8: Spiders, Scents, and the Sherlock Holmes Factor
"Ow!"
"Idiot!"
Sam blocked out the sounds of Josh and Donna 'working together', and focused on the search. The smell of dust in the air was stifling; he had found that, lately. Scents and sounds were magnified, especially as the moon drew closer to full. He could tell where Donna had been before him by the lingering traces of her perfume, and Josh by a slightly less identifiable mix of aftershave and leather shoes.
In the chaos of the White House, all the scents mingled together into a sometimes overpowering blend, but in this seldom-visited place it was easy to tell where one of his companions had recently been. That gave him a - more than slightly disturbing - idea.
"This box," he said to the others. "Tribby needs to visit it all the time, right?"
"To eat the giant evil spiders, yeah," said Donna.
"Ick," said Josh.
"So to find it, we should go where he's been recently."
"Which would be great if we had, you know, security camera footage," Josh pointed out. "Or footprints. How come no one leaves footprints these days?"
"'Cuz this isn't a Sherlock Holmes movie?" suggested Donna.
"Tribby hasn't been in this room anytime recently," Sam informed him.
"Huh? How do you know?" demanded Josh.
"'Cause I can't smell him."
"Huh? Oh! Euw."
"Yeah," agreed Sam. Donna, however, looked intrigued.
"You can smell people?"
Sam hugged himself self-consciously. "Sometimes. I- nobody's been in here for a while," he elaborated.
"Well, that makes this a whole lot easier. Boy, we could use this at work; send you down to the archives to find where the interns have managed to lose things this week." She headed for the door. Josh hesitated.
"I smell?" he asked tentatively.
"You know... aftershave and stuff."
"Oh. Um, okay." Josh's eyes widened a little. "Okay, but I'm never skipping my shower before work ever again."
"Yeah." They followed Donna.
"Smell anything?" she asked, as they entered an office area.
"Lots of things," said Sam, unsure whether to be amused or dismayed at the depth of information available to his nose. He moved to one of the desks. "Coffee mostly. And this guy uses way too much cologne."
"'Kay, Sam? This is officially freaky." Donna elbowed Josh in the ribs.
"Quiet, Joshua. Sam?"
Sam sniffed the air a little self-consciously. Suddenly he got it; the scent of something dry and ancient. He almost gagged. "God, I think I smell-"
Suddenly the doors before them exploded open. "Demons!" A trio of huge, shaggy-furred beasts bore down on them. They had heads almost like hyenas, only with large, yellowing tusks. They had to duck to pass through the doorway, being all somewhat over eight feet tall.
Josh cursed and lurched a half-step forwards, obviously torn between retreating and wanting to defend Donna. His assistant, by contrast, went immediately on the attack. She reached towards the nearest file cabinet, and almost casually wrenched out one of the metal bars that made up its framework. Sam and Josh exchanged slightly wide-eyed looks. Clearly, the transfer of Slayer powers back to Buffy had not been as complete as all that.
As Donna raised the metal bar like a sword and faced off against the creatures, Josh scrambled over to the shattered cabinet and pulled out more pieces of the broken frame. Sam caught the bar Josh tossed to hm and hefted it, wishing it was heavier. The hyena-demon immediately in front of him caught his eye, and smiled obscenely.
Sam gingerly raised the bar, and tried not to tremble too obviously.