Author: Bobby Cox smeghead_76@dodo.com.au
Disclaimer: Some of the characters are mine. Some aren't. The 'verse in which this is set, however, belongs to Peter F. Hamilton (the 'Night's Dawn' trilogy 'verse). There may or may not be characters and situations belonging to ME productions and the team that writes Buffy. I'm just covering my arse there. No money will be made from this, but if someone *thinks* it's good enough to make money, I'd be flattered :)
Summary: This is a parallel story to 'In Their Shadow' by rei_ite (and later on, myself), and provides back-story for Xander's activities on Earth. Basically, vampires and the Light Bringer sect - a Satanic cult (no, really!) - are starting to bump heads with each other in the Downtown section of the Los Angeles arcology. Normally, the authorities wouldn't pay too much attention to something like this.
However, when the fighting spills over to the Uptown sections...
AN: The follwing text formats will be used for datavises and affinity:
Affinity will be represented as such: AffinityDatavises will be represented as such:{Datavise}
'A significant minority, however, chose historical figures. A smaller minority chose creatures from ancient Earth legends.
'For some reason, vampires seemed to be a somewhat popular choice.'
- From 'A Preliminary Report On The Possession Crisis' (2612)
Los Angeles Police Department Precinct Headquarters
Sunnydale Dome, Los Angeles Arcology
29th May 2614
Captain Matthew Henderson continued his inspection tour of the headquarters, checking to see that everything was going smoothly. Well, as smoothly as it ever got in an arcology, anyway. With an officially estimated population of three hundred million - it was anyone's guess as to what the actual population of Los Angeles was - it was inevitable that the raw crime numbers, particularly in the Downtown districts, was going to be high.
Even with close to one hundred thousand officers, surveillance mechanoids and AIs, the LAPD couldn't be everywhere at once.
But the crimes being reported seemed to be along the lines of the usual patterns - gangs preying on gangs, petty theft, minor assaults with the occasional homicide - and officers were being dispatched to each crime scene within seconds.
As he turned to head back to his office, someone called out, "Sir?"
He turned to see the night shift's computer jockey signalling for his attention. "Yes, Officer Matthews?"
"Sir, the AI's spotted some sort of pattern in the recent spate of gang killings." She datavised a command to the AI's processor, which opened a channel to his neural nanonics. He closed his eyes as a series of images floated into his vision.
Each was of a body lying on the ground with its throat torn out and bloodstains all around it. Messy, but he'd seen worse in his fifteen years as a police officer. It was a pattern, if an obvious one.
Henderson refrained from comment, knowing that the AI wouldn't have flagged it, and Matthews wouldn't have brought it to his attention if that was all there was to it.
He was proved right with Matthews' next statement. "Every one of these bodies was completely drained of blood. That's speculation, sir, but it seems to be borne out by the fact that the bloodstains in the vicinity are nowhere near enough to account for the amount of blood in the average human.
"The victims don't seem to have been killed somewhere else and moved to their current locations, due to the lack of post-mortem lividity. In fact, there is no post-mortem lividity at all, which also bears out the theory that they were completely drained of blood."
Henderson, still with his eyes shut, nodded to indicate that he'd understood the information and agreed with the tentative conclusions presented by Matthews. "There's one more thing, sir." The images within Henderson's vision vanished, to be replaced with an image of a serpent emerging from a human heart. Broken chains hung from the heart, indicating that it had once been shackled. It seemed vaguely familiar to Henderson, but he couldn't precisely place where he'd seen it before.
"This was found tattooed on the back of the necks of all the bodies found, sir. It seems to be an insignia of some sort. I ran it through the AI, but it returned no firm matches."
Henderson dispelled the image and opened his eyes. "What do you mean, no firm matches?" he asked, shooting a hard look at Matthews.
To her credit, she didn't flinch or react at all. "Exactly that, sir. But there were some tentative matches, and the firmest of those were with the Light Bringer sects."
Henderson groaned in dismay. "Great. That's all we need. Something tells me that we're going to see a sharp increase in the body count."
"Umm, sir... that's not all," Matthews said hesitantly. "There are other sites where it seems that an abduction of some sort has taken place." This time, she called up the image on a screen where they could both study it. It was of an alley in some anonymous Downtown area, with some black marks mottling the walls...
No, they were the char marks left by thermal pulses. A lot of them. "The AI estimates between eight hundred and a thousand thermal pulses were fired, probably from a pistol-range weapon." Matthews paused before continuing. "And there is nothing to indicate that any of them hit a target."
Henderson was stunned. Even the worst shot in the Confederation should be able to hit something with a thousand shots. This case - he was already working out how to crack it - was getting stranger and stranger every second. He could already feel a headache building strength, seemingly immune from anything his neural nanonics could do. He turned and headed towards his office once more, already calling up the procedures from his neural nanonics.
****
Once he was in his office with the privacy field activated, Matthews sighed with relief. She hadn't run the insignia through the AIs data stores. She hadn't needed to.
She knew that it, indeed, was the insignia of the Light Bringer sects. She also knew exactly what the pattern of the killings was.
Vampire attacks. And the finger of blame was pointed firmly at the minions of a Master Vampire named Jonsson - which was about all that was known of him. Not even his age, or his current whereabouts could be pinned down with any accuracy. All that was known of his current location was that he was somewhere in the Sunnydale Dome but patrols, along with a few cobbled-together surveillance devices, had yet to turn up any information. Even their usually-reliable snitches had turned up a blank.
Being the chief computer jockey had some major advantages for her extra-curricular activities. For starters, she had unlimited access to the information gathered by police patrols and collated by the station's AI.
For another thing, she knew exactly how to get the information out to the relevant parties without being detected, as she had overseen the installation of the station's data security measures and left a number of untraceable means of sending data in the system. She retrieved a complex code from her neural nanonics and datavised it to the AI.
Her normal neuroiconic user interface vanished, to be replaced with a prompt, saying 'Welcome to the Slayerette Net'. She had done all the coding herself, of course, and that little rhyme at the end had been too hard to resist.
Matthews composed a short message; 'Cat, Jonsson's becoming more active. He - or his minions - is now starting to leave bodies where they are being found. I've got a bad feeling that something big is about to happen. Amanda'.
Attaching the AI's files, she sent the message and logged out of the system, making sure that no trace of her unofficial use remained. Another advantage of being the chief computer jockey.
Leaning back in her chair while her neural nanonics resumed normal monitoring duties, she wondered what was in store. She had been a Slayerette for nearly four years now, ever since when, as a rookie officer fresh from training, she and her partner had been attacked while on a fairly routine patrol in the Downtown sections.
Her partner had been killed, and Amanda had been left with injuries serious enough to remove her from street patrols. What had amazed her, though, was the fact that her attackers had been driven off by a girl Amanda's age, who had helped her into a sitting position leaning up against her patrol car.
"Are you all right?" her rescuer had asked, applying medical nanonics to the worst of her injuries.
"No," Amanda had stated flatly, the shock of seeing her partner brutally murdered in front of her still strong. Her composure hadn't been helped when she saw the strange piles of dust situated where there had been no piles of dust just a few minutes previously. Her eyes flicked from the dust piles to her rescuer. "What the hell just happened?"
There was a flicker of something in her rescuer's eyes. "You were attacked by a gang..."
"Bullshit," Amanda interrupted. "I may be a rookie, but I know that gang members tend not to explode into dust. What... happened?"
"I'm Cat, by the way," her rescuer said, presenting her hand and obviously hoping for a change of subject.
"Amanda. And don't try to change the subject."
"You're probably not going to believe this..."
"Cat," Amanda interrupted again, "currently news reports are flooding in about the souls of the dead returning to take over the living. I find that believable. Just tell me, and let me decide what to believe or not, okay?"
"Fine," Cat sighed. "You were attacked by vampires."
Amanda sat quietly for a few seconds. "Vampires," she repeated. "Fangs, glowing eyes, the whole 'I vant to suck your blud' thing, can be killed by a wooden stake..."
"To the heart." It was Cat's turn to interrupt. "Those vampires, yes."
"Oh." There was silence for a few seconds. "All right."
Cat was somewhat surprised by this. "You believe me that easily?"
"Why not? After all, people are being possessed by the souls of the dead, so why not this." Amanda paused, and appeared to come to a decision. "Need some help?"