Chapter II
Anya looked up from her accounts when she heard the bell over the door. Two men walked in; she could tell right off that they weren't the usual sort of Magic Box customer. Both wore cheap suits, and both had muscular builds and thick necks. If Anya didn't know better, she would have thought that central casting just sent over a couple of Mafia heavies. That can't be right, she thought to herself, I must be prejudiced like Xander said, and I had better give them the benefit of the doubt. And she bent down to her account books and went back to work.
A moment later the two men walked over to Anya and looked at her expectantly.
"May I help you gentlemen? I have a two-for-one special on dried chicken feet." said Anya.
"Nah, we don't need shit like that," said the taller of the two, "My associate and I are visiting all the merchants here in the downtown Sunnydale shopping district. We're selling a special kinda insurance. For only five hundred bucks a week we guarantee you won't be hit with any vandals, like. After all, this is a real nice little shop you got here. It'd sure be a shame if anything happened to it."
"Oh, I'm sorry, but all of my insurance needs are handled by the Sunnydale General Insurance Agency, and I have the greatest confidence in their recommendations. Good day gentlemen." And with that, she turned away to look at Buffy and Willow, smiling delightfully at her display of non-rudeness.
Buffy's eyes narrowed as she stared at the two. So that when the shorter one suddenly swept all the items displayed on a shelf next to him to the floor , Buffy just sharpened her gaze a little more. Anya jumped in surprise and turned around to glare at all the broken merchandise.
"Hey," she shouted, "you owe me," (she paused for a moment), "three hundred fifty eight dollars and seventy-five cents! And I won't take your check either!"
"Yeah?" said Antonio, "see, if you subscribed to our Insurance and Protection Association, these little things wouldn't bother you, or happen." And with that, he turned sideways and quite deliberately knocked over another display case. He turned back to Anya with a scornful smile.
Anya walked around the counter and looked Antonio in the eyes, "You do not know whom you are threatening," she said with menace in her voice and deliberate phrasing, "you now owe me twelve hundred and fifty dollars worth of merchandise, plus three hundred dollars for cleanup, plus whatever it will cost to replace that display case. You will pay, or else."
"Or else what, babe, you gonna scare us with that lipstick color?" Antonio and Jules glanced at each other with faint smiles, and then looked back at Anya with amused contempt.
"No," said Buffy from right by Jules elbow, "I take care of the scary department."
Jules and Antonio turned and looked down at Buffy with surprise, and laughed out loud.
"Hey little girl, this ain't any a yer business," said Jules, and tried to shove her violently away.
A now thoroughly pissed-off Buffy knocked him unconscious shockingly fast with a couple of quick kicks and a hand strike.
Antonio stared in amazement for a moment and reached under his coat. Just as his gun cleared his lapel Buffy kicked his hand sideways – the gun went off and a bullet smashed a vase across the shop. After another series of rapid hits, Antonio was unconscious and laid out next to Jules moments later.
"Anya, call 911," asked Buffy, "these guys are probably organized crime, the cops'll know what to do."
"I'd rather chop them up into little pieces and feed them to the fishes!" Anya said, with genuine anger in her voice as she contemplated her broken merchandise.
"No, no, these guys work for someone else, that's who we need to get, and to do that, we need these guys alive. But they're not monsters – well, maybe they're monstrous, but they aren't the kind that we deal with, so pick up the phone and call."
Anya picked up the phone and angrily punched 9 1 1.
"911 Emergency Services, how may I help you?"
"Two crooks just threatened me and my shop unless I pay them, get over here right away.
"Yes ma'am, Detectives will be there in a couple of hours."
"A couple of hours? I don't know if these guys can survive that much torture."
"You mean they're still on the premises! Officers will be there in a few minutes. Oh, and please don't torture anyone, that's illegal."
-- --
Detective Stein frowned out of habit as he listened to Anya. He judged that there wasn't the slightest bit of exaggeration in her narrative – she didn't appear capable of prevarication. He looked at the two accused, sitting handcuffed on chairs, predictably exuding innocence and wonder at their predicament. He looked at Buffy Summers without surprise. Over the years she had nonchalantly called the police to come and gather up violent but surprisingly subdued criminals from here and there in Sunnydale, usually in the middle of the night from some of Sunnydale's darkest alleys. And she had been implicated in a variety of oddball crimes, but rarely charged and never had a charge stick. Plus there was talk among the uniformed cops – after hours they passed around stories about how she had saved the lives of several officers, in circumstances that no one would repeat in the station house, or when sober. Plus, there was that whole odd affair with Salesman Ted or whatever the hell it was. And no Sunnydale cop could forget the former Mayor and the Last Graduation at the old Sunnydale High School. The written reports of the cops that were on duty that day at the High School were masterpieces of creativity and restraint, but he was practiced at reading between the lines.
"Ms. Summers," said the detective, "these, uh, gentlemen, that you have detained are vigorously protesting their innocence while they are waiting for their lawyers."
"Yeah, yeah, look detective, we'll press charges against these creeps. We'll do whatever we have to get them some quality cell time. And I think you know very well that we're darned hard to intimidate. Just give me the correct procedures."
"Well now, that could be a problem, you see with only fifteen hundred odd dollars worth of damage, well, that's just vandalism. The district attorney isn't going to throw the book at them for this, not with the huge number of open cases of murder, torture, and plain old disappearances that we have here in beautiful Sunnydale."
Anya spoke up, "But they said they were visiting all the merchants downtown, they must be trying to shake down everyone. And they must be working for someone else, they look too stupid to have come up with this scheme themselves."
The two prisoners glared at Anya with murder in their eyes.
"And what about the bullet hole, and the gun," asked Dawn, "that's gotta be illegal doesn't it?"
Detective Stein said, "Using a weapon during the course of a crime is certainly a chargeable offense, but the gun itself is of course, perfectly legal if no crime was committed, this is California, after all. They claim it was an accident, an accident precipitated by you Ms. Summers, when you violently bumped into Mr. Antonio Scalerese here, causing his properly licensed weapon to come loose from his shoulder holster. He further claims," the detective consulted his notebook, "that it was his attempt to catch the weapon before it hit the floor and fire at random that caused his finger to happen to catch the trigger, by accident like'. And, of course, it was that same incident that caused him to stumble into the display case and cause this unfortunate mishap." He looked at the smashed display case and didn't look at all convinced by the explanation, he knew what happened, but there didn't appear to be any way of proving it.
Anya blurted out, "Then why don't you look at the security tapes?"
"Why didn't you mention that before?" said an exasperated Detective Stein.
-- --
After the cops dragged off Antonio, Jules and the videotapes, Anya, Willow, Dawn, Xander, and Buffy sat down at the round table.
"Why did you keep your new security cameras a secret from us?" asked Buffy.
"Yeah." said Willow, "they're so well hidden that one might think the purpose was it to keep an eye on Daw... uh, I mean, your employees, er, that's not any better is it?"
Dawn looked as if she were trying to disassociate her corporeal existence.
Anya said matter-of-factly, "Of course it was to check up on Dawn, she's a little klepto after all. And Willow, you too you know, I've seen you take magic supplies without paying for them. I wish you would all realize that everything has a cost, and someone has to pay that cost, and if you don't, then I have to, and I don't like paying for your little hobbies!"
Dawn and Willow exchanged rueful glances, and looked back at the table. Both tried to look properly chastised.
"Come on Dawn," said Anya, "let's get this place cleaned up."
-- --
A week later Anya was helping a customer choose between Eye of Newt, or the Salamander Eyes, "Ialways say, when it comes to spells, a real newt is a beaut, but a salamander is just a slander on a hanger."
The baffled customer said, "That doesn't make any sense at all, miss, are you just trying to get me to buy the expensive ones'?"
"Oh no, not at all. I just want you to buy the one that works best for your application."
Dawn was still at school, Xander was at work, Willow was sitting at the round table tapping away on her laptop computer, and Buffy was working out in the back room. If anyone had looked out the front window they would have seen a black car being driven carefully down the street, perhaps suspiciously slowly if one had a cynical mindset. As the car approached the Magic Box, the rear window slid down quietly and the barrel of a twelve gage semi-automatic shotgun appeared.
Anya continued, "Both are properly preserved in a solution of alcohol and distilled holy water, certified blessed by a licensed practitioner of the Magical Arts, and guaranteed to have accurate labeling or your money back. But almost all spell books specify Eye of Newt, not Eye of Salamander. So it all depends on your particular spell. And you see, it's because Newt is in higher demand that it costs more, and it's in higher demand because it is usually required."
"Oh, well that makes sense..."
At that moment, the calm and peaceful atmosphere was shattered by a shotgun blast. The front window exploded into shards and a dark object with a flaming wick came flying through the middle of the window and the curled wrought iron burglar bars.
Willow looked up, startled at the noise, saw something flying through the air, and said, "Retende Curasŵe!" and added a couple of imperative hand gestures. (Ancient Sumerian for, "Return forthwith from whence thou camest thou carrier of evil intent and bad influence.")
The flaming object stopped dead right in the middle of its arc, then reversed course and flew back out the empty window frame and right back into the Cadillac's still open rear window.
The car promptly exploded. The blast shattered the front door and the other front window, merchandise near the front was destroyed, neighboring stores lost their glass, pedestrians were knocked flat by the blast front, a random hunk of cast iron from the car slammed into the nearby fire hydrant, slicing it off at the pavement and causing an impromptu water fountain. Which, as luck would have it, put out the car fire. Not that it did the occupants of the car any good.
Buffy ran out of the training room, wearing black with red trim form-fitting spandex workout clothes, "What the hell was that!"
Willow stood and looked out the empty window frame – and slowly sank back down into her chair as her face crumpled into a veil of tears. "I didn't mean to kill them," she sobbed quietly, "I didn't know that was a bomb. I would've just teleported it into the upper atmosphere if only I'd known."
Anya glanced over at Willow, and said sharply, "Oh for the love of D'Hoffryn, Willow, if you hadn't tossed that bomb back out there, you would now be toast, and Buffy would be crying her eyes out over the biggest piece of your dead and blackened little body. And you know we don't need that kind of behavior from Buffy anymore. Besides, it was probably just those gangsters from the other day getting their just desserts. I'm sure during my last tenure as a vehicle of vengeance that I must have tortured and killed many men less deserving – but you don't see me crying about it, do you? So straighten up, you saved our lives! You're a true hero!" Anya beamed at everyone.
Anya's customer was staring around with big round eyes. He suddenly sat down on the floor, apparently in shock, although no physical injury was apparent.
-- --
Crime scene technicians were just finishing up inside the shop when Detective Stein stepped through the remains of the front door. "Well, well," he said, with perhaps more jocularity than was warranted, "this is getting to be a regular stop." He shut up when he saw how upset Willow was, even now, a couple of hours after the fact.
"What can we do for you detective?" asked Anya.
"I know you've already explained to the other officer's what happened here, but I need to talk to each of you in turn, individually, and take your statements."
Buffy spoke up, "I'm getting tired of this. Do you know who sent those men yet?"
"You know I can't divulge any details of our investigation, Ms. Summers, all I can say is that it is an ongoing active investigation, and now it does have the attention of the district attorney. It would appear that the Sunnydale Chamber of Commerce is very angry at this protection scheme, and they have the ear of the DA. Plus they set off a bomb in the middle of downtown Sunnydale. So you will not be able to accuse us of sloth."
So everyone gave their story, one more time, to the detective. All agreed that it was amazing luck that Willow was able to bat that Molotov cocktail out with her hand, without either burning herself, or breaking the bottle, and it was just astonishing how it just happened to fall back into the car that it come from – but no one could call that anything but amazing coincidence. Anya's customer kept darting his eyes about when he was agreeing with that statement. But he couldn't bring himself to contradict any part of it, at least, not out loud.
And it was certainly unfortunate that no one had got around to replacing the tapes in the security cameras, although the detective looked unbelieving at that. He elected not to push the issue.
-- --
Later that evening, Buffy, Willow, Anya, Xander, and Dawn were sitting around the table, waiting for someone to speak up. Anya said, "All right, no one else wants start this, so I will. It is my shop after all. What are we going to do about these mafia guys? It isn't our usual cup of tea, but they are sure to be royally pissed at us now, so all of us are in danger. I don't suppose we can just send Buffy out loaded down with weapons, and have her murder, er, I mean slay, everyone involved. I would order her to do that if I could, but it would probably cause Buffy to get all holier-than-thou and shit."
Everyone looked at Anya and shook their heads. Buffy said, "Anya, we can't just go around killing people we don't like. In the first place, once we started, where would we draw the line? In the second place, the police would eventually catch up with us and we would end up in prison – I have visited Faith and I can tell you, I don't want to become her roommate. In the third place, one day I plan to go back to heaven, although not any time soon, and if I start killing people, well, then they probably wouldn't want me back."
Willow spoke up, "Yeah, what she said. But there are other things we can do, you know, as good citizens and everything."
"Like what?" asked Anya.
"Oh, lots of stuff, we can investigate, and spy on them, and gather evidence, and, when we get enough, turn it all over to the police. Also, Tara and I can put some stronger defense spells on the whole shop, that should pay you back for some of the ingredients that I have borrowed from you."
"That sounds like you're gonna get the better deal, but I'll do it anyway," said Anya.
Tara said, "There are some cool spells that will repel rocks, bombs, even bullets. But we have to be careful to set the reflection angle correctly so we don't accidentally k-kill anyone. I mean, we wouldn't want to do that even to someone who deserved it, and imagine how we would feel if some poor innocent girl walking by got hit by a s-stray s-shot?"
"That would be awful," agreed Willow, "so we will be careful. Plus, we should protect our houses too."
Xander looked up and said, "So what's the next step? I mean, there ought to be something for us ordinary mortals to do – this is an ordinary situation after all."
"Don't worry Xand," said Buffy, "you're not merely ordinary to us."
"Yeah," grinned Dawn, "you're special!"
Anya frowned slightly at Dawn, "Well, you're certainly special to me. But guys like that have been hurting people for thousands of years, so we do need to be careful."
"Well," said Buffy, "I guess we'll be dealing with people instead of demons, for a change. I don't know how we will be able to handle it though."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said Anya, "Mafia and demons? Fits like a fine Italian leather glove. Don't be at all surprised if you find some kind of monster at head of this little scheme."
"Oh, well that's good, because hey! Slayage! And that would bring closure and probably confusion to the rest of the gang. So, do you think these criminals know who they work for, I mean, do they know the boss is a creature from the underworld?"
"Possibly one or two of the top lieutenants, but the rest them, not so much," said Anya, "of course, we don't actually know either, at least not yet."
-- --
Later that evening, after hours at the Magic Box, it was a research party. But it was mostly Willow accessing the Internet, reading old newspaper articles from big cities, and hacking into the personal files of what may be the local mafia head honchos.
"This isn't nearly as easy as hunting vampires," groused Willow, "I mean, these guys are trying to blend in and not appear guilty of anything. But vampires don't care, they just hide during the day and kill at night."
Dawn, reading the paper, suddenly started bouncing in her chair and exclaimed, "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Looky here! In the paper? In this article about the explosion outside the Magic Box? It says that the lawyers for the bad guys, that is, before they got blown up and had to be scraped off the sidewalk with spatulas, and were just being prosecuted for threatening store owners and gang-related activity, worked for Wolfram and Hart!"
"Well, that pretty much lets the cat out of the bag, doesn't it?" said Buffy, "that's close to conclusive – that protection scheme is, or was, demon related."
-- --
To be continued. I'm still polishing up the next chapter, should be ready in a few days.
