Chapter 53: Professor

Buffy wondered if Zoe knew who she was. She had met Dawn in this very cafeteria many a time during Dawn's stint at the University.

"Can you grab us some cold drinks?" Clay asked Nick, with none of his usual mock-bullying bluster. He even reached for his wallet, but Nick waved him away.

Nick headed off to get drinks.

Clay cleared his throat. And the sisters looked over at him. "I've been thinking," he said. "I know you don't want to talk about names … for the baby, I mean. And this probably isn't the time, but I've been thinking about it for a while, and maybe you wouldn't want to, but if you did, if we have a boy…" He shrugged. "Logan's a good name."

Buffy watched as her sister's throat constricted. Logan had been their best friend for years and after their move to Toronto he was the only one they had kept in contact with from the Pack. He had pretty much become a surrogate brother for them. So, it had hit both sisters hard when he died. Though that particular time had hit Dawn even harder. It had also been when she had been bitten.

"I have a suggestion for a girl," Buffy said trying to distract Dawn's attention away from Logan. "How about Joyce?"

"Joyce?" Clay said. "That was yours and Dawn's mother, right?" Dawn nodded. "If it's alright with you, Dawn, I think it's a good name for a girl." Dawn smiled. "Though I think we should go one step further don't you Dawn?" Both sisters looked at him quizzically. "Joyce Buffy."

This time it was Buffy's turn not to say anything as she thought over it and nodded as she looked around. "There she is," she said nodded toward the other end of the almost empty cafeteria.

"I don't know why she needed to do this in person." Clay said. "No, I do know. I bet you introduced yourself only as the Slayer, didn't you?"

"Yes," Buffy said. "She's trying to figure out who I am."

Buffy performed introductions.

"My, my," Zoe said, checking out Nick. "You boys don't come in ugly, do you? It's a good thing I wasn't born a werewolf, or I might have had some serious conflict."

"Dr. Danvers," a voice called from halfway across the cafeteria.

Clay didn't turn. Maybe he was intentionally ignoring the hail. More likely, he was so unaccustomed to the form of address that he didn't recognize it.

A heavyset young man appeared at their table, smiling at Clay, his hand extended. Clay hesitated—he hated physical contact with outsiders—but the pause lasted only a second before he took the student's hand in a firm, if brief, shake.

"Are you teaching next term?" the young man asked. After their visit with Buffy to check on the Hellmouth. Clay and Dawn had returned while Clay did a lecture series. So, several of the students and staff recognized him even if he didn't recognize them. "I didn't see your name on the schedule."

"Just visiting," Clay said.

"Damn. I didn't get a chance to tell you how much I enjoyed your lectures. That's exactly what I'm interested in, and I've read all your—" He stopped, flushed, then laughed. "Sorry. Academic fan boys—what geeks, huh? Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the comments you made on my paper. I really appreciated the encouragement."

Clay's gaze slid Dawn's way. She only smiled.

"Oh, and its Mrs. Danvers, right? I remember you from class." He looked down at Dawn's stomach. "Don't remember that, though. Congratulations."

"Thanks," Dawn said. "And I read your paper too. It was great. Clayton will have some competition in a few years."

The young man blushed again, thanked them, and then hurried off after imparting a warning to be careful. "Not a good time to visit Toronto," he said. "Weird things happening."

When he was gone, Clay looked at Dawn. "Comments on his paper?" he said.

"You said it was very good. Damn good, and he shows a lot of promise. So, I wrote it down—without the damn," Dawn said.

"I gave him an A. That's not enough?"

Dawn smiled. "Comments help."

"Comments won't get him into grad school."

"Hard-ass," Dawn said.

Zoe had followed their volleys with a half-open mouth. When we stopped, she said, "Doctor? Please tell me he was kidding."

"He was kidding," Clay said. "Now, you called us here—"

"You're a professor? In … what?"

"Phys ed. You called us here—"

Zoe sighed and waved for them to sit. Clay, Buffy and Dawn grabbed drinks from Nick's tray. There were two left. Zoe laughed. "Didn't want to be rude, I see."

"I wasn't sure," Nick said. "Do you … drink?"

"Vampires can eat and drink, Nick," Buffy said. "They just get no nutritional value from it."

Clay made a noise in his throat as Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Oh, stop growling. I'm getting to business." Zoe paused. "Weren't we supposed to be doing this over lunch?"

"We just ate," Clay said. "Besides, you don't."

Zoe waggled a finger at him. "Don't be racist. Vampires are civilized beasts, just like you—"

Buffy laughed. "Yeah, right. Do you know how many of your friends I've dusted who would think they were civilized? You are probably the most civilized of the bunch I've met so far. Most wouldn't even bother with a college education or owning a legitimate business."

"Touché, Slayer," Zoe said.

"In fact," Buffy said. "Dawn, what did Spike call humans?"

"Happy Meals on Legs," Dawn said. "Well except for me, he called me nibblet."

"Touché again," Zoe said. "Theodore Shanahan did commission the theft himself, directly through me. And it was for that particular letter. He was very specific. No substitutions allowed. I remember that because I always ask. If I arrive on the site and realize that the piece they want isn't accessible—has been removed, etcetera—I want to know whether the buyer will accept a second piece from the same collection, at a discount, of course."

"Shanahan said no," Dawn said.

"Emphatically no. It was the From Hell letter or none at all. That stipulation almost made me turn down the job. Traveling to England was hardly an overnight jaunt in those days."

"Traveling to England for a vampire isn't an overnight jaunt these days either. No way to guard against daylight on an airplane," Buffy said. "Have to take a slow ship and stay below decks, except for at night."

"Correct. Now imagine getting all that way only to discover they'd pulled the letter from the file. When I raised that concern, Shanahan promised that if that happened, he would cover all my travel expenses and pay me for my time."

"So, he really wanted that letter. What—" Buffy said.

"Da—Darling?" Clay cut in, nudging Dawn.

Buffy and Dawn followed his glance towards an open window at the far side of the cafeteria. Far enough away that Zoe didn't have to worry about catching any rays. As they looked at the window their nostrils flared. They caught the faint scent of rot on a crosswind.

"Knew they'd take the bait sooner or later," Dawn said. "Zoe? One of my zombie stalkers has caught up with me, so we need to cut this conversation short. Can the Slayer and I call you later?"

Zoe said they could and Nick, Clay, Buffy and Dawn left.

The problem now was where to lead the zombie so they could kill him. They were downtown in the middle of a workday.

"The museum would be good," Clay suggested. "An enclosed building, probably not too busy with this cholera thing. There'd be lots of quiet places for you to lure him into."

"But then you have the problem of admission," Buffy said. "I doubt he carries much walking-around money."

"I think I remember seeing in the paper," Dawn said. "That all the cultural centers are offering free admission for the rest of the week. A tourism bonus in light of the water problems."

"The museum it is," Clay said.

They headed for the Royal Ontario Museum, just a block up University. As they walked, Dawn called Antonio and told him they had one of the zombies in their sights. He, Savannah and Jeremy would hightail it to Cabbagetown to await delivery.

Dawn hung up as they reached the front steps, then Dawn realized Clay was no longer beside her, but a dozen feet back, glowering at a construction board.

He waved at the board. "What the hell are they doing to the museum?"

"A total overhaul," Dawn said. "Creating a revitalized cultural and architectural landmark for Toronto."

"Overhaul? From that picture, it'll look like it was hit by a goddamn glacier."

Clay shook his head and strode up the museum steps.

Once inside, they split up. Past experience told their zombie friends wouldn't come out while Dawn was surrounded by bodyguards, though Clay would stay with her for as long as possible.

Clay and Dawn barely made it to the second-floor landing when her phone vibrated. Dawn checked the display. Nick.

"It's Buffy, she's coming," Buffy said when Dawn answered.

"She?" Dawn asked.

"Smells like Rose," Buffy said.

"Be on the lookout for her partner then," Dawn said. "They've played this game with us before, remember."

"Gotcha, Dawn. Tag-team stalking it is," Buffy said.

When Dawn hung up, Clay said, "Rose?"

Dawn nodded. "Buffy said it smelled like her."

"Shit." He glanced at the exit, frown deepening to a scowl.

"You'd prefer a knife-wielding thug to an aging hooker?" Dawn asked.

"Hooker with syphilis. Remember what Buffy said? You're immortal. If the baby is like Savannah he or she isn't." He looked around, scouting the territory. "Change of plans. I'll be the bait. She's seen me with you enough to know I'd be just as good a source for that letter. If I'm easier to nab than you—"

Dawn shook her head. "Unless her brain's rotting with the rest of her, she's never going to think you'd be easier to nab than me. I'll be careful. You know I will. I'll avoid her mouth and scrub up afterward as soon as Buffy joins us. Better yet, I'll knock her down and wait for you. Minimal contact."

After a moment, he nodded and they headed for the stairs.

They bypassed the busier second floor—home of the kid-friendly dinosaur and natural history displays. In the third-floor Islam gallery, they settled in for some museum browsing.

They wove through the Islam gallery, through Rome, and back to the Greek areas in the southwest corner. There, they split up a few times, one of them wandering off to look at something, conveniently rounding a corner and getting out of the other's sight. Yet Rose didn't strike. Nor did Buffy and Nick phone to say she'd backed off. Every once in a while, Dawn detected a whiff of rot on the air-conditioning, confirming she was nearby. There was no sign of the bowler-hatted man, though.

Dawn and Clay wove through a forest of armless, legless, emasculated marble male torsos. She stopped in the corner, behind a raised scale model display of the acropolis of Athens.

"Either she's waiting for her partner or she's waiting for us to give her a better shot," Dawn said. "You know the place as well as I do. Where's a safe place to take someone down?"

"That's the public areas," he said a moment later after he'd recited the list. "You want the labs and stuff too?"

"Uh, no, that's okay. Just don't ever invite me to the museum after we've had a fight, okay?" Dawn said.

He snorted. "I think I'd be the one more likely to be knocked over the head and stuffed in a sarcophagus."

"Never," Dawn said. "They're all behind glass. Lousy place to hide a body. But there's a really big vase over there that might work."

He growled and swung to grab Dawn. She sidestepped just as a mother and two kids walked in.

"Speaking of sarcophagi," Dawn whispered. "I think it's time to move on to the Nile."

Clay nodded and followed Dawn out.

They checked out the Egyptian wing, but decided it was too busy for Rose, so they crossed the floor to the Samuel European Gallery, and walked through the rotunda, then turned right.

The south wing was semidark, with tasteful spot lighting illuminating decorated rooms from various periods. They stopped by a well-marked emergency exit near what looked like a large storage closet. Even a zombie had to recognize an ideal kidnapping opportunity when she saw it.

Clay asked for Dawn's cell phone. "Gotta call work," he said, speaking just above a normal conversational tone. "See how that department meeting went."

Dawn handed him her phone. He hit the buttons, pretended to listen, then grunted, looked at the display and said, "No signal."

"It's these old buildings," Dawn said. "The walls are too thick. Try moving closer to the stairwell."

Before he left, he circled his lips with his finger, then pointed the finger at Dawn, reminding her to stay away from Rose's mouth. She nodded. He walked away, head down as he redialed. Dawn turned to examine a room done in French Regency, all gilt and ornate tapestry.

Behind Dawn, Clay circled the first corner. "Yeah, it's me. How—?" He muttered a curse. "Hold on." His voice drifted farther. "There? Can you hear me now? Christ, the echo in this place. How did the meeting go?"

A split-second pause. "Hold on. I've lost you. I'll move…"

As his footsteps headed in the direction of the rotunda, his voice faded under the soft strains of piped-in classical music. Okay, Rose, it's not going to get any better than this. Here, I'll even bend over to read this placard, so you can—

A growl, half-anger, half-surprise off to Dawn's left. The clatter of the cell phone dropping and skating across the hard floor.

Even as she turned and ran for Clay, her brain told her she was overreacting, that he'd probably just bumped into something or someone. But my gut knew better.

As Dawn ran, she heard a thump, then a grunt. Another thump—harder, like a body hitting the floor. She rounded two corners, then saw Clay pinning a figure to the floor beside twin display cases of silver tableware.

It was Rose. She held a knife in one hand, but he had her by the wrist, so the weapon was useless. His other hand reached for her head, to snap her neck.

"The swords!" a child's voice shrieked. "I want to see the swords!"

Running footsteps sounded at the mouth of the gallery. Arms and armor were on the opposite side, but Clay hesitated, listening. As he turned, he saw Dawn. She motioned for him to wait.

The footfalls screeched around the corner, heading their way. The child's parents tried calling him back, but he was too far to hear or too excited to care.

Clay pulled back and looked around, still holding Rose's knife hand, but his attention was elsewhere, searching for a place to move her before the child came racing around the corner.

"There!" Dawn hissed, pointing at a gap between two displays. "I'll head off—"

Rose bucked. The knife flashed and, although Clay still held her wrist, he instinctively dodged, loosening his grip just enough for her to wrench free. As she scrambled up, Dawn raced around to cut off her escape route. Clay dove for her. Then two kids, no more than seven or eight, turned the corner and stopped dead, gazes fixed, not on Clay and Dawn, but on the knife-wielding woman rising before them, her face like something out of their most macabre comic books. One screamed.

Rose raced past Dawn. Clay tore after her.

"It's—we were rehearsing," Dawn said quickly. "A play. She's dressed up." She then turned to follow Clay. She caught up as Clay reached the stair landing. He'd stopped there and was looking back, ready to return for her. She waved him on, but he didn't move until Dawn had caught up.

Rose was hurrying down the stairs, disappearing then reappearing from behind the huge Haida and Nisga'a totem poles that rose up the center of the circling stairs. I touched Clay's arm.

"Hold back," Dawn whispered. "Let her think she's lost us."

Clay nodded, and let Dawn nudge him back into the shadows, but kept his gaze fixed on Rose as she descended.

"She ambushed me," he whispered.

"Guess her brain is rotting after all," Dawn said.

"Or she was getting me out of the way first. Learning our routines," Clay said.

Dawn touched his forearm, to tell him they could start forward. When she pulled back her fingers, they were wet with blood. She grabbed his arm for a better look, but he pulled away.

"Just a scratch."

"She stabbed—?"

He shook his head as he propelled me to the steps. "Her nails." He swiped away the blood, and then started down the steps.

Rose hit the second-floor landing. Dawn expected her to carry on down the stairs and run for the exit. Instead, she hurried toward the museum's most popular exhibit: the dinosaurs.

Clay let out a soft snarl of frustration. The dinosaur gallery was right under the European galleries, but U-shaped, guiding traffic in one end, then around and out the other, with no possible side trips.

Dawn looked at Clay. They were both thinking the same thing—they had a surefire shot at catching Rose here…if we split up.

A moment's hesitation, then Clay nodded and motioned for Dawn to cover the exit.

Dawn watched him stride through the exhibit entrance, then ducked in the exit and stopped to get her bearings. In any other gallery today, this would have been a simple matter of looking down the empty hall for the first sign of life. But there were quite a few other people here, most under the age of five, as if parents were taking advantage of low attendance at the museum to give their preschoolers as much face time with dinosaur bones as they could want.

Dawn walked down the center of the hall, her gaze drifting from side to side, only registering life-forms four feet and taller, which cut the prospects dramatically.

She hit a stroller barricade and murmured an "excuse me," her gaze still focused ten feet ahead. Someone caught her arm, and Dawn swung back, hand balling into a fist…then realized she was about to deck a smiling woman holding a baby.

"Sorry," Dawn murmured. "Excuse me—"

"When are you due?" she asked.

"Due?" Dawn asked.

She motioned to Dawn's stomach. Dawn looked down, and for a split second stared at her jutting stomach, wondering "where did that come from?" before her brain slammed back on track.

"Oh, ummm, soon. Excuse—"

Another woman in the group let out a squeak. "Oh, my God. See, I'm not the only crazy one." She laid her hand on Dawn's arm. "Lee was just reminding me about last August when I was—" She motioned to Dawn's stomach. "That huge, and whining about the heat."

"I warned you, never get pregnant at Christmas," the third woman said. "As romantic as it might seem, it isn't nearly so nice eight months later, when it's baking hot and you're carrying an extra twenty pounds." She looked at Dawn. "Am I right?"

"Er, uh…" Dawn struggled for something to say, something other than: excuse me, I have a homicidal zombie to catch.

The women were all beaming Dawn's way, ready to welcome a temporary addition to their clique, and Dawn realized just how much she was not going to be "moms and tots" playgroup material. "Excuse me—" she began.

"Oh, speaking of warm, show her the sweater set."

The first woman, the one with the baby, lifted a paper from her stroller and held it out. On it was a picture of a matching knit sweater, booties and hat.

"That's…cute," Dawn said, scanning over their heads for Rose. "Great idea for winter. Maybe I'll buy one. Now if I could—"

"Buy one?" The second woman laughed. "It's a pattern. For knitting. Old-fashioned, I know, but it's a great way to relieve stress."

Dawn mumbled her excuses and finally squeezed through. She rounded the corner at the same time as Clay came barreling around the other side. They stopped; twenty feet apart, looked at each other, and then searched the gap between them. They strode forward and met in the middle.

"She didn't get past me," Dawn whispered.

"Me neither. It's not crowded or dark enough to have missed her circling back."

Dawn looked for potential hiding places, but the layout was simple—too simple to misplace an entranced toddler, let alone a woman. Then Dawn remembered the stroller barricade.

"I was stopped," Dawn said. "Back there. The hall was blocked. Maybe, when I got through, if she was right on the other side, in the shadows or something…"

"You could have missed her. Probably not, but…"

"We should check," Dawn said.

The strollers were still there, the women now talking to a pair of preschoolers. Their faces lit up when they saw Dawn again.

"Oh, is this your husband?" one said. "Lucky girl. I can never get mine anywhere near this place."

"We were with another woman," Dawn said as she reached them. "A friend. We've lost her. Did anyone come back this way?"

"No one's been by since you, hon," said the oldest. "It's dead in here today."

As Dawn thanked them and turned to go, the one with the baby grabbed the sweater set pattern and thrust it out.

"Here, take this. I have a copy."

Clay glanced down.

"Isn't it sweet?" she said. "I'm making one for Natalie." She looked at Dawn. "You'll love knitting. It's so relaxing…and you're going to need all the relaxation you can get soon."

As the women chuckled, Clay grabbed the pattern.

"Knitting?" He looked at Dawn. "Yeah, I can see that." He thanked the woman and stuffed it into his pocket.

As they strode away, Dawn muttered, "When that page leaves your pocket, it better be headed straight for a trash can."

"You heard the lady. You'll need relaxation. Knitting would be—" His lips twitched. "—fun."

"You ever buy me knitting needles, and I'll show you a whole new use for them," Dawn said. "Even Buffy knows not to buy them for me. Knitting is not my thing; I tried it about a hundred years ago. Not going to try it again."

"I'll remember that." His grin vanished. "Now where the hell did—"

He stopped as their eyes traveled in the same direction…and reached the same destination. An exit door, concealed in the back wall.

"Shit."

Clay jerked his chin at Dawn. Not much of an instruction, but she understood it. Stay and watch while he opened the door.

She did, he did, and they slipped through the doorway and into a narrow service hall. There was no one in sight, so Dawn dropped into an ungainly crouch and took a deep breath.

When Dawn caught the scent, they set out, jogging quietly along the back each doorway or branching hall, Dawn stopped, dropped and sniffed. The trail stuck to the main passage. Did Rose know she was being followed? Or had her near-death upstairs spooked her into picking a back exit?

When they hit a flight of service stairs, the trail went down. She hadn't stopped at the first floor, but had kept going, into the basement.

"Buffy?" Dawn thought

"Dawn?" came Buffy's reply.

"We're in the service corridor; she went down into the basement. Get Nick and meet us there." Dawn said.

"Okay. Hey did you try contacting me a bit ago." Buffy said

"Yes." Dawn said.

"It sounded so distant. I thought it might be Savannah across town," Buffy said.

Dawn caught the scent of blood. She grabbed Clay's wrist. He looked down at the dripping "scratch" and snorted, as if it was a cause for annoyance not concern.

"It's deeper than I thought," Dawn said.

He shook his head. "Probably nicked a vein or something. No big deal. Jeremy will take care of it—later."

"Maybe I should check—" Dawn said.

"Keep walking. I'll fix it."

He stripped off his T-shirt and tore a few inches from the bottom. Dawn tried to get a better look at the scratch, but then they hit the bottom step and he swung around her to take the lead.