Demons. Well, vampires were real here. Drusilla and Ang—pardon, Liam, were real here. Why couldn't demons be as well? Of course, odds were that they were different than they'd been in Sunnydale. Nothing could ever be easy. Still, a demon was easier to hit than a ghost, and after the past couple nights she'd been having, she needed to hit something. To kill something of her own volition. She wanted it to be completely inhuman so that she didn't have to feel any guilt about it whatsoever. Not that she really felt any guilt about the drug dealers, but it was the principle of the thing. Some things just need to burn.
Oh good. The voices agreed with her. That obviously meant she was on the right path here. Shaking her head, Buffy glanced up at Liam and Drusilla. The former had tried something earlier, and she knew it. It hadn't worked, and Buffy had threatened him. Honestly, she'd felt like tearing the Angel-face-stealing vampire's head off, but the presence of Drusilla had saved him and calmed her. This Dru wasn't the one who'd killed Kendra, not the one who had left Spike for a Chaos Demon that was all antlers and slime, not the one who had encouraged Angelus to go on his rampage, helped him with Acathla and tortured Giles. No, this Dru had called her cousin. Hell, she'd actually understood this Dru, for a given value of understanding.
"What kind of demon?" Buffy asked. "Big, tall, short, small, pointy, toothy, cuddly, angry, what?"
Liam blinked. "Kind of demon, lass? It's a demon. Scary, feral thing. One of ol' Scratch's children running around and making a big mess of things."
Oh. Oh dear. That kind of demon. A real demon rather than the cast-offs that came from the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. Though, from the sound of it, this one wasn't going to be the size the mayor had managed to attain at Graduation.
"Nasty thing fell from Heaven millennia ago, and into Hell," Drusilla said, her hand lightly brushing across Buffy's hair, moving it out of her face. "Years of torment later, it seeks to inflict its pain on others."
"Bloody Hell, Slayer," Spike said from his position on her left while Dru sat to her right.
Buffy winced. If it were possible, the blood would be draining from her face as she thought it over. Words came unbidden to her lips. "It found a host, and a shotgun."
"Greeted every guest with smile and a bang," Drusilla said, clearly not too distraught by it. To be fair to her, the deaths happened years ago, and Buffy couldn't really bring herself to care too much either, other than what had happened. Drusilla frowned though, and Buffy was pretty sure she was trying to sympathize with something. "Such a waste of blood and ammunition."
"Morning shots should be espresso, not bullets," Buffy said, frowning. This sounded a little familiar, especially with the Hyperion being the hotel that Angel ran his investigation company out of in LA. It was a little strange that it was in Santa Monica, but that wasn't the strangest thing about it. She was almost certain whatever was in there could be dealt with. Easily. Blood drips down the walls and death begins to call. Ghost and ghouls, demons and spooks. A creature of the night fears not these things.
"Whatever it is, lass," Liam, who was not Angel and never would be, said, gesturing toward outside the club. "It's more than a fledgling should be handling alone. Even one such as you."
"Are you offering?" Buffy asked. The memory of Angel fighting by her side in Sunnydale came to mind, but she wasn't so sure that Liam would be up for this sort of thing or that she'd want him to. Liam had tried something, after all.
"Not me, no," Liam said. "I just think you should get some help of some sort. Demons like that are trouble. They think nothing of attacking Kindred like yourself. Going in unarmed would be suicide."
"Oh. This poof's a coward. You should tell him that, cutie. Though leave Dru behind," Spike commented. "At least Angelus would fight alongside you. Always good for a spot of violence, he was."
"Didn't you say you were going to give me a spear?" Buffy asked, ignoring her Spike hallucination. Drusilla had said that, but she was pretty sure… oh. That's what she meant. It wasn't a literal spear, of course. Liam was… "You're sending me to the one who watches…"
… That wasn't exactly what she'd meant to say, but it was close enough. It was almost as if she were channeling the voice directly. Drusilla shot a knowing look in Buffy's direction. Dru had called her cousin; they were of the same clan, kin, not merely Kindred. Blood surrounds us. Binds us. For blood we live. For blood we die. Far west is the price of the wind, not merely there for the ham.
"He who watches aspires to hunt," Drusilla said, her hands lightly running down Buffy's arm. "But with some words, he might change his prey."
"He's human," Liam said. "But he's apparently some expert on demonology. Nest has discreetly employed his services in the past, and his information has checked out for the most part."
"Not a ghoul?" Buffy asked, thinking of Mercurio and idly flicking the presence at the back of her mind reminding her of Cordelia. She'd have to make sure to make time to check on the girl later. Cordy should have been safe and alive now, but this Kindred stuff was all new to her. Ghouls didn't exactly exist in Sunnydale. More than he seems to Liam as well.
"That Mercurio bloke wasn't half-bad, even if he worked for Prince Pooferton the Magnificent. Weird that the poof here wants you to meet up with a pure human." Spike cocked his head, looking to Liam. "You know, calling him Captain Forehead would be an even worse insult to my sire's sire. And as much as I like to do that, only Angel deserves that moniker."
Buffy pointedly did not look at Spike, choosing to meet eyes with Liam instead. "I mean, this watchful guy. He's not a ghoul, just a normal human?"
"Mortal as mortals can be, Lass," Liam said, smiling at her, his fangs partially visible in the smile. Fancies himself a lady killer. Perhaps he should fear those that bite back.
"But knowledgeable. He can arm you for your hunt, cousin," Dru added. What is a Slayer without a Watcher?
Buffy shook her head.
"Hey, Slayer. You should just leave already and find this guy. The poofter here plans on drawing things out as much as possible, and you should probably just beat him up and leave." Spike switched to his game face, a grin widely playing itself out upon it. "And Dr—"
"Spike, my Spike, be quiet. I can feel the aura of pain you're causing my cousin. You can talk with her later," Drusilla said, glaring at what Buffy had thought was only a hallucination. Nobody else had been able to see him. Why was Dru any different? Did this have something to do with the cousin thing? It didn't matter all that much. A meeting of minds is the gift of Malkav. Neuroses shared are neuroses cared.
"Wait, you can see me, Dru? I thought that only the Slayer could and—"
"You heard her, Spike," Buffy said through gritted teeth. She needed some time in her own head to think about this. The presence of the blond vampire, even as a hallucination, definitely wasn't helping with that. "Get. I'll try to contact you if I need you later."
"All right, all right, I see when I'm not wanted." Spike shook his head, game face dropping to his more human one, and then he faded from Buffy's view. "But I'll be watching, Slayer."
Buffy glanced over at the Irish vampire sitting across from her and Dru, wondering how he might have felt about this. Instead he seemed to have found the bottom of the glass he had in hand very interesting. Not that there was anything other than ice inside, but he seemed to be focused on it.
"So," Buffy said, ignoring what just happened. "Where can I meet your contact?"
After getting the information on where Ang—Liam's human contact was staying, Buffy left the Asylum. There wasn't any point in doing anything more than finding this human tonight, as the sun would be rising in a few hours. As such, she'd need to see if this contact would be willing to meet her somewhere a little after sunset so that they could make the most out of it. She hadn't gotten a name for the contact, just that he was human, currently lived in a cheap motel room a few blocks from the beach, and that he was British.
Turns out Liam didn't have the name, and Drusilla, well, she was incapable of actually saying it. It must have been some sort of similar compulsion to her own, similar to the one she had when trying to say Mercurio's name out loud. The God of Messengers simply could not be named properly. Names are special, are binding.
Buffy shook her head as she approached the building. She was starting to get hungry. She could probably hold off on eating, but feeding felt so good. She didn't want to end up going to bed hungry that night… morning… whatever, so instead of going straight to the hotel where Liam's contact stayed, she started looking around for easy targets. Blood is life. Life is blood, and from the blood comes the sanctity of life.
There, down the alley nearby, she heard something. Footsteps. She lightly stepped into the alley, following the source. The door from one of the buildings surrounding the alleyway had been opened, and a man dressed in a scullery outfit carried bags and bags of trash out from the restaurant, placing them in the dumpster nearby. He looked to be Hispanic, and Buffy had the idle thought about how she always loved Mexican food before admonishing herself for making that assumption.
He honestly might not even have been Mexican, but what he was… was her supper. It was trivial to approach him unseen, and when her fangs dug into the man's neck, she started to drain him directly. The moment that sweet nectar hit her lips, she was in ecstasy. He'd even been better than the gang-bangers she'd drained dry at the beach house. The man was faithful to his wife, and his kids were well off. He worked the restaurant because he had a dream to be a chef one day, and he would work his way up through the ranks so that he could do so. He wanted to learn everything he could while he was there, and he was just—
Buffy didn't even feel the blow that hit her off of the man, sending her sprawling into the dumpster, but the blood she'd drained was already helping to push the pellets from the shotgun blast out of her skin. She turned toward the wielder of the gun, and instinctively she fell into a fighting stance, resisting the urge to hiss and bare her fangs at her assailant.
He was taller than her, standing at just above six feet tall. He had his brown hair cut short, but the beginnings of a five-o-clock shadow darkened his light-skinned face some. He wore a brown leather jacket over a dark collared shirt with dark blue jeans and a pair of what probably were steel-toed boots. In his hands was a long-barreled shotgun leveled at her.
"The next shot is going for your head, vampire," the man said, echoes of a British accent shining through. If it weren't for the fact that the man was leveling a gun at her, Buffy would be wanting to laugh out loud. The One Who Watches could have meant so much, and Buffy was almost sure that it would mean someone specific. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly the one that she was expecting. Still, this could be good. She didn't really feel any desire to fight this man, especially not to the death, but she would if she had to. Instead, she needed to talk to him.
After all, she knew the guy. Price of the wind, indeed.
"Hello, Wesley."
