Title: Demons Are My Business
Author: Sister Cuervo
Summary: AU BTVS-verse, the Neo-Noir . Xander is a hard-boiled PI in a Sunnydale
Bogart might recognize
Rating: R, for language and violent themes
Disclaimers: All hail the Joss, Capo of ME; I own nothing, just playing around
AN: Picture if you will, a separate reality, a Sunnydale drenched in the darkness of Film Noir, where femme fatales rule and an unforgiving universe plays with the innocent. Enjoy with the blues played on a wailing trumpet and an icy cold gin and tonic, mixed well and served with a twist.

Chapter One: Harris and Osbourne

I was in my office late Friday evening. The August heat was sweltering. My shirt was sticky and damp and I could see a little mist rising past my windows. They don't call this place Sunnyhell for nothing.

There's too much of everything in this town. Too many secrets, too many mixed-up people and, oh yeah, too many damned demons.

I'd been pouring out the bourbon since the cops left. One for me, one for my partner Oz. Oz wasn't here, so I'd had his, too. Oz wasn't here because he was dead.

I lit my last smoke and sucked down the dregs in my glass. All the ice was long gone, melted in the unnatural heat. Didn't matter how many drinks I'd had, though, it wasn't going to change anything. A demon had killed my partner in a filthy alley over in Demontown. The cops couldn't or wouldn't deal with it. Nobody wanted to. Damn it, I hated em, all of em.

I looked at my office door. On the glass I could see our names: Harris and Osbourne, Confidential Investigations. I suppose I'd need to get his name scraped off. Just like the cops scraped what was left of him off the pavement.

Me and Oz, we'd been pals back in L.A. when we'd worked on the LAPD crime scene detail. They used to call us the Odd Squad. We got the calls in the demonic side of town even then. We dealt with it, until we just couldn't take it any more. That's when we moved here, to a quiet little beach town. Opened up our little business. Quiet, easy and slow. Ha.

My partner, Daniel Osbourne. A smart, quiet guy and sly as a fox. A real wolf in sheep's clothing. He was real popular with the ladies, too. Liked all kinds of women: succubi, mer, faerie and were, that sort. His wife, though, now she was a real witch. Willow. A gorgeous red-headed handful of a sorceress. He loved her, I think, in his way. Wolves are like that, even were-wolves like Oz. Oz always figured he'd end up with a silver bullet courtesy of a jealous husband some full moon night. Not chewed up by some alley crawling low life and left to die. I swore I'd get it, whatever it was that did Oz in. He was my partner and I owed him.

TBC