Chapter 47: Homeward

By the time everyone woke up the next morning, Jeremy had already scoured the papers for any mention of last night's events. He'd found nothing. On the radio, a local station reported that hydro crews were still working to recover power lost last night in a Cabbagetown neighborhood, but before the newscast even ended, they announced that the problem had been fixed. That was it—one blown transformer, already repaired. Not a single mention of a whiskered man in a bowler hat.

Buffy sat on the bed with Savannah just holding her and hugging her. Trying to comfort the girl. When Savannah had woken up still blinded, she had become hysterical. It took a few minutes for Buffy to calm her down.

"So, we're leaving?" Dawn said as Jeremy folded a shirt and put it into his bag. "We may have unleashed Jack the Ripper, and we're just going home?"

For a second Buffy glared at her sister for the fact that she was obsessed with the letter and Jack the Ripper and not her niece.

Dawn moved to the foot of the bed where she could see Jeremy's face. "You do think that's what we did, don't you? Unleashed Jack the Ripper?"

"Because we dropped a dead mosquito onto a letter possibly written by the man over a hundred years ago?" Jeremy said.

Dawn thumped onto the bed. "My hormones are acting up again, aren't they?"

Jeremy only gave Dawn his crooked smile as he took his pants from the chair, then said, "Considering some of the things we've seen and some of the things you and Buffy have seen yourselves, it's not as crazy as it sounds. Something did happen last night, something…unusual."

Dawn remembered Buffy's reactions, the odd look on her sister's face when she'd seen the smoke.

"That guy didn't come from a community theater production," she said.

Buffy sighed as she looked at her sister. "No, he didn't. At first, I thought he was Whistler. But he wasn't. But something was off. Couple that with the transformer exploding. It was definitely, supernatural."

"Do you think it's tied to the letter?" Dawn asked.

Buffy sighed; she wasn't sure. "I don't know. Give it a rest, okay," she said as Dawn looked at her and Savannah. "My concern is primarily for Savannah. That said I would be forsaking my duties as a Slayer if we didn't check into the letter before we hand it over. I want to make sure we didn't do something. After we make sure Savannah can see again. I am going to go against my better judgment and have her …"

"Try and sense if there is anything magical about it," Dawn said and nodded. Then a thought occurred to her, the mosquito. It had bitten her before Buffy had swatted it. "Buffy, do you think?"

"Your blood," Buffy said. "That was why I wanted to have Savannah sense if it was magical in anyway."

Dawn put her hands against her belly and willed herself to feel a kick, a jab, some sign of life…

"You can listen with the stethoscope when we get home, Aunt Dawn," Savannah said softly.

Jeremy and Dawn looked at Savannah as if to ask how. Was her eyesight back? They looked; Savannah's eyes were still white.

"Dawn?" Jeremy asked.

"I don't know," Dawn said. "Savannah, honey. How did you know what I was doing or thinking?"

"I saw through mom's eyes," Savannah said.

"The telepathic link between Savannah and Buffy must be open," Dawn said. "Buffy look at Savannah."

Buffy turned and looked at her daughter. "Savannah, what do you see?"

"Me," Savannah said. "My eyes are white. Are they going to stay like that?"

"No, honey," Buffy said. "We'll fix them.

"Savannah must be using her telepathy somehow to look through Buffy's eyes," Dawn said.

"How is that even possible?" Jeremy asked.

"I have no idea," Dawn said. "I wish I did. We have to remember that Savannah maybe even more powerful than I am."

They had a late breakfast before leaving. There was a restaurant in their hotel, but it didn't open until noon, so they popped over to a place a few doors down and ate there.

They were walking back—driving the short distance had been more trouble than it was worth—when Dawn caught a whiff of something that stopped her midstride. Savannah stopped also, causing Buffy to stop with her. Dawn looked to her niece as Jeremy and Clay took another few steps before realizing the sisters and Savannah were no longer between them. Jeremy stayed where he was, as Clay circled back.

"What's up?" Clay asked.

Dawn tilted her head and inhaled, then rubbed my nose and made a face. "I hate that. You catch the faintest smell, your brain says 'hey, that's someone I know,' then it's gone."

"Savannah?" Buffy said.

"What does your Slayer senses feel like, mom?" Savannah asked.

Clay looked around. They were in the middle of a strip of grass between the road and the hotel parking lot. Cars zoomed past, but there was no one around. A busy road and no sidewalks didn't invite pedestrian traffic.

"They're hard to describe, honey," Buffy said.

"Maybe someone you knew drove by with the window down." He glanced at the strip mall to their right. "Or stopped here."

Dawn nodded. "Probably, whatever—whoever—it was, it's gone now."

"Dawn, do you still have the sight that tells you where a Slayer is?" Buffy asked as they caught up with Jeremy and headed for the SUV.

"Yes, I will have it forever." Dawn said. "I can feel …" Dawn stopped and looked at Savannah.

"What?" Jeremy and Buffy asked.

"Savannah's been Chosen," Dawn said and just as she said it, Savannah's eyes cleared.

Jeremy, Buffy, Clay and Dawn looked at each other and then Savannah.

"Is it typical for a Slayer to be called so early?" Jeremy asked.

"According to Giles any time after the start of puberty and before the age of eighteen," Dawn said.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

They pulled off at the Darien Lake exit to fuel up with gas and food. They would stop for lunch in a restaurant outside Rochester, but it had been two hours since breakfast, and their stomachs were complaining. Especially Savannah's, whose Slayer metabolism was already demanding the energy it needed.

Jeremy shooed them off to the store, getting them away from the fuel fumes. Inside, Dawn and Savannah scooped up a doughnut and chocolate milk each. Convenience food—they didn't offer much else.

The store was busy, there were only two cashiers, and one was fiddling with her register, so the lineup stretched back to the refrigerators. People kept brushing past Dawn and Savannah to get to the pop fridge. A passing trucker jostled Savannah's shoulder so hard she wobbled back into the shelf. She was still getting used to her new Slayer reflexes. He reached to catch Savannah, blasting coffee breath and halitosis in her face. Another hand caught Savannah from behind. Clay glared at the trucker, who mumbled something vaguely apologetic and shambled past.

Clay took Dawn's and Savannah's milk cartons and doughnuts, and piled them onto his, Buffy's and Jeremy's snacks.

"Hey," grumbled a man behind them. "There's a line here, you know. You can't just—"

Clay turned and looked at him, and the man's mouth snapped shut.

Dawn leaned out to see why the line wasn't moving.

"You okay, Aunt Dawn?" Savannah whispered.

Dawn swept a glance around. "Just … claustrophobic, sweetie."

Clay shifted over, his hip brushing Dawn's. "Savannah, why don't you take your Aunt Dawn outside? Get some air."

"I'm—" Dawn said.

Clay bumped Dawn with his hip, causing his stack of junk food to sway. "Go. Stretch your legs. There's a field out back, isn't there? Behind the building?"

"Yes," said Savannah.

"Find a picnic spot then. Grab Jeremy and Buffy and I'll meet you four there."

"Thanks," Dawn said as Savannah led her out the door.

Jeremy was just outside the doors, eying one of the new SUVs.

"Looking for a trade-up on the Explorer?" I asked.

"I was thinking of you."

"I have a car," Dawn said.

"Which is half dead, has no air bags, no child restraints, and is definitely not baby-friendly." He waved at the SUV wannabe. "This is cute."

"Cute? It looks like a minihearse. Yes, I know I'll need something new. But not that. And if you mention minivan—"

"I wouldn't dare."

"Where's Buffy?" Dawn asked.

"Restroom," Jeremy said.

Dawn nodded as Savannah told him Clay's picnic plan.

"That's fine," Jeremy said. "I need to use the restroom. You two can wait for me, Buffy or Clay, if he comes out first, I'll meet you all out back."

He started to walk past Dawn and Savannah, then stopped to watch a vehicle pull in a few spots down. A Mercedes SUV.

"Perhaps something like that," he said. "It's a luxury vehicle, sure to have all the top safety features, plus be quite reliable in bad weather, but not as big and unwieldy as the Explorer. I'm sure you'd find it quite peppy."

"Peppy? That's almost as bad as 'cute.'" Dawn said.

"It would be the perfect vehicle for a—"

"Suburban soccer mom," Buffy said as she walked up. "Jeremy trying to pick out a new car for you again?"

Dawn nodded.

"Jeremy, while I agree Dawn needs a new car. And I probably need to get my license and get a car because of Savannah. But that is not Dawn's style," Buffy said. "Not her. Not now. Not ever."

Dawn nodded. "I'll find something. But not—" She looked at the Mercedes and shivered. "That."

He shook his head and walked toward the building.

Buffy, Dawn and Savannah followed the walkway along the north side of the service center. Behind the building, the path cut on a diagonal to the southwest truckers' lot.

Buffy, Savannah and Dawn thought the swamp was what they'd smelled when they first picked up the scent of something heavy and overripe. Buffy had been surprised that Savannah's sense of smell had improved, hers hadn't when she had been called. The smell came on the south wind, blowing toward the swamp, not from it. The scent carried other notes too, all human—the smell of unwashed body and unwashed clothes, male, seemingly healthy, but underlain with that faint scent of over ripeness. Of … rot.

It was the same scent Buffy had smelled on the man in the bowler yesterday. Not sickness but rot, so faint she had to get a noseful before she was sure. They realized it was the same thing they'd smelled walking back from the restaurant after breakfast.

The sisters dismissed it. No one—and nothing—could track them like that. They were 185 miles from Cabbagetown. Even they would've lost the trail the moment they'd driven away last night.

Unlike the sisters Savannah didn't dismiss it; she could sense something on the edge of her new Slayer senses. She didn't mention it to her mother or her aunt. Because since the Slayer senses were new to her she had no way of know what it was she was sensing.

Dawn, Savannah and Buffy glimpsed a figure darting between the rigs in the southwest lot, and caught another whiff of that distinctive scent. They realized someone was following them, possibly hoping to cut them off when they were far enough from the service center, and from their male companions. They thought about waiting for Jeremy and Clay but knew that it would spook their stalker. Dawn stopped to tie her shoes and scope out the playing field.

Dawn looked to Buffy and Savannah and communicated telepathically her plan. Her niece and sister agreed that the thirty-foot-wide storage silo to their right was their best shot since it was closest.