A/N Some things to bear in mind before we move on in this story. This started out as the same reality as the Accidental Vampire in Sunnydale, it diverged with the wish made by Buffy. Which means three things, everything prior to the wish is canon and in the Accidental Vampire in Sunnydale story it was discovered that Angel used Magic to get Buffy to believe she loved him. The circumstances leading to that discovery aren't happening in this story. Second, learning Giles had Alzheimer's, those circumstances of discovery also aren't happening and third, that story led to the second story, An Accidental Vampire in San Francisco, which means Cordelia's magical potential is the same as in that story. But this story is already going in a radically different direction and will end up in a different place, literally and figuratively.
######
"Time to see just what kind of investigative skills the Executioner Legacy might have given me." Xander stated as he, Faith and Cordelia arrived back at the Crawford Street Mansion early the next morning. "I got a good look at Buffy in the recovery room. I don't care what the doctors and police are saying, she wasn't in a fight. If she was her hands would be messed up. She had cut marks, what looked like cigarette burns and her wrists were a mess. She looked like Giles looked after Angelus played his idea of games with him."
"In other words, tortured." Cordelia said grimly, well remembering Giles' appearance after Xander got him out of the Mansion and delivered him to the hospital.
"Exactly and Sunnydale's police are doing their usual bang up job of not actually investigating anything."
"Corrupt cops are nothing new." Faith reminded them. "But from what I've seen and heard, Sunnydale's cops are more along the lines of totally incompetent. And X pointed out last night, they're almost never seen out at night and you know what, I've been in this town for just over a month, patrolled nightly and last night was the first time I saw a squad car out after dark. Which might mean something between incompetence and corruption."
"They don't go out on purpose." Cordelia considered the idea. "Which suggests they know what goes on after dark. And if they know what goes on and aren't doing anything about it, that means they're letting it happen."
"Anyanka said the Powers keep the balance in the supernatural world." Xander commented. "Unless humans allow one side or the other to do something. Because the world belongs to humans. If the cops know what's going on around here after dark, then humans are letting demons, as in something supernatural, have an advantage in Sunnydale. One the Powers can't do anything about, by their own rules."
"There are chains on the wall over there." Faith pointed. "They'd mess up B's wrists, wouldn't they?"
Xander squatted in front of the chains and using a pen from his pocket, instinctively wanting to avoid contaminating them, examined them. "Blood and skin, without forensic tests we don't know if it's Buffy's and when Angelus used this place he could have had other humans chained up here. He had Giles tied to a chair when he tortured him. There's dust on the floor, the normal kind that happens when a place isn't cleaned and I can make out several different shoe patterns. And a vampire dust pile."
"Someone dusted a vamp in this room." Faith looked around. "Was it Angel by the hunter team a few days ago or another vampire last night? I'm not seeing a second dust pile in this room, but Angel could have been dusted in any of the rooms in this place."
"Let's take a look at the other rooms." Xander suggested and the three of them moved further into the Mansion. "Well, it looks like a vamp was dusted in here." He pointed at a dust pile on the floor next to a large bed. "Two vamps bought it in the Mansion and the hunter team only reported Angel on the premises. So who dusted the second one, Buffy herself? But than who called the cops, who according to Detective Stein, found Buffy unresponsive. I don't think she went looking for a phone and than came back here. Which means someone else dusted the second vamp and alerted the police."
They arrived at a second bedroom, one that had a familiar lingering smell by the bed and Xander discovered an open bottle of whiskey, cheap whiskey, by the bed. "Someone was drinking here." A slight change in his tone had both girls glancing at him, for much the same reason.
Faith remembered his comment the night before to the Detective about the cops being called to his house by the neighbors, but never on him. That, mixed with the tone as he commented on the drinking made her wonder if his parents were like her mother and the reason she'd been in foster care when Diana, her first Watcher, had found her.
Cordelia didn't have to wonder, she knew that whiskey bottle was reminding Xander of his parents. Once they were alone, the two of them could talk, but for now they had to finish this. She attempted to get his mind off it by asking a question. "Shouldn't the cops have taken all of this to study? They do that on cop shows, don't they?"
"They should have taken samples from everything and stripped both these beds to check for fluids, in case someone messed with Buffy in an different way." Xander said grimly. "It's more evidence that they're not investigating what happened to her. Stein's content to say she was fighting, regardless of the lack of evidence. I think it's fairly obvious a vampire tortured Buffy. What's not obvious is who dusted the vampire. And why they didn't stick around after reporting Buffy's condition to the police."
"Unless the Scooby Gang aren't the only kids trying to do something about the vampires in Sunnydale." Cordelia suggested. "If it's another group of kids, they might have been afraid to stick around, especially if they suspect, like we do, that the police in Sunnydale are helping or at the very least, ignoring the vampires."
"Be nice to find like minded people trying to do something about them."
