Chapter 2

"Waking Up Dead"

By OldScout

"Is this Sunnydale?"

Buffy was sitting on a bench in the middle of a cemetery on a bright California summer day. She looked to the person sitting on the bench next to her. She was sixteen, stocky build with shiny short black hair. The girl was wearing desert camouflage pants cut off at the knee, sandals and a tight red cotton tank top.

"I don't know why I come back here sometimes, Sarah." Buffy replied. "I guess it still feels like home."

"But you were like my age when you moved here." Sarah said. "Where did you grow up? Why isn' that what you think of?"

"I guess that's because this is where my life changed the most." Buffy replied. "It's where I left my mom and so many friends."

"Do you miss them?"

"Everyday."

"Will you miss me?"

"What happened?" Buffy turned fully so she was facing the young girl.

"I don't know." Sarah sighed. "I guess saw something I wasn't supposed to. But I don't know what I saw."

"I've always been proud of you." Buffy said and pulled the girl into a brief hug. "You were one of the first we found after Sunnydale. You're proof we did the right thing."

"I failed."

"You didn't fail, I know failure and you're not it." Buffy scrutinized the girl. "Do you remember what happened?"

"No, I just woke up and knew I didn't make it home." A shy smile came to the girl's lips. "Ya know, for the longest time I thought I would never have someplace I felt at home. Thank you for comin' for me. I would have died on the streets before now and I never would have known happiness."

Buffy hugged the girl again. "Faith will take this hard." She said. "You reminded her of her at your age." She smiled at the thought. "Except for the part were she was a homicidal manic.

"Do ya think I'll go to heaven? Will me ma be there?" She frowned. "Will me da be there?"

"You'll be happy." Buffy said. "Trust me. If your parents are there, they'll be there for you; like they should have been when you were growing up."

The girl gave a small lonely smile. "I have to go now. Please don't ever quit. There are more girls like me who need you." Sarah got up and walked down the path and out the gate.

A loud ringing woke Buffy from her dream. Buffy rolled over and picked up the phone. "Yea, Vi?" Buffy listened to Vi who always got wound up after doing night duty as receptionist. "I know Sarah didn't come home last night." Buffy said. "Call the police see if anybody found her. Give me fifteen, I'll be down."

"What do we have?" Inspector Clayson stood in the alley looking at the shape of a body under a plastic tarp.

"Girl." One of the senior officer replied. "Around sixteen; pretty beat up, but no obvious cause off death." He held up a couple of evidence bags. The larger bag held a long blood covered dagger and the other an ID card. "The dagger was found next to her and this private school ID card was the only thing in her pockets. Her name was Sarah O'Malley."

"Has anybody contacted the school yet? Get a family contact list." Inspector Clayson ask as he took the bag with the ID in it. "Summers School for Girls. I've heard of them, they're new they just opened. They specialize in helping troubled girls."

"Yea, somebody just went to ring them. I guess this girl was more trouble then they could handle." The cop observerd. The two walked further into the alley. "We also found what appears to be a blood stain here." He pointed out a marked spot as they walked. "And one here." He pointed to another marked stain along the wall. "And it appears somebody fell into this dumpster." He pointed up the building. "From up there." There were officers inspecting a damaged fire escape railing. "From the remnants of trash on the girl, we think she's the one who fell."

"We'll know for sure once the finger prints and maybe fiber samples have been run." Clayson inspected the dumpster. The thin metal tops were crushed and sides buckled from the impact. "The damage in consistent with a body hitting it, but I'd doubt anybody could get up, climb out and walk away from a fall like that."

"She didn't get very far."

"There was somebody else here, at least two." Clayson pointed to the blood stains. "Somebody lost a lot of blood and I'd bet those stains match that knife." They started back up the alley. "Now we just need some forensics to tell us who really used that knife. Did you call the hospitals to keep a look out for knife wounds?"

"Yes, Sir."

The body was gone but the ground was marked were she'd been found. The police and crime scene team continued to gather evidence. Inspector Clayson was struck by the amount of damage the girl seemed to have. A broken and dislocated shoulder, an ankle swollen from a sprain and numerous cuts and contusions including a broken nose and bleeding mouth from where she hit her face when she fell for the last time. But what killed her? None of the injuries seemed life threatening, no bullet wounds, no knife wounds, her neck didn't seem broken. Perhaps a toxicology report would shed some light on it.

"Sir," the senior uniformed officer said. "There's somebody here from the school. We told them it was too late to identify the body here, they'd have to go morgue but they want to see the alley."

Inspector Clayson didn't know what kind of person he was expecting to be sent from the school but it wasn't anyone like he found. Perhaps he was expecting a middle aged or older man or a matronly woman like an old school marm. Instead he found two petite young women in their early twenties. The one with blond hair wore blue jeans and a long blue navy pea coat with a matching knit hat pulled low over her head. The other, a red head, was wearing a full length denim skirt, brown leather jacket and a dark green and purple beret.

"You're in charge?" the blond asked as Clayson approached.

"I'm Inspector Clayson." He offered his hand.

"I'm Buffy Summers and this is Willow Rosenberg." Buffy offered. The police officer was just over six foot tall, no England now, two meters, was probably in his mid-forties and had salt and pepper black hair. He wore a tan trench coat over a suit and white leather high top basketball sneakers.

"I'm sorry, ladies, but the body has already been transported to the morgue." Clayson said quietly, trying to keep them calm. "You'll have to go down there to identify it."

"Can we see the alley?" Willow asked.

"This is a crime scene we can't let it be compromised."

Willow looked around the inspector. "Really?"

Behind him Clayson saw a number of uniformed and un-uniformed cops milling about in the alley. Some where even smoking and he watched horrified as one of the older uniforms flicked a cigarette butt to the ground.

"Just let us walk the length of the alley once." Buffy said. "I promise we won't drop or pick up any cigarette butts."

"Why?" Clayson was about to let them in. Instinct told him these two knew something about what had happened that he didn't. He needed a way to question them discreetly perhaps a walk up the alley would give him the opportunity.

"Sarah was my student." Buffy said. "She was my responsibility and the school was the only thing she had left to call family. We owe it to her to know what happened."

"We might be able to help." Willow suggested. "We know," she frowned. "Ah, knew her perhaps we'll see something."

Buffy walked quietly next to Inspector Clayson while Willow followed a step behind. First they the stood over the body outline. "She was face down?" Buffy asked. "Head toward the street."

Clayson nodded.

"She was running." Buffy looked deeper into the alley. "She was attacked from behind."

"You have experience at this?" Inspector Clayson was amazed at how quickly the young woman had put together the details. They walked further into the alley, the two women walking quietly to either side of the detective. No one said anything as they passed the marked stains of blood. He watched Miss Summers look at the dumpster and her glance immediately ran up the wall to the fire escape. Then she did something nobody else had. Her gaze continued up and across the alley to the roof of other building. Dear God, he thought, did that girl jump from one building trying to reach the other. Who was she running from?

"Thank you detective, I think we'll head down town now."

As they cleared the alley, Buffy leaned over to Willow. "We need to get to the roof of that building." The two immediately turned and entered the building they thought Sarah had jumped from.

"Did he see me look up here?" Buffy asked as they reached the roof with the help of a little slayer strength on the pad locked door at the top.

"I think so." Willow replied. "We don't have much time."

"Do you feel the magic?"

"Some up here, but nothing like in the alley. She was killed with it."

"I know." Buffy frowned. "I could smell that horrid curse."

"Smell?"

"Best I can describe it. That killing curse has the smell of death."

"There was so much magic down there I couldn't tell the difference without really concentrating. Which, of course, no time."

They reached the edge but didn't get close enough to be seen from the street. Buffy pointed at the roof. "Scuff marks, she jumped here, but it looks like she tripped." She looked back along the roof and started retracing the girl's steps. "She jumped the skylight and changed directions." She pointed to marks in the dirt and stones on the roof. "She rolled when she landed. Good girl." They circled the skylight and followed the trail back. When they reached the knee high wall at the edge of the building Buffy looked at the ground. "She didn't land right here. See that scuff she fell and rolled but it wasn't very controlled."

Looking across to building Sarah had jumped from Buffy said. "I need to follow her back as far as I can."

"Okay, I'll follow in the car." Willow agreed quietly she pulled out their walkie-talkie cell phone and turned it on. "Just let me know your progress."

Buffy unbuttoned her jacket, backed up several meters, ran to the edge and leaped to the other building. Willow headed back to the stairs.

Inspector Clayson watched the two women leave. He'd have to have a talk with them later. For having just seen where one of their students was just murdered, they were pretty calm. Perhaps too calm? He looked back up at the fire escape and scanned to the other building, then back to the fire escape. The damage looked like something hit it coming in at an angle, not just straight down.

One the team investigating the fire escape approached and held up a plastic bag with a piece of dark cloth. "We found this." He handed it over. "It looks just like the girl's jacket. Wasn't it torn on the back?"

The cloth did look like her jacket. Forensics would be able to tell for sure. Clayson looked back up at the building. Was there somebody up there? Did he just see shadows? Hear voices? "Come with me." He said to the officer.

Almost to the roof, Inspector Clayson thought he felt something, like he was being watched. He stopped the officer with him motioned for him to be quiet. The two stood in silence. Was that somebody breathing? There was nobody there. It was a large bare landing; no doorways, no nooks or alcoves, no boxes or debris, absolutely no place to hide. "Let's go he muttered and started up the last flight to the roof. The second the two were on the roof a red headed woman wearing a green and purple beret disassociated herself from the shadows and ran soundlessly down the stairs.

Once on the roof, Inspector Clayson had the officer with him start searching toward the alley where the body was found while he started looking in a different direction. The broken pad lock on the door looked fresh. The girl may have been up here for some reason, but what? He stopped and looked out over the city trying get his bearings. Movement two buildings over caught his attention. Somebody seemed to be searching for something. He shielded his eyes from the morning sun to get a better look. Was that Miss Summers? Impossible. She would have had to head to that building at a dead run after they left the alley. But it sure looked like her. Same Navy pea coat, same knit hat same blond hair. The girl disappeared around a structure on the roof.

"Inspector," The officer said. "It looks like somebody was up here recently." He pointed to marks on the edge of the wall about even with the fire escape and the dumpster below. "There are scuff marks over there. We might be able to match them to her shoes."

"Okay, get a team up here. Let's do a workup just to be thorough."

Standing in the shadows on the roof of the other building two wizards stood watching the police below. They were hidden by an obscuring spell as they studied the investigation. This would be a complex clean up and it was getting worse by the minute. They'd arrived too late to clean the scene before the muggle police arrive. The death eaters had apparently found a silencing charm for their wands that made it difficult to track them when they used an unforgivable.

Now the Chosen One was involved. They'd been briefed. All of the cleaning crews had been briefed but few believed. If they hadn't seen a young muggle woman leap from building to building like they'd just witnessed, they weren't sure if they'd ever have believed.

"What do we do now?" One of the Wizards asked the other.

"This doesn't change anything. We can still make them believe they found the drugs on her and in her." The older one said. "A muggle street urchin crams too much of that crap they are so found of into her arm. Nobody will care."

"The Chosen One will care."

"Why? Her pet witch probably sensed the magic and they came to investigate."

"Then what is she looking for? Why is she jumping to all those buildings?"

"She must be looking for signs of the Death Eaters who did this."

"And why would Death Eaters kill a muggle street kid like that?"

"I don't know, target practice. Don't ask me, I'm not a Death Eater." He took out his wand. "We'd better get to work."

To be continued.........