The paranormal division at Sunnydale Police department was situated on the basement floor right next to the store room, with one single window, three desks and an ancient coffee machine crammed in the tiny space. The office was painted a shade of beige that was only briefly fashionable sometime in the seventies, which after years of poor maintenance it had faded to a grimy grey. It had a familiar dusty smell, which always reminded Buffy of her high school library, a lot of people would have called the room dank and claustrophobic; hence its affectionate nickname of ‘The Crypt’. But to the members of the paranormal division it was a home from home because evil never sleeps, well not at night anyway.
Buffy was sat her desk, all fantasies of going home and sleeping had disappeared the moment she’d see Richard Stiles’ body. Buffy was examining the bloody dagger, CSI had found a partial print, but so far the computers hadn’t thrown out any matches. It had a black handle and symbols carved along the blade, but none of these symbols matched the one cut into Richard Stiles’ face. Apparently the dagger was solid silver and an antique, but nothing like it had been reported stolen, she had already arranged for an appointment with an expert at Sunnydale Natural History Museum first thing tomorrow morning. The symbol on the boy’s face was a different matter; Buffy was convinced it was something magical about, not Disney magical, more wicked witch of the west magical. Buffy had emailed a picture of it to a friend of hers, Willow Rosenberg, who acted as a magical consultant for the paranormal division, she should be able to recognise it.
Willow Rosenberg had been a consultant for the police for just under a year, as a practicing Wicca she also sometimes helped out with cases involving hexes and spells gone wrong. Buffy hoped she’d recognised it because so far it was the only clue that hadn’t led to a dead end. Impatiently Buffy drummed her fingers on the desk, willing a reply from Willow. She wasn’t expecting an answer; just word from Willow that she was researching it then at least the something was being done to solve Richard Stiles’ murder. Maybe Buffy could call some contacts try and find out if there were any new bad guys in Sunnydale. Buffy sighed; it was going to be one of those cases, like counting grains of sand, no matter how many you counted there always seemed to be more.
Flicking through the information Xander and the rest of the guys at homicide had put together; interviews with Richards Stiles’ parents revealed that he was just a normal teenager, nothing remotely paranormal about his life. None of friends were interested in magic, one had a slight obsession with vampires but apparently he and Richard weren’t close anymore. Richard had been in Weatherly Park after a fight with his girlfriend at the Bronze, drowning his sorrows and as far as anyone knew had his throat slit by a complete stranger. The way Buffy saw it this was a motiveless crime, which usually indicates possible paranormal connections, what with the ornate knife and the symbol carved in the kid’s cheek. Buffy hoped this murder would be a one off, just some lone nutcase.
It was gonna be a long night.
***
Later on, after dusk somewhere on the other side of Sunnydale, a bar known locally as the Alibi Room was open for business. The owner, Willy, watched as his customers drowned their sorrows. The Alibi room was a demon bar; its patrons were the local vampires and demons, the odd drunken sorcerer and the occasional human tourist here for a taste of the supernatural. Willy, himself was 100% human but he knew better than most tourists passing through here, never piss off a drunk in the Alibi Room otherwise you’ll spend the next month eating your dinner through a straw. Anyway human patrons were discouraged Willy could lose his license if someone got beaten up or worse, eaten… again. Absentmindedly he polished a glass, as music pounded in the background, they use to have a jukebox but some demon had his face rearranged for putting on Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell. Apparently Meatloaf wasn’t very popular amongst the demon community. That’s why Lou Reed was playing; no one could have any possible compliant about the melodic sounds of Lou Reed, it fitted the mood, not too upbeat or too depressing. Maybe he’d put on some Velvet Underground on later Willy thought to himself.
“Hey Willy” Faith, one of his bartenders called “The barrel needs changing.”
“Why can’t you do it, I must pay you for some reason 'cause it isn't your sunny personality” Willy sneered, he hated to going down to the cellar at night. It meant stepping out into the ally behind the bar. Willy had this recurring nightmare that one day he’d get his throat ripped out in that ally. He could picture it perfectly, his body lying there in a pool of his own blood, knowing his luck a cat would eat his face and the police would have to use his dental records to confirm that he was the victim.
“You don’t pay me enough.” Faith snapped, returning to serving a young guy with bleached blonde hair, who looked as if there wasn’t a bottle deep enough to drown himself in. Faith gave him her signature flirtatious grin and brief flash of her cleavage in an attempt to guarantee her tip. He didn’t notice just downed drink and motioned for another.
Willy felt the familiar shivers of fear as he put the glass and cloth down, he really hated this element of his job, he slowly made his way to the back door. He passed the illegal kitten poker game in the back room and out into the ally that seemed to haunt his nightmares. Trash cans over flowing with rubbish cast ominous shadows on the walls, like a demonic shadow puppet show, round the corner Willy could hear the screeching of two cats fighting. A cold sweat broke across his brow as he leaned down to yank open the cellar doors, as per usual they were stuck some Fyarl demon had probably sneezed on it again, another hard jerk of the doors threw them wide open. Willy took a deep breath and peered down into the darkness. Suddenly the back door slammed open behind him.
“Aaarrrggghhh!” Willy screamed spinning round quickly to face a dark figure stood behind him.
“Fuck!” The figure growled. “What hell did you do that for?”
“Sorry.” Willy muttered realising it was the guy Faith had been serving. “I thought you were a vamp or something.” Willy explained lamely.
“I am.” The figure snapped in a south London accent. “You got a problem with that?”
“Are you going to eat me?” Willy asked nervously, maybe it wasn’t a nightmare maybe it had been a prediction of what was to come.
“No.” The guy said shortly, looking at Willy as if he was crazy.
“Oh.” Willy returned to his job of changing the barrel, trying hard to ignore the vampire behind him. Willy leaned in and groped in the darkness for the light switch.
“What’s down there?” The vamp asked making Willy jump nearly a foot in the air.
“What?” Willy asked, turning around to stare at the guy. He wasn’t particularly tall, with a lean muscular figure, a shock of white spiky hair, baby blue eyes and a prominent scar through his left eyebrow which disrupted the delicate structure of his face.
“It smells like blood.” The guy explained. “So unless you’re a mass murdering psycho and that’s where you hide the bodies of your victims, I’m guessing there shouldn’t be any blood down there.”
Willy found the light switch, light flooded the small cellar. Like in his nightmares there was a body lying in a pool of blood, but his throat hadn’t been ripped out, it had been slit from ear to ear. Willy was vaguely aware of the guy behind he was saying something but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horrific picture in front of him. At least the body’s face hadn’t been eaten by cats he thought with relief, but there was something on his face, a symbol carved into the flesh. Bile rose in Willy’s throat, he was going to throw up, slowly he stepped away from the cellar and closed the doors. Willy turned to face the vampire, who had a look of mild interest on his face.
“We need to call the police.” Willy said quietly, his mouth felt like was stuffed with sawdust and it hurt to swallow. He turned to walk back inside, hoping he won’t faint, for a guy who owned a demon bar Willy was surprisingly squeamish about the sight of blood.
“You’re a regular Sherlock.” The guy said mockingly, briefly stopping to lighting up a cigarette before he followed Willy back into the bar, giving the closed cellar doors a worried look.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, it's been awhile since I last posted blame my crappy minimum wage job. Anyway I don't think I used any quotes, oh and no offence to anyone who likes Meatloaf, but I watched Fight Club last night. But maybe you should try listening to a different musical artist... Like Lou Reed!