The Shield and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

in a crossover FanFiction

Antwon's Fangs

by

Lancer47

aka LancerFourSeven

Chapter Ten

Previously:

Vic stood up, but as he turned to go he asked in a deceptively quiet voice, "And what happened to Peas and 8-Ball out in the fields west of Farmington?"

Kennedy said, "I want my lawyer now."

"Now why would you need a lawyer?" Vic asked.

"I don't have to tell you why, but you have to stop questioning me until she gets here."

"Yeah, if I was planning to use any of this in court. Since I'm not, I can ignore your request. In other words, you're safe, you can admit anything you want to me and rest assured that I can not use it. And you have a Federal Agent to witness this – a first class witness, I think."

Kennedy looked doubtful.

Faith said, "He's right you know. From the point you asked for a lawyer, he can't act on anything you say. And he didn't read you your Miranda warnings – although that does have some exceptions – I believe you're safe enough for now. Although I should point out that I am not a lawyer." Faith looked at Vic with steely eyes. "And Vic, you'd better not fuck with us, because if you do, I guarantee you will regret it."

"Ah, sure," said Vic. Looking at Faith's eyes made Vic feel inadequate, not a typical reaction for him. "Like I said, for both of you, this is just background info, I'll never use it with names attached or in any way that might come back on Kennedy. Seriously."

Faith nodded at him.

"Okay," said Kenn, "yeah, I killed Peas and 8-Ball, but it was unquestionably self-defense. They were assassins sent by Antwon Mitchell to kill me, and they came way too close to succeeding – considering my, uh, skill set."

"Details?"

"I was out patrolling..."

"Patrolling? Patrolling for what?"

"Nothing that concerns you, you just need to know that I was out after dark. Anyway, they must have trailed me from our condo – I was just a few blocks away when I heard a footstep. I didn't think fast enough, I just stood there like a big dumb cow listening to the night when I should have dived for cover – it was maybe the second stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. So anyway I heard a little 'pfffft' noise, and I was wondering what the hell it could be when a damned dart hit my neck. Then the big guy snuck up behind me and hit me over the head with a nightstick. I wasn't completely out of it, but I judged it safer to play unconscious for awhile, at least until I could figure out what they wanted."

"Really?" asked Vic, "shot with a tranq, hit over the head, and you were still awake?"

"Yeah, maybe what they used wasn't that great or out of date or somethin' and I have a hard head."

Faith said, "Yeah, I can attest to her thick skull."

Kennedy glared at Faith for a moment. "So anyway, they bundled me into their SUV and we drove out to that field. When they started down that trail at the end, I was so surprised from the steep tilting of the SUV that I slid forward into the seats and let out a curse. They knew I was awake then, so I attacked them over the seats."

Vic asked, "Didn't they tie you up?"

Kennedy thought, I broke the plastic ties, but said out loud, "No, I guess they thought they had drugged me enough. So you know I'm pretty good with the self-defense stuff, I hit them both several times, the Escalade rolled out of control thirty feet or so and scraped up the right side, smashing into some concrete blocks. I climbed over the seats, pushed the driver, 8-Ball, aside, and was able to back up – Escalade's a nice SUV by the way, and drove out on the field. I pulled them out and waited till they came to."

"Did you think then that they intended to kill you?"

"Shit yeah, I could actually smell dead people there, I could see fresh-dug graves! But I still needed to find out why they hadn't killed me yet. Although, to be frank, I had a pretty good idea what they wanted."

"You were expecting torture and rape, maybe?"

Kennedy looked surprised. "Well, no, I hadn't thought about the rape part. Huh, I wonder why I didn't think of that? No, I just expected to be interrogated with extreme hostility until I died. So I turned the tables. They came to – and you'd better be telling me the truth detective, if you report this convo to your friends you won't like what I do to you!"

"Don't threaten police officers, Kenn," said Faith, "they don't react well to that shit."

"Not a threat, just a warning. Anyway, I didn't do much to my prisoners, just a little bit of applied pressure at sensitive spots. They finally told me they worked for Antwon Mitchell, and he was really fucking pissed off about me charging him for doing business in Farmington. Then they both pulled weapons, I thought I'd disarmed them, but they had backups that I had missed – clearly I wasn't thinking straight. So I shot one with his own gun, then had to throw a knife into the other cuz' the stupid gun was a fully automatic pistol – some Russian piece of crap – and I accidentally emptied the stupid thing it was such a surprise, then I buried 'em, then I drove back into town and left the Escalade on the street with the keys in it." Kennedy elected not to mention she knew very well they had backup weapons, it was her intention to give them every chance to kill her, and kill them first. She shuddered a little as she remembered how close it had been after that insane automatic handgun emptied itself in half a second. She had to leap and roll to dodge bullets that were a lot closer than comfortable and finally pulled her knife loose and threw it into that Peas woman's throat.

Vic shook his head. "You should have called the cops. Self-defense works, and those two had records. We would have believed you."

"I didn't want my name bandied about in public. Daddy would have been annoyed with me."

"Okay, as excuses go that's probably better than most, but you were still wrong not to call us."

"Move on detective," said Faith.

"I got nothing else, except some advice."

"What?" Kenn asked, a little snottily.

"Don't tell any other cops what you did. My colleagues would feel bad about arresting you, but that wouldn't stop 'em from doin' it. Mind you, you probably wouldn't do time, and you'd stand a good chance of being found innocent, but it would be a time wasting and expensive ordeal."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that out." She turned to Faith and asked, "Would you try to find Willow?"

Faith smiled gently, "Yeah, I can do that much for ya."

"And both of, will you please keep an eye out for George, Jr.?"

The nameless man sat by himself in the yard at the city jail. He was a careful man, his eyes continuously swept his surroundings, he was always aware of everything around him. He analyzed everything he could see with a process so ingrained and so automatic that he was hardly aware of doing it. So when he saw a large man approach him from the side, he immediately stood up and said flatly, "Watcha want fella."

"Nuttin, nuttin, just shoot the breeze, thas' all."

"Not interested, go fuck with someone else."

The large prisoner shrugged and turned away. The nameless one watched, then turned slightly to continue his survey. Somehow, while he had been occupied with one possible danger, another prisoner had approached him from his blind side. He started to change his stance to attack the newcomer – but it was too late. The second prisoner slipped a homemade shiv six inches into his liver. He let go, leaving the sharpened toothbrush in the soon to be dead body, and went on his way, relaxed, in no hurry.

But, as it sometimes happened, one of the tower guards had watched this little drama, and immediately hit his emergency button. The yard was locked down, and the hitter was identified.

Faith wandered around the hospital until she found Willow sitting on the loading docks at the back, staring off into space, sniffling.

"Hey Wills," said Faith as she sat down beside her, "it ain't whatcha thinkin'."

"W, w, what do you mean? My girlfriend has taken up armed robbery, what more can you say about it? But why did she do it?"

"Did she ever tell you about her friend George Johnson, Jr.?"

"Umm, I remember something, yeah, I guess she told me about him, but it's been awhile."

"Yeah, well see young George, who is one of her few friends from back home, and his dad moved here, somewhere near here anyway, and young George got into the drug scene. Eventually he went too far, his dad had enough and kicked him out of the house, and now he's disappeared. So Kennedy has been charging a fee to the bigger drug dealers and stuffing the money into church charity boxes just to fuck with the druggies any way she could."

"Really?" said Willow, "do you expect me to believe that? It sounds like a load of horse manure."

"I think it's real."

"So why did she keep it a secret?"

"Come on Will, you know why, look how you're acting right now, like you're riding off into the sunset on your high horse."

"What?"

"You're looking down on Kenn right now, seriously."

"Oh, yeah, well, okay. So you think Kenn's actions were acceptable?"

"Yes, a little dangerous, a little close to the line, but acceptable. I've done worse and so have you."

Willow hung her head. "Yeah, I really don't have room to talk, do I?"

"So go back and comfort your girl, you really hurt her when you ran out of the room without giving her a chance to defend herself. And I'll go look up the police report on George Johnson and see what I can do to bring a little peace to this part of the world."

Willow waved at Faith and gave her a wan smile. Then she headed back up to Kennedy's room. She already knew she'd forgive her, but she had no intention of making it easy on Kenn because robbing drug dealers with a reputation for violence that was extreme even for drug dealers was one of the stupidest things Willow had ever heard of.

Detective's Wagenbach and Wyms caught Captain Rawlings eye. She nodded at them to come over to her desk.

"Captain," said Dutch, "we just got a report from the jail, it seems our mystery man was stabbed with a home-made shiv. He was stabbed in the liver, they got him to the infirmary, but he didn't make it."

"Just great. Did those useless guards at least get the killer?"

"Yes they did. It was an inmate named William Barstow, known on the streets as 'Butch'. He's in Antwon Mitchell's gang."

Rawlings raised her eyebrows. "Mitchell, really? So our unarmed combat instructor got crossways with Antwon? What'd she do to deserve that?"

"We don't know, yet," replied Wyms, "but we're on our way to the hospital to interview Ms. Kennedy again."

"Go, go," said Rawlings, "but ask her nicely, she's a victim, not a suspect."

"Yeah, but targets of Antwon Mitchell are rarely innocent people."

"If you find anything like that, then, well, we may have to change our attitude. But for now, she's an innocent."

"Sure thing Cap."

Over the next week Faith noticed the police captain fucking over the DEA in the matter of Antwon Mitchel. The Feds had Antwon all ready to spill his guts in exchange for immunity, but the cops were so bitter about him getting away with a cop-killing they worked hard to screw up the entire deal in order to put Antwon in prison.

Faith stayed away from it all, not seeing an upside to getting involved with other Federal agents – she couldn't see that leading to anything she wanted. But later in the week she found herself in another ride-along with the cops. They were on their way to the DEA's safe-house to pick up Antwon and deliver him to the court where his plea agreement was going to be vacated.

When the police driver pulled up in front of the safe house, Captain Rawlings was immediately embroiled in an argument with the DEA. They were majorly pissed off with her. The argument went on so long and hard the sun was setting before it was over. But Faith wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't some large repercussion, she wasn't certain the Captain would be able to keep her job after this. But for now, she had won.

Rawlings said, "Officers, with me. Let's get our cop-killer where he belongs." They started up the sidewalk.

Faith was surprised when a sick sensation started stirring in her stomach, Oh shit, she thought, fucking vampires! What the hell can I do about it here? In front of all these fucking cops!? She followed her instinct, which meant following the police up the sidewalk into the house; no one noticed she didn't really belong there, or if anyone did notice, they didn't say anything.

The house had been modified to the DEA's specifications. The front room had a long counter set up against an inner wall with a window – obviously reinforced one-way glass – that looked into a reasonably well appointed room with heavy duty locks on the doors. A comfortable holding cell. But the two agents who had been on duty were on the floor, their necks slashed, blood pooling horribly around them. Faith took one look and kicked the inner door open, scattering chunks of the lock and shards of wood through the room. But she was too late for Antwon, he too lay on the floor with two holes in his neck and not as much blood as one would expect. Faith backed out, ignored all the cops who were trying to make sense of the scene, turned down the hall, and saw a figure at the back door.

She leaped after the vampire, who twisted violently to face her. Faith recognized the vamp from the mug books she'd looked at in the station. Antwon Mitchell's own sister. Huh, Faith thought, wonder what took her so long to kill her brother? Faith whipped a stake from her sleeve and threw it down the corridor – it hit the vamps cold heart dead-on and there was nothing but dust in the hall. But Faith continued running. She yelled over her shoulder, "She's getting away! Surround the house!"

She hit the back door hard, smashing it open so it slammed against the house. She jumped down to the back yard and pounded across the grass into the alley. She stopped in counterfeit confusion, looking both ways, waiting for cops and agents to catch up. They did, just moments later.

Faith said, "I didn't see which way she went!"

"Could you tell who it was?"

"Not really, but she looked kinda familiar. I might have seen her photo in your mug-books back at the station."

The police swarmed the neighborhood, but they never found any sign of their perp.

The DEA agent in charge was infuriated but grim as stomped towards the group of confused police. He had been planning to scream imprecations at Captain Rawlings, and file charges against her, but he had to clamp his mouth shut. It just hit him that he had nothing at all against the Captain, nothing against the police, and the fuckups responsible for this fiasco were not only dead, but they'd been his own men. Shit, he thought, this is not going to look good and I can't even spread the blame. What a fucking disaster!

"Hey Lehane!" shouted Vic Mackey, "ya wanna ride with us to Antoine Mitchell's headquarters?"

"Sure, let's go. Rawlings is gonna be tied up with the fuckin' DEA and this fucked up crime scene for longer than I wanna stick around."

She got in the back seat of Vic's car and said hello to Lemansky who was riding shotgun.

Vic said over his shoulder as he casually spun the car around, "I figure there's gotta be plenty of evidence back at his main hideout, we get there before the DEA and grab it all for Farmington, make us look good. And you don't give a shit about local shit, and you're a good witness."

"Witness to what?"

"To make sure we haven't run off with any of the more valuable evidence."

"Ah, yes, you guys do have a reputation that smells a bit off."

"Hey!" said Lem, "that's not fair, we've brought in a lot of bad guys!"

"But you have a higher than average number of cases thrown out in court. And some of the bosses don't like you guys, and some of what you do is questionable."

"Yeah," said Vic, "that's fair, but ya gotta fight fire with fire, ya know?"

"Well my record isn't exactly spotless, so I won't give you guys any more shit about it. But don't let me catch you going outside the law, it'd pain me to hafta arrest you guys, and I warn you, my cases don't get dismissed." She decided not to mention that the reason she had so few dismissals on her record was because her targets were mostly dust before they could get arrested.

"Deal," said Vic.

What with LA evening traffic, it took more than an hour before they finally pulled up to Mitchell's place. As they got out, Faith immediately noticed the stench of vampires, and dead bodies. She didn't say anything until they walked up to the door and finally Vic sniffed the air suspiciously. Faith looked at him. "Yeah," she said, "smells like dead bodies."

Lem said, "Kick the door, law's on our side this time."

Faith looked at Lem oddly. "When is the law not on your side?"

"Ah, well, you know, when fuckin' reporters crawls up our backsides just because some gangster in our custody dies all sudden-like."

"Uh-uh, that's real convincing. You work on your excuses while I check this out."

"Hey, no way are you gonna take our bust! WE go first!"

Faith shook her head in irritation. "We go together boys. And anyway, I don't give a shit about the credit on this one – it's all yours as far I'm concerned."

Vic broke down the door and yelled "POLICE" as they walked in. Three young women on a ratty couch didn't even look up they were so strung out. Two men started to grab for guns, but thought better of it when they saw who had busted their door.

Vic said, "Don't even think about it, boys, we gotcha outnumbered."

"Were the fuck is that dead smell coming from?" Faith asked.

The gang members looked a little weirded out as they pointed down the hall. "Last door," said one who looked a little less strung out than his buddies.

Faith went down the hall and into a big storage room before the others. She shouted, "Police!" to the room and bent down to check the people lying on the floor.

Vic looked in the door – he was very nearly sick at the sight of seven emaciated captives strung up on a metal rack. He yelled back over his shoulder, "Lem! Call the squad, call for ambulances! Call crime scene!"

Faith got up and shook her head at Vic. As she started looking for tools to release the teens strung up on the metal rack, Vic was astonished to see one of the 'dead' people start to move.

George was also horrified to see the guy, or whatever the hell it was because it suddenly had fangs and a bumpy forehead, start to get up behind Faith. He tried to scream a warning, but wasn't able to because he couldn't get his throat to cooperate. He'd had entirely too much physical abuse the last few days. But he could twist the broken bolt off the brace that his right handcuff was hooked to. He whipped his suddenly free hand downward, the cuff and brace slashed across the back of the rising vampire. The vamp let out a blood-curdling scream and Faith whipped around and kicked his sternum, followed by jumping on his back with both knees and her full weight. Vic and Lem both groaned in appreciation of the move, and were startled when she twisted his neck.

Faith didn't know what to do. Staking a vampire prisoner in front of cops, even dirty cops, wasn't something she could do without major complications. But she didn't have a choice – she couldn't very well arrest a vampire. She could just imagine what might happen in the interview room with say, Dutch and Wyms interviewing the vampire without having any idea they were in danger. Damn this was complicated, but what the hell could she do?

She bent down and whispered in the vamps ear as she broke his neck, "Play dead, and I'll help you escape from the mortuary."

He whispered back, "Fuck off an' die slayer, get me to the morgue and I'll get out on my own."

"Sure, fine by me."

"Sorry fellas," said Faith as she stood up, "when I took him down he musta hit his head and twisted it by accident like. Seems he's dead."

Vic and Lem were skeptical, it sure looked like she'd deliberately broke that guys neck, but neither one voiced the thought.

"Hey," said Vic, "he attacked you from behind, we both saw it. It wasn't deliberate."

Even though it seemed like the bulk of the Farmington police were trying to make sense of the crime scene at the DEA's house of horror, and simultaneously hounding the DEA, there were still enough left to populate Mitchel's headquarters with crowds of cops and technicians, along with an ADA crowding Faith. It seemed she had been transformed into another busy-body federal agent and all of Farmington's officials were more than ready to heap abuse on her.

Faith stalked out the door, with a girl ADA on her back like a leech. Faith exclaimed, "Fuck this shit! I'm outta here, I'll give you a statement tomorrow morning." She turned to leap on her bike, and remembered she'd rode here with the cops. 'Fuck' she thought. "Hey Vic, I need a ride!"

"So call somebody, I can't leave the scene anytime soon."

'Shit, shit, shit!' She finally called Buffy.

Buffy didn't like her rented Taurus, so she left it at the hospital for Willow and found somebody who'd rent her a Corvette. She really wanted to drive a Ferrari, and she had found people who would rent her one, but even with her new salary and bonuses, the cost was too absurd to justify.

As they roared away from the crime scene in a yellow Corvette Z16, Buffy asked, "So, what's the what? Is everything cool, or do we have to apply pressure to keep the lid on?"

"We're cool," Faith replied, "I think. There was one vamp that surprised me in front of cops and witnesses so I broke it's fucking neck and convinced it to play dead until I can help him 'escape' from the morgue."

"Yeah? You think that'll work?"

"Should, after all vamps don't like publicity any more than slayers. This way he'll get a ride in body bag so he won't be makin' any flashy impressions by bursting into dust in the sunlight in front of a bunch of shocked cops. But I'm pretty sure his broken neck will heal in a few hours, so we have to get to the morgue at the right time so he don't eat any docs."

"That would be good."

"And stake him without witnesses this time."

"That would be good, too," Buffy said as she downshifted, hit the gas and oversteered her way around a curve to a showy powerslide to keep from being flattened by a semi.

"God I love this car!"

"Yeah," said Faith. "it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun to slow down and stay in your lane."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Hey, we're slayers, girlfriend. If I don't get enough slays I gotta do something to keep the edge, ya know?"

"Actually, I think I've been a bad influence on you."

"That wouldn't exactly surprise me, or Giles for that matter."

Kennedy looked up from her current book in irritation at this new interruption. "Detectives Wyms and Wagenbach, what do you want now?"

"Hello Ms Kennedy, how are you feeling today?"

"Just peachy. So again, what do you want?"

"Just to talk."

"Uh huh. So sit."

"Thanks. Look, we made a little progress in your case. The guy who shot you…"

"He's dead, I know already."

"...yeah, but the guy who apparently hired him, he's the guy we're interested in. and he was a complete unknown. We were unable to identify him, fingerprints, clothing, personal affects, everything went down a dead end."

"What about DNA?"

"That may eventually do the trick, but it will be a few more weeks before the analysis is complete. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work as fast as TV shows."

"Yeah, okay. So why are you here?"

"Well, there was a development down at the local jail. It seems someone really didn't like this guy and they stabbed him. So he's dead too. In a bit of good luck, one of the guards saw it go down and they arrested the stabber. And he turned out to be…"

Dutch paused for a long moment, and when it became obvious that there would be no interruption from Kenn, he finally continued, "...one of Antwon Mitchell's soldiers."

"So we naturally wondered what you had done to piss-off Antwon Mitchell," said Wyms.

"So why don't you ask Antwon?"

"Yeah, there's problem there, see…"

"Oh don't tell me, Antwon's dead too?" asked Kennedy.

Wyms reluctantly confirmed.

"I never met Antwon Mitchell, though I have heard of him, nothing good as it happens. But I don't have any idea what I could have done to make him angry."

Wyms and Wagenbach spent another thirty minutes going over it with Kennedy. They tried many questions, from many different angles, but in the end, Kennedy said nothing that suggested anything else.

"If you can think of anything, give us a call."

"Sure, you betcha, you're on my speed dial."

"Hey Cap'n," said one the CSI technicians, "one of your officers decided to help out the office supply fund by 'borrowing' some copy paper from the crime scene, ya know, the warehouse where we found two hundred kilos of 'H'."

Rawlings frowned. "So who was it?"

"Unless something changes, that's not our primary concern – what's important is they found something critical in some of the packages, and called me."

Rawlings shook her head. "All right, all right, what'ja find?"

"Somebody disguised two kilos of heroin as two reams of 11x17 paper."

"Crap! Any evidence as to who hid it?"

"No. Except that your man, Vic Mackey, was at the scene late in the day a couple days ago. No one thought it important, until now."

"Why was he there?"

"He said he was looking for inspiration."

"That sounds innocent as all hell. Did you find anything in the evidence to suggest…?"

"No. Well, one thing. There's the remains of the powder that sometimes comes off evidence gloves. That doesn't point to anyone in particular, except it suggests that this was the work of one of ours."

Rawlings shook her head again. "I really don't need this now. Okay, there's not much we can do without proof, so just log it into evidence as discovered at the scene. You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

"No Captain, it was discovered at the scene, after all. Just not by the techs who should have discovered it."

As the technician walked away, Rawlings glared at the door to Vic's club house in disgust. She was majorly irritated, but she had nothing but suspicion. That wouldn't be good enough to start an investigation into the Task Force. That is, yet another investigation.

Faith walked into the Farmington cop shop and made a beeline towards Captain Rawlings desk.

"Hey cap'n, I just came by to say goodbye."

"You're heading back to Washington already?" asked Captain Rawlings.

"Yeah, I think this case has been about as resolved as it's gonna get. The only viable suspects are dead, and the person that Justice is concerned about is healthy again, so I don't see what else anyone can do."

Rawlings frowned. "But there are some loose ends…"

"What, you think Kennedy was trying to take over Antwon's territory? If so, you're barking up the wrong tree. I suspect the she accidentally pissed him off, how I don't know, maybe she stepped on his shoe at a store, or cut him off, or something similar. We may never know, hell she probably doesn't know what she did to get Antwon's attention. And besides, we might be jumping to conclusions – that shooter may have targeted the wrong person, maybe that's why Antwon had him killed. Hell, he might have been working for someone else entirely, we really don't know. So, like I said, I thinks it's a done deal and we'll never know any more, so Justice will get my report and if they don't like it the buck stops with me."

The Captain thought for a moment before replying, "I really hate these kinds of cases, but you're right I guess. Although we will continue trying to identify our unknown, and we will continue to question everyone. But I too suspect this is all we'll get."

"But hey, look at the bright side," said Faith, "you got all sorts of good publicity rescuing those druggies from whatever insan-o shit was going down in Antwon's warehouse. And it looks like the DEA isn't going to rake you over the coals for invalidating their immunity deal with Antwon, and you got a major drug bust – I mean recovering two hundred and two kilos of uncut drugs has got to make you look good, right? And neither the Justice Department nor me is going to give you any grief about, well, anything. So it's all good, right?"

Rawlings smiled, "Yes, the headlines look good for the Farmington Police, and even though I can't put Vic and his gang behind bars yet, I may be a little closer. So, goodbye Special Agent Lehane, and good luck."

Faith said, "Thank's cap." She turned to leave, but detoured to the Task Force clubhouse.

Vic and Lemansky looked up guiltily when Faith kicked the door open and slammed it shut behind her.

"Hey Mackey, how's it hanging?"

He frowned and said nothing.

Faith continued blithely, "So I hear you guys recovered a couple more kilos from that warehouse. That's gotta be an additional feather in Rawlings hat, right?"

Vic still said nothing, but the blood vessels in his temples started pulsating visibly.

"And I still have your agreement about Kennedy's little faux pas, right?"

Vic nodded yes, Lemansky looked puzzled.

"So, it's all good, and I'm headed back to Washington. See ya later guys!"

Epilogue I

"Shit," whispered Faith, "when the fuck are these guys gonna quit and go home?"

Buffy whispered back, "Who knows, it wouldn't surprise me if the morgue for LA is open twenty-fours hours. I mean, they do have quite a large number of deaths every day in LA, and this is clearly a busy place."

They were hiding in an equipment closet down the hall from the glass doors to the autopsy room. It was clearly designed so people could easily observe from outside the room, and the public wasn't allowed in this corridor. Buffy hoped this was a little used closet.

"We're gonna hafta create a diversion, get these guys out," said Buffy.

"You suppose they evacuate the corpses if there's a fire? Or a fire alarm?"

"Hmm, that's a good question. I could see it going either way, you know, chain of custody and all vs getting the hell out of dodge before getting burnt to a crisp."

"This place has a shitload of sprinklers, and it's built out of concrete blocks. They might not worry that much about the dead, plus there's a ton of cameras all over."

"We should've planned this a little better."

"Yeah, but you were having too much fun seeing what the Corvette would do when you really pushed it, and I was kept busy wondering whether the air bags would work when the car was sliding sideways and tightened my seatbelt some more. There wasn't that much time left to plan ahead."

"When did you become such a wuss?"

"I don't like it when I'm not driving."

"Ah, me too. That's why the rental agreement lists no one but 'Buffy Summers'."

"Figures."

"Only thing left is to call Willow."

"You think she and Kenn finished their make-up sex-a-thon yet?"

Buffy sighed. "I'm getting an itchy feeling about that vamp of yours. We're just gonna have to interrupt them."

"You mean you're gonna have to interrupt them. Leave me out."

"So you have an alternate plan?"

"I'll put on a lab coat, walk in there pushing a gurney, pull that sucker out of the freezer and wheel him away."

"And when the pathologist – the one in there with a big scalpel in one hand and an electric circular saw in the other – asks you where you're taking the evidence before it's been autopsied, what will you say?" Buffy asked curiously.

"Ummm, I don't know, I'll think of something."

"Yeah, good ol' jump in without looking first Faith."

"Maybe let's think of something then."

"I'm calling Willow, see if she can magic the vamp out of the freezer directly into the sunlight."

"Why didn't we think of that earlier?"

"Too much fun in the 'Vette?" said Buffy with a big smile.

Epilogue II

An angry group of cops, made up of the Anti-Gang Task Force and a couple of carloads of uniformed officers, were just finishing a search of 'Gunny' Washington's house and grounds. Vic came over to Gunny and said, "I don't know where ya hid what we're lookin' for, but I won't stop looking. Maybe we didn't find anything today, but I know you supply guns and maybe more to low-life creeps." He bent down and put on his fiercest glare. "Your going to go down, fucker, maybe sooner, maybe later, but you will go down!" Vic stomped off to his car with all the other cops.

Brick watched the detectives drive off. "Fuck me man, that was close!"

Gunny shook his head. "Nah, they weren't never gonna find the stash, they couldn't start digging in the right place less'n they had inside info and that could only come from you or me, and that ain't happenin'."

"Ohhhh no Gunny, no way I ever say shit to the fuckin' po-po." Brick paused for reflection. Finally he asked, "So what the fuck are we gonna do with that case of hand grenades?"

"Fuck me sideways if I know. I can't very well send 'em back for a refund now, can I? And who the hell needs fuckin' grenades?" He let out a long and deeply dissatisfied sigh. "Maybe I can sell 'em to Ninth Street, or Biz-Lats, or those Columbians or someone."*

The End

*See Season Five of the Shield for the final disposition of the grenades.