Chapter 11: Chaos

Buffy raced into the main room. She headed toward the dance floor just as she heard Brandon roar. Then came the first scream. Then the thunder of a hundred people stampeding for the exit.

The stampede really didn't help matters, especially when Buffy's goal lay in the exact opposite direction of the human flow. She cut through the crowd, pushing people aside with Slayer strength. Glass shattered overhead. She looked up to see Dawn's feet shooting through a high window near the bar followed by Clay. Clay and Dawn climbed onto the bar and surveyed the crowd. When they saw Buffy, Clay waved her over. She pointed deeper into the throng, where she assumed Brandon was. Clay shook his head and motioned again. She picked an angle roughly in line with the crowd flow and made her way toward him.

"Love that entrance," Buffy shouted as she climbed onto the bar next to her sister.

"Have you seen the front door, Buffy?" Dawn asked. "I'd need a blowtorch to cut through the crowd. The only other exit is bricked over."

Buffy looked above the crowd. "So Brandon's not back in that corner?"

"Who?" Clay and Dawn asked.

"The mutt," said Buffy. "Is he there?"

"Oh, he's there all right. But you're wasting your energy trying to get to him," Clay said.

As the crowd parted Buffy spotted Brandon, he'd fully changed into a wolf. Then they saw that a man lay in crash position on the floor. His clothing was shredded and drenched with blood. He was motionless, obviously dead, but Brandon wasn't leaving him alone.

He leapt at the man, grabbed his foot, and spun him in a circle. Then he danced back, tail high. He crouched and mock-lunged, then feinted to the side. They noticed that the man had been ripped open and that is intestines were hanging out. As they watched the man rocked, as if trying to flip back on his stomach to protect himself.

"Oh my goddess," Dawn whispered. "He's not dead."

Brandon leapt at his prey again and sank his teeth into the man's scalp. He yanked him up, tossed him aside, and pranced away again.

"He's not even trying to kill him," Dawn said.

"Why would he?" Clay said. "He's having fun. While he's busy, I'll do some scouting. Give me five minutes. When the crowd clears, make your move, Dawn. Drive him toward that side hall that Buffy came out of. I'll be waiting." He jumped off the bar and vanished into the mob.

Dawn and Buffy looked back at Brandon torturing his prey. "It's like he's conscious of what he's doing but the wolf is in control," Buffy said.

"I think you might be right Buffy," said Dawn.

As Buffy watched Brandon she remembered where she had seen his face, heard his name, and it wasn't in the Pack's werewolf dossiers. She had caught a news program that had a piece on a killer in North Carolina who had gone to prison. She looked at Dawn and frowned.

Dawn saw the look on Buffy's face. "What?"

"We said he was hereditary, remember?" said Buffy as Dawn nodded. "He's not. He was bitten, recently."

"But that doesn't make sense though, Buffy," Dawn said. "If he had just been bitten how would he know about the Pack? Only hereditary wolves are supposed to know about the Pack. The only reason we even know about the Pack was because I was bitten by Clay. You are the only non-wolf to ever know about the Pack."

"There is something else," Buffy said. "I remembered seeing a news report about him on TV. He was in prison for murder." Then something else occurred to her. "He told me things that he shouldn't have known. He had mentioned that I had a sister and called me Slayer. How did he even know about you? Slayer sure, that's understandable. My scent, even you can smell the scent I give off as the Slayer. But it doesn't make sense how he knew that I had a sister."

Dawn nodded. "We need to tell Clay. That's he's not just a werewolf but a deranged psychotic killer."

Buffy and Dawn hopped from the bar and eased through the last scattering of the crowd. Brandon skirted his prey, and then leapt in for a pounce and grab. He had his fangs around the man's forearm and was shaking it like a chew toy when he noticed the sisters. He growled uncertainly, his blood-fogged brain taking time to recognize Buffy.

He stopped and they stared at each other. Buffy thought about how dangerous it was to face him down in his wolf form. She thought of what he could do to her or Dawn before Clay could come to their aid. Sure they couldn't die, but he could do some serious damage to them. Fear was not something a Slayer generally had experience with. They couldn't afford to be afraid. Yet she had to let her fear out to entice him into chasing her.

Dawn looked at Buffy as she caught the scent of her sister's fear. And then she smiled at what Buffy was doing. The old bait and relocate tactic Buffy had used with vampires before.

Brandon dropped his prey and lunged at Buffy. She waited until he was in mid-jump, then she turned and ran past Dawn. "Tell Clay and get ready," she said to her sister.

Brandon followed Buffy running past Dawn. Dawn turned and headed for Clay as Buffy circled toward the back wall to keep Brandon away from the clogged exit. She ran in a big circle and toward Clay and Dawn. She passed them and slid to a stop. Behind her, Brandon did the same, stopping in front of Clay and Dawn. He growled. Clay's foot shot out, caught him under the muzzle, and knocked him flying onto his backside. Brandon scrambled to his feet, wheeled, and bolted. Clay and Dawn ran after him. They disappeared into the main room and up onto the balcony.

Buffy was almost to the top of the balcony stairs when Brandon leapt over the edge. Clay and Dawn jumped as Buffy rushed down the stairs and ran to the exit to head Brandon off if he tried to escape.

Brandon didn't head for the door. Instead, he circled back to the rear corner of the room. Clay and Dawn were right behind him. He turned sharply and veered in a tight circle, tripping over a body on the floor. Recovering from his stumble, Brandon headed back toward the corner as if expecting a door to materialize there. Finally, he realized he was trapped and turned to face Clay and Dawn.

For several long seconds, Dawn, Clay and Brandon stared at each other. Brandon broke the standoff. He growled and hunkered down, hackles rising. Clay and Dawn didn't move. Brandon growled again as if giving fair warning. Then he leapt at Clay who dropped and rolled to the side. Brandon crashed and slid on the linoleum. Before Brandon could recover, Dawn was on him. She grabbed Brandon by the loose skin at the back of his neck and threw his leg over his back. Then she shoved Brandon's head to the floor, pinning him.

Brandon struggled wildly. He snarled and growled, snapping from side to side, trying to bite Dawn's hands. Dawn put her left knee on Brandon's back and wrapped her hands around Brandon's throat. She squeezed and Brandon gave one last tremendous buck. Dawn's right foot bounced off the ground just enough to make her shift position. As her foot came back down, it headed for a puddle of the dead man's blood.

"Dawn!" Clay shouted in warning as he got back to his feet.

Too late. Dawn's shoe hit the blood and her ankle twisted, shooting out from under her. Brandon threw himself forward at exactly the right second. Dawn tumbled off his back. The second Brandon was free; he saw the exit and made a beeline for it.

Buffy didn't bother blocking the hallway. Brandon could have plowed through her as if she weren't there. Instead, as he passed, she dove at him and grabbed two handfuls of fur. They toppled over together. As they rolled, he snapped at her arm. Buffy twisted it away, but not quite fast enough. One of his canines caught the skin under her forearm, and bit down. She gasped as her grip loosened. Brandon wrenched free as Dawn and Clay arrived one second too late. Brandon was already tearing down the hall. The far end of it was still congested with people, but they somehow found a way to clear out when they saw Brandon coming.

Clay started going after Brandon, but Buffy grabbed the back of his shirt.

"We shouldn't go out together," Buffy said.

"Right. You follow him. Dawn and I'll go back through the window."

But Dawn didn't move. "Buffy," she said as she looked at her sister's arm. At the bite. "Clay."

Clay followed Dawn's gaze and frowned. "Shit. Meet us outside Buffy and then Dawn will take over for you."

Buffy nodded and ran down the rest of the hallway and burst through the door to find herself in the midst of the crowd. She noticed that the entire Bear Valley police force and a battalion of state troopers had arrived. She stood there and rested against the side of the building for Dawn as the cops fanned across the roadway, shouting instructions and motioning at an alleyway. She realized that was where Brandon had gone.

Dawn came up beside her and looked at her sister. Buffy wasn't looking too hot. She looked at Clay. "Get her to the car. I'll meet you there after I've dealt with Brandon."

Clay nodded as he helped Buffy off the wall and they made their way across the parking lot.

Dawn looked to the alley and knew she would never get by the cops so she crept down a nearby alley instead. She spotted a four-legged figure appearing atop a brick wall. It crouched, and then jumped. She ran toward the wall as Brandon ran towards her. As he approached, she broke into a running leap and vaulted over his back, dropping to the ground behind him, rolling in a somersault, and landing in a runner's crouch. She started to run and she knew that Brandon's love of the chase outweighed his instinct for survival. When she turned a corner, he followed. She weaved through the alleys, leading him away from the blockaded street and the police. Finally, Dawn glanced down a connecting alley and saw the highway. On the other side, the industrial section gave way to wooded parkland, a place to Change.

Dawn sprinted for the road, forgetting something her mother had drilled into her when she was young. She didn't look both ways before crossing. She ran in front of a semi, so close that the draft knocked her off her feet. Dawn rolled to the roadside and leapt to her feet. As she spun around, a gunshot shattered the night air. Brandon was running across the road when the shot struck him and his head exploded. The force of the blast knocked him sideways into a path of an oncoming pickup and what the gunshot hadn't done the truck did as body parts went flying freely.

"Damn, I do hope he gets a proper burial," Clay drawled behind Dawn. "Poor misguided bastard deserves one, don't you think?"

Dawn turned to Clay and shook her head. "I screwed up."

"Nah," Clay said. "He's dead. That was the point of the evening. You did just fine, darling." He put his arm around her waist and leaned down to kiss her.

Dawn squirmed out of his grasp. She was worried for Buffy, not that her sister would die, being they were both immortal it was very unlikely. But rather the fact that Buffy was about to become a werewolf. "We should go," she said. "Jeremy wouldn't like us hanging around. Plus I'm worried about Buffy." Clay nodded as Dawn headed down the street. "Did you get her to the car?"

"Yeah," Clay said. "Couldn't put her in though. You have the key's, remember?" Dawn sighed as she nodded. "I'm not trying to be insensitive, but why are you worried. Neither of you can die short of someone chopping off your head."

"Because she's about to become a werewolf," Dawn replied. "I remember after you bit me. My first Change, I was afraid. I had no one, Clay, to help me through it. Buffy couldn't do it because she didn't know what was happening to me. Not till after I had Changed, then she knew of course. It would have been nice to have someone help me through my first Change. I need to be there for Buffy."

"And you will be," Clay replied as they rounded the corner beside the grocery store, where they'd left the Explorer. "Son of a bitch," he muttered as Dawn followed his gaze toward Logan who sat on the ground next to Buffy. "Looks like someone caught a flight tonight after all."

Dawn ran toward her sister and Logan. "Hey!" she called. "Is Buffy okay?" She stopped in front of Logan and looked down at him. "Are you just going to sit there or—" She stopped. Logan's eyes stared out across the parking lot. Blank. Unseeing. Dead. "No. No."

Dimly, Dawn heard Clay run up behind her, felt his arms going around her, catching her as she stumbled back. A deafening howl split open the quiet of the night. Dawn was dimly aware that it was herself that was howling.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Dawn didn't remember how she got back to Stonehaven. She vaguely recalled walking through the garage door into the house, Jeremy appearing in the hall and starting to ask what happened with the mutt. He must have seen Dawn's face because he didn't finish the question. She brushed past him. Behind her, she heard Clay say something, heard Jeremy swear, heard running footsteps as the others overheard and appeared from wherever they'd been waiting for them. Dawn kept walking to the stairs and up to her and Buffy's room, closing the door behind her.

Jeremy brought Buffy up and laid her on the bed as Dawn moved from it to the chair. "She will be alright, Dawn," he said. Her nodding that she had heard what he had said was the only answer he received. He turned and left the room as she turned her attention back to her sister as tears came to her eyes. She didn't know how much time had passed before she heard Clay's footfalls on the stairs. He stopped outside her door and rapped on it. When she didn't answer, he knocked louder.

"Dawn?" he called.

"Go away," Dawn said.

"I want to see you," Clay said.

"No," Dawn replied.

"Let me come in and talk to you. I know how much you're hurting—"

Dawn looked at the door from the chair she sat in and snarled, "You don't have any idea how much I'm hurting. Why should you? You're probably glad Logan is dead and that Buffy is in a coma while her body works the changes."

He inhaled sharply. "That's not true. You know it isn't. Logan was my brother. And Buffy well ..." He let the sentence die in his throat. He had never admitted to anyone what he felt about the blonde Slayer. "Let me in, darling. I want to be with the both of you."

"No."

"Dawn, please. I want to—" Clay tried again

"No!"

Clay was quiet for a moment. Then he made a low noise of anguish that crescendo in a growl of grief as he walked into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Having no way to vent her pain, Dawn spent the next few hours curled in the chair. Hours later Jeremy tapped at her door. She didn't answer. He opened the door and closed it behind him as he made his way across the room. He knelt down next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping to comfort her.

"We've buried Logan. Is there anything you'd like to do?" Jeremy said, softly.

Dawn knew what he was asking: was there any human rite of burial that would make her feel better? She wished there was. She remembered when her mother had died. How devastated she had been. She shook her head softly. She would pay her respects later. She motioned toward her sister.

Jeremy stood and moved to the bed as he settled on it quietly. He checked Buffy over and nodded. "The wound is already healing. She will probably wake up tomorrow, a werewolf. The first of her kind. There has never been another Slayer that I am aware of that has ever been bitten. When she wakes she will be a new breed of werewolf."

Later that day she held her sister's hand. As she sat there looking at Buffy she heard Jeremy and Clay just outside the door, arguing.

"—now!" Clay was yelling. "I can't stand to know what is happening to Buffy and not—"

Jeremy's voice was low as he spoke in a soft whisper, low enough she couldn't hear what he said to Clay.

"No!" Clay shouted. "They can't do this. Not to Logan or to Buffy. Not to Dawn. I will not stand by—"

Another interrupting murmur.

"Christ! How can you—" Clay's voice choked off in rage.

Dawn heard Jeremy pull Clay down the hall. The only person she really wanted at the moment was not yet awake. Still as she sat at her sister's side, she listened. Clay wanted to go after Logan's killer. He also wanted to track down the mutt that had created Brandon. He wanted to avenge Buffy as well as Logan.

Jeremy tried to dissuade Clay. It didn't matter what Jeremy said the storm of Clay's fury drowned all logic. As Dawn rubbed her hands over her wet face, her grief over what happened to Buffy and for Logan was swallowed by fear. While they argued, Dawn kissed Buffy's forehead and whispered to her sister that she would be back. Then she crept from the room unobserved, and hurried through the house.

Ten minutes later, Clay yanked open the door of his Boxster and thumped onto the driver's seat.

"Where are we going?" Dawn asked as he turned to see her huddled in the passenger seat. "You're going after Logan's killer and you want to track down the mutt that created Brandon. I want to be there. I need to be there."

"Are you sure?" Clay asked. "You don't need to come along. You should stay with Buffy. You said you wanted to be there for her. She will wake and her whole world will be turned upside down. She will need you."

"I know," Dawn replied. "But I also need to do this for her as well. I need to find out who bit Brandon, why he or she bit Brandon. I need to do this so I can explain to Buffy why she is now a werewolf." She wiped a tear from her eye. "I also need to help find Logan's killer. Don't try to stop me or I'll tell Jeremy that you've gone. I'll make him forbid you to do this. If you're already gone, I'll lead him to you."

Clay sighed. He then hit the garage door opener and started the engine as he backed down the driveway at neck-snapping speed and they were off to Bear Valley.

On the road to Bear Valley, Dawn thought about what they needed. She knew they needed a plan if they were go after Logan's killer or find the mutt that had bit Brandon. "Do you know where you're going?" she asked as they entered the town.

"To park."

"And then …?" Dawn asked.

"To find the bastard who killed Logan and created that mutt that bit Buffy."

"Great idea. Precision planning." Dawn grabbed the door handle as Clay spun into the downtown core's only public parking lot. "We can't hunt for him now. It's still daytime. Even if we found the mutt, we couldn't do anything."

"So what do you suggest? Enjoy a leisurely dinner while either mutt, unless they are one in the same, runs free?"

Dawn knew they needed something to distract them. They couldn't search for the mutt during the daytime. "We should find out what happened last night."

Clay slammed into a parking space. "What?"

"Find out how the town is reacting to what happened at the rave last night," Dawn said. "Assess the damage. Are they looking for more wild dogs? Are they doing anything with Brandon's body? Did anyone see us jumping through a second-story window? Did anyone see Buffy leading the mutt around inside the warehouse? And me leading the mutt away from the warehouse?"

"For Christ's sake, who gives a damn what they saw or what they think?"

"You don't?" Dawn looked at him. "If they decide to submit what's left of Scott Brandon for testing and they find something a wee bit strange, you aren't concerned? This is your backyard, Clay. Your home. You can't afford not to care."

Clay sighed. "Fine. What do you suggest?"

"We buy the paper," Dawn said after a few minutes, "go to the coffee shop and read it while we listen to what people are talking about. Then we plan how we'll stalk these mutts. After dark, we do it."

"Reading a damn paper isn't going to help us find Logan's killer or the mutt that created Brandon. We'd be better off having dinner."

"Are you hungry?" Dawn asked.

He turned off the ignition and was quiet. "No, I'm not."

"Then unless you have a more productive way to kill a couple of hours, that's the plan," Dawn said.