Author:Philip S.

Pairing:

Rating:R

Summary:A night out for Kate, Buffy, Spike, and Angel, as they try to keep the peace between Vampires and humans. By force, if necessary Completed June 7, 2001

This story is set a few months prior to Soulworld II
#

The knock on the door caused the doorkeeper to look up from his copy of Playboy magazine. He had heard that this issue would feature photos of the Vampire Darla, but apparently whoever had put that rumor into circulation had been mistaken. Too bad.

They were expecting a customer, but he wasn't paid a fair amount of money to be careless. So he checked the readiness of the gun tucked into his waistband and then opened the viewing slit of the steel door.

Outside stood a woman in a long, black coat, equally black hair falling down around her shoulders, her eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. She was on the short side, looked rather young, but carried herself with an easy confidence that told him not to underestimate her.

"Whadda you want?" He snarled at her.

"Got an appointment with Joe Public. Open the door!"

He motioned for two of his colleagues to come closer, then slowly opened the door. The woman walked inside without a care in the world and looked at the three armed men that had come to greet her.

"It's night outside!" One of them snarled at her.

"Observant."

"So what's with the shades?"

"They look cool!"

That produced a laugh from the three men and the tension level was reduced a fair bit, though none of them lowered their guns.

"One thing before we proceed." The doorkeeper said and took something out from behind his back. It was a large cross and he held it into her face. The woman just looked at it with interest from behind her shades.

"Touch it!" One of the men said.

She did so and there was none of the treacherous smoke or sizzling that would have resulted had she been anything but a plain old human being.

"We'll have to search you." The doorkeeper informed her, putting the cross away.

She spread her arms. "Be my guest!"

He holstered his gun and walked forward, searching her for weapons. She carried a .38 in a shoulder holster. That was the only weapon she had. He diligently searched the rest of her body, though, and his hands sometimes lingered a little bit longer than absolutely necessary.

She was a looker.

"Okay, you can go up."

The woman looked around, taking in the large warehouse she had entered. Lots of crates filled most of the available space, about a dozen men were moving around among them. Everyone was armed.

"What about my gun?" She asked the man that had taken her weapon.

"You'll get it back when you leave, darling."

She nodded and walked up the metal ladder that led to the office, which resided over the warehouse like a lookout. She knocked and heard a muffled "Come in!" from inside.

The office was mostly bare, little to no personal items from the occupant. A single large desk, several chairs, and a coffee machine on a small table in the corner. That was it.

"Take a seat!" The man only known as Joe Public said.

For a moment the two of them just studied each other across the desk. Joe Public was a man in his mid-forties, bald, seemingly in good shape, wearing casual clothing. The desk in front of him was littered with papers and a single, large gun rested close to his hand.

"Before we talk about business," he said after a while, "I would like to know how you heard of us, Ms. ..."

"Smith." She said, smiling.

"Of course."

"I have friends. They have friends. I hear things."

"And you are interested in the things you heard about us, Ms. Smith?" He asked.

"I wouldn't be here otherwise."

He nodded. "Very well. I assume you will want a demonstration?"

"I don't buy the cat in the bag, Mr. Public."

"Call me Joe!" He smiled a sleazy smile at her. "We have prepared something, of course. Follow me, please!"

They left the office and walked into another room where a young man was tied to a chair, watched over by two more armed men, who also carried crosses and had stakes tucked into the waistbands of their jeans. He couldn't be much older than twenty, at least from the looks of him, but his eyes said he was a lot older.

He was a Vampire.

"We are quite proud of our merchandise." Joe Public said, taking a gun from a nearby table. "We always had the problem that normal bullets can't really harm the bloodsuckers. Unless you pack them in an automatic and saw their heads off with a full-auto burst, but that is impractical most of the times."

He took out a clip of peculiar-looking bullets.

"We experimented with wooden bullets, but the things wouldn't work. Jammed the gun about four out of five times. Silver is a little too expensive and not tough enough, besides. So instead we developed these babies." He showed her one. "Magnesium core. Soft-tipped. They enter the bloodsucker and then burst into flames. The dead guys combust real easy, so often even a hit in the arm or the leg will do the trick. Hit the head or body and we guarantee it will roast every piece of undead ass you can find."

He put the single bullet into the gun and handed it to the woman.

"Give it a try! You will like the results!"

She weighed the gun in her hand for a moment, a simple movement that told Joe Public she knew how to handle one, then chambered a round and aimed the gun at the captured Vampire, who stared at her with wide eyes.

The man called Joe Public never knew what happened next. He only saw a blur and heard the crash of glass hailing from the overhead skylight. A shot went off, another, but he couldn't tell who had shot at whom. Something impacted against his chest and drove him into the wall with a painful thud that made his ribs creak.

When his vision cleared again he found himself pinned against the wall by a man he had never seen before, but whose face told him all he needed to know. Amber demon eyes blazed in a face framed by ridges and fangs glistened in the light of the office.

"I am not satisfied with the merchandise!" The woman stood behind him, the gun of one of his men in hand, and smiled. Her black wig had fallen to the floor, as had her shades, and the look in her blue eyes told him another thing.

Cop!

"I would tell you your rights," the Vampire said, "but I'm sure you've gotten them read to you plenty of times before." With that the Vampire delivered a knockout blow to Joe Public's head and let him slide to the floor.

"How many?" The Vampire asked the woman.

"About a dozen. All of them armed." She looked down at one of Joe's men. "How many of them carry that magnesium ammo?"

He was about to give her a few very rude names, but the look on the face of the Vampire quickly discouraged him.

"None of them!" He hissed.

"Liar." The Vampire smiled at him. "So they all do, eh?"

There was noise coming from outside, a few shouts.

"I guess they heard us." The woman said.

"Let's announce ourselves properly!"

#

The Vampire and the cop exploded out of the door simultaneously, jumping in different directions before the first bullet even left its barrel. Kate found cover behind one of the crates and took but a moment to catch her breath. A man was moving around the crate she sat behind, she could hear his footsteps only a few feet away. She threw herself on the floor and slid around the corner, putting a bullet into his knee. The man crumbled to the floor, the shotgun he had carried falling from his hands.

"I hate those things." She mumbled, picking up the gun despite herself.

Angel was running across the metal catwalk that led across the warehouse and mentally counted the men he could see. Kate had been a bit conservative in her estimate, there were at least fifteen of them, maybe more. All armed. He saw a bullet impact against the wall nearest to him and had to avert his eyes as it sizzled and sparked. Magnesium bullets.

"Nasty stuff!" He mumbled.

Angel jumped off the catwalk into the maze of crates below. Three men fell unconscious at his feet before they even knew he was there. That earned him a hail of bullets from several other men that stood a good ten meters away.

He started running toward them. While Vampires weren't fast enough to actually dodge bullets (Buffy had taken him to see Matrix and he found it completely unconvincing, if amusing) his superior senses and reflexes allowed him to avoid any hits by jumping between the crates and clearing the distance in less than two seconds.

Kate had dropped another two men when she heard the click of a gun directly behind her. Before she even began to turn she knew that she would be too slow. The shot thundered in the narrow space between the crates and it took her a few seconds to realize that she wasn't hit.

A man dropped to the floor as she finished turning around and two newcomers stood only a few feet behind him.

"Shoot not a cop in the back," Spike said, blowing smoke off his gun, "lest you be shot in the back in turn!"

"I think that piece of scripture went a little bit different." Buffy said, her own gun in hand.

Spike was dressed in his normal outfit, black leather duster, black jeans, red shirt, a large gun in each hand. Buffy, on the other hand, wore a black pants suit that looked like it had come directly from the cleaners, along with a white blouse that looked quite expensive.

"Angel's late!" Buffy said, tapping her watch. "We're supposed to go to the theater."

Normally the presence of civilians would have angered Kate, but they had just saved her life and besides, she knew that these two weren't exactly civilians. Spike was Angel's oldest and best friend and a Vampire besides. Angel had introduced Buffy as his girlfriend and she was not a Vampire, though Kate had seen her do things that a normal human could never do.

"Quit standing around!" Angel yelled as he jumped around the corner, a few bullets whizzing past him. Spike, Kate, and Buffy immediately raised their own weapons and welcomed the people on Angel's heels with some bullets of their own.

"There are only a few of them left." Angel informed them.

"Then let's go get them!" Buffy said and leapt straight up in the air to the top of a crate, a move that left Kate breathless for a moment. The blonde girl moved with a speed that reduced her shape to a blur.

Buffy spotted an open crate near to a cluster of armed men and quickly emptied her gun into it. The munitions exploded with enough force to shake the building and human shapes were scattered like leaves.

"Oops!" She laughed.

"Bloody hell, you want to blow us up?" Spike yelled from below.

"I didn't, did I?" She yelled back.

"Would you two please concentrate on what we're doing here?" Angel yelled at both of them.

Buffy holstered her gun and jumped off the crate, spotting another armed man just a few steps away. His gun started swiveling toward her, but Buffy reached him first. She jumped while she was still two steps away and drove her foot into his face.

"Anybody need help?" She yelled as he dropped at her feet.

The sounds of shooting had faded from the warehouse and moments later Angel, Kate, and Spike walked into view. Spike had a captured shotgun slung over his shoulder, the barrels still smoking. Angel dropped the empty clips from his guns and loaded new ones.

"You all right, beloved?" He asked her.

"Not a scratch. You?"

"Nasty stuff." Spike said, examining one of the crates with the bullets. "Wouldn't want that to fall into the hands of one of the hate groups."

"It won't." Angel said. "You got your tools?"

"Sure, mate!" Spike smiled and opened his coat, showing half a dozen grenades hanging on the inside.

"Pick one, luv!" He told Buffy.

"Wait a minute!" Kate said. "You can't just ..."

"We'll just say it got blown up during the fighting." Angel said. "You really want that stuff to be around?"

After a moment Kate sighed and nodded. The things she had to endure when working with a Vampire.

#

With the warehouse in flames behind them and the surviving arms dealers tied up and waiting for the LAPD to pick them up, the two Vampires, one Slayer, and one human walked back to their cars. Buffy tried to wipe some sooth from her blouse without much success.

"That is what I get for coming to your aid." She complained.

"You look beautiful." Angel said, kissing her neck.

"I don't listen to you. You're biased."

"True!" He said, kissing her again.

Angel opened the door to the limo they had rented for the night, all the while taking off his coat to reveal the tux he wore beneath. It had survived the battle without a scratch.

"You can change into something else while we drive, beloved!" He told Buffy as she climbed inside.

"You only want to watch!"

"True!" He said again and closed the door behind him.

Kate watched as they drove away, quite stunned with Angel's behavior. What had happened to her grim and gritty partner?

"What can I say, pet?" Spike shrugged, heading for his own car. "That's what happens when a guy is in love."

"Save me from enamored Vampires!" Kate grumbled and headed for her desk and all the paperwork.



THE END