Buffy Summers & NPCs
Moderate (dead bodies) | Complete
Most of the time Buffy had patrolled in Atlantis, it had been from sheer habit. After all, there weren't vampires and demons in the same way there were at home. Sure there were things - there were always things sliding in from COS - so it wasn't as if she didn't need to be alert at all, but it had a different flavor.
The last week though, Buffy had been doing it more frequently, and her spider sense was tingling. Something felt off, there was something just out of the corner of her eye that she couldn't put her finger on, and it wasn't a very nice feeling to have it there. Last night, the feeling had collided into vampire and she had hoped that was the end of the feeling. After all, she'd had a feeling, there had been bodies, and now she knew it was a vampire -the end, yeah?
Buffy shivered as she walked through the streets in the early morning hours. Probably she should just go back to her room and get a little bit of sleep before morning. But she kept wandering. If there was a vampire out here - they might have feasted last night, but there wasn't any promise that they were done.
It had been sunny earlier in the day, but now it was cool, and she found herself almost wishing she'd packed a sweater under her leather jacket. Time to pick up the pace - probably.
She was going to do a final sweep and then return to her apartment. For a half instant she wished Giles were here to give her advice. It wasn't that she couldn't do this on her own - or that she hadn't been doing it on her own - but sometimes that extra bump of confidence that came from someone tell you that you were on the right track? That was what she missed. Should she patrol all night? Was sleep a thing? Should she be doing something more to make certain she wasn't missing whatever it was out here?
They were all good questions, and they were ones Buffy was going to have to answer herself.
This was the club district, but it was early enough in the morning, that even most of those were closing down. There were a few stragglers, but probably she should have gone through here a few hours ago.
This was a mental chide to herself to remember it for the night before. Vampires might go after stragglers, but also, once it got too sparse, it began to get a bit more challenging for them to feed without being noticed.
She kept her senses alert as she walked down between buildings. Something rattled in a dumpster and she hesitated, rolling her eyes at her pounding heart when a cat ran out from underneath it. "Go home kitty," she told it, but her snark was hiding nerves, and she knew it. Nothing had happened and she was waiting for the other shoe to drop - to be attacked by a nest, or something.
On the other side of the dumpster were more dumpsters, a set of boxed crates, and more dark empty alleyway. Maybe there just wasn't going to be anything tonight.
She checked her watch, and frowned. Even vampires would be heading home by this point, and she'd probably just missed whatever it was.
She checked behind the wooden crates, and then turned back towards the apartments. She'd get some sleep and try to do some researchy things in the morning. Whatever those things might be. She missed her Scoobys, but it wasn't the only way to do research.
Her path towards the apartment took her down another narrow alley - at the end she could see a dog sniffing at something and Buffy moved forward towards it. It was a perfectly normal dog, but as it saw her and ran off, she realized there was something there - a leg? A foot. Buffy swallowed hard and moved forward - senses alert even though she suspected that if there had been a threat it had been long gone.
The sight of the young woman sitting in the alley, made Buffy's eyes widened, and that sick feeling of knowing that she hadn't managed to help someone. She'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time - not so very difficult to do after all because it was a large city, but still.
"Shit," she muttered.
And then she saw the note.
Buffy didn't freeze often, but even before she reached down to pick it up between two fingers, and even before she unfolded it, and even before she saw the familiar handwriting on it, and even before she read the message, her breath caught and her eyes widened and she knew.
Vampire M.O. might be familiar enough, but this particular method was even more familiar - too familiar. Her jaw tightened as she refolded the note and her eyes narrowed.
She couldn't afford to get emotional about this. She couldn't afford to mess up. There were people counting on her and more people could get hurt if she didn't focus. So for just an instant Buffy allowed herself the emotional wave of frustration and anger and hurt and betrayal, and then she pulled out her phone.
It didn't look as if she would get much in the way of sleep.