A Buffy the Vampire Slayer/CSI crossover. This story is a sequel to "Should Have Gone To Vegas..." and "Manhunters." which involve Angel, Riley Finn, and other characters from BtVS and Angel. It is set between Buffy Seasons 6 and 7, and contains spoilers for Buffy season 6 and my earlier stories.

All characters are the intellectual property of their respective creators, film companies, etc.; this story may not be sold or distributed on a profit-making basis.

I'm British, so's my spelling. Live with it.

WORK IN PROGRESS - Feedback is greatly appreciated, especially on anything that looks like a continuity or factual error.

Apologies for the delay in posting this - more ISP and computer problems.


Slayer, Las Vegas

By Marcus L. Rowland

IV

"Dracula?" asked Dawn, "Are you sure?"

"Well, I didn't see the guy himself, only the brides. Three vamps, they turned into bats."

"Brides?" asked Grissom.

"Dracula was a great one for his home comforts, which included his brides. Three of them, all vampires, all beautiful. Can't vouch for that myself, I only saw their game faces, but Sara may be able to say more."

"Sara? Sara Sidle?"

"Yeah. Didn't get the message about clearing out of the studio. They were trying to hypnotise her when I got there."

"Is she all right?"

"Wet and annoyed, she jumped in the jacuzzi to get away from them. I guess they didn't want to ruin their dresses following her."

"Fell in," said Sara from the doorway. "I tripped on the edge and fell in." She was wearing a grey tracksuit with the Las Vegas Police Department logo, and carrying two mugs of steaming chocolate. She gave one to Buffy, saying "I was wrong, the cafeteria did have some. Probably about five years old, but what the heck. No marshmallows though."

"Just as well, I forgot to look for it. Sara, this is my sister Dawn. Dawn, Sara Sidle."

"Getting to water was probably the best thing you could have done," said Dawn.

"Why's that, Dawn?" asked Buffy.

"There's a lot of legends about Dracula, and some of it is really strange stuff. We know he can change into a bat or a wolf or a cloud of mist, which means that he can get in and out of this building any time he wants to. But he has some odd weaknesses too. According to Stoker's book he couldn't sleep unless he had earth from his grave, and he couldn't cross running water. He must have sired the brides, they have at least one of his powers, so they might have the same weaknesses."

"But they leaped across the jacuzzi," said Sara.

"Well yeah, but maybe they couldn't get into it."

"It wasn't actually running." said Buffy.

"If Sara was splashing about a lot..." said Dawn "I know, I'm reaching here, but they could have easily pulled her out if they'd gone into the water. Has to be some reason why they didn't."

"We need more information on this. Riley and Giles met them, maybe we should contact them."

"I think Finn might be busy," said Grissom. "When he called me earlier he was in the middle of some sort of firefight. Reminds me, he said to say that he and Sam say 'Hi'. Sorry I didn't mention it earlier."

"Oh... Well, Mr. and Mrs. Rambo can handle that, I guess, if he could take time out for a phone call. But I'd better not disturb them. Giles, maybe. What's the time in Britain?"

"About four in the morning," said Grissom, running a world clock program on his PDA.

"Probably not a good idea to disturb him then, he's an old guy and got hurt a few weeks ago, he needs his rest. If I call him around midnight or one he ought to be up."

"Would he possibly be the source of some documents we received in the werewolf case? Someone Oz contacted in Britain?"

"Probably," said Buffy, "Giles has some very unusual information sources. Why?"

"The documents he got us were useful... but we couldn't have used them in court, there was nothing to show how they were acquired, and no proof of their authenticity."

"That's never been a high priority for his sources. I'll be honest, if this does turn out to be Dracula you'll never get it to court; it's going to be a fight to the death, one way or another."

"I appreciate that's probable," said Grissom, "but we might find a way to capture him. If so, we need grounds to hold him. In the werewolf case we might have had a better case if we had a legitimate source for the documents he sent; maybe Oz wouldn't have done what he did if he'd seen a reasonable chance of a successful trial. I'm worried that we might paint ourselves into a corner where we catch him but have to release him. Dracula may be a vampire, but I'd guess he and his brides still have the protection of civil rights."

"I guess... let's put it this way; if Giles comes up with anything later than the nineteenth century I'll be surprised, Dracula was always good at covering his tracks. But if he gets lucky I'll ask him to make sure that everything is legit. Okay?"

"I suppose so. We'd better get ready for our meeting, I want you both to meet everyone here, and make sure that you're up to speed on what we've found and vice versa."

"Let me just go and wash up. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Don't miss that stuff in your hair," said Dawn.

Buffy grabbed her purse and hurried out.

"What stuff?" asked Grissom curiously. "I didn't notice anything."

"Oh... well... nothing, really, but she panics so beautifully if she thinks it's a mess."

"That's evil!" said Sara with a grin.

"You should have seen her when she was wearing it long."

* * * * * *

"So there's this kid and you say she's about fifteen and she fights vampires?" asked Warrick sceptically.

"We saw her a couple of hours ago," said Greg. "Fifteen or sixteen, tops."

"See this web site?" said Nick, pointing at the page describing the Slayer. "One girl in every generation with the strength to fight the vampires... it's her. Come on, we'll be late for the meeting."

"Yeah, but I can find you a web site that says that the Teletubbies and Harry Potter are satanic, or that Santa Claus is real," said Greg as they entered the conference room.

"Santa Claus is real," said Dawn as they entered, "but he wasn't as nice as the legends make out. He was a demon that climbed down chimneys to eat the children. I'm pretty sure that one of the earlier Slayers killed him, but the records are a little sketchy."

"Thanks for shattering my illusions," said Sara.

"I'd give you the lowdown on the Easter Bunny, but my source is a little biased on that one - she had rabbit phobia and freaked out whenever she talked about it."

Warrick looked at her for a second then said "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yeah... the more you get into this stuff, the more you realise that there's some truth in every legend. Santa Claus is typical, you have a pretty ugly truth then someone dresses it up in a story to make it less frightening."

Catherine came in with Captain Brass while they were talking and sat listening.

"So... Bigfoot?" said Nick.

"Were-bears. Like werewolves but bigger. Fortunately they're timid."

"Alien abduction?"

"Not sure on that one, but it's a lot like the stories of people taken away to fairyland. Time passes differently, memories they can't make sense of, that sort of thing.."

"So what really happens?"

"Fairies. They live in another dimension, like to use humans as servants, keep them for a few months then wipe their memories and send them home. Not usually much harm done, and they generally cure any illnesses so that they have healthy servants. It isn't really a matter for the Slayer."

"Weird. Thanks."

"Of course it could be aliens that happen to do things in the same way..."

"Right..."

"...Or I could have made that one up because I have absolutely no idea."

"So, what's it like fighting monsters?" asked Greg, after a short pause.

"Kinda gross, mostly. There's all this icky stuff that comes out of demons when you cut them, and vampires turn into dust which really messes up your sinuses and your hair. And don't get me started on mud monsters..."

"Dawn," interrupted Grissom, "your sister's back. Perhaps we'd better start."

Dawn took a seat, while Greg, Nick, and Warrick checked out the newcomer.

"We'll begin with you, Miss Summers, since you have some information on the nature of our current problem. Miss Summers, Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown. You've already met Sara, Catherine, and Captain Brass, of course. Everyone, this is Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer."

"Okay. Right." Buffy moved to the head of the table, looking slightly embarrassed. "Call me Buffy. Now, I wish I could be giving you good news, but it isn't. First, we don't have one vampire to deal with; there are three of them. I don't know their names, but they're usually referred to as the 'Brides of Dracula'. They're usually associated with the Count, he wasn't around tonight which means he's either letting them do the work or out of the picture. Since I killed him a couple of years ago I'd guess they've gone into business on their own account. Second, it looks like they have some of the same powers that Dracula has, which are different to normal vampires. How many of you have met a vampire before today?"

All of them, with the exception of Warrick and Sara.

"Angel, right? Okay, Angel is a typical vampire, except that he has a soul and has spent years developing his combat skills. Even without the skills he can run as fast as a car, jump twenty or thirty feet straight up, and bench press a small car. He has reflexes to match, and can catch a thrown knife or a crossbow bolt if he sees it coming. He can see in the dark, and all of his other senses are much better than humans. That's normal for a reasonably experienced vampire. You may not have seen him do all that, but believe me, he can. Some of them can also hypnotise people. What vampires can't usually do is the horror movie stuff; turning into bats or clouds of smoke and so on. The really bad news is that Dracula could do all of that..."

Buffy spent the next five minutes describing Dracula's strengths and weaknesses, ending "...so that's what we know about Dracula. Assuming that he made the brides, they may be able to do some or all of the same things. Sara was attacked at the studio an hour or so ago, and both of us saw them turn into bats, so they obviously have that power."

"I think they were trying to hypnotise me," said Sara, "but the cold water stopped it from working. If you hadn't arrived they probably would have had me."

"What Dracula liked to do was find someone in a position to spy on his target and hypnotise them, like Renfield in the Stoker book. He puts them in what they used to call thrall - I'm sure there's some fancy psychological term for it. Then the guy in thrall would report back, help to set up traps and so on. I think that's what they planned for you, if I hadn't interrupted. They'll probably go after someone else now. When Dracula came after me he managed to put me and one of my friends into thrall. It stopped me from telling anyone that he had bitten me, and made me go to meet him, my friend was completely under his control and became his spy. Had him eating bugs, just like Renfield. I think I'm immune to it now, trouble is there's no way I can give anyone else that immunity. And I doubt that there's any way to keep Dracula or his brides out of this building; even a bat could probably find a way in, if they can do the cloud of mist trick they'd just come in through the ventilation system. Mister Grissom, you suggested a way to make a vampire detector using your security cameras, I think you'd better try to make it work."

"Certainly," said Grissom, "I think I can handle most of it using web cameras and the computer network, if the department will let me spend a few hundred dollars on cameras and some other components."

"Let me have the receipts," said Brass, "I'll get it out of the anti-terrorism budget."

"What about our homes?" asked Catherine.

"They can't come in unless they're invited," said Buffy, "but you want to be really careful answering the door. If they're as good as Dracula they can just stand on the doorstep and put you in thrall, then get you to invite them in. We think Dracula got into our house that way, our mother was usually much more careful."

"I think we all have some sort of security system, if only a door viewer. We've all seen what happens to people who are careless. We'll just have to be alert."

"Buffy," said Dawn, leafing through a notebook, "You've been saying you killed Dracula two years ago."

"Yeah?"

"It is, almost to the day. The second anniversary is in two days."

"Okay... That probably means that they are planning some sort of revenge for that day - that, or they plan to bring him back to life. For that I'd guess they'd need my blood, it's usually blood. Or my entire body, of course."

"You don't seem too worried about it," said Catherine.

"Been there too many times before. All sorts of magical high-jinks need the blood of a Slayer."

"Why this year?" asked Grissom, "Why not on the first anniversary?"

"This time last year I was dead and buried."

"You were... dead?" asked Grissom.

"Welcome to the exciting world of the supernatural. I'm twenty-one and I've died twice so far, the first time it just needed CPR, the second time I was dead and buried for three months. My friends used some really powerful magic to bring me back to life, but it was a couple of weeks after the anniversary."

"But you're not a vampire or a zombie or anything like that?" asked Nick.

"No, just human, more or less."

"Do you remember anything..." began Nick, then noticed Dawn shaking her head in an urgent "NO!".

"It's okay, Dawnie," said Buffy softly, "The best answer I can give you is that I'm pretty sure that I was in Heaven, or something that felt like it. I felt peaceful, loved, happy, but I can't really remember anything more specific than that. Coming back to life... to my life, fighting demons... was horrible. It took me a long time to deal. But I'm okay with it now, I just can't really answer questions, 'cos I don't have the answers."

"Do you have any ideas on what they could be planning, other than a ritual?" asked Catherine, after a pause.

"Going by the horror movies I'd guess they've got some of his dust, maybe his coffin and grave earth, and plan to mix them with my blood. There's probably a whole lot of chanting involved, pentagrams, the usual sort of thing. The nearest thing I've heard to it was a ritual some evil lawyers used in LA a year or so ago, bought a vampire Angel had killed to life. Not just as a vampire, as a living breathing human. That used a lot of really powerful magic, I'd guess getting Dracula back as a vampire would be easier. In a few hours I'll phone someone in Britain who may be able to tell us more."

"The other obvious question," said Grissom, "is 'why here'? Why in Las Vegas? Until about a year ago we never saw any supernatural activity." Brass stirred in his seat and seemed about to comment, but said nothing. "Since then we've met Angel, Riley and his monster hunters, a wizard, Oz and other werewolves, now you and the brides of Dracula. I'm worried that it's going to become more of a problem as time goes by. Can you explain it?"

"So far as the Brides are concerned, I think it's simply that they came here after I killed Dracula, planning to return to get me the following year. It's far enough away that I'd be unlikely to run into them by chance, near enough that they can get to Sunnydale overnight and keep an eye on the place relatively easily. And I get an odd feeling here, the sort of feeling I get when someone is doing magic, I think it comes from all the gambling. Supernatural creatures can draw on that power, use it to make their lives easier."

"Angel said something about that," said Grissom, "I thought he was exaggerating."

"No. It's real, but you have to have a sort of sixth sense to spot it. I'd guess it's the same for most of these guys - they feel reasonably safe here, far enough from the Hellmouth to be out of my way, and out of the way of anything really nasty that happens around Sunnydale, but close enough that they can drop by easily if they have to, and magic to tap into if they want it. Remember, you're only seeing the bad side of things; there are probably plenty of others around that are harmless or even good, they just haven't made themselves obvious. I haven't had a chance to make my presence felt yet, tap into any information that's available. I'll probably take a look around a few bars and clubs later tonight, I don't need much sleep."

"Jim," said Grissom, "I think you were going to say something."

"Well, it's just that this isn't the first time this has happened. I was a patrolman the last time around, we had a vampire kill five over a two-week period. It was hushed up to avoid a panic."

"What happened?"

"Someone close to the governor knew how to contact the Slayer they had then, think she came in from New York. Stayed two nights, killed the vampire, left again. Never met her, never even learned her name, just heard rumours."

"About the way it usually works," said Buffy. "Incidentally, I hope you all appreciate that I really don't want any publicity. It'd make it impossible for me to do my job."

"Don't worry," said Brass, "Nobody is going to be talking, Grissom and I will take care of that."

"Fine."

"Can you suggest anything we should be looking for at the crime scene?" asked Grissom.

"Nothing beyond the obvious. We need to know where they're based, I think we've already guessed most of the rest."

"Agreed," said Grissom. "Nick?"

"The mailer was prepaid, with a premium for maximum speed," said Nick, "posted in a FedEx pickup box three blocks from the studio no later than eight this morning. You can buy them at any FedEx outlet. This one seems to have been sold by a branch of Mailboxes Etc., but we won't know which branch or when it was sold until tomorrow at the earliest. The ink is standard black Pentel, there are at least seven sets of prints on the mailer including both of you, I'd guess the rest are FedEx people but of course I'll check. There was some grass pollen inside the mailer, I'd say a fairly typical mix for almost anywhere in the Las Vegas area."

"Greg?"

"I have Buffy's fingerprints on most of the pictures and the card. There are smudges on all of the pictures; from what we know I'd say a vampire, since there were no oils left. One picture has a fairly good imprint fingerprint, I'd say left thumb, where someone touched the surface before it had hardened. It doesn't show up on any of the databases though."

"Keep checking. Warrick?"

"Same here, bunch of smudges plus prints matching some of the bodies. About all I can tell you is that there don't seem to be any human fingerprints I can't account for."

"Sara?"

"Well, assuming that the vamps didn't trash them after I left, I had some reasonably good footprint traces. They might have left more, of course. I'd prefer not to go back there tonight though."

"Agreed. Tomorrow, though, we hit that building with everything we've got."

"Including me," said Buffy, "it's just possible that they've gone to ground there, and you really don't want to disturb a sleeping vampire."

"Anything else?" asked Grissom. "No? Get a good night's sleep, everyone, we'll meet here at nine tomorrow."

Buffy said "One thing... Dawn and I left Sunnydale in a hurry, and we still haven't checked into a hotel. If you remember, we need somewhere fairly cheap."

Catherine looked embarassed. "I was going to offer you my spare room, but I have a young daughter, and I don't really want to make my house a target..."

"That's cool. Any suggestions then?"

"You could stay with me," said Sara. "I've got the room, and after this evening I'd really appreciate the company. I don't like the idea that they might want to.. er... thrall me, if I'm not alone it'd be harder for them to get to me."

"Well, if you're sure you can handle me and destructo-girl there..."

"Buffy!"

"...We'd be delighted. Ready, Dawn?"

* * * * * *

After the meeting Warrick stopped a few blocks from headquarters, went into a call box, and dialed a local number. "Mistress? They know who you are and what you plan... No, nothing yet... As you wish, mistress... They are staying with Sara Sidle, the address is..."

As he hung up the phone, a minute or two later, he grabbed a cricket that was crawling on the glass and stuffed it into his mouth.