Part Three

Part Three

Buffy and Andru ran and wheeled, respectively into the hall on their way to the control room. As they did so, Scratches bounded passed them with Melissa close behind.

Melissa had changed clothes, Buffy saw. She wore black and white checkered jeans and a T-shirt. She carried a gray, buckskin jacket over one thin arm. On the front of the shirt Buffy was surprised to read, "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..." As Melissa edged past, Buffy could read the back of the shirt. "...For my Smith and my Wesson doth comfort me." These words were emblazoned across a .44 Magnum shown firing.

"Let me guess," said Buffy. "The gospel according to Dirty Harry?"

"Beats the hell out of Jim Bakker," said Melissa

"I suppose that's true enough," agreed Buffy.

"Yo, Mel. What's the sitch?" asked Andru.

"Beats me all to hell. Maybe Deveraux found a fly in his soup and wants us to whack the waiter," she replied, sounding only half-kidding.

"Who's Deveraux?" asked Buffy.

"He's a boss dude kinda life form in our little club," said Andru.

"Yeah," said Melissa. "He's French-English, from Quebec. Which means he gets to be really rude and a bad dresser all at the same time."

"Prejudiced much, aren't we?" commented Buffy.

"Naw," said Andru. "We just know the guy, is all."

"Is it always like this around here?" asked Buffy as they continued moving.

"Hell no." said Melissa. "It's usually a lot more confused than this. We got two other teams that live up here. We burn out three dust-busters a week just keeping up with Garou fur."

"Grrr!" This came from Scratches as they entered the room.

"Oh, go suck a Milkbone," replied Melissa in a breezy tone.

"And on that note of cooperation and team spirit let us begin the briefing." said Rebecca looking over the group. "As always, what is said here is considered Most Secret. Divulging this information--"

"--Will result in Blackthorn strangling us with our own intestines. Yadda, yadda, yadda we got the point," interrupted Melissa. "So what's the deal? I mean, we know where the Pentex site is on her world. We go in with a couple other teams, blow the snot out of it and go home."

"We have some among us who are not familiar with team protocol, Ms. Wu," said Rebecca frostily. "Ms. Summers, I am uncertain how long you will be with us before we are able to return you to your home. Be aware that the matters we will discuss are secret. It is vital that nothing said here can be revealed. Do you understand?"

"Sure, not a problem. I could always wait in the car," said Buffy snidely.

Rebecca sighed noisily. "As we have no car and cannot yet permit you to wander this place freely, and have no personnel to accompany you, that is not an option. As the information I received may pertain to you, I suggest you listen. For Ms. Summer's benefit I will add previous background information in at least a summarized form."

Melissa looked at her watch and then opened her jacket and pulled out a PowerAde Fruit Punch bottle, although the liquid inside was somewhat thicker than Fruit Punch. Buffy turned away.

As Rebecca started to speak, Andru touched her arm. She turned to him and saw him discreetly holding a Snickers bar out to her. "Not going anywhere for a while...?" he smiled.

Buffy smiled in return and took the bar. She turned back and saw Melissa giving her a flat, unfriendly glare. Not wanting to start something right there, Buffy ignored her and turned back to Rebecca.

"I suggest that all of you pay attention to this. It could save your lives." Melissa opened her mouth to speak but Rebecca overrode her. "Or unlives as the case may be." Melissa shut her mouth. "Not then, this is what we know or at least believe to be true." Then Rebecca began the briefing in earnest.

"Pentex has been dabbling in interdimensional travel for some time now, scouting the Umbra for worlds that would be suitable for exploitation if not outright conquest. As if we ever thought they'd be content with keeping their evil here.

"For our guest's benefit, Pentex is an extremely large and powerful multinational corporation. Imagine a business that controls IBM, Microsoft, Exxon, and Citibank and you've got the picture. They are huge, but secretive. Unbeknownst to most of the rest of the world they are also allied with the forces of the Wyrm. In effect, they are demon-worshipers. Their ultimate goal is to effect the demonic possession of every living creature on the face of the planet, with ideas of these Fomori "hybrid" being able to survive on the polluted, desolate shell that Earth would become should their goals be achieved.

"Garou have the ability to travel the Umbra to other worlds by using mirrors and other reflective surfaces. That was how Scratches got to Ms. Summer's world and brought her here when she was injured. Scratches was searching for signs of Pentex infiltration on other worlds. Until now, we've found no evidence of them.

"To the meat of things. Mr. Deveraux contacted me about a situation that is developing within the state of Tennessee of all places. Apparently Pentex used a group of vampires, along with some corrupted Garou called Black Spiral Dancers to take the cub of the leader of the Sept of the River Wide. There was plenty of evidence left to indicate vampiric involvement. Tonight, there will be a crescent moon. When that moon rises the times will be auspicious for sacrificing the cub in a ceremony that we believe would create a permanent, stable gateway between this world and one other.

"Our mission is to rescue the cub is possible or otherwise disrupt the ceremony, failure to do so may cost the lives of the inhabitants of two worlds their very souls," Rebecca concluded in an ominous tone.

"...Their very souls, huh." said Melissa. "Nice dramatic touch. Okay, where do we start?"

"The River Widers know about the vamp angle, right?" asked Andru.

"From what I can gather, yes they do."

"Oh, crap." said Melissa. At Buffy's questioning look she said. "Most Garou hate the Kindred, they think we're all evil mainpulating bastards that sold our souls to the Devil or something."

Scratches had shifted to human form. "That is untrue, Melissa. As Garou, we do not believe in the Christian devil, only the Wyrm. We believe that you are all evil, manipulating bastards who sold your souls to the Wyrm."

"Hah, freaking hah!" said Melissa as Scratches smirked. "Anyway, the feelings are pretty mutual. Figure the sept's getting together a war-party and they're fixing to rip the heart out of downtown, what, Memphis?"

"Yes, Memphis," Rebecca said, sounding slightly impressed.

"Don't look at me like that. I may not have finished junior high, but I can damned well read!" Melissa insisted. "Okay, so the wolves figure the vamps pulled the strings on the dog-, er, kidnapping. So they're going to tear apart any vamp or human that gets in their way, right. I'm guessing they lost the trail."

"They did," said Rebecca. "The way is clear. We will have to divide ourselves. Scratches, you and I will go to the Sept and attempt to dissuade them from war. Andru will stay here and seek a way into the Pentex database to find details, if any, on this raid. Melissa will go into Memphis and speak with the vampires there, attempting to discover the culprits from that angle."

"Sounds cool." said Melissa, nodding. "I find the nasty people and call in a combat team to take 'em out. Not a problem here."

Rebecca sighed. "Unfortunately, a variety of crises of erupted down below, our more combat-ready teams are already committed. We are very much on our own here."

"So what the hell do I do when I find the fucking vamps, dial 911? I'm going to need backup when the shit hits the fan. Most places I got friends of friends or at least assholes who owe me, in Memphis I got nothing. I hear there's a struggle between the Camarilla and the Sabbat. And I think the Sabbat's getting the upper fang, if you know what I mean."

"And what am I supposed to do?" asked Buffy. "Just sit here and watch it all on CNN? Sorry, I don't do CNN."

"You are our guest here. This mission is very dangerous. To involve you in it would place you in extreme peril, whatever combat abilities you possess." said Rebecca. "Aside from that, we need you to act as a kind of guide. In his haste to return here, Scratches was unable to properly mark a trail to your world. We need your affinity with your world to find it again. Aside from that, it would violate my oath of hospitality to ask you to share in this struggle."

"Who's being asked?" asked Buffy. "Look, I'm not exactly a baby when it comes to this weird stuff, okay. The town I live in is located on something called a Hell mouth. That's like a gateway into Hell, okay. It's shut now, but it still attracts all kinds of vampires and monsters, which keep me seriously busy. If these Pentex corporate jerks are messing around in my home, I want in on stopping them."

Rebecca looked at Scratches, a question in her eyes. "I felt the sense of an unfamiliar evil while I was there, but I had no time to investigate before..." he looked at Buffy, who grimaced at the memory "events outpaced me."

"Smooth, Scratches. You're gonna be a diplomat any time now." cracked Melissa.

"Ms. Wu," said Scratches, in that same calm, careful voice. "Bite me."

Melissa just smiled.

"Still, with this new knowledge," said Rebecca, "we must alter our theory of events."

"Yeah," said Andru. "Figure they don't even need a stable gate. They're gonna sacrifice the kid and send the power through to the other side."

"Shit." said Melissa in an awed, frightened voice. "That'll probably blow that Hellmouth thing wide open. The demons on the other side'll burn that world to goddamn cinder. Then they'll come here."

Buffy swallowed in fear. "You've got to get me back home, I've gotta stop them!"

"Wait, can you tell us about what, if any activity you saw Pentex engaged in?" asked Rebecca.

"Well, they hired a local contractor to put up the mall and there were a few of their executives around, but I haven't seen any of them lately." said Buffy. "Why?"

"Trying to send you back home now would be futile." said Rebecca. "Pentex didn't care about a stable gate. They're setting a bomb, effectively. Even if we knew your world's exact coordinates, which we don't, there's nobody to fight there. It would be a matter of unraveling the mystic forces that have been set up over what, months? The unraveling would take days, possibly weeks. No, if we're going to stop them, it has to be from this side."

"And you guys are undermanned now, so you need all the help you can get, and I've definitely got a stake in this, because it's my world on the line." said Buffy, her voice filled with a grim determination.

"You are correct," said Rebecca. "All right, Scratches and myself will still deal with the Garou, Andru will work the computer. Melissa was right. She does need backup. That is what you shall be."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" said Melissa, raising her palms in protest. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'd feel a lot better working this thing by myself than with someone I don't even know."

"You'll just have to adapt, Melissa," said Rebecca, her tone leaving no room for discussion. "It is still a good two hours until sunset in Memphis. Go help Buffy get outfitted for the trip. Talk things out. Bond, or something. But be able to do this job, unless you are saying that this task is outside your capabilities?"

"I can handle it," said Melissa, still fuming slightly.

"Can you handle it?" Rebecca asked Buffy.

Buffy nodded and looked at the smaller vampire girl. "I guess it's just you and me, kid."

"Oh God." groaned Melissa, "I'm going into hostile vamp territory and I've got the killer cheerleader as backup. We are so fucked."

"Okay, this here's the arsenal of death and destruction, always popular with the tourists," said Melissa. She and Buffy were standing near a large computer panel with a slot in it.

"Why does it look like a vending machine?" asked Buffy, noting the knobs beside pictures of various weapons, most of which she couldn't readily identify.

"Because Andru Clayton has a very sick mind and he's the one who built this thing," Melissa replied off-handedly. "Okay, remember Star Trek, when the Enterprise folks wanted food or coffee, they'd just touch this panel and poof, there it is. Well, this thing uses nanotechnolgy to sort of assemble whatever kind of weapon you want, anything from a knife to a Stinger missile. It uses magick, sort of, but as long as it's here on the station, that doesn't matter. I hear they're going to test market something similar in heavy combat zones. You know, Bosnia, South America, most inner-city schools..."

At Buffy's slightly aghast look Melissa said, "Jesus, I'm just kidding, sort of."

Melissa touched the pad and out came a sawed-off shotgun; another touch produced a small semi-automatic pistol.

"Okay, you're turn. It can read skin tone on me 'cause I'm a member and I preset my preferences. Just tell me what you want and I'll type it in."

Buffy thought for a minute. She'd really like something like Melissa got, but Giles hadn't even let her use the crossbow much. Damn, best to stick with what you know, she thought. "Gimme a couple of stakes and some garlic, I've already got a cross."

"Garlic?! What dysfunctional Hollywood movie bullshit are you living in? Jesus!" said Melissa, her eyes rolling in disbelief.

"What's wrong with garlic?" asked Buffy a sneaking suspicion crossing her mind. Damn, I hate it when they change the rules! she thought.

"Only that it doesn't work. Okay, top-down time," said Melissa. "You're gonna have to know some things about Kindred before we go down there. If we get neck-deep in shit and you start waving crosses and garlic around, we're dead. Period."

"Fine, the 'Kindred' don't have problems with garlic. Are stakes still okay?" asked Buffy in an annoyed tone.

"Look, why don't you just tell me about the vamps on your world and I'll tell how much is right and wrong for this one, alright. And tell me about you, too, I wanna who I'm takin' with me."

Buffy took a deep breath and started explaining, wishing that Giles were here since this was really his department. Then she got a mental image of the bookish scholar trying to deal with the acerbic Melissa and decided it was best he wasn't here.

Buffy found something else too. Melissa was a good listener. No acid commentary, or smart remarks for a change. Buffy found herself opening up about things she wouldn't normally have, especially about Angel, and Angelus. It was nice to be able to talk with somebody who really seemed to get it.

At the end of it, Melissa looked worried. "You're not gonna like this next part. The guys you've been up against were pussies compared to the Kindred. The closet thing to a real Kindred I've heard you describe was that Master guy and even he's a wuss compared with a lot of the really old fuckers."

"Joyness." said Buffy. "I go from the Slayer to the Snack."

"Whoa! Cool the black fog of despair. Kindred are tough, but they're not indestructible, at least not most of them." said Melissa. "Lemme lay it out to you. We've got a couple hours 'til time to go."

"First things first," Melissa started. "The biggest thing you have to understand is the Masquerade. The way vamps survive is by pretending, for the most part to be human. They won't do anything, if they can avoid it, to compromise that.

"Way back during the Inquisition, normal humans actively hunted vamps. And a shitload of us were killed. Not by "Slayer" or special magic types, by regular human beings. Sunlight kills us and we generally have to sleep during the day. And when I say sleep I mean coma. Fire kills us. Side note, generally, when you're going up against the supernatural, fire'll kill damn near anything, Vamp, Garou, Mage, Faerie, anything. Okay, teeth and claws of vamps and werewolves, you know, other supernatural types, that kills us. Also, getting our heads ripped or cut off, that'll kill us too. The stakes don't kill us, but if you get 'em right where the heart is, it'll paralyze a vamp 'til it's removed.

"Garlic doesn't work. We show up in mirrors. Usually. We can go anywhere we want using lockpicks or just smashing the door down. If a vamp's chasing you and you need to hide, best place is in public. They won't do anything too outrageous that'll goof up the Masquerade. They still might shoot you though.

"As for special powers, depends on that clan and the Kindred. Vamps are organized into clans, generally. Each clan has certain powers they're best at and some weakness that defines them. The Malkavians, for example, are good at Auspex, that's seeing or sensing stuff, kinda like psychically. They're good at Obfuscate, that's hiding, disguising or flat out going invisible. Or at least unnoticed. A guy good enough at Obfuscate could be standing right here listening and we'd never notice him until he wanted us too. Malkavians, and here's a cheery thought are also good at Dominate. Yeh, it's what it sounds like, except worse. The movie vamps just do that "look into my eyes" bullshit. I can do that too. I can also make you not remember what happened after I told you to "look into my eyes" or remember something different. "That lightheaded feeling from having you're blood sucked, that's just an inner-ear infection, don't worry about, it'll clear up on its own."

"Only the Master ever did that," said Buffy.

"Dominate's a pretty common power. Most vamps try to learn it at least a little 'cause it's so useful. At levels higher than *I* ever want to go with it, you can turn humans into robot slaves just about."

"Oh, yeah. The Malkavian clan weakness: they're all nuts."

"Say what?" asked Buffy.

"No shit. They've all got some kinda insanity or derangement. Schizophrenia, paranoia, multiple personality, you name it; they've got it. You've got a whole vampire clan that's walking around fucked-in-the-head. Cool, huh?"

Buffy just shivered slightly in reply.

"Hey, there's a lotta scary shit down there on terra-firma. Just think about the poor bastard human that runs into this stuff." said Melissa.

"I do," Buffy said grimly. "That's why I'm the Slayer."

"Back to the lecture. You can take notes of you want. Second thing about the Kindred is, we're not stupid. Sure, we live forever as long as we got blood and we got all kindsa cool powers and stuff, but if it comes down to a fight between the humans and us we're still outnumbered by a good 100,000 to one or so. And humans got flamethrowers and White-Phosphorous grenades and Dragonbreath shotguns that can fuck up a vamp's whole night. So vamps got secret and got organized. There are two basic sects of Kindred society. The Camarilla and the Sabbat. The Sabbat believes vamps should be free of all restrictions, brotherhood of the fang and crap like that. Which pretty much means vamps rule and humans get penned up bred, and bled like cattle. No thank you. Far as I can tell, behind that "up with vampires" bullshit, there are some evil motherfuckers.

"Then there's they Camarilla. I'm not going to say they're so much better or more moral than the Sabbat. But they are subtler. Which is mostly good. They like living in human society and letting humans be human. Of course, like I said above, they're not stupid. They control certain humans. Some through Dominate, others through ghouling--get to that in a minute. Some through flat-out alliances or threats. What that means is: you fuck with a vamp, especially an important vamp, you don't have some hissing, fanged bastard at your door going "I vant to suck your blud!"

Buffy laughed at that one. "Nice accent, not!"

"I'm gifted," said Melissa. "Anyway, you get the cops at your door, or you get audited by the IRS, or the bank forecloses on your house, or you get committed to a mental institution because you believe in "vampires, of all thing." Vampires have their fingers in everything, police, fire department, business, education, health care, organized crime, everything. Of course, here's the best part. Most vamps want to be top vamp. They all wanna rule the world, so they spend most of their times trashing each other's plans and shit. The worst enemy of any vamps is another vamp. Vamps almost never cooperate unless there's a clear danger to all of them, and even then not for long.

"What'd I forget? Oh, yeah, ghouling. Now listen close, 'cause this is really fuckin' important. If you drink any Kindred's blood three times in a row over a short length of time, you're Blood-Bound to them. Yeah, that's just as nasty as it sounds. I've heard it's like bein' in love except worse. This vamp is the center of your world; you'd kill your whole family if the bastard said too, or kill yourself. This bonding thing can happen to other vamps, too. On the plus side, any human that drinks vamp blood, is stronger than normal and can sometimes use those special Kindred powers, depending on how strong the vamp is who gave the blood.

"God, what else can they do?" Buffy asked.

"Depends on the Kindred, their age, their clan, you name it," Melissa said. "Just be ready for anything, hit first, hit hard, hit often and run like hell if that doesn't work. You sure you don't wanna catch this on CNN after all?"

"No," Buffy admitted. "But I'm going down there anyway."

"Buffy, Melissa, report to the tubes at once." came Rebecca's voice.

Melissa zapped up a tote bag and created several other weapons to shove into it. "Just in case." she said.

They went to the tubes and entered them.

Instantly, Buffy was hit by a shattering feeling of disorientation. She was rising, falling, expanding and shrinking all at the same time along a field of blazing light and abyssal darkness. And then it was over.

She felt herself being hurled into reality and somersaulted in the air, deftly landing on her feet. She looked around for Melissa. A pile of trash moved and Melissa struggled to her feet. "I hate those things!"

Shaking her head she joined Buffy. "Where are we?" asked Buffy.

"You in the land o' Oz, bitch!" came a rough voice near them.

They whirled and saw several gangers wearing what looked like cheap cloaks and carrying knives walking down the alley toward them. The apparent leader, a short scar-faced boy-man, smirked at them. "We the Wizard's O' Oz. An' I'm gonna luv usin' my wand on you!"

She drifted into a fighting stance and saw Melissa joining her. Buffy looked the group over and smiled, unpleasantly. "Boy did you guys pick the wrong girls on the wrong night."