Chapter Twelve------ Malfacteur
Wednesday After Sunset. 6:15 p.m.
What I really wanted was a tall bourbon after all that. My head was throbbing like the USD drum & bugle corps had been using my brain for a practice field. Instead of a well deserved drink, I figured I may as well get in all the pain I could stand for one day.
Miss Kendall, I'm coming out to the ranch now.
She sputtered a minute, then agreed to see me. I wondered why she was dragging her feet? She'd left five messages, each more irritating and hysterical than the last.
The drive didn't get any shorter. The road was slick with road grease and the wet fog rolling in off the Pacific. Between the wind screaming in from the growing storm and the wet asphalt, it was all I could do to keep the DeSoto on the blacktop curves. I was glad to pull onto the long driveway to the Kendall rancho.
Before the echo of my knuckles on the front door had ceased, Harmony Kendall was wrapped around me in a teary-eyed swirl of cloying honeysuckle perfume and yellow silk.
Oh, Mr. Harris.... Xander! I'm simply devastated!
She flung herself into a soft leather chair and began to sob. Her hankie was a scrap of lace embroidered with ivy and her initials.
He... he said he'd arrest me. That I'd go to prison for murdering Devon! She was getting frantic again, looking up at me with those big wet eyes. I swear, it wasn't me! I couldn't possibly have done it. I wondered how she could cry like that and stay looking so gorgeous.
I sat on the arm of the chair and patted her back. She clutched at my shirtfront like a life preserver. I'm lousy at the comforting hero routine. I never know what to do with my hands. I kept patting her back and murmuring nonsense until she quit crying.
Look, Miss Kendall, the cops haven't got anything on you. They're trying to pin it on somebody else.
She looked up at me, the pupils of her eyes fully dilated and sparkling with joy. Or maybe it was something more to do with chemistry. Money can get you a lot of things, and she had plenty of that.
It's probably just a fishing expedition, anyway. Cops do that sometimes. Who was this guy?
She giggled and sniffled a bit, Fishing? That's funny. His name is Finn. He said he was a detective. That set her off on another fit of giggles.
Crap. Well, wasn't that just peachy. I told her to stay put and call me if he bothered her again. He probably wouldn't though. He was too busy shaking down the residents of Demontown. Finn. Every time I turned around, there he was.
************************ The Silver Stake 7:00 pm****************************
Spike had given up getting the books he wanted from his crypt, at least for the night. He wondered occasionally why he even kept the place, other than it went with the whole bad-boy persona. The Shady Rest was crawling with black-and-whites, courtesy of Lieutenant Nosy Finn.
He'd settled onto a rooftop perch just outside the Slayer's office at the Stake. He figured on dropping in for a chat. He smiled a little to himself. She'd sounded so happy to hear from him earlier. Maybe she could help him suss out just what the hell was going on. He had a few theories, but most of them didn't make any kind of normal sense. Of course, not much made sense these days.
What would really make sense sometimes would be to just grab the Slayer and take off. Maybe Brazil. Maybe Norway. Get the hell away from this place.
He'd been sitting there for the better part of an hour, when he heard a faint yelp somewhere near the offices. Probably just some of the new guys fooling around, but...
Then, he felt it. A stir of Dark Magic. He really hated sorcerers. Thoroughly nasty lot, all of em.
He flipped over the roof edge and hung by his hands just long enough to land softly on the ledge that ran along the second floor. He clung like a slick black spider to the wall, edging along to the balcony. Spike peered through the open French doors.
Someone was in there. A dark haired man, dressed in a dirty white robe of some sort, stood with his back to the windows. He was rambling through Buffy's files, dumping out drawers and slinging papers everywhere. He had even pulled the new paintings off the walls in his search.
The vampire grinned to himself. Ooh, a bad guy, an honest-to-God bad guy. And a dark magician. Bonus points in the fun category. Buffy couldn't possibly mind if I just batted him around. Little bit of mayhem before bedtime would go down a treat.
Spike crept noiselessly onto the balcony, close enough to make a quick leap into the room. He even had a humorous quip ready.
As he made the leap, he realized a number of important things.
First, the guy was Meers.
Second, Meers had a whole pack of zombies with him.
and lastly, stopping to make a plan is smarter than being clubbed in the head by a clutch of bat-wielding zombies.
Spike hit the carpet like a load of bricks.
The zombies stood passively around holding onto their weapons, their task accomplished. The unfocused stare of the living dead might have unnerved an ordinary person. The only other breathing person in the room was far from ordinary. The sorcerer in his soiled garmets bent over the vampire, holding a small glass vial filled with a sparkling green liquid.
Meers looked over at his zombies and grinned, I was going to test this batch out on the Slayer, but I find random experimentation fascinating, don't you? Let's give it a whirl, shall we?
The zombies didn't answer. Meers poured the liquid down the unconscious vampire's throat, then swept his entourage out the open office doorway.
tbc
Malafacteur: evil doer
Music: Coldplay,