Chapter 61: Dupe
"Oh, God," Jaime whispered behind the sisters, her voice muffled as her hand flew to cover her nose and mouth. "What is that smell?"
"Decomposing zombie," Buffy said.
No wonder Rose had taken so long to get here. Smelling that bad, she'd have to take side streets and alleys all the way.
Buffy and Dawn peeked out the door. A dark shape emerged from behind a garbage bin, hesitated, then scuttled back behind it. A moment later, she popped out her head again, trying to find Jaime.
"You wait here," Dawn said, closing the door partway. "When Buffy and I have her down, we'll call you."
Jaime shook her head. "I might not be any help against a powerful sorcerer. But this I can handle."
"No," the sisters said.
"Dawn, Buffy, she's a half-dead zombie. What's she going to do? Rot on me?"
"You're right. She'd probably just scratch you. Like she did to Clay," Dawn said.
Jaime paled, then shook her head. "I still want to help—"
"Stay," Buffy said. "Please. One less thing for us to worry—"
Something hit the door, whacking it against Dawn's palm. Buffy and Dawn looked down to see a rat's head through the crack, teeth flashing.
Buffy and Dawn slammed the door so hard she should have decapitated the rat. But it wouldn't shut. A throng of rats were throwing themselves at the door, bodies thumping, claws scrabbling on the wood as they climbed on each other, trying to get in.
Another head appeared over the first, then a third, teeth gnashing, squirming and wriggling to squeeze through.
As they shrieked and squealed, the smell of blood drifted through the opening, as if they were so desperate to get inside that they were tearing each other apart.
"They must smell Rose," Buffy called to Jaime.
The door handle jolted in Dawn's hands. It was Jaime, throwing herself backward against the door, trying to help Buffy and Dawn. Yet even her body weight wasn't enough for them to push it shut—not with rats jammed in the opening.
When Dawn lifted her foot to kick the bottom one out, Jaime grabbed her arm.
"No! Jaime said—"
"If I don't touch that one, we're going to be touching a whole lot more when they break the door down," Dawn
"Switch places."
Dawn shook her head. "You're wearing sandals. They'll gnaw your—"
She grabbed a plank from the floor and brandished it. "Now switch. On my count. Three, two, one."
Buffy and Dawn went sideways, throwing their backs against the door. Jaime flew into Dawn's spot and whacked the head of the top rat. It squealed but kept trying to wriggle through.
"Not taking the hint, are they?" she said through her teeth as she kept hitting.
"They won't. You're going to have to—" Buffy said.
Jaime heaved back the plank for a home-run swing. It hit the top rodent with a skull-splitting splat.
"I'm going to feel bad about this in the morning," she said, taking a swing at the second one.
When the opening was clear, Buffy and Dawn slammed the door shut. They ran to the back of the building, searching for another way out, but found only boarded windows. As Jaime dragged over a wooden crate, Buffy and Dawn pried the boards off a window, ignoring the splinters.
"Go," Dawn said.
"You two first."
Buffy glared at her. "We can't waste time arguing—"
"Then don't. Get moving, and I'll cover you two."
She helped first Dawn and the Buffy out the window, then crawled through just as the rats broke down the front door. They didn't follow—they just wanted inside, away from the unnatural creature coming their way.
They found a building a half block down. Then Buffy and Dawn persuaded Jaime to stand guard inside while they flushed Rose out.
Rose had ducked behind the bin right across the road. Buffy and Dawn moved behind a bin of their own to look and listen. After a moment, she appeared from a new hiding spot, her face a pale, indistinct oval under her shawl. A slow look around, and she came out.
Rose took a staggering step, then jerked backward. Another stagger, another jerk. Being pulled in two directions? Was Hull trying to summon her too?
That stagger-jerk dance took her to the edge of the sidewalk. Something moved down the alley behind her. Buffy and Dawn tried picking up the scent on the wind, but Rose's rot overpowered everything. They stared at the spot where they'd seen the movement. Nothing.
Rose appeared to be Hull's backup zombie. He'd let her be killed three times. That made sense. Give a nineteenth-century sorcerer two zombie servants, one a male criminal, one a female whore, and which will he let hang out to dry? So, when Jaime summoned Rose, Buffy and Dawn expected Hull wouldn't be around to notice—he'd keep as far from her rotting corpse as he could.
But what if they'd guessed wrong? What if Hull was trying to summon her back to him. Or what if
Hull or the bowler-hatted man was a figure they saw down an alley, then they might be able to skip a step in their "get Rose to take them to Hull" plan, but the sisters weren't ready for it. Not nearly.
Buffy and Dawn backed up into the building.
"Jaime?" Dawn whispered. "Get upstairs. Watch that alley across the road, where Rose was. If anyone comes out of it—or anyplace else—get down here. We're bringing Rose inside."
Dawn and Buffy looked around. There were two rusted filing cabinets against the wall that were big enough to hide behind. They hurried behind the cabinets. After a moment, they picked up the clomp of footsteps, heavy and oddly spaced.
A shadow crossed the door. The sisters pulled back, then tried to peek through the crack between the cabinet and the wall, catching only a sliver of the room.
The streetlight coming through the open front door cast a yellowish glow on the floor. A shadow crossed it, jerking and rocking, as if Rose was still following the steps of her strange dance, pulled between opposing forces.
A low gurgling filled the room, then a muttering, words unintelligible. Fabric rustled as Rose started forward again. A moment later, the hem of a long skirt appeared under an almost-equally long overcoat.
Rose staggered, as if losing the war against balance. She swung her other foot up, boot clomping down. So that was the problem. Balance, not the opposing pull of supernatural powers. Something must have been wrong with her leg—
As her far foot lifted for another step, Dawn and Buffy stared. Beneath the hem of the long gown, there wasn't a boot, just something long and white, like a cane. Her lower leg bone, no foot attached, strings of dirty flesh hanging off it. The bone came down to meet the floor. A second's pause as she struggled to get her balance, rocking forward, then back as she launched her good foot up and over, then rested her weight on it.
When her face turned toward the sisters they saw Rose's nose was a blackened cavity above another hole that had been her mouth, her teeth bared in a permanent skull-like grimace, her lips gone. Bloodied bone shone through her chin and cheekbones.
The sisters pulled back before she saw them, but Dawn moved too fast, and her elbow clanged against the file cabinet. The sound rang out as loud as a gong.
Buffy bit off a curse. Rose now knew someone was there. Rose let out something between a roar and a squeal, and started thumping in Dawn's direction. Dawn wheeled out from behind the cabinet, and she flew at Dawn, hands up, hooked into claws—bone claws, most of the flesh gone, half of her fingers missing. Dawn veered out of her path, but she kept coming, lurching and lunging, faster than Buffy and Dawn would have thought possible.
Buffy came up behind Rose and spun the zombie around hitting the bottom of her arm with an uppercut. Her arm flew up with the blow, and then fell limply to her side. Yet she kept coming, her good arm clawing at Buffy.
As the sisters dodged her blows, her limp arm seemed to be slipping…sliding from the sleeve. Was she falling apart. Had Buffy knocked the arm loose? How were they going to keep her intact and still take her down.
"Rose!" Dawn yelled.
Rose didn't stop coming, stumping forward, good arm clawing the air. When Dawn called again, her gaze met Dawn's, telling me the sisters she was still capable of hearing and processing words.
Dawn and Buffy let her get less than a foot away, and then scampered to the other side of the room, leaving her yowling in rage.
"We can keep this up all night, Rose," Buffy said. "You can't get us and you know it."
She only snarled and flung herself toward them. Buffy and Dawn sidestepped past her. Just walked. Once across the room, they perched on the side of an old metal desk, as if making themselves comfortable.
"We can give you what you want, Rose," Dawn said.
Her lipless mouth opened. Her words came out garbled, but Buffy and Dawn could make them out. "Good. Then come 'ere."
"Still got a sense of humor? Pretty soon it'll be all you have—" Buffy said.
She lunged. Buffy pulled her foot back, caught her in the stomach and shoved as hard as she dared, knocking her to the floor. She didn't rest for even a second, just struggled to rise on her good leg. As her body jerked with the effort, her severed arm slid to the floor. Seeing it, she let out a howl of rage and frustration.
"I didn't mean to do that," Buffy said. "If you can still think as clearly as we believe you can, you know that was an accident. We have no interest in making things any worse for you than they are. All we want is to get Matthew Hull."
Her eyes rolled up to the sisters and they knew she recognized the name. Had there been an inkling of doubt in her mind that he was the controller, it evaporated. She stared up at them, unblinking.
"What has he promised you if you catch me?" Dawn asked.
"That it'll stop," she mumbled.
"So, you can die in peace," Buffy said.
Her body went rigid. "No. Not—can't die. I'll go to 'Ell." She shuddered. "This is better. Close the gate. No more … it'll stop."
"The rotting you mean," Buffy said.
"It'll 'eal."
"Heal? Is that what he told you? Maybe so, but is he planning to regrow all those parts you've lost? Your foot? Your lips? Arm? Nose? Eyelids? What you really want is peace, isn't it? To die and go someplace peaceful, where you'll be whole again. Buffy and I can make sure that happens," Dawn said.
She made a hiccuping noise that, after a moment, that Buffy and Dawn realized was laughter.
"You don't believe us?" Buffy asked. "We have someone here who can help. The one who summoned you. She can make sure you cross over."
"And go straight to bleedin' 'Ell," she snarled. "After all I've done, where else would I go?"
She had a point. Then the sisters remembered Jaime talking earlier about Eve…
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Buffy said. "I can't tell you what's on the other side. No one can. But there's more redemption than vengeance. I'd say you have a shot at some peace in the next life. Especially if you finish this one doing some good. My daughter's adopted mother can tell you all about that. She went there."
"She's right," said a voice behind the sisters. "I don't know what's over there either, but I know plenty of spirits who expected to end up someplace far worse than they did."
Jaime stepped forward. Her gaze lit on Rose and if she felt any revulsion or horror, none of that showed. Not even pity. She just walked over to stand beside me.
"Just lead us to Hull, and we'll take it from there," Dawn said. "You'll be free."
Rose looked at them with her horrible lidless eyes.
"You don't still feel some obligation to him, do you? Maybe you did, when you first realized he'd given you a shot at another life, but I hope you don't forget he ended your first one. You're a servant. A zombie slave, put in that portal to serve him. And serve him you have, haven't you? He used you up, and let you die, and die again—and still threw you into our path. Who cared if you fell to pieces? He had a backup. A man. You don't see him rotting this badly, do you? Did you think that was just luck?" Dawn said.
"Will you kill 'im?" she asked. "The wizard or whatever 'e is?"
"That's the surest way to close the portal. And something tells me Hull isn't going to get one of those 'get out of Hell free' cards," Buffy said.
Her face contorted in a hideous smile. "Good."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
"Gettin' close," Rose mumbled an hour later, as they cut through a narrow service lane between buildings.
"Watch—" Jaime said, waving at a swath of broken glass.
Buffy and Dawn steered Rose out of the way of the glass, resisting the urge to shudder as her bone fingers clamped into their sides. Their arms were hooked around her and her good arm was around Dawn's torso, which made her trip a little easier, and theirs a little less so.
They'd hobbled two-thirds of the way down the long lane when that broken glass crunched behind them. They tensed, but forced themselves to keep moving. Jaime slanted a "What's up?" look my way.
"My back," Dawn said. "The baby…Hunching over like this…Could you maybe take a spell?"
"Sure," she said.
As Buffy and Dawn disengaged from Rose, they tried to get a look behind them.
"You okay, Dawn?" Jaime said.
As Dawn made a show of stretching her back, Buffy said for good measure. "Now Dawn didn't I tell you this was what it was going to be like once you got pregnant?"
Dawn looked at Buffy and then nodded and waved them on. Stop too long, and whoever was following them would know they'd heard him. Buffy and Dawn listened and sniffed, but both senses were useless. After an hour of walking beside Rose, they could fall face-first into one of these trash bins and still smell nothing.
If they turned around, their pursuer would know he'd been spotted. Even a second excuse to stop would tip him off. Or would it?
Buffy and Dawn moved up beside Jaime. "I have to go," Dawn said.
She frowned at Dawn. "Where?"
Dawn pressed a hand to the bottom of her belly. "My bladder. It—"
"Ah." She gave a small laugh. "We interrupt this life-or-death situation for a pregnancy pee break. Don't see that in the movies, do you?" She looked around. "I can't remember the closest restaurant, but we can go back—"
"No time. Just … keep walking. Buffy and I'll catch up," Dawn said.
"Ah. Okay, then. Do you need tissue?"
"If you have some," Buffy said.
As she dug for tissue, the sisters surveyed the lane, but whoever was following them must have taken cover. When Jaime and Rose moved on, Dawn and Buffy took cover of their own, backing into a gap between two stacks of cardboard boxes. They didn't reach their heads, but that was okay. They had an excuse for crouching.
Now all they needed to do was wait for Hull or his zombie to get his butt over here and attack me. Only it wasn't happening. The lane had gone silent.
Finally, Buffy and Dawn heard the faintest shuffle of feet on dirt. Silence fell again. Was he hiding? As the sisters looked around, their gaze snagged on the long fire escape stretching overhead. They lowered a box from the stack on the far side. It was solid and heavy, marked "recycle," probably filled with newspapers or magazines. They laid it on the ground, then stepped on top and grabbed the fire escape. A quick tug to test how well it was affixed to the wall, then Buffy and Dawn pulled themselves up. Not so easy with twins on board.
Once up, the sisters crouched there, listening and looking. Nothing moved in the lane. They shimmied forward, stopping every few inches for a look-and-listen sweep. All stayed silent and still. They'd almost made it to the end when a scent wafted past.
It smelled like…No, that couldn't be.
They looked down to see Nick glaring up at them, arms crossed.
"Does that seem safe to you, Buffy? Crawling on a rusted fire escape?"
"You—you're—" Buffy said.
"Savannah sent me," Nick said. "I was the first to check to see how Dawn was doing. She said you had gone to the bathroom, Buffy. After I heard of your confrontation with Jeremy. I knew that was a lie. I sniffed and realized that Savannah of course wasn't Dawn. So I persuaded her to tell me the plan."
He helped the sisters down. As he brushed them off, they tensed, realizing if Nick was here, that meant—
"Jeremy and Antonio," Buffy said, looking around. "Where are they?"
"Back at the hotel. Hopefully, still busy with Clay. When I left they hadn't checked on you two. Probably don't know you're gone yet."
He took Buffy and Dawn's elbows and led them out into the lane. They balked, knees locking, certain he was about to drag me back to the hotel, but he started heading the way Jaime and Rose had gone.
"How did you find us?" Buffy asked.
"Well good ole Rose didn't make it easy. But under that rot I could just barely smell, you Buffy," Nick said.
"Are you going to take us back?" Dawn asked.
"No," Nick said. "If Clay was awake, this is what he'd want. Well, no, letting you two go after this guy is not what he'd want, but if he could have done it himself, he'd have made the same choice you two did—stopping Hull instead of running—so I guess that's what we should do."
"Nick, I don't want you—" Buffy started.
"Don't, Buffy," Nick said. "I'm pissed off enough that I had to learn of your plan from Savannah. You should have known I would have helped you and Dawn. I don't want to lose our child before its born Buffy. And even I know that Hull won't stop with just Dawn's babies. He'll come after ours as well."
Buffy looked at Dawn who nodded then up at him and smiled. "Thanks."
He nodded, and then waved down the street. "There they are. Let's get moving and find this bastard."
From the look on Jaime's face when Buffy and Dawn arrived with Nick, she was too relieved to question. Probably happy to have someone else on the assault team…someone more capable than a necromancer, two pregnant werewolves and a zombie who was shedding body parts at an alarming rate.
Nick took the burden of Rose, and they carried on.
"Almost there," Rose cackled as she disengaged herself from Nick's arm and fairly scampered toward an alley. " 'e's down there. I can feel 'im now. Right down there."
Buffy paused at the head of the alley. It looked … familiar to her. Halfway down it, she stopped and stared down at the marks in the dry dirt. Footprints showing a brief scuffle. Hers and Savannah's own footprints, plus a second pair. Boots—short black boots. She could see that she and Savannah had been there, only a few days ago with Zoe.
Buffy grabbed Nick's arm. "He's after Zoe," she said. "The bar where she does her business is right down there, remember, around the corner. She must be inside. He's got to be waiting somewhere."
"If he's waiting for her, he won't be expecting us."
Buffy and Dawn nodded.
"Wot are you waiting for?" Rose said. "You—"
Dawn shushed her.
"But 'e's right 'round this corner a ways," she said.
"We need a plan of attack," Buffy said.
"Plan? There are four of you—"
Buffy clapped her hand over Rose's mouth. Her lidless eyes glared at Buffy, but when she pulled her hand back Rose only limped away to lean against the wall.
"Before we get too far with our plan, we should find out exactly where he is," Jaime said.
"You think so, do you?" Nick asked.
Shaking her head, Rose hobbled to the end of the alley. She peeked out, then pulled back. Another mutter. Another check, leaning farther out. Then she came back to them. "I thought 'e was right 'round that corner, but there's an ale 'ouse back there. 'e's inside."
"Inside?" Buffy looked at Nick and Dawn.
They headed up a fire escape. Once inside the second floor. They ended up at a trapdoor over the bar. Prop the door open a crack, crouch down and they had a pretty good view of the patrons below.
Crouching was easier for Buffy and Nick, so he looked through. When he glanced up again, Buffy knew their fears had been confirmed.
"She's there with Hull, isn't she?" Buffy whispered.
He nodded.
"Talking to him?" Dawn asked.
Another nod.
"Not being coerced, not held against her will…" Buffy said, trying not to be surprised. She had known this was possible from the start. Vampires were notorious for stabbing their partners in the back if it helped them.
"What do we do?" Nick whispered.
"Don't fight her unless you have to," Buffy said. "We don't have the weapons to take her out. And it will be too much trouble trying to break a leg off a table to stake her when you're in the middle of a fight. I've done it and come close to being killed myself. I've only met one vampire that has ever had any special powers. Most don't except their fangs. If she gets those into you, she can knock you out. Otherwise—not a threat. We disable her and consider dusting her later."
"I think they're getting ready to leave," Nick said, scrambling up. "Hull's standing and Zoe's talking to the bartender."
"There's only one way out," Buffy said. "Get back into the alley we came in through. Shoo Jaime and Rose someplace safe, then find a spot as far down as you can."
"What about you two?"
"No way Dawn will get down that fire escape fast enough. And I'm not leaving Dawn behind," Buffy said as she prodded him toward the exit, still talking. "There's a window around the corner. We'll watch from there. Don't attack if you don't absolutely have to. We'll follow them for a bit."
He swung through the window onto the fire escape.
Buffy grabbed his shoulder. "If we have to fight Hull, remember what I said. Stay out of sight for a bit. Let us draw his fire, his powers unlike Dawn's are exhaustible. So, we'll wear him down. He won't kill us."
Nick hesitated—Buffy knew he didn't like the idea especially when she was putting herself and their child on the line—but he nodded and left.