He had no idea what this place was. He was in a cell of some kind. Was it prison? Someone else was sleeping in another bed in the room. There was a television with all the possible accessories one would want for a television: X-Box, DVD player, satellite connection.
Connor rolled to his feet silently. He remembered something about his father. Had Angel sent him here? How did Angel get him out of that sporting goods store? No. Wait. Something had happened since then. Angel needed his help. When did that happen?
Connor’s mind was a mass of confusion. He pulled Gap jeans on over his boxers and threw on an Eddie Bauer shirt. The clothes were as unfamiliar to him as the room. He pushed through the door and stumbled down the hall toward the bathroom. How did he know where the bathroom was? How did he even know he could get out of the room? How did he know he wasn’t in prison?
Connor pushed through the door into the bathroom. Someone had written “Go Cardinal, Beat Cal” in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. Connor splashed cold water on his face.
“Yo, Connor, what’s up?” a kid named Jim asked as he came into the bathroom. “Big Game’s today. Think we’ll get the axe back?”
“Axes are good,” Connor said. He often preferred a good battle axe to a sword.
“Um . . . right,” Jim said nervously.
Connor remembered knowing Jim, but he had no context for the acquaintance. They knew each other through school. It was called Stanford. Connor studied things there, but he couldn’t remember knowing the things he studied. He studied things that happened once; history. He once remembered having learned history earlier than this place. He knew he once remembered that. But those memories were gone now.
Connor stepped out of the bathroom and headed back toward his room. Two police men were coming toward him doing their cop walk; that condescending swagger with their hands on their holster.
“Connor Reilly?” one of the officers asked.
Connor shook his head no. Connor had experienced run-ins with these people before. They enforced laws; laws Connor broke on occasion. Then Connor remembered the girl in the warehouse. The people in the sporting goods store. He hadn’t just broken laws. He’d done bad things.
“Son, we need you to come with us,” the officer said.
“I have to find my father,” Connor said.
“You can call him from the station,” the officer said.
The cop and his partner pulled their pistols form their holsters. Connor knew he had to do what they wanted. He nodded and slowly raised his hands as he’d seen people do on television.
The police cuffed him, read him his rights, and walked him downstairs. It was four AM and only a couple people were in the hallway, but by noon the whole campus would hear about how a student got arrested in Wilbur Hall.
†
“You’re going to pay for what you did to those people,” the cop who was driving, Jennings, said. It was five in the morning and the sun had not yet risen.
Connor didn’t answer. He just looked out the window as the car headed through campus toward the campus police station.
“What’s the matter, kid? Cat got your tongue?”
Connor looked at them, then out the window.
“You’re going away for a long time, punk.”
“Where am I going?” he asked quietly.
The cops laughed. “Prison,” Jennings said. “Why? Did ya think you were going to Disney World?”
“I don’t want to go to prison.”
“Well, you don’t have much choice in the matter,” Jennings said.
“Oh,” Connor said.
The cops were confused by the sound of metal being crushed. Jennings looked into the rearview mirror in time to see Connor jump from the car. He’d kicked the door off its hinges.
Jennings slammed on the breaks and his partner was out of the car. An instant later, he was out cold. Connor jumped up in the air, swinging his cuffed hands under his feet before he landed on the hood of the car. He kicked Jennings in the face, knocking him out.
†
“Why’d the vampire let the cops take him into custody in the first place?” Diane asked.
“I suppose he was toying with them,” Giles offered. “Vampires have been known to have macabre senses of humor. This appears to be the place.”
Giles and the slayer entered the small police station at Bonair Siding. There, the Santa Clara County deputy sheriffs assigned to Stanford’s campus were still licking their metaphorical wounds.
“Hello. I’m Rupert Giles and this is Diane Nelson. I believe someone here called us.”
“Not me,” the officer at the front desk said gruffly. “Maybe one of the feds.”
“Feds?” Giles asked. “As in FBI?”
“Mr. Giles,” Riley called from across the room.
“Riley?” Giles asked, surprised but happy to see the only one of Buffy’s ex-boyfriends of whom he approved.
“Thanks for coming,” Riley said, crossing the room. He was wearing an unimaginative suit, the kind you’d expect an FBI agent to wear. “Can we talk in private?” he asked quietly when he reached Giles.
In a conference room in the station, Giles, Riley, and Diane sat around a table.
“We need to know where Angel is,” Riley said.
“What’s this about?” Giles asked. “You don’t think Angel sired the vampire who attacked the policemen, do you?”
“We have reason to believe Angel knows the vampire in question.”
“What reason is that?”
“Maybe because Angel ran an evil law firm,” Diane said coldly. Giles gave her a withering look.
Riley took out a video tape and held it up.
“I’ve seen the video from the patrol car,” Giles said.
“This is a different video,” Riley said, putting it into a VCR in the room.
Riley hit play and Giles watched the scene of Connor taking the shoppers in the sporting goods store hostage.
“Resourceful,” Giles said with a mixture of fear and admiration as he watched Connor put together his makeshift bombs.
“He’s not feeding,” Diane said.
“No,” Giles agreed. “And that’s odd.”
“What?” Riley asked.
“He seems to be castigating that man for yelling at his daughter,” Giles explained. “Vampires aren’t known to express concern for children who are mistreated.”
“Unless they’re carrying mental scars from their own lives,” Diane interjected.
“True,” Giles granted. “But he also did this during daytime.”
“He’s inside,” Riley explained.
“Still, a major event like this, attracting police attention would . . .” Giles sentence was cut off by Connor dragging Cordelia from an enclosure.
“His training seems almost military,” Riley said. “But we ran his picture through our files of known military operatives for as long as we’ve kept records and he didn’t show up.”
“What’s this have to do with Angel?” Giles asked.
Riley his fast forward on the VCR. “Most of what you’ve seen up until now was seen in one form or another on television while the hostage crisis was happening.” Riley his play. “This didn’t get aired.”
Giles watched as Angel entered the screen. He talked to the boy before the screen went black.
“The government found him here because we put pictures on the news last night,” Riley said. “But given as this has fallen into my very singular jurisdiction . . . they’re beginning to think discretion may be the way to go. That means I need to talk to someone who has an idea how to find this guy. I need to talk to Angel.”
Giles lowered his head and frowned. “He’s dead,” he said quietly.
†
Daytime passed. He slept during the day, just as those he hunted did. His eyes slowly opened as the sun was slowly descending outside.
Connor had run as hard as he could. He made it to a Denny’s on El Camino Real where he pried open a trunk and climbed in. He got worried when he realized they were driving back the way he came, but the car turned off the road and went somewhere miles away. The town looked like a sleepy little burg during the day. But when night fell, Berkeley came alive.
“Hey man, want some hash?” a college kid asked as Connor passed him.
Connor went toward the noise. He hated noise and crowds, but those places tended to be the spots vamps prowled in search for people to lure off to an isolated spot.
The giant banner across the factory on the outskirts of town read Welcome Freshmen with a subheading that read Send us your virgin daughters!. The lights were flashing inside and the building was packed with people. The music was so loud that it almost hurt Connor’s ear drums to approach the building. Luckily, he knew he could hang outside and still find what he was looking for.
“What’s the matter,” a female cooed nearby. “Don’t you think I’m pretty anymore?” The guy with her was whimpering. Connor stalked off toward the back of the factory turned club.
“Let’s just do it Sandy,” a vamp called Rex said.
“I like to play with my food. Reminds me of-”
Rex, and a terrified freshman named Jeremy, never got to hear what playing with her food made Sandy remember. Part of Jeremy would forever wish that Connor had staked the vamp a couple seconds later.
Rex was confused for a moment, giving Connor all the advantage he needed. “What the-” . . . poof. Dust.
Four more vamps jumped down from the roof of the club. A female named Charlotte, who’d been a gymnast in the 1960’s, surprised Connor with a barrage of kicks and punches. Connor threw up a hasty block to a great kick toward his head.
Two of the other vamps grabbed Connor’s arms, knocking his stake loose and holding him in place. He pulled his right arm toward him, pulling Rich, the vamp on his right arm, toward him. He jerked his head hard and head-butted the vamp, getting it to release the arm.
Connor swung his left arm throwing Lee, the vamp who’d been holding his left arm, into Charlotte. He quickly grabbed it his stake from the ground and quickly plunged it into Rich’s chest, dusting him. The fourth vamp, Brad, ran off into the club. Connor stole a glance at the fleeing vampire. He hadn’t seen Brad yet. As he looked at Brad, Lee slammed Connor in the heads with a hard right hook.
Connor staggered back. The punch hurt, but it hurt less than Connor was making it out to have. Feigning injury got Lee’s hopes up and he charged Connor. Connor quickly flipped the stake from his right hand to his left. He punched hard with his right. Lee spun, trying to dodge the punch, but Connor’s fist flew open. Connor grabbed Lee’s shoulder and pulled the vampire toward him as he jerked the stake forward, dusting Lee.
No sooner was Lee dust then Charlotte was on him. She hit him like a ton of bricks, which surprised him considering her 110-pound frame. Then again, weighing only 140 pounds himself, Connor was no heavyweight.
Connor became slightly disoriented as he hit the ground. Years of training made him roll, but Charlotte was still on top of him and stopped him from getting away. Her face vamped and she had his arms pinned. Connor tried to pull loose, but she had the leverage. Craning his neck, Connor bit hard into Charlotte’s ear.
Charlotte screamed in pain. She pulled away so quickly that the blood spurting from her neck looked like a red ribbon trailing from her hair.
“How do you like it?” Connor hissed as he sprung to his feet.
Charlotte laughed despite herself and the considerable pain in her ear. The kid had a sense of humor. She’d give him that.
Connor plunged with the stake, but Charlotte wasn’t done yet. She quickly kicked the stake from his hand and grabbed his hair. She pulled his face close to hers and tried to go for his neck. As her eyes sunk to the level of Connor’s mouth, he spit at her. His spit, still red with her blood, blinded her for a moment, but only a moment. Connor knew the opening wouldn’t be long enough to let him grab the stake from the ground. He had to keep her on the defensive.
Connor grasped both of Charlotte’s shoulders and pushed her back away from the building. He knew he didn’t have time. Brad was somewhere in the club, possibly escaping or, worse yet, getting reinforcements. Connor quickly pushed Charlotte toward where the loading dock was when the building served as a factory. He slammed her body into a pile of wooden pallets as hard as he could. Even with Charlotte’s tiny body, the force with which Connor slammed her caused the pallets to splinter. As Charlotte pulled away from them, Connor ripped a loose board from one of the pallets and slammed it into Charlotte’s heart.
†
The crowd of people was so thick Connor had to shove his way through. Brad’s scent was faint compared to the odors of sweat, booze, and pot permeating the cub.
“Fuck off, Craig!” a girl shouted. “I’m not even talking to you.”
“I was doing you a favor, babe. You always complain I’m pressuring you for sex. If I bang other chicks, I won’t have to do that.”
“What kind of dicked up logic is that?”
The scent was faint, but it was still enough. Connor followed it straight to Brad. He was watching the couple argue, waiting for the girl to storm out by herself. She’d be alone and distracted; completely vulnerable.
“If you’d put out,” Craig began.
“You won’t even say you love me and you expect me to have sex with you?”
“I love you. Now let’s go fuck.”
People were either paying attention to the arguing couple or not paying attention to anything due to the loud music and the fact that they were completely stoned. No one seemed to notice a guy jabbing another guy with a piece of wood.
“You know what, I will start putting out,” the girl shouted. “I’m putting your ass out on the street where you belong you scum bag.”
The girl turned to leave, bumping into Connor.
“Janice, wait,” Craig called. He grabbed her arm and jerked her away.
“Don’t do that,” Connor said angrily, knocking the guy’s hand off Janice.
“Who the hell are you?” Craig said angrily.
Janice glanced behind her to see the boy who jerked Craig arm off of her. “He’s the guy who’s walking me back to my dorm,” Janice said.
“He is?” Craig said sarcastically.
Connor glanced at Janice, then Craig. “I am,” he said firmly.
Craig swung at Connor. Connor reacted so casually, it looked like he was swatting a fly away. He nailed Craig in the forehead with the palm of his hand and Craig dropped to the ground.
“Wow,” Janice said. “Are you like a black belt or something?”
Connor glanced down at the waist of his jeans. “No. It looks brown.”
Janice laughed, then glanced around at the gawking crowd. “We need to go.” She took his hand and pulling him toward the door.
†
“So he took out a couple of cops,” Diane said with a shrug as she ate her Grand Slam at the Denny’s on El Camino Real. Had they been there exactly 24 hours earlier, they would have found their quarry climbing into the trunk of a sedan. “What’s the big deal? I mean, he didn’t even kill them.”
“Yes,” Giles said, looking at what passed for tea in an American chain diner. “Which is perplexing to say the least. But the speed of his movements and his strength, given his size-”
“He’s a vampire,” Diane said, downing her third chocolate milk. “I’m sold. So what? World’s got tons of them.”
“This one seems particularly unstable and dangerous. The sporting goods store-”
“In which he also killed no one,” Diane noted.
“And he’s also flaunting the unwritten code of vampires to maintain discretion. Thus attracting more attention to our business than we care to have.”
“What’s so bad about that? Maybe people should know what’s out there in the shadows.”
“If they’d believe it. Besides, we tend to use various magicks to combat vampires. The last time Americans though they had witches in their midst, they tended to react poorly to the situation.”
†
“Oh my god, it’s almost dawn,” Janice said as she looked out the window. She gave a slight giggle. Connor shrugged, indicating he missed the joke. “Sorry. Dawn is the name of my best friend from Sunnydale. I really need to call her.”
“Sunnydale?” Connor said, recognizing the name.
“Yeah,” Janice said. “The town that sunk into the ground.”
“Oh. I didn’t hear about that.”
“You didn’t hear about the town that got leveled in an earthquake? What’ve you been in a cave for a year?”
Connor looked down sadly.
“Sorry,” Janice said. “That was supposed to be a joke not a bad feeling making words thing.”
“It’s just . . . I don’t know where I’ve been for the past year. I . . . I have memories that make no sense. I . . . I remember family I never had. It’s just . . . confusing. You probably think I’m crazy.”
“Oh, yeah,” Janice smiled. “You’re a psycho all right. That’s why you spent the night in my room talking. No. Wait. Not talking. Listening. I mean, what guy does that?”
“I don’t know,” Connor said defensively, confusing Janice’s rhetorical question for one she wanted answered.
“You’re different. But in a good way.”
Connor shook his head. “I’m not good. Every time I try to be, it gets all screwed up. The last thing I remember, I didn’t . . . never mind. I’m just tired.”
“Well,” Janice said, glancing at her futon. “If you promise not to try anything, you can sleep here.”
“Try any what?”
Janice laughed. “You really are the most peculiar boy I ever met.”
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