Gunn walked out of the house and looked around. If you didn’t know better, this would look like any small town with the pretty houses and the prize rosebushes, that is, if you could ignore the number of eyeless wonders wandering the streets. There were more of them now, a couple down two houses, three sitting in a flower bed across the way, and one just walking away up the sidewalk like a crazy old coot walking his dog on a Saturday afternoon in the spring.
Man, this was ridiculous. How was he gonna find a couple of missing slayers in Amityville town? Forget it. He’d head back to the hotel and see what Wes and Fred had found out.
***
“You’re translating that wrong! It’s not an intransitive verb there, and when you make it intransitive it changes the meaning of the text. The word endings have to follow and then you end up with something about recalcitrant beets.” Wes threw up a hand in disgust, turning toward Gunn as he walked in the door.
Fred jerked the scroll sharply out of Wes’s hand. “No, it’s not about beets! I know you weren’t..." She waved a hand in the air, and turned her head, searching for the right words "...but, but, it’s really elegant, in an inelegant way of course, because, you know, these are demons who eat every third young, and they weren’t so much about learning to write, like, poetry, or, but, it’s consistent, even when it’s inconsistent, it’s like a puzzle. See, right here? They ate their young to grow the…" She stopped when she saw Wes’s face. “Right. I’ll just keep trying.”
“What did Buffy say?” Gunn found it hard to look at Wes and Fred’s expectant faces.
“She’s missing.”
Angel walked in from the bathroom, toweling his hair dry. “Buffy’s missing? Like, missing where? A hell dimension?”
“Like missing, missing. She went patrolling and didn’t come back.” Gunn put the ax down on the table near the window and slumped back on the double bed closest to the door. “Why don’t we have enough money to get two rooms?" He looked around at ugly wallpaper and bad landscapes careful not to look at Angel at all. "I mean, this place ain’t the Hyperion, but… “ He trailed off as Wes cleared his throat.
“Obviously, this is a fraught situation. There are bringers everywhere on the streets, but we think we’ve found a spell to unmake them. We need the slayer though, one of them.” He shot Gunn a keen look. “What about Faith?”
“Faith.” Gunn smiled. “Also missing, went looking for Buffy.” Fred frowned at the look on Gunn’s face. “What?” She shook her head and turned away.
“Willow?”
“Passed out from a bad spell or something.”
Angel turned around and slammed the bathroom door. There was a moment of uneasy silence.
“How much time until sunset?”
“I got about 4 hours. Where’s Lorne?”
Fred piped up, her head still bent over the text. “He said he was going to see what this hotel had for a bar and maybe check out the karaoke. He doesn’t read Garlybrxmtl.” “Garlywhatsis, huh? I think I’m with Lorne.” Gunn slid off the bed and reached for his ax.
“Gunn.” Wes stopped him and he turned around. “Be discreet.”
Gunn caught the handgun Wes threw and looked at him, concerned. “Discreet? Do I even know how to use this thing?” He shrugged at Wes’s look of exasperation. “Yeah, okay, I do, but I like my ax.”
“Keep the gun.”
“Fine.”
****