Rebuilding
Ch 24 – Vanessa Strikes
Spike awoke after six in the evening and listened to the house noises for a moment. Tara, Xander and Giles were downstairs, a radio playing and they were laughing over what sounded like a game of cards. He didn't hear Willow among them. Frowning as he got up and started to put on his jeans, he also didn't hear anything from Dawn.
In his mind he was already guestimating when the sunset would be, figuring he had about ninety minutes or so. It was one of those innate abilities of a vampire. Something that he could just feel in his bones. Even if he couldn't judge the disc's position in the sky through a bedroom window. Once he'd gotten his boots on, he went downstairs and saw the three he'd heard playing a game of Crazy 8's.
"Hey, Spike," Xan got up and gave him a peck on the cheek.
"Where's Dawn," was his immediate response.
"I don't know. She wasn't here when we got back."
"What?! I told her not to run off… I specifically said so!"
"Relax Spike," Tara told him over the table, "It's still sunny for another hour at least. I'm sure she'll be home before nightfall."
"Not the point," he insisted. "That girl is gettin' more obstinate by the day."
"Remind you of anyone," Giles threw out under his breath, but loud enough to be easily heard.
"I can take care of myself," Spike told him snottily. "The runt is liable to get herself hurt or killed. God-damn it, anyway!"
"Relax, Babe. She's probably at the old mall. I'll take a spin over there and see if I can find her. You can kick her ass when we get back."
"Honestly, you're both going to cause her to rebel more," Giles said.
"You're only saying that because you're winning. You just don't want us to interrupt the game," Xander smirked.
"Well, that too. But it doesn't negate my statement. Buffy didn't react well to my breathing down the back of her neck and Dawn is very much like her sister."
"Go get her Xander, but if you can't find her I want you back by dark. You hearing me," Spike grumbled.
"I need to start dinner anyway," Tara said as she gathered up the cards. "Would you like to stay Giles?"
"That would be lovely. How can I help?"
"Follow me," she smiled, "I'll find something to put you to work doing."
As the two of them exited to the kitchen Xander grabbed up his jacket. Spike followed him to the front door and gave him a very quick kiss on the mouth.
"I meant what I said. Be back before dark. Vanessa is out there somewhere. In the meantime, I'm looking for Dawn's phone book and calling her friends. I'll call your cell if I find her first."
"Spike… relax. She knows the story around the Hellmouth. She'll be inside before twilight," Xander said on his way out of the door.
Spike watched after him, glaring at the sunlight which seemed to be nearly a constant in California. His Bit was out there somewhere in a town where evil stalked at all hours and now his lover was out there, too. Both of them beyond his protection and both not taking the dangers seriously even after all their time living here.
He began to pace the shadow-protected front porch and smoking furiously.
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Dawn hadn't expected to be gone all day. She'd just gotten wrapped up in Jan's excitement at the newly opened "Hot Topic". And then there was the double-feature that the matinee was showing, 'Jaws' and 'Jaws II' which sort of made them run a bit late.
So, Spike will bitch and moan a little. It's not like I'm a little girl anymore and besides, he's not my dad. I don't have any more parents. I can do what I want, Dawn thought to herself as her and Jan headed down the escalator to the basement shops. She wanted to check out 'Teen Miss' for possible dresses for the first dance when they got back to school.
Assuming I don't drop out, which I probably will, anyway, she nodded to herself. The only thing that didn't make it a sure bet was that she really, really wanted to dance with RJ. If she could find a really knock out dress, then maybe she'd stay in school just long enough to go to the first dance in October. At least, if I can get through summer school, she pouted.
Besides, she'd been so relieved that Jan even wanted to go to the movies. It seemed that her 'aunts' spell to wipe her memory really did its job. She hadn't even hesitated to line up for the movies, even after their last disastrous trip to the mall.
Ahead of her, Jan was animatedly going on about Spike and how hot he was and how it wasn't fair that he was gay and how she loves the way he smells and how her sister should totally be dating him and on and on. Sometimes, Dawn wondered if Jan wasn't at least part demon with the power to talk without taking a breath once in a while. And it wasn't like she was blind to Spike's extreme attractiveness, but she didn't want to think about it. It was too close to lusting after a family member. Her little crush on Xander was easier for her to deal with since she didn't get lusty feelings whenever he walked in the room, which was sometimes the case still with Spike. She kind of wished that Jan would quit reminding her about how studly Spike could be.
She sent Jan ahead of her to the dress shop while she detoured to the ladies' room. She didn't think anything of it when someone else came in while she was in the stall.
When she'd completed her business, she began to scrub her hands at the sink. Almost immediately another woman left the stall that she had been occupying. She was dressed all in black with dark, dramatic make-up. She was probably in her early twenties and was definitely a Goth.
Dawn gave her a glance and a polite nod in the bathroom mirror and though she didn't admit it to herself, she was relieved to see a reflection from the other woman. Something felt odd to her but she couldn't figure out what and she tried to tell herself to stop letting her imagination run away with her.
Sometimes two women in the bathroom is just two women in the bathroom, she scolded herself.
As she was turning to head to the towel dispenser, the woman spoke to her.
"Aren't you Dawn Summers," she asked.
Dawn turned around to look at the girl again, and again, something about this whole encounter was putting her on edge. And again, she ignored her inner voice as being paranoid.
"Uh, y-yeah… do I know you," she asked doubtfully. "Are you in the high school?"
"Oh, no," the girl laughed, which sounded phony to Dawn. "I know your sister, Buffy. Well, not actually know-know her, but uh, you know… she 'helped' me out once," she said meaningfully.
"Oh" Dawn brightened, "I see. Yeah, my sis has a habit of, uh, helping others. Uh, how?"
"Oh, it was just this thing I got involved in. Me and this group was into vampire worship… we sort of had this insane 'Anne Rice' fetish," the girl shrugged with an embarrassed grin as she stepped closer.
"Well, I'm glad she was able to 'help' you," Dawn said. "I'm afraid it's not like in the romance novels."
"Yeah… but you know, a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do," the Goth girl said.
She'd said it so intensely that Dawn was immediately on edge again. Dawn nervously smiled, "Well, uh, I have a friend waiting on me just outside, so…."
"Oh, you mean the bubble-head that's already gone into the dress shop," she said menacingly.
"Uh…," Dawn decided to end this conversation, but when she began to back away, the girl rushed forward and grabbed her.
"H-Hey! Stop it," Dawn squealed as she struggled, but the girl slapped her hard to the face sending her against the sinks.
Before she could do anything else, even scream, she felt the deep pinch of a needle into her arm. Almost immediately the room began to sway and the lighting in the bathroom seemed to go dim.
Just as she began to lose consciousness, the girl told her, "Sorry, kid. But I've found somebody else to make me one of the immortal ones and her price was you."
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Melinda had been watching the Summers' house since noon and was relieved to see her leave, alone at sometime around one. She'd watched as the stupid girl knocked on the door across the street and been worried that they'd be spending the day in. She'd been wanting to be a vampire since she and the rest of the outcasts had discovered from the Ford guy that they could really be immortal. Buffy had completely ruined that whole thing… okay, so the vampires were less Lestat and more 'scary-bumpy-heads', but that was only part-time. And, yes, you had to be careful about offering your neck… not every one of them knew how to honor a deal, but she felt good about this Vanessa-being she'd met the other night. Of course, she was supposed to be just another meal, but when Melinda explained that she wanted to join her in the darkness and offered to do whatever she'd wanted, Vanessa quickly struck a deal. It was just a good thing that she'd met Buffy and was able to offer her as payment. Vanessa had stuck down that deal, but she'd countered with offering immortality in exchange for the younger Summers sister and that was a price well worth it.
She'd managed to keep the giggly girls in sight all the way through the mall, but finding a right place and time to snatch the kid was the trick. Thankfully, the little bitchette needed to piss and chose down here to do it. The lowest level of the mall was always mostly empty this late in the afternoon.
I guess even the losers know enough to start heading out near the end of the daylight, she grudgingly gave them. Now, to get the brat out of here.
She struggled a bit to get Dawn up over her shoulders in a 'fireman's carry' and as quickly as she could she left the bathroom. Her heart was beating furiously with fear that a minimally paid and minimally intelligent security doofus was going to just happen to stroll through, or somebody would leave one of the shops at just the wrong moment, but somebody up there was helping her out in her goal. She took the half dozen steps to the maintenance door and slid through. It was a pathetic lock and had taken her all of fifteen seconds to pick.
Thanks for that little skill, Juvie-hall, she smirked. Once safely inside the dimly lit maintenance tunnel, she laid Dawn down for a moment. The girl was a lot heavier than she looked when she was dead weight. Well, not dead yet, she smirked again, this time at the unconscious figure.
Vanessa had provided her with the drug, warning Melinda not to give the brat too much. If she didn't get to the bed and breakfast alive, there'd be no reward for her. With a put-upon sigh, she gathered Dawn up in her arms again for the long trek across the tunnel systems of town. She double checked that she still had her knife and a stake in case she met anything underneath town. The people in this burg had no idea of some of the… people… she'd seen. Real freaks with as many deformities as you'd care to come up with. It was all very Morlocks and some of them seemed to be able to do weird stuff like those mutant tunnel-dwellers in the old X-Men comics, too. It just didn't pay to be a regular human anymore.
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"I cannot believe you risked that," Jonathon complained to Warren. "What if it didn't work? What if he turned into a Franken-Ice Cube?!"
"But it did work," Andrew scowled at him. "Warren knew it would work… he is brilliant you know!"
"Thanks, Andy-Pandy," Warren squeezed Andrew's arm, unwittingly putting him someplace just shy of heaven. "We needed to find out if it was going to work some time," he directed at Jon.
"You told us we were taking the night off to see if Buffy showed," he reminded him. Jon never did fully trust Warren, even if they were friends.
"And we were. But just how did you think we were going to find out if Buffy was around town? Check the morning news for her? See if the paper happened to mention her? Ask door to door?"
"Yeah," Andrew piped in, "Just what about that, Jonathon?"
"We could have done the whole reconnaissance thing," Jon pointed out. "And we'd have been a lot less conspicuous about it, too!"
"Look, it worked out," Warren insisted, trying to bring this argument to an end. "And you guys did a fantastic job with the Ice Sprite," he flattered.
"Ice Spirit… an Icelandic Ice Spirit," Jon grumbled.
"Whatever," Andrew said, taking Warren's side as usual. "The point is, we are awesome! We're like the Kingpins of Crime!"
"Except not as bald and fat," Warren pointed out.
"He's not fat… he's just grotesquely muscled," Jon said.
"So… are we going to hit the precious metals place tonight," Andrew excited asked.
"I don't see anything standing in our way," Warren grinned as confirmation of the plan.
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It was well after dark when Melinda dropped Dawn's figure at the foot of Vanessa.
"Here she is, just as promised," she said triumphantly if a little nervously. "So…."
Vanessa gave her a large grin, her face morphing into the weird, bumpy face. "You've done very, very well for me. And you will be rewarded. Sit down."
Melinda chose a place on the bench, swallowing reflexively with a mixture of excitement and fear. "W-will it hurt?"
"I'm going to bite you… what do you think? But it's only for a moment and then you'll be dead."
"B-but I'm coming back… I mean… the death thing isn't permanent?"
"You're coming back, dear… just like my other companions."
"Okay," Melinda nodded with certainty, "I'm ready. I am finally getting what I wanted."
"And so am I," Vanessa laughed gaily.
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End Chapter 24