Chapter Three

The scream silenced the revelry in the saloon and any chance Dean Winchester thought he had of getting any action tonight. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean jumped to his feet immediately and hurried out of the booth, forgetting that he was on a date or that he owed Buffy any explanations regarding his sudden departure. 

The screaming was coming from the top of a flight of steps near the rest rooms in the saloon. A brunette was screaming hysterically when Dean reached her, shaking so badly and spouting out incomprehensible words through her wild gesticulation that Dean didn’t even bother to try and figure out what she was saying. Instead, he followed the direction of her flaying hands, down a short corridor that came to an end with a room that faced the front of the main street, judging by the view through the window. It was an office with a wooden desk and chair in the centre, a rug on the floor and a filing cabinet in the corner next to the window. The walls were adorned with newspaper clippings, posters of old bands and various licenses. 

The body that lay half across the rug could only be identifiable as male only because of the clothes he was wearing. There were no facial features left due to the bloody mess of flesh above the neck. The corpse was covered in a greenish fluid with parts of the flesh appearing to have been eaten away. Dean could see parts of bone through the gore of disintegrated meat. It was a grisly sight that was not aided by the near vomit inducing stench that assaulted the senses the moment anyone stepped into the room. Reaching for his jacket pocket, he extracted a handkerchief and covered his nose when he went closer to investigate. 

“What the hell happened to you?” He asked quietly of the dead man, not really expecting an answer.

*****

Buffy was suddenly visited by an odd and somewhat comforting sense of déjà vu when she heard the girl scream. Unlike Dean’s very forward pass, she had a clear understanding of what to do in this situation. However, before she had a chance to react, Dean had jumped to his feet and gone charging to confront whatever it was that had elicited that frightened cry. Without even a word to her as he went, Dean was gone in a flash, running up the staircase, leaving her at the booth trying to figure out what had happened. 

Whether or not it was going to blow her cover, Buffy was on her feet and following him barely a second later. Of course, he was wearing sensible shoes while she was in heels so naturally, she couldn’t move as fast as she liked. After the initial shock had lapsed, the crowd in the bar had started to react to the girl’s scream and Buffy knew that she didn’t have very long before they swarmed in on her and she would learn nothing. 

Buffy clacked her way up the stairs, just ahead of the staff in the Saloon, cursing she hadn’t worn boots or flats. She saw no sign of Dean and suddenly had an idea of how Willow and Xander felt sometimes, when she’d left them behind to go ahead to fight some Big Bad. She reached the doorway and saw Dean hunched over the body, examining it. 

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed at the sight of the body. 

Dean immediately turned to her and his hard expression softened to one of concern. “Hey Buffy, you don’t want to be here…” he said when she cut him off. 

“That’s not vamp kill.” She stated. 

Anything else he had to say died with that statement and he blinked hard and stared at her, “What did you say?” 

“I said,” Buffy walked past him, ignoring his stunned expression and winced immediately when confronted by the awful stench. “God what is that smell….” She complained covering her nose with her palm as she leaned in towards the body to examine it herself.

Dean was still standing there open mouthed, staring at her, “I don’t know,” he muttered and then asked, “did you just say vamp?” He thought he must have heard wrong. 

“Yeah, vamp,” she answered and then dismissed his shock because she had slipped so easily into slayer mode, that any self- consciousness she had displayed during their earlier conversation was gone. Now she was the Slayer again, on solid ground with no doubt or hesitation about what she needed to do. 

Dean watched her astonishment as she marched to the body, dropped down to the same position that he had taken a moment ago and begin scanning the dead man’s injuries. The vibe of the cute, somewhat sexually repressed girl had vanished and had evolved into this new exciting creature in front of him. Confident, strong and completely unfazed by what she was seeing, Dean found that for the first time since he’d met her, the tables were turn and he was the one unbalanced and running to play catch up. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Buffy declared, reaching for a pencil that had rolled off the desk and landed on the floor near her. Using the pencil, she touched the viscous liquid that covered the man, attaching a thick pregnant drop to its tip. Even as she held it, it started to burn. “It’s like acid.” 

She’s a hunter or something close to a hunter, Dean thought. That was the only explanation for how easily she was accepting what was in front of her. She hardly flinched at the sight of the victim, just the stench emanating from it. And she had said vamp like it was a common occurrence in her life. Was she a hunter? A hunter named Buffy? It sounded so ridiculous he almost laughed but here she was, conducting the same assessment of the scene that he and Sam would do if they were confronted by this. 

Regaining his composure, Dean joined Buffy in studying the victim. “It’s just over him. There’s no splatter marks over anything, just him. I can’t see how they got it on him, unless they painted it on,” Dean answered. “You said you never seen this before, what else have you seen?” He asked. 

Buffy turned to him and gave him an enigmatic smile, “that’s a long conversation.” 

There would be time to play twenty questions later but right now, there was work to be done and Dean returned to the subject at hand. “You’re right, it is some kind of acid. Look, we got maybe five minutes tops before the cops get here. Less before everyone else from downstairs to get up here. I need to look around, see what else is here.” 

“We need to look around,” she corrected. 

“Right,” Dean nodded with a taut smile not about to argue with the limited time they had, “We. You take the body and I’ll work the room, okay?” 

“Okay,” Buffy agreed, guessing that he was used to working with a partner and saw that as an equitable division of labour to get through what needed to be done before they lost access to the scene. She continued her examination of the dead man and noted something on his arm. It was barely discernible and easy to miss because of the damage to the flesh and the fact that it was located in a place where there had been a tattoo.

“Did you see the bite mark?” She asked, pointing to the marks with the tip of her pencil. 

“Bite mark?” Dean declared, paying more attention to the fine dust on the base of one wall. He ran his fingers along the paint finish and saw no sign of cracks or fissures of any kind that would produce such a layer. Yet it was there as if something had cracked. He looked about to see if there was any damage on the ceiling or surrounding walls that might have explained its origins but there was nothing. It was almost identical to what they had found in the alley. At the mention of bite marks however, he came back to her. 

“Here,” she pointed to the man’s arm. “That’s not a vampire bite.” She said firmly, giving him no illusions as to what she knew and didn’t know. “I’ve never seen one that looks like this.” 

Dean stared at her again and his smile broadened before he regarded the body again. “Me neither and not with this acid crap all over it.” 

Suddenly, they could hear footsteps coming down the hall. Their time was up. The brunette’s screams had abated but the commotion of other people following them into the room was fast approaching. They wouldn’t be able to leave without running into the new arrivals and they’d have to explain their presence. 

“I swear I’m not trying not to cop a feel but play along,” Dean said quickly and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her to him in a close intimate grip. 

Buffy was about to protest when the brunette along with the bartender and one of the waiters appeared at the doorstep. She had no doubt that the police would soon be next. She and Dean had to get out of here before the authorities arrived. The last thing she needed was the cops in this town questioning why a high school guidance counsellor was at the scene of a murder. 

“Jesus Christ!” The bartender, a heavy set black man with a John Holmes moustache cried out at grisly sight. His shock did not last long and was soon turning his attention to Buffy and Dean and demanding what they were doing there. “Who the hell are you?” Next to him, the brunette had started squealing again while the waiter doubled over, throwing up the contents of his stomach on the dark wood floor. 

“Woah,” Dean winced at the sight of the man’s regurgitation, “Sorry man, I couldn’t stop the little woman from running up here and checking out the body,” Dean explained, slapping Buffy’s ass as he spoke. “She loves all this gross stuff…”

Buffy turned to Dean, ready to deliver her own slap (in the form of a right hook) before she recalled what he said about playing along with him and managed to offer the trio a look of embarrassment and apology.

“That’s just sick,” the bartender declared, appalled as he shook his head at Buffy like she was some kind of deviant. “That’s our friend over there! Have some respect.” 

“Yeah, I’m real sorry,” Dean repeated himself, feigning a more sombre demeanour. “We’ll just be on our way.” He assured them and started steering Buffy towards the door. 

“Get out of here!” The man barked at them, torn between outrage and grief, “we’re calling the cops!” 

“We’re going, we’re going! I’m so sorry.” She said finally, letting Dean guide her towards the door, his arm still wrapped around her waist as they hurried out into the corridor. 

“The little woman?” She glared at him when they were alone. 

“Don’t worry honey,” Dean grinned as they reached the staircase leading back to the saloon floor “I’m sure they don’t think you get off on seeing all that blood….” 

*****

Twenty minutes later, they were back at the Slice. 

At this time of night, it was virtually deserted except for the waitresses on the late shift. Buffy had never been to the Slice at this time of night so she wasn’t surprised to see that Mary was gone for the day when she and Dean stepped into the diner. They’d driven here in his car, a gorgeous black Chevy that reminded her of Angel’s T-Bird that had a tape deck. Who had a tape deck anymore? They’d avoided all the questions that they were dying to ask each other and yet the silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable, if anything it was liberating. Like there was no need for secrets, no need to lie about who they were or the darkness they were so obviously aware of. 

Dean threw a sidelong glance at her as he had driven, studying her profile, trying to unravel the mystery about her. He was still rather stunned by the transformation of this rather prissy girl who blushed at the thought of raunchy sex into this confident, powerful woman who talked about vamps the way he and Sam talked about demons. He’d pretty much decided that she was a hunter but then again, she didn’t live like one. Hunters rarely held jobs as school teachers or settled in one place. However, the way she’d stepped up when they’d found that body, it was a glimpse of her he hadn’t seen when they were conducting their verbal foreplay. 

He didn’t think he could get turned on more by a woman but he was. 

“So,” he said finally after their coffee got served. “You’re a hunter.” 

Buffy blinked. “A what?” 

“A hunter,” Dean repeated himself, eyes narrowing. Either she was a hunter or she knew about monsters without knowing there were others out there who knew the same things that she did. It was a real possibility. Most hunters started out alone, thinking they were the only ones who knew what they did until they met someone who proved them wrong. Dean was certain that was how John got into the life before he met Bobby and all the other hunters. “You know, hunting monsters and things. That’s how you know about vamps right?” 

“No, I’m the Slayer,” she answered staring back at him bewildered. Hunter? She’d never heard the term in that context except the one time when she had hunted Oz but that asshole Cain had been all about the profit, not about helping people. She recalled what she had overheard between the two brothers earlier today, when they had been discussing what kind of creature they were dealing with. They hadn’t been talking about it like they were trying to score some trophy, they were trying to stop the killing before another person got hurt. “What’s a hunter?” She asked.

“What’s a Slayer?” Dean countered and another lengthy silence followed as they contemplated whether or not they should answer. Finally it was Dean who broke the deadlock, so to speak. “You first.” 

“Why me?” Buffy countered. 

“Because I asked first.” Dean pointed out, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips like he’d offered her some proverbial checkmate. 

“I’m the Slayer,” Buffy sighed, wishing Giles was here to answer the question. He lived for telling people about the lore around the slayers. Taking a deep breath and exhaling it, Buffy started to recite what had been drilled into her head since she’d been called.

“In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.” 

“You’re kidding,” Dean exclaimed, almost laughing out loud. It sounded like something out of a bad horror book, like those things Chuck the Prophet might write if the guy’s stories weren’t about the Winchesters. “A girl?” 

Buffy’s eyes narrowed, “you know you’re not so cute that I won’t deck you.” 

Dean held her gaze and replied with a completely straight face, “so you think I’m cute.” 

Buffy rolled her eyes and reconsidered for a moment the whole part about decking him. Instead, she picked up the metal spoon resting on her saucer and studied it for a moment. It was made from stainless steel. Glancing over her shoulder to ensure the eyes of the rather bored waitress at the counter was still fixed on the exploits of Kim Kardashian in her magazine, Buffy faced front and folded the spoon in half. With a look of perfect innocence, she dropped it into Dean’s cup of coffee with a loud plink. 

Dean blinked and fished out the spoon, staring at it. It had to be a trick, he told himself and then tried to unbend it back to its former shape. After a minute of trying, in which he found Buffy looking at him with a bemused expression, Dean gave up. He couldn’t even budge it. 

“You should see what I do to shotguns.” She smiled smugly. 

“Damn woman!” Dean said impressed, meeting her smirk with one of his own. “A slayer huh? I’ve never read anything like that in all the lore I’ve researched.”

“Well I’ve never heard of a hunter either,” she replied. “So what is it?”

“A hunter? Well we’re mostly ordinary people who’ve run into some terrible creepy things and chose to fight it. I mean we didn’t know there were slayers out there doing this stuff. All we know is bad stuff happened to the people we cared about, usually involving some ugly monster that no one else can’t deal with.” 

“And you do this all the time?” Buffy was astonished that the Watcher Council was completely unaware of any of this. “How many of you are there?” She asked. 

Buffy had never liked the idea of civilians fighting monsters and yet according to Dean there was a whole culture of them that had been defending themselves, doing the job of slayers with nothing but their wits and shared experiences to get by. She felt kind of ashamed that in the past she’d underestimate the ability of ordinary humans to deal. Then again, hadn’t Xander risen magnificently to the occasion when she’d needed help? Willow too even before she started practising magic. 

“Lots of us,” Dean answered, “My grandparents were hunters so was my dad and my mom too. There’s a lot of us working jobs across the country. There’s just one Slayer?” He asked in return. 

“There used to be,” Buffy explained, “but a couple of years ago, there was a spell that activated all the potentials, girls who could be slayers. When they all woke up, I wasn’t alone any more. For the first time since I was fifteen years old, it wasn’t solely my responsibility to save the world.” 

Dean was still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that there was an army of girls with super strength running around the place, fighting monsters. No hunter had ever encountered them, not once. How the hell was possible? “So then you retired to Lawrence, Kansas? Really?” 

His first choice would be California, near a beach with a lot of bikini clad chicks. 

“Well I was here on a job three years ago,” Buffy laughed, understanding his scepticism. Her friends had been no less comprehending when she had first told them of her intention to settle here. “There was something going on in town, me and a bunch of slayers came here. The Watcher Council who looks after the slayers and gives us all our information, told us something huge was happening in town here. They didn’t have any record of it but the signs were everywhere. Disasters, deaths, whole towns disappearing. There were also a lot of demons we’d identified as being non hostile who got the serious wigguns and left this plane of existence. Like rats deserting a sinking ship. We couldn’t even get our psychics to tap into whatever it was. The few that did, got their eyes burned out…” Buffy stopped speaking when she caught sight of the expression on his face. 

All trace of humour had drained out from it. 

“Three years ago?” Dean rubbed the bridge of his nose, the realisation exploding behind his eyes like artillery shells. “This something huge, was it at Stull Cemetery?” He asked. 

Buffy’s eyes widened, “Yeah, you know it?”

“The something huge you were trying to stop?” Dean said drawing back into his seat and meeting her gaze, “That was Lucifer.” 

“Lucifer,” Buffy’s brow knotted. “Lucifer like in the Bible, Lucifer?” 

“That’s the son of a bitch,” Dean replied nodding. “He got out of the cage he was trapped in, was about to bring on the Apocalypse. All that stuff that was happening, you know the wrath of god type catastrophes? That that was all him. There were angels and demons running around the place, killing each other. It was a real goddamn mess.” 

The scale of it made Buffy’s head hurt and she felt angry that it had all taken place without her. “You know,” Buffy said unhappily a moment later, “something’s wrong here.” 

“No kidding,” Dean retorted with a frown. “This was so not the way I thought this date was going to go.” 

Buffy chuckled, finding his manner infectious. “You mean because I’m not in bed with you yet?” She asked teasing him. “I mean,” she swatted him on the shoulder like they’d known each other for years not hours, “that the Watchers haven’t heard of any of this or you hunters haven’t heard of the stuff we’ve been going through.” 

Dean couldn’t deny that, “well an army of super powered chicks running around saving the day is definitely something that wouldn’t have stayed off our radar for long.” 

“Well we can figure that out later,” Buffy shrugged, aware that she was going to have a very serious conversation with Giles about this. There were so many gaps in the Watcher Council records lately that it was becoming more than a coincidence. That a bunch of humans could have stopped an Apocalypse of biblical proportions without the Council or the slayers having any knowledge of it was either due to extreme incompetence or something was happening than neither camp were aware of. “Right now, something is killing people in my town and I want it stopped.” 

Dean drank in the sight of her, thinking that she looked fucking awesome when she talked like that. She’d been cute before but now his attraction to her had been ratcheted up to such a level, it was almost painful not being able to do all the things he had suggested to her earlier. “You’re pretty hot when you’re doing your…slayer thing? You know, the best way to end a great date is to…” 

“Oh my god!” Buffy rolled her eyes. “You are a total man whore aren’t you?” She declared smiling at him. “I thought we’re talking a job here.” 

“We are but we’re not going to catch our monster until tomorrow? Unless you got some leads that I don’t know about.” He challenged. 

“I don’t know anything,” Buffy scowled, disliking the fact that this had taken place in the town she lived in and had required a pair of ordinary civilians to bring it to her attention. It was never like this in Sunnydale. Then again, Sunnydale was nowhere the size of Lawrence. “You were the one at the first scene. Did it look anything like what we saw tonight?” 

“No,” Dean shook his head. “That one had bite marks but those did look like they could have belonged to a vamp or rugaru. Nothing like this one.” 

“There’s gotta be something connecting them,” Buffy insisted. “There always is.” 

“I’ll get my brother to do some investigating tomorrow,” Dean replied, “our covers blown there after tonight. See if we can’t find the link. So you coming out of retirement to help us on this?” He asked her. “I mean I know it’s hard dragging yourself away from your nice office to get back into the game.” 

“I told you,” Buffy said firmly, aware that he was snaking her again, “this is my town and I want it stopped. I’ve got vacation time coming to me, I’m going to work this with you.” 

Dean noted that she wasn’t asking him. 

“Okay then,” he nodded, leaning forward, “we should seal this partnership with a good hour or two of marathon sex. That will get us into the mood for a good night’s sleep and a fresh start tomorrow.” 

Buffy kicked him under the table.

TO BE CONTINUED