FIC: Whither Thou Goest... Part 10/?

[PB <pbnj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Whither Thou Goest...
Author: Pink Rabbit Productions
Archive: Pink Rabbit, A Slayer/A Hacker
Author's Notes: This is the latest sequel to Spin, Spinning, Spun Out, It
All Depends On Your Timing, and Interludis Neanderthalensis. It's not
finished, but I'm going to start posting in segments since it's getting
close to the end (probably).
Disclaimer: The characters and show all belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant
Enemy, Kuzui, and God only knows who else. This particular arrangement of
words in cyberspace belongs to me, however. Btw, it contains love between
two women, so if such things offend you, are illegal where you live or
somesuch, kindly don't read it and upset yourself, 'kay. It'll just make
life easier on all of us.
Spoilers: None that I can think of.
Rating: soft R -- for cursing, some violence, and such
Part: 10/? (yeah, I know the parts and the chapter numbers aren't
necessarily matching up, but that's because there was a prologue and now a
chapter that had to be split into two parts)

Whither Thou Goest...
Chapter Seven

"What do you mean you're leaving?" Giles demanded as he watched Willow
start gathering the volumes she needed from his collection.

"Will needs her laptop, and I want to go talk to Willy...see if he's heard
anything."

"But--"

"We'll call in regularly to see if you've found anything, and I'll have
your cell," she added as she grabbed Giles' tiny flip phone from the coffee
table. She tucked it in her pocket, then leaned over to kiss her mother's
cheek. "Mom, you be careful, okay. Don't go out tonight." She looked at
Giles. "And whatever you do, don't let anyone in."

Her Watcher frowned. "Buffy, if you find out anything, we'll fight her
together...right?"

"Of course," the Slayer lied smoothly. "But I've got to find her first.
I'll call you later and let you know what's going on."

Willow looked over as she finished stuffing leather bound books into a
borrowed backpack. Buffy had forbidden her from saying anything or she'd
have told the others the truth, but she'd promised. Which meant she had to
make sure the Slayer was okay. "I've got what I need."

Buffy jerked her head toward the door. "Come on."

"Be careful," Xander murmured as Buffy started to turn away.

The Slayer pivoted back to face her friend, her expression neutral, though
she had the oddest sensation he'd guessed what was going on. "You too."

The teen offered the smallest of smiles and a brief nod. "Don't worry. I'll
look after things here."

"You'd better." And then she and Willow were stepping into the early
morning sun and a day so beautiful it was hard to believe there was real
evil anywhere in the world.

* * * * * * *

The motel was little more than a low rent flophouse, a leftover from the
1960's love of Route 66 and the automobile, long since fallen into
disrepair. It had a pool--though the water was less than clean--hourly
rates, in-room movies of a particularly fleshy nature, and beds that
vibrated for a quarter. However, the primary appeal to the woman lying
naked--the torn and bloody clothes she'd been wearing for two days soaking
in the sink--on a bed that felt as though it had been cast from cement was
the thick brick masonry and tiny windows that faced North behind their
heavy, plastic-backed curtains. Sunlight didn't get into the main room,
which was a relief. Otherwise, she'd have had to spend the day in the
bathroom. She rolled over, grumbling impolitely under her breath. Not that
the bathtub probably wasn't more comfortable than the bed. She rolled onto
her back again, folding her hands across her stomach as she glared at the
ceiling as though it was responsible for the muck ups of the previous two
days. She swallowed hard, closing her eyes and concentrating on quieting
herself. The hunger was on her, thick and hot, the need for blood drawing
her muscles taut and making every sense painfully acute.

A less than ideal situation in view of the fact that there are some things
Dominoes doesn't deliver.

Lying there with her eyes closed, she could hear the few denizens haunting
the motel at that hour, her blood running at their frenzied couplings and
torrid, sweaty interactions. She tried to distract herself with mental
games, but that only brought up the memory of the sound of her name on the
Watcher's lips. So strange to hear it again after so many years of other
names, other identities, none of them truly her, until it sometimes seemed
she had no identity beyond the moment in which she existed. Then she had to
distract herself from the distractions.

More sounds and smells of thick lust filled her senses, making the hunger
burn in her veins.

The sewers were starting to sound better with every passing moment. At
least there, the clinging stench might have distracted her from the hunger
and her own thoughts. She rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the
pillow and striving to ignore the voices and the sounds of lust coming at
her from all sides.

Tried and failed as a girl's voice cried out, "No!" The sound of flesh
hitting flesh.

The vampire pushed up on her hands, sharp eyes sliding around the room as
she separated the nearby sounds from the background noises.

"You'll do what you were paid for, bitch."

Her gaze landed on the door that sat in the corner of the room. The sort
that was meant to allow rooms to be joined together. Probably so families
could have a room for the parents and one for the children during the
motel's first life as a wholesome overnight vacation stop.

"I told you before--" Again the sound of flesh on flesh, followed by a
small cry of pain.

She pushed to her feet, moving to stand in front of the connecting door,
her head canted to one side as she listened to the little passion play
being performed on the other side.

"Keep it up, and I'll still do what I want, but you won't be getting paid."
And again the sound of flesh striking flesh.

Followed by the crash and smash of double wooden doors being torn off their
hinges by a solid kick from a seemingly delicate bare foot. For a brief
second after that, the only sound was the soft rhythmic scree of the doors
gently rocking on the tattered remainders of their hinges.

The girl was young and dark haired, pretty maybe, if not for the caked on
makeup running with panicked tears and clothes that would have looked tacky
and too slutty on a woman twice her age and twice as sluttish. On her knees
and pressed back against the bed, her eyes went wide as she stared in shock
at the naked newcomer, visibly not quite believing what she was seeing. Too
many drugs and too much life hadn't left her with the firmest of grips on
reality.

"What the fuck?" Her would-be suitor twisted, peering over his tattooed
shoulder. He was on the short side, but wiry-strong with thinning dark hair
and a heavy mustache. Just the sort of pug-ugly who considered beating a
woman to be a fair hobby.

Short man's syndrome, bald man's syndrome, and an excess of machismo all in
one special package. She was comfortably certain she was going to enjoy
this. "It's very difficult to get any sleep with all the noise you're
making," she observed dryly, well aware of the way his eyes slid over her
body with a combination of lust and hate. No surprise there. It took a lot
of hate to be like he was. "And I haven't had the best of nights lately."

"I don't know who the fuck you are, but you have no fucking idea who you're
dealing with," he growled, the repetition of mindless swear words
accompanied by the sound of a zipper sliding before he turned to fully face
her.

She smiled. "Obviously you've confused the meaning of the words know and
care," she dismissed. Green eyes slid over to the girl. "How old are you?"

"None of your fucking business," he cut in before the girl could answer.

The green eyes touched on him again. "Could have sworn I was talking to her."

"I don't give a shit who you're talking to, bitch. Unless you want to take
her place, I suggest you haul your ass the fuck out of here."

Pale brows lifted and a hint of a wry smile twisted her lips. "Such a
tempting offer," she drawled and appeared to consider his manly charms.

Confused now--he was used to having women flinch from him in
fear--actually, he liked having women flinch from him in fear--the would-be
suitor's eyes slid past the delicately built blond to the doors hanging
half off their hinges. No way she could have done that. They must have just
been old and rusted. Right, that was the answer; old and rusted and
probably just gave way when she knocked. This whole place was falling down
so it was no surprise. His composure buoyed up by a healthy dose of false
confidence, he looked back at her, eyes sliding insultingly over her body,
noting perfect rose-tipped breasts and rounded hips with particular greed.
Probably one of those kinkoids that liked it rough. Probably hung around
No-tell Motels looking for guys to do her, he decided. "Yeah, babe, I got a
lot to offer."

And then she laughed, dashing his ugly fantasies with innate cruelty.
"Somehow I don't think you'd measure up to my standards."

"Bitch." He took three long strides forward, intending to grab her and
teach her who was in charge in this world.

Only a hand lashed out with the speed of a striking rattlesnake, grabbing
him around the throat and lifting him off his feet. He grabbed for her
hand, trying to take some of the pressure off his windpipe as he kicked and
struggled, trying to break free.

The teenaged hooker pressed harder against the bed, whispering the few
fragments of the Lord's Prayer she still remembered as she stared in horror
at the woman effortlessly dangling her john in mid-air.

"So, how old are you?" the blond asked as though she wasn't holding a
kicking and clawing man several inches off the floor in a one handed grip
while standing naked in the middle of the motel room she'd just broken
into. Gleaming cat's eyes stared down at the quivering girl, silently
willing her to answer.

"Eighteen," the hooker, whose name was actually Jennifer Holly Hollings,
though she'd been going by Jenny Cherry long enough that she sometimes
forgot she'd had another name before her parents divorce, her stepfather's
entry into her life, and her own exit from that same life.

"No...really...how old are you?" the blond asked dryly, her eyes no longer
seeming to glitter with quite so many yellow lights.

But that was just a trick of the light, Jenny reassured herself, then her
eyes lifted to the middle aged man still trying unsuccessfully to claw his
way free. Or maybe not. "Fourteen," she answered honestly, then remembered
it had to be November, maybe even December by now and her birthday had been
in October when she was still Jennifer Holly and Jenny Cherry hadn't been
born yet. "No...fifteen," she corrected. "I...I just turned fifteen."

"How much he promise to pay you?" the blond interrogated briskly, showing
no pity, if indeed she felt any.

She ducked her chin, cheeks flushing with shame. "Twenty," she admitted,
hating the thought of what she'd been willing to do for the price of a
couple of meals at a burger joint. A grim laugh brought her chin up.

"Jesu...a whoremonger and a cheap one at that." A brown leather wallet lay
on the nightstand and she pivoted, grabbing it and flipping it open, noting
the silver badge inside with a raised brow. "Well...well...Sunnydale's
finest at work." She flipped the moneyclip inside out with agile fingers
and tossed it to the girl. "Get out and lock your door on the way," she bit
out.

Jenny pushed to shaking feet, not even bothering to straighten her clothes
as she staggered toward the door.

"One more thing," the blond's silky voice called her back and Jenny pivoted
to find herself staring into the face of hell itself, the woman's newly
remade sharp demon's features like something she'd seen in a horror movie
as a child. She froze, unable to even breathe as she stared at the thing
standing only a few feet away. She'd heard other runaways tell tales of
murder and mayhem on the dark streets, but never believed them. Now she
believed. "Think about how you're going to spend that money, because there
are things a lot worse than him," she nodded toward her rapidly weakening
prisoner, "out there in the world. You wouldn't want to run into them, now
would you?"

The girl shook her head stiffly, expecting to die at any moment.

"Smart girl. I saw a church about three blocks East of here. You might want
to start looking for help there."

Jenny nodded jerkily, barely able to make her body obey the dictates of her
mind.

"You'd better move along now. You've got things to do and people to see."

Again the girl nodded, then slipped out, careful to make certain the door
locked in her wake.

The john suddenly found that she'd lowered him enough that his toes just
touched the worn shag carpeting. If he pressed hard enough with the balls
of his feet, he could almost push high enough to take most of his weight
off his throat. "You'll pay for this," he croaked, his voice ragged as he
forced it out past his bruised larynx. "When the cops get here--"

"And who's going to call them?" his captor demanded politely as her head
came back around, seemingly as sweet and human as the day she'd died
centuries before. "The little whore? I don't think so. Not with your money
burning a hole in her pocket. She'll either use it to leave here or buy
enough of the drug of her choice that her exit from this life may well be
the first painless pleasure of her young life. No, she won't be calling
anyone," she dashed his hopes with a smile, then clenched her fingers,
pressuring them more deeply into his neck as she wrenched him back into the
air, relishing the pain she saw on his face. "You're all mine, my friend."
She lowered him again a beat later, letting him have just enough oxygen to
stay alive. "So, tell me, do you have a wife...children...a family you beat
and torment for fun?"

He spat then, nostrils flaring as his lungs fought to draw in enough air to
simply maintain consciousness.

His tormentor lifted her free hand, wiping the spittle away with the back
as she peered at him like she might a particularly ugly bug under a
microscope. "Now, that's not friendly at all." And she increased the
pressure on his larynx, reminding him just who was in charge. "Now, answer
the question. Do you have a wife, maybe a daughter that CPS really should
remove from the home before even your cop friends can't cover up what you
are anymore?"

"The fucking bitch left me!" he screamed, tears of hate and loss leaking
from eyes bloodshot from too many nights of whiskey and drugs. "But I'll
find her and then that fucking bitch is dead! I'll kill them all!"

Blond brows rose in polite disbelief. "I doubt that very much," she
disagreed. "However, I guess that means there are no insurance matters to
worry about, which makes things much simpler, Officer Riordan." And then
her features morphed again, arching and twisting, showing the hellborne
face and sharp canines of the hunter within.

"Jesus."

She smiled and shook her head. "Sorry...no...not here, but I'll be sure to
tell him you called the next time I see him." She started to yank him close.

"Wait. I can help you." Riordan was openly crying now, tears running down
his leathery cheeks, while his nose dripped with his sniveling pleas.

"Really?" she drawled, her tone courteously disbelieving.

"Yeah...I-I worked for the mayor...y'know, when he tried to take over the
town...I mean...I can work with demons...don't even try to roust 'em at
that hangout downtown--"

"How kind of you."

"Right...kind...hey, I'm a demon's best friend. You could probably use a
friend on the force. I know we're not supposed to know about...about...."

"Vampires?" his captor supplied wryly.

"Right, vampires." He was gaining confidence now, certain he was winning
her over. Demon or no, she was just like any other woman in his book, too
stupid to know that he always came out on top. He'd play her just right and
the moment she wasn't looking--bam--a stake right through the heart. That'd
teach her who was boss. "But a lot of cops do...and not just the ones that
were on the mayor's payroll. Some of 'em, they even think they can fight
it...fools...don't understand you gotta go along to get along."

"Fools," she agreed pleasantly. "Unfortunately, you have a small problem. I
don't like demons." She drew him close, so that her cool breath wafted
across his face as she spoke. "I don't like you...and...I'm hungry. Very
hungry."

Riordan barely had time to gasp before her fangs pierced his neck. He could
feel her lips and tongue moving against his skin, drinking so deeply, he
could hear the soft sounds as she swept up and swallowed each drop blood
slipping from his body. He was just sliding away when she dropped him and
pressed her wrist, slick and red with her blood, against his lips.

"Drink if you want to become like me," she offered him a chance at life.

He almost laughed even as he was dying. The fool. She was giving him a
chance at eternal life. And the first thing he was going to do was rip out
her unbeating heart. He drank, swallowing the thick blood even as he felt
something inside him start to change as his heart threatened to seize up
and quit altogether.

She leaned down into his field of vision during his last moments of life,
laughing at him in a way that he would remember even when he arrived in
hell. "Oh, by the way, I thought you might like to know, that while your
body lives on, your soul will be nowhere in residence. Tell the devil hello
for me." And the last thing he heard was her triumphant laughter.

She stared down at the body for a brief moment, wondering how long the
change would take this time. It was always different, though the soft
incantation she whispered was supposed to speed things along. She turned
away from the rapidly cooling corpse, noting the gym bag at the foot of the
bed with some interest. It yielded a few clothes that smelled of sweat and
urine, a dime bag of marijuana, a vial that looked to be crack, and a
medicine bottle of cocaine. "Had quite a party planned for yourself, didn't
you, Officer Riordan," she murmured, thinking it was just as well she'd fed
before he'd indulged. The last thing she needed was to face the Slayer
while she was stoned off her ass. Lastly, she pulled out a pistol wrapped
in a shoulder holster from the bottom of the bag--an expensive Sig-Sauer
with a spare clip tucked into the shoulder harness--and tossed it aside
with no more interest than she had for the drugs. There was a cell phone,
but it was too dangerous to consider using it. Too much chance of the
Slayer or the Watcher's Council somehow using it to track her down. Nothing
that would do her any good.

She was just settling in to catch an old Gilligan's Island rerun on the
snowy tv when the body twitched. "They're he-ere..." she sing-songed as she
pushed up and moved to stand straddling his hips, watching impassively as
the dead body began twitching its way back to an unearthly existence.

And then bloodshot eyes snapped open, a feral smile slowly curving the
newborn demon's mouth.

She dropped to her knees, grinning down at him.

"Now, this is the way to come into the world," the newcomer noted cheerfully.

She smiled with him, then reached past him, easily snapping a spindly leg
from the wooden nightstand. "Or leave it," she added as she plunged the
makeshift stake through his chest before he had a chance to stop her.

"Fuck..." His last words were all too appropriate. And then he shattered
into nothing but dust.

"Makes getting rid of the body so much easier." She leaned into the
stinging ash, breathing it in with a sensual smile, then exhaling it again
like cigarette smoke. "Was it good for you? Because it was good for me,"
she murmured to no one in particular as she pushed to her feet, wondering
if this bed was any more comfortable than the one in the other room, the
dispatched demon already forgotten.

* * * * * * *
TBC

--"If I was all that fond of real life, I would never have majored in theater"

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