(no subject)
Warning! Posted while I'm sleepy and without a beta. But I'm reckless like that when it comes to posting fic.
Neon Hunting (follows City Hunting, but no Stabler this time)
BtVS-CSI Crossover
Warrick/Xander
NC-17
That counts as a header, yes? :)
***
Warrick stared down at the body on the ground. "I do *not* believe this."
Greg peered over his shoulder. "Did you keep that stake I made you?"
"No." He turned his head, but the different angle didn't change things: those were still two perfect fang marks on the dead guy's neck and he was still pasty pale like he was missing a whole lot of blood. "Shit."
"It's not really a vampire bite, is it?" Greg was still close, voice a little hushed with awe. "It wasn't last time."
"And it won't be this time, either." It just meant he was going to be jumping right back into the middle of a case full of freaks. "You start in here, all right? I'm going to work the exterior." He straightened up, turning his gaze away from the body because it was giving him the creeps.
Greg bounced in front of him, just as twitchy in the field as he was in the lab. "You're going to leave me in here alone."
"To work the scene."
"Yeah, but what if he rises up?"
Warrick fixed him with a flat look.
"Fine, fine. I'm sure I've got some pointy wood around here somewhere. I'll be fine..."
Warrick tuned out the chatter and stepped outside. Soon he was immersed in his work, cataloguing points of interest in the earth surrounding the small house where the body had been found.
He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he never noticed the man standing on the roof across the street watching him.
**
Xander stayed up on the roof for hours, watching the men below him work. He couldn't see much of the inside of the house, not from this angle, but he already knew all about the corpse in there. He just wanted to see what these cops were going to do about it. One stayed inside with the body while the other searched outside.
His gaze followed the dark man, watching him sweep the yard again and again with his flashlight, hunting for sign. He wasn't as good as the men Xander had met in Africa but he didn't miss much, bending down at regular intervals to leave markers and take photographs. Long clean limbs moved easily in the dark and Xander wondered if the man was as nocturnal as he'd become.
When dawn began to shade the sky, he made his way down off the roof and walked away, slow and easy through the residential streets. There might be lights and eyes everywhere on the Strip, but here people were still in bed and not even dogs marked his passing.
He waited until he was back in the little rental house that he was calling home to call Giles. Time to tell him that they'd lost another one of their own. Vampires liked Vegas and Watchers and Slayers both had followed them there. Four Watchers and a new Slayer had been killed in the past two months.
Xander had found the body, had seen it left surrounded by books and weapons, mocking everything Stimson had worked for and believed in. This wasn't chance or a run of bad luck.
They were being hunted.
**
One look at Greg's face told Warrick the bad news. "No blood inside?"
"Not a drop. Not in our vic and not in the house."
The hits just kept on coming. Warrick hadn't found anything useful outside. A couple of smudges that might have been footprints, some disturbed greenery...nothing special, nothing that he thought was going to help. No blood inside meant this was probably a dumpsite instead of the actual crime scene, which they'd have to find.
"There's more." Greg disappeared back inside the house.
Warrick didn't want to go back in there. He didn't want to see the pale corpse, the bite wounds he knew couldn't be real but refused to disappear. Why couldn't this have been Catherine's bad karma? "What?" he asked, following Greg.
"Check this out." Greg held up a piece of paper with a jagged torn edge. "I found it under the dresser."
Warrick leaned in. "It looks old." The paper had gone yellow.
"Yeah. Check this out." Greg turned it around so Warrick could see the other side. "I don't recognize this language."
Warrick tilted his head to the side, but that didn't help. The writing wasn't like anything he'd seen before. "Bag it." He straightened up. "Anything else?"
"Besides the dead guy with the missing blood?" Greg shook his head. "He must have just moved in. There's clothes and nothing else."
No photographs, nothing to make the place a home. "This whole damn thing is weird."
"I should probably get the back to the lab. And they need to move this body before sunrise."
Warrick rolled his eyes. "If he was going to jump up and bite you he already would have."
"I'm worried about him turning to ash. We'll lose all our evidence."
He started really hating Catherine right then.
**
Walking past the crime scene tape wrapped around the house like it wasn't there, Xander made his way inside. He hadn't liked leaving Stimson's body behind, but the police had been right behind him and he hadn't had time to do more than grab books, weapons, and what he could of the Watcher's personal effects before disappearing. It was too late to finish the job, but he'd do what he could to mitigate the damage. Someone else from the Council would show up and claim Stimson's body, explain away any odd things the police found and put on a very real show of grief.
Xander was going to start hunting the hunters.
He'd come through Vegas following another whim of Giles's. New York hadn't settled him any so he was being kept in the United States until everyone thought he was acting more normal. His latest assignment had been to go back to Sunnydale and take a look at the crater and he'd detoured through Nevada, wanting to take a look at the Strip with his own eyes. He'd grown used to deserts and seen his share of mirages and oases both, but this city was beyond what he'd imagined. Impossible for it to be there and yet it was with more people and lights and sounds then he'd been ready for, even after New York.
The killings had started before he'd arrived and he lingered; this was the business he understood now. Stimson had been helping him get a handle on the way the vampires worked in this city where night was day and no one slept.
Xander swept through the house one last time, checking secret places for anything Stimson might have left behind, but there was nothing. Stimson had been new and barely settled. The Council and its purpose should be safe.
Stimson was gone and he would be mourned. Xander hadn't known him well, but he would do what he could for him. The vampires who had killed him wouldn't last long enough to hurt another Watcher. He might not know all about the subcultures in Vegas, but he didn't need to. Hunting was hunting.
**
The sound of high heels warned him before Catherine's voice told him she was there. "I hear you're working the dark side again."
"Did you assign me this case?" he asked without looking up. The table was cool against his forehead.
"No. I guess you're just lucky."
Warrick laughed. "Wrong kind of luck." He sat up and looked over at her, tall and perfect in the doorway. "Did you hear about the autopsy results?"
"Exsanguination. Greg told me." She cocked her head to the side and smiled at him. "He's going to be a lot of fun to take to that blood bar."
"What? No. No way. This vic looked like a teacher, not a goth vampire fan. We won't have to go back there."
"Where else are you going to get a lead on vampire killers?"
"Are you trying to get me to hate you?"
She laughed at him. "Oh…Greg told me to give you this." She pulled a stake out from behind the files in her arms and dropped in on the table before walking away.
He glared after her, but his heart wasn't in it. It wasn't her fault he had another vampire case. It wasn't her fault that he was going to have to go back to a blood bar, just to see if there was any talk of someone else doing more than just having a taste.
He was going to find a way to blame her for having to take Greg along with him, though. Greg was coming along great as a field CSI but this was one place where he didn't want to take him. He reached out and tapped the stake. He'd stick it in his locker and get rid of it later.
No point in putting it off any longer. Time to go find the rookie. It was just past midnight. The blood bar should be filling up.
**
Not much ever reminded him of Sunnydale. Africa had been a million miles away in spirit and geography if not in distance. New York City had been a thousand times bigger and louder and maybe even just as dark at it heart but it had still been different.
Walking into the blood bar had been a shock: he looked at the people all around him and was back inside that stupid bomb shelter, surrounded by people his own age who seemed somehow years younger. If they'd grown up in a bigger city, maybe they would have made their way to a place like this.
Pulsing music and red lights and too many people wearing too much makeup and leather. All dark hair and darker eyes and lips and they drew away from him and his jeans and old jacket and tanned skin that hadn't yet faded from his time in the desert. He met their contemptuous gazes with bared teeth. He didn't fit in among them and he didn't want to, would never want to be so caught up in a fantasy that he opened himself up to monsters like they did.
Easy hunting here. Vampires should have gone lazy and soft with all these victims panting for the chance to bare their throats to inhuman teeth. They should have been glutting themselves instead of turning the tables on their own hunters. He might not find the ones he wanted here, but he would find others.
Vampires talked. With enough pain and exposure to sunlight, they talked a lot.
He walked through the crowd that parted before him, looking for the ones that weren't playing. He saw a few and began to circle, looking among them to find the one that he would choose for that night.
He made his way to the shadows, not wanting to draw more attention to himself. That could come later, if he decided he wanted the vampires to know he was hunting them.
A stir in the crowd drew his attention and he watched as the foolish parted and showed him the two men he'd seen at Stimson's house: the younger man and the taller one, the one who'd been outside, the one Xander had watched for hours.
He settled himself in the shadows. He had a lot of watching to do for a man with one eye.
**
Warrick looked around the club with weary eyes. The kids that filled it were playing a dangerous game and he knew that they just didn't care. Some of them might be scared out of the room if he warned them about the last case that had brought him to this place, but he knew most of them would stay regardless. There were thousands of lost souls in Vegas and most of them wanted to stay lost.
Greg was practically quivering. Warrick glanced at him. "I thought you would have been to a place like this already."
"Not while I'm working," Greg shot back with a cocky smile, but his wide eyes proved his words false.
Resolved to keep an eye on him, Warrick walked slowly through the club. Lazarus Kane would probably be around, drinking absinthe and pretending to be immortal. He wasn't sure if the man would talk to him but he was the only contact he had and Warrick wasn't going to leave any stone unturned.
As he walked through the club he was aware that he was being watched. That was to be expected: he and Greg didn't fit in. it was more than that, though. Someone was watching *him*. He didn't look around, not wanting to let whoever was looking know that he was on to him. If it was someone involved in his case, he didn't want to tip him off.
A circuit of the bar showed him that Kane wasn't there and the bartenders all acted like he was speaking Chinese when he asked about him. "Damn."
"We can come back and try tomorrow," Greg pointed out.
Warrick nodded irritably. He didn't like being stymied. He looked around the room one last time. Maybe if he could see who was watching him he'd get an idea of who to be looking for him. It was hard: the lights flashed and the music pounded and he was surrounded by a constantly shifting crowd.
The writhing bodies on the dance floor parted for a moment and Warrick found him meeting the gaze of a man across the length of the bar, a man who looked as out of place as he did and he wasn't sure how he'd managed to miss seeing him before. Dark hair and an eye patch and a smile on his face like he'd just spotted breakfast after working all night through the end of a double shift. Warrick was caught by that gaze, helpless to do anything but stare back...until Greg broke the spell.
"You know him?"
"No." Warrick blinked and the crowd swirled and the next time he had a clear view the man was gone.
**
"You don't look like the kids who usually come here," the vampire said, looking at Xander suspiciously even as he led him deeper into the alley.
"I'm new to the lifestyle," Xander said, transforming his grin into an embarrassed smile.
"I'll show you everything you need to know," the vampire promised.
"I'm sure you will." Xander let himself be pushed up against the rough wall, catching his lips between his teeth.
The vampire leaned into him, eyes fixed on his mouth then drifting down to his throat. "Yeah?"
"I know you will." Xander raised the taser and pressed it to the vampire's chest, watching him convulse before collapsing. Once he was sure the vampire was out, he shoved the limp body over to the side. He didn't want him to be discovered before he could swing his Jeep around load the vampire in.
He walked back through the club and on impulse stopped by the bar. He pulled out a hundred dollar bill and left it on the counter and the bartender came right over. "There were two men in here. Didn't belong."
"Like you don't?" the bartender challenged.
Xander glanced down at the bill on the bar. "I belong just fine. Who were they?"
"Crime scene guys. They work with the cops. I only caught the tall guy's name: Warrick Brown."
Warrick Brown. Xander nodded and left the money on the bar. He had a name.
Once he got the vampire back to where he was staying, he'd get some answers, too.
**
"How'd your trip to the bar go?" Williks asked.
"Don't ask," Warrick said. A complete failure. He hadn't found Kane or anyone else willing to talk. He hadn't noticed anything helpful and now that he was away the only thing he could remember was the way that guy had looked at him, the one with the patch and the dark hair and that barely there hungry smile that had made Warrick take notice even though he was determined not to take notice while he was working. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about him and was beginning to regret not trying to find him after he'd disappeared...he was shaken from his thoughts when Williks started talking again.
"I have to ask," she said, leaning against her desk as she looked up at him. "I'm just a linguistics monkey. I work in the lab all night and sleep all day. You CSIs are the guys who get to go out and do all the fun stuff."
"Fun." He sketched out some of the highlights of what he'd seen, keeping the one eyed man to himself. "Did you stop me because you wanted live vicariously? Or did you have something to tell me?"
"That paper you found with your vampire victim."
Warrick interrupted, "He wasn't killed by vampires."
"Whatever. What I'm interested in is that paper."
Warrick looked down at the torn page. "Oh, this." The nonsense stuff Greg had found at the scene. "Someone he worked with got in contact with us and told us the guy used to like to make up languages in his spare time. Like Tolkien."
"Not like Tolkien." Williks held up the paper. "I know languages, real and made up. This isn't like anything I've ever seen. Look here: these just look like scribbles. I can't find any pattern or order to them."
"Maybe they are just scribbles. Even Tolkien had to have frustration and bad days."
Williks didn't look convinced, but she nodded.
Warrick nodded back and walked away. He had to try another way to find out who killed Phillip Stimson. The blood bar had been a dead end but he'd be going back again to look for Kane.
If he found the one-eyed man, that would just be a bonus.
**
Turning the empty bottle of holy water upside down, Xander shook his head sorrowfully. "All out." He dropped it on the ground. Squatting in front of the vampire he'd tied to a chair, he patted him on the knee. "I'll have to run out and get more." He glanced at the square of sunlight on the bare floor, a foot away from the vampire's toes. "I'll probably be back before that reaches you."
"No!" The croaking whimper was frantic.
"You aren't talking," Xander said in a reasonable voice and he stood up. "Your throat's probably too dry. I'll get you something to drink."
"I don't know what you want to know."
"You might not," Xander agreed. He reached out and tweaked one of the sharp slivers of wood piercing the skin of the vampire's chest. "But you know more than you're telling me. I'll get you a drink. It'll help loosen your tongue." He kicked the empty bottle, sending it spinning across the floor. "Or burn it clean off."
He'd seen hatred before, had seen it directed right at him, but this was special: he could almost feel the golden gaze on him, hot and searing. He curled his lip up in a feral smile and the gaze was directed back down to the floor.
"There is talk," the vampire said, every word clearly painful.
"Talk of what?" A human would have broken long before this. The problem with torturing vampires wasn't their sense of superiority; it was how much they liked pain. Hurting them enough to make them talk without damaging them to the point of death was a challenge.
"Of taking back the night. Of hunting the ones that hunt us. Making them pay."
Because vampires were the victims. "Who?"
"The Feratus."
Xander closed his eyes. At least in Africa he hadn't been able to understand the vampires when they said stuff like that. The stupidity had slid right past him. "Tell me more."
**
Warrick stood outside another blood bar, trying to decide if it was a good idea to go inside or not. He'd been to two others already that night and dawn was fast approaching. This was one he'd heard of at the second bar: a guy inside had suggested it to him and even offered to come along with him.
He'd turned him down, of course. The guy had been helpful but he'd also been at the club full of crazy people. The case might be driving him nuts, but not that nuts. He was out doing this while Greg was back in the lab, running down a lead on the bite wound that had caught his attention. Warrick knew going to these places on his own was a bad idea but he hadn't been able to sit around and do nothing. He still hadn't found Kane but maybe the guy was hiding out at this bar instead of his usual haunt.
He didn't have any other real options. He didn't want to let this case go cold, didn't want to lose it. The man who'd killed the girl in his first case wouldn't have stopped with her, he knew that. He would have found someone else and killed again and again until he got caught. Warrick wasn't going to let a serial killer get started on his watch.
Might as well get it over with - go face the crazy and maybe come up with something or at least have an excuse for home. He took a few steps.
"That's probably not a good idea."
He turned around. The one-eyed guy smiled at him, close enough to touch.
**
Xander approved of the way Brown backed off from him, maintaining a good bit of distance between them. The man was hunting vampires without realizing it - he needed to be cautious.
"What's not a good idea?" Brown asked.
"Going inside." Xander nodded over toward the small dark club, but he kept his gaze on Brown. "But you knew that already or else you wouldn't be on your own."
"And you know all about my business?"
"I know about what happens in there. There's a reason you don't see dilettantes there." He wasn't going to come out and say what was really happening in the club. If he could keep Warrick in the dark, then all the better for the both of them.
"The man I'm looking for isn't a dilettante."
If he was looking for a man then he wouldn't find him in the club, either. Xander's vampire had told him about the Feratus' plan, what little he'd known. It had included the fact that the club wasn't a bar for humans - it was for vampires and any humans who were lured inside or blundered upon it on their own didn't walk out with a heartbeat.
Brown looked over at the club again, his resolve wavering. "I've got a case that's going cold on me. I need some answers."
"They don't give out answers there."
"I don't have many options." The frustration was coming off of him in waves.
Xander understood. The man was a hunter, shared all the same instincts that drove him. He might do his tracking in crime labs and crime scenes, but not being able to find his prey would make his just as crazy as it made Xander. "That doesn't mean you have to be foolish."
"Yeah. It also doesn't mean I have to take advice from strangers."
"That's what led you here."
That stopped Warrick short. He stared at Xander for a moment, then shook his head. "I must be outta my mind." He held out his hand. "Warrick Brown. Crime Scene Investigator."
"Xander Harris." He took his hand. "Advice Giving Stranger."
**
Warrick found himself laughing. He was out in the middle of a nasty neighborhood, skulking in the shadows of a blood bar and shaking the hand of a one-eyed guy who just made him *hungry* when he looked at him. It should have been one of Greg's outrageous stories, the ones where he left the ending up to the imagination with a wriggle of his eyebrows and a cocky grin. Warrick had no idea how this story was going to end up but he found that he really wanted to find out.
"Advice giving stranger, huh? And the advice is to stay away from this place until daylight?"
"My advice would be to stay away from this place period." Xander looked out over at the bar. "It's not worth going in."
"Tell that to the dead man in the morgue." He hated letting the dead down. If he couldn't find any information, couldn't see the evidence that would lead to the killer, then who would?
"The dead don't hear," Xander said shortly.
"Then tell it to the people who cared about him."
Xander nodded. "That makes better sense."
"If you know about this bar, maybe you know where I can find the information I need. I'm looking for a man named Lazarus Kane."
A snort of laughter escaped Xander and Warrick found himself smiling in return. "I know, but that's what he calls himself."
"I don't know anything about him."
"So you weren't here looking for him. What were you looking for?"
"Took a wrong turn," Xander said. "I was leaving when I saw you."
Warrick didn't believe that for a moment. "So you'll be leaving with me, then?"
"Depends on where you'll take me." Xander was suddenly closer, in his space, warm skin and warmer gaze. He tilted his head to the side and inhaled and every hair on Warrick's neck and arms was standing straight up.
**
Xander felt the predatory smile stretching his lips and he let it grow. He hadn't missed any of Warrick's reactions to his nearness, the sudden quickening of his breathing, the tensing of his muscles. Hunting was hunting, no matter what the purpose.
He leaned in closer, sniffing again. Warrick smelled good, no cologne, just frustrated man. It made Xander want to get closer. It made him want to take a bite. Another inch and then he was flickering his tongue over Warrick's throat, stealing a taste.
Warrick flinched back. "Are you one of them?" he asked, suddenly wary.
Xander bared his teeth at him. "No fangs. I just wanted...skin." He held Warrick's gaze until the other man relaxed and then he moved it again, letting his breath breeze over Warrick's throat again. "Just your skin."
**
Christ, maybe someone had managed to slip him something at that last bar. Warrick had to be on drugs - that was the only thing that would explain why he was leaning into the guy who was sniffing him. “My skin?” What if Xander meant that he wanted to wear it as a hat?
That slick tongue glided over his throat for a mere second, hot and wet and it made him shiver in the cool desert night. This was just a bad idea…”Bad idea,” he said, trying to save himself.
He was surprised and disappointed when Xander actually moved away from him. “It isn’t.” He glanced over at the club, the one he was trying so hard to keep Warrick away from. “Bad location.”
Warrick wasn’t going to suggest going somewhere else. He wasn’t. That would be foolish and crazy…about as crazy as going into any bar in this area alone, let alone one filled with killer-wannabes. Still, he had a feeling that as long as he stayed out here, so would Xander. “I won’t go in tonight.”
“Shouldn’t go in at all,” Xander said.
“I told you, I’ve got a case.”
There was something in the other man’s eye…it looked like respect. “The hunt is important. But you have to do it smart.”
Smart, yeah. Smart was the opposite of what he was doing. He had been letting frustration drive him, not brains. “I can do smart.”
Xander looked him up and down. “So can I.”
**
Xander squinted into the morning sunlight, looking at the club he’d managed to chase Warrick away from the night before. He didn’t have a lot of time, not if he wanted to keep the other man from chasing prey into places where his hunt shouldn’t go. He raised his cell phone to his ear and hit the only number he had on speed dial.
//Yes?// Giles sounded harried.
“I can call back,” Xander said.
//Xander? No, don’t do that. What’s going on?//
Xander gave him a quick run down of the situation. “They have blood bars here,” he concluded. “They’re getting cocky and they think they can turn the tables.”
“Stimson had said there was something strange…I will have Andrew put together a team of Slayers and send them to you.”
“No.”
“Xander, if these vampires have organized-“
“They’ve organized and the best name they can come up with is ‘the Feratus’.” Xander watched the bar, dark and quiet. It wouldn’t be empty, though, and he needed to get inside.
“This isn’t why I sent you west. Let me send a team. You can continue your travels and enjoy yourself.”
“I’m having a blast. Don’t send anyone else - it will ruin the fun.” Xander hung up his phone and then turned it off. Morning was passing and the bar was waiting for him.
Time to have fun.
**
God, he really was back at the beginning again, looking at the few pages of the ruined books that Greg had brought back to the lab. It still looked like nonsense, just like everything in the case was nonsense.
Everything in the case except for Harris. He wasn’t nonsense…he wasn’t any kind of sense at all. Even thinking about him was craziness. The guy showed up out of nowhere, acting like he knew more than he was saying, acting like he could see right inside Warrick’s head and things were just weird enough that Warrick wasn’t sure that he couldn’t. He gave advice Warrick didn’t ask for but maybe needed, since he’d apparently gotten suicidal from frustration.
He closed his eyes and thought about Harris, his long dark hair and that patch that looked right on him, his rangy form and smile that was as dangerous as it was sexy and what the hell was he doing, thinking about Harris when he had a case to solve. He groaned and bent forward, thunking his head against the tabletop.
“Is it really that bad?”
Warrick didn’t open his eyes. Looking at Grissom wasn’t going to help anything. “It’s worse.” He was losing his damn mind. He could have handled that if his case wasn’t going nowhere at the same time.
“Maybe you’re too close to the situation.” Grissom paused in the doorway, hands full of paperwork but clearly ready to put it off and talk to him.
Warrick appreciated the unspoken offer and if the situation had been anything else he might have taken him up on it. He could have talked about the case, could have vented all his frustration and confusion and maybe Grissom would have been able to help him make sense of it, but it was all too tied up with Harris and he wasn’t talking about that with Grissom. He kept his personal life personal when it came to the man - Grissom didn’t pry for details and he wasn’t going to make him uncomfortable by giving him information he didn’t want. He shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
He didn’t have a chance to answer. Greg rushed up behind Grissom, bumping into him. He raised his hands in apology, but when he spoke it was to Warrick. “Warrick! That club you asked me about? It’s on fire.”
**
Xander worked the shampoo through his hair with a little regret. The scent of smoke was washing away down the drain, taking away the most tangible souvenir of his visit to the blood bar. Fire was such an efficient way to declare war. The violence of the flames was a graphic prelude of the violence that was to come.
Still, he wasn’t about to forgo the pleasure of getting clean in a hot shower just to hang on to it. He wallowed under the warm water. No dirt, no bugs, just clean skin and water like he hadn’t felt for over a year down in Africa. It still hadn’t gotten old for him and he’d been back in the States for months.
He climbed out of the shower before the hot water ran out, drying off quickly with clean fresh towels, enjoying every moment. He put away the hedonism as he pulled on his clothing, though. These weren’t soft flannel pants that felt smooth against his skin. These were hunting clothes: old jeans, t-shirt, a jacket that was battered and worn and like a second skin. A comfortable pair of boots and stakes and a couple of knives hidden away and he was ready to go.
He left his vehicle behind. A car wasn’t going to do him any good where he was going. He loped through the shadows, sticking to them. He’d probably worry the normal people vacationing on the Strip, but he wasn’t going to go anywhere that the neon lights would reach.
He stepped over piles of discarded lumber, over discarded people. The money from the casinos was stretched thin here, and there was no effort to pretty up the place and make it enticing for anyone, tourist or local. The scent of garbage and dirt and decay filled his nose, so different from hunting in Africa. He was getting used to this kind of city hunting, where his prey hid in buildings and he found them with flickering neon lights.
A stake in his waistband, prey up ahead, and Warrick Brown just waiting to be found when this was all over…
It was almost like being on vacation.
**
Warrick stared at the smoldering ruin that used to be the club. He could hear Greg talking to him, probably asking him questions. He didn't pay any attention. He couldn't - he was too busy trying to understand what he was seeing. The club had been dark and frightening the night before when he'd walked away from it. Now it was just a ruin, reeking of smoke and disaster as the fire crew walked around it, all urgency gone now that the fired had been contained. "What the hell happened?"
"Aren't you the guys who tell us that?" asked a passing arson investigator.
Warrick recognized him vaguely. They'd bumped into each other on a few other cases and on any other night he would have been able to remember his name. "Arson?"
"Yeah. If you get any closer, you'll be able to smell the accelerant. We haven't identified it yet, but it was nasty stuff. This place went up and the crews never had a chance of putting it out."
"Was there anyone inside?"
"Not that we've seen so far." The investigator glanced over at the building. "It was some kind of club, but it must have been closed. No bodies inside." His voice trailed away and he kept staring at the ruin.
"What is it?" Now that he knew there hadn't been any more deaths, Warrick could start to relax and think again. No one had been caught inside, like Harris, going back on his own against his own advice…"What?"
"I said there's too much ash in there."
"It was on fire," Greg said, sounding knowing.
The arson investigator shot him a withering look. "Too much ash, even for a fire. They're shoveling it like snow as they go through the scene. Maybe it was the accelerant."
"Maybe," Warrick said. He didn't know.
The investigator returned to his scene.
"Wasn't that one of our leads?" Greg asked.
"No. It was just about our only lead." Warrick felt frustrated anger flow through him, hot and quick. Every time he thought he might have something to go on, he found himself running into a wall. The club was gone, so he was back to square one when it came to locating Lazarus Kane, which meant he was back to square one on everything.
He barely acknowledged Greg telling him that he was going to catch a ride back to the lab with one of the uniforms who'd stopped by to check out the fire. It was just as well. He didn't feel like going back there. All he'd find were more dead ends…dead ends like the damn burned out club behind him.
He gave up on work and decided to head for home. He wasn't going to be good for anything until he got some sleep and a decent meal. With his luck, he'd end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person in the lab and end up on suspension.
He'd only driven a block or two when he caught sight of movement up ahead. He slowed down - he was in a bad area and anything could be happening in that alley. His hand drifted toward his cell phone, ready to call in the cavalry if they were needed.
He didn't stop the car until he recognized one of the shadows. Xander Harris.
**
Just starting to breathe heavily, Xander grinned at the vampire he'd cornered. Cornering prey could make the hunt more dangerous and that thought made his smile grow.
"You've made a mistake," the vampire told him. "Your last mistake."
Xander shook his head, stake held low and ready. "I'm sure I'll make many more."
"You don't know what you're messing with, do you?" The vampire bared its fangs, teeth that looked huge on what had once been a dainty girl.
"What? A vampire?" He laughed a little, high and wild. "I've had vampires. You don't measure up."
"I'm a Feratu!"
Xander laughed again. "A stupid name for a very stupid group of vampires." His tone shifted, became mocking. "You'd think one Feratu in a whole bar full of them would be able to figure out how to get out in a fire, wouldn't you?" He shook his head and tsked. "I don't think the chains on the doors should have slowed them down that much."
The vampire took a step forward. "That was you?"
"Me," Xander agreed. "Unless you want to join them, back up and stop asking questions. You'll be answering them from now on."
The vampire stared at him for a moment, then backed off. Sulking against the wall, the young girl illusion was stronger, especially when light hair fell forward to cover the demonic face.
The interrogation didn't take long. The vampire didn't have much to tell him, mostly posturing about the Feratus were unbeatable and not even Slayers could stop them. He pushed for real information about numbers and plans and what he learned was encouraging. The Feratus were exclusive as their name was stupid and there wasn't really that many of them. He'd made a good dent in their numbers at the club, then. The remnants wouldn't be that hard to hunt down and scatter.
"There," the vampire said. "That's everything." A shift of features and then there was just a girl standing in front of him, looking scared and sad. "Will you let me go now?"
"I'll set you free," Xander promised. He waited for the vampire to relax before slamming his stake home. He brushed his hands free of dust. One down…there was plenty more hunting to be had.
"The hell is going on?"
Xander turned around, not sure whether to be glad or not that it was Warrick instead of a stranger staring at him. "Crazy stuff happens in Vegas all the time, right?"
**
Warrick had been a nerd in high school, but he'd loosened up when he'd gotten older. He'd never been big into the drug scene, though, and hadn't ever tried a hard hallucinogen like LSD. He was starting to wonder if maybe someone had slipped him some, because nothing was quite right.
Crazy stuff happened in Vegas all the time. Hell, he was investigating a murder that looked like it had been done by vampires, and it wasn't even the first one. Still, he would have sworn that he'd heard two voices when he'd started walking down this alley, and he'd thought he'd seen someone standing by Xander. He'd tripped over a bit of garbage and by the time he'd gotten his balance back, Xander was alone.
Alone, and looking at him like he was a cold beer at noon in July.
Warrick caught himself staring back before he dragged his mind back to business. This was business - the club where he'd really met him had just burned down. It wasn't Warrick's case, but he had a suspect. "What do you know about the fire?"
Xander smiled. "What fire?"
It was obvious that he was lying. He wasn't even trying to pretend to be surprised by the question. "The fire that burned down the club you warned me away from."
"Oh. That fire." Xander shook his head. "That place probably violated half a dozen fire codes. It was only a matter of time. Was anyone hurt?" He moved forward slowly, getting closer to Warrick while moving in nearly a circle.
Warrick didn't like it, didn't like the way Xander wasn't even pretending to be honest, didn't like the way he was feeling hunted. Not like this, in an alley where someone had just disappeared, like all the leads for his case had just disappeared.
Knowing his temper was frayed before he'd seen Xander, Warrick drew in a deep breath. "No," he said, answering the question after too long a pause. "No, it doesn't look like anyone was inside the place when it went up." He shifted his feet, moving so he was facing him. "But you knew that, didn't you?" Warrick knew it, knew it like he'd seen Xander set the fire.
Xander smile grew. "How could anyone count on there not being a soul inside that place?" He kept moving closer.
The tone in Xander's question, innocence so false it was almost obscene, was all it took to make Warrick snap. His case was going cold and not even the fire was going to help heat it up and here was this guy who made him crazy on the inside and was going to see him crazy on the outside, too. He got into Xander's space, using his height to crowd him back against the wall.
That didn't faze him; if anything, Xander looked pleased. He didn't try to get away. He tipped his head back and looked at Warrick, that damn smile getting bigger by the minute. Warrick could only think of a few ways to get rid of it and he was torn. He'd been spoiling for a fight all day, but Xander was so close and he could feel the heat coming off of him…
Xander solved his problem for him. He pushed up against Warrick. Warrick started to push back before he realized that Xander wasn't trying to get away, he was just trying to get close. The other man grinned at him and then leaned in, breath on Warrick's cheek before he licked at his lips.
Any other night Warrick might have jumped back in surprise, but not tonight. He caught Xander's mouth with his own, kissing him hard as he shoved him further into the wall. Everything disappeared except for the slick glide of Xander's tongue against his and the sharp pain of teeth that just made him want more. He was hard so fast it was scary but he kept going, pushing against Xander, wanting him hard and desperate, too.
He wasn't sure how Xander managed to push him away. One minute they were locked together, breaking half a dozen laws; the next, he was the one against the wall and Xander was out of his reach, hair all over the place and tongue moving over his own lips.
"I've still got work," Xander said. "We'll finish this soon." He gaze moved down Warrick's body.
Warrick glanced down, wondering just how much a mess he'd made of himself. When he looked up, Xander was gone.
**
Dust in his hair, dirt on his hands, and the smell of smoke on the wind…Xander stretched happily, ignoring his body's protests. It had been a very good night for hunting and dawn was still hours off.
He licked at his lips even though he knew he wouldn't be able to taste Warrick there, not any more. The thought of the other man made him hunker down into the shadows more, staying hidden as he waited for more vampires to hear about the fire at the club and come to investigate. He wanted to get through this night quickly. He'd seen the determination in Warrick's gaze, felt the fighter's strength and frustration in him when they'd been so close together. Warrick was going to give up on the case that Xander was tearing to pieces all around him. He was a hunter, too, and it wouldn't be easy to deny him his prey.
It gave Xander's own hunting an edge of urgency. He had to find the vampires and strike them down before they heard about Warrick's enquiries. They'd be confused and angry now, wanting to strike back at whatever was cutting them down and if Warrick put himself in their path, then they'd kill him.
He watched as a man ran down the street toward the club, watched as it took four firemen and cops together to hold him away from the ruined building. The man shoved them all away, then turned and walked off, clearly enraged.
Xander ignored the conversation he could hear on the wind, about how the guy must have been hopped up on something to be so strong. The cops were smart enough not to follow, leaving the trail clear. He stuck to the shadows, avoiding notice as he followed the vampire.
The hunt was always important, the chase and fight always sweet, but there was an extra edge to it when he knew he was hunting for the direct benefit of his friends. His family. His pack, although he was careful not to use those words out loud. They made Giles and Willow very nervous and he'd learned to keep them inside.
The vampire picked up the pace and so did Xander, breaking easily into a pace that wasn't quite running but still ate up the distance between them. Worry about what other people might think fell away. Thoughts of Warrick and what they might get up to later drifted to the back of his mind.
The hunt was all that mattered.
Once they were far enough from the club that no firemen or cops could hear anything that might happen, Xander broke into a run, closing the distance between the vampire and himself. There was something very satisfying in running down prey, even when the prey didn't have the sense to know it was being hunted.
The vampire led him into an alley. Xander laughed. Another one. Sunnydale or Mbale, New York or Kano, the alleys were all the same.
Turning at the sound of his laughter, the vampire snarled at him. "I hope you enjoyed your last meal, because you're not getting a last request."
Just like all the vampires were starting to look the same. The same yellow eyes, the same stupid taunts, the same superiority that got them killed. Xander kept his reply behind bared teeth. He pulled out not a stake but a cross, heavy with the weight of iron and the blessings of holy men who'd been as glad to see him leave as they had been for the work he'd done. He swung it hard and smashed the vampire across the face with it, knocking the creature screaming to the ground. He waited until it was staring up at him, a hand raised to its ruined face. "You don't hunt Slayers and Watchers. You hide in the shadows and hunt the ones that don't know to fear you and you wait for the real hunters to come for you."
"The Feratus-"
"The Feratus are gone. You and the dregs are all that's left."
Fear touched the vampire's gaze for the first time and when it rose to its feet, Xander let it run past him, out of the alley and into the night. Cross hidden away again, Xander followed.
Now it would be a proper hunt.
**
"Are you all right?"
Warrick didn't even look up at Catherine's question. He didn't know what to say and as soon as she saw his face she'd know that there was no way he was doing all right.
His case had gone stone cold on him. Every lead was gone and even the outside possibilities, like Lazarus Kane, weren't panning out. His dead guy was still dead and whoever had killed him was going to walk because every time Warrick tried to reach out and touch evidence it turned into ash in his hands.
"What's wrong with him?" Grissom asked.
"That's what I want to know," Catherine said.
He looked up, refusing to be amused.
"Case going badly?" Grissom asked.
"My case is going nowhere."
"Where has the evidence led you?"
"What evidence?" He laid it all out for them: no fingerprints, no distinguishable footprints, no known enemies, no DNA, no blood, no nothing. "I can't find a lead that will last longer than a few hours."
"What about the club Greg was talking about?" Catherine asked. "Do you think that's connected?"
He shrugged. "My gut says yes."
"What does the evidence say?" Grissom asked.
"Not a helluva lot. And there's nothing connecting the killing to the arson." He'd looked when he'd come on shift. Someone did a nice bit of work with military-level accelerant, but other that there wasn't much to go on with the fire, either.
"Some of them go cold," Grissom said, "and there's nothing you can do about it."
Warrick had seen it happen to other CSIs, had had it happen to him, and he hated it every single time. The only thing stopping him from going completely crazy was the fact that he wasn't completely obsessed with the case - Xander Harris kept intruding. He couldn't get completely crazy about failing because the other man was in his head, distracting him.
Another question from Grissom made him push Harris out of his head and focus on the case again. He answered and went over the case with Grissom, grateful that he was willing to take the time to try to talk him through it. In the end, though, it didn't get them anywhere. There were no leads, no clever place to go back to - just a dead guy with no blood and a whole lot of questions.
For a moment Warrick was tempted to bring up Xander. He'd first seen the other man in a blood bar after all…but that was just a coincidence, not anything to do with the case and he wasn't going to shove something personal in Grissom's face.
"Go home, Warrick. Your shift ended forty minutes ago."
That was it - Grissom's permission to call it a night, both for the workday and for the case. It happened. There wasn't anything to go on so it got put into a file and stuck on a shelf and it would bother him late at night, when all the other ones he'd managed to close seemed small and insignificant in comparison.
Long past time for him to get home, especially if he was starting to get maudlin. Warrick closed down the station he'd been working at and gathered up his gear to go home. He was going to head home and grab a beer and a hot shower and see what kind of magic they could work.
And if he looked down every alley he passed on his way, well, that was just being alert.
On his way out, Warrick passed by a couple uniforms he'd worked with in the past. He half-smiled at hearing them laugh. "What's the joke?"
"People are acting like it's a full moon out, Brown." One jerked his thumb over to the door. "We just spent half an hour calming down a group of drunks who were convinced that they'd seen a wolfman kill someone."
More weird shit. "Was there a body?"
The other uniform laughed. "No. Get this - it exploded and disappeared!"
Warrick shook his head. Exploding people. He could've bought either that *or* the wolfman because this was Vegas and if it was going to happen anywhere, it would be here. Put them together, though…"Did you get those guys some coffee and a meal?"
"They're drying out now."
Warrick raised a hand in farewell and kept walking. Vegas really was for crazies.
That meant he fit right in. He was going to check for Lazarus Kane at the first bar one more time.
**
Xander walked through crowd in the blood bar, heading for the vampire behind the bar. People parted around him, humans and demons both, giving him room to walk. The fact that he wasn't dressed for the place had something to do with that. That he could smell the blood, smoke and sweat on himself didn't hurt, either.
There were strange currents in the conversation that swirled around him. Last time he'd been here all he'd picked up was superiority and sex and some dull interest in the hunt. This time there was fear.
Seats opened up when it became clear he was headed for the bar, but he wasn't going to be staying for long. He leaned against the counter and waited for the bartender to come over.
"What do you want?"
A drink sounded good, but Xander had plans to reward himself with something even better. "Spread the news. The Feratus are finished."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Xander pulled a stake out of his back pocket and dropped it on the counter. "Sure you do."
The vampire behind the bar backed off a couple of steps before recovering. "What's that?"
"This killed the last of the Feratus." He was exaggerating. He'd given up on any more vampires coming to the burned down building and making themselves targets. He'd gotten most of them, and between the fire and the hunting he'd done the Feratus wouldn't be anything but a stupid name for a long time.
He touched the stake. "One just like this will be waiting to kill any other vampires who forget that when it comes to Slayers, they're the prey." He stepped back from the bar. "Good luck about that fire. It made my hunt so much easier."
The vampire leaned over the bar. "You smell like hurt and blood."
"I smell like ash more." Leaving the stake on the counter, Xander turned and walked out.
**
Sitting in his car in front of the blood bar, Warrick was listening hard to the small voice in his head that told him going in was a bad idea. It wasn't talking to him any louder than his frustration was, though, and he opened up the truck door and stepped out. There wasn't much of a chance that he'd find Lazarus Kane inside, but that sliver of a chance sent him out into the night.
The door opened while he was still across the street. It took him a moment to recognize Harris - he hadn't expected to see him there. He angled his path so he met up with the other man. "What are you doing here?"
"Saying goodbye." Xander looked back. "Nasty mood in there tonight. You don't want to go in there."
"I have a case."
"You looked for answers in there before."
"Maybe they'll be there this time." Xander reached out to touch his arm, but Warrick shook him off roughly. A muffled grunt of pain made him turn back around. "Are you all right?"
Xander shrugged off the question, but even that movement made him wince. "I'm fine," he said, obviously lying.
"What happened?"
"I told you it was a weird mood in there."
"Do you need to see a doctor?"
"Nah. I'll be fine in the morning." He still winced when he took a step back.
"If you're hurt, you shouldn't be on your own." Warrick had caught a couple cases like that, where injured people thought they'd be fine until it was too late and they couldn't call anyone for help. He didn't want to see anyone die like that, alone when they didn't have to be.
He ignored the little voice in his head that told him there was no way Xander was hurt that bad. So what if he wanted to get Xander on his own territory so he could have some advantage? That didn't mean he couldn't want to make sure he was all right, too. "Come back to my place."
"You're a doctor, now?"
"I know my way around a first aid kit."
Xander stared at him for a moment, then grinned. "You driving?"
The ride home took no time at all and to appease that little voice, Warrick took Xander into the bathroom first thing so he could look him over. If he was hurt than he needed to get him patched up, not think about what it had felt like to push him up against a wall and taste that mouth that wouldn't stop turning up at the corners.
Xander hesitated, but when Warrick crossed his arms over his chest and stared at him he caved, shrugging out of his jacket and dropping it on the ground.
"What the hell happened to you?" The shirt he revealed underneath was stained and torn.
"Rough night," Xander said. He pulled his shirt off with a muffled grunt of pain.
"Jesus." Warrick made him turn around so he could see all of the damage. Scratches and bruises were liberally scattered over his chest, back and shoulders. "All this didn't happen in the bar."
Ignoring the question, Xander reached for the kit.
"I got it." Warrick blocked his move and opened it himself. He hesitated for a moment, not sure where to start, then just gave up and started working. He couldn't do anything for the bruising but he did his best to be gentle as he cleaned out the cuts and scratches. None were deep enough to really need bandaging. He held up gauze inquiringly.
"Skip it," Xander said. He worked on himself, tending to the scratches he could reach.
Warrick could see that Xander was tired and he knew that he had to be hurting, but none of that stopped him from getting hard as he touched all that hot skin. He shifted his weight and kept working, but sense memory from the alley kept filling his thoughts. He remembered Xander's strength pushing against his, the joy of competition almost as strong as the joy of pure lust.
He glanced at Xander and found that the other man was watching him, mouth turned up in that damn grin. If he could smile at him like that, then he didn't need any more tending. Warrick dropped everything to the floor and grabbed Xander at the hips, pulling him close.
His mouth tasted as good as Warrick remembered.
**
Xander grunted hard as his back slammed into the door frame of Warrick's bedroom, but he didn't break the kiss and when Warrick tried to pull away from him he followed him, crowding him, urging him toward the bed.
Warrick only hesitated for a moment before getting back with the program. He turned when they reached the bed and shoved Xander down onto it, then followed him immediately, covering his body with his own.
The perfect reward for a successful hunt. Xander was tired but he was still full of restless energy that he poured into this encounter. He pushed up against Warrick, not really wanting to displace him but curious to see if he could. When Warrick pushed back harder, pinning him to the bed and not letting him go anywhere, he just held him tighter, wanting him more.
Just tired and hurting enough not to want to fight hard enough to be in charge, Xander still didn't give Warrick complete free rein. He fought with Warrick's shirt, insisting on pulling it off even while Warrick was fighting to get rid of their pants.
Naked was better - he could touch and taste and feel. Warrick was all hard muscle and hungry mouth. His hands were everywhere and his cock slid along Xander's. Sweat rose between them as they grappled on the bed, easing the friction between them and making everything smooth and slick.
"Want you," Warrick said, using his knees to push Xander's thighs apart. He dropped a hand to Xander's cock and pumped it slow and hard. "Say yes." He leaned down and scraped his teeth against Xander's throat.
Xander answered by raking his hands down Warrick's back, scoring lines while he opened his legs wider. He encouraged Warrick with curses and his heels pressed into his back, pulling him in, telling him to go faster, damn it.
All that skin he'd coveted was there, his for the taking and he touched and licked and pressed his teeth against it. It was good but it wasn't quite what he wanted and he shoved at Warrick, pushing at him until he was on top and that was even better.
He looked down at Warrick, liking the way his face looked sheened with sweat, liked the feel of his hand on his hip, large and strong. His other hand closed around Xander's cock and he liked that even better. He planted his hands on Warrick's chest and moved. Everything was starting to burn - his muscles, his skin, Warrick's cock inside him. Both of them were taking, any giving almost incidental and that was fine with Xander. Up, down, with Warrick's hands on him…then in him as Warrick slid a couple fingers in his mouth. Long and broad - fingers made for work that danced over his tongue. Xander sucked hard and bit down when he came.
Warrick's howl was protest and triumph as he bucked up hard into Xander, hips moving with bruising force as he rode out his orgasm. "Damn," he said, finally opening his eyes to look up at Xander. He pulled his fingers free and flexed them gingerly.
Xander took them in his hand and made a show of kissing the hurt. Warrick would be fine. He hadn't even broken the skin. Much.
He moved to the side, breaking their connection and sighing as he lay down beside Warrick. He felt as tired as the other man looked. He watched Warrick stretch hugely then relax like his bones were going liquid.
Warrick turned his head to look at him. There were plenty of questions in his eyes, but there was more exhaustion. Xander made a show of stretching and then closing his eyes, curling up to sleep against Warrick's side. He evened out his breaths, taking them nice and slow in a decent sham of sleep. He listened as Warrick moved beside him, turning onto his side, listened as his breaths grew slow and deeper. He stayed still until Warrick began to feel warm the way only sleeping people could. Only then did he open his eyes and slowly slide out of the bed. He walked into the bathroom on silent feet, cleaning up briefly before pulling his clothes on again.
He walked back to the bedroom, jacket thrown over his arm. Warrick had shifted onto his stomach, one arm flung wide across the bed. Xander walked over, admiring the long line of his body. When he was closer, he could smell sex and sweat and Warrick. He couldn't resist leaning in. He glided his face up the line of Warrick's back, less than an inch away, admiring smooth skin that he could still taste. He flicked his tongue against the nape of Warrick's neck, stealing one last taste.
He stepped away from the bed, walking away even though he wanted to crawl back in and begin the contest all over again. It was time to get out. His hunt was over and he'd seen the best of Vegas without ever having gone into a casino. He glanced back one last time. If the Feratus ever re-formed, though, he'd be quick to return.
On his way to the door he caught sight of something thrown on the coffee table, something he'd missed when he'd first passed it because he hadn't been seeing anything but Warrick. He stared down at it and began to laugh quietly as he reached into his jacket pocket.
**
Stretching hugely, Warrick was brought up short by soreness almost everywhere: his back and legs and sides and throat…everywhere. It was like he'd been in a fight, or ran a marathon…
…or had a really great bout of sex. He opened his eyes, and wasn't surprised to find that he was alone. He finished stretching - a little more carefully that time - then climbed out of bed. He glanced around the house quickly, but there was no sign of Xander.
He knew that he should have been freaked out. A one-night stand with a guy he didn't even know? He'd known better than that ten years ago and he still knew better. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and the stupid grin on his face just got bigger. He'd get tested in the morning but it would be fine. He knew that some how.
He showered and threw together breakfast, feeling good for the first time in weeks. The failure of his case wasn't weighing on him as much and he thought that he might be able to walk away from it if he had to.
Warrick walked around his place, feeling the kind of smugness that only came after a day of really good sex. He could see all the cleaning that he'd let slide while working waiting for him, but not even that could bring him down. Still, he didn't want to let it keep piling up so he carried his coffee with him as he finally got the junk mail that had been piling up together and tossed it out.
He spotted another pile on the table in the living room. Where the hell did it all come from? He headed over that way and damn near dropped his coffee. There was something new on the table: a stake, right beside the one Greg had given him. The new one didn't look like a joke, though.
Warrick picked it up gingerly. The end of it was plenty sharp and the handle felt smooth, like an old trusted tool. He tested the point of it against his finger for a moment before picking up the note that had lain under it.
//Just in case. Safe hunting.//
He looked from Greg's joke to the one in his hand. It was crazy…but he was keeping it, anyway.
Vegas was like that.
**
Neon Hunting (follows City Hunting, but no Stabler this time)
BtVS-CSI Crossover
Warrick/Xander
NC-17
That counts as a header, yes? :)
***
Warrick stared down at the body on the ground. "I do *not* believe this."
Greg peered over his shoulder. "Did you keep that stake I made you?"
"No." He turned his head, but the different angle didn't change things: those were still two perfect fang marks on the dead guy's neck and he was still pasty pale like he was missing a whole lot of blood. "Shit."
"It's not really a vampire bite, is it?" Greg was still close, voice a little hushed with awe. "It wasn't last time."
"And it won't be this time, either." It just meant he was going to be jumping right back into the middle of a case full of freaks. "You start in here, all right? I'm going to work the exterior." He straightened up, turning his gaze away from the body because it was giving him the creeps.
Greg bounced in front of him, just as twitchy in the field as he was in the lab. "You're going to leave me in here alone."
"To work the scene."
"Yeah, but what if he rises up?"
Warrick fixed him with a flat look.
"Fine, fine. I'm sure I've got some pointy wood around here somewhere. I'll be fine..."
Warrick tuned out the chatter and stepped outside. Soon he was immersed in his work, cataloguing points of interest in the earth surrounding the small house where the body had been found.
He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he never noticed the man standing on the roof across the street watching him.
**
Xander stayed up on the roof for hours, watching the men below him work. He couldn't see much of the inside of the house, not from this angle, but he already knew all about the corpse in there. He just wanted to see what these cops were going to do about it. One stayed inside with the body while the other searched outside.
His gaze followed the dark man, watching him sweep the yard again and again with his flashlight, hunting for sign. He wasn't as good as the men Xander had met in Africa but he didn't miss much, bending down at regular intervals to leave markers and take photographs. Long clean limbs moved easily in the dark and Xander wondered if the man was as nocturnal as he'd become.
When dawn began to shade the sky, he made his way down off the roof and walked away, slow and easy through the residential streets. There might be lights and eyes everywhere on the Strip, but here people were still in bed and not even dogs marked his passing.
He waited until he was back in the little rental house that he was calling home to call Giles. Time to tell him that they'd lost another one of their own. Vampires liked Vegas and Watchers and Slayers both had followed them there. Four Watchers and a new Slayer had been killed in the past two months.
Xander had found the body, had seen it left surrounded by books and weapons, mocking everything Stimson had worked for and believed in. This wasn't chance or a run of bad luck.
They were being hunted.
**
One look at Greg's face told Warrick the bad news. "No blood inside?"
"Not a drop. Not in our vic and not in the house."
The hits just kept on coming. Warrick hadn't found anything useful outside. A couple of smudges that might have been footprints, some disturbed greenery...nothing special, nothing that he thought was going to help. No blood inside meant this was probably a dumpsite instead of the actual crime scene, which they'd have to find.
"There's more." Greg disappeared back inside the house.
Warrick didn't want to go back in there. He didn't want to see the pale corpse, the bite wounds he knew couldn't be real but refused to disappear. Why couldn't this have been Catherine's bad karma? "What?" he asked, following Greg.
"Check this out." Greg held up a piece of paper with a jagged torn edge. "I found it under the dresser."
Warrick leaned in. "It looks old." The paper had gone yellow.
"Yeah. Check this out." Greg turned it around so Warrick could see the other side. "I don't recognize this language."
Warrick tilted his head to the side, but that didn't help. The writing wasn't like anything he'd seen before. "Bag it." He straightened up. "Anything else?"
"Besides the dead guy with the missing blood?" Greg shook his head. "He must have just moved in. There's clothes and nothing else."
No photographs, nothing to make the place a home. "This whole damn thing is weird."
"I should probably get the back to the lab. And they need to move this body before sunrise."
Warrick rolled his eyes. "If he was going to jump up and bite you he already would have."
"I'm worried about him turning to ash. We'll lose all our evidence."
He started really hating Catherine right then.
**
Walking past the crime scene tape wrapped around the house like it wasn't there, Xander made his way inside. He hadn't liked leaving Stimson's body behind, but the police had been right behind him and he hadn't had time to do more than grab books, weapons, and what he could of the Watcher's personal effects before disappearing. It was too late to finish the job, but he'd do what he could to mitigate the damage. Someone else from the Council would show up and claim Stimson's body, explain away any odd things the police found and put on a very real show of grief.
Xander was going to start hunting the hunters.
He'd come through Vegas following another whim of Giles's. New York hadn't settled him any so he was being kept in the United States until everyone thought he was acting more normal. His latest assignment had been to go back to Sunnydale and take a look at the crater and he'd detoured through Nevada, wanting to take a look at the Strip with his own eyes. He'd grown used to deserts and seen his share of mirages and oases both, but this city was beyond what he'd imagined. Impossible for it to be there and yet it was with more people and lights and sounds then he'd been ready for, even after New York.
The killings had started before he'd arrived and he lingered; this was the business he understood now. Stimson had been helping him get a handle on the way the vampires worked in this city where night was day and no one slept.
Xander swept through the house one last time, checking secret places for anything Stimson might have left behind, but there was nothing. Stimson had been new and barely settled. The Council and its purpose should be safe.
Stimson was gone and he would be mourned. Xander hadn't known him well, but he would do what he could for him. The vampires who had killed him wouldn't last long enough to hurt another Watcher. He might not know all about the subcultures in Vegas, but he didn't need to. Hunting was hunting.
**
The sound of high heels warned him before Catherine's voice told him she was there. "I hear you're working the dark side again."
"Did you assign me this case?" he asked without looking up. The table was cool against his forehead.
"No. I guess you're just lucky."
Warrick laughed. "Wrong kind of luck." He sat up and looked over at her, tall and perfect in the doorway. "Did you hear about the autopsy results?"
"Exsanguination. Greg told me." She cocked her head to the side and smiled at him. "He's going to be a lot of fun to take to that blood bar."
"What? No. No way. This vic looked like a teacher, not a goth vampire fan. We won't have to go back there."
"Where else are you going to get a lead on vampire killers?"
"Are you trying to get me to hate you?"
She laughed at him. "Oh…Greg told me to give you this." She pulled a stake out from behind the files in her arms and dropped in on the table before walking away.
He glared after her, but his heart wasn't in it. It wasn't her fault he had another vampire case. It wasn't her fault that he was going to have to go back to a blood bar, just to see if there was any talk of someone else doing more than just having a taste.
He was going to find a way to blame her for having to take Greg along with him, though. Greg was coming along great as a field CSI but this was one place where he didn't want to take him. He reached out and tapped the stake. He'd stick it in his locker and get rid of it later.
No point in putting it off any longer. Time to go find the rookie. It was just past midnight. The blood bar should be filling up.
**
Not much ever reminded him of Sunnydale. Africa had been a million miles away in spirit and geography if not in distance. New York City had been a thousand times bigger and louder and maybe even just as dark at it heart but it had still been different.
Walking into the blood bar had been a shock: he looked at the people all around him and was back inside that stupid bomb shelter, surrounded by people his own age who seemed somehow years younger. If they'd grown up in a bigger city, maybe they would have made their way to a place like this.
Pulsing music and red lights and too many people wearing too much makeup and leather. All dark hair and darker eyes and lips and they drew away from him and his jeans and old jacket and tanned skin that hadn't yet faded from his time in the desert. He met their contemptuous gazes with bared teeth. He didn't fit in among them and he didn't want to, would never want to be so caught up in a fantasy that he opened himself up to monsters like they did.
Easy hunting here. Vampires should have gone lazy and soft with all these victims panting for the chance to bare their throats to inhuman teeth. They should have been glutting themselves instead of turning the tables on their own hunters. He might not find the ones he wanted here, but he would find others.
Vampires talked. With enough pain and exposure to sunlight, they talked a lot.
He walked through the crowd that parted before him, looking for the ones that weren't playing. He saw a few and began to circle, looking among them to find the one that he would choose for that night.
He made his way to the shadows, not wanting to draw more attention to himself. That could come later, if he decided he wanted the vampires to know he was hunting them.
A stir in the crowd drew his attention and he watched as the foolish parted and showed him the two men he'd seen at Stimson's house: the younger man and the taller one, the one who'd been outside, the one Xander had watched for hours.
He settled himself in the shadows. He had a lot of watching to do for a man with one eye.
**
Warrick looked around the club with weary eyes. The kids that filled it were playing a dangerous game and he knew that they just didn't care. Some of them might be scared out of the room if he warned them about the last case that had brought him to this place, but he knew most of them would stay regardless. There were thousands of lost souls in Vegas and most of them wanted to stay lost.
Greg was practically quivering. Warrick glanced at him. "I thought you would have been to a place like this already."
"Not while I'm working," Greg shot back with a cocky smile, but his wide eyes proved his words false.
Resolved to keep an eye on him, Warrick walked slowly through the club. Lazarus Kane would probably be around, drinking absinthe and pretending to be immortal. He wasn't sure if the man would talk to him but he was the only contact he had and Warrick wasn't going to leave any stone unturned.
As he walked through the club he was aware that he was being watched. That was to be expected: he and Greg didn't fit in. it was more than that, though. Someone was watching *him*. He didn't look around, not wanting to let whoever was looking know that he was on to him. If it was someone involved in his case, he didn't want to tip him off.
A circuit of the bar showed him that Kane wasn't there and the bartenders all acted like he was speaking Chinese when he asked about him. "Damn."
"We can come back and try tomorrow," Greg pointed out.
Warrick nodded irritably. He didn't like being stymied. He looked around the room one last time. Maybe if he could see who was watching him he'd get an idea of who to be looking for him. It was hard: the lights flashed and the music pounded and he was surrounded by a constantly shifting crowd.
The writhing bodies on the dance floor parted for a moment and Warrick found him meeting the gaze of a man across the length of the bar, a man who looked as out of place as he did and he wasn't sure how he'd managed to miss seeing him before. Dark hair and an eye patch and a smile on his face like he'd just spotted breakfast after working all night through the end of a double shift. Warrick was caught by that gaze, helpless to do anything but stare back...until Greg broke the spell.
"You know him?"
"No." Warrick blinked and the crowd swirled and the next time he had a clear view the man was gone.
**
"You don't look like the kids who usually come here," the vampire said, looking at Xander suspiciously even as he led him deeper into the alley.
"I'm new to the lifestyle," Xander said, transforming his grin into an embarrassed smile.
"I'll show you everything you need to know," the vampire promised.
"I'm sure you will." Xander let himself be pushed up against the rough wall, catching his lips between his teeth.
The vampire leaned into him, eyes fixed on his mouth then drifting down to his throat. "Yeah?"
"I know you will." Xander raised the taser and pressed it to the vampire's chest, watching him convulse before collapsing. Once he was sure the vampire was out, he shoved the limp body over to the side. He didn't want him to be discovered before he could swing his Jeep around load the vampire in.
He walked back through the club and on impulse stopped by the bar. He pulled out a hundred dollar bill and left it on the counter and the bartender came right over. "There were two men in here. Didn't belong."
"Like you don't?" the bartender challenged.
Xander glanced down at the bill on the bar. "I belong just fine. Who were they?"
"Crime scene guys. They work with the cops. I only caught the tall guy's name: Warrick Brown."
Warrick Brown. Xander nodded and left the money on the bar. He had a name.
Once he got the vampire back to where he was staying, he'd get some answers, too.
**
"How'd your trip to the bar go?" Williks asked.
"Don't ask," Warrick said. A complete failure. He hadn't found Kane or anyone else willing to talk. He hadn't noticed anything helpful and now that he was away the only thing he could remember was the way that guy had looked at him, the one with the patch and the dark hair and that barely there hungry smile that had made Warrick take notice even though he was determined not to take notice while he was working. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about him and was beginning to regret not trying to find him after he'd disappeared...he was shaken from his thoughts when Williks started talking again.
"I have to ask," she said, leaning against her desk as she looked up at him. "I'm just a linguistics monkey. I work in the lab all night and sleep all day. You CSIs are the guys who get to go out and do all the fun stuff."
"Fun." He sketched out some of the highlights of what he'd seen, keeping the one eyed man to himself. "Did you stop me because you wanted live vicariously? Or did you have something to tell me?"
"That paper you found with your vampire victim."
Warrick interrupted, "He wasn't killed by vampires."
"Whatever. What I'm interested in is that paper."
Warrick looked down at the torn page. "Oh, this." The nonsense stuff Greg had found at the scene. "Someone he worked with got in contact with us and told us the guy used to like to make up languages in his spare time. Like Tolkien."
"Not like Tolkien." Williks held up the paper. "I know languages, real and made up. This isn't like anything I've ever seen. Look here: these just look like scribbles. I can't find any pattern or order to them."
"Maybe they are just scribbles. Even Tolkien had to have frustration and bad days."
Williks didn't look convinced, but she nodded.
Warrick nodded back and walked away. He had to try another way to find out who killed Phillip Stimson. The blood bar had been a dead end but he'd be going back again to look for Kane.
If he found the one-eyed man, that would just be a bonus.
**
Turning the empty bottle of holy water upside down, Xander shook his head sorrowfully. "All out." He dropped it on the ground. Squatting in front of the vampire he'd tied to a chair, he patted him on the knee. "I'll have to run out and get more." He glanced at the square of sunlight on the bare floor, a foot away from the vampire's toes. "I'll probably be back before that reaches you."
"No!" The croaking whimper was frantic.
"You aren't talking," Xander said in a reasonable voice and he stood up. "Your throat's probably too dry. I'll get you something to drink."
"I don't know what you want to know."
"You might not," Xander agreed. He reached out and tweaked one of the sharp slivers of wood piercing the skin of the vampire's chest. "But you know more than you're telling me. I'll get you a drink. It'll help loosen your tongue." He kicked the empty bottle, sending it spinning across the floor. "Or burn it clean off."
He'd seen hatred before, had seen it directed right at him, but this was special: he could almost feel the golden gaze on him, hot and searing. He curled his lip up in a feral smile and the gaze was directed back down to the floor.
"There is talk," the vampire said, every word clearly painful.
"Talk of what?" A human would have broken long before this. The problem with torturing vampires wasn't their sense of superiority; it was how much they liked pain. Hurting them enough to make them talk without damaging them to the point of death was a challenge.
"Of taking back the night. Of hunting the ones that hunt us. Making them pay."
Because vampires were the victims. "Who?"
"The Feratus."
Xander closed his eyes. At least in Africa he hadn't been able to understand the vampires when they said stuff like that. The stupidity had slid right past him. "Tell me more."
**
Warrick stood outside another blood bar, trying to decide if it was a good idea to go inside or not. He'd been to two others already that night and dawn was fast approaching. This was one he'd heard of at the second bar: a guy inside had suggested it to him and even offered to come along with him.
He'd turned him down, of course. The guy had been helpful but he'd also been at the club full of crazy people. The case might be driving him nuts, but not that nuts. He was out doing this while Greg was back in the lab, running down a lead on the bite wound that had caught his attention. Warrick knew going to these places on his own was a bad idea but he hadn't been able to sit around and do nothing. He still hadn't found Kane but maybe the guy was hiding out at this bar instead of his usual haunt.
He didn't have any other real options. He didn't want to let this case go cold, didn't want to lose it. The man who'd killed the girl in his first case wouldn't have stopped with her, he knew that. He would have found someone else and killed again and again until he got caught. Warrick wasn't going to let a serial killer get started on his watch.
Might as well get it over with - go face the crazy and maybe come up with something or at least have an excuse for home. He took a few steps.
"That's probably not a good idea."
He turned around. The one-eyed guy smiled at him, close enough to touch.
**
Xander approved of the way Brown backed off from him, maintaining a good bit of distance between them. The man was hunting vampires without realizing it - he needed to be cautious.
"What's not a good idea?" Brown asked.
"Going inside." Xander nodded over toward the small dark club, but he kept his gaze on Brown. "But you knew that already or else you wouldn't be on your own."
"And you know all about my business?"
"I know about what happens in there. There's a reason you don't see dilettantes there." He wasn't going to come out and say what was really happening in the club. If he could keep Warrick in the dark, then all the better for the both of them.
"The man I'm looking for isn't a dilettante."
If he was looking for a man then he wouldn't find him in the club, either. Xander's vampire had told him about the Feratus' plan, what little he'd known. It had included the fact that the club wasn't a bar for humans - it was for vampires and any humans who were lured inside or blundered upon it on their own didn't walk out with a heartbeat.
Brown looked over at the club again, his resolve wavering. "I've got a case that's going cold on me. I need some answers."
"They don't give out answers there."
"I don't have many options." The frustration was coming off of him in waves.
Xander understood. The man was a hunter, shared all the same instincts that drove him. He might do his tracking in crime labs and crime scenes, but not being able to find his prey would make his just as crazy as it made Xander. "That doesn't mean you have to be foolish."
"Yeah. It also doesn't mean I have to take advice from strangers."
"That's what led you here."
That stopped Warrick short. He stared at Xander for a moment, then shook his head. "I must be outta my mind." He held out his hand. "Warrick Brown. Crime Scene Investigator."
"Xander Harris." He took his hand. "Advice Giving Stranger."
**
Warrick found himself laughing. He was out in the middle of a nasty neighborhood, skulking in the shadows of a blood bar and shaking the hand of a one-eyed guy who just made him *hungry* when he looked at him. It should have been one of Greg's outrageous stories, the ones where he left the ending up to the imagination with a wriggle of his eyebrows and a cocky grin. Warrick had no idea how this story was going to end up but he found that he really wanted to find out.
"Advice giving stranger, huh? And the advice is to stay away from this place until daylight?"
"My advice would be to stay away from this place period." Xander looked out over at the bar. "It's not worth going in."
"Tell that to the dead man in the morgue." He hated letting the dead down. If he couldn't find any information, couldn't see the evidence that would lead to the killer, then who would?
"The dead don't hear," Xander said shortly.
"Then tell it to the people who cared about him."
Xander nodded. "That makes better sense."
"If you know about this bar, maybe you know where I can find the information I need. I'm looking for a man named Lazarus Kane."
A snort of laughter escaped Xander and Warrick found himself smiling in return. "I know, but that's what he calls himself."
"I don't know anything about him."
"So you weren't here looking for him. What were you looking for?"
"Took a wrong turn," Xander said. "I was leaving when I saw you."
Warrick didn't believe that for a moment. "So you'll be leaving with me, then?"
"Depends on where you'll take me." Xander was suddenly closer, in his space, warm skin and warmer gaze. He tilted his head to the side and inhaled and every hair on Warrick's neck and arms was standing straight up.
**
Xander felt the predatory smile stretching his lips and he let it grow. He hadn't missed any of Warrick's reactions to his nearness, the sudden quickening of his breathing, the tensing of his muscles. Hunting was hunting, no matter what the purpose.
He leaned in closer, sniffing again. Warrick smelled good, no cologne, just frustrated man. It made Xander want to get closer. It made him want to take a bite. Another inch and then he was flickering his tongue over Warrick's throat, stealing a taste.
Warrick flinched back. "Are you one of them?" he asked, suddenly wary.
Xander bared his teeth at him. "No fangs. I just wanted...skin." He held Warrick's gaze until the other man relaxed and then he moved it again, letting his breath breeze over Warrick's throat again. "Just your skin."
**
Christ, maybe someone had managed to slip him something at that last bar. Warrick had to be on drugs - that was the only thing that would explain why he was leaning into the guy who was sniffing him. “My skin?” What if Xander meant that he wanted to wear it as a hat?
That slick tongue glided over his throat for a mere second, hot and wet and it made him shiver in the cool desert night. This was just a bad idea…”Bad idea,” he said, trying to save himself.
He was surprised and disappointed when Xander actually moved away from him. “It isn’t.” He glanced over at the club, the one he was trying so hard to keep Warrick away from. “Bad location.”
Warrick wasn’t going to suggest going somewhere else. He wasn’t. That would be foolish and crazy…about as crazy as going into any bar in this area alone, let alone one filled with killer-wannabes. Still, he had a feeling that as long as he stayed out here, so would Xander. “I won’t go in tonight.”
“Shouldn’t go in at all,” Xander said.
“I told you, I’ve got a case.”
There was something in the other man’s eye…it looked like respect. “The hunt is important. But you have to do it smart.”
Smart, yeah. Smart was the opposite of what he was doing. He had been letting frustration drive him, not brains. “I can do smart.”
Xander looked him up and down. “So can I.”
**
Xander squinted into the morning sunlight, looking at the club he’d managed to chase Warrick away from the night before. He didn’t have a lot of time, not if he wanted to keep the other man from chasing prey into places where his hunt shouldn’t go. He raised his cell phone to his ear and hit the only number he had on speed dial.
//Yes?// Giles sounded harried.
“I can call back,” Xander said.
//Xander? No, don’t do that. What’s going on?//
Xander gave him a quick run down of the situation. “They have blood bars here,” he concluded. “They’re getting cocky and they think they can turn the tables.”
“Stimson had said there was something strange…I will have Andrew put together a team of Slayers and send them to you.”
“No.”
“Xander, if these vampires have organized-“
“They’ve organized and the best name they can come up with is ‘the Feratus’.” Xander watched the bar, dark and quiet. It wouldn’t be empty, though, and he needed to get inside.
“This isn’t why I sent you west. Let me send a team. You can continue your travels and enjoy yourself.”
“I’m having a blast. Don’t send anyone else - it will ruin the fun.” Xander hung up his phone and then turned it off. Morning was passing and the bar was waiting for him.
Time to have fun.
**
God, he really was back at the beginning again, looking at the few pages of the ruined books that Greg had brought back to the lab. It still looked like nonsense, just like everything in the case was nonsense.
Everything in the case except for Harris. He wasn’t nonsense…he wasn’t any kind of sense at all. Even thinking about him was craziness. The guy showed up out of nowhere, acting like he knew more than he was saying, acting like he could see right inside Warrick’s head and things were just weird enough that Warrick wasn’t sure that he couldn’t. He gave advice Warrick didn’t ask for but maybe needed, since he’d apparently gotten suicidal from frustration.
He closed his eyes and thought about Harris, his long dark hair and that patch that looked right on him, his rangy form and smile that was as dangerous as it was sexy and what the hell was he doing, thinking about Harris when he had a case to solve. He groaned and bent forward, thunking his head against the tabletop.
“Is it really that bad?”
Warrick didn’t open his eyes. Looking at Grissom wasn’t going to help anything. “It’s worse.” He was losing his damn mind. He could have handled that if his case wasn’t going nowhere at the same time.
“Maybe you’re too close to the situation.” Grissom paused in the doorway, hands full of paperwork but clearly ready to put it off and talk to him.
Warrick appreciated the unspoken offer and if the situation had been anything else he might have taken him up on it. He could have talked about the case, could have vented all his frustration and confusion and maybe Grissom would have been able to help him make sense of it, but it was all too tied up with Harris and he wasn’t talking about that with Grissom. He kept his personal life personal when it came to the man - Grissom didn’t pry for details and he wasn’t going to make him uncomfortable by giving him information he didn’t want. He shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
He didn’t have a chance to answer. Greg rushed up behind Grissom, bumping into him. He raised his hands in apology, but when he spoke it was to Warrick. “Warrick! That club you asked me about? It’s on fire.”
**
Xander worked the shampoo through his hair with a little regret. The scent of smoke was washing away down the drain, taking away the most tangible souvenir of his visit to the blood bar. Fire was such an efficient way to declare war. The violence of the flames was a graphic prelude of the violence that was to come.
Still, he wasn’t about to forgo the pleasure of getting clean in a hot shower just to hang on to it. He wallowed under the warm water. No dirt, no bugs, just clean skin and water like he hadn’t felt for over a year down in Africa. It still hadn’t gotten old for him and he’d been back in the States for months.
He climbed out of the shower before the hot water ran out, drying off quickly with clean fresh towels, enjoying every moment. He put away the hedonism as he pulled on his clothing, though. These weren’t soft flannel pants that felt smooth against his skin. These were hunting clothes: old jeans, t-shirt, a jacket that was battered and worn and like a second skin. A comfortable pair of boots and stakes and a couple of knives hidden away and he was ready to go.
He left his vehicle behind. A car wasn’t going to do him any good where he was going. He loped through the shadows, sticking to them. He’d probably worry the normal people vacationing on the Strip, but he wasn’t going to go anywhere that the neon lights would reach.
He stepped over piles of discarded lumber, over discarded people. The money from the casinos was stretched thin here, and there was no effort to pretty up the place and make it enticing for anyone, tourist or local. The scent of garbage and dirt and decay filled his nose, so different from hunting in Africa. He was getting used to this kind of city hunting, where his prey hid in buildings and he found them with flickering neon lights.
A stake in his waistband, prey up ahead, and Warrick Brown just waiting to be found when this was all over…
It was almost like being on vacation.
**
Warrick stared at the smoldering ruin that used to be the club. He could hear Greg talking to him, probably asking him questions. He didn't pay any attention. He couldn't - he was too busy trying to understand what he was seeing. The club had been dark and frightening the night before when he'd walked away from it. Now it was just a ruin, reeking of smoke and disaster as the fire crew walked around it, all urgency gone now that the fired had been contained. "What the hell happened?"
"Aren't you the guys who tell us that?" asked a passing arson investigator.
Warrick recognized him vaguely. They'd bumped into each other on a few other cases and on any other night he would have been able to remember his name. "Arson?"
"Yeah. If you get any closer, you'll be able to smell the accelerant. We haven't identified it yet, but it was nasty stuff. This place went up and the crews never had a chance of putting it out."
"Was there anyone inside?"
"Not that we've seen so far." The investigator glanced over at the building. "It was some kind of club, but it must have been closed. No bodies inside." His voice trailed away and he kept staring at the ruin.
"What is it?" Now that he knew there hadn't been any more deaths, Warrick could start to relax and think again. No one had been caught inside, like Harris, going back on his own against his own advice…"What?"
"I said there's too much ash in there."
"It was on fire," Greg said, sounding knowing.
The arson investigator shot him a withering look. "Too much ash, even for a fire. They're shoveling it like snow as they go through the scene. Maybe it was the accelerant."
"Maybe," Warrick said. He didn't know.
The investigator returned to his scene.
"Wasn't that one of our leads?" Greg asked.
"No. It was just about our only lead." Warrick felt frustrated anger flow through him, hot and quick. Every time he thought he might have something to go on, he found himself running into a wall. The club was gone, so he was back to square one when it came to locating Lazarus Kane, which meant he was back to square one on everything.
He barely acknowledged Greg telling him that he was going to catch a ride back to the lab with one of the uniforms who'd stopped by to check out the fire. It was just as well. He didn't feel like going back there. All he'd find were more dead ends…dead ends like the damn burned out club behind him.
He gave up on work and decided to head for home. He wasn't going to be good for anything until he got some sleep and a decent meal. With his luck, he'd end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person in the lab and end up on suspension.
He'd only driven a block or two when he caught sight of movement up ahead. He slowed down - he was in a bad area and anything could be happening in that alley. His hand drifted toward his cell phone, ready to call in the cavalry if they were needed.
He didn't stop the car until he recognized one of the shadows. Xander Harris.
**
Just starting to breathe heavily, Xander grinned at the vampire he'd cornered. Cornering prey could make the hunt more dangerous and that thought made his smile grow.
"You've made a mistake," the vampire told him. "Your last mistake."
Xander shook his head, stake held low and ready. "I'm sure I'll make many more."
"You don't know what you're messing with, do you?" The vampire bared its fangs, teeth that looked huge on what had once been a dainty girl.
"What? A vampire?" He laughed a little, high and wild. "I've had vampires. You don't measure up."
"I'm a Feratu!"
Xander laughed again. "A stupid name for a very stupid group of vampires." His tone shifted, became mocking. "You'd think one Feratu in a whole bar full of them would be able to figure out how to get out in a fire, wouldn't you?" He shook his head and tsked. "I don't think the chains on the doors should have slowed them down that much."
The vampire took a step forward. "That was you?"
"Me," Xander agreed. "Unless you want to join them, back up and stop asking questions. You'll be answering them from now on."
The vampire stared at him for a moment, then backed off. Sulking against the wall, the young girl illusion was stronger, especially when light hair fell forward to cover the demonic face.
The interrogation didn't take long. The vampire didn't have much to tell him, mostly posturing about the Feratus were unbeatable and not even Slayers could stop them. He pushed for real information about numbers and plans and what he learned was encouraging. The Feratus were exclusive as their name was stupid and there wasn't really that many of them. He'd made a good dent in their numbers at the club, then. The remnants wouldn't be that hard to hunt down and scatter.
"There," the vampire said. "That's everything." A shift of features and then there was just a girl standing in front of him, looking scared and sad. "Will you let me go now?"
"I'll set you free," Xander promised. He waited for the vampire to relax before slamming his stake home. He brushed his hands free of dust. One down…there was plenty more hunting to be had.
"The hell is going on?"
Xander turned around, not sure whether to be glad or not that it was Warrick instead of a stranger staring at him. "Crazy stuff happens in Vegas all the time, right?"
**
Warrick had been a nerd in high school, but he'd loosened up when he'd gotten older. He'd never been big into the drug scene, though, and hadn't ever tried a hard hallucinogen like LSD. He was starting to wonder if maybe someone had slipped him some, because nothing was quite right.
Crazy stuff happened in Vegas all the time. Hell, he was investigating a murder that looked like it had been done by vampires, and it wasn't even the first one. Still, he would have sworn that he'd heard two voices when he'd started walking down this alley, and he'd thought he'd seen someone standing by Xander. He'd tripped over a bit of garbage and by the time he'd gotten his balance back, Xander was alone.
Alone, and looking at him like he was a cold beer at noon in July.
Warrick caught himself staring back before he dragged his mind back to business. This was business - the club where he'd really met him had just burned down. It wasn't Warrick's case, but he had a suspect. "What do you know about the fire?"
Xander smiled. "What fire?"
It was obvious that he was lying. He wasn't even trying to pretend to be surprised by the question. "The fire that burned down the club you warned me away from."
"Oh. That fire." Xander shook his head. "That place probably violated half a dozen fire codes. It was only a matter of time. Was anyone hurt?" He moved forward slowly, getting closer to Warrick while moving in nearly a circle.
Warrick didn't like it, didn't like the way Xander wasn't even pretending to be honest, didn't like the way he was feeling hunted. Not like this, in an alley where someone had just disappeared, like all the leads for his case had just disappeared.
Knowing his temper was frayed before he'd seen Xander, Warrick drew in a deep breath. "No," he said, answering the question after too long a pause. "No, it doesn't look like anyone was inside the place when it went up." He shifted his feet, moving so he was facing him. "But you knew that, didn't you?" Warrick knew it, knew it like he'd seen Xander set the fire.
Xander smile grew. "How could anyone count on there not being a soul inside that place?" He kept moving closer.
The tone in Xander's question, innocence so false it was almost obscene, was all it took to make Warrick snap. His case was going cold and not even the fire was going to help heat it up and here was this guy who made him crazy on the inside and was going to see him crazy on the outside, too. He got into Xander's space, using his height to crowd him back against the wall.
That didn't faze him; if anything, Xander looked pleased. He didn't try to get away. He tipped his head back and looked at Warrick, that damn smile getting bigger by the minute. Warrick could only think of a few ways to get rid of it and he was torn. He'd been spoiling for a fight all day, but Xander was so close and he could feel the heat coming off of him…
Xander solved his problem for him. He pushed up against Warrick. Warrick started to push back before he realized that Xander wasn't trying to get away, he was just trying to get close. The other man grinned at him and then leaned in, breath on Warrick's cheek before he licked at his lips.
Any other night Warrick might have jumped back in surprise, but not tonight. He caught Xander's mouth with his own, kissing him hard as he shoved him further into the wall. Everything disappeared except for the slick glide of Xander's tongue against his and the sharp pain of teeth that just made him want more. He was hard so fast it was scary but he kept going, pushing against Xander, wanting him hard and desperate, too.
He wasn't sure how Xander managed to push him away. One minute they were locked together, breaking half a dozen laws; the next, he was the one against the wall and Xander was out of his reach, hair all over the place and tongue moving over his own lips.
"I've still got work," Xander said. "We'll finish this soon." He gaze moved down Warrick's body.
Warrick glanced down, wondering just how much a mess he'd made of himself. When he looked up, Xander was gone.
**
Dust in his hair, dirt on his hands, and the smell of smoke on the wind…Xander stretched happily, ignoring his body's protests. It had been a very good night for hunting and dawn was still hours off.
He licked at his lips even though he knew he wouldn't be able to taste Warrick there, not any more. The thought of the other man made him hunker down into the shadows more, staying hidden as he waited for more vampires to hear about the fire at the club and come to investigate. He wanted to get through this night quickly. He'd seen the determination in Warrick's gaze, felt the fighter's strength and frustration in him when they'd been so close together. Warrick was going to give up on the case that Xander was tearing to pieces all around him. He was a hunter, too, and it wouldn't be easy to deny him his prey.
It gave Xander's own hunting an edge of urgency. He had to find the vampires and strike them down before they heard about Warrick's enquiries. They'd be confused and angry now, wanting to strike back at whatever was cutting them down and if Warrick put himself in their path, then they'd kill him.
He watched as a man ran down the street toward the club, watched as it took four firemen and cops together to hold him away from the ruined building. The man shoved them all away, then turned and walked off, clearly enraged.
Xander ignored the conversation he could hear on the wind, about how the guy must have been hopped up on something to be so strong. The cops were smart enough not to follow, leaving the trail clear. He stuck to the shadows, avoiding notice as he followed the vampire.
The hunt was always important, the chase and fight always sweet, but there was an extra edge to it when he knew he was hunting for the direct benefit of his friends. His family. His pack, although he was careful not to use those words out loud. They made Giles and Willow very nervous and he'd learned to keep them inside.
The vampire picked up the pace and so did Xander, breaking easily into a pace that wasn't quite running but still ate up the distance between them. Worry about what other people might think fell away. Thoughts of Warrick and what they might get up to later drifted to the back of his mind.
The hunt was all that mattered.
Once they were far enough from the club that no firemen or cops could hear anything that might happen, Xander broke into a run, closing the distance between the vampire and himself. There was something very satisfying in running down prey, even when the prey didn't have the sense to know it was being hunted.
The vampire led him into an alley. Xander laughed. Another one. Sunnydale or Mbale, New York or Kano, the alleys were all the same.
Turning at the sound of his laughter, the vampire snarled at him. "I hope you enjoyed your last meal, because you're not getting a last request."
Just like all the vampires were starting to look the same. The same yellow eyes, the same stupid taunts, the same superiority that got them killed. Xander kept his reply behind bared teeth. He pulled out not a stake but a cross, heavy with the weight of iron and the blessings of holy men who'd been as glad to see him leave as they had been for the work he'd done. He swung it hard and smashed the vampire across the face with it, knocking the creature screaming to the ground. He waited until it was staring up at him, a hand raised to its ruined face. "You don't hunt Slayers and Watchers. You hide in the shadows and hunt the ones that don't know to fear you and you wait for the real hunters to come for you."
"The Feratus-"
"The Feratus are gone. You and the dregs are all that's left."
Fear touched the vampire's gaze for the first time and when it rose to its feet, Xander let it run past him, out of the alley and into the night. Cross hidden away again, Xander followed.
Now it would be a proper hunt.
**
"Are you all right?"
Warrick didn't even look up at Catherine's question. He didn't know what to say and as soon as she saw his face she'd know that there was no way he was doing all right.
His case had gone stone cold on him. Every lead was gone and even the outside possibilities, like Lazarus Kane, weren't panning out. His dead guy was still dead and whoever had killed him was going to walk because every time Warrick tried to reach out and touch evidence it turned into ash in his hands.
"What's wrong with him?" Grissom asked.
"That's what I want to know," Catherine said.
He looked up, refusing to be amused.
"Case going badly?" Grissom asked.
"My case is going nowhere."
"Where has the evidence led you?"
"What evidence?" He laid it all out for them: no fingerprints, no distinguishable footprints, no known enemies, no DNA, no blood, no nothing. "I can't find a lead that will last longer than a few hours."
"What about the club Greg was talking about?" Catherine asked. "Do you think that's connected?"
He shrugged. "My gut says yes."
"What does the evidence say?" Grissom asked.
"Not a helluva lot. And there's nothing connecting the killing to the arson." He'd looked when he'd come on shift. Someone did a nice bit of work with military-level accelerant, but other that there wasn't much to go on with the fire, either.
"Some of them go cold," Grissom said, "and there's nothing you can do about it."
Warrick had seen it happen to other CSIs, had had it happen to him, and he hated it every single time. The only thing stopping him from going completely crazy was the fact that he wasn't completely obsessed with the case - Xander Harris kept intruding. He couldn't get completely crazy about failing because the other man was in his head, distracting him.
Another question from Grissom made him push Harris out of his head and focus on the case again. He answered and went over the case with Grissom, grateful that he was willing to take the time to try to talk him through it. In the end, though, it didn't get them anywhere. There were no leads, no clever place to go back to - just a dead guy with no blood and a whole lot of questions.
For a moment Warrick was tempted to bring up Xander. He'd first seen the other man in a blood bar after all…but that was just a coincidence, not anything to do with the case and he wasn't going to shove something personal in Grissom's face.
"Go home, Warrick. Your shift ended forty minutes ago."
That was it - Grissom's permission to call it a night, both for the workday and for the case. It happened. There wasn't anything to go on so it got put into a file and stuck on a shelf and it would bother him late at night, when all the other ones he'd managed to close seemed small and insignificant in comparison.
Long past time for him to get home, especially if he was starting to get maudlin. Warrick closed down the station he'd been working at and gathered up his gear to go home. He was going to head home and grab a beer and a hot shower and see what kind of magic they could work.
And if he looked down every alley he passed on his way, well, that was just being alert.
On his way out, Warrick passed by a couple uniforms he'd worked with in the past. He half-smiled at hearing them laugh. "What's the joke?"
"People are acting like it's a full moon out, Brown." One jerked his thumb over to the door. "We just spent half an hour calming down a group of drunks who were convinced that they'd seen a wolfman kill someone."
More weird shit. "Was there a body?"
The other uniform laughed. "No. Get this - it exploded and disappeared!"
Warrick shook his head. Exploding people. He could've bought either that *or* the wolfman because this was Vegas and if it was going to happen anywhere, it would be here. Put them together, though…"Did you get those guys some coffee and a meal?"
"They're drying out now."
Warrick raised a hand in farewell and kept walking. Vegas really was for crazies.
That meant he fit right in. He was going to check for Lazarus Kane at the first bar one more time.
**
Xander walked through crowd in the blood bar, heading for the vampire behind the bar. People parted around him, humans and demons both, giving him room to walk. The fact that he wasn't dressed for the place had something to do with that. That he could smell the blood, smoke and sweat on himself didn't hurt, either.
There were strange currents in the conversation that swirled around him. Last time he'd been here all he'd picked up was superiority and sex and some dull interest in the hunt. This time there was fear.
Seats opened up when it became clear he was headed for the bar, but he wasn't going to be staying for long. He leaned against the counter and waited for the bartender to come over.
"What do you want?"
A drink sounded good, but Xander had plans to reward himself with something even better. "Spread the news. The Feratus are finished."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Xander pulled a stake out of his back pocket and dropped it on the counter. "Sure you do."
The vampire behind the bar backed off a couple of steps before recovering. "What's that?"
"This killed the last of the Feratus." He was exaggerating. He'd given up on any more vampires coming to the burned down building and making themselves targets. He'd gotten most of them, and between the fire and the hunting he'd done the Feratus wouldn't be anything but a stupid name for a long time.
He touched the stake. "One just like this will be waiting to kill any other vampires who forget that when it comes to Slayers, they're the prey." He stepped back from the bar. "Good luck about that fire. It made my hunt so much easier."
The vampire leaned over the bar. "You smell like hurt and blood."
"I smell like ash more." Leaving the stake on the counter, Xander turned and walked out.
**
Sitting in his car in front of the blood bar, Warrick was listening hard to the small voice in his head that told him going in was a bad idea. It wasn't talking to him any louder than his frustration was, though, and he opened up the truck door and stepped out. There wasn't much of a chance that he'd find Lazarus Kane inside, but that sliver of a chance sent him out into the night.
The door opened while he was still across the street. It took him a moment to recognize Harris - he hadn't expected to see him there. He angled his path so he met up with the other man. "What are you doing here?"
"Saying goodbye." Xander looked back. "Nasty mood in there tonight. You don't want to go in there."
"I have a case."
"You looked for answers in there before."
"Maybe they'll be there this time." Xander reached out to touch his arm, but Warrick shook him off roughly. A muffled grunt of pain made him turn back around. "Are you all right?"
Xander shrugged off the question, but even that movement made him wince. "I'm fine," he said, obviously lying.
"What happened?"
"I told you it was a weird mood in there."
"Do you need to see a doctor?"
"Nah. I'll be fine in the morning." He still winced when he took a step back.
"If you're hurt, you shouldn't be on your own." Warrick had caught a couple cases like that, where injured people thought they'd be fine until it was too late and they couldn't call anyone for help. He didn't want to see anyone die like that, alone when they didn't have to be.
He ignored the little voice in his head that told him there was no way Xander was hurt that bad. So what if he wanted to get Xander on his own territory so he could have some advantage? That didn't mean he couldn't want to make sure he was all right, too. "Come back to my place."
"You're a doctor, now?"
"I know my way around a first aid kit."
Xander stared at him for a moment, then grinned. "You driving?"
The ride home took no time at all and to appease that little voice, Warrick took Xander into the bathroom first thing so he could look him over. If he was hurt than he needed to get him patched up, not think about what it had felt like to push him up against a wall and taste that mouth that wouldn't stop turning up at the corners.
Xander hesitated, but when Warrick crossed his arms over his chest and stared at him he caved, shrugging out of his jacket and dropping it on the ground.
"What the hell happened to you?" The shirt he revealed underneath was stained and torn.
"Rough night," Xander said. He pulled his shirt off with a muffled grunt of pain.
"Jesus." Warrick made him turn around so he could see all of the damage. Scratches and bruises were liberally scattered over his chest, back and shoulders. "All this didn't happen in the bar."
Ignoring the question, Xander reached for the kit.
"I got it." Warrick blocked his move and opened it himself. He hesitated for a moment, not sure where to start, then just gave up and started working. He couldn't do anything for the bruising but he did his best to be gentle as he cleaned out the cuts and scratches. None were deep enough to really need bandaging. He held up gauze inquiringly.
"Skip it," Xander said. He worked on himself, tending to the scratches he could reach.
Warrick could see that Xander was tired and he knew that he had to be hurting, but none of that stopped him from getting hard as he touched all that hot skin. He shifted his weight and kept working, but sense memory from the alley kept filling his thoughts. He remembered Xander's strength pushing against his, the joy of competition almost as strong as the joy of pure lust.
He glanced at Xander and found that the other man was watching him, mouth turned up in that damn grin. If he could smile at him like that, then he didn't need any more tending. Warrick dropped everything to the floor and grabbed Xander at the hips, pulling him close.
His mouth tasted as good as Warrick remembered.
**
Xander grunted hard as his back slammed into the door frame of Warrick's bedroom, but he didn't break the kiss and when Warrick tried to pull away from him he followed him, crowding him, urging him toward the bed.
Warrick only hesitated for a moment before getting back with the program. He turned when they reached the bed and shoved Xander down onto it, then followed him immediately, covering his body with his own.
The perfect reward for a successful hunt. Xander was tired but he was still full of restless energy that he poured into this encounter. He pushed up against Warrick, not really wanting to displace him but curious to see if he could. When Warrick pushed back harder, pinning him to the bed and not letting him go anywhere, he just held him tighter, wanting him more.
Just tired and hurting enough not to want to fight hard enough to be in charge, Xander still didn't give Warrick complete free rein. He fought with Warrick's shirt, insisting on pulling it off even while Warrick was fighting to get rid of their pants.
Naked was better - he could touch and taste and feel. Warrick was all hard muscle and hungry mouth. His hands were everywhere and his cock slid along Xander's. Sweat rose between them as they grappled on the bed, easing the friction between them and making everything smooth and slick.
"Want you," Warrick said, using his knees to push Xander's thighs apart. He dropped a hand to Xander's cock and pumped it slow and hard. "Say yes." He leaned down and scraped his teeth against Xander's throat.
Xander answered by raking his hands down Warrick's back, scoring lines while he opened his legs wider. He encouraged Warrick with curses and his heels pressed into his back, pulling him in, telling him to go faster, damn it.
All that skin he'd coveted was there, his for the taking and he touched and licked and pressed his teeth against it. It was good but it wasn't quite what he wanted and he shoved at Warrick, pushing at him until he was on top and that was even better.
He looked down at Warrick, liking the way his face looked sheened with sweat, liked the feel of his hand on his hip, large and strong. His other hand closed around Xander's cock and he liked that even better. He planted his hands on Warrick's chest and moved. Everything was starting to burn - his muscles, his skin, Warrick's cock inside him. Both of them were taking, any giving almost incidental and that was fine with Xander. Up, down, with Warrick's hands on him…then in him as Warrick slid a couple fingers in his mouth. Long and broad - fingers made for work that danced over his tongue. Xander sucked hard and bit down when he came.
Warrick's howl was protest and triumph as he bucked up hard into Xander, hips moving with bruising force as he rode out his orgasm. "Damn," he said, finally opening his eyes to look up at Xander. He pulled his fingers free and flexed them gingerly.
Xander took them in his hand and made a show of kissing the hurt. Warrick would be fine. He hadn't even broken the skin. Much.
He moved to the side, breaking their connection and sighing as he lay down beside Warrick. He felt as tired as the other man looked. He watched Warrick stretch hugely then relax like his bones were going liquid.
Warrick turned his head to look at him. There were plenty of questions in his eyes, but there was more exhaustion. Xander made a show of stretching and then closing his eyes, curling up to sleep against Warrick's side. He evened out his breaths, taking them nice and slow in a decent sham of sleep. He listened as Warrick moved beside him, turning onto his side, listened as his breaths grew slow and deeper. He stayed still until Warrick began to feel warm the way only sleeping people could. Only then did he open his eyes and slowly slide out of the bed. He walked into the bathroom on silent feet, cleaning up briefly before pulling his clothes on again.
He walked back to the bedroom, jacket thrown over his arm. Warrick had shifted onto his stomach, one arm flung wide across the bed. Xander walked over, admiring the long line of his body. When he was closer, he could smell sex and sweat and Warrick. He couldn't resist leaning in. He glided his face up the line of Warrick's back, less than an inch away, admiring smooth skin that he could still taste. He flicked his tongue against the nape of Warrick's neck, stealing one last taste.
He stepped away from the bed, walking away even though he wanted to crawl back in and begin the contest all over again. It was time to get out. His hunt was over and he'd seen the best of Vegas without ever having gone into a casino. He glanced back one last time. If the Feratus ever re-formed, though, he'd be quick to return.
On his way to the door he caught sight of something thrown on the coffee table, something he'd missed when he'd first passed it because he hadn't been seeing anything but Warrick. He stared down at it and began to laugh quietly as he reached into his jacket pocket.
**
Stretching hugely, Warrick was brought up short by soreness almost everywhere: his back and legs and sides and throat…everywhere. It was like he'd been in a fight, or ran a marathon…
…or had a really great bout of sex. He opened his eyes, and wasn't surprised to find that he was alone. He finished stretching - a little more carefully that time - then climbed out of bed. He glanced around the house quickly, but there was no sign of Xander.
He knew that he should have been freaked out. A one-night stand with a guy he didn't even know? He'd known better than that ten years ago and he still knew better. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and the stupid grin on his face just got bigger. He'd get tested in the morning but it would be fine. He knew that some how.
He showered and threw together breakfast, feeling good for the first time in weeks. The failure of his case wasn't weighing on him as much and he thought that he might be able to walk away from it if he had to.
Warrick walked around his place, feeling the kind of smugness that only came after a day of really good sex. He could see all the cleaning that he'd let slide while working waiting for him, but not even that could bring him down. Still, he didn't want to let it keep piling up so he carried his coffee with him as he finally got the junk mail that had been piling up together and tossed it out.
He spotted another pile on the table in the living room. Where the hell did it all come from? He headed over that way and damn near dropped his coffee. There was something new on the table: a stake, right beside the one Greg had given him. The new one didn't look like a joke, though.
Warrick picked it up gingerly. The end of it was plenty sharp and the handle felt smooth, like an old trusted tool. He tested the point of it against his finger for a moment before picking up the note that had lain under it.
//Just in case. Safe hunting.//
He looked from Greg's joke to the one in his hand. It was crazy…but he was keeping it, anyway.
Vegas was like that.
**