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.
By Marcus L. Rowland
VIII
So Catherine Madison's soul flies off shouting that it'll have its revenge. After everyone gets over their surprise Buffy says "Can you track her down?"
"Maybe," says Willow, "but I think it'll be difficult. One soul in an entire town..."
"What about her magic? I thought she was really powerful."
"Was. Don't think she still is, it felt like getting trapped in the statue took most of it, and the pentacle did a pretty good job of draining what was left before she escaped."
"Talking of which," says Anya, "who's going to pay for the repairs?"
"Repairs?" asks Willow.
"Replacement tube for the pentacle, we'll have to get that blown by a craftsman if we can find one. If not, I'll have to sell it as non-working and it loses most of its value. And there's the broken window, of course."
Willow sighs and says "Get an estimate for the tube, if it's not extortionate I'll pay. There are a couple of companies that make specialised laboratory apparatus for the university, you could try them."
"And I'll fix the window," says Xander.
"Anyone else think we're losing focus here?" asks Buffy. "What about our escaped witch?"
"She might be able to possess an animal of some sort," says Willow, "a cat or a dog perhaps, but she's lost so much power she won't be capable of anything too serious. No more controlling people. Not any time soon, anyway."
"Okay, everyone be careful of animals. Willow, it'd help if you can find some way to trace her. Xander, it sounds like we might have to make our homes animal-proof. Could you check the screens and ventilators?"
"Sure, but it'll have to be tomorrow, I've still got some work to do this afternoon."
"Yeah. I'm sorry, guys, I really thought this would be the end of it, but I've got a feeling there's worse to come."
"Don't worry, toots," I say. "We can handle it."
"Says the dummy that got us into this mess. Don't suppose you know where she's hiding?"
"Nope."
"Is she going to possess something larger or smaller than a breadbox?"
I thought, then had to say "Sorry, not getting anything here."
"Damn. Okay, I've got to get some shopping, and Dawn, you wanted to go to the mall. Willow, you want to come with?"
"Give me a few minutes to clear up and I'm with you. I can think about a spell while I'm shopping."
"What about this slab and the trophy?" asked Anya.
"It's inert now," said Willow. "Give it a while to cool down, maybe you could sell it on eBay again."
"Formerly possessed cheerleading trophy... hmm, might be worth a few bucks. That's an excellent idea."
"Knock my percentage off what the tube costs."
"Well, I don't see..." Anya realises that Willow is starting to get annoyed, and says "okay."
"I'll pick up the slab and the tools later," said Xander, "when I come back to fix the window."
"What about Sid?" asks Dawn. "Sorry, Sid, but if I take you to the mall and any of my friends see you I'll have a lot of explaining to do, and they already think I'm weird."
"Oh," says Anya, "he could stay here and we could chat. Or find something else to do..."
"Just a second," says Xander hastily. "I just had a thought... uh... I'm gonna be driving around town most of the afternoon, maybe Sid'll sense something if he comes with me. Say we happen to pass a dog that's possessed or something."
"Why me in particular?" I ask.
"You're the guy plugged into the Powers that Be. Okay, so maybe they aren't being very communicative right now but maybe they just want you to give them something to work with."
"Or maybe you're being irrationally jealous again," chips in Anya.
"It's not irr... err, it's not jealousy. Just worried that we might lose time if we don't keep looking."
Behind him Buffy and Willow are trying to keep straight faces, Dawn isn't even trying.
"Okay," says Anya. "Go look with Sid. If I hear that any harm has come to him I'll know who to blame."
So they go off to the mall; I later hear the Slayer has to take out a couple of vamps that try to mug them in the underground car park about two minutes after they get there, but apart from that they have a nice afternoon shopping.
Xander and I hit the road and he takes me on a whirlwind tour of every depressing dust-blown construction site in Sunnydale. For a town that has such a high death rate there's quite a lot of new construction, and his company does most of it. Along the way he points out the sights; places where the Slayer and her friends killed vampires, demons, and other monsters, and places where their friends had died. The whole town's a frigging war zone. One time he stops at a derelict yard filled with old scrap metal, the remains of some sort of tower. "Up there is where Buffy was killed, the second time. Built by demons worshipping a mad hell-god. They wanted to sacrifice Dawn to destroy the universe, Buffy took her place to save it."
"Save the universe?"
"Yeah. All universes in fact, she was gonna bring it all down like a house of cards."
"What happened to the demons and the god?"
"We did. I got to hit her with a demolition ball."
"Nice work."
"Buffy and Willow did most of it, I was just adding to the damage. Anyway, not really much to see here, not since the top of the tower collapsed. Let's move on."
It's getting dark by the time we get back to the centre of town. We're a couple of blocks from the Magic Box when Xander slows, going past a small antiques shop that has a couple of police cars and an ambulance parked outside. There's a body being loaded into the ambulance. In Sunnydale I suspect that this is an everyday sight.
Anya is just closing the store when we arrive, and the Slayer and her friends are out back having a meeting. "Find anything?" asks Dawn.
Xander tells them about the antiques shop, and Willow goes off to hack the police computer and see what the score is.
"Sounds like a vampire attack, one male victim identified as George Fraser, owner of the shop. Lacerations to the neck and extreme blood loss. Must have come in from the back alley, it wouldn't get much sun in the afternoon. They think he was murdered around two this afternoon, the murderer locked the front door and the body wasn't found for a couple of hours."
"Why that shop?" asks Buffy, "what would a vampire want with the place?"
"Lunch, I guess, or maybe there was something it wanted to steal. It's one of the places I used to check occasionally for magical knick-knacks, it's amazing what you can sometimes find."
"Any stock missing?" asks Anya. "What about money?"
"Nothing mentioned," says Willow, "but that doesn't prove much. Oh, it says the security camera tape is missing."
"Any connection with our wandering soul?" asks Xander.
"It happened at least an hour before we released her, so I doubt it."
I suddenly get a very bad feeling, and say "There's a connection. Not sure what, but there's a connection."
"Was that the Powers?" asks Anya. "Crypric and unhelpful as usual, I suppose."
"Yeah."
"This sucks," says Xander. "Why the hell can't they just send us a fax?"
"Free will," says Willow, "if they tell us too much it takes away our flexibility."
"So a fax is out, but reanimated dummies are okay? No offence, Sid."
"None taken."
"That about sums it up," says Willow. "That, or they're lazy and incompetent, which would fit Anya's theory. Either way, this is what we've got."
"And when you've got lemons make lemonade," says the Slayer. "Okay, something bad is coming and we need to know what. It's vampire-related and involves antiques, maybe magical ones. Willow, we need to know if anything's gone missing from the shop. If nothing comes up on the police computers see if you can get into their catalogue, I'm pretty sure there's a web site. I'm going to check out the alley behind the shop, see how the vampire got in and if there's any sign of the security camera tape."
"What about us?" asks Xander.
"Research - when Willow has the catalogue we may not be able to tell what's been stolen, I want you guys to go through the list and see if anything looks suspicious. Anya, see if you can spot anything that has a demonic history or something. You all know the sort of things to look for."
"Oh, and watch out for magical or mystical artifacts, even if they're still in the shop," Anya says cheerfully, "with any luck there'll be a closing down sale."
"Be careful, Buffy," says Dawn.
"Always. Back soon."
Buffy comes back about an hour later, holding a plastic bag at arm's length, and says "Any luck with the computer search?"
"Nothing promising. Looks like typical antique shop stuff, didn't see anything that seemed relevant. How about you?"
"Got something... found a loose sewer manhole cover in the alley, went down and the tape was there."
"When you say there...?" says Xander, wrinkling his nose.
"In the sewage. Another glamorous incident in the life of the Slayer. There was a hose behind one of the shops, I got rid of the worse of it there, but I need a shower. The tape will have to be cleaned somehow before we can play it. Any ideas?"
"There's a cleaning spell," says Willow, "but it might wipe the recording. Best thing would be to get the tape spools out of the casing and rinse them with water, then industrial alcohol. After that I can try to dry them with a hair dryer."
"We've got some alcohol somewhere in the basement at home," says the Slayer. "Okay, who's for a video evening."
"Ooh," says Xander, "should I get popcorn?"
"This ought to be okay," says Willow a couple of hours later. "I think it's dry enough to play, and I don't think I hurt it cleaning it. Good thing you had the same brand of tape here, I'm not sure the reels are interchangeable."
"So long as it won't damage the VCR," says Buffy, "Whereabouts in the tape are we?"
"I'm not sure. I had to wind it backwards and forwards while I was cleaning it, didn't think to mark the position first."
"Let's hope that it ends after the murder, not before," says Xander. "We don't know if it was taken before or after."
"Probably after," says Willow, "I'm pretty sure that shop had the recorder behind the counter, even if it doesn't show the actual killing it ought to show who was in there up to the moment the tape was stopped."
She put the tape in the recorder and pressed play. A shop with several customers, there's a clock at the bottom of the screen showing a date a week ago and four in the afternoon.
"Wrong tape?" asks Anya.
"The casing was labelled Saturday, I think this is last Saturday," says Willow. "They probably reused the tapes on a weekly basis, this is the part that hasn't been recorded over yet. It's running at half speed to give an eight hour recording."
"So if you rewind it it'll suddenly jump from showing last week to this week?" asks Dawn.
"Should do. Let's try it. I'll take it back about three hours."
"This is so cool," says Xander, "it's like CSI. Don't think we've done this since the hell-hounds in high school."
"Okay," says Anya, "who else thinks Xander just jinxed us, remembering what came after that?"
"Hey, we beat the Mayor," says Buffy.
"And lost sixteen people doing it."
"Shush," says Willow, "I'm ready to start it playing again."
The same shop, guy behind the counter, nobody else in the shop, 1.32 PM today.
"Can you speed it up a little without damaging the tape?" asks Buffy.
"I'll try five times... seems to be okay. 1.33... 1.34... 1.35"
At 1.45 the guy behind the counter goes into the back of the shop, out of view of the camera, and is thrown out again. He lands on the floor. A dark-haired woman comes into the shop from the back, slaps him down to the floor again, then goes to a table and picks something up, then to the front door, locks it, and closes the blind. She turns to face the camera, and Xander says "Holy..."
At five times normal speed she goes back to the guy, vamps out, and drains him, then over to the counter. The tape flickers, then shows last week.
"Take it back to one forty-four then show it at normal speed," says Buffy, "Just want to be quite sure."
The same sequence, same vampire. She picks up something from a display of antique toys, locks the door, turns towards the camera. She's beautiful, and deadly as a snake.
"Drusilla," says the Slayer flatly. "She's back."
To Be Continued