Title: From Baghdad To Baghdad
Rating: R for violence, death, sex, language.
SPOILERS: THE GEM OF AMARA
BtVS 4.03 "The Harsh Light of Day"
BtVS 5.02 "Real Me"
AtS 3.01 "Heartthrob"
Disclaimer: All characters and places from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL are the properties of Joss Whedon and his Wacky Pals (tm).
Notes: This is the second story in the "Official Sponsor" series.
*************************************
August 2000
"Being a vampire sucks!"
Henry Baker wasn't crying like his sire was when *she* said it but his feelings were similar. He was one of her first minions, and, as expected, not her most valued.
Bad enough that he'd been bullied through most of elementary and high school for being a "nerd". Bad enough that he had to spend his senior year in a bunch of trailers because the Class of '99 and the demon mayor destroyed the high school. Now he had stupidly allowed his hormones to get the best of him.
They led him to believe that the lovely blonde who'd always looked right through him in high school suddenly found him attractive. She lured him from the Bronze to the alley, and he froze when he saw her demon face. The next thing he knew, he woke up in Harmony Kendall's cave lair and he was in her thrall . . . sort of.
Henry's goal to leave Sunnydale for an East Coast college in September was now dead. He'd loved books and learning almost all his life, and having his soul ripped away didn't entirely kill those feelings. But now he felt a new and unholy attraction for Sunnydale and he felt an unreasonable obligation to Harmony. Small but not utterly ignorable. He could abandon her if he really wanted to; he just didn't have a good enough reason to be somewhere else yet.
So while Harm and her more valued minion went on another hunt, his job was to clean up the lair. He found the dusty necklace where it had fallen, behind the dresser with the big mirror. [And why does Her Ditziness have a flippin' mirror in here anyway?]
He picked up the necklace and was surprised by its weight. [Real gold?! And this jewel doesn't look like some cheap imitation.] And he was surprised that he suddenly felt free again. His old hatred for Sunnydale and his new hatred for Harmony Kendall flooded into him like twin rivers. He wondered why he had felt so obliged to remain and do her bidding. He was still holding the necklace and wiping off the dust when he walked in front of the mirror and saw his reflection.
He dropped the necklace in surprise and his reflection immediately vanished. He picked it up again and his reflection returned, along with the will to get gone. For a second, he thought he was human again but he tried his demon face, and marveled that he could see himself as a vampire in a mirror. He placed the necklace around his neck, hid it inside his shirt and left the lair. Well, there was some vandalism before he left. Actually, a lot of vandalism. Harmony would not be pleased, no matter how successful her hunt, but it wasn't like she knew where he lived. [Hell, she can't even remember my name.]
Henry had been living in the garage since Nana came to live with them in the small house two weeks after he graduated. What had once been just one more reason to leave Sunnydale without looking back was now a blessing in disguise. He didn't need an invitation to enter his own SRO dwelling and since he'd only been missing two days, it hadn't been cleaned out by his parents. He still hadn't tasted fresh human blood yet, just the leftovers after Harmony and the other one almost drained them. After drinking a stray cat on the way home, he gathered up his most durable clothes and his hidden cash stash and placed them all into his knapsack.
He thought briefly of going up to the house, getting invited in and feeding off his family but he realized that her remaining minion probably did remember his name and could track him down if he stayed.
He picked up his sack and a tarp from the garage corner and walked toward the city limits.
The tarp kept the sun off as he slept through the day in the desert with his knapsack and most of his body buried under rocks and sand. He was going East as he'd long planned, college or no college.
He woke up to find the wind had still managed to blow the stone-weighted tarp partially aside and his naked left hand was basking in the setting sun. It wasn't burning. He slowly pushed back more of the tarp and stood up to watch the sunset.
Now he did cry a little . . . because being a vampire didn't suck anymore.
****************
The big man was almost staggering drunk. Still, he knew his way home. As he moved down the normally well-lit alley, he noticed that two of the street lamps were out. [Damn city maintenance crew! Don't they get paid enough?] The man just got paid himself. Which meant payday for someone else as well.
Henry dropped five stories to land six feet behind the prey with a solid *thud*. Ordinarily that'd sting for a few seconds but the Gem of Amara removed the sting immediately. He grabbed the drunk around his mouth and his waist and pulled him into the darkness. As always, he was quick and deadly, biting into the drunk's carotid artery and drinking long and deep.
Henry discovered during his time in Las Vegas that the only Gem "drawback" was he couldn't get high anymore. He didn't care about drugs, but he missed being able to get a good beer buzz going. Still, that meant he was invulnerable to another form of attack. As a vampire, he was already immune to microbiological attack. The Gem made him immune to all forms of chemical attack, including subtle ones like tranquilizers.
So the vampire, still stone sober after drinking the high-alcohol-content blood, rifled the corpse's pockets and quickly found the wallet. The prey had a nice assortment of credit cards. He ignored them and removed the cash. Four hundred dollars and change; not too shabby considering the man had already deposited most of his pay in the bank.
Henry pulled out a clean folded handkerchief and opened it to remove the glass shard he'd put inside. He carefully put the shard on the ground and used the handkerchief to wipe away his fingerprints from the wallet before replacing it to the pocket. He admired the man's ring but he didn't touch it, just like he hadn't touched the credit cards.
For a vampire, mugging was the perfect crime. It was like getting paid to eat dinner. All you had to do was be smart about it: don't use the credit cards; don't fence the jewelry. Even if Henry struck out in the cash department, he still got to feed. A vampire didn't need a weapon, being stronger than humans twice his size. And if he fed first, he didn't waste time dealing with the victim's protestations.
Henry picked up the shard and made practiced cuts to obliterate the fang wounds. He placed the shard in the handkerchief, wiped it to remove fingerprints, then broke it and scattered the pieces on the body. He took out his small can of lighter fluid and carefully doused the body, especially the hair, shirt collar and the neck wounds. He used his Bic lighter to set fire to the handkerchief and he placed the burning cloth on the body.
He then jumped straight up and grabbed the window ledge twelve feet above the ground. His climb back up to the rooftop was much faster than any human expert climber could have done. No fuss, no muss.
By now, every LVPD precinct had at least one of Henry's victims. The citywide task force was stymied, and they were feeling the heat from the public. [CSI, my ass!] He laughed, not for the first time.
Henry made it back to the dingy motel room he'd rented since he first walked into Las Vegas. It was cheap and far off the Strip, two advantages not to be underestimated. He pulled up the floor board to add half of tonight's take to his cash stash, keeping the rest for shopping. He was running low on beef blood in the minifridge, and he was also running low on Worcestershire and barbecue sauces. Animal blood provided basic sustenance, but there was no substitute for human blood when it came to taste and maximum power. The sauces went a long way in making his mostly beef blood diet bearable.
He couldn't go out and mug every night. There had to be planning and observation for the best victims, and there had to be timing. And he had to replace his mugging clothes regularly because his supernatural style of attack and escape put them through maximum wear and tear quickly.
It was also time to go looking for a Kevlar vest; he had more than enough cash by now to get a great model. The Gem made him invulnerable but it couldn't make itself invulnerable. A lucky gunshot would destroy his treasure, and him as well if it happened in daylight or other lethal circumstances.
Before he got to the outskirts of Las Vegas, Henry had learned a lot about the Gem of Amara. His desert experiments had taught him that, with the Gem, his Bic lighter couldn't burn him; crosses drawn in the sand and made of twigs and twine had no effect on him; a scratch from one of those twigs healed instantly; a deep pocket-knife cut to his arm healed with the same speed; jackrabbit blood tasted better and sweeter with the Gem than without it.
He boldly discovered that prying the chain loose from the pendant didn't affect the power of the Gem. The power was almost certainly in the jewel alone, but he didn't know for sure. Since separating the jewel from the gold setting might destroy the power, he had no intention of doing so. However the solid gold chain could be sold. It was now with the cash stash under the floor board.
In the desert, he slitted and pulled back the skin of his belly, placed the Gem inside the wound, and watched as it rapidly healed over and left an unsightly but unscarred bulge. It didn't show under his loose shirt and it didn't feel uncomfortable at all. His first week in Las Vegas, after he'd researched some anatomy in the public library, he used his pocket knife again, to relocate the Gem to where the medial segment of his right middle lung lobe used to be.
****************
Invincibility. Most vampires were cocky enough without true invincibility. He knew that cockiness could still get him killed. There wasn't a vampire in the world that wouldn't happily dismember him for his treasure. For that matter, so would any other demon and probably almost any human being. The jewel and gold were very valuable even without the enchantment; with it, the Gem was priceless.
The one thing he didn't know about and was in no position to test was decapitation. There are destructive tests and there are nondestructive tests. It doesn't get more destructive than beheading. Even if he survived --by no means a sure thing-- he couldn't know that he could piece himself back together.
"When in doubt, assume the worst-case scenario" was one good piece of advice his old man gave him. Henry figured the Gem was good for every weakness he tested for and none he hadn't tested yet. That left beheading as the biggie to be avoided at all costs.
He used to be a HIGHLANDER fan and now he pondered on fictional immortals who could only be killed by decapitation. He considered getting a new name. The old one didn't fit his new destiny.
After six months of feeding on Sin City, Henry Baker "died" in a dingy motel room and a new man boarded an eastbound 767 with new luggage containing a deluxe Kevlar vest packed among a new wardrobe, $32K in travelers' checks, and the best fake ID money could buy in Las Vegas. For the first time in his life and unlife, "Allan Newman" flew first class. He settled in Baltimore to plan the next stage of his life.
TBC
Rating: R for violence, death, sex, language.
SPOILERS: THE GEM OF AMARA
BtVS 4.03 "The Harsh Light of Day"
BtVS 5.02 "Real Me"
AtS 3.01 "Heartthrob"
Disclaimer: All characters and places from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL are the properties of Joss Whedon and his Wacky Pals (tm).
Notes: This is the second story in the "Official Sponsor" series.
*************************************
August 2000
"Being a vampire sucks!"
Henry Baker wasn't crying like his sire was when *she* said it but his feelings were similar. He was one of her first minions, and, as expected, not her most valued.
Bad enough that he'd been bullied through most of elementary and high school for being a "nerd". Bad enough that he had to spend his senior year in a bunch of trailers because the Class of '99 and the demon mayor destroyed the high school. Now he had stupidly allowed his hormones to get the best of him.
They led him to believe that the lovely blonde who'd always looked right through him in high school suddenly found him attractive. She lured him from the Bronze to the alley, and he froze when he saw her demon face. The next thing he knew, he woke up in Harmony Kendall's cave lair and he was in her thrall . . . sort of.
Henry's goal to leave Sunnydale for an East Coast college in September was now dead. He'd loved books and learning almost all his life, and having his soul ripped away didn't entirely kill those feelings. But now he felt a new and unholy attraction for Sunnydale and he felt an unreasonable obligation to Harmony. Small but not utterly ignorable. He could abandon her if he really wanted to; he just didn't have a good enough reason to be somewhere else yet.
So while Harm and her more valued minion went on another hunt, his job was to clean up the lair. He found the dusty necklace where it had fallen, behind the dresser with the big mirror. [And why does Her Ditziness have a flippin' mirror in here anyway?]
He picked up the necklace and was surprised by its weight. [Real gold?! And this jewel doesn't look like some cheap imitation.] And he was surprised that he suddenly felt free again. His old hatred for Sunnydale and his new hatred for Harmony Kendall flooded into him like twin rivers. He wondered why he had felt so obliged to remain and do her bidding. He was still holding the necklace and wiping off the dust when he walked in front of the mirror and saw his reflection.
He dropped the necklace in surprise and his reflection immediately vanished. He picked it up again and his reflection returned, along with the will to get gone. For a second, he thought he was human again but he tried his demon face, and marveled that he could see himself as a vampire in a mirror. He placed the necklace around his neck, hid it inside his shirt and left the lair. Well, there was some vandalism before he left. Actually, a lot of vandalism. Harmony would not be pleased, no matter how successful her hunt, but it wasn't like she knew where he lived. [Hell, she can't even remember my name.]
Henry had been living in the garage since Nana came to live with them in the small house two weeks after he graduated. What had once been just one more reason to leave Sunnydale without looking back was now a blessing in disguise. He didn't need an invitation to enter his own SRO dwelling and since he'd only been missing two days, it hadn't been cleaned out by his parents. He still hadn't tasted fresh human blood yet, just the leftovers after Harmony and the other one almost drained them. After drinking a stray cat on the way home, he gathered up his most durable clothes and his hidden cash stash and placed them all into his knapsack.
He thought briefly of going up to the house, getting invited in and feeding off his family but he realized that her remaining minion probably did remember his name and could track him down if he stayed.
He picked up his sack and a tarp from the garage corner and walked toward the city limits.
The tarp kept the sun off as he slept through the day in the desert with his knapsack and most of his body buried under rocks and sand. He was going East as he'd long planned, college or no college.
He woke up to find the wind had still managed to blow the stone-weighted tarp partially aside and his naked left hand was basking in the setting sun. It wasn't burning. He slowly pushed back more of the tarp and stood up to watch the sunset.
Now he did cry a little . . . because being a vampire didn't suck anymore.
****************
The big man was almost staggering drunk. Still, he knew his way home. As he moved down the normally well-lit alley, he noticed that two of the street lamps were out. [Damn city maintenance crew! Don't they get paid enough?] The man just got paid himself. Which meant payday for someone else as well.
Henry dropped five stories to land six feet behind the prey with a solid *thud*. Ordinarily that'd sting for a few seconds but the Gem of Amara removed the sting immediately. He grabbed the drunk around his mouth and his waist and pulled him into the darkness. As always, he was quick and deadly, biting into the drunk's carotid artery and drinking long and deep.
Henry discovered during his time in Las Vegas that the only Gem "drawback" was he couldn't get high anymore. He didn't care about drugs, but he missed being able to get a good beer buzz going. Still, that meant he was invulnerable to another form of attack. As a vampire, he was already immune to microbiological attack. The Gem made him immune to all forms of chemical attack, including subtle ones like tranquilizers.
So the vampire, still stone sober after drinking the high-alcohol-content blood, rifled the corpse's pockets and quickly found the wallet. The prey had a nice assortment of credit cards. He ignored them and removed the cash. Four hundred dollars and change; not too shabby considering the man had already deposited most of his pay in the bank.
Henry pulled out a clean folded handkerchief and opened it to remove the glass shard he'd put inside. He carefully put the shard on the ground and used the handkerchief to wipe away his fingerprints from the wallet before replacing it to the pocket. He admired the man's ring but he didn't touch it, just like he hadn't touched the credit cards.
For a vampire, mugging was the perfect crime. It was like getting paid to eat dinner. All you had to do was be smart about it: don't use the credit cards; don't fence the jewelry. Even if Henry struck out in the cash department, he still got to feed. A vampire didn't need a weapon, being stronger than humans twice his size. And if he fed first, he didn't waste time dealing with the victim's protestations.
Henry picked up the shard and made practiced cuts to obliterate the fang wounds. He placed the shard in the handkerchief, wiped it to remove fingerprints, then broke it and scattered the pieces on the body. He took out his small can of lighter fluid and carefully doused the body, especially the hair, shirt collar and the neck wounds. He used his Bic lighter to set fire to the handkerchief and he placed the burning cloth on the body.
He then jumped straight up and grabbed the window ledge twelve feet above the ground. His climb back up to the rooftop was much faster than any human expert climber could have done. No fuss, no muss.
By now, every LVPD precinct had at least one of Henry's victims. The citywide task force was stymied, and they were feeling the heat from the public. [CSI, my ass!] He laughed, not for the first time.
Henry made it back to the dingy motel room he'd rented since he first walked into Las Vegas. It was cheap and far off the Strip, two advantages not to be underestimated. He pulled up the floor board to add half of tonight's take to his cash stash, keeping the rest for shopping. He was running low on beef blood in the minifridge, and he was also running low on Worcestershire and barbecue sauces. Animal blood provided basic sustenance, but there was no substitute for human blood when it came to taste and maximum power. The sauces went a long way in making his mostly beef blood diet bearable.
He couldn't go out and mug every night. There had to be planning and observation for the best victims, and there had to be timing. And he had to replace his mugging clothes regularly because his supernatural style of attack and escape put them through maximum wear and tear quickly.
It was also time to go looking for a Kevlar vest; he had more than enough cash by now to get a great model. The Gem made him invulnerable but it couldn't make itself invulnerable. A lucky gunshot would destroy his treasure, and him as well if it happened in daylight or other lethal circumstances.
Before he got to the outskirts of Las Vegas, Henry had learned a lot about the Gem of Amara. His desert experiments had taught him that, with the Gem, his Bic lighter couldn't burn him; crosses drawn in the sand and made of twigs and twine had no effect on him; a scratch from one of those twigs healed instantly; a deep pocket-knife cut to his arm healed with the same speed; jackrabbit blood tasted better and sweeter with the Gem than without it.
He boldly discovered that prying the chain loose from the pendant didn't affect the power of the Gem. The power was almost certainly in the jewel alone, but he didn't know for sure. Since separating the jewel from the gold setting might destroy the power, he had no intention of doing so. However the solid gold chain could be sold. It was now with the cash stash under the floor board.
In the desert, he slitted and pulled back the skin of his belly, placed the Gem inside the wound, and watched as it rapidly healed over and left an unsightly but unscarred bulge. It didn't show under his loose shirt and it didn't feel uncomfortable at all. His first week in Las Vegas, after he'd researched some anatomy in the public library, he used his pocket knife again, to relocate the Gem to where the medial segment of his right middle lung lobe used to be.
****************
Invincibility. Most vampires were cocky enough without true invincibility. He knew that cockiness could still get him killed. There wasn't a vampire in the world that wouldn't happily dismember him for his treasure. For that matter, so would any other demon and probably almost any human being. The jewel and gold were very valuable even without the enchantment; with it, the Gem was priceless.
The one thing he didn't know about and was in no position to test was decapitation. There are destructive tests and there are nondestructive tests. It doesn't get more destructive than beheading. Even if he survived --by no means a sure thing-- he couldn't know that he could piece himself back together.
"When in doubt, assume the worst-case scenario" was one good piece of advice his old man gave him. Henry figured the Gem was good for every weakness he tested for and none he hadn't tested yet. That left beheading as the biggie to be avoided at all costs.
He used to be a HIGHLANDER fan and now he pondered on fictional immortals who could only be killed by decapitation. He considered getting a new name. The old one didn't fit his new destiny.
After six months of feeding on Sin City, Henry Baker "died" in a dingy motel room and a new man boarded an eastbound 767 with new luggage containing a deluxe Kevlar vest packed among a new wardrobe, $32K in travelers' checks, and the best fake ID money could buy in Las Vegas. For the first time in his life and unlife, "Allan Newman" flew first class. He settled in Baltimore to plan the next stage of his life.
TBC