had a black beard, now rapidly graying. He seemed somber.
"Excuse me, Officer. I am here seeking my adopted daughter. My name is Giles French."
Zitelli went to fetch Barney, and the big man silently cursed his second cousin Rupert for needing bailing out in Albany (though not the true Albany, he mused), distracting him from his sacred and beloved charge. Literally packed in a box back off to England along with that vile cur Ethan, he hoped that he'd taught the boy a lesson, but rather doubted it.
"Mister French? I'm Captain Miller. I take it you are the Watcher Nikki spoke of."
French seemed a bit thrown off.
"She told you, then. All of it?"
Barney half-frowned.
"The parts I believed, anyway. Vampires aside, Mister French, how can you allow a young girl to pursue lowlifes like this William 'Spike' Sanguine?"
French sat down.
"Sanguine is not his surname, as you might have surmised."
Barney nodded.
"It refers to blood. We're running his prints for priors."
French shook his head.
"A waste, sir. That one was about well before such data was either taken or correlated."
Barney sighed.
"Be that as it might, Mister French, you still haven't answered my question about possible child endangerment."
French looked up.
"I found her after a small clan of nightkind had attacked and killed her family. She had destroyed them all, but was weeping, shirtless in the midst of the carnage. She asked me not to look, for she was embarrassed about her recently developed chest--the result of her pregnancy. It was her eyes that won me, though. I wanted to cherish and protect that beauty. I gave her my name, and sent her off to boarding school where I would check on her thrice weekly. Yet little Robin's birth complicated matters, and the council learned of what I'd done. They threatened to kidnap her for training. I told her what she would have to do, in order to be near her baby and myself, and never once did she back away from her duty."
Barney felt in way over his head.
"These people are well-connected, I take it?"
French nodded.
"Captain, this man William must be apprehended. He has once before managed to best a Slayer."
Lost, Miller put his hand on the man's shoulder. The meaning of the euphemistic 'best' was all too clear.
"We're doing what we can. I have my best people on it."
In the subway station where they had traced the path of the two suspects, Harris used his own unique method of clearing the stores of looters.
"NYPD! Christmas In July is cancelled by order of Mister Gun!!"
Two shots fired into the air demonstrated the detective's contempt, and sent the perps scattering to their holes. He then turned to Wojo.
"You didn't see that."
But the usually talkative Wojo kept to business, his weapon long since drawn and ready.
"Cong used to live underground like this. Had whole cities going on. I knew a Tunnel Rat. Brave guy. Wasn't even Leavitt's size. Taught me how to fight or fire from any position."
"What's your point?"
Wojo sniffed the air, as though he really had a scent of something.
"Tonight I'm gonna use what he taught me."
This wasn't their world, Harris thought. Months usually passed between the shots discharged from their weapons. Wojo was also different. Was this the man none of them had ever known? The product of steamed jungles and death not just in the air, but as the air?
"Head shot, kay? If he is, ya know, then nothin' else we got is gonna do it."
Hunting a vampire that is being hunted by a teenage girl. How the hell, Harris mused, would he fit this into the book?
"They're on the train. It's slowing down. Damn! He's got her on the ground. Wojo, I think he's going to strangle her!"
But Harris's prediction proved horribly wrong. Spike's face, even from that remove, was a monstrous distortion. And his hands never reached Nikki's neck. Instead, they met both sides of her head, where a savage twist ended a young life, just as she herself had predicted. Harris couldn't breathe as the girl's leather jacket now became a trophy, or worse, a symbol that a monster was now complete.
"He's in triumph. Like he's wearing her skin."
Harris no longer noticed his partner, his writing career, or his oaths. He merely narrowed his vision, raised his weapon, and did something unforgivably stupid.
"SPIKE!!!"
The shots began to fly, but Harris's yell had already alerted the vampire, who dodged both bullets and flying glass with an ease that seemed to mockingly confirm what he was. Out through the door he came, straight at the budding writer whose work he had so recently complimented. Harris was knocked down by the strength he had only seen hinted at.
"I've been a lot of things, Mister Harris. But I've never been any kind of racist. So I feel free in telling you two things. One, that shyster lawyer character in your novel? Unbelievable. I'd ditch him. Two---"
Spike's face again became feral, almost wolf-like as his teeth were bared.
"You are a freaking idiot for not killing me when you had the chance."
"I got the chance."
Wojo was oddly calm as he rested the barrel of his weapon against the back of Spike's head.
"You had the chance."
With a vaguely cat-like roar, Spike knocked Wojo well away, then leaped at him.
"You blew the chance."
But Spike felt something odd as he fell upon the big man. Wojo had been a soldier, and he had been ready for Spike. The punk shifted to normal as he saw the wood sticking out of his chest. He started to shake.
"Nooo!!Noooooo!! NOOOOOOO!!!!"
Desperate and close to tears, he pulled it out, batting Wojo back. Thinking to stare at his own death, Spike saw not a stake, but Wojo's wooden nightstick. If he could have breathed, he would have then.
"It wasn't sharpened. It wasn't sharpened. It wasn't sharpened. It didn't penetrate...."
Spike tossed the nightstick away, and managed a weak laugh as he came at Wojo again, holding him up in front of him with both hands.
"How's it feel, Detective? To know that you're up against an army of the night, endless in number, the rules hopelessly stacked against you, with most folk blindly ignorant that there even is a war?"
"Been there. Some guys call it Nam."
The vampire foot-swept his opponent.
"Lame answer. And this war doesn't ever end till your lot is gone."
Spike pulled his face close to Wojo's.
"Feel like giving up?"
"Nah. Howzabout you?"
Wojo head-butted the vamp three times, sending him back enough for steel-toed shoes to meet the vampire's crotch.
"Sorry, Charlie."
Spike came at him with a raised fist, but the big man blocked it and then clocked the vampire in the nose. Spike wiped away the blood and tried to regain the advantage.
"Charlie Tuna wants to be eaten, by the way."
Wojo shook his head.
"I wasn't talking about that Charlie I was talking about the Cong'. The enemy. Like you. You shouldn't of killed that little girl, Spike."
Spike began to realize that Wojo had never once underestimated the vampire's strength, while Spike had until then dismissed Wojo as just another human. Military training and police life alone had to count in his favor. He set to ramp himself up.
"But if I hadn't killed her, I wouldn't have this lovely jacket. I once knew a mechanic in Milwaukee had one like this. Now, he was cool."
Wojo was looking tired, now, as his wild swings indicated.
"oooh. What, did you fancy her, Detective? Gonna go all foxy with the little brown bird?"
A blow to the stomach temporarily shut him up.
"She was a kid--she had a kid! She had her whole life ahead of her. Did you even look at her? She was beautiful!"
Spike stopped, and looked confused.
"Well, yeah. All Slayers are. They're strong, you know? They're alive, but they're death to me, and they never go away."
He almost seemed to be going misty.
"But they seek me out too, you know? Like they want something from me. Funny. It's like it's not even sex or death."
Wojo seemed calmer, too.
"It's just something. They walk over to you, like you got a magnet on, and you can't figure it, and you're supposed to just provide, only you're not sure exactly what."
The two spoke as one.
"Drives me outta my mind."
Harris sat up, and fired a shot into Spike's neck.
"You two are just pathetic!"
Speechless for the moment, Spike threw Wojo into Harris, knocking them both cold. His intent to recharge at the two officers' expense was cut off by shotgun fire in the distance. He turned and saw Fish wielding the shotgun.
"I take it back. You're not so nice."
The old man's vision was good enough to aim, so Spike began to run in the other direction. The lights shorting out yet again helped him gain enough distance that he thought he could relax. A clang of metal and a deep gash on his stomach told him otherwise. Nearby was Arthur Dietrich, sword in hand.
"You know how it is, William. Chinese food just repeats on you."
Spike held his stomach, and growled in his slowly returning voice.
"You were a rotten headmaster, Arthur Theodoric!"
Dietrich nodded.
"I never really enjoyed it. Now just give up. You've got me, an old man who knows how to aim a shotgun, a ticked-off writer and a mass of Polish Marine aimed at you. It's not gonna go well."
Spike tried to grab at Dietrich, but he only shifted position. As the shotgun fire rang out, though, this proved to be part of Spike's plan. The detective fell over, quite dead. The vampire laughed as he made his final escape.
"Hey, Fish! I thought you knew how to aim that thing."
Philip K. Fish grabbed at his heart and sat down. He looked over at his murdered replacement, just as the brownouts officially became a city-wide, systems-wide power failure.
"Wonderful."
He stared at the unmoving body of his comrade.
"Over thirty years...gone like that."
He was to retire soon, anyway. But the thought that it would be under a cloud, with at the very least the life of a fellow cop taken by his hands, was something else altogether. Pension placed into question. Bernice hovering over him more than ever. Barney's career destroyed by the trust he placed in an officer the NYPD had wanted to retire for years.
"Arthur, I'm sorry. You weren't all that bad. When you were quiet, that is."
He'd call Chano, down by the Jersey Shore. He'd have perspective. Although he'd only shot a punk, like that Spike. He hadn't killed a brother.
"I don't suppose there's any chance you're just gonna get up?"
The worst part was, it hadn't been his age that threw off his aim and his view. Fish knew how to take that into account. No. It had been seeing the body of the dead girl. What was the point of living, he wondered, and this made him angrier than he'd been in a long time.
"Phil?"
What happened now was impossible. But Fish saw it, plain as day. Dietrich, whom he had confirmed dead, was doing just what Fish had asked and was getting up again. Dietrich saw Fish staring at him in wonder and shock. He nodded.
"Ok. First off, I'm not really from Pennsylvania."
Fish now rolled his eyes.
"Oh, God, he's going to explain it."
Harris woke up first. He looked about him, then got up to check the dead Nikki Wood-French. He wondered if her family was originally from Philly, like his own. He felt for her pulse, and realized anew that this largely no longer mattered.
"Damn."
Taking her body off the train, the oddities of police work that drove him to write started wheels turning. Though neither he nor this girl would ever be permitted to forget their skin color, she was much more Wojo's kin than his. She knew what was out there, in this urban jungle full of at-best-neutral natives, yet still she hunted that most ominous of war stars, the sniper. Powerful and skilled if he were yours, vicious and lucky if he was the enemy. Neither operated in sunlight. Harris let a tear fall as Wojo woke up, and saw the dead Slayer.
"Is she..."
But he could see that she was, false hope erased by memories that quickly came back. The soldier went back to being a cop, back over his own thin blue line. He saw the carnage.
"SPIKE!! I'm gonna kill ya, ya piece of crud! Do ya hear me with those bat's ears o' yours? I'm gonna kill ya!!"
Wojo managed to calm down by focusing on anything else.
"How many bullets did we fire off?"
Harris didn't need to look about. He counted his own shots, Fish's shots, and possible shots by Wojo and Dietrich. All in pursuit of a not-large suspect that killed another suspect, and got away by physically besting four detectives.
"Barney is not going to be happy."
"How not happy are we talkin'?"
Harris shrugged.
"You know how he is when you come in at 9:30, instead of 9?"
"Yeah."
Harris now permitted himself to look about.
"Well, we're now talking 2 in the afternoon."
Wojo shook his head.
"I never came in that late."
Back at the station, Mister French pulled Leavitt aside. They spoke just outside the entrance door, in hushed tones.
"Officer, my apologies if my or Nikki's presence has caused you and your charge any trouble."
Leavitt shook his head.
"It's actually a pleasure to meet a Watcher from your branch, Mister French. When Detective Amanguela left, I was originally to be reassigned. I almost got the Kurgan, but Joe Dawson's brother-in-law took that one. Connections."
"If I may be so bold, who precisely is Detective Dietrich?"
Leavitt smiled.
"It's more like who hasn't he been. If Methos really exists, he still wouldn't have as many careers as Dietrich. First known head taken was Odoacer, the Visigoth who more or less finished off the Western Roman Empire as a political entity. He was an Ostrogoth named Theodoric, and he then ruled Italy from Ravenna for the Byzantines. Somehow, his name got mixed up in a few legends, and in Germany, he became known as Dietrich. He ditched the Ravenna exarchate about 529, and went to Britain, where he served as an adviser to a certain young king from where he gets his other current name. He left before Mons Baden, though. The man's been around. Mister French, what exactly is the lineage of this Spike character?"
French thought for a moment.
"Well, from the now-entrapped being once known as Der Meister Welt, he is removed four times. In each one of his descendants, his evil emerges differently. In the first line, wholly blind fascist-like loyalty. In the second, pure evil genius emerges like a wildfire. In the third, his madness pushes the marginal well-over. In this Spike's case, it is a love of violence as poetry. And I had not at all prepared my dear charge to deal with him."
Down the stairwell, he saw the returning Wojo's face and froze.
"As your detective is about to tell me."
The Watchers went back inside, there to await the grim news. Barney spoke with the grieving man.
"I have no proof that you sent that girl to her death. But should anything like this happen again in my precinct, all your connections won't mean a thing. Go mourn your daughter, Mister French. Just tell your people not to do it again in my sight."
French held up a photo, this of a little blonde girl.
"I was once also a gentleman's gentleman. I came to care for two of my employer's nieces, and his nephew, this girl's twin. But he died as did their parents, and the children were given over to foster care. The older niece and their brother have done alright. But this girl was exposed to drugs, and she was lost quickly after. It's odd. I was certain she was to be a Slayer. I was as much as told her name would be one of both destiny and longevity. Perhaps it will yet do that."
Wojo looked up. In his heart, he could not blame this man for Nikki's death.
"What was her name?"
French put away the picture.
"Buffy."
The Watcher who had been told he would not receive further assignment due to a terminal loss of detachment then left, to prepare for what was always a sparsely-attended funeral. But Wojo bid him wait.
"Mister French? I promised Nikki I'd help look after her..."
A little boy with Nikki's distinct eyes entered the squad room. He looked about.
"Where's my Mama?"
Wojo moved forward, and put his finger underneath the child's chin.
"She's gone, isn't she Mister? Mister Giles, am I all alone now?"
Giles French felt his throat freeze solid. But Wojo took up the slack.
"Nahhh, you're not alone. Your Mom made me promise to help ya out. Plus, ya got Barney, he's the best Dad in the world. You got Arthur and Ron, there's nobody smarter n'them. Phil and Nick are great with kids. Robin, you're not alone. Not ever."
Barney spoke for them all.
"You're part of the 12th Precinct. That will never change. We promise."
Mister French took the child, only slightly comforted by these words, but who the detectives would keep their promise to, no matter what. Harris waited till they were gone.
"Her name will be *Buffy*? The kid will need super-strength, with a name like that."
Fish shook his head.
"Not if she lived in California. It's--different out there."
Dietrich quietly spoke to Fish.
"Hey, Phil? Are you and I alright?"
Fish shrugged.
"With all the grief the department has given me about my age, I now find out that the man they sent to replace me is over twenty times older than me, and you ask me if it's alright?"
A genuine smile crept across the old man's face.
"Arthur, I think it's hilarious!"
Barney read some of Harris's report as he was typing. His gaze narrowed.
"All that ordinance, used against one perp, and he escaped?"
Barney shocked Harris by pulling the paper out.
"Now hear this : The place was flooded with looters, and they were heavily armed. End of story."
Harris shook his head.
"That's not how we do things."
Barney was adamant.
"No vampires. No 'Watchers'."
No one noticed Leavitt shake at those words. Barney continued.
"No teenage girls dying in a crusade no one ever heard of. Just this once, okay, people? Manhattan South wants us all out stopping the looting. Leavitt, that means you too. Don't worry about calls. We'll be out answering them."
Fish remembered something.
"What about Nick? How's he doing?"
Barney bit down before answering.
"There's damage to either his heart, the blood vessels surrounding it or to the cavity it rests in. He'll be on restricted duty--and he'll be watched. Short-term is good. Long-term? They just don't know yet."
Wojo crossed himself over Nikki's mug-shot, then joined his friends to once again temporarily take back their little slice of the Big Apple.
"You were a good kid. You deserved better."
Inspector Frank Luger entered the squad room an hour later, only to find nobody home. He shrugged.
"I guess this just wasn't the time for the Old Inspector to put in an appearance."
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS LATER...
Detective Sergeant Robin Wood ignored Wojo's call, and continued to go higher.
"Wood! I wancha outta there! They're sayin' it's gonna happen any time, now!"
He saw people running down. They had a chance. But he felt something, so he kept going higher. Wojo was pulling out all the stops, down below.
"Robin--this is Ron. Man, I may not be a cop anymore, but if you don't get your ass out of that nightmare, I will arrest you so bad..."
Higher now. The people that were left rushed past him, knowing by his presence that there was still a below to run to. Some would actually make it, or jump from a survivable height. The next message almost deterred him.
"Robin? It's your Uncle Phil. You know, your Aunt Bernice expects you for dinner this Sunday. Don't make me eat alone with her."
Despite the fires, he saw some of those he had helped escape make it out down below. He felt a tap on his shoulder as a last frenzied message met his ears.
"Robin, this is Barney. Please. We're stronger with you than without you."
But when Robin turned, he knew that they would have to learn to do without him. The older Asian man looked quite fit and happy.
"How are things, Nick?"
Yemana chuckled.
"Great. I get to bet on Secretariat, SeaBiscuit, Man O'War--I still don't win--but ehhh--at least the coffee's always good here."
Then, Robin saw her. Despite the crowded area, he ran into her arms, becoming four years old again as he did. The Slayer's son had kept to his mission, and now his time was done. He was given a reward and a prize beyond price--and so was Nikki Wood. Giles French stood in the background with his brother Niles, as this prize was summed up in one tender word.
"Mama!"
On another level of reality where things are less clear and where sometimes the monsters in theory have souls, the former detectives of the 12th Precinct watched in dumbstruck horror as one of the Towers of The World Trade Center collapsed, not long before its wounded twin did the same. Watching in California, a young and powerful witch made the final choice to resurrect a champion, feeling that the world needed its hero.
SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2001
A New York City in recovery, July, 2002
Harris held a hand to his head.
"So Mister Hot Director tells me that I am betraying certain principles by working on 'Family Affair'. Same line he fed Will Smith. Only when he's done with his speechmaking do I tell him that I knew Giles French, and am bringing his tweaked memoirs to the small screen as a personal favor. There was a lot of silence, after that."
Chano shrugged after sipping his coffee.
"So what's tweaked?"
Harris pshawed.
"The little girl Buffy stays alive at the end. French said that one change was okay, back when we started all this."
The chief security screener for Kennedy International Airport nodded.
"Geez, it's been awhile since I thought about that end of it. Dopey me, I keep looking for Robin to walk in."
Harris waved his hand.
"Stan, that's not stupid. That's human. Hey Barn, you okay?"
Deputy Police Chief Miller nodded.
"I went up and I saw him the other day. More tubes coming out than a turnpike. I always promised him I wouldn't let it be like that. But his wife's wishes supersede the will he gave me."
Fish carved another piece of London Broil.
"Luger was a good man, but he never watched it as he fell apart. Me, I had no choice. See, I was lucky. Things fell apart so quickly, I had to have them replaced."
Wojo asked his fellow Federal employee a question.
"Hey, Fish? What they got you doin' at the FBI?"
Fish reached for the steak sauce, thought better of it, and grabbed the pepper instead.
"They said they needed someone to teach their boys old-fashioned detective work. I told them, there's two buildings gone and three thousand people dead. It's not that difficult to figure out."
When a few glares passed his way, Fish nodded.
"I know, I know. We don't joke about it. But if I don't, I'll be in Bellevue doing the happy dance before you can blink. It's all a bit much. Bernice still cries on Sundays. None of the other kids keep in touch the way Robin did."
An Amen moved around the table, except for Dietrich, who raised a finger.
"You know, gallows humor has traditionally been a way for people to reduce the incomprehensible to a manageable size. Some cultures believe that the laughter from jokes made about our own tragedies is laughter we take away from the evil forces that bring these disasters about. Robin got pretty good at it, himself. He'd appreciate a few zingers, in his memory."
Fish half-smiled.
"So let's hear one of yours."
Dietrich shrugged.
"Wadda are you, crazy? It's too soon."
Chano groaned.
"I should never have saved him from Horton."
Dietrich raised an eyebrow.
"Excuse me? I seem to recall me saving you."
Captain Leavitt called them both out.
"I spoke to Joe Dawson. Duncan Macleod saved the both of you tall drinks of water. So there."
Harris chuckled.
"Way to go, Lil' Cap'n."
Leavitt shot back.
"Thank you, Mister Consulting Writer on 'Howard The Duck'."
Harris gulped.
"You're evil."
Barney raised a glass.
"We've drunk many a toast to the 12th Precinct today. But it's nearly the 25th Anniversary of the '77 Blackout. And of the pointless death of a young woman I don't think any of us have forgotten. A life lost in this meat grinder shouldn't be of note. Or just maybe it should be the first thing we remember."
"To Nikki. And To Robin."
"To Nikki."
Chano, who had not been there but who had heard the story, chimed in with his friends, as did one more unexpected voice.
"Say, I'll drink to that."
They one and all looked over at the head of the table. It was Spike. Wojo stood up.
"Do I gotta say that you got a nerve bein' here? Just get out. I don't want anybody here hurt."
Spike drank more wine, then slammed a stake on the table.
"Just shut up and do me. No fight, even if I could put one up. Bad enough I had one Slayer on the brain. Now that my soul's back, I'm seeing your Nikki all about. I'll be like Dru, soon. So take your vengeance, old man. Remember, you promised to kill me, back when."
Wojo pushed the stake off the table, and sat back down.
"Yeah, well I lied. I do that sometimes. Now get out. You say you're seeing her face? I say good."
Spike's face seemed to be pleading, now.
"I just told you I'm going out of my mind with pent-up regret and guilt. I did you wrong. So why won't you just end my miserable existence?"
Harris munched a piece of bread, then looked at Spike.
"You're beneath us."
Leavitt joined in.
"The Slayer lives out in California, last I heard. But don't stop just because of the Pacific."
Fish shook his head.
"We all got things, kid. I had a good woman and never really told her so. I see her face, too."
Barney didn't bother at this time to point out that Bernice was alive and well. Chano didn't know the vampire, and so was silent as Spike kept on.
"You lot stink. D'ya hear? I'm asking for the justice I deserve to find me!"
Dietrich shrugged.
"Angelus came to me and then to Connor Macleod with the same plea, William. Call me funny, but I like lightning when I take a head. Besides, you don't get to choose how justice finds you. That's called on a floor of the building we don't have access to. I don't know how or by who. Though I once met this guy named Skip. Seemed like a nice fella--but I dunno."
Spike turned angry.
"I've got a chip in my head, so I can't hunt. I've got a soul, so I've got guilt. I'm still a vampire, not a man. And I've just bloody well humiliated myself here so you bunch can have a good laugh at my expense. Just what the hell do you call that?!"
Barney pointed at the restaurant door.
"Around here, we just call it the old One-Two."
The vampire slowly turned to leave, until Wojo shouted out.
"Spike?"
"What?"
"Elysian Fields West, in Queens. She's near the middle, by the benches."
Spike now seemed to gulp.
"Thanks. Wait--she had a little one. He'd be grown by now. He'll do me. Does he visit her grave?"
Harris pointed at the table and a nearly enshrined picture of a young African-American police officer, his head shaved and sporting glasses. The date of death told the rest. Spike shook his head.
"Why? I mean--I never used to care. I don't think."
Despite years and experience, the balding Wojo closed his eyes and shook his head like the young detective of old.
"I don't know. Maybe someone higher-up just wants you to really feel it."
Barney nodded.
"And that, Spike, is the part you can never truly escape. In that alone, I wish you well."
When the vampire had parted their company for a destiny truly unguessable, Chano poured a tall, tall beer.
"No more. No more crap about immortals like me and Arthur. No more about vampires, souls or slayers. I'm not even gonna bring up Lord Orlando and the horn at Roncesvalles. Right now, I am retired detective Chano Amanguela, and I propose a toast : To Nick Yemana, mortal man, and his horrible coffee."
"To Nick."
"To Nick Yemana."
"But not the coffee."
Barney shook his finger.
"No, the coffee too. Like Mister Spike is about to learn, separating the good from the bad isn't all that easy."
Wojo looked outside the restaurant. Spike was long gone, of course. Dietrich asked him a question.
"You think he'll come back?"
"Nahh. He's on his way to something, though. Ya know, Arthur? It was only when I really looked hard at who I was in Vietnam that I really felt human again. I almost think that Spike could end up there--maybe sooner than anybody thinks."
Dietrich, who would always remember the purely feral Spike of over a century gone, felt he had to dismiss such high-minded notions. But the know-it-all would prove to be very, very wrong.
"William turning really and truly human?"
Arthur grabbed a breadstick.
"Never Gonna Happen."
The dinner and the conversation continued. But for the rest of that evening and for sometime thereafter, neither Slayer nor vampire was spoken of again. But then, the reunions of the 12th Precinct were always memorable, even without the supernatural.
THE END