A
Altoz
Guest
"Getting up each morning, I use X shampoo, Y conditioner, Z body wash, AA defoliator, do calisthenics, have a balanced breakfast and walk to the office. Fortunately, it's usually daylight when that happens and so I won't get waylaid by vampires, zombies, demons or other examples of Sunnydale's supernatural wildlife." Doug said, as he pulled on his trousers, selected a clean shirt and tie and pulled on his matching jacket:
"That was such a lame parody of that psycho slasher movie." Oz complained, ducking as Doug threw a pillow at him;
"Just for that, you get to feed Patches. I left some of the Aa'traki demon we encountered on patrol last night. Later."Doug kissed his partner goodbye,grabbed his briefcase and made for the door. Oz usually left for his job as Modern Music Lecturer at UC Sunnydale half an hour later, so he could take a leisurely herbal bath. His cyborg zombie cat impatiently miaoued for demon meat, so the diminutive werewolf complied.
After he'd picked up Dawn from Sunnydale High and checked with Buffy about the night's patrol details, Doug decided to take some down time at the Bronze. Just his luck- the sociopathic Republican Justin Kleinman was there:
"Mercer! Come over here! We scarcely ever see you after work."
Doug sighed: "That's because I have an extreme sports pastime for the twilight hours. Anyhow, what were you blokes discussing?"
"Our suits. Are you going to snag one of the new Armanis when they arrive in Puysegurs in a fortnights?"
"Not really, no. I've got a perfectly serviceable one from when I arrived in the 'Dale three months ago. Anyway, not all of us make as much money as you corporate guys."
Kleinman smiled: "Oh, you do pretty well for yourself with your forensic gig, my friend. You can afford to spend up big. The question is, why don't you?"
"A little ostentatious, isn't it? I've never done brand names."
Kleinman persisted: "But you do take care of yourself. Look at those guns under your shirt sleeves"
"There's a difference between being responsible about your body and outright narcissism. Added to which, I choose not to waste my bonuses on Peruvian nose candy."
Kleinman started, as Doug got up from the table:
"Sorry, guys. I've got the Audi tonight and it's altitude training at the gym. See you at KPs tomorrow." Doug said. What he didn't see was Kleinman glaring at his back in an unguarded moment of sheer hatred and envy.
On patrol that night, a vampire sneered at Buffy's choice of couture:
"Call that a slayage outfit? Seriously, do you spend that much time op-shopping, slayer?"
Buffy delivered a knee to its groin and staked it as the male vampire moaned in pain:
"I loathe fashion victim vampires." Buffy said, as she uncurled, spun and staked a vampire who was trying to creep up on her.
"Oh, you are so lucky. I get stuck in an office all day and the guys there are all so mercilessly into grooming aids and clothing tips it's like I walked into Rainbow Zone during a fashion convention." Doug retorted, as he dropped from a tree, grabbed a vampire with his legs and stabbed down with his stake.
Willow was busy experimenting with her new remote seek and destroy stake spell, in which she sent out flying wooden projectiles to attack the less intelligent and more malignant undead denizens of Hammerfell Park after twilight.
"Hey, leave some for us, Willow!" Buffy called.
"Tara taught me her Aradia's Eye spell. Sorry, Doug, it's from the Dianic tradition, so only women can use it."
Doug nodded: "Oh, fair enough. Danny was telling me that one coven had invited his old friend Jacqueline to talk about shamanism and the trans side of winkte Craft."
Buffy whistled: "Wow. And Jacqueline's a transwoman, isn't she?"
"The Borderline Coven has a nice inclusive rep for Dianic Wicca. Got to say I don't get on with the more fundamentalist Dianics, though. Transwomen can use female magic while they're transitioning and after their surgery, because that's what they are- women. Okay, fewer transmale wiccans, but Doug, same thing there/"
"Sure. They're a bit too into male deities for my liking, but I can understand why."
Buffy nodded: "Alessandra Norton was telling me that there have been some transgender slayers too. So the Powers That Be aren't raving transphobes and Chosen Ones can be transwomen if that's how the dice falls."
Three of Willow's Aradias Eye searchflies came back, registering that there were still some hostile vampires out in the park that night:
"How thoughtful, One for each of us. Ah well. Lead on, Rosenberg!" Buffy hefled her axe and the two wiccans followed her.
[Doug, Willow?]
[We're here, Alessandra. What's the sitch?]
[It's about a spate of serial killings in the Los Angeles/Sunnydale area over the last six months. Actually, the modus operandi suggests longer.]
[Uh, not that I want to sound like an utter callous bastard, 'Lessa, but unless they're killing streetwalkers and homeless folks, shouldn't we leave that to the state police? Or FBI?]
[That's the problem, Doug. The modus operandi stretches back to the eighties.]
[What? You're saying this predatory bastard has been active for thirty years and no-one's caught him yet?! After all that time? And given the fact that they've obviously gotten older and slower over time?] Willow gasped.
[Or her. Mustn't be sexist. Aileen Wuornos an' all that. So you think it might be some sort of demonic entity who became dormant for some reason and resurfaced in the twenty first century?]
[It fits that profile, Doug. In which case, that does make it Council business. Whether Quentin likes it or not.]
[Alessandra, that's just cheating. You know Doug and Buffy have little time for the Watchers Council President. I can already see a mercenary gleam in Doug's eye.]
Buffy was watching her two colleagues closely: "So...? I take it that's Alessandra on the other end of the telepathic line?"
"It was. She told us about a serial killer, Buffy. What distinguishes it from the more usual kind of that despicable species is that it's been dormant for the last three decades."
"So, what then? Some kind of demon?"
"Yeah. I'll look up Giles demonology database when I get home later tonight. It sounds a lot like the Rygellan demon MO to me, though- they're shaped like giant praying mantises and they're inordinately fond of human flesh. From memory, they started to die out in the eighteenth century, when Europe and North America started to industrialise. Hunting space became premium territory, so extinction was inevitable after that." Willow added.
"Okay. So that means I should carry my samurai sword around for the next few patrols?"
"Yeah, good idea. Oh, and Quentin Travers would be very unhappy if we deviated from the Council's precious vampire only slayage protocols."
"Oh, that is so low. Doc Norton knows that Doug and I won't be able to resist rubbing the Council's face in that ridiculous piece of archaic nonsense."
"I'll get Tara onto it when I get home. Rygellans impersonate humans for part of their lifecycle, though, so be on the look out for people who have surfaced during the last two to three months at your respective workplaces."
And then Doug remembered- that was when Justin Kleinman had come to work at KPs..
At work the next day, Doug ran a brief psychometric check on Kleinman's DVD player. He winced at some of the hokey and ghastly music choices that his new colleague had made- Huey Lewis and the News? Whitney Houston? That much Whitney Houston? What? If Kleinman was the Rygellan, did that mean he bored his potential victims to death with eighties bad taste pop choices? Still, he realised something else- Kleinman seemed inordinately fond of that particular decade. Although, he conceded, musical tastes are no indicator of one's state of mind. Look at Angel's ghastly Barry Manilow renditions. Both genre, and choice of artist. Yet Angel walked in the light.
Oz called in at the service counter that afternoon. Doug gratefully accepted the lunch that he'd forgotten that morning:
"Danny, you're a miracle."
"Why is our blender dead? Did you slaughter it in cold oil?"
"Oops. Sorry, that must be the chia seeds I stuck in there yesterday afternoon while I was mixing that smoothie..."
"Why is it that for a gay man, you have absolutely no skill whatsoever at cookery?"
"It's another attribute of my mutant gayness, along with my utilitarian fashion sense, simple taste in personal grooming aids, lack of a wardrobe and the fact you selected most of our home decor after you moved in last month" Doug confessed.
"I love you anyway, you big lug." Oz said, as he kissed Doug goodbye. When Doug returned with the lunch bag, he noticed Kleinman was staring openmouthed at what he'd just witnessed. Then an unpleasant sneer hit his face. Doug raised an eyebrow as he witnessed it. Well, well. So Kleinman was a phobe too. Eighties musical tastes, retro eighties homophobia (for Northern California?! With San Francisco just a couple of hundred klicks to the north?) Sure enough, his suspicions were confirmed when he saw a yellow post-it with the words FAGGOT on his computer screen that afternoon after coffee break.
"Right, then. Off to HR with this..."
Buffy was jogging when she received a message from Dawn:
"There's something happening at the UC Sunnydale Womens Dorm, Buffy."
"On it. Any more details? Is the intruder humanoid?"
"It looks like a giant praying mantis. And someone heard some awful old eighties pop in the vicinity."
Then she redialled: "Doug and Willow? Looks like you were right. And Willow- it's on campus. Doug, can you get over here?"
"Sure. Buffy, I think I know who it might be. I'll clue you in after we assemble outside the gates." Looking around him, Doug noticed that Kleinman was nowhere to be seen. Checking with HR, they disclosed that he'd called in sick that morning. Convenient. Too convenient. Doug reported in that he was investigating Wolfram and Hart funding arrangements with UC Sunnydale that required his physical presence there that afternoon and drove over in his Audi. Tara waved as Willow and she motored up:
"Some background details. It looks like the Rygellans are driven by reproductive imperatives, the desire to obtain enough meat to feed its ova so that they can become fertilised and be laid. So that overriding life goal would also explain your problems with Kleinman, Doug. If he and the Rygellan are the same entity, which it sounds like."
"Circumstantial evidence, Tara. I'm not assuming anything. He could be just a 'phobe asshole. Stealth spell us."
"Are you sure you should be out here, baby?"
"I'm pregnant, sweetie, not incapacitated." Tara said, kissing her lover goodbye.
Buffy gripped her samurai sword tightly as they approached the sound of the Rygellan feeding with its mandibles and razor-edged limbs. As they rounded the corner, they saw their first body. It was not female, oddly enough for the fact that it was within a women's dormitory.
"Wait, what? So this thing is preying on men?" Buffy said as Doug checked the corpse:
"Well, yes. It doesn't prey on women at all. Sorry, Buffy, we should have included that."
"Doesn't make any difference, team. Our mission is to protect the weak and innocent yadda yadda. Okay, time to get bloody...:"
They arrived upon a grisly scene, as the Rygellan looked up and hissed. But there was a further shock in store: "You?!"
"Kleinman? So you're controlling this creature?"
"As a prelude. It is one of the creatures from the Book of Revelation, Look at it- just like the ones prophesied in Chapter 9, Verses 1 to 12."
'Are you insane? You can't control something like that for long. It'll turn on you and have you for dinner to feed its burgeoning demon womb."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand, Mercer. The judgement of Jehovah God is coming on this nation because of the perversions of filth like you."
"Don't be a fool. Look at it. It's heavily pregnant now. It's going to become too powerful for an inexperienced wanna blessed be like you any moment now!" Willow gestured as the unearthly insectoid devoured another victim- this time, a male janitor. Then it swung its ruby red compound eyes to face Kleinman. It began to move toward him. Doug and Willow tried to ward him safely, but he was babbling his own attempted rite of exorcism. But the Rygellan was far older than Christianity and did not respond. Buffy leapt toward it, onto its back and slammed the sword down, through its carapace. It gave a stark cry, then fell onto its legjoints. And finally, it was still, but not before it'd grabbed Kleinman within its jaws, neatly bisecting him.
Doug concluded: "So that's it. We shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion. If we had, we might have saved Kleinman."
Buffy shook her head: "He was trying to precipitate an apocalypse, Doug. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we can only save those who want to be saved. Justin Kleinman wasn't in that category. He thought he could control that thing on his own. In the end, it cost him his life."
THE END
"That was such a lame parody of that psycho slasher movie." Oz complained, ducking as Doug threw a pillow at him;
"Just for that, you get to feed Patches. I left some of the Aa'traki demon we encountered on patrol last night. Later."Doug kissed his partner goodbye,grabbed his briefcase and made for the door. Oz usually left for his job as Modern Music Lecturer at UC Sunnydale half an hour later, so he could take a leisurely herbal bath. His cyborg zombie cat impatiently miaoued for demon meat, so the diminutive werewolf complied.
After he'd picked up Dawn from Sunnydale High and checked with Buffy about the night's patrol details, Doug decided to take some down time at the Bronze. Just his luck- the sociopathic Republican Justin Kleinman was there:
"Mercer! Come over here! We scarcely ever see you after work."
Doug sighed: "That's because I have an extreme sports pastime for the twilight hours. Anyhow, what were you blokes discussing?"
"Our suits. Are you going to snag one of the new Armanis when they arrive in Puysegurs in a fortnights?"
"Not really, no. I've got a perfectly serviceable one from when I arrived in the 'Dale three months ago. Anyway, not all of us make as much money as you corporate guys."
Kleinman smiled: "Oh, you do pretty well for yourself with your forensic gig, my friend. You can afford to spend up big. The question is, why don't you?"
"A little ostentatious, isn't it? I've never done brand names."
Kleinman persisted: "But you do take care of yourself. Look at those guns under your shirt sleeves"
"There's a difference between being responsible about your body and outright narcissism. Added to which, I choose not to waste my bonuses on Peruvian nose candy."
Kleinman started, as Doug got up from the table:
"Sorry, guys. I've got the Audi tonight and it's altitude training at the gym. See you at KPs tomorrow." Doug said. What he didn't see was Kleinman glaring at his back in an unguarded moment of sheer hatred and envy.
On patrol that night, a vampire sneered at Buffy's choice of couture:
"Call that a slayage outfit? Seriously, do you spend that much time op-shopping, slayer?"
Buffy delivered a knee to its groin and staked it as the male vampire moaned in pain:
"I loathe fashion victim vampires." Buffy said, as she uncurled, spun and staked a vampire who was trying to creep up on her.
"Oh, you are so lucky. I get stuck in an office all day and the guys there are all so mercilessly into grooming aids and clothing tips it's like I walked into Rainbow Zone during a fashion convention." Doug retorted, as he dropped from a tree, grabbed a vampire with his legs and stabbed down with his stake.
Willow was busy experimenting with her new remote seek and destroy stake spell, in which she sent out flying wooden projectiles to attack the less intelligent and more malignant undead denizens of Hammerfell Park after twilight.
"Hey, leave some for us, Willow!" Buffy called.
"Tara taught me her Aradia's Eye spell. Sorry, Doug, it's from the Dianic tradition, so only women can use it."
Doug nodded: "Oh, fair enough. Danny was telling me that one coven had invited his old friend Jacqueline to talk about shamanism and the trans side of winkte Craft."
Buffy whistled: "Wow. And Jacqueline's a transwoman, isn't she?"
"The Borderline Coven has a nice inclusive rep for Dianic Wicca. Got to say I don't get on with the more fundamentalist Dianics, though. Transwomen can use female magic while they're transitioning and after their surgery, because that's what they are- women. Okay, fewer transmale wiccans, but Doug, same thing there/"
"Sure. They're a bit too into male deities for my liking, but I can understand why."
Buffy nodded: "Alessandra Norton was telling me that there have been some transgender slayers too. So the Powers That Be aren't raving transphobes and Chosen Ones can be transwomen if that's how the dice falls."
Three of Willow's Aradias Eye searchflies came back, registering that there were still some hostile vampires out in the park that night:
"How thoughtful, One for each of us. Ah well. Lead on, Rosenberg!" Buffy hefled her axe and the two wiccans followed her.
[Doug, Willow?]
[We're here, Alessandra. What's the sitch?]
[It's about a spate of serial killings in the Los Angeles/Sunnydale area over the last six months. Actually, the modus operandi suggests longer.]
[Uh, not that I want to sound like an utter callous bastard, 'Lessa, but unless they're killing streetwalkers and homeless folks, shouldn't we leave that to the state police? Or FBI?]
[That's the problem, Doug. The modus operandi stretches back to the eighties.]
[What? You're saying this predatory bastard has been active for thirty years and no-one's caught him yet?! After all that time? And given the fact that they've obviously gotten older and slower over time?] Willow gasped.
[Or her. Mustn't be sexist. Aileen Wuornos an' all that. So you think it might be some sort of demonic entity who became dormant for some reason and resurfaced in the twenty first century?]
[It fits that profile, Doug. In which case, that does make it Council business. Whether Quentin likes it or not.]
[Alessandra, that's just cheating. You know Doug and Buffy have little time for the Watchers Council President. I can already see a mercenary gleam in Doug's eye.]
Buffy was watching her two colleagues closely: "So...? I take it that's Alessandra on the other end of the telepathic line?"
"It was. She told us about a serial killer, Buffy. What distinguishes it from the more usual kind of that despicable species is that it's been dormant for the last three decades."
"So, what then? Some kind of demon?"
"Yeah. I'll look up Giles demonology database when I get home later tonight. It sounds a lot like the Rygellan demon MO to me, though- they're shaped like giant praying mantises and they're inordinately fond of human flesh. From memory, they started to die out in the eighteenth century, when Europe and North America started to industrialise. Hunting space became premium territory, so extinction was inevitable after that." Willow added.
"Okay. So that means I should carry my samurai sword around for the next few patrols?"
"Yeah, good idea. Oh, and Quentin Travers would be very unhappy if we deviated from the Council's precious vampire only slayage protocols."
"Oh, that is so low. Doc Norton knows that Doug and I won't be able to resist rubbing the Council's face in that ridiculous piece of archaic nonsense."
"I'll get Tara onto it when I get home. Rygellans impersonate humans for part of their lifecycle, though, so be on the look out for people who have surfaced during the last two to three months at your respective workplaces."
And then Doug remembered- that was when Justin Kleinman had come to work at KPs..
At work the next day, Doug ran a brief psychometric check on Kleinman's DVD player. He winced at some of the hokey and ghastly music choices that his new colleague had made- Huey Lewis and the News? Whitney Houston? That much Whitney Houston? What? If Kleinman was the Rygellan, did that mean he bored his potential victims to death with eighties bad taste pop choices? Still, he realised something else- Kleinman seemed inordinately fond of that particular decade. Although, he conceded, musical tastes are no indicator of one's state of mind. Look at Angel's ghastly Barry Manilow renditions. Both genre, and choice of artist. Yet Angel walked in the light.
Oz called in at the service counter that afternoon. Doug gratefully accepted the lunch that he'd forgotten that morning:
"Danny, you're a miracle."
"Why is our blender dead? Did you slaughter it in cold oil?"
"Oops. Sorry, that must be the chia seeds I stuck in there yesterday afternoon while I was mixing that smoothie..."
"Why is it that for a gay man, you have absolutely no skill whatsoever at cookery?"
"It's another attribute of my mutant gayness, along with my utilitarian fashion sense, simple taste in personal grooming aids, lack of a wardrobe and the fact you selected most of our home decor after you moved in last month" Doug confessed.
"I love you anyway, you big lug." Oz said, as he kissed Doug goodbye. When Doug returned with the lunch bag, he noticed Kleinman was staring openmouthed at what he'd just witnessed. Then an unpleasant sneer hit his face. Doug raised an eyebrow as he witnessed it. Well, well. So Kleinman was a phobe too. Eighties musical tastes, retro eighties homophobia (for Northern California?! With San Francisco just a couple of hundred klicks to the north?) Sure enough, his suspicions were confirmed when he saw a yellow post-it with the words FAGGOT on his computer screen that afternoon after coffee break.
"Right, then. Off to HR with this..."
Buffy was jogging when she received a message from Dawn:
"There's something happening at the UC Sunnydale Womens Dorm, Buffy."
"On it. Any more details? Is the intruder humanoid?"
"It looks like a giant praying mantis. And someone heard some awful old eighties pop in the vicinity."
Then she redialled: "Doug and Willow? Looks like you were right. And Willow- it's on campus. Doug, can you get over here?"
"Sure. Buffy, I think I know who it might be. I'll clue you in after we assemble outside the gates." Looking around him, Doug noticed that Kleinman was nowhere to be seen. Checking with HR, they disclosed that he'd called in sick that morning. Convenient. Too convenient. Doug reported in that he was investigating Wolfram and Hart funding arrangements with UC Sunnydale that required his physical presence there that afternoon and drove over in his Audi. Tara waved as Willow and she motored up:
"Some background details. It looks like the Rygellans are driven by reproductive imperatives, the desire to obtain enough meat to feed its ova so that they can become fertilised and be laid. So that overriding life goal would also explain your problems with Kleinman, Doug. If he and the Rygellan are the same entity, which it sounds like."
"Circumstantial evidence, Tara. I'm not assuming anything. He could be just a 'phobe asshole. Stealth spell us."
"Are you sure you should be out here, baby?"
"I'm pregnant, sweetie, not incapacitated." Tara said, kissing her lover goodbye.
Buffy gripped her samurai sword tightly as they approached the sound of the Rygellan feeding with its mandibles and razor-edged limbs. As they rounded the corner, they saw their first body. It was not female, oddly enough for the fact that it was within a women's dormitory.
"Wait, what? So this thing is preying on men?" Buffy said as Doug checked the corpse:
"Well, yes. It doesn't prey on women at all. Sorry, Buffy, we should have included that."
"Doesn't make any difference, team. Our mission is to protect the weak and innocent yadda yadda. Okay, time to get bloody...:"
They arrived upon a grisly scene, as the Rygellan looked up and hissed. But there was a further shock in store: "You?!"
"Kleinman? So you're controlling this creature?"
"As a prelude. It is one of the creatures from the Book of Revelation, Look at it- just like the ones prophesied in Chapter 9, Verses 1 to 12."
'Are you insane? You can't control something like that for long. It'll turn on you and have you for dinner to feed its burgeoning demon womb."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand, Mercer. The judgement of Jehovah God is coming on this nation because of the perversions of filth like you."
"Don't be a fool. Look at it. It's heavily pregnant now. It's going to become too powerful for an inexperienced wanna blessed be like you any moment now!" Willow gestured as the unearthly insectoid devoured another victim- this time, a male janitor. Then it swung its ruby red compound eyes to face Kleinman. It began to move toward him. Doug and Willow tried to ward him safely, but he was babbling his own attempted rite of exorcism. But the Rygellan was far older than Christianity and did not respond. Buffy leapt toward it, onto its back and slammed the sword down, through its carapace. It gave a stark cry, then fell onto its legjoints. And finally, it was still, but not before it'd grabbed Kleinman within its jaws, neatly bisecting him.
Doug concluded: "So that's it. We shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion. If we had, we might have saved Kleinman."
Buffy shook her head: "He was trying to precipitate an apocalypse, Doug. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we can only save those who want to be saved. Justin Kleinman wasn't in that category. He thought he could control that thing on his own. In the end, it cost him his life."
THE END