Work Text:
Extracts from the Private Journal of Victoria Matheson-Quinn
Apartment 10-E
University Towers North
Arkham, Massachusetts
June 25, 2032
2:17 AM
Tonight was supposed to be an easy night. Dr. R. had some kind of fancy-dress faculty dinner, and Spike was -- he hadn't said what he was, exactly, except to tell me he wasn't going to be on hand to help out in case of emergencies, so I should do my best not to have any for the next few hours. I said, "Right, boss," and made plans for a quick-and-dirty patrol on the transit loop from the University to center city and back. Riding through the neighborhoods would give me the feel of the territory. If anything felt like it needed to be dealt with, I could hop off, do the dealing, and catch the next car that came along. A city as big as Arkham, you have to break the job down into neighborhood-sized patches anyhow.
I have to admit, I was hoping that the University-Central Arkham circuit wouldn't give me any trouble. I had the evening to myself, I had cash in my pocket, and the open-air market at the transit hub didn't shut down until well after midnight.
My luck was in. By eleven-thirty I was strolling through the pushcarts at the market, munching on a deep-fried burrito and thinking it was too bad the old Greshkau back in Demontown couldn't move his operation up here. Some time about the last of the burrito, I started to get the prickly feeling along my spine that meant someone was looking at me -- usually someone of the fangy or demonic variety.
A quick eyeball scan didn't turn up any obvious nasties. The only person taking notice of me at all was a dark-skinned girl about my own age, dressed in bright green overalls with a yellow tee-shirt underneath. She wore gold hoop earrings, and gold beads on the ends of her braids.
I bought myself a blueberry waffle cone from the Arkham Creamery and went back to strolling. This time I kept an eye out, checking glass windows and other reflective surfaces in between licks at the cone. Sure enough, Green Overall Girl came right along behind me. She wasn't strolling, though. She'd take a few steps forward, then get all overcome by nerves or something and stop, maybe even take a step or two back.
Two can play at that game. I drifted backward a little at a time, marking her location while I pretended to give all my attention to my blueberry cone. I'm good -- she never noticed what was going on until I finished the ice cream, spun around, and grabbed her by the arm.
"All right," I said. "Who are you and what do you want?"
Her eyes got big and scared, but she didn't try to pull away. "Please. You have to help me."
"Help you with what?" I asked.
"You are the Slayer," she said. "You kill demons."
Spike always says there's no point in lying if they already know who you are.
"If I have to," I said.
No point in letting on that I hadn't needed to kill anything so far besides vampires, either.
"A demon is pursuing me. I ask for the Slayer's protection."
I still hadn't let go of her arm. "I don't see any demons around here, and I've been looking."
"I lost it at the crossing," she said. "But it looks for me, and will not give up until it finds me. You are the Slayer, and -- "
"I know, I know." I headed back toward the transit station, dragging her along with me. "If you've got a demon on your tail, the first thing we need to do is get you away from here before it shows up. People could get hurt."
And if Green Overall Girl turned out to be gunning for me herself, the transit station would make a nice, mostly-deserted place for the two of us to have a showdown. But I didn't say that out loud.
I did say, "What kind of demon is it that's chasing you?" Thanks to Spike's lessons and to regular patrols through Demontown, I know all the local semi-assimilated types -- but this one sounded like what Dr. R. calls a feral transient, and I'm not so good on those yet.
"It is a Righteous Warlord of the Eastern Frontier," she said as we boarded the transit car, and I said, "Demon names all generally sound like 'Gnarggl' or 'Skl!rch' to me -- is the 'Righteous Warlord' bit a translation of something else?"
She shrugged one-shouldered, since I still had hold of her other arm. "It is what it is."
"Okay." She hadn't morphed into anything nasty and tried to kill me, so I asked, "Do you have a name?"
"Deena," she said.
"I'm Victoria. Also the Slayer, but you knew that already." Another nasty bubble of suspicion floated up to the surface of my mind and went pop. "Exactly how did you know that already?"
"Does not everybody know the -- " she began, and about that time the transit car pulled into the Chambers Street station and something big and heavy landed on its roof with a thud.
Deena shrieked. "It is the Warlord!"
"Shut up," I said. I was busy feeling the transit car sway back and forth and listening to the noises overhead -- they made me think of a cockroach trying to scrabble its way out of a tin can, which was a mental picture I could have done without, especially while I was trying to figure out exactly how big a Righteous Warlord of the Eastern Frontier was when it came to visit this dimension. Real big, was my best guess. "You know this thing -- is it smart or stupid?"
I wasn't sure which answer I was hoping for. Smart is harder to beat -- but smart also knows when it's time to declare victory and get out, while stupid will just keep coming. Stupid and hungry is the worst of all, which is why brand-new vampires are the most dangerous kind.
"It is a Warlord!"
Smart, then, it sounded like. Smart meant that -- maybe -- it was hoping to keep a low profile. It hadn't attacked us in the market, and Chambers Street, where it had jumped us, was usually deserted at this time of night.
"And I'm the Slayer," I said. I was already taking inventory of my weapons: stakes tucked left and right into my belt; little knife in my boot-top and big knife in a sheath at my back; crosses and holy water stashed in my jacket pockets. Small stuff, by comparison with what was currently riding on top of the transit car and making it sway like it wanted to leave the rails. "Here's what I think. I don't believe it's stupid enough to get inside the car with us -- there's not enough room in here for a fight, and too many people might see. It's going to wait until we get off, then follow us from the station and jump us in the first dark patch that comes along."
"What do we do?" Deena asked, and I had to give her points for saying "we", because about that time the thing on the roof shifted position and the car rocked back and forth on the tracks, and she looked as scared as I've ever seen anyone look.
I pulled the keycard out of my inside jacket pocket and gave it to her.
"This opens the front door of University Towers North," I said. "Take it, and when we get off at the station, you run for the Towers as fast as you can and let yourself in. The glass doors are riot-proof; we'll just have to hope they're also Righteous-Warlord-proof. I'll play rear guard and hold back the Warlord for as long as I can -- you stay downstairs in the lobby so you can open the door for me when I come running."
Deena was looking dubious. "I am not certain . . . where is this place?"
"It's hard to miss," I said. "Look, do you have a piece of paper?"
She didn't have a piece of paper, but she did have a pencil. I found an old transit schedule, and used it and the pencil to make a sketch map of the route from the transit stop to the Towers.
"You go there," I said, pointing. "I'll come as soon as I can."
After that, we didn't have anything to do besides wait for the North Campus transit station. The car swayed and juddered to a stop, and I shoved Deena out onto the platform as soon as the doors slid open.
"Run!" I yelled, and jumped out after her, the big knife in my right hand and a polished hardwood stake in my left -- just in time to get in the way of the demon as it came leaping down off the roof of the transit car.
I heard Deena's footsteps pounding away at top speed in the direction of the Towers. After that I couldn't afford to bother with thinking about her any more. I was too busy worrying about the thing in front of me. The Righteous Warlord of the Eastern Frontier, Deena had called it. All I could tell at the moment was that it was the same general praying-mantis shape and bright green color as a Greshkau demon, only at least three times as big. And it was carrying an axe.
Time for a bit of negotiation, maybe.
"I'm the Slayer," I said. The Warlord tilted its head and looked down at me from its big multifaceted eyes. "And this is my territory. Maybe you want to think a bit about chasing people through it."
The Warlord let out a shriek and a chitter that must have meant something on the order of "Go to hell, short stuff!" in its particular variety of Demonspeak, because it punctuated the sentence with a swoosh of the axe that should have taken my head right off my shoulders, except that I'd seen the way its grip shifted on the axe-haft and I wasn't there any more. I was dropping and rolling, and the part of my mind that was the Slayer had me rolling toward the Warlord rather than away.
I'd promised Deena I'd hold the Warlord off long enough for her to reach the Towers. So I couldn't run.
I couldn't kill something that size either, not armed with only a stake and a bowie knife -- If I make it through this alive, I thought, I swear I'm going to hold out for some bigger weapons -- but maybe I could cripple it a little. I had the stake ready in my left hand as I came up out of my roll undeneath the Warlord's thorax. I found the creature's right knee-joint a second later, and jammed the stake in deep.
I dropped again and kept on rolling, this time out of reach and away. The stake was still where I'd left it, wedged into the Warlord's knee-joint. I pulled the little knife out of my boot top with my left hand and came to my feet just in time to dodge another swoosh with the axe. Two seconds later, the butt-end of the axe slammed into my ribs, and I went flying across the transit platform and hit the ground hard.
The Slayer job comes with a high pain threshold, at least while the fight is running. I scrambled up and put myself into something like a fighting stance. The Warlord was ready for me, but this time I kept an eye on both ends of the damned axe and danced out of the way in time. The demon followed, its bipedal gait jerking and dipping a little because of the stake jammed into its knee.
All right, you bastard, I thought. Now I know what works.
I stepped back, giving ground. The Warlord came after me -- yes, it was definitely limping a bit now -- and for a second time I dodged the one-two stroke from the big axe. The third time, I didn't step back. Instead I threw myself into a forward roll toward the demon's legs, and came out of it slashing with the bowie knife at the point where spiny green thigh met slick green torso.
I didn't stick around to catalog the damage. I headed for the University Towers and ran like hell.
I'd hurt the Warlord badly enough to get a good lead on it in that first mad dash, but not badly enough to keep it from following. Even crippled, its legs were longer than mine, and every leaping stride it took narrowed the gap between us a little more. I almost made it, though. I got to within twenty yards of the bright lights and riot-proof glass doors of University Towers North before I realized that the math just wasn't going to work out.
I stopped running and turned to stand my ground. I had the big knife in my right hand and the little knife in my left, and I was going to have to play duck-and-slash until either my stamina or the Warlord's ran out. At least, that's what I thought was going to happen. Instead, a fast-moving figure dressed all in black and white came snarling up out of the dark and pushed me clear.
Up to that moment, I'd never actually seen Spike in action. I'd thought he was fast and dangerous while he was teaching me how to fight; now I saw that he'd been holding back on purpose the whole time. I also saw why Lizzie the vamp-madam was scared of making him angry. In two moves he was off the ground and riding on the Warlord's shoulders -- and in three, he'd punched his fist right into one of the demon's big many-faceted eyes and all the way through to its brain.
The Warlord toppled sideways and fell over. Spike rode it down, only leaping clear at the last minute. He stood, vamp-faced, watching the demon jerk and kick in its death-throes, and the only thing I could think of to say was, "Spike, what on earth are you doing dressed like that?"
"Like what?" His face shifted back to the familiar human one, and he looked down at -- yes, he was wearing white tie and tails. The left sleeve was soaked to the elbow in stuff I didn't want to think about. "Oh, that. Having dinner with a friend, is all."
June 25, 2032
6:23 AM
I fell asleep at the keyboard last night before I could finish writing about everything that happened, and Dr. R. made me save my files and go to bed. Luckily, I don't need much sleep -- now that I'm awake again, I can finish telling the story before I have to start thinking about breakfast and classes and stuff.
We left the Righteous Warlord lying where it had died. "I'll phone some pals of mine in Demontown later," Spike said. "They'll come 'round and take it away."
"What if somebody sees it?" I asked.
"If they do, they'll just convince themselves it wasn't really there. People are good at that."
Deena had made safely it to the Towers. She was sitting at the kitchen table in the apartment when we got there, with Dr. R. watching her, and she looked even more scared than she had before. I didn't blame her -- if Dr. R. had looked at me that way, I'd be scared too.
"Spike. You're back." Dr. R. was still wearing the green brocade evening dress she'd worn to the faculty dinner. She sat at the kitchen table with her hands folded and didn't take her eyes off of Deena as she spoke. "Did you kill it?"
"It's really most sincerely dead. Going to cost me a fortune in dry cleaning, too."
"Call it a business expense," she told him. "Victoria -- "
"I'm okay."
"I assumed that you were, since otherwise Spike would not be complaining about trivia." Her voice got sharper. "Victoria, what possessed you to offer protection and asylum to this?"
Deena made a whimpering noise and looked like she wanted to sink into the floor. I stared at Dr. R. and said, "Huh?"
Dr. R unclasped her hands and pointed at Deena. "Revelare!"
The air around Deena shimmered for a moment, and when the shimmer stopped I was looking at a lime-green Greshkau demon in overalls and a yellow tee-shirt. All of a sudden, a whole lot of things made sense.
"You're Old What's-his-name's grand-daughter," I said. "The one who wants to come and live with him, only her family's holding out for some kind of snick-greck thing instead."
Deena nodded. Her antennae had gold beads on the end, just like her braids, and they swayed and bobbled with the motion.
"Yes," she said. Her accent was clickier now, with the illusion missing, but it was the same voice. "And you told him -- he said this to me! -- 'A girl shouldn't have to snkgrek with anyone if she doesn't want to. You can tell her the Slayer said so.'"
"They were after you for snkgrek vrau brggt?" Spike asked. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that he spoke Greshkau like a native. Spike's a vamp of many talents, most of which he doesn't talk about unless they might come in handy for something. "Not surprising you left while you could, then."
Dr. R took her attention away from Deena long enough to glance at him for the first time. "A little enlightenment over here would be a good thing, Spike."
"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Red. This is all about the facts of life, Greshkau style." Spike was standing at the sink in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, washing demonic ichor and brain matter off his hands as he spoke. "Little Green over there is a friykhah -- a worker -- like her grand-dad and all the rest of her family. What we killed, though, was one of the rigkrk -- "
"Deena -- that's her name -- said it was a Righteous Warlord of the Eastern Frontier," I told him.
"The rigkrk are the Greshkau fighting caste," Spike said, "and they pretty much run the whole show. Our friend could have called himself Saint Nick and all eight bloody reindeer, and nobody would have argued."
Dr. R. gave him a "get to the point" look. "And yet, we have a dead Warlord in the bushes outside."
"I'm getting around to that," he said. "Most of the rigkrk are sterile, and the handful of them that aren't sterile are only interfertile with friykhah females."
"So the Warlords want to carry away all the beautiful young fricka-whatsits to their harems?" I asked.
"Nothing so pretty as all that," he said. "Greshkau are egg-layers. All a rigkrk clan needs is one fertile female. That's where the snkgrek vrau brggt arrangement comes in -- they find a strapping young friykhah, load up her family with enough gold and honor to bury any objections, and take her back to the clan compound for life as a queen termite."
"And thank you, Spike, for that delightful image." Dr. R. dropped her head into her hands for a moment, then lifted it again to look from me to Spike to Deena. "Let me sum it all up, then -- thanks to Victoria's rash promise of support, I'm going to be giving aid and comfort to a runaway teenaged Greshkau demon who's a refugee from sexual enslavement in her home dimension. Have I left anything out?"
"Uh . . . no," I said. "Sounds about right to me."
"I will be no more trouble to you, I promise," said Deena. "I will live with my grandfather and help him at his place of business -- "
"You will enroll in a good school and get a proper education," Dr. R. said, in her best don't-even-think-about-disagreeing-with-me voice. "I refuse to be party to the creation of an unskilled and overworked demonic underclass. And Victoria?"
"Yes, ma'am?" When Dr. R. gets that tone going, it's a good idea even for Slayers to sit quietly and be respectful. Spike, damn him, was watching all three of us and snickering.
"As a reminder to think before you speak, you can spend the rest of your spare time this summer helping Deena prepare for her placement exams. The extra study will do you good."