Heroes

Part 2B

Note: Sorry for the short files, Fanfiction.net doesn't like my slow-as-molasses connection.

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It was cold on top of the parking garage. There were no stars in the sky, just low clouds, and the air was just a few degrees above freezing and humid. A wind blew, and a few flakes of snow drifted down. Buffy shivered and huddled down into her jacket. She missed California something fierce.

She'd been up here, waiting in the shadows of the elevator, for a couple of hours. The parking garage was almost empty -- it seemed to be attached to a nearby office building and maybe it only saw use during the day. When a car appeared, finally, she breathed a sigh of relief.

The car drove towards her, slowly but directly, though Buffy was reasonably sure the driver could not see her with normal senses. She assumed this meant that she was being watched if the driver was human. She stood in the shadows, but that didn't mean she was invisible to someone with a night vision scope, or something with better than human senses.

The driver was human; she was a woman with dark hair and -- Buffy sized up quickly, when the lady opened her door and stepped out -- an athletic build. Could be another Slayer, Buffy thought, or she could just be someone with significant amount of martial arts training. There was confidence in the way the woman moved, and assertiveness in her the way she squared her shoulders. The driver was someone used to command.

"Elisa Maza," the woman introduced herself, holding a hand out. "Sorry it took me so long, you'll understand if I tell you that we checked you out."

'We' evidently included someone in the skyscraper with a castle atop it because Elisa glanced upwards as she spoke, in apparent acknowledgement of the work done.

Buffy folded her arms and said, "And you found out ...?"

"Quite a bit more than you'd expect," the woman said. She gestured at her car. "Why don't you come in where it's warm."

"If you don't mind, I'll stay out in the cold. For all I know, you're a demon in disguise." Buffy's arms stayed folded.

Elisa's mouth quirked into a genuine smile. "I can't say as I blame you for that. You've been doing this sort of thing for awhile, apparently."

She reached inside the car door and retrieved a pair of gloves. As she bent over, Buffy saw that Maza was armed with a gun and had a radio and a pair of handcuffs on her belt. Put together with the woman's square shoulders and the confidence in her voice, her occupation was suddenly obvious. Buffy said flatly, "You're a cop."

"I'm a detective," Elisa admitted. "I'm off duty, just got off an hour ago. I do the night shift -- I've got enough seniority to go to days, but my friends are all, uh, nocturnal."

Elisa put her gloves on, and added a scarf, and then said, "C'mon, it'll be warmer beside the elevator, at least, it'll block the wind. I'd suggest we hide in the stairwell, but my friends would be upset by that -- you'll understand, too, if I tell you that we're being watched."

Buffy had already assumed that, but a thin trickle of fear crawled up her back like icewater. She was all alone out here; there was nobody to back her up if something nasty happened. No friends, and not even an ally.

The wall cut some of the wind, but it was still cold. Buffy hunched her shoulders and said bluntly, "I'm after a vampire. Do you know about vampires?"

Elisa shrugged and said, "The clans -- my friends -- take one out now and again. They consider them easy hunting, all things being equal. There's not too many vampires in NYC, though; too many heroes."

"Well, you've got one named Rufus and he took some important texts from me. I need to get them back." Buffy wished for a tissue; the cold wind was making her nose run.

"Magic books?" Elisa said, suspiciously.

Buffy nodded.

"How important?" Elisa asked.

"Important." Buffy assured her. "Got any idea where I should start hunting? I'm from California."

"Are we talking about nasty-affect-a-few-people spells or end-the-world type important?" Maza asked. From her tone of voice, which was peculiarly annoyed, Buffy thought that Maza might have dealt with a few end-the-world type crisis of her own.

Was she a Slayer? Buffy wondered again. But the Potentials had only been Slayers for a few months; Buffy suspected this woman had been in the hero business longer than that.

On the other hand, they'd discovered that a lot of the Potentials had lived far from ordinary lives even before Willow had worked her magic. Many of them had been in fields like law enforcement or the military or martial arts. One woman had been a Junior High teacher in a particularly rough neighborhood. Another girl had been an internationally competitive gymnast.

Buffy answered the woman's question after a moment of thought. She said carefully, "It's not an end-the-world-important issue, but ... do you know what a Watcher is?"

"They follow Immortals around, don't they?" Elisa said with a frown. "I met one once at Mandy's. He and his Immortal were trying to stop a mutual enemy of ours; they thought that if Duncan killed her that it might solve the problem, but it turned out she's a different kind of Immortal and it didn't work."

What was an Immortal? Buffy wondered. She shook her head and corrected, "They follow Slayers around, actually, and train Potentials when we can identify them.

"You were telling me about a book ...?" Elisa asked, putting Buffy back on track.

"The book's a directory of Watchers and those that they Watch," Buffy said.

"Like a phone book?" Elisa asked, a frown creasing her forehead between her eyebrows.

"Uh, yeah, except this one's self updating and includes all kinds of status information about every Watcher out there, including their exact location. Plus all sorts of other people they like to keep tabs on -- Slayers, their friends, etcetera." Buffy rolled her eyes, "I think it's a stupid idea, myself, to have a book like that, but somebody dreamed it up as a safety measure -- they thought if a Watcher got kidnapped they could use it to find him."

"Yeah, but I imagine Watchers and Slayers have lots of enemies," Elisa said. "Someone could use it to hunt them down just as easily."

"Got it in one." Buffy sighed and said in a small voice, "I was supposed to be taking it to a friend for safe keeping, but I, uh, lost it in a fight with Rufus."

"Oh, Rufus," Elisa said, in a tone of aggravation. "If you can dust that bastard, you'll have my undying gratitude. He's got his claws in every fence ring in the city. Guy was a ringleader of a burglary cartel before he got turned, and he just got more ruthless and more involved in the dark arts afterwards."

Elisa ran her hand through her hair in aggravation, and added, "Brooklyn's been trying to get the creep; Brooklyn hates magic. We're not sure where Rufus is, but Brook will be happy to help you, I think."

"I don't think I need help, just a clue where I should start hunting," Buffy protested. "I'm looking for directions, not a ... "

With a rush of wings, something -- someone -- with brick colored skin and a beak and claws and a tail dropped out of the sky and landed next to Elisa.

Buffy left, "...sidekick ..." unsaid. This wasn't a sidekick. This creature qualified more as heavy artillery. He was six feet of solid muscle, battle honed and hardened. Instinctively, she knew he'd be damned good in a fight and she wanted him on her side. She wouldn't ever want to face him from the wrong side of a battle.

Practice now, sparring and training, with a guy with a physique like that ...

Buffy stared at him. She couldn't help it. She'd never seen anything like him before.

She presumed the creature was staring back, but it was hard to tell because he was wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Besides the sunglasses, the only other thing he wore was a loincloth. This was amazing as the temperature was rapidly slipping below the freezing point. He didn't look cold.

Elisa said, "Buffy? This is Brooklyn. The rest of the clan will help out if you need it, but Rufus is frankly pretty low on the scale of things we tackle."

"Yeah," Brooklyn said, in a voice that held a faint Scottish accent, "He's not Demona, Oberon, or the Joker. I can deal with him, Elisa."

"Good. Call me if it looks like he'll be a bigger problem than we think." Elisa said, "And remember ..."

"Don't kill any monsters without cleaning up after myself. I know, I know." Brooklyn sighed. Buffy thought he might be rolling his eyes, because his eye ridges waggled, but it was hard to tell with the sunglasses he was wearing.

Elisa smiled and said, "Got it in one. My boss'll kill me if she's got to explain any more lumps of miscellaneous body parts in Times Square to the media as 'movie props' ..."

She left, her old car leaving a trail of white vapor behind. Brooklyn snorted and said, "She worries too much. So. You're hunting Rufus?"

"Uh, yeah ..."

Brooklyn eyed her curiously for a moment. "Can I ask you something? You're not screaming, running, or asking stupid questions about what I am. Have you seen gargoyles before?"

Elisa frowned at him. "I'd assumed you were a demon, actually. But that's okay, some of my best friends aren't human."

"I'm not a demon," he said, in a voice that was suddenly cold and unfriendly. "Or a monster. I'm just a gargoyle. There's a difference."