Fifty more like her get off the bus every minute
RP to ConnorBuffy couldn't help thinking of the old show business cliche as she stepped into the terminal at LAX. There were way too many pretty people in this town and, considering her desperate need to shower, and burn all her clothes, she didn't feel like one of them
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And then --"You're her."
Buffy is surprised at what a charge she gets from hearing that. Over seven years in Sunnydale, she got plenty sick of it: Yeah, I'm her. Do you want an autograph? Let's just get this over with.
But it's the first time she's heard the words for many months now, and she can't help a feeling of disappointment when he goes on to say, "You're a slayer. A slayer. Of course, she doesn't know much of what's gone on in LA, since the retrieval team came to recover Dana, but it's logical that more slayers would have been seen, and known, in the city.
"You've worked with slayers before." Buffy states it as a fact and hopes she sounds unflustered, as she continues walking in the direction of the shelter.
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"Yes. Faith. She was beyond awesome. You know, two years ago, when she saved everyone from the Beast and Angelus?"
A little too late, it occurs to him that Faith probably can't remember him. The Cyvus Vail spell will hold for two more days, and at any rate, it's only his parents and sister who'll get their original memories back. So if Buffy should ask Faith about him, she'll just hear "who?".
On the other hand, given that Faith had no reason to be impressed at the time... In any case, that's not so important. With luck, they'll deal with the vampires, and Buffy won't ever find out they share more mutual aquaintances than Faith anyway. They're not that far from the shelter Gunn's friend Anne is running now, and Connor suddenly stops. It's the smell. Vampires just don't have the same as humans do, and while there are a lot of humans around, there is also, intermingled, the scent of a vampire somewhere here. But the sun hasn't completely set yet.
"One of them is here somewhere,"
he says to Buffy with a low voice, and looks around for shadowed places where a vampire could stand without having problems.
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It's not so strange that Connor would know Faith and Angelus, but it surprises her when he speaks as though she should know what he means. Life without exposition. For a strange moment, it reminds her of having a conversation with the Immortal.
The he warns her there is a vampire nearby, and she doesn't stop to wonder how he knows any more than she wonders how he knows Faith. The whole afternoon begins to feel like a dream, and she reacts like a dream, darting into the shadows, grabbing, and sure enough, she has an underfed looking teenager by the collar. She pulls him to the edge of the shadow and stops just before thrusting him into the light.
"Answer some questions for me and my partner," she says, "And you don't have to fry." At the same time, she's looking around for others who might be lurking. She doesn't see any, but Connor's eyes seem to be better than hers, and she turns to him, "Are we alone?"
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he confirms, staring at the teenager. Killing children and teens is something he had to do a lot during the time when the Beast reigned and the sun was blotted out, because such a huge part of the population of Los Angeles got affected, but it never stopped reminding him of the oldest story he was familiar with, the one of his father's family.
Connor just hopes there will be adult-looking vampires around as well. Thing is, this one could be centuries old for all he knows, just posing as someone else. But then he probably wouldn't have gotten caught that easily.
"You're going to let me fry anyway,"
the teen answers Buffy, eyes darting between her and Connor.
"I know who you are. The Holtz kid and his bitch. You always dust everyone. So what do I have to lose?"
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"I am NOT --" She twists his arm. "Anyone's bitch. I am --" Bending said arm back at the elbow. "Buffy. The Vampire Slayer." And as long as she's channeling the powers of her 'what would faith do?' bracelet. . .
"You heard of a guy named William the Bloody? I made him my bitch. Whenever he pissed me off, I used to do this to him. . ." Sticking a knee in his kidney ". . .And he'd come back for more. I never killed him though. Kept him around for entertainment. Can you entertain me? Maybe I can find some long term. . ." She runs her hand down his neck, and moves her lips close to his ear. ". . .use for you."
Yep. Definitely too much time around Faith. Well, if it doesn't work, Connor can always stake him and they'll try their luck with another. Meanwhile she takes note of baby-vamp's intel that Connor -- and his bitch, whoever that is -- another slayer? -- can get a little stake happy.
"Connor," she says.. "Don't stab anybody until our friend --?"
"Rodney," he gaps.
". . .our friend Rodney." She glances at him. "Seriously?" The kid nods. Definitely a baby vamp. A few years, even months among the undead, he would have to come up with a new alias, if only to keep his gang-buddies from sticking his hand in holy water while he slept. "Connor, as long as Rodney is busy cooperating, I'll be busy not staking him." To Rodney, she adds. "He'll do what I say. He's working for me."
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...but they aren't, never forget, Stephen, they aren't...
...Connor shrugs.
"The lady is in charge,"
he says, but pointedly twirls his stake to complete the bad cop attitude. And suddenly wonders whether Buffy made Angel her bitch, too. The mental image is... interesting. And possibly provides ammunition for the next time he meets his father. While he's trying to get his facial expression under control, he listens to Buffy posing the questions.
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Something about his face gives her a vague flicker of memory. A vampire dressed up in a schoolgirl outfit, and then her dream on the flight -- Angel and Darla and another slayer, together. Maybe it WAS a prophecy dream, because in some strange way, Connor reminds her of a combination of all three.
Focusing on the task at hand, Buffy asks Rodney if he knows of a nest recruiting from Anne's shelter. When his eyes get even wider, Buffy realizes with a pang that he was one of them. "The other kids, Rodney," she says. "Help us help them. I know you don't have it in you to do good, but the thing is, if they get vamped we're going to kill them anyway. Help us stop this before it gets out of hand."
Rodney nods, and directs Buffy to a warehouse a few blocks away. She points at him, points at the ground, and says, "Stay right here for ten minutes. Don't try to warn anybody. And don't let us see you around here again."
She hoists her crossbow and turns to Connor. "You ready?"
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he replies, something flickering behind his eyes. Because he knows he should stake that kid now. Actually, promises or no promises, he would have done so if not for one factor: Buffy would probably react just like Faith did when Connor staked one of Angelus' minions and refuse to continue the mission with him. Never led it be said Connor does not have it in him to learn a lesson.
As they walk towards the warehouse, he says,
"We should split up, cover the territory from two sides. I can get up the roof and through the windows. If they see you alone, they'll probably posture and vamp out to intimidate you, and then we don't have to waste time to check to be certain."
Since she seems to be okay with this, he's up the facade in a couple of heartbeats. Maybe he's just a bit showing off (because well, after her act with Rodney he feels the need to impress), but mostly he's focused on the mission.
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She agrees with his plan to split up, and gives him time to get through the window before she walks straight in the front door.
There are about a dozen humanoid figures in the warehouse. She guesses at least some of them are human kids and knows from painful experience -- well, from Faith's painful experience -- that "stake first ask questions later" is not a good approach. She had considered walking in and posing as a vamp-fixated teen herself, but Connor's plan to get the vamps to show themselves makes sense. So she walks through the door, holds a stake in front of her like a child wielding its first spoon and yells out the top of her lungs, "Get thee hence, creatures of the night, for I am a vampire slayer." She tries to sound as incompetent as possible, channeling Wesley from his first days in Sunnydale.
Any hostage concerns fall by the wayside, as the vamps -- six of them, she quickly counts -- forget their prisoners, go into game face, and lunge forward in an attempt to be the first to get at her.
Two of them bang heads and take each other down. Buffy easily stakes the first one to lunge at her -- God, they're so young, in human and in vampire terms, that it's almost too easy. The second is bigger and faster, but she ducks in time to send him sailing over her head, then, in the course of springing to her feet, dusts a third. That leaves three stunned vamps getting to their feet, two piles of dust and one -- with his hand on Buffy's throat.
This would be a good time for Connor to make an appearance.
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When the vampire grabs Buffy by the throat, he decides that enough is enough and dives down, staking the guy in one move, which unfortunately also causes Connor and Buffy to end up on the ground, with Connor lying on top.
At this point, the kids are screaming, and one of the vampires has figured out what Connor was afraid they would and makes a move towards them while the other two advance on Buffy and Connor. Connor gets up as quickly as he can and goes after the vampire who already has his hand out in order to grab one of the children. No time for finesse; he kicks the guy's legs away and stakes him, trusting that Buffy can hold her own with the remaining two in the meantime.
As he turns around, he sees that one has joined the ranks of the dusted. The other one, though, stands backed against a wall. And before him, not held by force, is a girl of maybe fourteen years with tears in her eyes, stretching out her arms in a protective gesture.
"Don't hurt Tucker,"
she says. "I love him!"
It's completely inappropriate, but Connor's first thought at this particular disaster is: Why did the guy's name have to be Tucker?
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Like the Tucker she remembers, this vamp is a rangy pale white boy, but he also has unfortunate carrot-red hair -- and, she realizes with a pang, she saw the human version and this girl -- Betty? Bella? -- just last weekend, at Anne's hostel, looking very cozy and down-on-their-luck but not at all ready to give in to a vampire cult.
Buffy begins to rise to her feet -- no sudden moves -- and says, "Bella? Honey?" But it's no good. If Tucker decides he wants to sink his teeth into Bella and have a juicy last meal, not even Connor and Buffy, with all their speed, could get to her in time.
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Connor is mistaken. Justine does use her cell phone, but she tends to use it mainly to converse with people that she wants to compartmentalise in a world apart from him. That is, she uses it to stay in contact with people that she doesn't want to explain to Connor. But he was correct in assuming that her cell phone would be off. It is always off when she's working - those zany ringtones that you just can't escape from do nothing for the concentrate or her co-ordination (although just last week she did have a Vampire stop to try and take a call while his friends were being dusted around him - true story, you had to be there to believe it though).
She's not far away from the neighbourhood when she does get the message and heads to the location he provided straight away. Of course, by the time she does arrive the action seems mostly dead, except for a screaming girl who seems to be proclaming her love for the last Vamp standing.
Sometimes Justine wonders if she's just too old fashioned with her belief you should kill those blood suckers on sight.
"No one is killing anyone." She says, addressing the girl rather than Connor or Buffy - and certainly not the red-headed blood sucker, although she keeps her eyes on him. It's a lie, of course, as soon as she can Justine will kill it herself. "So cut the melodrama and stop acting like a kid. If you two want to do some inter-species dating? Who are we to get in the way of true love?"
Connor gets a nod by way of greeting and Justine lets her eyes pass over Buffy briefly for a moment - she saw the end of the fight, she knows a slayer when she sees one, but this version is older than the slayer from those tapes. Then her eyes snap back to the girl and her red-headed beau. Especially her beau. You shouldn't take your eyes of those bastards for a moment. They just need them to move so the girl can get shoved out of the way. Then the vamp is dust.
"My friends here get a bit excited around the undead. You'll have to forgive them. Slayers. All that killing gets to them. They don't understand romance."
This is really too much effort. Justine didn't sign up for the counselling of insane teenage girls with too many hormones and too little sense. This isn't part of the job description. If only they'd move a bit further apart so they could do what had to be done.
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