Buffy drifted through the dark, rainy streets of downtown Metropolis like a ghost. The streets were full of people -- at least, they seemed full compared to Sunnydale streets. Sunnydale would never have these crowds on the sidewalks after dark, not even if the weather were lovely, which of course it usually was. Dozens and hundreds of people milled around with umbrellas, while the thunder rumbled intermittently. The lights of the city were so bright that the lightning barely showed. Weird. No one bothered her, or even looked straight at her. It was as if she weren't really there.
She wondered if Demon Ken's "Family Home" had a Metropolis branch.
LuthorCorp Tower was easy to find. It was the tallest building in Metropolis. The streets seemed to empty out as she got nearer, and Buffy knew why as soon as she stopped to look at it from the sidewalk right out front.
She could sense vampires in there.
Buffy had noticed the serious lack of vampire-y vibes ever since she'd woken up in these fugly pajamas. Vampires, rare in Kansas, check. But the sidewalk out in front of LuthorCorp Tower had that old familiar feeling, and normal humans with good sense (unlike residents of Sunnydale) tended to subconsciously avoid it.
The Slayer pushed on the main door. It was locked, but not for long.
There were two dead men in security guards' uniforms on the floor.
Buffy slipped to the side of the door, stake in hand. It didn't *feel* like there were any vampires right near here, say in the same room, but she knew it's never a good thing to stand silhouetted in a doorway. She followed the wall around to the corner of the reception area. There was another door ajar, and she went through it. More dead men, and blood on the floor.
Buffy felt better and more awake than she'd felt all day. She was starving and soaked, but now she had vampires to hunt and a trail to follow. Things were looking up.
***
Lex parked the Porsche in one of his father's reserved spots, and stepped out into the rain in front of Lionel Luthor's building. Superman swooped down out of the clouds and joined him.
"Anything?" Lex asked.
"I didn't see her anywhere," Clark answered. "Your dad must have his safe open, though. The one with all the kryptonite? I couldn't get anywhere near the upper floors of the tower and still fly. I haven't looked through anything higher than about floor sixteen."
"What did you see there?"
"I think most of LuthorCorp's on-site security guards are probably dead. There's a lot of people lying on the floor, in uncomfortable-looking poses. I didn't see anything moving around in there, but I think we've found where the vampires went."
Lex nodded grimly. Clark went on. "I may not be a lot of use in there until somebody gets that dang safe closed again. Let me go get Dawn, and maybe Pete. You still have those swords in your trunk?" Lex nodded again. "Okay. You wait here for us to get back. Don't go in all by yourself." Superman flew away.
Lex unlocked the trunk of his car. He had four swords there, now, complete with scabbards. He took one and buckled it around his waist under his long black coat. Then he closed the trunk, thought a minute, and left the key in the lock. He drew his pistol and checked it.
Then Lex went into the LuthorCorp Tower alone.
***
Buffy crept up the stairs of the tower. She'd already killed four vampires. She only had one stake left -- plenty, as long as she didn't have to throw it. She was sure there were no more undead below her. She had lost count of how many dead humans she'd found. The last blood trail led here.
Buffy quietly levered the fire door open a tiny bit, and slid through. She found herself in a richly appointed anteroom, with a beautiful reception desk at the far end. She recognized the vampire sitting at that desk. She had been one of the women in Luthor's private psych ward.
The cocky new vampire gave the Slayer a toothy grin. "I'm sorry, Mr Luthor can't see you now. He's in a conference."
Buffy didn't bother to quip. She didn't really have time, anyway. The vampire receptionist launched herself at the intruder, and practically impaled herself on the Slayer's last stake. Buffy was careful to pull it out in time not to lose it as the surprised vampire went to dust.
The door to the office beyond was ajar. There were voices coming from it.
"Ah, Slayer. How nice. Won't you step in?" She knew that voice.
Buffy found her bottle of holy water and carefully loosened the cap. She gripped her stake tightly and went to the door.
Lionel Luthor, somewhat roughed up, was seated in an ornate chair behind a massive desk with a huge window behind it. The desk had some file folders and papers and stuff scattered across it, and a couple of big bricks of green stone. One of the women from the lock-up was leaning over Lionel suggestively. She had red hair, and now that she was a vampire, she looked kind of gorgeous. If you overlooked the blood dripping from her mouth and the insane expression in her eyes, that is.
Speaking of insane expressions (although Buffy knew better than to look into her eyes for long), there was another vampire in the room. Buffy thought at first that she was wearing long red gloves, which would have fit right in with her demented fashion sense, but actually it was just that her hands were bloody to the elbows.
"Hey, Dru," Buffy greeted her.
***
Lex made his way carefully through the darkened office building. Someone must have cut the power at some point, he thought. Only the intermittent lightning and the dim orange emergency lights illuminated the bloody floors and corpses.
He kept his gun in his hand. He only had four shots; he hoped he'd be able to make them count. He'd found a big pile of dust on the fourth floor, in the Security Surveillance Center, and another one on the twelfth floor landing. Buffy must be here, somewhere. He hoped she was all right.
Lex's plan was to get to the lead-lined safe where the kryptonite was kept and close it. That should enable Superman to come in and back Buffy's play, assuming she was still alive. He knew he should've waited for help, as Clark had asked him to, but he couldn't. Suppose he waited just a moment too long, and Buffy were hurt or killed? Once you got started with this 'pick the world you want to live in' stuff, it was hard to quit.
Lex knew he had to be quick, careful, and quiet. If he was lucky, Buffy had taken care of all the vampires along the way. However, he was aware that this building held something that could be even more dangerous.
Lionel.
***
Buffy entered Lionel's office. Her stake was in her hand; her bottle of holy water was tucked into the back of her belt.
"So, Drusilla," Buffy drawled, carefully keeping their eyes from meeting, "what brings you to Metropolis?"
Drusilla swayed as if she could hear music or wind or something. She glided to the other vampire's side, and smoothed the red hair back from her brow. "This is my new little darling. Isn't she pretty?" The red-haired vampire looked away from Lionel long enough to smile adoringly at Drusilla.
Lionel attempted to take his chance to lunge for something at the edge of his desk -- probably a silent alarm button, Buffy thought. She could hear the bones crunch as her former cell-mate stopped the tycoon's desperate reach without even looking at him.
Drusilla went on as if nothing important had happened. "I owe you thanks for her, Buffy." Drusilla stopped petting the new vamp and danced back closer to the Slayer. Buffy set her back against the wall, but it turned out that Dru wasn't starting the combat yet after all. "I never would have noticed that cozy nest of poor lost starlings if you hadn't marked it for me. Thank you." Drusilla did a weird little head-bob thing.
"What do you mean?" Buffy tried to sidle around the edge of the room to get a little closer to the wounded human. Even though he was Lionel Luthor, it was part of her Sacred Duty to try to protect him.
"Your blood. You marked the spot with Slayer's Blood. I smelt it, felt it, found the place and my little darling asked me in. Such a sweet child, and cruelly done by. This bad daddy," Dru was at Lionel's side with incredible speed, skinny sharp-nailed hands fisted in his long hair, pulling. "This bad daddy," she went on, "stole my little darling's little darling from her. Rachel, poor Rachel, wailing for her children, and she found him, found him and lost him, and this!" Drusilla pulled two handfuls of hair from Lionel's head by the bloody roots, and threw it in the air, watched delightedly as it drifted to the floor like feathers, laughed and spun.
Suddenly, without warning, Dru was all business. Her face shifted, and Lionel's stifled cry let Buffy know that he hadn't realized these were monsters before. "Welcome to my world," Buffy thought. Dru was staring at Buffy with a laser-like intensity; it was all she could do to keep track of the vampire's approach without meeting her gaze.
"I had some others with me, too, and you've broken them all. Bad, naughty Slayer. You always break my toys, break everyone's good things and heads and hearts and minds. The broken things are sweeter, *he* said it once, but he lies and bleeds and dies. He does. This one, too. And you."
Drusilla was almost close enough to jump. Buffy tensed for the spring, but then the mad vampire drifted back towards Lionel and Rachel. "My poor little one, my sweet," Drusilla crooned at her progeny. "Look at him, how he bleeds." Both female vampires gazed at Lionel.
He tried to look in command of the situation, but no one was buying it, with the blood pouring from his nasty scalp wounds and his crushed right arm held at an extremely awkward angle. "I'm sure you're aware that I'm an extremely powerful man," he began, but Rachel didn't let him finish his negotiation. She grabbed his right arm in both of her hands and wrung it, like someone wringing out a washcloth. Lionel's guttural cry of pain made her laugh like a little girl.
Drusilla joined in the laughter. "Such a good game! Do it again!" she urged.
"Leave him alone, Dru!" Buffy shouted. "Look, I'm the one who messed up your family or whatever. Just come fight me!"
The two vampires turned on the bedraggled slayer with identical expressions of delighted interest on their suddenly-human faces. "Does this bad daddy belong to you? Is he your sugar-daddy? Mmmm. Sweet as thorns and blackberry. No! Bad Buffy shan't have him! Rachel's the one." Drusilla patted Rachel's shoulder approvingly. "Eyeballs first, dear," she advised. "They're just like sugar-plums."
Quick as thought, Rachel Dunleavy popped Lionel Luthor's eyeballs out of his sockets and into her mouth.
"So much for not throwing the stake," Buffy thought, and did. Rachel exploded into a burst of ashes before Lionel's scream had time to really get started. Vampire dust stuck to his bloody face.
"Noooo!" Drusilla wailed, and attacked.
***
Lex found the remains of another vampire in the vestibule on the LuthorCorp Chief Executive Office Floor. He stealthily unlocked the side door behind the guard station. Just as he was about to go to the storeroom to shut away the kryptonite, he heard a scream. It was coming from his father's private office.
Lex ran as quietly as he could, around the security checkpoints, through the secretary's office, up to the rear door of Lionel's office. He kicked it open and put his gun through, keeping as much cover as possible.
He saw Buffy, dressed in rags, engaged in furious combat with a dark-haired woman. They fought all over the office, knocking things over, occasionally crashing into his father, who was slumped in his chair, his face a mask of blood. Lex couldn't get a clear shot. He didn't know for sure whether or not the other woman was a vampire, although the fact that she was fighting the Slayer would seem to be a strong indication.
There were two big bricks of kryptonite on Lionel's desk; as long as those were there, closing the safe wouldn't do anything facilitate Superman's entrance. Lex kept his eyes on the combat while he picked his way over towards the desk. He planned to at least get the meteorite rocks out of there so that Clark could come help -- he'd seen Superman make short work of vampires before.
Lex hadn't quite made it all the way over to the desk when Buffy's fight suddenly came to a halt. The dark-haired woman had one thin hand twisted in Buffy's dirty head-scarf, and she was staring into the Slayer's eyes and murmuring. Buffy looked mesmerized, and she wasn't fighting.
"Let her go!" Lex yelled. He shot, and hit the woman in the shoulder. Her face shifted, and Lex was pleased at the proof that she was a vampire. His pleasure was short-lived, however; the vampire attacked him.
Unfortunately for Drusilla, Buffy had regained her senses. Dru barely had a chance to knock Lex's pistol to the floor and scratch his face before Buffy got out her soda bottle and dashed the contents onto her.
Drusilla screamed and writhed. Her skin bubbled as if she'd been doused with acid. Lex was able to pick his gun back up. He aimed as well as he could, and squeezed off a round. Missed the heart. Tried again, and got her.
Lex straightened up, with blood running down his cheek from Drusilla's nails. He holstered the gun. "One bullet left," he commented.
***
Pete hadn't been home, and Clark wasn't about to take the time to search for him. Even as it was, Lex was gone by the time he set Dawn down on the sidewalk in front of the Tower.
"Shoot!" Superman exclaimed. "I *told* him to *wait*!"
"The key's in the lock," Dawn said from the rear of Lex's car. "Guess I'll gear up." She picked out a sword, locked the trunk, and pocketed the keys. "Are you okay?" she asked Clark. "I mean, do you need to be farther away than this?"
Clark shook his head. "I can go a lot closer before it hurts. Flying is tricky, though. Maybe we'd better go in on foot."
Dawn fell in beside him as he went through the damaged door and walked past the dead bodies. Just two more humans he'd failed to save. Plenty more where they came from. X-ray vision showed him there were multiple bodies still lying around. How many people did Lionel Luthor have in here on a Sunday, anyway? Jerk.
Dawn put her hand on his arm when he went to push the elevator button. "I can see up to the sixteenth floor," he told her. "It's safe to use the elevator to get that far."
Lightning illuminated her face long enough for him to see her roll her eyes. "Power's out," she reminded him. "We have to use the stairs."
Clark felt dumb. "I'm blaming my stupidity on the kryptonite," he muttered.
Dawn gave his arm a little squeeze. "That's right; you're normally very smart." It was nice of her not to mention that the kryptonite was about thirty floors up from here.
They headed up the stairs.
Clark really started to notice the effect of the meteor rocks at about the fifteenth floor. Luthor must have a ton of the stuff. It made him worry about Lex, too. If all had gone well, Lex's first plan would have been to get the safe closed. Clark hoped he and Buffy were all right. He didn't really care if Lionel was or not, although he was well enough brought-up to feel a little guilty about that.
By the time Dawn and Clark got to the twenty-seventh floor, they were both flagging a little. Dawn was breathing hard, maybe more from the continual alertness she was maintaining than just from climbing the stairs. Clark was glad she was paying attention to their surroundings, because he was really starting to lose it. He had to lean on the walls to keep climbing the stairs, and he let Dawn lead the way and just followed the gleam of her hair in the scary corpse-filled orange dimness.
Suddenly Clark felt fine. Lex must have gotten the kryptonite stowed away. Superman grabbed Dawn (she squeaked, but didn't drop her sword) and zoomed up the stairwell.
***
When Clark grabbed her and zipped up the stairs at super-speed, Dawn knew that somebody must have put the kryptonite away. He'd really been starting to look sick before, and it just made her mad that Chloe's doggone *news* might have made that a common future occurrence for the young superhero.
Clark set her down in a fancy office. There was sort of a lot of dust all around -- at least two vamps' worth, Dawn figured. An older man was bleeding in a chair. Lex was on the phone. Buffy was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. She looked ragged and dirty and very blank. Dawn went and crouched down next to her.
"Yes, LuthorCorp Tower. Thirty-fifth floor. We need an ambulance right away. Yes, I'm aware that I was also involved in an emergency last night. Is the ambulance on its way? Fine." Lex slammed shut his phone. Clark was over there with him and the wounded guy -- Lex's dad?
Dawn didn't pay them much attention. Buffy looked bad. "Buffy?" Dawn asked. She put Lex's sword down on the carpet and touched her sister's face. It felt cold. "Buffy," she repeated.
Buffy took a deep breath, and then her eyes focused. "Dawn?" she asked. She looked really confused, which wasn't surprising. If what Lex had told them was right, she'd been kidnapped and drugged and God knows what else.
Dawn smiled at her. "Yeah, it's me. What happened?"
Buffy rolled her shoulders, took the filthy rag out of her hair, and smiled. It was nice to see. "Oh, you know, the usual. Pretty sure I lost another job."
Dawn was able to laugh at that. "Willow e-mailed me," she told her. "You're not wanted by the authorities anymore. She said as long as she was wiping out commitment records, she got rid of the first set as well."
"Good," Buffy said. She stood up, so Dawn did, too. "You know," Buffy confided, "I'm usually really grateful to those monks. But not for that."
Dawn hugged her sister. It was disturbing to feel how thin she was, and Dawn didn't really like the way Buffy rested all her weight against her.
"Cl, er, Superman?" Dawn asked.
The costumed crime-fighter turned away from stanching Lionel's bloody wounds with his cape and looked at her.
"I don't think Buffy needs to be here when the police arrive. I don't think she's up to talking with them. Can you take her somewhere else, please?"
"Sure. What about you, though?"
"I'm fine." Lex didn't look like leaving him here all alone to deal with everything would be too good, either. "I'll stay with Lex, and you can call us later."
Buffy allowed herself to be handed over to Superman without any argument, and Dawn got worried again. She looked so tiny in his arms. Clark whisked them away, out to the stairs and presumably up to the roof and awwaaay.
Lex was staring at the old man with a peculiar expression of loathing mixed with concern.
"Are you okay, Lex?" Dawn asked.
"Hmm? Yes." He absent-mindedly wiped blood from his face with his bandaged right arm. "Where's that ambulance?"
"I'm sure they'll be here soon. There'll probably be cops with them. Do we have a story planned out? We can't tell them it was vampires."
"Rachel Dunleavy," the old man rasped.
"What's that, Dad?" Lex asked.
"She was here," Mr. Luthor said; then he stilled. Dawn hoped he was unconscious.
"We'll tell them the truth, except for the vampires," Lex decided. "Escaped mental patients, with a grudge against my father, killed his guards and gouged his eyes out. How sure are you that Buffy's name is clear in that regard? How good is this Willow?"
"She's the best," Dawn assured him. "If she can't fix it, no one can. Literally. She almost destroyed the world once."
Lex just nodded. He didn't look particularly reassured.
"We'll tell them that when we got here, Superman was just chasing them away. He threw off his cape and told us to take care of your dad, and went after them. We'll leave out Buffy and the kryptonite entirely."
Lex almost smiled at her. "You have quite the talent for lying."
"Lying, locks and languages. Gifts from the Old Country." Dawn shrugged.
Lex felt the pulse at his father's un-mangled left wrist and looked thoughtful. "I really need to make him some armor."
Dawn knew just what he meant. "Yeah," she agreed. "You know, according to legend, St. George had lead armor. Written all over with spells of protection and stuff."
"I know," Lex smiled.
They waited quietly for the police and paramedics to show up.
***
She wondered if Demon Ken's "Family Home" had a Metropolis branch.
LuthorCorp Tower was easy to find. It was the tallest building in Metropolis. The streets seemed to empty out as she got nearer, and Buffy knew why as soon as she stopped to look at it from the sidewalk right out front.
She could sense vampires in there.
Buffy had noticed the serious lack of vampire-y vibes ever since she'd woken up in these fugly pajamas. Vampires, rare in Kansas, check. But the sidewalk out in front of LuthorCorp Tower had that old familiar feeling, and normal humans with good sense (unlike residents of Sunnydale) tended to subconsciously avoid it.
The Slayer pushed on the main door. It was locked, but not for long.
There were two dead men in security guards' uniforms on the floor.
Buffy slipped to the side of the door, stake in hand. It didn't *feel* like there were any vampires right near here, say in the same room, but she knew it's never a good thing to stand silhouetted in a doorway. She followed the wall around to the corner of the reception area. There was another door ajar, and she went through it. More dead men, and blood on the floor.
Buffy felt better and more awake than she'd felt all day. She was starving and soaked, but now she had vampires to hunt and a trail to follow. Things were looking up.
***
Lex parked the Porsche in one of his father's reserved spots, and stepped out into the rain in front of Lionel Luthor's building. Superman swooped down out of the clouds and joined him.
"Anything?" Lex asked.
"I didn't see her anywhere," Clark answered. "Your dad must have his safe open, though. The one with all the kryptonite? I couldn't get anywhere near the upper floors of the tower and still fly. I haven't looked through anything higher than about floor sixteen."
"What did you see there?"
"I think most of LuthorCorp's on-site security guards are probably dead. There's a lot of people lying on the floor, in uncomfortable-looking poses. I didn't see anything moving around in there, but I think we've found where the vampires went."
Lex nodded grimly. Clark went on. "I may not be a lot of use in there until somebody gets that dang safe closed again. Let me go get Dawn, and maybe Pete. You still have those swords in your trunk?" Lex nodded again. "Okay. You wait here for us to get back. Don't go in all by yourself." Superman flew away.
Lex unlocked the trunk of his car. He had four swords there, now, complete with scabbards. He took one and buckled it around his waist under his long black coat. Then he closed the trunk, thought a minute, and left the key in the lock. He drew his pistol and checked it.
Then Lex went into the LuthorCorp Tower alone.
***
Buffy crept up the stairs of the tower. She'd already killed four vampires. She only had one stake left -- plenty, as long as she didn't have to throw it. She was sure there were no more undead below her. She had lost count of how many dead humans she'd found. The last blood trail led here.
Buffy quietly levered the fire door open a tiny bit, and slid through. She found herself in a richly appointed anteroom, with a beautiful reception desk at the far end. She recognized the vampire sitting at that desk. She had been one of the women in Luthor's private psych ward.
The cocky new vampire gave the Slayer a toothy grin. "I'm sorry, Mr Luthor can't see you now. He's in a conference."
Buffy didn't bother to quip. She didn't really have time, anyway. The vampire receptionist launched herself at the intruder, and practically impaled herself on the Slayer's last stake. Buffy was careful to pull it out in time not to lose it as the surprised vampire went to dust.
The door to the office beyond was ajar. There were voices coming from it.
"Ah, Slayer. How nice. Won't you step in?" She knew that voice.
Buffy found her bottle of holy water and carefully loosened the cap. She gripped her stake tightly and went to the door.
Lionel Luthor, somewhat roughed up, was seated in an ornate chair behind a massive desk with a huge window behind it. The desk had some file folders and papers and stuff scattered across it, and a couple of big bricks of green stone. One of the women from the lock-up was leaning over Lionel suggestively. She had red hair, and now that she was a vampire, she looked kind of gorgeous. If you overlooked the blood dripping from her mouth and the insane expression in her eyes, that is.
Speaking of insane expressions (although Buffy knew better than to look into her eyes for long), there was another vampire in the room. Buffy thought at first that she was wearing long red gloves, which would have fit right in with her demented fashion sense, but actually it was just that her hands were bloody to the elbows.
"Hey, Dru," Buffy greeted her.
***
Lex made his way carefully through the darkened office building. Someone must have cut the power at some point, he thought. Only the intermittent lightning and the dim orange emergency lights illuminated the bloody floors and corpses.
He kept his gun in his hand. He only had four shots; he hoped he'd be able to make them count. He'd found a big pile of dust on the fourth floor, in the Security Surveillance Center, and another one on the twelfth floor landing. Buffy must be here, somewhere. He hoped she was all right.
Lex's plan was to get to the lead-lined safe where the kryptonite was kept and close it. That should enable Superman to come in and back Buffy's play, assuming she was still alive. He knew he should've waited for help, as Clark had asked him to, but he couldn't. Suppose he waited just a moment too long, and Buffy were hurt or killed? Once you got started with this 'pick the world you want to live in' stuff, it was hard to quit.
Lex knew he had to be quick, careful, and quiet. If he was lucky, Buffy had taken care of all the vampires along the way. However, he was aware that this building held something that could be even more dangerous.
Lionel.
***
Buffy entered Lionel's office. Her stake was in her hand; her bottle of holy water was tucked into the back of her belt.
"So, Drusilla," Buffy drawled, carefully keeping their eyes from meeting, "what brings you to Metropolis?"
Drusilla swayed as if she could hear music or wind or something. She glided to the other vampire's side, and smoothed the red hair back from her brow. "This is my new little darling. Isn't she pretty?" The red-haired vampire looked away from Lionel long enough to smile adoringly at Drusilla.
Lionel attempted to take his chance to lunge for something at the edge of his desk -- probably a silent alarm button, Buffy thought. She could hear the bones crunch as her former cell-mate stopped the tycoon's desperate reach without even looking at him.
Drusilla went on as if nothing important had happened. "I owe you thanks for her, Buffy." Drusilla stopped petting the new vamp and danced back closer to the Slayer. Buffy set her back against the wall, but it turned out that Dru wasn't starting the combat yet after all. "I never would have noticed that cozy nest of poor lost starlings if you hadn't marked it for me. Thank you." Drusilla did a weird little head-bob thing.
"What do you mean?" Buffy tried to sidle around the edge of the room to get a little closer to the wounded human. Even though he was Lionel Luthor, it was part of her Sacred Duty to try to protect him.
"Your blood. You marked the spot with Slayer's Blood. I smelt it, felt it, found the place and my little darling asked me in. Such a sweet child, and cruelly done by. This bad daddy," Dru was at Lionel's side with incredible speed, skinny sharp-nailed hands fisted in his long hair, pulling. "This bad daddy," she went on, "stole my little darling's little darling from her. Rachel, poor Rachel, wailing for her children, and she found him, found him and lost him, and this!" Drusilla pulled two handfuls of hair from Lionel's head by the bloody roots, and threw it in the air, watched delightedly as it drifted to the floor like feathers, laughed and spun.
Suddenly, without warning, Dru was all business. Her face shifted, and Lionel's stifled cry let Buffy know that he hadn't realized these were monsters before. "Welcome to my world," Buffy thought. Dru was staring at Buffy with a laser-like intensity; it was all she could do to keep track of the vampire's approach without meeting her gaze.
"I had some others with me, too, and you've broken them all. Bad, naughty Slayer. You always break my toys, break everyone's good things and heads and hearts and minds. The broken things are sweeter, *he* said it once, but he lies and bleeds and dies. He does. This one, too. And you."
Drusilla was almost close enough to jump. Buffy tensed for the spring, but then the mad vampire drifted back towards Lionel and Rachel. "My poor little one, my sweet," Drusilla crooned at her progeny. "Look at him, how he bleeds." Both female vampires gazed at Lionel.
He tried to look in command of the situation, but no one was buying it, with the blood pouring from his nasty scalp wounds and his crushed right arm held at an extremely awkward angle. "I'm sure you're aware that I'm an extremely powerful man," he began, but Rachel didn't let him finish his negotiation. She grabbed his right arm in both of her hands and wrung it, like someone wringing out a washcloth. Lionel's guttural cry of pain made her laugh like a little girl.
Drusilla joined in the laughter. "Such a good game! Do it again!" she urged.
"Leave him alone, Dru!" Buffy shouted. "Look, I'm the one who messed up your family or whatever. Just come fight me!"
The two vampires turned on the bedraggled slayer with identical expressions of delighted interest on their suddenly-human faces. "Does this bad daddy belong to you? Is he your sugar-daddy? Mmmm. Sweet as thorns and blackberry. No! Bad Buffy shan't have him! Rachel's the one." Drusilla patted Rachel's shoulder approvingly. "Eyeballs first, dear," she advised. "They're just like sugar-plums."
Quick as thought, Rachel Dunleavy popped Lionel Luthor's eyeballs out of his sockets and into her mouth.
"So much for not throwing the stake," Buffy thought, and did. Rachel exploded into a burst of ashes before Lionel's scream had time to really get started. Vampire dust stuck to his bloody face.
"Noooo!" Drusilla wailed, and attacked.
***
Lex found the remains of another vampire in the vestibule on the LuthorCorp Chief Executive Office Floor. He stealthily unlocked the side door behind the guard station. Just as he was about to go to the storeroom to shut away the kryptonite, he heard a scream. It was coming from his father's private office.
Lex ran as quietly as he could, around the security checkpoints, through the secretary's office, up to the rear door of Lionel's office. He kicked it open and put his gun through, keeping as much cover as possible.
He saw Buffy, dressed in rags, engaged in furious combat with a dark-haired woman. They fought all over the office, knocking things over, occasionally crashing into his father, who was slumped in his chair, his face a mask of blood. Lex couldn't get a clear shot. He didn't know for sure whether or not the other woman was a vampire, although the fact that she was fighting the Slayer would seem to be a strong indication.
There were two big bricks of kryptonite on Lionel's desk; as long as those were there, closing the safe wouldn't do anything facilitate Superman's entrance. Lex kept his eyes on the combat while he picked his way over towards the desk. He planned to at least get the meteorite rocks out of there so that Clark could come help -- he'd seen Superman make short work of vampires before.
Lex hadn't quite made it all the way over to the desk when Buffy's fight suddenly came to a halt. The dark-haired woman had one thin hand twisted in Buffy's dirty head-scarf, and she was staring into the Slayer's eyes and murmuring. Buffy looked mesmerized, and she wasn't fighting.
"Let her go!" Lex yelled. He shot, and hit the woman in the shoulder. Her face shifted, and Lex was pleased at the proof that she was a vampire. His pleasure was short-lived, however; the vampire attacked him.
Unfortunately for Drusilla, Buffy had regained her senses. Dru barely had a chance to knock Lex's pistol to the floor and scratch his face before Buffy got out her soda bottle and dashed the contents onto her.
Drusilla screamed and writhed. Her skin bubbled as if she'd been doused with acid. Lex was able to pick his gun back up. He aimed as well as he could, and squeezed off a round. Missed the heart. Tried again, and got her.
Lex straightened up, with blood running down his cheek from Drusilla's nails. He holstered the gun. "One bullet left," he commented.
***
Pete hadn't been home, and Clark wasn't about to take the time to search for him. Even as it was, Lex was gone by the time he set Dawn down on the sidewalk in front of the Tower.
"Shoot!" Superman exclaimed. "I *told* him to *wait*!"
"The key's in the lock," Dawn said from the rear of Lex's car. "Guess I'll gear up." She picked out a sword, locked the trunk, and pocketed the keys. "Are you okay?" she asked Clark. "I mean, do you need to be farther away than this?"
Clark shook his head. "I can go a lot closer before it hurts. Flying is tricky, though. Maybe we'd better go in on foot."
Dawn fell in beside him as he went through the damaged door and walked past the dead bodies. Just two more humans he'd failed to save. Plenty more where they came from. X-ray vision showed him there were multiple bodies still lying around. How many people did Lionel Luthor have in here on a Sunday, anyway? Jerk.
Dawn put her hand on his arm when he went to push the elevator button. "I can see up to the sixteenth floor," he told her. "It's safe to use the elevator to get that far."
Lightning illuminated her face long enough for him to see her roll her eyes. "Power's out," she reminded him. "We have to use the stairs."
Clark felt dumb. "I'm blaming my stupidity on the kryptonite," he muttered.
Dawn gave his arm a little squeeze. "That's right; you're normally very smart." It was nice of her not to mention that the kryptonite was about thirty floors up from here.
They headed up the stairs.
Clark really started to notice the effect of the meteor rocks at about the fifteenth floor. Luthor must have a ton of the stuff. It made him worry about Lex, too. If all had gone well, Lex's first plan would have been to get the safe closed. Clark hoped he and Buffy were all right. He didn't really care if Lionel was or not, although he was well enough brought-up to feel a little guilty about that.
By the time Dawn and Clark got to the twenty-seventh floor, they were both flagging a little. Dawn was breathing hard, maybe more from the continual alertness she was maintaining than just from climbing the stairs. Clark was glad she was paying attention to their surroundings, because he was really starting to lose it. He had to lean on the walls to keep climbing the stairs, and he let Dawn lead the way and just followed the gleam of her hair in the scary corpse-filled orange dimness.
Suddenly Clark felt fine. Lex must have gotten the kryptonite stowed away. Superman grabbed Dawn (she squeaked, but didn't drop her sword) and zoomed up the stairwell.
***
When Clark grabbed her and zipped up the stairs at super-speed, Dawn knew that somebody must have put the kryptonite away. He'd really been starting to look sick before, and it just made her mad that Chloe's doggone *news* might have made that a common future occurrence for the young superhero.
Clark set her down in a fancy office. There was sort of a lot of dust all around -- at least two vamps' worth, Dawn figured. An older man was bleeding in a chair. Lex was on the phone. Buffy was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. She looked ragged and dirty and very blank. Dawn went and crouched down next to her.
"Yes, LuthorCorp Tower. Thirty-fifth floor. We need an ambulance right away. Yes, I'm aware that I was also involved in an emergency last night. Is the ambulance on its way? Fine." Lex slammed shut his phone. Clark was over there with him and the wounded guy -- Lex's dad?
Dawn didn't pay them much attention. Buffy looked bad. "Buffy?" Dawn asked. She put Lex's sword down on the carpet and touched her sister's face. It felt cold. "Buffy," she repeated.
Buffy took a deep breath, and then her eyes focused. "Dawn?" she asked. She looked really confused, which wasn't surprising. If what Lex had told them was right, she'd been kidnapped and drugged and God knows what else.
Dawn smiled at her. "Yeah, it's me. What happened?"
Buffy rolled her shoulders, took the filthy rag out of her hair, and smiled. It was nice to see. "Oh, you know, the usual. Pretty sure I lost another job."
Dawn was able to laugh at that. "Willow e-mailed me," she told her. "You're not wanted by the authorities anymore. She said as long as she was wiping out commitment records, she got rid of the first set as well."
"Good," Buffy said. She stood up, so Dawn did, too. "You know," Buffy confided, "I'm usually really grateful to those monks. But not for that."
Dawn hugged her sister. It was disturbing to feel how thin she was, and Dawn didn't really like the way Buffy rested all her weight against her.
"Cl, er, Superman?" Dawn asked.
The costumed crime-fighter turned away from stanching Lionel's bloody wounds with his cape and looked at her.
"I don't think Buffy needs to be here when the police arrive. I don't think she's up to talking with them. Can you take her somewhere else, please?"
"Sure. What about you, though?"
"I'm fine." Lex didn't look like leaving him here all alone to deal with everything would be too good, either. "I'll stay with Lex, and you can call us later."
Buffy allowed herself to be handed over to Superman without any argument, and Dawn got worried again. She looked so tiny in his arms. Clark whisked them away, out to the stairs and presumably up to the roof and awwaaay.
Lex was staring at the old man with a peculiar expression of loathing mixed with concern.
"Are you okay, Lex?" Dawn asked.
"Hmm? Yes." He absent-mindedly wiped blood from his face with his bandaged right arm. "Where's that ambulance?"
"I'm sure they'll be here soon. There'll probably be cops with them. Do we have a story planned out? We can't tell them it was vampires."
"Rachel Dunleavy," the old man rasped.
"What's that, Dad?" Lex asked.
"She was here," Mr. Luthor said; then he stilled. Dawn hoped he was unconscious.
"We'll tell them the truth, except for the vampires," Lex decided. "Escaped mental patients, with a grudge against my father, killed his guards and gouged his eyes out. How sure are you that Buffy's name is clear in that regard? How good is this Willow?"
"She's the best," Dawn assured him. "If she can't fix it, no one can. Literally. She almost destroyed the world once."
Lex just nodded. He didn't look particularly reassured.
"We'll tell them that when we got here, Superman was just chasing them away. He threw off his cape and told us to take care of your dad, and went after them. We'll leave out Buffy and the kryptonite entirely."
Lex almost smiled at her. "You have quite the talent for lying."
"Lying, locks and languages. Gifts from the Old Country." Dawn shrugged.
Lex felt the pulse at his father's un-mangled left wrist and looked thoughtful. "I really need to make him some armor."
Dawn knew just what he meant. "Yeah," she agreed. "You know, according to legend, St. George had lead armor. Written all over with spells of protection and stuff."
"I know," Lex smiled.
They waited quietly for the police and paramedics to show up.
***