Title: A delicate test
Author: clarrie
Disclaimer: Most of what you see is owned by, respectively, Joss Whedon, Fox, The WB, The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins, Bram Stoker and Laurie R King.
This is a Sherlock Holmes, Buffy, Dracula, Upstairs Downstairs, Beekeeper crossover. There was a bet.
An illustrated version of this fic can be found at www.geocities.com/bakesale_bitca/deltest.html


'I really must protest, this is too much!' I stood in disgust and pulled my bag over my shoulder. 'To... To attempt to soil the memory of a great mind such as his with this... This fantasy! I won't listen.'
'You were a friend?' I bristled at her deliberate misjudging of my age and pursed my lips silently.
She raised a sarcastic eyebrow. 'You perhaps possess some knowledge that I do not?'
'I merely dislike having to listen to this slander.' I threw a few coppers onto the table and stood to leave. 'And I would strongly recommend that you reconsider your tawdry little act before it lands you in the courts.'
'Goodbye.' The gypsy woman sniffed dissmissively. 'Your friend will not be at the boat swings for another hour yet however. And it begins to rain.'
I lingered begrudgingly at the door of the tent. 'I do not believe your story.'
'I do not ask you too...'


'Doctor?'
'Ja?' The thin, delicately featured, elderly professor sitting at his desk turned his face to the doorway where the younger man lingered nervously. 'You have something you wish to ask of me?'
'You asked for the news to be brought to your study Professor. In particular if there was another...'
The professor removed his thin wire frame glasses and ran his fingers wearily along the bridge of his nose. 'There has been another death.'
'It... A young girl...' The young man placed a bundle of curled and smudged papers before him.
'Dr Van Helsing, She was a...'
'It is not our place to judge the personal morality of another human being, Bathory. The wounds fit the profile I gave you?' He peered greedily at the information in front of him. 'It was not exactly the same I see.' He dismissed his associate from the room with a wave of his hand causing a million motes of dust to dance in the pale early morning light. 'No, this is not the same at all...'


'BLOODY HELL DRU. I don't need this! Poncing about like a big...Like a big... Looking down his nose at me - 'h'elementary my dear h'William.'' Spike screwed up his face in disgust. 'You see but you do not h'observe.' He ran his fingers roughly through his hair and fell heavily into the chair at his back. 'Can't you just eat for once?'
'He'll be such a pretty baby...' Dru cradled Miss Edith to her chest and put a hand out to stroke Spike's cheek. 'Just like his daddy.'
'Oh Dru.' Spike sighed in exasperation and took her hand. 'What are we going to do with you?'


'Holmes?'
'Oh what is it now Watson? ' A faint voice emerged from within the layers of clothing bundled on the couch. 'I am intolerably weary.'
'You really should let me change the dressings on your throat Holmes, especially after wearing those clothes all night.' Watson took a roll of clean gauze from his bag. 'Whatever your own views on the matter, I don't care to risk infection.'
'Watson.' Holmes peeled the thick woollen scarf from his face and peered drowsily at his friend. 'I am quite capable of taking care of a few strips of sticking plaster. Really I am.' He fingered the bloodied gauze with a pair of long pale digits. 'As it is, I appear to be healing with my customary rapidity and I am certain that there are cases far more deserving of your tender mercies... Leave me to my sleep. I'm sure that an hour or two in the embrace of Morpheus will do nothing to hinder my recovery.'


Van Helsing stood motionless as he gazed at the dark patch in the alleyway which marked the last known movements of Miss Violet Strensall. He drew his cane slowly along the filth of the ground and paused as it hit a small shell button with a few short threads still trailing from it.
Slowly, he eased himself to the floor and scooped up the fragments for closer inspection.
'What did you see in the night you died Fräulein Strensall?' He murmured softly to himself as he ran his fingers over the ridges of the button. 'What did you see?'


'Mrs Hudson?' Watson pulled his coat on and began to fumble with his buttons. 'I'm going out for a while.' He paused momentarily at the door and returning to the main room picked up his bag. 'Should Holmes ask after me when he wakes would you be so kind as to tell him...' For some unknown reason Watson found himself pausing. 'Would you be so kind as to tell him that I have gone out.' He ended weakly.


'We shall have such fun.' Whispered Dru into the ear of her scarred and dismembered doll. 'And we shall teach him such tricks. Only you must never speak of this to Spike, because it makes him cross, and we are a happy family... '
'Oh we are Dru, poppet. We are.' Spike put his arms softly around his lover's shoulders and smelt her hair. 'We're the happiest bloody family in all of London and don't you ever think any different.' He breathed in deeply, savouring the mildew scented locks with every sign of rapture. 'And no bloody cuckoo in my bloody nest is going to make me stay grumpy at you.'
'Oh dear.' A cultured voice rang out from the doorway. 'Have I come at a bad time?'