More Villains Than Heroes

[whedonist]

Chapter 7 – More Villains Than Heroes

Gotta hand it to the people in Little Havana they know how to make music to dance to. If it wasn’t for the fact that Will and I have been walking around this place for the past three hours trying to find our demon, I would so totally have stopped to enjoy the sounds. Instead, we’ve been going from place to place looking for a needle in a haystack.

Who would do that anyhow? Put a needle in a haystack. Just seems like badness to me. And finding? So not fun.

We pass another set of old men playing dominoes and Will points across the street to the next place on our list. Local two-forty-three of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Decidedly not the place I expected to house demons, but I’ve seen stranger…I think.


She takes my hand as we cross the car deserted street. Seems like the locals like to drive as much as I do. Barely any traffic at this hour. It’s only eleven, but it seems everyone’s busy inside, drinking, dancing and partying. Better for us I guess.

We come to a small stucco building painted in garish colors. There’s the other thing. Do people not realize that turquoise isn’t a color to be used to paint a building? It’s a theme. Cultural maybe? I’m not totally sure, but seriously, Ty Pennington should have a look. Does Extreme Home Makeover do whole neighborhoods?

“Buffy, door.” I look up to Will and notice her holding the door open. It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention; it’s just that lime green isn’t supposed be the color of a V.F.W.

Stepping up behind me, I feel her hand slip into mine once again. Trying for casual, we go to the bar and take a seat. This place, not what I had expected. Its bar like, but more uhm, dated than that. There’re plaques, flags and I squint, staring at the back wall of the actual bar. Between the two shelving units holding the liquor, there’s a stuffed alligator head.

I cast a quick look to Willow. She shrugs and spins around on the bar stool.

So I’m the only one that thinks a stuffed alligator’s head is freaky?

Huh.

I follow her action and look out over the sparse crowd. Not much in the way of business. A few older guys and two couples pock mark the place. All of them human. I lean in and whisper, “You getting anything?”

I watch her lips purse and she scans the area before nodding. Cool. Guess she’s got something. It’s the something I’d like to know about. She doesn’t clue me in. Instead she hops off the bar stool and grabs my hand, leading us towards the back of the building. We pass the bar, the lame excuse for a karaoke machine and the bathrooms. I’m about ready to stop her when it looks like a dead end, but don’t. Her hand waves in front of a wall and a door shimmers into view.

Uh, hmm, not expected. Not gonna complain. At least this isn’t a total bust. She pushes open the door and the first thing we’re hit with is sound. A heavy Latin beat assaults my ears and then cigar smoke hits my nose. Normally the smoking doesn’t bother me so much, but cigar smoke is different. It makes me kinda pukey. I swipe at my nose as we move farther into the club. Demons are spread throughout. Dancing, like actual dancing, to the smooth beat of the drums and acoustic guitar.

I try not to stare as I watch a three-horned Kinold demon gyrate, virtually humping, on the backside of the she-wookie looking demon that’s dancing with him. I mean if Chewbacca had a sister, this, uh, girl, yep, girl, would so totally be his sister. Well, except for the tail. Her tail snakes up the demon’s leg and begins massaging his growing cr…uh, moving along, now - going quickly even. I hurriedly catch up to Will. Tails aren’t supposed to do that. That was – check, please?

Willow smirks at the shocked expression I know I’m wearing. I shouldn’t be shocked, but this place has a totally different feel. It’s way more uhm, modern than any place I’ve been to. Demons mingle here and half of them are even up to date in the style department. The décor is that of a new night club. It’s smaller in scale but the lighting fixtures and bar area all look new. Maybe the place just got rebuilt.

Will motions to the back and mouths ‘restroom.’ I nod and turn my attention to the human bartender. Smiling, I order two rum and cokes and slip him a fifty. My hand stays on the bill as he tries to grab it. Placing my other hand over his, I motion him closer. As his ear nears my mouth, I apply a bit of pressure to my grip on his arm and ask sweetly, “I’m hoping you could help me out. I’m looking for a demon. Species is Naumbraug. You know anything?”

I pull back and notice the wince as he shakes his head ‘no.’ I lean back in and apply more pressure. “I’m sure you know what a slayer is. Do I have to tell you what I can do to do this place?” He shakes his head and I continue, “’Kay, so let’s try again. I’m looking for a demon. Been kinda active lately. I’m sure you’ve seen the papers. This thing might be causing it. I just want to talk.”

I feel Will put a hand on the small of my back as the bartender says through clenched teeth, “’S, a guy. Older looking guy. Off to your right.”

I release his hand and he tumbles back grabbing at the fifty on the counter. I nod, taking a sip from my drink. Handing Willow hers, I scan the crowd casually. My eyes track back to a shadowed area of the club. There’s a line of booths and I zero in on the only human looking guy in the third booth back. He looks to be in his mid fifties. Dark skinned and bald. He’s laughing at something sitting across from him.

I look away before he notices he’s being watched. Motioning in his direction, I direct Will’s gaze that way. She gives a slight nod and I set my drink down.

Showtime.

I saunter over to a row of pool tables by the booths. Taking a stance in front of the first one, I pull the short sword I’ve been carrying free from under the back of my shirt. Did Versace know that light, puffy jackets were not only the height of summer fashion but also excellent for concealing medium sized weapons? I might just have to send them a card.

I keep the sword close to my side as the music in the club stops. Will takes a position off to the far left and nods. I cough loudly and gather the crowd’s attention. ‘Kay so it might be the short blonde girl wielding a sword in a demon bar that’s attention worthy. Not like I wouldn’t normally do this – not now anyhow, but I’m tired of going from place to place. If this demon’s our demon, I’ll know soon enough.

I smile brightly at the annoyed faces of varying species of demon before me. “Hi, I’m Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Would any of you happen to know where I could find a Naumbraug demon?”

The club is dead silent. All of the eyes are trained on me. Slight movement to my left grabs my attention. One of the patrons comes up to me and snarls, “Get the fuck outta here, puta mugrienta!”

Alright so I’m white. But I’m also from southern California. I know enough Spanish to realize he called me a name. And really now, can I get something better than filthy whore? Is originality too much to ask for in an insult?

He cocks his fist back to swing. The spray of blood catches the side of my face and I cringe, clamping my mouth shut. His arm falls to the floor and he screams.

Will moves from her position and runs past me. I leave the wailing demon and the stunned audience behind as I try to catch up to my witch.

---

He runs. Of course he runs. Not running would have been stupid. But…now that I think about it, him running just pointed to the guilty party. Silly demon. I take off after seeing him bolt from the booth. Down a hallway and out a side door to my left. Buffy’s following. I feel her getting closer.

The exit door slams against the stucco building and I look right, towards the street. He didn’t go that way. I look left and see a shoe round the corner. Okay. Left it is.

Why do they have to run? Can’t they just stay still for a few minutes? I suck in a breath and round the corner. He’s trapped.

Ha! Serves you right Mr. Hawaiian shirt wearing demon!

Fear radiates off him. With the fear comes defensiveness. He should be scared. Buffy comes up behind me and moves herself between the demon and me. He looks…normal. Khaki shorts, knee socks with sandals…really…knee socks with sandals? Buffy’s gonna slay him for that alone.

His hands go up as he stammers, “W-w-what did I do?”

Buffy rests her sword on her right shoulder, looking him up and down. Her hip cocks to the side and she chirps, “I just wanted to talk. You ran. We followed.”

His dark olive skin blanches a little as he realizes his mistake. As he lightens just a shade, horns and spikes grow on his skin. The shirt and pants he’s wearing shred as his form morphs to its truer image. Moving closer to Buffy, I watch him double over and pull the tattered remains of the garish shirt off.

He stands upright, tall and ready to attack. It’s there on his stomach, a mark that proves we’ve found the right demon. Unadorned with spikes is a clear patch of molten brown skin. It’s marked with the symbol that was carved into the bodies.

Buffy notices as well and takes on a better stance to attack. I know this is wrong. I mean I shouldn’t, but seeing her fight, it’s poetry really. I’ve always kinda thought so. She’s so graceful. Fluid in her movements and I don’t get to see her slay much. While I like the non-nightly slayage, I love seeing her fight too. Something’s wrong with me. I just know it.

“Slayer!” he bellows.

Didn’t we already establish this? I’m sure she made the announcement.

“I am,” she says, bringing the sword from her shoulder to twirl it in the air. “Anyway I’m going to get out of this with this outfit intact?”

For some reason that pisses him off. I step to the side and watch her meet him half way. It’s not something I’ve ever seen. His spikes take the hits from the sword. Almost like armor, but not. Small chunks of them fly in the air as she parry’s then feints with the sword to land a high kick to the demon’s neck.

I lean against the side of one of the buildings to my right and watch the dance. She toys with him. Going left then right. He tries to sweep her feet but she jumps, bringing her fist down on his nose. Black blood spurts out and I hear, “Eww gross.”

The blow doesn’t stop him. Before her feet touch the ground, he swings, landing a punch to her exposed left side. I hear, more than see, the damage the blow causes. The sound of fabric ripping, a rib snapping and her grunting fill the air.

She drops to her feet and rolls right, protecting her now injured side. Springing to her feet, she blocks a succession of blows to her face and midsection with her forearms and sword. I watch her back up towards a corner of the alley.

He lands one blow to her upper arm and another to her temple. I hate it when she does this. But there’s a point. He swings dropping his left shoulder and she takes the opportunity. The small sword slashes through the air, hitting its intended target.

Mildly grossed out, I watch his head tumble through the air. The blood from his severed neck spurts up and arcs out following the body part. It’s another weird thing. Just one of those immutable laws of the Universe I guess. But it never seems to matter how often you see things get beheaded or dismembered, there’s this single moment of ickyness that just can’t be ignored.

The ick factor here is sorta high. The blood finally falls and lands close to my feet. The head it – well it does something that it just shouldn’t. It doesn’t roll. It tumbles in the air and then makes this splatty sound, landing with the neck down, against the concrete.

I’ve seen lots beheaded. I’ve managed to do one or two of them myself, but never, in the past twelve years, have I ever seen a severed head land like this. My tummy rolls before I can clamp down on the queasy. I look right and the body thumps to the ground. More ick. Yay, us…?

Maybe not.

Buffy looks smugly down at the headless corpse and nudges it with her foot. “Serves you right. I mean killing the girls, so totally worth a good beheading, but I’m not sure there’s a death suitable for your choice of foot attire. Socks with sandals! Will, can you make it come back so I can kill it again?”

I raise my eyebrow at her and say nothing.

She smiles sheepishly and shrugs. “Well, can you blame me?”

A small smile graces the corners of my mouth and I shake my head. No, I really can’t.

I walk up to her and examine her side. It’s not bad really. The rib’s broken. I mumble a few words and press my hand against the injured side. Warmth spreads out from my palm into her skin. Not healed. But coaxed well enough along that it should be good by the time we get back to the hotel.

She places a peck on my cheek in thanks and I beam back. Our lives are weird, but good. No complaints from the Willow camp.

“So, body. Body that doesn’t poof,” she says, looking at the corpse.

“Yep, no poof. We could leave it?” I suggest. Although I know we won’t. If her exaggerated eye roll didn’t tell me the sigh would have. “Well, if you pick up the head and place it with the body, I could burn it?”

She beams. “Sounds like a plan.” She walks over to the head and picks it up by a single spike. The spike’s pinched between her thumb and pointer finger as she carries it over to the body. A look of utter disgust is on her features as she drops the head on to the demon’s stomach.

“My job’s done. Get to burnin’ witch.” She winks and I sigh wearily, shaking my head. That joke. So not funny. She knows talking about The Burning Times makes me cranky.

I shove her back and wave a hand over the body. It flashes for an instant, burning bright. Concentrating, I put a little more ‘umph’ into the spell and the body sorta does this imploding thing. Opposite of what you would expect, it folds in on itself till there’s nothing left but a charred black mass.

Satisfied with the outcome, I take her hand and lead her out of the alley. She’s still carrying that short sword in her left hand. I cough, nodding towards the sword and she gets the picture. Making sure the blade’s clean she tucks it behind her back, concealing it in the scabbard under her clothes.

“So Will, we have some time left on our vacation. What’s say we vacation properly?” Her grin’s lecherous and it sends a shiver down my spine. Nifty.

My response to her offer is a grin of similar ilk. Vacation here we come.

---

There’s a cool ice that runs through me on nights like this. I become more. I become calmer, more focused. It could be labeled as an addiction. I need to do this just as much as I need to breathe. ‘Degenerate Dexter’ is out tonight and will take care of not one, but two creatures that have called to him – to me. It was only a matter of time. Their time ran out.

I take one last look over the room that I’ve prepared. This isn’t how I would usually set up for one of my kills, but these two, Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg, are an unusual case. Instead of making them disappear, I’m going to leave them to be found. This creates a certain set of problems that I don’t usually have to prepare for and deal with.

Instead of lining my work area with soft, clear plastic to prevent blood spatter, contamination and above all else, make it easier to clean up when I’m done working, there is nothing covering the walls, my work area, which will end up being the bed or any other surface in their suite bedroom.

My biggest challenge will be to recreate the crimes they themselves perpetrated. The biggest difference is that the good doctor will take the fall. She’ll become the patsy as the evidence I supply tonight will support her turning a blade to her lover and then to herself. If I can, a nice little note left on an open laptop will provide a sweet, bitter goodbye. The only issue that I foresee lay in the way these two interact. Given the evident affection both of them share for one another, it will be hard to accept. I will have to pull from ‘Deceptive Dexter’s’ font of fake emotions to write something believable.

I pick up the knife that I found this afternoon in their room. The knife that’ll be used to cut up their own bodies the same way they cut up the three other women. It was a rather productive day. I begged off work a little early and informed Rita that I would be fishing and not home until late tonight. This freed me up to snoop one last time in Buffy and Willow’s room. It was today that I found everything that I need to meet Harry’s Code.

Not only did I find the knife, but fax copies of all of Metro Dade’s files on these crimes. Also in my persistent pursuit of culpability, I uncovered stacks of information on demons and other occult paraphernalia. I mean really, demons, vampires and other things that go bump in the night? Of all the inane things I’ve come across in the boudoirs of my intended victims, I’ve never once seen as much silly literature. The only things in the night that normal people should reasonably fear are the demons that live within people like me and them.

I check my gear one last time. My attire is designed to severely minimize cross contamination. I entered with double layered latex gloves and my hair neatly tucked away in a hair cap. One funny thing that most criminals don’t realize is that latex can transfer prints. If you sweat enough, the oil will cause markings through the latex and transfer on to objects. Double layering almost always prevents this from happening. My shoes are covered in disposable booties that I use at other crime scenes to prevent tracking. Green hospital scrubs and a rubber smock complete my outfit. Things are going to get messy and I’d rather not track anything away from this place once I’m finished.

I walk into the bathroom and unplug my stun gun. It’s one of the two methods I will use tonight to incapacitate Buffy and Willow. Willow will get the shot of Dihydroetorphine and Buffy will get stunned. I’ve been through this plan a dozen times tonight, filling in the holes and streamlining the sequence of events. Buffy will go first. She has to. As a cop, she’ll be skilled enough to try and break free.

The scene will mirror their crimes. It’ll keep the police looking for the same killer and stop them all at the same time. I’m sure that the families of these ladies will mourn. The N.Y.P.D. will more than likely celebrate Buffy’s service, but in the end it will be for the better. Two less monsters roaming the night. Two more to add to my collection. Debra will take it kind of hard seeing as how she’s cultivated some type of relationship with these two women. Perhaps one day I’ll explain to her what I did. For now, I find it best to keep her in the dark.

The back of my right arm swipes at my brow, soaking up the sheen of sweat. It’s not too warm, but the only air coming in the room is from the cracked balcony door and I’m covered from head to toe. Checking the hypodermic one last time, I pocket both the gun and the needle and continue to wait. It’s a little after eleven and I’m hoping that they will be back soon.

I move out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to wait. The way the hotel room is set up the kitchen counter will hide my crouched form as they enter the suite. From there, it’s about timing. I slide down the counter side and face the hallway wall. The adrenaline coursing through me heightens everything, making it difficult to wait for my prey. But I have to. I sit and wait, occasionally glancing down at my watch as the minutes tick by in a slow, steady trickle.

It’s nearly an hour later when I hear movement in the hallway. A muffled moan and graceless fumbling accompany the sound of a card slipping into its slot in the door. My being flushes, coming to life. And we are off. I watch the glass of a painting on the wall opposite me. It reflects their forms nearly perfect. They paw at each other. In a very graceful display, Buffy’s leg stretches behind her and she shuts the door while managing to rid her lover of her top. A part of me is impressed with these two. They seem very much in sync with each other.

As the door slams shut, Willow tugs Buffy backwards, nearly to the hall. I crouch waiting, licking the small beads of sweat that’s built on my upper lip. In five, four, three, two, one…they make it to the entry of the hallway, blind, unaware of my presence. Willow’s foot slides in front of me and I stand. Without hesitation one hand plunges the needle into the redhead’s neck while my other hand jams the crackling gun into the exposed side of the good detective. Willow crumples and Buffy turns to me shocked.

It takes a few seconds more than I anticipated, but finally Buffy falls to the floor twitching. Interesting. I shut the gun off as the officer falls into unconsciousness. The air fills with a smell of singed hair and flesh. My nose crinkles in distaste and I place the stun gun and needle back into my pockets.

Time for the fun to begin.

I pick Willow up by the wrists and drag her back to the bedroom. I lift her up and into the chair I have set aside for her. Securing her with nylon rope, I make one last quick check to ensure the strength of her bindings. I turn back to the doorway and head to the hallway. Buffy is still unconscious and I hoist her smaller frame up, carrying her back to the bedroom.

Laying her down on the right side of the bed, I pull her arms above her head and tie them down with the bondage straps I’ve bought for tonight. They were a specialty item in an adult store that I found. Since I couldn’t use my usual plastic wrap, I had to figure out a different way to immobilize my victims. These ties go under the mattress and are held snug by the weight of the bed and the people lying on it. My hands work deftly with the straps and I quickly move to her feet. Securing them, I right myself and wait for them to come to.


Blackest of Night