Doesn't Anyone Stay Dead Around Here?
Chapter 21
*Only on the Hellmouth!* Buffy thought as she tried to explain to Harmony for the sixth time why it would be wrong to just go and turn the first poor soul she found. Finally, Buffy resorted to, "Because I'm the Slayer, and I say so!"
"Fine!" Harmony huffed. "What do you want then? You're not using me!"
The two women stood in Abe's hotel room, arguing. Buffy had insisted on viewing the tape Harmony was holding over her head in blackmail, so they had stopped at the hotel the journalists were using.
"Look, Harmony," Buffy said with a sigh. "Remember last year when you had, um, minions?" She struggled to keep a straight face, remembering exactly why she found the thought of Harmony with minions so funny.
The undead blonde nodded.
"Are any of them still around? One of them would work."
"Well," Harmony said condescendingly, "someone counted their eggs before they hatched and slayed them. Except . . ."
Buffy bit her tongue to keep from pointing out not only Harmony's butchering of the cliché, but the fact that it didn't even make sense in the situation.
"Except what?" the slayer asked.
"You're not going to kill me if I tell you I made some more after you slayed my first batch, are you?" Harmony asked warily.
"Normally, yes." Buffy sighed. "But seeing as I need you to help me find one of them, no."
"Well, then I think one or two are still around."
"And where, exactly, would 'around' be?"
"I don't know!" Harmony said indignantly. "You expect me to know everything? I've been in L.A. for months! It's not like I'm their mother or something."
"Harmony, you're their sire," Buffy explained, rolling her eyes. "That's the vampire equivalent of being their mother." She shook her head, deciding this train of questioning was useless. "Never mind. We'll go to Willy's and go from there."
"Um, it's ready," Abe said, gesturing to the TV. He was loath to interrupt the two obviously strong and possibly dangerous women. While he had never though Harmony much more than a pretty face, the fact that she was a vampire did not reassure him of her harmlessness. And the strength with which Buffy had yanked him out of the tunnel earlier spoke of her ability to pound him into pulp if she so desired.
Buffy had demanded to see the tape with which Harmony had threatened her. Although she had the feeling that her affair with Spike was moving dangerously close to coming out into the open, she was determined to prevent that for as long as possible.
Abe pushed play and the vampire, the slayer, and the two newsmen watched in silence. Buffy noted thankfully that there was no sound. However, the pictures were incriminating enough. On the tape, Spike carried Buffy into the crypt and the picture returned to the plain landscape of the cemetery. Abe pushed stop and ejected the tape.
Harmony took it from him and waved it tauntingly in front of Buffy's face.
"Your dirty little secret, and I've got it all on tape!" Although she didn't say it, Harmony's tone betrayed the *Nay-na-na-na-na-na* behind the statement.
Buffy narrowed her eyes as the vampire continued to taunt her. "That the only one, Harmony?"
Blair opened his mouth to lie and say that they had already made copies and mailed them to the home office, but Harmony spoke before he could, the glee in her voice confirming what Buffy wanted to know.
"Yup, this one little tape means you have to do whatever I say!" she crowed.
Using her slayer reflexes, Buffy grabbed the cassette from the other woman and broke it in half. Then, she ripped the tape from the broken frame and tore it into several pieces, stuffing a significant portion from the end of the tape into her pocket.
"This is how it's going to be," she said, narrowing her eyes and glaring at the other three. "Harmony and I are going to find one of her idiot minions. While we're gone, you boys are going to pack up. When Harmony returns, the three of you are going to leave town and not come back. There will be no taping or interviewing of me or anyone near me. If a story shows up on your show that mentions me, Spike, or anyone else you've met tonight, I will come to L.A. and kill Harmony. Are we clear?"
"C-c-crystal," Blair managed to say, his face ashen.
"And Harmony?" Buffy turned to focus on the other blonde. "If you mention me and Spike to my friends, your boyfriend will be taking you home in a Dustbuster."
Harmony nodded, sufficiently scolded.
"Good." Buffy turned and walked out the door, calling over her shoulder, "Come on, Harm."
***
Willy's had been a bust. Since it was close to four in the morning by this point, the Bronze would already be closed. That left the slayer and her reluctant vampire ally with two options: start searching Sunnydale's extensive sewer system or try the demon bar Spike had introduced Buffy to the previous fall. Since then, she had tried to keep from going in, fists blazing, demanding information because she wanted one place where she and Spike could go that her friends would never find out about. Marching in and beating information out of the bar's clientele would be ultimately self-defeating, she had decided, regardless of how good it might feel. Of course, she had yet to mention this idea to Spike, but she held onto it in the back of her mind.
So, when the slayer and vampire walked in together they were a few raised eyebrows, especially from those who recognized either Buffy or her companion, but the usual conspicuous evacuation that often accompanied her visits to Willy's did not occur. Buffy decided to forego the bartender for now and marched straight to the door leading to the back room.
The four occupants of the room looked up when the blonde pair entered. One of the demons was a complete stranger to Buffy; she didn't even think she knew what species he was. She could tell he was big, even sitting down and he was covered in a purplish-gray, leathery hide. Two of the players she vaguely recognized and suspected had been there the night she had gotten drunk and Spike had introduced her to the world of kitten poker. One of them had dark red skin, big curving horns on either side of his head, and three eyes. The other's head vaguely resembled a dirty beige pineapple, with many small peaks, all pointing up. The fourth she recognized all too well.
"Hey, Clem," she said, smiling friendlily. "We're looking for someone, a vampire. Thought you might be able to help."
"Ah, hey," the demon responded, eyeing the large tranquilizer gun the slayer carried. As the others looked at Buffy, she saw him slip a card into the folds of the skin on his arm. "I haven't seen Spike tonight."
"Oh, not him," Buffy waved her hand, dismissively, trying to hide the worry she felt.
"We don't rat out our kind to the Slayer," the strange demon spoke up in a deep voice. "Isn't one traitorous vampire enough for you?"
Ignoring the barb, Buffy continued to smile, mentally making a note to be on the look-out for Mr. Not-So-Friendly during future patrols. "Actually, I'm helping my friend Harmony here. She's looking for one of her minions. He ran off on her. Name's . . ."
Buffy paused and looked at Harmony who supplied, "Jarred."
"Why would you help her, Slayer?" the mouthy demon asked again. "Why should we help you?"
"Can't let discipline slip or the forces of darkness become all ineffectual and I'm out of a job," Buffy explained cheerfully. Seeing that her sarcasm wasn't being well received, she leaned in and pretended to level with the demon. "I'm doing a little freelance work these days. Believe it or not, fighting the good fight's not that big in the salary and benefits department. Gotta pick up the slack somewhere."
Before the demon could respond to Buffy's mock confidence, Clem spoke up. He knew of a vamp nest that he thought Jarred belonged to and gave them directions. Once he finished, Harmony brightened considerably and said, "Oh, my old lair! Why didn't I think of that?"
Buffy barely refrained from hitting her.
***
About an hour later, Buffy eyed the skyline apprehensively as she lugged an unconscious, handcuffed Jarred through the cemetery towards Spike's crypt. She didn't relish the thought of all her hard work finding this vamp going up in flames if the sun rose before she got her captive inside. Buffy and Harmony had indeed found Jarred in Harmony's old lair. Thankfully, though, he was alone. Harmony stared to yell at him and while he was distracted trying to figure out why his sire, who had abandoned him, was screaming in his face, Buffy shot him.
Since dawn was approaching and Buffy judged that she had threatened Harmony sufficiently, she opted not to escort the other blonde back to the hotel. Instead the slayer had given her one final warning about leaving town immediately.
Buffy entered the crypt and walked over to the trapdoor. She dropped the unconscious vampire through the hole and then followed him down. When she reached the bottom, she took in the scene before her. Dawn was sleeping on one side of Spike's bed, while Anya and Xander cuddled together in sleep on the other side. *Thank God they're fully clothed!* Willow had commandeered a few of the pillows from the bed and was lying on her side on the floor, also slumbering.
Tara sat on a trunk across from Spike, apparently on watch. Next to her was another dart for the gun. Buffy had left it so that if Spike awoke before her return, they could sedate him again. Near Tara, Father Mike sat on one of the wooden coffins with his back against the wall, reading from a Bible. The slayer shook her head slightly, disturbed that the scene didn't surprise her more. *Only I would be unfazed to find my friends having a slumber party in a vampire's crypt and said vampire chained to the wall!*
The witch and the priest looked up when Buffy arrived. The slayer picked up Jarred as Tara moved to wake up the others. As the witch roused them, the Scoobies moved to their assigned positions. Willow, Xander, and Dawn returned to the upper level of the crypt, while Tara and Anya sat on the side of the bed facing Spike. Buffy deposited Jarred on the ground on the other side of the bed and ran a chain from the handcuffs to one of the bed's legs. They had decided that the Master wasn't likely to jump into the other vampire if he thought it was a trap. They hoped that, by hiding Jarred, they could convince the Master that the young vampire had wandered in and they would deal with him later. Or perhaps he would think they didn't even know Jarred was there.
"Where's Harmony?" Anya asked, assuming Buffy would have kept Harmony around as a back-up plan.
"I told her to leave town," Buffy said. While keeping Harmony around had crossed her mind, she was hesitant to hurt the blonde, unless absolutely necessary. This revelation disturbed Buffy slightly, but she pushed it aside. "Oh, that reminds me."
She pulled the tape from the video cassette out of her pocket and held it out to Tara. "Can you magically destroy this?"
Tara looked at it and decided not to question it. She nodded. "Put it down."
Once Buffy placed it on the ground, the witch waved her hand over the pile and murmured a few magick words. The tape burst into flame and quickly disintegrated, leaving a small pile of ashes, which Buffy scattered with her foot.
"Don't ask," she said, seeing Anya's mouth open.
The shopkeeper closed her mouth and nodded.
"Are we ready for round two?" Buffy asked, turning to Father Mike.
The priest nodded and gestured at Spike. "As soon as he wakes up."
tbc
+++++
A/N: Wow! Thanks for the reviews! It sounds cliché, but they do encourage me to write faster. I'm glad so many folks are enjoying the story and I'll try to keep the same level of storytelling through to the end.
Chapter 21
*Only on the Hellmouth!* Buffy thought as she tried to explain to Harmony for the sixth time why it would be wrong to just go and turn the first poor soul she found. Finally, Buffy resorted to, "Because I'm the Slayer, and I say so!"
"Fine!" Harmony huffed. "What do you want then? You're not using me!"
The two women stood in Abe's hotel room, arguing. Buffy had insisted on viewing the tape Harmony was holding over her head in blackmail, so they had stopped at the hotel the journalists were using.
"Look, Harmony," Buffy said with a sigh. "Remember last year when you had, um, minions?" She struggled to keep a straight face, remembering exactly why she found the thought of Harmony with minions so funny.
The undead blonde nodded.
"Are any of them still around? One of them would work."
"Well," Harmony said condescendingly, "someone counted their eggs before they hatched and slayed them. Except . . ."
Buffy bit her tongue to keep from pointing out not only Harmony's butchering of the cliché, but the fact that it didn't even make sense in the situation.
"Except what?" the slayer asked.
"You're not going to kill me if I tell you I made some more after you slayed my first batch, are you?" Harmony asked warily.
"Normally, yes." Buffy sighed. "But seeing as I need you to help me find one of them, no."
"Well, then I think one or two are still around."
"And where, exactly, would 'around' be?"
"I don't know!" Harmony said indignantly. "You expect me to know everything? I've been in L.A. for months! It's not like I'm their mother or something."
"Harmony, you're their sire," Buffy explained, rolling her eyes. "That's the vampire equivalent of being their mother." She shook her head, deciding this train of questioning was useless. "Never mind. We'll go to Willy's and go from there."
"Um, it's ready," Abe said, gesturing to the TV. He was loath to interrupt the two obviously strong and possibly dangerous women. While he had never though Harmony much more than a pretty face, the fact that she was a vampire did not reassure him of her harmlessness. And the strength with which Buffy had yanked him out of the tunnel earlier spoke of her ability to pound him into pulp if she so desired.
Buffy had demanded to see the tape with which Harmony had threatened her. Although she had the feeling that her affair with Spike was moving dangerously close to coming out into the open, she was determined to prevent that for as long as possible.
Abe pushed play and the vampire, the slayer, and the two newsmen watched in silence. Buffy noted thankfully that there was no sound. However, the pictures were incriminating enough. On the tape, Spike carried Buffy into the crypt and the picture returned to the plain landscape of the cemetery. Abe pushed stop and ejected the tape.
Harmony took it from him and waved it tauntingly in front of Buffy's face.
"Your dirty little secret, and I've got it all on tape!" Although she didn't say it, Harmony's tone betrayed the *Nay-na-na-na-na-na* behind the statement.
Buffy narrowed her eyes as the vampire continued to taunt her. "That the only one, Harmony?"
Blair opened his mouth to lie and say that they had already made copies and mailed them to the home office, but Harmony spoke before he could, the glee in her voice confirming what Buffy wanted to know.
"Yup, this one little tape means you have to do whatever I say!" she crowed.
Using her slayer reflexes, Buffy grabbed the cassette from the other woman and broke it in half. Then, she ripped the tape from the broken frame and tore it into several pieces, stuffing a significant portion from the end of the tape into her pocket.
"This is how it's going to be," she said, narrowing her eyes and glaring at the other three. "Harmony and I are going to find one of her idiot minions. While we're gone, you boys are going to pack up. When Harmony returns, the three of you are going to leave town and not come back. There will be no taping or interviewing of me or anyone near me. If a story shows up on your show that mentions me, Spike, or anyone else you've met tonight, I will come to L.A. and kill Harmony. Are we clear?"
"C-c-crystal," Blair managed to say, his face ashen.
"And Harmony?" Buffy turned to focus on the other blonde. "If you mention me and Spike to my friends, your boyfriend will be taking you home in a Dustbuster."
Harmony nodded, sufficiently scolded.
"Good." Buffy turned and walked out the door, calling over her shoulder, "Come on, Harm."
***
Willy's had been a bust. Since it was close to four in the morning by this point, the Bronze would already be closed. That left the slayer and her reluctant vampire ally with two options: start searching Sunnydale's extensive sewer system or try the demon bar Spike had introduced Buffy to the previous fall. Since then, she had tried to keep from going in, fists blazing, demanding information because she wanted one place where she and Spike could go that her friends would never find out about. Marching in and beating information out of the bar's clientele would be ultimately self-defeating, she had decided, regardless of how good it might feel. Of course, she had yet to mention this idea to Spike, but she held onto it in the back of her mind.
So, when the slayer and vampire walked in together they were a few raised eyebrows, especially from those who recognized either Buffy or her companion, but the usual conspicuous evacuation that often accompanied her visits to Willy's did not occur. Buffy decided to forego the bartender for now and marched straight to the door leading to the back room.
The four occupants of the room looked up when the blonde pair entered. One of the demons was a complete stranger to Buffy; she didn't even think she knew what species he was. She could tell he was big, even sitting down and he was covered in a purplish-gray, leathery hide. Two of the players she vaguely recognized and suspected had been there the night she had gotten drunk and Spike had introduced her to the world of kitten poker. One of them had dark red skin, big curving horns on either side of his head, and three eyes. The other's head vaguely resembled a dirty beige pineapple, with many small peaks, all pointing up. The fourth she recognized all too well.
"Hey, Clem," she said, smiling friendlily. "We're looking for someone, a vampire. Thought you might be able to help."
"Ah, hey," the demon responded, eyeing the large tranquilizer gun the slayer carried. As the others looked at Buffy, she saw him slip a card into the folds of the skin on his arm. "I haven't seen Spike tonight."
"Oh, not him," Buffy waved her hand, dismissively, trying to hide the worry she felt.
"We don't rat out our kind to the Slayer," the strange demon spoke up in a deep voice. "Isn't one traitorous vampire enough for you?"
Ignoring the barb, Buffy continued to smile, mentally making a note to be on the look-out for Mr. Not-So-Friendly during future patrols. "Actually, I'm helping my friend Harmony here. She's looking for one of her minions. He ran off on her. Name's . . ."
Buffy paused and looked at Harmony who supplied, "Jarred."
"Why would you help her, Slayer?" the mouthy demon asked again. "Why should we help you?"
"Can't let discipline slip or the forces of darkness become all ineffectual and I'm out of a job," Buffy explained cheerfully. Seeing that her sarcasm wasn't being well received, she leaned in and pretended to level with the demon. "I'm doing a little freelance work these days. Believe it or not, fighting the good fight's not that big in the salary and benefits department. Gotta pick up the slack somewhere."
Before the demon could respond to Buffy's mock confidence, Clem spoke up. He knew of a vamp nest that he thought Jarred belonged to and gave them directions. Once he finished, Harmony brightened considerably and said, "Oh, my old lair! Why didn't I think of that?"
Buffy barely refrained from hitting her.
***
About an hour later, Buffy eyed the skyline apprehensively as she lugged an unconscious, handcuffed Jarred through the cemetery towards Spike's crypt. She didn't relish the thought of all her hard work finding this vamp going up in flames if the sun rose before she got her captive inside. Buffy and Harmony had indeed found Jarred in Harmony's old lair. Thankfully, though, he was alone. Harmony stared to yell at him and while he was distracted trying to figure out why his sire, who had abandoned him, was screaming in his face, Buffy shot him.
Since dawn was approaching and Buffy judged that she had threatened Harmony sufficiently, she opted not to escort the other blonde back to the hotel. Instead the slayer had given her one final warning about leaving town immediately.
Buffy entered the crypt and walked over to the trapdoor. She dropped the unconscious vampire through the hole and then followed him down. When she reached the bottom, she took in the scene before her. Dawn was sleeping on one side of Spike's bed, while Anya and Xander cuddled together in sleep on the other side. *Thank God they're fully clothed!* Willow had commandeered a few of the pillows from the bed and was lying on her side on the floor, also slumbering.
Tara sat on a trunk across from Spike, apparently on watch. Next to her was another dart for the gun. Buffy had left it so that if Spike awoke before her return, they could sedate him again. Near Tara, Father Mike sat on one of the wooden coffins with his back against the wall, reading from a Bible. The slayer shook her head slightly, disturbed that the scene didn't surprise her more. *Only I would be unfazed to find my friends having a slumber party in a vampire's crypt and said vampire chained to the wall!*
The witch and the priest looked up when Buffy arrived. The slayer picked up Jarred as Tara moved to wake up the others. As the witch roused them, the Scoobies moved to their assigned positions. Willow, Xander, and Dawn returned to the upper level of the crypt, while Tara and Anya sat on the side of the bed facing Spike. Buffy deposited Jarred on the ground on the other side of the bed and ran a chain from the handcuffs to one of the bed's legs. They had decided that the Master wasn't likely to jump into the other vampire if he thought it was a trap. They hoped that, by hiding Jarred, they could convince the Master that the young vampire had wandered in and they would deal with him later. Or perhaps he would think they didn't even know Jarred was there.
"Where's Harmony?" Anya asked, assuming Buffy would have kept Harmony around as a back-up plan.
"I told her to leave town," Buffy said. While keeping Harmony around had crossed her mind, she was hesitant to hurt the blonde, unless absolutely necessary. This revelation disturbed Buffy slightly, but she pushed it aside. "Oh, that reminds me."
She pulled the tape from the video cassette out of her pocket and held it out to Tara. "Can you magically destroy this?"
Tara looked at it and decided not to question it. She nodded. "Put it down."
Once Buffy placed it on the ground, the witch waved her hand over the pile and murmured a few magick words. The tape burst into flame and quickly disintegrated, leaving a small pile of ashes, which Buffy scattered with her foot.
"Don't ask," she said, seeing Anya's mouth open.
The shopkeeper closed her mouth and nodded.
"Are we ready for round two?" Buffy asked, turning to Father Mike.
The priest nodded and gestured at Spike. "As soon as he wakes up."
tbc
+++++
A/N: Wow! Thanks for the reviews! It sounds cliché, but they do encourage me to write faster. I'm glad so many folks are enjoying the story and I'll try to keep the same level of storytelling through to the end.