Chapter 8
9:17 pm
Buffy had faced a lot of horrible things over the past seven years: from a vampire so old his hands were cloven, to a hellgod who had seemed invincible, to the incarnation of evil itself. And though she had felt a lot of things, fear was relatively low on the meter. Normally when she was fighting the spirit of the warrior took over her body so completely that she felt balanced. If it hadn't she probably would have died in her first battle.
Facing death and the destruction of the world had been such constants that they didn't phase her. But that didn't mean that she had never been afraid over the past seven years. Oh no. When her mother had gone into the hospital for the first time, she had been afraid. When they had told her that the growth in her mother's head was a tumor, she had been afraid. And it had cost her. If hadn't been for Spike, that interstellar snot monster might have killed her. And when Glory had discovered that her sister was the Key, Buffy had been very nearly brought to her knees. She had never run from a fight before, but at the idea of losing her sister her only impulse had been to run and hide. Her grief and panic had nearly paralyzed her -- and that time it did kill her. Ever since she had come back from wherever she had been while dead, some part of her had one principle in the back of her mind: Protect Dawn. Eventually she had realized that her sister was independent and capable of handling herself in the field, so Buffy had managed to push that fear into the background. But it had never gone away.
She didn't know if knowing of Windom Earle and Dale Cooper's killing spree would have brought out the fear no matter what -- after all, something in her had gone funky when she had heard the ages of the murdered girls -- but she knew what had really started it.
Going through some of the papers Buffy had run across a picture of Teresa Banks, Bob's first real victim, pre-murder. She was attractive though plain. Not the kind of girl that you would look twice at. But Buffy had found herself staring at it. Maybe it was the hair or the eyes or just the fact that she was seventeen. But for some reason she had seen something that reminded her of Dawn.
She had made a silent promise: Whatever had killed those girls, man or monster, it would not touch Dawn. She had considered pulling rank and telling Dawn to go home -- especially after seeing her reaction to the killings -- but knew that she couldn't order Dawn to do anything.
Buffy had asked her if she was alright to do this. Dawn had thought about it for a few seconds -- long enough to give Buffy hope -- but she finally shook her head. "I can't just go home and hide under my bed when people are being hurt." Buffy would have argued, but she knew that she would have said the same.
So she had done her best to keep Dawn out of it -- until Giles had been shot. That had changed the target of her fear and anger. And it lasted a long time -- right until Mike had taken the group back to Wolfram & Hart. Then the panic and alarm had begun to rise -- but not enough to quell her rage. She had actually been relieved to hear that Dawn was out in the field -- she would probably be safer there then in the building.
She wouldn't have to see Buffy ki--handle these criminals.
Then she had seen the televisions. The tape.
And she knew. She knew even as she begged Angel to call Dawn that Bob had gotten her after all.
After that things had become blurry. The pain and rage and fear that she had been carrying had become a noise. She remembered getting in the car to go to the coffeehouse near where Dawn had been taken. She remembered the drive over, with Angel telling her they would catch him. She remembered arriving and seeing Fred holding a pack of ice to her head and thinking: "What happened to her?" But it all seemed like she was viewing this from somewhere outside herself. Even now as she watched the police and her friends and everyone going over the street looking for a hint or a trace of where Dawn was, she felt as if she was looking at all this from a great distance. This couldn't be happening to Buffy Summers, the once and future Slayer. It couldn't be.
Then she saw Andrew rush up to her and say, "Buffy, I think that I know..." She didn't hear the rest. Without being completely aware that she was doing it, Buffy grabbed Andrew and threw him against the wall. Suddenly she came back to herself. As she looked at the geeky young man, she decided she was going to lay an ass-whupping on him. It wouldn't help her find Dawn, it wouldn't stop this killer, but she would feel like she was doing something.
"Stop it!" Angel and Willow (Buffy didn't know how Willow had gotten here from the hospital and didn't much care) were both running towards her. Her only response was to kick Andrew in the stomach.
"Buffy, you can't do this!" Willow said.
She turned to face them. "Don't you tell me what I can't do." She turned back to Andrew. What she saw stopped her cold.
Buffy had seen a lot of surprising things in the past seven years, from learning that Jenny Calendar had been sent to watch Angel to learning that the Mayor of Sunnydale had made a deal with the devil. She had seen that Riley had been a military operative and that her sister had only been real for three months. But this was one that she didn't think she would ever see.
She had expected to see Andrew cowering and submissive to her wrath. Instead, the self-proclaimed geeky faux-villain was on his feet. He looked sad and he was wincing but there was a streak of defiance in his eyes that Buffy had never seen before. Or had never noticed.
"I understand that you're pissed. And God knows you have a reason to be." Andrew sounded upset but there was definitely steel in his tone. "If you want to take me apart after we stop Bob, I'll gladly take what you can give. But right now you have to understand something." He was right up in her face. "Dawn isn't dead yet. There is a good chance that we can find her before Cooper does anything that will cause permanent damage. But the only way this works is if you concentrate on finding her and not blaming the person who helped put her in this situation. Do you get that?"
For a very long moment it seemed Buffy didn't get that or wasn't going to. Then, after seconds that seemed hours long, Buffy dropped her fighting pose into something a less threatening. "Explain."
Andrew breathed. "All right. When Cooper took Dawn, he also stole the van. The van is a Wolfram & Hart vehicle. According to Fred, all Wolfram & Hart vehicles are equipped with tracking devices.."
Buffy turned to look for Fred. "Is this true?"
Fred walked over. "Basically it's an ultra advanced version of the Global Positioning System that you find in most luxury cars. The whole thing is lined to a computer in Wolfram & Hart."
"And you're sure that this can find Dawn?"
Fred swallowed as if she didn't want to say what was coming next. "We can locate the van easy enough. There is a very good chance, however, that Cooper will abandon the vehicle and travel on foot...to where ever he's going to take Dawn.""
Andrew moved forward. "I don't think he'll go that far with her."
"And what makes you the expert here?" Buffy snapped at Andrew some of her old anger coming back.
Andrew swallowed but he stuck to his guns. "Simple logic. Even in the craziest parts of L.A., you can't walk very far with a struggling girl and not leave a trail."
As Andrew spoke Buffy slowly found herself coming back to reality. Her logic began to reassert herself. For the first time Buffy noticed that Fred was still holding her head in her hands.
Fred became aware of the stare. "I don't know what Cooper hit me with, but I think he wanted me out of the picture."
Buffy looked at her. She was feeling something again. "You should probably go to the hospital."
"They're rerouting some of information on the van through one of the computers. As soon as they give me a lock on Dawn's location,. I'll go." Buffy must have given her a look because Fred added, "I owe her this much."
Willow turned towards Fred. "Really, I can handle---"
Fred stopped her. "I need to do this."
Buffy looked at her for a moment, then turned to the others. "Where's Mike?"
"He's with Wes," Angel answered.
"Get him over here. As soon as we find a location he's coming with us."
"You think he can handle this? He's looking kind of pale."
Buffy was about to fling a retort at him when she was interrupted.
"I will find the strength." Buffy hadn't even heard the old man approach.
"Are you sure that you can?" Wes asked.
Mike fixed him with a stare: "It's time that Bob and I finished this."
There was a pause. Then without speaking, everyone began to work. Buffy was able to concentrate but two thoughts kept flowing through her mind.
One was: I will save her. I will.
The other one was: One way or the other, when we find them this ends.
Unlike her sister, Dawn scared very easily.
In her defense most of the times that she remembered being scared hadn't actually happened. And even setting those aside a lot of frightening things had happened to her over the last three years that would have frightened any teenager with a pulse. You try dealing with the fact that you were very recently just a ball of energy being pursued by an insane hellgod. Or that your mother had a brain tumor. Or that your high school had been built right over a hellmouth.
All things considered Dawn thought that she had dealt with them very well. She had faced death so many times that the idea of her life ending didn't scare her. It upset her a lot, but it had started to lose its ability to frightened her.
So when she regained consciousness in an empty building with her hands tied behind her back, death wasn't her chief concern. She knew that Cooper/Bob had kidnapped her. And she knew that he would probably attempt to torture her for quite some time. There was no denying that this was a bad situation but, really, after facing down an army of uber-vamps this was low on her fear list.
No, Dawn wasn't afraid of being tortured. What was making her heart creep into her throat was the thing that had been taboo since this whole mess had begun. The thing that everybody had decided was the least important part of what Earle and Cooper were doing. The word that no one had said but everyone was thinking.
The word was 'Rape'.
Dawn had gotten her 'birds and bees' lecture at nine (or at least she remembered getting it) but going to junior high and high school in the age of AIDS and sexual harassment, she had gotten a pretty good idea on what 'safe' sexual intercourse was. Because she was the sister of a Slayer, she had also gotten a fair amount of instruction on beating undead attackers. On a couple of occasions, however, Buffy had also given her some pointers on how to handle human ones. The word 'rape' had only really been important as a concept to her once -- when she had learned what Spike had tried to do to Buffy before he had his soul. She had been beyond angry at Spike, but she had also been scared in a part of her she didn't think could be reached. The part of her that said, If this can almost happen to Buffy, what can stop it from happening to...anyone?
Now, as she saw the man that had been Dale Cooper approaching her, she did something that she hadn't even tried to do since her mother had gone under the knife. The end result hadn't justified her faith, and she still was very unsure in her belief... But she prayed all the same.
Please God, don't let him do this to me. I will take the torture and the beatings. I can live with the pain. But don't let him touch me down there I don't think I could survive it.
She was trying desperately to keep a blank expression and not reveal any sign of weakness. She didn't think that she was succeeding because Cooper's already predatory look became more vicious.
"Oh my, look at you little girl" His voice oozed sarcasm. "I've got you all trussed up and you're not showing a thing. You are one brave little toaster." He took out a very sharp kitchen knife. "I'm going to bleed all the bravery out of you."
He brought the knife down her chest. The blade cut through the front of her shirt but stopped well short of the skin. The next swipe gently scraped her stomach
But there was no blood.
"You won't feel a thing...until I want you too." Cooper sing-songed
He stepped behind her and brushed the knife against her arms. If there was any blood she didn't feel it.
"I can keep this up till Dawn breaks," he said.
Dawn felt that she was doing a really good job of holding it in...until she looked at Cooper. And saw another man.
She could still see Cooper but it was like there was some kind of screen projecting an image of someone else. It was the same man that she had seen in the mirror of the van-- stringy gray hair, dirty coat and jacket and a grin that would not have been out of place on a great white shark. Now she knew that there were more than two people in this building.
Bob was here, and she was at his mercy.
Hurry Buffy. I don't know how long I have.
10:05 p.m.
Once Fred had fed the data into the computers, it was easy enough to locate the van. Cooper had driven through downtown L.A. towards the low rent section of the city. He had finally abandoned the vehicle less than ten miles from where he had grabbed Dawn. Nor had he made much of effort to hide the mobile unit. Either in his eagerness to go to work on Dawn he had grown careless or Bob wasn't very concerned about being found. Angel did not think that it was the former.
Buffy's hunch that Mike would be able to locate Bob was paying off. Even before they reached the van he began to moan the same ghastly sighs when they began tracking him. After they began to walk down the street, however, something unusual happened. Mike's heavy breathing began to ease and no longer walked as if he had a two ton weight on his back. Some people might have found that comforting but it disturbed Angel in a way the breathing hadn't. He didn't mention his concerns to Buffy because she was in no position to listen, so instead he turned to Willow and Wesley who were walking a little behind her with him.
"What do you think it means?"
"You mean Mike starting to sound normal." Wesley shook his head. "There are a number of possibilities. One is that some part of Gerard is reasserting himself."
"Can't be. Mike's still in charge. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to help us."
"Maybe he's recharging himself."
They looked at Willow.
"Well, he is going to confront someone that he hasn't dealt with in a very long time. Maybe his body is trying to ready itself for the battle."
Angel looked at the man in front of him. "That probably wouldn't last too long."
Off their looks he said, "Look at the guy. I don't care how strong whatever in him is, physically this man is no match for someone twenty years younger and with both arm."
"Maybe that's why Buffy's here. To help even things," said Wesley.
"You really think that, in her frame of mind, Buffy is capable of fighting Bob?"
"Maybe that's why we're here," said Willow.
That should have encouraged Angel but he was still concerned—Bob had managed to run rings around them so far and now he had Dawn hostage. He was about to say as much when he noticed that Buffy and Mike had stopped.
"He's here," said Mike. Without the wheezing he sounded stronger, more vital.
Angel looked up. They had reached the low rent warehouses that made up that part of L.A. The buildings looked like they were being held together by string and memories. This particular warehouse looked like a strong wind could upend it without difficulty.
"Are you sure that this is the place?" asked Wesley.
Neither Buffy nor Mike spoke. Instead they gestured towards the roof. The sign on the top of the building informed them that the building had once been the property of Black Forest chewing gum.
"Real sense of humor this Bob guy." said Willow, rolling her eyes in disgust.
Buffy still didn't speak ."You smell that?" she said finally.
For a moment Angel didn't know what she was talking about. All his senses were picking up was the faint smell of cinnamon. Then he recognized it. It was the same smell that had been in the motel. In the excitement he hadn't noticed it but he did now...
The place had the stink of death on it.
Wesley moved up next to Buffy. "We can have them take the building." Gunn, Robin and some of the other Slayers had been discreetly following them since they had left Ground Zero.
Buffy shook her head. "If he senses a crowd of people he'll...he'll use the time to finish Dawn."
"All right. How many people do you want?" Willow asked.
Buffy seemed to think it over. But Angel knew Buffy. He knew she had decided before they had even come here. But he wasn't going to let her do it.
"You're not going in alone," he said.
Buffy looked at him. "He wants me."
"Why do we keep giving this guy what he wants?" Willow asked. "I'm not letting you go in there by yourself."
Buffy gazed at the others with a mixture of resignation and pride. She looked at them for a while.
"Okay, but stay behind me. No sense in giving the game away that soon."
They remained still for a moment. Then, with Buffy leading the way, they entered the warehouse for the final confrontation.
