Chapter 8
"So, uh…" Buffy began.
Lorne raised a single eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. His orange raw silk suit made a whispering noise with the motion but that was the only sound. He was waiting.
It figured he was going to make this even harder. Buffy offered him a weak grin. "I'm sorry."
As if she'd uttered a spell instead of a simple apology, the demon's face spread into a smile. "So you do have it in you! Apology accepted. Now get your little patootie over to the Narrows. There's a vampire that needs your attention."
Buffy blinked and glanced at Willow before asking, "But…but what about the song?"
"Don't need it. Go. Hurry. Sunrise is coming in an hour and you need to be across town." Lorne gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the door. "I'll meet you at your apartment around noon. We're going to have a bunch of new developments to discuss. Run along now."
"You saw where I live?" she asked suspiciously.
"On the web. Your number is listed. Now go!" He shooed her with his hands. "Go on. Vampire. Nasty, bloodthirsty vampire. Needs your attention. Bye."
Could this meeting have been any weirder? And could he have chased her out the door any quicker? Buffy doubted it. Still, she took the stairs two at a time, Xander and Willow at her heels. After the weirdness of seeing Lorne and all that entailed, doing something simple like slaying a vampire would almost be a relief.
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"Owowowowow."
Dawn made a mental note that not all jaws were made of glass and the Scarecrow's seemed to be harder than most. Her hands ached something fierce. She'd worry about it later. Her concern now was getting out of the sewers and the manhole cover was not cooperating.
Nobody was chasing her. That was the weirdest thing of all. Maybe she'd gotten lucky and Drusilla killed the lot of them. Nah. She'd never get that lucky. Although, the newly-ensouled Drusilla was probably providing one heck of a distraction.
She clambered down the stairs and continued along in the darkness. Those Harry Potter books made it seem so easy. Too bad the spell for an artificial sun required a lot more than simply saying 'Lumos.' The light would have given her away, she consoled herself. Assuming, of course, that someone was following her. Somebody should have been. It couldn't be that easy to escape. Could it?
The tunnels ahead split in two directions and neither one looked particularly appealing. Dawn paused to consider her choices.
Suddenly her vision swam and when it cleared, she was standing on a dock. And just as suddenly, the vision vanished and she was still facing the two tunnels.
Left. She needed to go left.
Trudging forward, Dawn rubbed her temples. Since when did she get visions? Possibly since she was the conduit for Drusilla's soul. Willow would know. Or Giles. Then again, maybe she was breaking totally new ground. Later. She'd figure it out later. Right now, she needed to hurry because the ninja were on their way. She'd seen them on the dock, too.
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"Well, you're a mess, aren't you?"
The Scarecrow groaned as he regained consciousness. How that girl managed to knock him out, he wasn't quite sure, but when he opened his eyes he was sure of one thing. He was hallucinating.
"Get up," his hallucination ordered, nudging him in the side with a foot.
He sat up slowly and catalogued the features of this particular hallucination. Bluish gray skin. Two sets of horns. Pointy ears. Deep set eyes. Satanic beard. And maroon robes. What in his subconscious could possibly have inspired this?
The hallucination snapped its fingers – fingers that ended in sharp, talon-like nails, of course. "Wake up. The blood loss isn't that bad, boy."
Blood loss? Now he remembered. Sometime during Drusilla's outburst, Ra's decided to move his pet Slayer to safer ground, leaving the Scarecrow to fend for himself against the obviously disturbed vampire. Fear toxin, he quickly discovered, didn't work on a creature that didn't need to breathe. The Scarecrow touched his neck lightly and discovered two puncture wounds in his neck. Well, at least the blood loss explained the hallucination.
"I'm sorry I'm late," the hallucination said, smoothing the front of his robes. "There was a little matter to attend to in Pylea and, well, that doesn't matter. I'm here now. What can I do for you?"
"Do?" the Scarecrow echoed.
"Vengeance," the hallucination snapped, irritably. "Come on, I don't have all eternity, boy. Spit it out."
Vengeance?
"You summoned me, remember?" The creature leaned over him. "D'Hoffryn, Lord of Arash Ma'har. Ruler of the vengeance demons. Ring a bell?"
D'Hoffryn. Arash Ma'har. Of course. That was the nonsense that Dawn had spouted and now he was having a hallucination about it. "Yes, I –"
"Good." D'Hoffryn stepped back and narrowed his eyes. "Wait a second. I know you. You're the human that thinks he's a fear demon." He spit on the floor. "That's what I think of fear demons. A few screams and that's it. They don't know how to inflict suffering. You want power boy, you should be a vengeance demon. You want to be a vengeance demon?"
"I'm the Master of Fear –"
"Boy, you haven't seen fear," D'Hoffryn cut him off again. "As for being the master of anything, why, you're mortal. Maybe to the other pathetic humans you're something to fear but to me, you're laughable. I've lived millennia and I've caused suffering the likes of which even your twisted imagination couldn't fathom. Travel your path and see where your paltry abilities get you. And when you're ready to know real power, summon me with this."
A large, gaudy amulet landed next to the Scarecrow.
"I'll be waiting." And with that, D'Hoffryn vanished in a puff of smoke.
The Scarecrow waited to pass out again.
Minutes went by.
The amulet was still there.
Maybe it wasn't a hallucination. And maybe he had a little vengeance to dish out after all…
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The Dixon Docks were quiet, save for the occasional rat.
It would have been interesting if the green-skinned demon had been right, if he really could have predicted the future. Someone with that kind of ability would have been very useful ---
A scream interrupted Batman's train of thought and, on pure instinct he headed in the direction of the sound. He recognized her instantly. Dawn. And she was being chased by two of al Ghul's men.
He could handle two of them. Easily.
Dropping down from the cargo container where he'd been perched, Batman landed squarely on the first ninja and took him out. The second man was alerted and the fight began in earnest.
"Dawn, get to safety," Batman ordered.
He had to give Ra's credit; his men were still well-trained. But Batman's repertoire had expanded considerably since he donned this mask and no matter how well-trained this man was, he was not going to win.
A frightened girl was depending on him.
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"You think he was just trying to get rid of us?" Xander asked.
Buffy shook her head. "If he was just trying to get rid of us, he would have sent us to the Dixon Docks with Batman. Right, Will? I mean, you know him better than we do. What do you think?"
The red-head shrugged. "I don't really know him, know him, you know? I just met him that one time. But Cordy always had nice things to say about him. When she said nice things. Which wasn't often."
Xander chuckled. That was his Cordy. He missed her. And he missed Anya. But at least he wasn't alone. He glanced at his watch. "Sunrise is in half an hour, so if something is going to happen –"
A wail of despair rose up into the night.
"It's now," Xander finished, watching Buffy race off in the direction of the sound. He glanced at Willow. "Think we can get a cab?"
She snorted, shook her head and then sprinted after Buffy.
Xander looked down the street. No cabs in sight. Looked like he was going to get his exercise tonight. Three blocks later, he was gasping for air and found Buffy standing at the mouth of one of Gotham's numerous dark, dirty alleys.
"Stay back," she warned.
"What is it?" Willow asked, out of breath.
Buffy pulled a stake from her backpack. "Drusilla."
At the sound of her name, the vampire moaned and sobbed pitifully.
"She's not attacking," Xander observed. "Usually, she attacks."
"It could be a trap," Willow suggested.
"Nope, it's just Drusilla," Buffy said. She took a cautious step towards the vampire, who lay curled on her side on a cardboard box beside the corpse of a derelict.
"I tried to feed," Drusilla said plaintively. "And it hurts."
"It hurts?" There wasn't a shred of sympathy in Buffy's voice. "Good."
"The soul is making it hurt and my grand-mummy isn't here to make it go away! Make it go away."
Xander blinked. "Soul? She has a soul? Since when? And how come all the bad vampires keep getting souls? Does this mean we can't kill her, Buff?"
Buffy turned to Willow. "Is the telling the truth?"
"She has an aura," Willow said, softly. "Vampires don't normally have those."
"Great." Xander tapped his sneaker-clad foot on the pavement. "We don't have a basement for her to live in. What are we going to do with her? We can't take her back to the apartment."
"I can't kill her," Buffy countered. "As much as I'd like to. As much as she's earned it. She has a soul now and she deserves a chance to redeem herself."
"Which would be fine but she's crazy," Xander pointed out.
Buffy grinned. "That's it."
"What's it?"
She grasped his shoulder and spun him around, pointing. "Arkham. It's right over there."
"But –"
"They deal with delusions all the time. What's one more goth-girl who thinks she's a vampire? They can put her in a dark cell and we can break her out when we have a more secure location for her." Buffy's grin was infectious. "I think this is a job for Willow, don't you?"
The red-head smiled. "Piece of cake. Just give me a few seconds of access to their network and Drusilla will have the nicest padded cell in the place."
Xander glanced at his two friends and wondered if he was the only one who would be grateful to go to work when the sun rose.