Rufus Bennett was not a happy Watcher. Not only was it the middle of the night and he was awake, but he had been physically dragged from his bed to join Lei in a spot of eviction practise. He was tired, irritable, and frankly more than a little alarmed that she felt it necessary to bring him along. What made it worse was how chipper his Slayer was being about the whole affair.
"Would you mind telling me exactly why we're doing this at night?" he whispered hoarsely to her, crouched in the darkness of the main room of Fiora's potential property, watching the slighty darker shape of Shen Lei as she investigated the room thoroughly. "This thing, whatever it is, is vampiric in nature. You know better than to meet one on its own turf in the middle of the night."
"Will you stop worrying?" came the whispered response from somewhere near the blackened windows. Lei didn't sound in the least bit perturbed by their errand; in fact, she sounded quite excited by it. "One, you have a Slayer with you. And two ... vampire it might be, but it doesn't sound like a standard vamp. So I'm investigating."
"In the middle of the night?" Rufus was horrified by the young woman's utter lack of concern for her own, or more importantly, his safety. "Have you completely lost your mind? What on earth are you thinking, this is utterly prepostero -"
He didn't manage to get anything else said. With a speed she usually only reserved for actual contact with the undead, Lei darted across the room and clamped her hand over his mouth. He mumbled a little longer, wild eyes looking up at her in protest, before getting the message. She'd heard something; something that was no doubt about to make its appearance in the little house very soon.
Gently removing her hand from his now still mouth, Lei gave her Watcher a warning look, drawing her favourite weapon from its comfortable resting place in her jacket pocket. This wooden stake had been used so many times it was scorched at the tip, and worn smooth where her fingers gripped it. Rufus took one look at the determination in her stance and swallowed a groan, hunkering down tighter in his chosen hiding place.
Rustling. That's what she could hear. Somewhere above them, undoubtedly in the rafters of this picturesque little house, Fiora's unwelcome squatter was making its way back to its chosen nest. Lei smiled grimly in the darkness. She'd been busy with holy water all over this house. The vampiric whatever was about to make an unpleasant discovery.
Rufus almost swallowed his tongue as a loud shriek suddenly echoed through the little building, piercing in anger and fear. There were several very good reasons why he didn't come on patrols; the desire to bolt for the door was one of them, and it was this that he was fighting at that moment.
The shriek suddenly came to a stop, the silence that followed almost more deafening than that broken cry of despair. Lei crept forward into the center of the little foyer, knowing she was going to need room to manuver once this thing came looking for her. The rustling had returned, and with it, the stench of undead flesh, the prickling of her sixth sense creeping unpleasantly down her spine. Her fingers flexed around the stake. Any minute now ...
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Get it off me, get it off me!"
Spinning, Lei stared for a moment, torn between laughter and concern. Rufus was several feet off the deck, writhing around uselessly in the clawed grip of her prey. The creature itself was indistinct in the darkness, but seemed to be hanging upside down from the rafters. It had obviously honed in on the Watcher's fear, almost casually lifting him off his feet by the scruff of the neck.
Glittering eyes watched the man struggle dispassionately, fangs showing gleaming bright in the dim light from the street. The Slayer watched ... waited ... and launched herself forward, throwing herself into the air to connect with both Watcher and vampire.
They all three landed with a surprisingly loud crash, Rufus rolling away to huddle under a table with his eyes tightly closed. He hated this sort of thing. From the middle of the room there came the thump of flesh hitting flesh, a body rebounding off a wall, the sharp sound of Lei's intake of breath. And then ... nothing.
"Dammit."
That was Lei, angry with herself by the sound of things. Cautiously opening his eyes, Rufus peered into the darkness, trying to locate her. He couldn't see anything, just the thick darkness in front of his face. A darkness that, now he came to think of it, was rather more solid-looking than he might have thought. And breathing.
As he jerked back with a loud curse, the creature hissed at him, opening its mouth wide with the full intention of eating the Watcher where he hid. But quite suddenly it stopped completely, glittering eyes blinking in the darkness for a long moment. There was a sound that could only be described as whoomph, and it burst into flames, the fire consuming every last piece of its ungodly form before his terrified eyes.
In the quiet that followed, he could hear Lei laughing at him, frowning toward the shape of her moving through the room.
"And just what is so funny?" he demanded, crawling out from under the table. His hand touched the hot mark left on the flagstones by the creature's demise, and he flinched away with a yelp, wiping his hand hurriedly on his jacket.
Lei flashed him a white-toothed grin from across the room. "Just you wait until Fiora finds out you scream like a girl."
