Slayer
Dedicated to my daughter, Sara, the true Buffy fanatic; thanks for your input and help with the details.
I have taken some liberties with the time frame of the "special guests' " history, for storyline purposes, pushing them back about 15 years in time.
Chapter One
Oscar stood in front of the projection screen, looking even more serious and grim than usual. He faced the unenviable task of explaining something he didn't understand himself. He looked around the table at each person in turn - Russ, Rudy, Jaime and Steve - hoping someone else had some input. No one did.
Oscar turned toward the image on the screen: a vivid close-up of a dead body that had met its demise in a most...unusual way. "This body exemplifies the condition all eight victims were in, when discovered. Each body had been completely drained of blood, with the only visible sign of violence being a set of two side-by-side puncture wounds on the victims' necks."
"You're saying the bodies had no blood left in them?" Steve asked.
"None." Oscar anticipated, and tried to answer, the next question. "There was also no blood found at any of the murder sites; not a splatter. Not a single drop."
"So they were killed somewhere other than where they were found," Russ theorized.
"Most of the bodies were still warm, with no signs of rigor mortis."
"They were killed somewhere close by?" Jaime guessed.
Oscar shook his head. "That works in theory, but not one victim had even a trace of blood on their clothing or skin."
"Do we have any leads?" Steve asked.
"Nope." Oscar turned off the projector and turned on the lights. "The FBI has been working the case since victim number three, and they've come up with nothing. They've formally requested our help. Rudy, I need you to find out how long a bloodless body can remain at 98.6. Russ, you and I will comb the areas around each murder site. Someone had to have seen something."
"What about us?" Jaime asked, looking at Steve. It had been years since they'd seen each other, and even longer since they'd worked as a team.
Oscar smiled sheepishly. "You two only have one detail to concentrate on: you're going to crack the case."
"Is that all?" Jaime wisecracked. "How come we always get the easy part?"
"You can pick up the file with all the details from Callahan on your way out," Oscar told them. "Your plane leaves in an hour."
Jaime rolled her eyes. "This oughta be fun. You ready, partner?"
They grabbed the file and were on their way, stopping at the Tranquility Fountain to regroup and begin to plan. "This has to be the weirdest one Oscar's ever given us," Jaime remarked, surprised to find herself more interested in Steve's eyes than the contents of the file. Several years earlier, Jaime had suffered a severe blow to her head while on an assignment, and while her memory had been restored, Jaime had been crushed when she realized her feelings for Steve had not returned and seemed unrecoverable.
Steve, too, had been devastated. To be given that ray of hope only to see it dashed was almost more than he could bear. Being around each other had proven awkward and painful for both of them, so - reluctantly - that had gone completely separate ways. Until now.
Steve forced himself to concentrate on the file, instead of the way Jaime's hair gleamed like spun gold in the sunshine. "There's a reasonable explanation for all of this," he said. "There has to be."
Their minds were on the same train of thought. "Steve, there no way this could be what it looks like, right?" she said in a quavering voice.
"Not a chance. We've got to stick to facts and evidence, and not try delving into fiction and myths."
"But it's creeping you out, too," she observed.
"Well, yeah, but only because on the surface, at first glance, this sounds like..."
Their eyes met. Jaime shuddered and completed his thought: "Vampires."
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