InsaneJournal

Brawl. [Buffy]
The dead girl was in the alley, behind a corner store that sold dry goods. The cold and the melted slush on the pavement made her smell like refrigerated flesh dipped in imitation jasmine, a bizarre meat-chemical smell. The corduroy of her jacket was musty and sour, the fabric was worn at the elbows and loose on the collar. Runaway. Probably not more than eighteen, if that. Little thin, but healthy. Logan rolled her over and her head lolled on her shoulders. Rigor hadn't set in yet. The marks on her neck were black with old blood. Her eyes were blue, dimmed, empty blue. She looked afraid. Poor thing.

Logan sniffed, then sniffed again. What the hell was that? Smelled like... smelled like dust. No. Like flesh so old it was dust. What the hell smelled like old flesh gone to dust?

Leaving the girl (he had nowhere to take her, and there was nothing that could hurt her now), Logan hunched down in his jacket and followed the scent. The cold made the metal on his bones ache, but in the kind of way that reminded him it was there, reminded him how many times it had kept him alive. The bar, in contrast with the windswept street, was filled with strong earthen smells warmed by sour body heat and fermented hops. That old dust smell snaked through the spilled beer, wood polish and body odor. Logan huffed the scents out of his nose and shoved through the crowd, looking for a killer.

Two minutes later, the first man crashed through the window, and the roar of the brawl was interrupted by the tinkling bursts of shattering glass as he hit the ground and rolled into the street.