Bad Company

Ch 25: Armed to the Teeth

The night had only begun and Buffy and Xander were already buzzed and partied out. They might have meandered Sunnydale streets like that until sunrise - aimless, bored, hardly killing much of anyone. Then they sensed a vamp lurking in a dark space between a flower shop and a flower delivery van. Instead of running for his unlife, he came out of hiding and walked right up to Buffy. Buffy grabbed a handful of stake and a handful of suicidal vamp.

This has got to stop, Buffy said as she aimed. What does it say about my reputation that one of these scruffy looking vamp guys would dare to walk up to me willy-nilly like I was the lady at the supermarket giving out free samples of cheese?

Take it easy, Buff, Xander tried to calm her before her inappropriate slaying urge got completely out of control.

I will take it easy when every vamp who crosses my path is either running away or trembling too hard to run. I want to see knees knocking in fear, teeth chattering so hard I can hear them!

Instead what Buffy heard was something indistinct the vamp was trying to say.

"Message," he croaked out with his throat half crushed in her grip.

"Did he say massage?" Buffy asked while holding onto the vampire.

Maybe hes trying to bribe you? Xander guessed.

I cant be bribed with an amateur shoulder rub from... Buffy shook him to show how unsuitable he was as a masseur.

"I wouldn't refuse a shoulder rub. If he was a girl. And it wouldn't have to be shoulders." Xander was thinking about cute vamp girls with their small but strong hands squeezing the tension right out of him. Buffy was about to call him back to reality when she noticed the piece of paper the vamp was holding out to her. Maybe it was a gift certificate. Without letting go of either the vamp or the stake, she took the paper from him.

"Getting crowded. Come get your Watcher, your redhead and anyone else you feel like carting off. Just keep your mitts off Dru," she read.

"Guess you can't kill him," Xander said after she finished reading.

"Can't kill who? This guy? Why not?" Buffy shook the vampire who looked perfectly killable to her.

"Don't kill the messenger," Xander said. "Also because you are not a slayer. But that doesn't hold much water with you, so I'll go with the messenger thing."

Buffy did not look convinced. She squinted. Xander tried to explain.

"Maybe it's seven years of bad luck or you get hairy palms. Also, check your pulse, you are not a slayer." Xander shrugged and sighed, mostly disinterested in the vamps fate and hopeless when it came to curbing Buffys slayer tendencies.

Buffy looked from Xander, the worst witness for the defense ever, to the messenger vamp.

"I need more than a note and some old timey saying to not stake a guy who came up to me just begging to be staked," she told Xander. She then turned to the vamp. "Do you have anything more official? A note from your doctor? Your mom?"

"A bill of lading? A dirty limerick?" were Xander's suggestions. The messenger answered with an unpersuasive look of fear and some frantic struggling, so Buffy staked him. Xander rolled his eyes.

Having heard something of the vamp's struggle, a uniformed cop veered from his patrol route. An inquisitive Sunnydale cop - such a rare and exotic bird. For obvious reasons, not found much in these parts and as short lived as a mayfly. The cop approached with his hand on his weapon and eyes peeled. There was some extra dust in the air and two people who looked at him the way he looked at a ham sandwich. The cop backed up. His hand gripped the handle of his gun. He didn't take his eyes off Buffy and Xander, and they didn't take their eyes off him.

"Look at him. I've been wanting to eat a Sunnydale cop for a whole second now. So useless, yet so full of blood." Buffy walked slowly while the cop turned, walked away briskly and pretended he wasn't being chased.

"I'm stuffed, but I'll have a sip or two," Xander said being a vamp who never refused a drink or an offer of sex, if only it was being offered.

As Buffy and Xander didn't keep their voices down, the cop dropped all pretense of a dignified retreat and ran for it.

"Those Sunnydale cops sure are skittish. Look at him trying to scamper away from us. Like a cat running from a vacuum cleaner." Buffy was after him.

Xander stopped a moment to admire the sprinting speed of the cop before he joined the chase.

The cop pulled out his gun while running and half turned to shoot. His aim was way off, the bullet hit a tree, and the attempt slowed him down. After a slight speed increase, Buffy grabbed the arm with the gun, extending it away from her. The gun was still in the cop's hand so if he wanted to shoot a random storefront, he was free to do so. Xander stopped at Buffy's heels standing where he wouldn't get shot. The cop held on to the gun, useless as long as Buffy held on to his arm.

"Should we let him shoot us? Just for kicks." Buffy asked.

"No, Buffy," Xander said slowly and clearly.

"You can be like Superman."

"Bullets don't bounce off this." Xander knocked on his chest.

"You wouldn't die, you wimp."

"But it would hurt. Plus it would ruin the clothes."

Now that was a sound reason Buffy could understand.

"You're so right," she had to admit.

Since she dropped the idea of shooting Xander for fun, Buffy squeezed the cop's arm until the gun hit the ground. Xander kicked it away as he took his position in the buffet line. He pushed back the cop's head so both he and Buffy had room to sink in their teeth. As he drank lazily, Xander wondered where Sunnydale got its supply of fresh cops.

Buffy and Xander walked away from the cop corpse, leaving plenty of blood to go to waste while somewhere a vampire child went hungry. Xander noticed that the route away from the cop corpse led to Sunnydale High School. There were a few places on the way, but Buffy wasn't stopping at any of them. And one of them was a designer shoe store. Xander had been relieved when Buffy went for the cop and not for the rescue mission. But Buffy was like a hyperactive puppy, you could play fetch with her all day, and she was still going to chew up the furniture. Xander made sure not to compare Buffy to a dog out loud.

"Are we really doing this?" Xander asked as they entered the school and headed to the library.

"Sure. We go where the action is."

"I should have let you shoot me. Weren't you the little cheerleader of Armageddon a little while ago?"

"Nah, I was just hungry. Hungry and bored."

That was a dangerous combination. Like vampire and slayer in one hot, little body. Definitely dangerous, Xander thought as he let Buffy walk a little ahead of him and watched her pert ass work her tight pants. Add to that bundle of trouble a couple of living, breathing, regulation slayers, stakes at the ready, and a tornado in the library, and Xander was definitely getting wrong time wrong place vibe. Buffy was ignoring the death stares and weapons pointed their way as they walked into the chaos of the library.

As the two vampires entered, Kendra held Faith back while remaining in a stance of readiness herself.

"We have priorities. We cannot delay our mission and the rescue a civilian for them," Kendra said to Faith. The "them" was said in a very hurtful way. Buffy pouted.

"Is the sword here yet?" Buffy asked speaking to Kendra, ignoring Faith.

"As a deceased and decommissioned slayer, you do not get the sword, Buffy." Having explained Buffy's ineligibility, Kendra brought out the sword. As she displayed it to good effect, she made sure to hold it away from Buffy. She could see how Buffy's eyes were filled with greed.

"What's with the sword envy, Buff?" Xander wondered. The look in her eyes was scary.

"I just like sharp things."

Kendra and Faith decided not to voice their heartfelt 'hell yeah, you said it, sister' sentiments out loud.

Xander was kicking around loose books and other debris. He was not a sword-crazy girl.

"We never made this kind of mess, did we Buff."

"Hey, you are not kidnapped," Buffy said on seeing Giles taking a seat in a chair Cordy righted for him. "Spike is an idiot."

It looked like Cordy was playing rock paper scissors with Giles, but she was actually asking him how many fingers. Even though he could count fingers just fine, Cordelia wasn't convinced his brain wasn't scrambled.

"Wait, who are you rescuing then?" Xander asked.

"That troll principal," Faith told him.

"Troll? So is he not a civilian then?" Kendra asked.

"Not troll troll. Troll meaning hated authority figure," Oz explained even though he didn't have official confirmation of this. The vampires noticed him for the first time among overturned tables and bookshelves. He, in turn, ignored the vampires. In his current state, they could be across town or in the same room, it made no difference. Another month.

"They stole Snyder. They'll steal anybody. First that Willow flavored fake, now Snyder. Snyder? Snyder?" Buffy was dismayed at Angel's lack of discrimination.

"I'm not clear why you are getting him back?" Xander asked the slayers while looking over at Buffy who was still eyeing the sword.

"We must," Kendra told him.

"I feel completely unmotivated for this mission," Buffy sighed.

Only Xander cared about Buffy's motivation.

"I should hope so. For one, you are a vampire. Two - it's Snyder."

"Should we be delivering Giles to the bad guys?" Cordy was thinking emergency room was the place to deliver Giles.

"If he stays here, they'll just come back and scoop up his helpless ass," Faith explained.

"There is no safe place for him," Kendra said gloomily.

"I am so reassured," the doomed Giles told them. He stood up while Cordelia got ready to shove a chair under him if he started to wobble. He did not wobble. He armed himself and loosened his tie for battle.

Looking just as determined but less tweedy, Oz pulled on the ax Faith had stuck in the door. With some difficulty, it came free.

"Oz," Kendra protested.

"I am coming," Oz said quietly.

Kendra looked down at him with warm admiration. They all headed out, Buffy too.

"What? We're going?" Xander stopped Buffy as she was about to go with the rest.

"I want to be where the action is. I told you."

"OK, action girl, I am staging an intervention. You have a slaying problem, put down the slaying pipe, you need slayer rehab."

"I can stop any time."

"How about now?"

"That sword would look way better on me."

Xander didn't have an argument for that.

"This is the last time I help save the world," he grumbled. "I mean it. I am evil. I am Evil X. Xander made an X with his arms, then followed, the last to leave the trashed library.

Spike and Angel were tied up and abandoned. It was as if they deserved no more attention than junk mail or warnings on cigarettes. As Spike came to, he righted himself with a lot of grumbling. For anyone needing to breathe, it would have been impossible. The ropes tied his wrists and ankles behind him then went around his neck. When the prisoners sat up, as Angel already had, their heads were pulled back. Lesser vampires would have chosen to just stay on the floor.

"Sneaky bitches!" Spike griped. The gashes in his head were healed but the blood remained making him look freshly lobotomized. Both he and Angel were silently claiming the element of surprise as the deciding factor in the girls' temporary and soon to be corrected victory. But Angel had an additional gripe and not at the girls.

"Did you say sneaky, Spike?" Angel looked at Spike's legs which propped him up in a kneeling position as he struggled to free himself.

Spike didn't even address the charge.

"Why won't these ropes break?" Spike asked as he strained against them with all his strength only to end up tightening them. A mortal would have choked to death doing that.

"Because they aren't ordinary ropes, moron," Angel said. He had already tested the ropes and figured out what they were. If it were possible to kneel with dignity while tied up like a sex slave, he would be doing it.

"Don't tell me they are bloody magic ropes."

"They are woven G'Feder demon hair," Angel said. "Unbreakable."

"I bet that redheaded slag plucked the G'Feder demon herself, right after she plucked your grapes."

Angel wasn't listening. He was adding things up.

"Bloody magic, Spike," Angel said.

"Eh?"

"You might want to shut up long enough to listen to what you are saying."

"I don't think so, mate."

"I don't want to see blood. I don't want to taste blood. Don't even talk to me about blood," Willow said as she bit into her fifth or sixth victim. Who was counting?

Drusilla had no comment. Her fangs were deep in the thick neck of an ex high school running back. She dropped him and pulled another burly guy into her lap. She bit into him with a grunt of disgust. Blood soaked her clothes and smeared the floor. It didn't come from the victims - live ones piled neatly against one wall, dead ones strewn around like crumpled candy wrappers. A few guys still waited their turn. Not waited so much as slumped unconscious due to carefully administered, non-fatal head injuries.

Minutes ago, as the victims still lay untouched and minions with mops stood at the ready, Willow and Drusilla reached down their own throats and pulled out iridescent eye beetles. The eye on the back of the beetle looked this way and that and the beetles scurried off. They didn't get far before a flood of gore overtook them. Drusilla and Willow were throwing up blood by the buckets. The beetles had been like corks. They now wriggled in blood that minions were trying to mop up.

"The apocalypse will be wonderful," Willow said as she looked down at the pool of blood she was standing in. "Because that's everyone I've ever eaten plus some of my internal organs." More retching followed before she could continue. "Good thing I don't need them. Goodbye organs." And then she vomited some more.

"The price of victory is high. The gods are very angry." Drusilla was kneeling in the blood she had puked.

"I guess when you drink all the blood of a giant Stone Splitter Beast mixed with the fire venom of an Orb Snake from the beating heart of a Titan Ox Demon then you swallow a live beetle to keep it all in, there might be some minor stomach upset," Willow summed up.

Dru heaved up more blood. It was frightening to see so much blood coming out of her, like watching a skeleton throwing up a weeks worth of food. But maybe no more gruesome then what they did to get the blood in - running the rubber tubing from one tenderized but still living, giant demon to another with his chest cut open to expose his heart and an IV bag adding the fire venom into the mix. The enormous heart beat as they bit into it, sucked down more blood than they could reasonably hold and swallowed a beetle each like an after dinner mint. Then they made out. That seemed like ions ago, when they were feeling energized and strong not bent over lurching stomachs.

"I think it was worth it. Did you see Angel's face?" Willow was mostly trying to cheer up herself.

"This torment..."

"Come on. We tortured - how many people between us? This is nothing." Willow gagged every other word.

"My very life flows out."

Willow dismissed Dru's whiny, melodramatic claim. For one thing, what life?

"It's just a little blood throw up. Cats do it all the time. Hacking up a fir ball has to be worse. I mean, it's all furry. Don't you think my sweet? Blech. Is that my spleen? Goodbye spleen."

Once everything was over except for the dry heaving, they looked at the pile of male flesh with hunger and revulsion. These weren't just any bunch of guys, these were weight lifting, steak eating, football throwing kinds of guys. There was enough of them to feed a family of hungry vampires for a week. Willow and Dru crawled over and scarfed them down faster than the minions could serve them up.

While the slayers, Giles, Oz and Cordy trudged off toward the mansion, Xander grabbed Buffy by the arm. He pulled her back, not to talk her out of it this time. He was getting excited about the mission. It involved messing with Angel, maybe watching him get beheaded.

"I have an idea," he said.

"You?"

Xander tapped his temple.

"There are things knocking around up here."

"Yeah, Faith probably knocked something loose."

Xander sighed and looked blank for a moment.

"Hey, stop thinking sexy thoughts," Buffy said waving her hand in front of his face to dispel any naked and nasty Faith mirages.

"Impossible!"

Xander took a big unnecessary breath then let it out along with his big idea.

"We grab the rock thing for ourselves."

"And then?" Buffy wanted to know.

"Don't know." Xander shrugged. He just liked the idea of stealing something from Angel, even if it was something he had no use for.

Buffy considered for a minute

"I guess it's something to do." It was a good, solid, evil motive. "I like it," she decided. They would figure out what to do with the rock later.

Xander led the way to the first stage of his plan. They found themselves outside a fence of a construction site.

"You wanted to eat some construction workers?" Buffy guessed.

"If any of them are still hanging around, maybe."

They jumped the fence. There was no one around. Building had just started amid steel beams, concrete blocks, piles of dirt and construction equipment.

"Ooh, there's someone to eat," Buffy pointed as a security guard came their way. The uniform was snug on his generous physique. He breathed hard as he spoke, like the slow walk that brought him there was a marathon.

"That's far enough. You kids, get out of here." He pulled on the belt of his pants to secure it firmly under his overhanging girth.

Buffy and Xander had already turned away from him. Xander waved his arm in the direction of any number of construction related things - giant spools, piles of dirt, construction equipment.

"What do you think, Buff?"

"The future site of Sunnydale's newest discount self-storage? What I've always dreamed of."

Xander was undaunted by the sarcasm. He rushed over to get a closer look at some orange monstrosity.

"Ooh, a backhoe," Xander gushed.

"Figures you'd like something that ends in ho. This is definitely a boy thing," Buffy concluded as she followed Xander reluctantly.

"It's a rock thing! We grab one of these suckers then we grab the rock." Xander mimed a jaw closing with his hands.

"That's not bad," Buffy had to admit. "There is stuff going on up in there." Buffy tapped his head and looked around for an appropriate piece of machinery.

All this time, the security guard had been trying to get their attention.

"You kids high? Move it!" His yelling had the desired effect. Kind of. Buffy finally turned to him. Xander continued to ogle the construction equipment.

"We want one of those," Buffy told the security guard like he was the lady behind the perfume counter.

"We don't rent this stuff," he told her. He still considered them baked.

"That's OK. We kind of stopped paying for stuff."

"A pile driver!" Xander pointed excitedly. Buffy was skeptical.

"How will that help us?"

"A boy can dream." And the boy was dreaming of driving Angel right into the ground with that thing. But he turned his mind back to business.

"A bulldozer," Xander decided as he strode over to one.

"Sounds good," Buffy agreed.

Going up to the machine, Xander saw that it was padlocked to the pile driver.

"Hand over the keys," Buffy demanded of the security guy.

The security guy didn't.

"Let me." Xander vamped out. The issue of heavy machinery was very close to his heart. "Hand over the keys!"

The security guard started to run.

Look at that running away action, just like a real cop, Buffy said.

The fat, running security guard was quiet a sight. There was a lot of motion but not a lot of distance covered. On the uneven terrain, the effort looked superhuman.

"Oh, come on. You'd lose a race to a lame kitten that got itself adorably wrapped up in scotch tape," Buffy said. "Ooh, let's get a kitten."

"I'm not that hungry right now." Instead, Xander walked over to the fleeing security guard who raised his arms in feeble defense.

"Please." the security guard said.

"Fine. Please, give up the keys." Xander even made a pleading face, which was buried under the vampire face.

"All the keys are in the safe. I can't get them," the security guard explained.

He showed them the safe in the trailer that acted as an office. Buffy and Xander could have torn apart the trailer with their bare hands. But the safe could take being dropped from a skyscraper and it wouldn't budge without a combination. It was a small and sturdy safe and no matter how much they kicked it around, no keys fell out.

"Oh, bummer." Buffy was ready to give up and eat the guy.

Xander was not.

"Who can get us those keys?" Xander asked the guard.

"The foreman and ..."

"Get him."

"Call him."

"Yeah."

After a claim of a bogus and mostly incoherent, unspecified emergency, the foreman came. He looked sleepy and unhappy, bellowing, "What in Hell is going on here?"

Buffy and Xander turned to reveal their vamp faces as an answer. There was no point in even talking to people without vamping out.

We want keys," Xander said.

"We'll give you the same deal we gave that guy. You help us and we won't eat you," Buffy told him. As evidence of their good faith, the security guard slumped in a chair in a corner, unhappy but alive.

The foreman got them keys and freed up the bulldozer from its chains. Xander climbed into the driver's seat.

"Joysticks, yes!" Xander jumped up and down like a kid in the dozer's seat.

"You are like in boy heaven," Buffy observed.

Xander's eyes were aglow. He tried some random controls and Buffy jumped on board before she got run over. The foreman hung on to the other side and pushed a pedal to make the dozer stop.

"Did you mean to go backwards?" Buffy asked Xander.

"Sure. Ok, do some drivers ed for me," Xander told the foreman who looked ready to get out of there.

"That's the brake," the foreman started, pointing to the pedal he had just used.

"I won't need that," Xander said then seeing the looks from both the foreman and Buffy, he added "Just kidding."

"That's the blade."

"The shovel thingy," Buffy clarified.

"Yes. That is called the ripper," the foreman said pointing to the attachment on the back that looked like a giant claw.

"I like it already," Xander told him.

After a few more instructions, Xander was ready and eager to roll.

"Want to sit on my lap?" Xander asked Buffy. That wasn't a totally unreasonable question as there was only one seat. "Come on help me live out my fantasy."

"Shouldn't I be wearing a hardhat and a bikini for that?"

"Just the hard hat. And I mean, just the hardhat."

"I better go on and keep Angel busy or he'll be playing with rocks, opening portals into hell. Or god knows what," Buffy said before she ran off leaving behind only her naked construction girl doppelganger in Xander's mind.

Taking shortcuts, Buffy ran to the mansion ahead of Xander. Some of these shortcuts involved breaking in through a glass storefront and smashing through the back door as alarms blared. Sometimes she jumped fences, sometimes she kicked them down, whatever got her there faster and with the most destruction left in her wake.

Xander was about to follow but then he had another idea. He went another way, taking some shortcuts of his own, rolling over fences and kiddy pools, knocking down birdbaths, flattening lawn furniture and barbecue grills. This was the life.

to be continued