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crossoverficTitle: Patchwork
Author: aforgottenwish
Fandoms: Smallville/ Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers until Smallville Season 5, episode 5 (Thirst) and then more spoilers for the rest of season 5. Spoilers for up to the last season of Buffy.
Pairings (if applicable): Canon (Clark/Lana, mention of Buffy/the Immortal)
Character(s) (if applicable): Most of the Smallville gang (Clark, Lana, Chloe, Martha, Jonathan) and the Buffy gang (Buffy, Xander, Giles, Willow, Dawn, and many Slayers)
Summary: The meteor rocks in Smallville have a familiar effect on vampires, an effect identical to how vampires react to the Gem of Amara. Buffy relocates to Smallville to prevent an army of unkillable vamps from rising.
Chapter Two: approx. 3500 words
Smallville and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Buffy the vampire slayer and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.
Chapter Two 3910
“You’re saying that she knew everything?” Martha asked.
Clark looked up from his cleaning and met his mother’s eye. “No, it seemed more like she didn’t know anything. Like someone had just handed her those pictures and said, ‘watch out for this guy.’”
“What were the pictures of, Clark? When were they from?”
Clark hesitated before answering. “Metropolis. I wasn’t very careful during those months.”
“Did she threaten you? What did she want? We need to talk to your father, here, take out the garbage—” The front door of the Talon crashed open, stopping Martha mid sentence. Two figures hobbled in through the door, one of the visibly dragging the other.
“You’re closed, aren’t you?” a familiar voice said. “Everything in this town closes so early. I mean, I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing, the town where I used to live was pretty small too, but not nearly small enough to be called Smallville. I’m really sorry, do you mind if we sit in here, just for a minute? I can… I can help clean up or… something…”
Her voice tapered off as she met eyes with Clark. Clark’s mouth fell open. His mother was rushing forward, asking questions, pulling up chairs, and Clark just stared. It was far too strange for this to be a coincidence. He half heard her story—a mugging—and continued to glare at her as his mother ran to go get ice.
The other girl looked pretty bruised, like she’d been in a fight: the losing side. The blonde—Buffy—was muttering to her and stroking her hair.
“I did everything like I’ve done a million times before,” the younger girl was whispering. She had an accent, Irish, or Scottish, maybe. “The head and the heart, just like you’ve always said.”
“I know, sweetie, its okay,” Buffy replied. She looked up at Clark, the boy statue, and then back at her companion.
“She should go to the hospital.” Martha was back from the back room, with a bag of ice. She wrapped it in a tea towel and placed it on the girl’s eye. Buffy held it in place, but she shook her head at Martha.
“Don’t worry about it. She’s a strong girl; she’ll be as good as new by the morning.” Clark watched as the two girls exchanged a glance, and then they stood up, the injured one standing by herself now. “We better head home though. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“You barely rested for a minute,” Martha protested. “At least let Clark walk you home. You’ll be safer with him along.”
Buffy looked at Clark for a long moment. “Maybe so,” she said quietly. “But we’ll be fine.”
They were out the door for almost a minute before Clark saw the bag lying on the table. He sighed and grabbed the bag. He jogged out of the Talon and listened—he could hear heavy breathing from just around the corner. They were running. Clark followed, and caught up to them—the injured girl was running slightly ahead, and Buffy was behind, her body tensed, arms stiff, eyes watching everywhere but behind.
Clark grabbed her arm and she spun, and something sharp crashed into his chest, sending a jolt of pain through his body and splinters of wood into the air.
“Ow,” Clark exclaimed. Buffy took a step back, regarding Clark with horror. “You forgot your purse.”
He held it out, and she gaped, before replying, “I am so sorry, I could have killed you—”
She watched, shocked, as he let out a groan and slumped to the floor. “That was a bit of a delayed reaction,” she quipped. “If you’re just trying to play the sympathy card, you’re wasting your…” The sound was nearly imperceptible, but her Slayer hearing was sharper than a normal human’s. It was the sound of a soft landing from a moderate height, and the turned to see the vampire that had attacked earlier. She had come up on the vampire while it had been nearly beating Samantha to death, and she had knocked it into some construction supplies, which had collapsed on top of him, buying them some time.
Suddenly she understood: Kal had collapsed, not because of her accidental staking, but because of the stone that made the vampire un-slayable. It had weakened him, left quaking on the wet pavement, and leaving her alone, without a stake, to protect both him and her feeble Slayer.
She whirled, ducking punches and delivering blows, all fluid motion. The vamp she was fighting was not strong, or graceful. He moved like a badly oiled machine, but the problem was just that: like a machine, he would never tire. His clumsy blows kept coming, and Buffy knew that her blows were futile.
So she ran, but this time not away. Once she was far enough she launched herself at him, knocking him to the ground. She rained punch after punch down on him, watching as his head jerked to each side, as far as his spine would allow. She could hear bones breaking, and teeth shattering, but she kept on hitting him until the skin on her knuckles split and began to bleed too. Finally, when she stopped, the vampire was still.
From across the alley, Buffy could hear Kal stirring.
She ripped open the vampire’s shirt, but there was no stone hidden there. With a grunt of frustration she moved downward, and saw, with relief, where he had stashed it.
It was sewn into his belt buckle. She tore his belt off and ripped the stone from it. It glowed as she held it close to the vampire; faded into the shadows as she held it away. She swung, with all of her remaining strength, and ground it into the concrete. A shock wave moved, like a ripple, away from the site where the stone had once been.
Clark lay on his side, watching this girl—was it possible that she was only a girl?—fight. There was kryptonite nearby, and it immobilized him. He felt sick, watching her sit on top of this man, punching him until his face no longer resembled something human.
And then, suddenly, the pain, the nausea was all gone, and he pulled himself to his feet.
“Samantha,” Buffy said, sounding exhausted, sounding disgusted, “Finish him.”
The other girl limped from the shadows, holding a pointed wooden stick in her hand. She spat on the man’s crippled body, and then kneeled next to him. She plunged the stick into his chest, and Clark gasped as he turned to dust.
Q
“In the past week, Clark, they’ve found two just like it: the same strange MO, the same lack of explanation from the police. It’s the same as what those Tri Psi girls were doing; the bodies have been found, completely drained of blood, with only two puncture wounds on their neck as evidence. It has to be that virus.”
The autopsy picture stared up at Clark; he could remember Chloe lying in that hospital bed, the holes in her neck taped up, the prognosis grim. He thought about the night before last, watching that girl being drunk from; and last night, the injured Samantha spitting on the creature before it turned into dust.
But it hadn’t been the same creature both times. The one that he had seen had been blonde; crazed. The vampire that Buffy had fought had taunted and jeered; he had been cocky. Clark had seen two of these vampires, not the same at all as the ones that the meteor rocks had created, in as many nights, and he couldn’t imagine how many of them must actually be out there.
The blonde one had been so desperate, and when he had plunged the serum into his chest there was something that he asked about. He had asked Clark if he was something… Shanshu.
“Chloe, have you ever heard of Shanshu?”
Chloe looked at him with a frustrated expression. “Some sort of oriental food, I would guess. Can we focus at the problem at hand? These pseudo-vamps seriously need to be stopped.”
“What if real vampires exist?” Clark asked quietly. “What if there were vampires other than the ones made by the meteor rocks and the bats? Like, real, mystical, demon vampires?”
Scoffing, Chloe replied, “What we have here is a scientific explanation for something that, at first glance, may seem like something out of The Inquisitor. What would make you say something like that?”
Clark moved around her desk, placing his hands on her shoulders and pushing her into her chair. He kneeled in front of her, his face just below hers. Having him so close to her, having him almost holding her like that; it was painful. She had sworn to herself that she would put this crush behind her; she had done everything in her power to alienate herself from him—betraying him to Lionel, pushing herself away when he had finally started a relationship with Lana, even Jimmy was simply a means to an ends, and she still couldn’t stop her stomach from dropping when he touched her.
“I saw them,” he whispered, “two of them. Their faces change, and,” he moved even closer, his voice barely audible, “one of them turned into dust.”
“You’re sure,” she said back, muttering under her breath. She didn’t see the need to whisper: there were people all around making enough noise to easily mask a conversation at a normal volume, but it was hard to respond to a person whispering in any other way.
“Chloe, I know what I saw,” he said, louder this time. She could see him getting defensive, and, desperately not wanting to give him a reason to move away, she touched his face.
“I believe you,” she said.
The relief on his face was evident. “I knew I could count on you, Chloe,” he said in a normal tone. He stood up and moved away. Chloe was immediately ashamed of how upset she was that he was no longer near her. “You’ll look up that word for me? Shanshu?” He asked.
She nodded and watched as he walked out of the room. Sighing, she turned to her computer and started looking into the meaning of the word. She had no idea how to spell it and knew that the research could take hours, but for Clark, she’d gladly let her deadlines suffer.
For Clark, she’d do just about anything.
Q
Buffy got out of her car and gazed cautiously around the yard. There was a barn, a picket fence and a yellow house. There were cows in a field. It all seemed so peaceful.
Walking up to the front door of the yellow house, Buffy knocked softly. It was a little bit later than many people stayed up, especially in farm country, where most people rose with the sun to complete their chores. A rugged, middle-aged man answered the door.
“Hi,” she said, awkwardly. “Buffy,” She said, in way of explanation. She held out her hand, and, slightly confused, the man shook it. “I’m looking for Clark.”
“He’s in the barn,” the man said. “Are you a friend of his?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “From school. Do you mind if I…” She gestured ambivalently in the direction of the barn.
“Sure, go ahead,” he replied.
The barn was dark, except for a light hovering up near the ceiling. As she neared, she saw that it was a loft, and she climbed the staircase, slowly, tensed in case something jumped out at her, like an owl or a horse. Barns could be dangerously unpredictable.
The boy, Kal—Clark, was sitting on a couch, his legs stretched out in front of him, a book propped on his lap. There were papers sprawled on a coffee table in front of him, boxes around him and a telescope pointed out of a large hole in the wall. He looked up as she came up the stairs, and from the way his expression melted from pleased curiosity to dismay, she could tell he had been expecting someone else.
“I came to apologize,” she said. The words tasted a little bit sour in her mouth—she was the Slayer, the Chosen One, and she was not used to apologizing. “And to explain.”
“What was that thing?” he asked. “Last night, in the alley; it turned to dust.”
“For a demon,” she said, “you’re not very well affiliated with the evil side of the tracks.”
“I’m not a demon,” he protested.
“Well then, I’ve no idea how you did that chest glow-y thing,” she said, pulling a pile of paper from her bag. She held them out to him, and the first page was a picture of him, face strained in pain, in the telephone booth. “I figured you’d like to have them back. I thought you’d feel better with them out of circulation.”
“Circulation?” Clark asked, his stomach sinking in dread. She had known that this girl had known, and that her friend, Dawn, had known too, but how many others might she had told? “How many people know?”
“Twenty or so of my girls,” she replied. Clark pushed himself up from the couch, walking toward the window, running his hand nervously through his hair.
“Why?” he asked, sounding resigned to the worst. He should have been more careful in Metropolis, he berated himself; he should have been more subtle. If he hadn’t attracted the attention of Morgan Edge, the largest leader of organized crime in the city, then he wouldn’t be looking at these incriminating photos of himself. He wouldn’t be dealing with this girl’s assumptions and the risks of someone else knowing. Twenty people knew in a matter of days, and any one of those people could be just about to tell; they could be planning his exposure.
Anger darted across Buffy’s face. “It should be obvious,” she said. “When a friend of a friend turns up and says, ‘this guy here, in the picture, is going to kill all of you if you venture near Smallville,’ there’s no way that I don’t turn up prepared. I don’t care if you’re little secret is ousted if you’re going to kill us anyway. I educate my girls; I prepare them, because in our world, if you don’t know your enemy then you’re dead.
“They were told you were dangerous: that you’re fast, strong and bullet-proof. They don’t know who you are or where you live, or even your real name, Clark.” She couldn’t help but be disappointed—instead of a demon ready to give her a decent fight, she had found a scared little boy, worrying about someone finding out about his stronger half.
“I told them that I dealt with you,” she said. “Dealt with you-dead.”
Clark watched her from across the room. He finally crossed to the coffee table where she had thrown the pictures. He picked up the one of him in the phone booth and stared at it, seeing a different era in his life, a chapter he had hoped to have put behind him indefinitely.
“Before,” Clark finally said, “you said that you were here to save the world.” He crumpled the picture in his fist before letting it drop to the ground. “It has something to do with that creature you killed, doesn’t it? Was it a vampire? People in Metropolis are dying; can you tell me what’s doing it?”
Buffy smiled, and for the first time Clark saw her as a person, instead of this looming threat hovering over his head. “I can do better than that. Bring me to the Smallville cemetery.”
Q
The two of them wandered between the graves, the blue moonlight filtering through the trees. “The cemetery is the best place to find new vampires,” she said, “which can be good and bad. A newborn vamp is blinded by their hunger. They don’t see us as people, they see beating hearts. Since they’re new, they haven’t adjusted yet to their newfound strength and agility. That’s where we have our advantage.”
“How do you know where they’re going to come up?” Clark asked, his eyes skimming the quiet yard.
“We wait. Sometimes I get creative and picnic-y, or bring my homework with me, because sometimes the vamp never shows.”
Clark squinted at the ground, and the grass melted away, revealing dirt and rocks and skeletons. He scanned as far as he could see, and then saw movement.
He adjusted their wandering so that they were aimed toward it.
“You haven’t asked the most important question yet,” Buffy said. “You should want to know how to kill them.”
Clark looked over at her, and he could see her, the other night, on top of that man, punching until his face disappeared under a film of blood. He couldn’t imagine ever being that violent, so primal.
“I don’t kill,” he said.
“It’s not killing, technically,” she said. “I mean, that’s why we’re in the cemetery. When a vampire is sired, they are dead already. No heart beat, no soul; that’s why when you stake them, or cut off their heads they turn to dust. They aren’t living, because they already died; and you can’t kill something that’s already dead.”
The skeleton was squirming under the soul, about three feet from the surface, and Clark stopped just in front of the grave.
“You’re strong,” he said. “I watched you fight that thing.”
“You seem to be pretty strong yourself,” she replied, “except for the whole falling over deal-y. I mean… you shattered my stake.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want her any closer to his secret than she had to be, and any acknowledgement that she was right seemed like too much of a giveaway.
“The falling over,” she said softly, “it was because of the rock that the vampire had, wasn’t it?”
Clark pointed. “There,” he said, just as a hand rose out of the dirt. Buffy tossed the wooden stick at him, and he caught it, looking surprised.
She pointed at her left breast. “That’s where the heart should be.”
Clark continued to watch as the vampire pulled itself out of the ground. It was a woman, dressed in somber black, mud clumped in her long hair. She snarled and Clark recoiled as her face changed into the bumpy vicious mess he had seen on the blonde vampire.
“It’s called their game face,” Buffy called, backing away. “They’re stronger and faster when they’re in that form.”
Standing stiffly, holding his ground, Clark watched as the first blow came. He let it hit him, across the face, and was surprised by the force that it carried. Clark moved at normal speeds, not wanting to let Buffy see what he was capable of. He could have moved so quickly that neither the vampire nor Buffy would have seen him, rushed forward and staked the monster without a hint of warning, but he didn’t even know this girl standing behind him. He didn’t want her to know him.
He ducked the next punch and hit back, softly though, a mere fraction of his strength. The vampire’s head snapped to the side, and before she had a chance to regain her balance, Clark moved in for his strike.
The stake sank deep into her chest, but instead of vanishing in a whirl of dust, she just screamed.
“It’s basically inevitable,” Buffy said. “They always miss the heart on their first try.”
Clark turned to look at her, annoyed, and almost missed the sound of parting air as a kick rushed toward him. He caught the leg, still glaring at Buffy, and twisted, sending the vamp to the ground. He pulled out the wayward stake and tried again. This time, with a shriek of rage, she vanished into dust.
“You knew where she was going to come up,” Buffy said, holding out her hand to take her stake back. “You could feel it? Or do you have x-ray vision or something?”
He shook his head. “Thanks for the lesson in vampire killing—”
“Slaying,” she corrected. “It’s called slaying.”
He nodded, clearly not worried about the specifics, and continued, “But I’m just looking for answers.”
She smiled. “We all are, though, aren’t we?”
“These are the things that are killing people in Metropolis,” he said.
“It’s going to get worse,” she said vaguely.
“The reason they’re here,” he said, “it’s because of the meteor rocks.”
“It makes them unstoppable. Sunlight, stakes, beheading; nothing can stop them.”
She looked scared, and Clark moved toward her, touching her arm. “They’ll kill—”
“Everyone,” she said slowly. “Unless they get smart; then they’ll imprison people like cattle. I used to be the only one stopping them from doing that under normal circumstances, but now they hold all the cards.”
Clark felt something in him tighten. The last thing he should be doing was getting involved in other people’s problems. This vampire slaying, it had nothing to do with him. If anything, he was a liability, since the very rock that made the vampires invincible turned him into a writhing, useless mass.
However, the very root of their problem, the meteor rocks that had arrived with him so many years ago, and then again recently, were his problem. He had always felt responsible for the people that the meteors had killed, the ones that had been changed by the meteors, and had charged himself with protecting the people in Smallville from the violence of those driven mad or mutated by the rocks.
So now, this completely different world, a world where vampires and demons killed people and where a powerful woman claimed liability for protecting the world from them, this world was his now; it was here, and it was overwhelming.
And he couldn’t stand idle as people died.
So he put aside his insecurities and misgivings, and said, “I want to help.”
Q
She could feel the stars looking down on her; could hear them singing to her, urging her forward. She gazed up in amazement as the stars began to cry, shedding glorious explosions and firework tears.
“The sky is falling on top of me,” she said softly. “The noises shake me, rocking and rocking me; my lullaby shakes me to sleep.” She spun around, lifting her hands to the sky. “Each and every dream is coming true, for everyone.”
Her hand crept to her mouth, caking in dried blood. “They didn’t like my dancing, did they, Parker?”
The boy—young; barely out of the grave—touched her chin fondly, wiping some of the blood off. “They loved your dancing,” he said, gesturing to the empty bodies on the ground, “and so did I.”
“You say these things,” Drusilla said, sounding astonished, “but I can feel your trembling lies. When you came to me you said you wanted to live for the day. You begged for the wandering freeness of the Gods.”
The boy did not reply.
“They were little beasties, all of them,” she explained. “Every girl you dragged away to have a little poke, they were beasties. Especially the one,” she let out a growl, and Parker flinched away from her. “Especially the Slayer.”
“You didn’t know, then,” she asked. “You can’t even feel her here, can you? Her stench rolls off her and it coated you the same way it did my little Spike.”
A man from the floor whimpered and rose to his elbows, dragging himself along the ground. Drusilla glided towards him and embraced his trembling head. “I came here; I traveled far. She took my family away from me: Angelus and Darla and Spike. We had a second chance to be a family again, and she came again, her bulging eyes and tiny waist, and she took it away.
“The rocks aren’t far from here; they chant my name and promise me greatness. I can hear them saying that I’ll be a Goddess. When I am, I know who I want to dance with.”
She placed her hands on her chest, caressing the place where her heart used to beat. “A heart that doesn’t beat can’t spread stench like soft butter. She steals from me my family… so I shall steal from her hers’.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: aforgottenwish
Fandoms: Smallville/ Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers until Smallville Season 5, episode 5 (Thirst) and then more spoilers for the rest of season 5. Spoilers for up to the last season of Buffy.
Pairings (if applicable): Canon (Clark/Lana, mention of Buffy/the Immortal)
Character(s) (if applicable): Most of the Smallville gang (Clark, Lana, Chloe, Martha, Jonathan) and the Buffy gang (Buffy, Xander, Giles, Willow, Dawn, and many Slayers)
Summary: The meteor rocks in Smallville have a familiar effect on vampires, an effect identical to how vampires react to the Gem of Amara. Buffy relocates to Smallville to prevent an army of unkillable vamps from rising.
Chapter Two: approx. 3500 words
Smallville and all of its related elements are copyright © 2001 - 2007 Tollin-Robbins Productions, WB Television and DC Comics. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Buffy the vampire slayer and all of its related elements belong to Fox, the WB and Joss Whedon.
Chapter Two 3910
“You’re saying that she knew everything?” Martha asked.
Clark looked up from his cleaning and met his mother’s eye. “No, it seemed more like she didn’t know anything. Like someone had just handed her those pictures and said, ‘watch out for this guy.’”
“What were the pictures of, Clark? When were they from?”
Clark hesitated before answering. “Metropolis. I wasn’t very careful during those months.”
“Did she threaten you? What did she want? We need to talk to your father, here, take out the garbage—” The front door of the Talon crashed open, stopping Martha mid sentence. Two figures hobbled in through the door, one of the visibly dragging the other.
“You’re closed, aren’t you?” a familiar voice said. “Everything in this town closes so early. I mean, I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing, the town where I used to live was pretty small too, but not nearly small enough to be called Smallville. I’m really sorry, do you mind if we sit in here, just for a minute? I can… I can help clean up or… something…”
Her voice tapered off as she met eyes with Clark. Clark’s mouth fell open. His mother was rushing forward, asking questions, pulling up chairs, and Clark just stared. It was far too strange for this to be a coincidence. He half heard her story—a mugging—and continued to glare at her as his mother ran to go get ice.
The other girl looked pretty bruised, like she’d been in a fight: the losing side. The blonde—Buffy—was muttering to her and stroking her hair.
“I did everything like I’ve done a million times before,” the younger girl was whispering. She had an accent, Irish, or Scottish, maybe. “The head and the heart, just like you’ve always said.”
“I know, sweetie, its okay,” Buffy replied. She looked up at Clark, the boy statue, and then back at her companion.
“She should go to the hospital.” Martha was back from the back room, with a bag of ice. She wrapped it in a tea towel and placed it on the girl’s eye. Buffy held it in place, but she shook her head at Martha.
“Don’t worry about it. She’s a strong girl; she’ll be as good as new by the morning.” Clark watched as the two girls exchanged a glance, and then they stood up, the injured one standing by herself now. “We better head home though. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“You barely rested for a minute,” Martha protested. “At least let Clark walk you home. You’ll be safer with him along.”
Buffy looked at Clark for a long moment. “Maybe so,” she said quietly. “But we’ll be fine.”
They were out the door for almost a minute before Clark saw the bag lying on the table. He sighed and grabbed the bag. He jogged out of the Talon and listened—he could hear heavy breathing from just around the corner. They were running. Clark followed, and caught up to them—the injured girl was running slightly ahead, and Buffy was behind, her body tensed, arms stiff, eyes watching everywhere but behind.
Clark grabbed her arm and she spun, and something sharp crashed into his chest, sending a jolt of pain through his body and splinters of wood into the air.
“Ow,” Clark exclaimed. Buffy took a step back, regarding Clark with horror. “You forgot your purse.”
He held it out, and she gaped, before replying, “I am so sorry, I could have killed you—”
She watched, shocked, as he let out a groan and slumped to the floor. “That was a bit of a delayed reaction,” she quipped. “If you’re just trying to play the sympathy card, you’re wasting your…” The sound was nearly imperceptible, but her Slayer hearing was sharper than a normal human’s. It was the sound of a soft landing from a moderate height, and the turned to see the vampire that had attacked earlier. She had come up on the vampire while it had been nearly beating Samantha to death, and she had knocked it into some construction supplies, which had collapsed on top of him, buying them some time.
Suddenly she understood: Kal had collapsed, not because of her accidental staking, but because of the stone that made the vampire un-slayable. It had weakened him, left quaking on the wet pavement, and leaving her alone, without a stake, to protect both him and her feeble Slayer.
She whirled, ducking punches and delivering blows, all fluid motion. The vamp she was fighting was not strong, or graceful. He moved like a badly oiled machine, but the problem was just that: like a machine, he would never tire. His clumsy blows kept coming, and Buffy knew that her blows were futile.
So she ran, but this time not away. Once she was far enough she launched herself at him, knocking him to the ground. She rained punch after punch down on him, watching as his head jerked to each side, as far as his spine would allow. She could hear bones breaking, and teeth shattering, but she kept on hitting him until the skin on her knuckles split and began to bleed too. Finally, when she stopped, the vampire was still.
From across the alley, Buffy could hear Kal stirring.
She ripped open the vampire’s shirt, but there was no stone hidden there. With a grunt of frustration she moved downward, and saw, with relief, where he had stashed it.
It was sewn into his belt buckle. She tore his belt off and ripped the stone from it. It glowed as she held it close to the vampire; faded into the shadows as she held it away. She swung, with all of her remaining strength, and ground it into the concrete. A shock wave moved, like a ripple, away from the site where the stone had once been.
Clark lay on his side, watching this girl—was it possible that she was only a girl?—fight. There was kryptonite nearby, and it immobilized him. He felt sick, watching her sit on top of this man, punching him until his face no longer resembled something human.
And then, suddenly, the pain, the nausea was all gone, and he pulled himself to his feet.
“Samantha,” Buffy said, sounding exhausted, sounding disgusted, “Finish him.”
The other girl limped from the shadows, holding a pointed wooden stick in her hand. She spat on the man’s crippled body, and then kneeled next to him. She plunged the stick into his chest, and Clark gasped as he turned to dust.
Q
“In the past week, Clark, they’ve found two just like it: the same strange MO, the same lack of explanation from the police. It’s the same as what those Tri Psi girls were doing; the bodies have been found, completely drained of blood, with only two puncture wounds on their neck as evidence. It has to be that virus.”
The autopsy picture stared up at Clark; he could remember Chloe lying in that hospital bed, the holes in her neck taped up, the prognosis grim. He thought about the night before last, watching that girl being drunk from; and last night, the injured Samantha spitting on the creature before it turned into dust.
But it hadn’t been the same creature both times. The one that he had seen had been blonde; crazed. The vampire that Buffy had fought had taunted and jeered; he had been cocky. Clark had seen two of these vampires, not the same at all as the ones that the meteor rocks had created, in as many nights, and he couldn’t imagine how many of them must actually be out there.
The blonde one had been so desperate, and when he had plunged the serum into his chest there was something that he asked about. He had asked Clark if he was something… Shanshu.
“Chloe, have you ever heard of Shanshu?”
Chloe looked at him with a frustrated expression. “Some sort of oriental food, I would guess. Can we focus at the problem at hand? These pseudo-vamps seriously need to be stopped.”
“What if real vampires exist?” Clark asked quietly. “What if there were vampires other than the ones made by the meteor rocks and the bats? Like, real, mystical, demon vampires?”
Scoffing, Chloe replied, “What we have here is a scientific explanation for something that, at first glance, may seem like something out of The Inquisitor. What would make you say something like that?”
Clark moved around her desk, placing his hands on her shoulders and pushing her into her chair. He kneeled in front of her, his face just below hers. Having him so close to her, having him almost holding her like that; it was painful. She had sworn to herself that she would put this crush behind her; she had done everything in her power to alienate herself from him—betraying him to Lionel, pushing herself away when he had finally started a relationship with Lana, even Jimmy was simply a means to an ends, and she still couldn’t stop her stomach from dropping when he touched her.
“I saw them,” he whispered, “two of them. Their faces change, and,” he moved even closer, his voice barely audible, “one of them turned into dust.”
“You’re sure,” she said back, muttering under her breath. She didn’t see the need to whisper: there were people all around making enough noise to easily mask a conversation at a normal volume, but it was hard to respond to a person whispering in any other way.
“Chloe, I know what I saw,” he said, louder this time. She could see him getting defensive, and, desperately not wanting to give him a reason to move away, she touched his face.
“I believe you,” she said.
The relief on his face was evident. “I knew I could count on you, Chloe,” he said in a normal tone. He stood up and moved away. Chloe was immediately ashamed of how upset she was that he was no longer near her. “You’ll look up that word for me? Shanshu?” He asked.
She nodded and watched as he walked out of the room. Sighing, she turned to her computer and started looking into the meaning of the word. She had no idea how to spell it and knew that the research could take hours, but for Clark, she’d gladly let her deadlines suffer.
For Clark, she’d do just about anything.
Q
Buffy got out of her car and gazed cautiously around the yard. There was a barn, a picket fence and a yellow house. There were cows in a field. It all seemed so peaceful.
Walking up to the front door of the yellow house, Buffy knocked softly. It was a little bit later than many people stayed up, especially in farm country, where most people rose with the sun to complete their chores. A rugged, middle-aged man answered the door.
“Hi,” she said, awkwardly. “Buffy,” She said, in way of explanation. She held out her hand, and, slightly confused, the man shook it. “I’m looking for Clark.”
“He’s in the barn,” the man said. “Are you a friend of his?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “From school. Do you mind if I…” She gestured ambivalently in the direction of the barn.
“Sure, go ahead,” he replied.
The barn was dark, except for a light hovering up near the ceiling. As she neared, she saw that it was a loft, and she climbed the staircase, slowly, tensed in case something jumped out at her, like an owl or a horse. Barns could be dangerously unpredictable.
The boy, Kal—Clark, was sitting on a couch, his legs stretched out in front of him, a book propped on his lap. There were papers sprawled on a coffee table in front of him, boxes around him and a telescope pointed out of a large hole in the wall. He looked up as she came up the stairs, and from the way his expression melted from pleased curiosity to dismay, she could tell he had been expecting someone else.
“I came to apologize,” she said. The words tasted a little bit sour in her mouth—she was the Slayer, the Chosen One, and she was not used to apologizing. “And to explain.”
“What was that thing?” he asked. “Last night, in the alley; it turned to dust.”
“For a demon,” she said, “you’re not very well affiliated with the evil side of the tracks.”
“I’m not a demon,” he protested.
“Well then, I’ve no idea how you did that chest glow-y thing,” she said, pulling a pile of paper from her bag. She held them out to him, and the first page was a picture of him, face strained in pain, in the telephone booth. “I figured you’d like to have them back. I thought you’d feel better with them out of circulation.”
“Circulation?” Clark asked, his stomach sinking in dread. She had known that this girl had known, and that her friend, Dawn, had known too, but how many others might she had told? “How many people know?”
“Twenty or so of my girls,” she replied. Clark pushed himself up from the couch, walking toward the window, running his hand nervously through his hair.
“Why?” he asked, sounding resigned to the worst. He should have been more careful in Metropolis, he berated himself; he should have been more subtle. If he hadn’t attracted the attention of Morgan Edge, the largest leader of organized crime in the city, then he wouldn’t be looking at these incriminating photos of himself. He wouldn’t be dealing with this girl’s assumptions and the risks of someone else knowing. Twenty people knew in a matter of days, and any one of those people could be just about to tell; they could be planning his exposure.
Anger darted across Buffy’s face. “It should be obvious,” she said. “When a friend of a friend turns up and says, ‘this guy here, in the picture, is going to kill all of you if you venture near Smallville,’ there’s no way that I don’t turn up prepared. I don’t care if you’re little secret is ousted if you’re going to kill us anyway. I educate my girls; I prepare them, because in our world, if you don’t know your enemy then you’re dead.
“They were told you were dangerous: that you’re fast, strong and bullet-proof. They don’t know who you are or where you live, or even your real name, Clark.” She couldn’t help but be disappointed—instead of a demon ready to give her a decent fight, she had found a scared little boy, worrying about someone finding out about his stronger half.
“I told them that I dealt with you,” she said. “Dealt with you-dead.”
Clark watched her from across the room. He finally crossed to the coffee table where she had thrown the pictures. He picked up the one of him in the phone booth and stared at it, seeing a different era in his life, a chapter he had hoped to have put behind him indefinitely.
“Before,” Clark finally said, “you said that you were here to save the world.” He crumpled the picture in his fist before letting it drop to the ground. “It has something to do with that creature you killed, doesn’t it? Was it a vampire? People in Metropolis are dying; can you tell me what’s doing it?”
Buffy smiled, and for the first time Clark saw her as a person, instead of this looming threat hovering over his head. “I can do better than that. Bring me to the Smallville cemetery.”
Q
The two of them wandered between the graves, the blue moonlight filtering through the trees. “The cemetery is the best place to find new vampires,” she said, “which can be good and bad. A newborn vamp is blinded by their hunger. They don’t see us as people, they see beating hearts. Since they’re new, they haven’t adjusted yet to their newfound strength and agility. That’s where we have our advantage.”
“How do you know where they’re going to come up?” Clark asked, his eyes skimming the quiet yard.
“We wait. Sometimes I get creative and picnic-y, or bring my homework with me, because sometimes the vamp never shows.”
Clark squinted at the ground, and the grass melted away, revealing dirt and rocks and skeletons. He scanned as far as he could see, and then saw movement.
He adjusted their wandering so that they were aimed toward it.
“You haven’t asked the most important question yet,” Buffy said. “You should want to know how to kill them.”
Clark looked over at her, and he could see her, the other night, on top of that man, punching until his face disappeared under a film of blood. He couldn’t imagine ever being that violent, so primal.
“I don’t kill,” he said.
“It’s not killing, technically,” she said. “I mean, that’s why we’re in the cemetery. When a vampire is sired, they are dead already. No heart beat, no soul; that’s why when you stake them, or cut off their heads they turn to dust. They aren’t living, because they already died; and you can’t kill something that’s already dead.”
The skeleton was squirming under the soul, about three feet from the surface, and Clark stopped just in front of the grave.
“You’re strong,” he said. “I watched you fight that thing.”
“You seem to be pretty strong yourself,” she replied, “except for the whole falling over deal-y. I mean… you shattered my stake.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want her any closer to his secret than she had to be, and any acknowledgement that she was right seemed like too much of a giveaway.
“The falling over,” she said softly, “it was because of the rock that the vampire had, wasn’t it?”
Clark pointed. “There,” he said, just as a hand rose out of the dirt. Buffy tossed the wooden stick at him, and he caught it, looking surprised.
She pointed at her left breast. “That’s where the heart should be.”
Clark continued to watch as the vampire pulled itself out of the ground. It was a woman, dressed in somber black, mud clumped in her long hair. She snarled and Clark recoiled as her face changed into the bumpy vicious mess he had seen on the blonde vampire.
“It’s called their game face,” Buffy called, backing away. “They’re stronger and faster when they’re in that form.”
Standing stiffly, holding his ground, Clark watched as the first blow came. He let it hit him, across the face, and was surprised by the force that it carried. Clark moved at normal speeds, not wanting to let Buffy see what he was capable of. He could have moved so quickly that neither the vampire nor Buffy would have seen him, rushed forward and staked the monster without a hint of warning, but he didn’t even know this girl standing behind him. He didn’t want her to know him.
He ducked the next punch and hit back, softly though, a mere fraction of his strength. The vampire’s head snapped to the side, and before she had a chance to regain her balance, Clark moved in for his strike.
The stake sank deep into her chest, but instead of vanishing in a whirl of dust, she just screamed.
“It’s basically inevitable,” Buffy said. “They always miss the heart on their first try.”
Clark turned to look at her, annoyed, and almost missed the sound of parting air as a kick rushed toward him. He caught the leg, still glaring at Buffy, and twisted, sending the vamp to the ground. He pulled out the wayward stake and tried again. This time, with a shriek of rage, she vanished into dust.
“You knew where she was going to come up,” Buffy said, holding out her hand to take her stake back. “You could feel it? Or do you have x-ray vision or something?”
He shook his head. “Thanks for the lesson in vampire killing—”
“Slaying,” she corrected. “It’s called slaying.”
He nodded, clearly not worried about the specifics, and continued, “But I’m just looking for answers.”
She smiled. “We all are, though, aren’t we?”
“These are the things that are killing people in Metropolis,” he said.
“It’s going to get worse,” she said vaguely.
“The reason they’re here,” he said, “it’s because of the meteor rocks.”
“It makes them unstoppable. Sunlight, stakes, beheading; nothing can stop them.”
She looked scared, and Clark moved toward her, touching her arm. “They’ll kill—”
“Everyone,” she said slowly. “Unless they get smart; then they’ll imprison people like cattle. I used to be the only one stopping them from doing that under normal circumstances, but now they hold all the cards.”
Clark felt something in him tighten. The last thing he should be doing was getting involved in other people’s problems. This vampire slaying, it had nothing to do with him. If anything, he was a liability, since the very rock that made the vampires invincible turned him into a writhing, useless mass.
However, the very root of their problem, the meteor rocks that had arrived with him so many years ago, and then again recently, were his problem. He had always felt responsible for the people that the meteors had killed, the ones that had been changed by the meteors, and had charged himself with protecting the people in Smallville from the violence of those driven mad or mutated by the rocks.
So now, this completely different world, a world where vampires and demons killed people and where a powerful woman claimed liability for protecting the world from them, this world was his now; it was here, and it was overwhelming.
And he couldn’t stand idle as people died.
So he put aside his insecurities and misgivings, and said, “I want to help.”
Q
She could feel the stars looking down on her; could hear them singing to her, urging her forward. She gazed up in amazement as the stars began to cry, shedding glorious explosions and firework tears.
“The sky is falling on top of me,” she said softly. “The noises shake me, rocking and rocking me; my lullaby shakes me to sleep.” She spun around, lifting her hands to the sky. “Each and every dream is coming true, for everyone.”
Her hand crept to her mouth, caking in dried blood. “They didn’t like my dancing, did they, Parker?”
The boy—young; barely out of the grave—touched her chin fondly, wiping some of the blood off. “They loved your dancing,” he said, gesturing to the empty bodies on the ground, “and so did I.”
“You say these things,” Drusilla said, sounding astonished, “but I can feel your trembling lies. When you came to me you said you wanted to live for the day. You begged for the wandering freeness of the Gods.”
The boy did not reply.
“They were little beasties, all of them,” she explained. “Every girl you dragged away to have a little poke, they were beasties. Especially the one,” she let out a growl, and Parker flinched away from her. “Especially the Slayer.”
“You didn’t know, then,” she asked. “You can’t even feel her here, can you? Her stench rolls off her and it coated you the same way it did my little Spike.”
A man from the floor whimpered and rose to his elbows, dragging himself along the ground. Drusilla glided towards him and embraced his trembling head. “I came here; I traveled far. She took my family away from me: Angelus and Darla and Spike. We had a second chance to be a family again, and she came again, her bulging eyes and tiny waist, and she took it away.
“The rocks aren’t far from here; they chant my name and promise me greatness. I can hear them saying that I’ll be a Goddess. When I am, I know who I want to dance with.”
She placed her hands on her chest, caressing the place where her heart used to beat. “A heart that doesn’t beat can’t spread stench like soft butter. She steals from me my family… so I shall steal from her hers’.”
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Date: 2007-04-18 09:48 pm (UTC)Oh Dru is gonna have some fun. Yay!
Really liking this concept, can't wait to read more :)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-18 11:01 pm (UTC)There's a link to it on my journal.