Successor (BTVS)

[X] Harmony heard a disturbing rumor when she was undercover, and she finally got up the courage to bring it to Buffy. She won't say exactly what it is though, just that it's something Buffy will probably want to see for herself.


"I'm telling you, you wouldn't believe me without seeing it," Harmony said. "You'd probably think it was like, some twisted vampire fantasy thing of mine, and no, eww."

Harmony still wouldn't tell Buffy just what was going on, so she'd followed her into the bad part of town. Buffy would've almost suspected it was a trap, except that it was just too weird of a way to do it. Harmony seemed genuinely disturbed, and there didn't seem to be anyone left in Sunnydale willing to go against her after last week anyway.

"If you found this when you were undercover, why didn't you just show it to me right away?" Buffy asked.

"Well, I only heard about it then," Harmony said. "I kind of went to investigate myself later because I didn't believe it could be true, and besides you were all grumpy and sad after we lost the ransom and Rack escaped and your mom told you you were a bad mayor."

Buffy made a face and didn't reply, but she privately agreed that she'd had enough of Hellmouthy troubles for a while after that. She'd taken it easy for the last few days though, and now she was back and ready to slay demons and budgets alike.

Taking in the deteriorating quality of the neighborhood, Buffy came to a sudden realization. "It isn't drugs, or umm … 'vice' is it? I mean, I know the public image thing I have going is little miss crimefighter, but stuff like that could maybe be better left to the cops? Matt seems like he's settling in pretty well."

"Well," Harmony paused. "Kind of. But I don't think Matt should be handling this, at least not, like, at first blush. There are vampires involved, and they're still cross-training with Xander's crew to get better at that side of things."

Despite Harmony's reassurances, Buffy wondered how bad mundane issues like that were in Sunnydale. Even though things didn't look much better than some of the seedier parts of LA, she knew actual human gangs were absent from her city, likely because they were easy prey for supernatural predators. She didn't have any idea what the situation was with drugs though, especially since those could easily be dealt behind the safety of a threshold. None of this had been her responsibility before, but she was already having her doubts about just foisting the problem off on Matt. She wasn't just responsible for supernatural problems anymore, even if that was got her into this in the first place.

Before she could get herself into too much of a funk about new, non-slayable, issues she had to deal with, Harmony spoke up again. "Well, this is it." She pointed to an abandoned-looking tenement in front of them, with a heavy brick staircase leading up to the porch and partially concealing the door.

Buffy was ready to put an end to this mystery. She narrowed her eyes, swung up over the steps, and burst through the door. It hadn't even been locked, but she banged it back against the wall anyway as she strode in.

In her first scan of the room, she thought it was a normal vamp nest. A half dozen or so were just lounging around in game face, and there were even a couple people being eaten right in front of her eyes! Strangely though, they didn't really react to her entrance with much aggression or fear, though one girl vampire recognized her and started backing away. The place was way filthier than it had looked from outside; it was lit by candlelight, the furniture was rotting and bloodstained, and random debris was everywhere.

Buffy was about to just start slaying, and pulled out a stake. She didn't know why Harmony had thought this dive was anything special, but she supposed it was a job that needed doing anyway. Before she could act though, she heard Harmony behind her, "Wait! It's voluntary. I mean, it's gross, but those people aren't going to die."

Looking more closely, Buffy did see that the feedings looked a little different than normal. The victims were older and looked less healthy than usual vampire targets, and were only being bitten on the arm. There was another (probable) human just passed out on one of the couches, not dead as Buffy had originally assumed. And even as she stared in confusion, the feeding vamps all disengaged, eying her stake and seeming surprised.

"Just what exactly is going on here?" Buffy asked angrily, lowering her stake for the time being and looking around the room again.

"That's what I should be asking you!" The biggest vamp got in her face aggressively, and grabbed her by the shoulders. "I don't know what kind of shit you're into, but you're disturbing the other customers, and woodgrain's banned in here. Get the fuck out!" He tried to shove her back towards the door, and was confused when it didn't work.

"Guess I need more publicity," Buffy commented, before launching him across the room with a shove of her own. He crashed against the wall, cracking the fading paint job and landing in a heap on the ground.

Before she could expand on that, the fearful vamp explained for her, "That's the new mayor, you idiot!"

"I don't care who she is!" Another vampire said, this one wearing a tacky fake-leather jacket. "With Teeth gone this is all mine, and I'm not letting her just walk in and take it back!" He charged her clumsily, waving an old lamp like a baseball bat.
KILL
Even though she was starting to suspect this wasn't a very serious situation, this guy was asking for it, and Buffy decided a statement needed to be made. She parried the lamp easily, breaking it in two with her arm, and then jammed her stake home in the vampire's chest. He'd finished turning to dust before the other half of the lamp even landed, bonking the first big vamp on the head off in the corner.

"Now," Buffy said calmly. "It seems clear something weird is going on here, and I'd like to know exactly what it is. Either that, or I can just dust all of you, and chalk it up to another day on the job."

Everyone was quiet at that, afraid to attract her attention next. The vampires were frozen now, and a few were trying to subtly look around for exits, while the humans who had just been fed on just looked confused and a little dazed. The fat guy lying on the couch slept on, undisturbed.

Finally, scared vamp girl broke the silence, talking warily from behind a busted recliner, "It's a suck joint. We don't kill anyone here, they just pay and go."

Even as she said it, a tispy guy in a suit stumbled down from upstairs, needing the banister to make safe progress. Halfway down though, he noticed them all standing there and seemed to sober up a little, picking up speed and fleeing the place as everyone awkwardly watched him go.

"I think my parents know that guy!" Harmony commented. "I'm not sure how I can normalify this gossip though."

Buffy chose to just press forward. She was pretty sure she got it now. "They pay you? Is this like, a bordello or something?" She gestured vaguely at the door the probable John had fled out of.

"Sometimes we do that too," vamp girl said, still hiding. Some roaches were skittering under the chair she was behind, and it was kind of distracting. At least there weren't any mice.

Harmony decided to explain more, "I was obviously kind of skittish about going hunting when I was undercover, so they tried to recruit me for here. I've been staking the place out sometimes since then, and everyone that's gone in has come out again."

"I know this is pretty ick Harm, but why didn't you just tell me?" Buffy said. She wasn't sure how she would've reacted or even if she would've believed it, but the surprise curveball wasn't helping her decision making any.

She frowned, "I mean, I thought they were maybe kind of like me? Most fledges have super impulse control issues instead of being able to do things like plan two days into the future. I kind of wanted to know more about what was going on before I sent a slay-guided missile at the place."

"We get new ones like that a lot, the wild fledges," scared vampire said. "We don't let them use the upstairs so it doesn't get out of hand much, and we always kick them out after."

"Much?" Buffy said, annoyed. "When was the last time someone died here?"

She hesitated, but eventually she must've decided Buffy wouldn't believe a lie. "Five months ago. But-"

Another vampire girl on the couch cut her off, blood still on her face from the guy she'd been snacking on, "Way to get us all staked Gwen."

"BUT," Gwen continued, talking over her coworker, "we really aren't much worse than the crack den my mom used to go to, sometimes people just aren't healthy enough." She still hadn't come out of game-face, and it was a little weird for Buffy to be having a quasi-reasonable discussion with her. Angel and his whole creepy family mostly kept it under control, and Harmony seemed to really push herself to stay out of it when she wasn't fighting.


Buffy recognized the attempt to tug on her heartstrings, and wondered if it was even true, "The crack den where?"

"Blackwood and Cyan," she answered quickly. "Was still going last I knew."

Buffy wasn't sure how much of what she was hearing was lies, and decided to bring out her radio to put Gwen under a little pressure. She quickly dialed Matt. "It's Buffy. This might sound weird, but I just got a tip that there's a crack den at Blackwood and Cyan, it's…" She looked significantly at Gwen.

"The red two-story, garage has busted windows," Gwen added, getting the idea.

Buffy was about to repeat, but Matt said "I heard. Never had these radios work so well in San Fran. I'll check that out for you, was there anything else?"

"That's it for now, just tell me what you find," Buffy said, clicking the radio back into passive mode. Gwen had kept a straight vampy face the whole time. Either she was an excellent liar or she was telling the truth.

That settled, Buffy pursed her face, thinking about what the hell she was supposed to do here. Gwen interrupted again though, still looking to survive somehow, "We've got money too!" This produced some groans from around the room, but no one actively gainsaid her this time. "Teeth was making us pay protection, but we could give it to you instead. We don't use it for much except blood when business gets slow."

"We're not exactly flush with cash these days," Harmony commented, and Buffy knew it was true, whatever her motives in saying it. The ransom costs had made a hole in their carefully planned budget, and Cynthia had been bugging her about finding 'new income sources' lately. Leaving all these vampires in the wild was super-dangerous though, and Buffy thought at least some of them had to be killing people in their off-hours. It was one thing to have Harmony wandering around, but she was under constant supervision, tricked into thinking she was cursed, and also acted like a confused puppy half the time on top of all that.

Buffy wasn't sure what to do. Her mom had wanted her to be a fairer mayor to the demon population, but she was pretty sure that this wasn't what she had in mind.

Plan Vote: What does Buffy do about the Suck House?

[] Example Plan Name
-[] Buffy does this
-[] And decrees such
-[] And tells X to do Y