“Okay,” Marshall began. “Now in a club like this, there’s gonna be a lot of people looking, y’know, kinda weird. Like, Marilyn Manson weird, though there’s a lot of debate about whether he’s actually Goth or not, cause see, he’s kinda mainstream now, and that alienates a lot of…so anyway Juliana might be kinda hard to ID depending on how made up she is. Likewise, any of our big, what is it like, what, seven suspects? Except that, Wood guy got like, lost at sea or something.
“But with these babies,” He slipped on a pair of dark sun-glasses. “Look just like an ordinary pair of bad-ass shades right? The kind that Wesley Snipes wore in Blade or Arnie in Terminator. But they also, have the ability to see body heat, can filter out smoke, laser lighting, the kind of stuff you’re likely to have a lot of in a place like that, and, a camera that feeds into my new face recognition program. You see a possibility, just tap the side like so,”
The glasses took a picture of Sydney, Nadia, and Vaughn, and on the monitor of Marshall’s laptop, the photo appeared, filtering through pictures of the three of them in various disguises.
“See? Now it’s easier with you guys since we have so many pictures of you, but you get the idea.”
“I’ll be at the entrance filling in for a bouncer who’s going to call in sick.” Dixon said. “I’ll let you know if Juliana or any known members of the Watchers enter the club.”
“Oh,” Marshall said, picking up what looked like a pocket flashlight. “Now, this club requires you to be 18 with ID right, so our little friend will probably be using a fake ID, which usually works pretty well cause, bouncers never really look too closely, not, that I’ve ever-“
“Marshall.”
“Right, so anyway, this little baby works just like a flashlight, but it’s also got a sensor that will pick up any imperfections common to fake ID’s. Now it’s designed for subtlety so it’s just gonna heat up a little when it picks up anything.”
“All right,” Nadia said. “Let’s get to DC and turn ourselves into weirdoes.”
ROME
Buffy sat numbly on the couch, the phone receiver held up to her ear. “Willow are you sure?”
“Well,” Willow began. “These medallions aren’t quite an exact science, but when I try to find her…”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I know that she killed the Keilar Demon, but it seems that she ran into trouble afterwards. I’ve managed to find reports from Brussels of a police chase, and an explosion. But there’s no details available.”
Buffy let out a shuddering breath. “Okay, keep looking okay? I’ll call Giles.”
WASHINGTON DC
“Agent Bristow?” the man asked, as Jack entered the basement office. Jack looked around for a moment. His sources were right, the X-Files really were shunted to the absolute back burner of importance. Sloane would have been appaled if he actually cared about the FBI.
“Agent Dogget.” Jack greeted. “Thank you for taking the time.”
“Not at all.” Dogget said, though he was guarded. Why would the CIA be interested in the X-Files? They never had been before, not openly anyway. “But I don’t know how much help I can give you. We’re pretty low on the food chain down here.”
“Yes I can see that.” Jack wondered briefly if Dogget’s predecessor Mulder would have run across Rambaldi in his myriad investigations, then inwardly winced. Sloane’s obsession must be starting to get to him. “I need any information your office has collected on these individuals.”
John Dogget took the file folder from Bristow and glanced through it. “Buffy Summers, Sunnydale California.”
“I understand that former Agents Mulder and Scully investigated the town several years ago.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Came the answer. “I’ve heard a bit about that place. It was kinda famous on the occult front before it sank.” He went to the file cabinets and began searching. “Unfortunately most of the hard copy files were destroyed when the office caught fire a while back. Dunno if we’ll be able to find anything.”
While John was looking, Jack took the opportunity to stick a microphone on the underside of his desk. If the government really was actively working against the X-Files investigations, as he’d heard that Mulder had claimed, then this little eavesdropping mission would probably come for naught. He imagined that Dogget probably had his office regularly swept for bugs. But it was worth a shot, as Sloane had said.
“Well, nothing on Summers,” Dogget said finally. “But here’s some info on Sunnydale. Mulder kept tabs on the place looks like. Never went back there, but he liked to keep informed I guess.”
Jack flipped through the file, the camera in his tie pin taking high resolution photos of each page. Even from a cursory examination, Jack started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, these Watchers were on to something.
~~~~~
“Now look up.” Rebecca said, applying eyeliner to Sydney’s bottom lid. Though the agents were competent in creating their own disguises on the go, when there was time, the CIA had professional make-up and wardrobe people for the job. Today, Sydney, Michael, Dixon and Nadia found themselves in the hands of Rebecca. Specially brought in by the CIA for assignments such as this.
“You know we’re not trying to stand out.” Sydney told her, hoping to forestall anything too elaborate. We’re supposed to blend in.
“Honey, in this place, in order to blend in, you have to stand out. Trust me, I know.”
Sydney believed it. Rebecca wasn’t just any make-up lady, she was a goth make-up lady. From her spiked hair, ripped black t-shirt and jeans, combat boots and even fake vampire fangs, Rebecca was only several layers of eyeliner away from being ready to hit the club circuit herself.
Vaughn came out of the dressing room looking down at himself. “Is this really necessary?” he asked plaintively.
“What’s the matter?” Rebecca asked, finishing up the lightning bolt emerging from the corner of Sydney’s right eye. “You object to being clean-shaven for once?”
“I’m wearing a dress.” He pointed out. Rebecca had taken one look at him and handed him a floor length black gown, tight from the waist up, sleeves down to his wrists and a high collar, but it flared out at the hips, in a skirt that just missed the floor. “I look like I’m about to audition for Hellraiser.”
“Exactly.” Rebecca said. “You look great sweetie, and don’t worry, you’ll hardly be the most effeminate guy there.”
“I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.”
~~~~~
The sun had barely set on the nation’s capitol when his bell rang. He checked his appointment book. Yep, right after sunset. Dorian and friend. He’d rented the small apartment above the club a few months ago, and started getting back to what he felt he was meant to do. Council those what needed counseling.
He opened the door with a friendly smile, which soon changed into a look of shock. “Oh God, Spike?”
The bleached blonde Vampire, though his roots were starting to show, looked confused for a moment.
“Lorne?”
“Well paint me blue and call me a smurf, how’d you find me?”
“I didn’t.” Spike grinned. “Didn’t have any clue you were the one Dorian here was raving about.”
“You know each other?” the girl with Spike asked, surprised. As they entered, she took off her sunglasses, revealing yellow, catlike eyes. Combined with her pointed ears, they gave her an other worldly look. Dorian was small, Lorne noted. Probably about the same size as Buffy if the descriptions of the blonde slayer were accurate. Small but lovely. Lorne gave Spike an approving smile.
“Oh blondie and I go back aways.” Lorne said, taking their coats and hanging them on the rack. “Blood?”
“Please.”
Lorne opened his refrigerator. “I don’t have human, is pig okay?”
“That’s lovely, thanks.” Dorian said, sitting on the sofa, pulling Spike down beside her.
“So I guess you survived after all eh?” their host said, while pouring their drinks.
“We all did.” Came the reply. “Well, nearly all. Wesley never made it to the alley. But the rest of us…actually mate, no one’s supposed to know we’re alive. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we’re dead. Part of the whole sacrificing our lives bit. It’s complicated. So anyway, it’s not Spike anymore. Call me William.”
“Will do kiddo.” Lorne grinned, bringing them two glasses of blood.
“I have to ask,” William asked. “What’s with the new look? I didn’t recognize you at all.”
“Oh this?” Lorne gestured to his human face. “Just a glamour I got about a week after our big to-do. You like?”
“Well it’s different at any rate.”
“Thanks.” Lorne frowned playfully at him. “Last Halloween I took it off and went to a few parties. Folks loved my costume.
“So anyway, what brings you young lovers to me door? Dorian said something about wanting to know if it’s worth it?”
“Well I met William six months ago at a poetry slam.” Dorian explained, her southern belle accent adding to her beauty. “And we hit it off, but, well we’ve both been burned, sometimes literally, by relationships in the past. I’d heard about you through the grapevine, and thought…”
“I get it.” Lorne smiled gently at her. “Well I know Spi-er, Will’s sordid history with the ladies, care to share your story?”
Dorian looked down, and her expression became pained. “I don’t like to talk, or even think about it actually.” She said. William laid a comforting hand on her leg, and she grasped it gratefully.
“That’s okay.” Lorne said. “Well then, why don’t we get started. Do you have something already, or would you like to have a look at my catalogue?”
Dorian grinned, her fangs showing. “Actually we did have something specific in mind.” William looked embarrassed.
Lorne started the karaoke machine and sat back, his eyes closed.
“Turn around,” William started singing.
“Every now and then I get a little bit lonely but I don’t know what I miss,” Dorian continued.
“Turn around,”
“Every now and then I get a little bit desperate and I wonder what it is I desire,”
It was coming. In bits and pieces. Spike’s worries, his past relationships, Drusilla, Buffy, Harmony. He wanted desperately to do right by Dorian, but was terrified that she’d leave him.
“Turn around,”
“Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by,”
Dorian’s past was pain. He winced as he felt her torment and fear. Her last, and only lover had not been kind. And it had not been a consensual relationship.
“Turn around,”
“Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes.”
“Turn around, bright eyes,”
“Every now and then I hear a voice,”
He saw their first meeting. He’d read his poem about Cecily and, though she wasn’t a big poetry fan, in fact she was just there to look for food, he’d touched her. And of course she found him as sexy as all getout.
“Turn around bright eyes,”
“Every now and then I hear,”
“Turn around,”
“Every now and then I get a little bit restless and I dream of something wild.”
The secret of her existence was so closely kept that not even Spike’s kind were supposed to know they existed. They both harbored fears over that.
“Turn around,”
“Every now and then I get a little bit helpless and I’m lying like a child in your arms.”
“Turn around,”
“Every now and then I get a little bit curious what it’s like to be a woman and free.”
William had not wanted to love her. After being left by his first love, made a shambles of his relationship with Harmony, and, wow, almost raping Buffy, he’d been fighting this from the very beginning.
“Turn around,”
“Every now and then I get a little bit terrified but then I see you coming for me.”
But he did love her.
“Turn around Bright Eyes,”
“Every now and then I fall apart,”
Very much. And she him. There were gonna be problems of course, what relationship didn’t? But they’d work them out.
“And I need you now tonight, and I need you more than ever. And if you’ll only hold me tight, then we’ll be holding on forever.”
But wait,
“And we’ll only be making it right, and we’ll never be wrong, together we can take it to the end of the line, my love is like a shadow on you all of the time.”
Speaking of trials, damn, there was a doozy coming up soon. It was hard to read though. It seemed, convoluted was the only word he could think of to describe it.
“I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark,”
“We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks,”
International conspiracies, mistaken identities, misunderstandings. He couldn’t make heads or tails out of it.
“I really need you tonight, forever’s gonna start tonight. Forever’s gonna start,”
“Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I’m only falling apart.”
“Nothing I can do, a total eclipse of the heart,”
“Okay kids,” Lorne stopped them. “I think I’ve got enough to go on.”
Dorian noticed he looked strained, and worried.
“What’s wrong? What did you see?”
“Okay well the good news is that you really do love each other, and you’re gonna see each other through thick and thin. The bad news is, there’s gonna be a lot to see each other through in the future. And not the distant future either.”
“What do you mean Mate?” William demanded. “Is there another bloody apocalypse coming?”
“There’s always an apocalypse coming.” Lorne said. “But honestly I can’t figure out what I just saw. Just, you know, watch your back I guess.”
“You look like you could use a drink.” William said.
“God yes. Care to join me?”
~~~~~
It almost seemed as though the club had as tight security as the CIA. Sydney, Vaughn and Nadia passed through three check points, one to check their ID, another to be searched for weapons, and then a third to check their tickets.
Fortunately it was Dixon, resplendent in biker leathers, including a fearsome skull jutting from each shoulder, was the one to search them, so they had no problems.
“Good thing we’re all over 18!” Sydney had to yell over the music.
~~~~~
“Oh, my freaking God.” Jason mumbled as he, Emily and Lane entered the club. “Why oh why did I let you talk me into this?”
“You should be used to this kinda crap by now!” Lane grinned at her werewolf companion. “Half the kids at SU are actors right?”
“Point taken!”
“You see our girl yet?” Emily asked. “I could try a locater spell, but it’d be risky with all these distractions!”
Lane shrugged. “Red Witch said she comes here every Thursday. She’ll be here eventually. In the meantime, try to relax!”
“Relax?” Jason asked incredulously. “Do you know how many Vampires I smell in here?”
“You think their here for Juliana?” Emily asked worriedly.
“Hell, place like this, Vampires must come in here all the time! If you can get one alone stake his ass, but we’re not here to start trouble tonight! This’ gonna be Jules’ turf once we get her trained up.!”
Jason let his nose do the looking as they headed for a couch set up against the wall. “Five Vampires in this room alone!” he said in Emily’s ear, eliciting a shiver. He loved doing that to her. Jason, a werewolf for a few years now had come into his heightened sense of smell and had made himself even more valuable an asset to the Scoobies of Winchester Virginia. Though even as a werewolf, he considered himself far more normal than his friends. He was about to graduate from Shenandoah University and hoped to maybe play professional football, although he didn’t know if he’d be able to leave the glamorous life of demon-slaying behind.
Emily loved it when he whispered in her ear. Of course whispering wasn’t really the case, even that close, he had to yell to be heard over the din. To think that two years ago when they’d all met, she couldn’t stand him. Of course, being a pagan, she’d been somewhat of an anathema to him as well. But being thrown into one life-threatening situation after another had brought them closer than either had anticipated.
“You two stay here and try not to make any babies!” Lane said, rising. “I’m gonna to check in!”
As she sauntered away, Jason mumbled to himself “Like she’s one to talk.”
Lane was careful to present a tough front to the world. Her father had been long absent from her life, and her mother was locked in a losing battle with drugs. The only think that had given her life meaning was her band.
Then Vampires had attacked during one of her shows in her hometown and everything had changed. That was when she’d met Emily, Jason, James, her watcher, and Joe. The unsuspecting father of her child.
Only two people got to see past her façade. Joe, who was long out of the picture, and Sarah, her two year old daughter.
Reaching a quiet part of the club, Lane pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Vexen? Hey, just letting you know we got here in one piece. Tell James there’s no sign of her yet. Any action on the home front?”
“Nope, pretty quiet tonight.” Came the confidant voice on the other end of the line.
“Cool. Sarah give you much trouble?”
“Nah we got the best baby sitters in the world down here. Kid’s sacked out with the Ferret.”
“Great. See you later. Keep the that place in one piece you hear?”
She hung up and looked towards the entrance. There she was. Just like the picture Willow had shown them. God could the world handle another punk/goth slayer? It already had Faith and Lane. The forces of Darkness would start thinking they’d been betrayed by their own.
~~~~~
“That’s her.” Marshall said over the comm. Dixon did not answer, just handed Juliana Miller back her ID. “Have a good time.” He told her and waved her inside.
Sydney barely heard Marshall over the comm., but got the gist of the message. She turned to her sister. “She’s here.”
Across the club, Lane walked quickly to her scoobies, having spotted their target coming into the club. “She’s here.”