full 3/4 1/2   skin light dark       
 
Secrets and Lies by angelic_amy
 
Losing a Tail.
 
<<     >>
 
A/N: Thanks to Megan for betaing! *hugs*


Chapter 5: Losing a Tail.


“Oh crap,” Lucas muttered when the one green blip on the screen suddenly became two, and neither was stationary. The Slayer must have ditched the weapon and it had obviously been picked up by someone or something else.

His gaze darted from one dot to the other, trying to ascertain which one was the Slayer. If she managed to ditch her escort as Mr. Angel seemed to think she would, the rest of the team would need to know her co-ordinates.

~~~

Buffy managed to lose her ‘back up’ inside of ten minutes, having taken off towards the other end of the large factory estate before doubling back over her tracks. Confident she would have a chance to patrol by herself, she kept her eyes open for any sign of the missing slayer.

Buffy had felt a wave of nausea roll over her in the boardroom earlier on today when she had read the file. Dana had been a patient in the psych ward for a number of years, the constant doping with Thorazine the only thing that managed to keep her controllable. A mix up with the medication had caused her to awaken from her normal catatonic state to exhibiting an explosive outburst of inhuman strength when she had smashed her way out of the hospital. The nurses had thought her demonically possessed even though Dr. Rabinov had dismissed it as ludicrous.

She had been kidnapped at the age of ten after having witnessed her family being murdered. She was tortured for months and when she was finally found, she was naked and bleeding wandering the streets. And she had been locked up ever since.

The girl had been abused to the point it had mentally destroyed her. And then she had been called as a slayer and the dreams that accompanied her calling had shattered her already fragile mind, plunging her further into insanity.

She now understood why Giles wanted Dana to return to England. She couldn’t be left in the hands of these doctors to be used a guinea pig. At the same time, Buffy didn’t know if they would be able to help her. She just hoped Giles knew what he was doing.

A crash sounded from an alleyway a few feet from her current position and Buffy darted towards it, following the sound. About halfway down she saw her, Dana. She was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, and was scavenging through a rubbish can for food scraps.

Slowly removing her stun gun from her knapsack, Buffy inched forwards.

Dana seemed to stiffen, her gaze lifting to meet Buffy’s and it was at that moment that she noticed the dark red lines of a warrior that tracked down her face. It appeared to be blood. When it looked as if she were about to take off, Buffy spoke.

“Dana, you don’t need to be afraid of me,” she said as calmly and soothingly as possible.

“Vampiro,” Dana muttered in response, gesturing towards Buffy with something in her hand.

Buffy had garnered from the doctor’s reports and from Angel’s intelligence report regarding the slayer before her that she seemed to speak several languages. It was as if she were reliving in a very short period of time the lives of slayer’s past. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to converse with the girl in another language, she relied on a few key words and body language.

Making her stance as non-threatening as possible, Buffy shook her head, pointing to herself as she spoke. “Slayer.”

Confusion swept Dana’s eyes before she shook her head to the negative, pointing at herself. “Slayer.”

“Yes,” Buffy responded. “You are a slayer. So am I.”

Dana tilted her head to the side in confusion; seemingly unsure of how to take what Buffy was saying but not running away. A crashing noise sounded and both Buffy and Dana jumped when the five operatives who had been assigned to tail Buffy appeared at the mouth of the alleyway.

“Freeze!” one of them shouted.

“Stop!” Buffy demanded, lifting a hand to instruct the men to back off, but they just ignored her as they swept towards the target.

Identifying the camouflage suited men as a threat, Dana attacked, her weapon catching the light from the lonely street lamp that weakly lit the alleyway. Buffy shouted in warning seconds too late before the large knife was swept around in a cleaving action, slicing an operatives’ neck right open.

The guy fell to his knees, clutching his throat with both hands as blood gushed from the open wound.

Buffy lifted the hand that held her stun gun and pulled on the trigger, bolts of electricity shooting out from the small weapon. At the last second one of the operatives dove at Dana, collecting the blast that Buffy had shot. With a strangled cry of pain he fell to his knees, receiving a kick to the head from Dana as she ran passed him and disappeared out the other end of the alley.

Two of the others still standing made a move to follow in pursuit of the target but at Buffy’s sharp order they backed down. The senior ranking operative unclipped his radio from his belt and called in their position for pick up.

With a choked cry of pain, the operative with a slit throat fell limply against the ground, his struggles ending when his body gave up its fight for survival.

~~~

Spike had been patrolling the docks for several hours when he finally decided to pack it in for the night. He had dusted several vampires, one having been about to chow down on a little old woman. With a punch to the head and a kick to the mid section he had the demon backed up against a wall. The sharp arc of his swing brought the stake home before it even had the opportunity to fire a sarcastic comment. It was almost disappointing. The irony of the whole situation was when he turned his attention to the old woman to inform her that she was safe now and ended up copping a beating from her handbag. Cursing under his breath, he had let her be and quickly exited the scene before his more primal instincts took over and he felt like returning the blows.

And now he found himself wandering aimlessly, which was why he was contemplating crashing for the night.

That was when he caught a whiff of it in the air, freshly spilled blood. His face vamped instantly, allowing him to hone in his sense of smell and track it to its location. A couple of twists and turns and he found himself in a narrow alleyway. About half way down he spotted it. The pooled blood was beginning to congeal but it was freshly spilled. There was no way this was a vamp attack, no demon would have wasted so much of the amber liquid.

Another smell assaulted his senses and he found himself being transported ten months back in time to the small bedroom of an unknown Sunnydale resident. He would know that smell anywhere; there was nothing, no one in the world that smelled like that. Like honey and sunshine and vanilla.

“Buffy…” he muttered as his face relaxed to its human form, his eyes darting wildly around the alleyway.

But it was empty.

He breathed in deeply again, devouring the fleeting aroma. It couldn’t be… she was in England. It had to be because of the dreams. Lately she had been haunting him more than ever and now it seemed that his fantasies were no longer restricted to sleep.

Chastising himself for allowing his dreams to take such hold of him, he returned his attention to the blood. Examining it more closely he saw that there was a very long spray on one wall and then the large pool on the ground, drips and drops splattered between the two distinguishing marks. The spray had to have been arterial. That was the only way blood would spurt at such a sharp angle that it was colouring the wall of the alley.

The victim, whoever they were, would have had no chance.

Yet there was no body, which was more than a little odd.

Knowing there was nothing he could do, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and turned away from the scene, headed in the direction of his apartment. He needed a drink…

~~~

Buffy rode in the back of Morty’s limo in silence on the way back to her hotel. Tonight had been a bust. Sure, there had been a sighting of Dana and for a moment it had seemed like she might be able to make contact with her, but then Angel’s commandos had come in and ruined everything. One of the men had died at the scene, and seeing the others carry his lifeless body back to the van had not been a pleasant experience. She didn’t even want to think about what they were going to do with him.

The other guy who had been shocked by Buffy’s weapon had woken up in the van on the return to Wolfram and Hart, groggy and sore but otherwise fine. The scary thing about how these guys had operated was that they were so unemotional about the loss of their comrade. It was almost as if they didn’t care, their actions and speech almost robotic.

The leather of the seat squeaked as she shuddered in repulsion. Buffy hadn’t wanted back up and she was almost wishing she had been firmer in standing up to Angel. The way she had figured it, the less conflict she caused the quicker the job could be completed. Which meant she could return home sooner rather than later.

Home…

It was funny how short a time it had taken for her to think of England as home. Not that she planned on staying in the ‘Mother Country’ indefinitely, just as long as Giles needed her in assisting with the school. That didn’t meant she didn’t like the place though. She knew her way around the small town that occupied the school. She had her favourite places; a bakery that made the best donuts, a coffee place that made hot chocolate almost as good as her mom had, and a street lined with nice little clothing boutiques. Buffy really had everything she needed at her fingertips.

And what exactly did America have to offer her that she couldn’t find in England? Her home town was gone, LA made her uncomfortable and not just because of Angel’s presence there but also because it was the site of the demise of her parents marriage. And her father? Buffy hadn’t heard from him in months. He had called after he had found out about her town’s ‘mysterious collapse’, but it hadn’t been until almost a month afterwards. And he had only been able to reach her because Dawn had called Hank at his office and left a message with his new secretary, just in case he needed to contact them.

Buffy sighed.

Their father had seemingly lost interest in being anything of importance in his daughters’ lives not more than two years after the initial move from LA. It was the visits first. It became every other weekend, then once a month and finally whenever he got ‘a break from work’. The phone calls had then begun to wane, the frequency being once a month if they were lucky during Buffy’s first year of college. Now they were lucky if they got a card on their birthdays. Buffy was over it but she knew it still bothered Dawn a little.

The limo pulled up in the valet section of her hotel and when Morty jumped out from the driver’s seat and opened her door, she exited. Despite her protestations that she could open a door herself, the older gentleman insisted.

“Good night, Miss Buffy,” he wished adieu.

“Good night, Morty,” she responded with a tired smile. A shiver rolled over her, a combined affect of the crisp air she stepped into and of the memory of what she had witnessed tonight playing over in her mind. Seeing a human – or more specifically a slayer – kill another human was not something that she witnessed every day. Buffy dealt with the death of innocents every day, it was a part of the slaying package. But seeing one of her kind being the hand that struck that fatal blow was not something you just got used to.

She walked into the hotel and made a beeline for the elevators. She had a couple of phone calls to make before she went to sleep.

~~~

Giles sipped at his tea as he quickly dealt with paperwork. He had bills for the construction work that needed to be filed away appropriately and new enrolment forms to process. Willow was right; he needed a secretary.

A knock sounded on the door to his office, and too few moments later the chirpy face of Andrew made his presence known. “Good morning, fellow watcher,” he beamed.

“Good morning, Andrew,” Giles replied politely, unable to hide the smile that crept across his face at the young man’s enthusiasm. His gusto when it came to devouring knowledge concerning his newly appointed position was admirable, if tiresome.

“Any missions you wish me to undertake this morning?” the younger man questioned with just as much vigor as his initial greeting. “Any wrists to be slapped or detentions to be assigned? Just the other day Faith showed me a neat way to bind people’s wrists with --”

Giles sighed as he removed his glasses. “There will be no tying up of the students, Andrew.”

Andrew looked crestfallen at Giles dismissal but quickly bounced back and brushed it off. “May I partake with you in a discussion of the finer points of the value of cinematic studies? I do believe that our girls need to be educated in all areas of the curriculum and just this morning I was talking to Josephine about ‘The Return of the King’ and was shocked to hear her ask if Dumbledore --”

The telephone rang. Giles looked to the heavens and silently thanked the caller in advance for saving him from the discussion with Andrew. The memory of being lectured about the difference between Boba Fett and Han Solo was not something he wanted to revisit again. Ever.

It was his private line so it could only be one of a few people calling. “Hello, Giles speaking.”

“Giles, it’s Buffy.”

A smile of relief spread across his face. He had been wondering when she would be checking in. Looking at his watch and noting it was a little after 11am, he realized it must be close to 4am where she was in LA. “What are you doing up so late? Or early depending on the way you look at it,” he smiled affectionately.

“Just got back to my hotel from patrol,” she informed.

Giles sat up a little straighter as he waited for her to continue.

“Is that Buffy?” Andrew whispered loudly.

Giles nodded quickly.

“HI BUFFY!” Andrew called as he leaned closer to the phone. “We miss you, fearless leader.”

Buffy listed in as Giles half covered the mouthpiece. He sighed in frustration before speaking. “Andrew, please, do go and see if Faith needs any help with her class this morning.”

“Aye aye Captain.” Andrew saluted before he exited the office.

Buffy snickered. “Sounds like your shadow is still following you around.”

“You have no idea,” Giles commented dryly. “You were saying about patrol?”

“Oh yeah,” Buffy nodded. “I had a run in with Dana. I’d fill you in on the specifics but there wasn’t much. She slit the throat of one of Angel’s operatives and ran before I could talk to her.”

“Operatives?” Giles questioned. “You weren’t patrolling alone?”

“Don’t get me started.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’ll call again tonight…tomorrow night… you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Until tomorrow.”

“Good night, Giles.”


Buffy disconnected the call and curled up into her bed. She was so ready for some sleepy goodness.



~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Hope you guys like, please leave your thoughts!
 
<<     >>