Ripper
Part 1
Red Moon, Book 7
Author: Frau Hunter Ash
Copyright ©
2003by Hunter Ash. All Rights Reserved.
Email:
hunterash@sti.net Feedback welcome!!
Homepage Addy:
http://www.hunterash.com/
Disclaimers: The characters and show
all belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui, and God only knows whom else. The storyline,
however, is the sole property of the author. This story cannot be sold or used
for profit in any way. Copies of this story may be made for private use only
and must include all disclaimers and copyright notices.
F/F romance:
the story assumes a loving and sexual relationship between people of the same
gender and may even include 3 at the same time <G>. If this offends or is illegal for you, then
please leave. Come back when you are
older, have an open mind, moved, or changed your laws.
Spoilers:
This series starts at Season 4 and branches off.
Summary: One of the Scooby Gang is
missing, sending everyone into a nightmare of anxiety and fear. The search
leads the gang to a familiar face and a new sorcerer. (While it's not absolutely necessary, you might want
to read
Book 1: Red Moon Rising , Book 2: Wolves, Slayers and Cages ,
Book 3: Wanted – A Werewolf and a Superman ,
Book 4: In Thrall,
Book 5: Welcome to My Nightmare,
Book 6: Family
Matters, to find out where things are at
in this story. <G>)
Rating:
PG13,
Red Moon Series, Book 7
Frau Hunter Ash
# # #
February in Sunnydale
Jagdesh Singh sighed as he watched the group of teens enter the store. This was almost a regular event, happening every other day. They would enter, cause a ruckus, steal him blind and dash for the safety of the back streets of Sunnydale.
The Indian Sikh didn’t mind so much with this group, they didn’t steal cigarettes, beer or candy, they stole cans of tuna, green beans, chili; in other words, food.
The Sikh owner of the small mini mart remembered growing up
on the dirt streets in
The Sihk made a show of chasing the teens out, yelling and screaming that he was going to call the police and then ignored his wife’s glares as he went back to work.
The small group of teens, known among the runaways and street people as the Jesus Brigade laughed, as they ducked down a series of alleys leading back to their residence. This week it was an old mansion in the dying part of town. It wasn’t bad, dark and cold at night but the cops didn’t cruise by often and there weren’t any neighbors to report their candlelight.
“Hey,” Slash slowed down when they turned the corner, slowing the rest of the group down. He pointed and everyone crowded around the figure on the alley floor.
It was a man and all he had on was a pair of black sweat pants. He had his back to them and was curled up on a piece of cardboard.
“Holy crap!” Gator,
who a lifetime before had been born and raised in
“Damn!” Molly muttered. “Looks like ripped up newspaper, is that his skin?”
“Yeah,” Slash said, being the one to kneel down next to the man. “Hey, man, can you hear me?”
The man opened his eyes but didn’t seem to register Slash’s presence.
“Leave him,” Samson, so called because of his long hair, urged. “Just some kinky drunk.”
“Nah,” Slash said softly. “His hands are hurt and that back wasn’t kinky, that was major hurt.”
“He’s older, not a street kid,” Molly argued.
“Yeah, but he’s one of us and it’s getting dark,” Slash smiled, lifting something up from around the man’s neck. Molly nodded as the dusk sunlight shone on a cheap but very large pewter cross.
Samson wore a leather collar with silver crosses tacked to it; Slash wore three different silver crosses, each chain a different length, creating a row of crosses down his chest. All the other street kids of the group wore very visible crosses, hence the name, Jesus Brigade.
Samson grabbed the man’s feet as Slash moved to snatch him under the shoulders.
Molly adjusted her own large gothic cross with an uneasy glance at the setting sun.
# # #
Rack smiled when he spotted the red-haired witch making her way through the crowd waiting outside his door for their magic “fix.” She had been coming to him for over a week and the sorcerer was beyond pleased. Witches with power of her caliber didn’t cross his threshold often. He was surprised some powerful sorcerer hadn’t grabbed her up for proper training.
Not that Rack was complaining. He wasn’t one for training anyone. The sorcerer had learned his talents weren’t much beyond simple casting but his true talent lay in what he did with it. Taking those with slight magic talent on hazy “trips,” feeding them just enough magical energy to get them stoned, kept them coming back for more until they were desperate enough to pay the price, that was Rack’s talent. He was a natural born “drug” dealer.
The price tag for each one was different. Most of the time it was sex, especially from the good looking females. Sometimes money, sometimes drugs. It always included their magical energy until they were used up and useless to be discarded like empty fast food bags.
So far the red-head hadn’t reached the point of being desperate yet and Rack was enjoying their “sessions.” She had an inner spark and spunk that he liked and related too. He could especially relate to her darkness and knew that she had tasted it before meeting him. Rack hoped to draw her back to that before he was done.
The sorcerer began thinking of making her a partner as the week went on. With her power and his guidance, they could rule Sunnydale within months.
Rack went to the head of the line and smiled down at the one he had nicknamed Strawberry. “Give me a minute, lover,” he asked, closing the door before she could protest they weren’t lovers. He knew that would come in time as well. It always did.
The pusher turned his one good eye towards the curtained area at the back of his residence and smiled. He needed a push himself and had the perfect solution. A ready made generator. Of course he didn’t know how much longer this one could last, Rack had been draining him for two months already and the man was almost mindless.
Rack walked over and squatted in front of the chained man and smiled. “Got to remember to feed you today, don’t I? You’re looking a little thin and weak.”
“Balls off,” the man muttered in a rare moment of life.
Rack grinned wide. He did like spunk, he also loved it when they resisted and with this one he had free rein.
The sorcerer reached out and placed his hand over his prisoner’s chest and yanked the magical and life energy from the man, using the most painful of methods. His prisoner screamed as his body arched and he struggled against the chains holding him close to the wall. After a moment, Rack released him and the man slumped over on his side barely conscious, blood flowing from his nose.
Rack opened the door and motioned Strawberry inside. The young woman looked around and settled in her favorite spot, a large and comfortable sofa. Rack followed her over and sat next to her. “Ready for a ride?” he purred.
“Who’s that?” Strawberry asked with a frown, pointing at the man in chains. The young woman could tell that the man had been there awhile from the wounds on his wrists and ankles from the chains and his emaciated appearance. His trousers were in tatters and he was missing his shirt, shoes and socks. His chest and arms were covered with burns and cuts, obviously having been through torture.
“He’s our power source, Strawberry,” Rack smiled, shrugging off his mistake of not closing the curtains. “You’ll be feeding on his energy today.”
“You use him to supply your magical trips and then steal the life force from those kids out there paying you for the trips,” Strawberry ventured with a smile. “You’re clever. How long have you been doing this?”
“A lot longer than you would think,” Rack laughed, reaching out to stroke her hair. “I’m far older than I look. The energy keeps me young and the downfall of all those souls out there keep me alive and give me power.”
“Deals with devils?” Strawberry smirked.
“Something like that,” Rack nodded. “You want in? You could live forever if you do it right. All those desperate kids out there, they supply the energy and we give them moments of escape. Think about it, it’s either us and magic or ecstasy and clubbing all night long.”
“Yeah,” Strawberry said slowly. “I think I do.”
”You’ve tasted the power, I can feel it,” Rack smiled, leaning back on the
sofa.
“Yes, I was almost totally over when I was nabbed by self righteous white-light types,” Strawberry growled. “They drained my energy and put bindings on me. Took me forever to slowly work those off.”
“You want it back, Strawberry?” Rack asked softly.
“Yes,” the red-head nodded firmly, glancing over at the chained prisoner. “What’s his story? He looks almost done for.”
“He won’t last much longer,” Rack agreed. “Gotta say, he’s lasted longer than I thought. Once I got past his shields I discovered that he was a remarkable source of power. He had been neglecting it for so long though.”
“How did you get him?” the young woman asked, sitting forward on the sofa and looking at the prisoner as he stirred slightly.
“I bought the markers of a big time magic caster,” Rack smirked. “Seems he has this serious gambling problem and I bought his markers. One of those who owed him was a sorcerer who owed some major magical energy. To keep me from collecting out of his hide, he gave me his friend.”
“Oh cold!” the girl smirked.
“Totally,” Rack agreed. “We kidnapped his old mate, used the connections they still had to bind him and start draining him.”
“Will you kill him or leave him drained? Could he recover his magic?” Strawberry asked thoughtfully.
“Possibly regain his magic someday,” Rack frowned in thought. “He probably won’t though. Weird case, girlfriend. The torture I use to build his energy and anger up has reacted badly with him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I torture them to raise their anger, makes the magic easier to drain,” Rack explained. “Then they get hopeless and their shields are totally gone. This one, he had shields on top of shields, some of them from himself. He cut off part of himself behind walls and refused to deal with stuff, I guess. When I knocked those walls down, he can’t handle it and is mentally out to lunch.”
“What do you mean ‘cut himself off’?” Strawberry asked, obviously curious.
“I’ve seen it a lot in the kids who come through here,” Rack shrugged. “Some of them were, or are, so abused that their minds couldn’t take it and separates into fragments. Sometimes even forming personalities to deal with the pain and stuff.”
“I remember that from psych class, alter personalities,” Strawberry nodded. “He’s a multiple?”
“Not quite totally,” Rack smiled. “Something happened in his youth that snapped his mind and he totally rejected whoever he had been and stuffed that down. Now without those shields, all that is trying to come to the surface and he can’t handle it.”
“So he’s retreating into what?” the girl asked with a frown.
“Into the void,” Rack smirked. “No mind, no focus, no personality.”
“Catatonic? Wow! Unusual!”
“Yeah, his energy is almost done,” Rack looked over at his toy without expression. “He’ll probably be dead in days. Now, let’s talk about you joining me.”
Strawberry nodded, turning away from the prisoner.
# # #
The next night Strawberry was back on the sofa with Rack. This time he considered them as beginning partners and was moving to nuzzle her neck, making it apparent what part of that partnership would entail. Strawberry bared her neck to him, pulling him closer as he moved to kiss her.
Strawberry pushed him back slightly. He looked at her with a growl and then a puzzled expression at her smile. “What?” he demanded.
“Equals, Rack,” Strawberry insisted. “Share it with me while we do this. I want to feel your mind and energy as you take me.”
Rack moaned at the thought of finally achieving sex with the beautiful and powerful witch and nodded. He moved to kiss her as she pulled him on top of her on the sofa. He felt her energy touching his and lowered his shields enough to let her in to most of his self.
The sorcerer shouted in surprise when the door to his inner chamber flew open. He tried to get up and found that his limbs felt like lead and he had no energy. He looked down and found Strawberry’s eyes Magic black from her casting, from her holding him and binding him from acting.
In his doorway was a small blonde female and a young man armed with a crossbow.
“Slayer,” Rack muttered, recognizing the vague description
running around the demon bars. “Slayer and witch.
Where’s the other witch?” he growled as
“Keeping your toys out there at bay,” Buffy growled. “Will, where’s Giles?”
“Curtain, over there,” the witch muttered, letting Buffy wrap an arm around her. Buffy took the crossbow from Xander, pointing it at Rack while her friend rushed to the curtain, flinging it back.
“Hey, guys!” Xander called.
The two lovers looked over and blinked. The chains were empty and there was no sign of Rack’s prisoner other than blood-coated shackles. Buffy turned to the sorcerer, her eyes blazing.
“Where is he?!” she shouted.
Rack smirked and refused to answer.
Buffy crossed the space quickly and brought the butt of the crossbow up under Rack’s chin, sending the man almost flying over the back of the sofa. He slid down onto it, barely conscious.
“You like torture?” Buffy hissed, grabbing him by his genitals. “I’ll show you what real pain is if you don’t tell me where he is!”
“Slayers don’t kill humans,” Rack muttered.
“I don’t care about ethics right now,” Buffy snapped. “That’s my Watcher, friend and Dad-figure. And Strawberry over there really loves him like a dad too and she’s not a Slayer. Want her to let loose on you?”
“Wouldn’t dare,” Rack smirked through his bloody nose.
“Xander?” Buffy called as the young man left the torture area.
“No sign, nothing left of his,” Xander said softly. Buffy
knew the sight of the gore coated shackles and
“Will?” Buffy called, her face firm. “You tell us where he is or we walk out of here and leave you to her.”
Rack looked over with another smirk, thinking he knew Strawberry/Willow and her limitations. His eyes widened as her eyes changed from Magic-black to a strange yellow and black. She smiled, revealing fangs and stretched out a hand.
The sorcerer wasn’t aware that he whimpered slightly as reddish fur sprouted on the girls’ hand and the fingernails became claws.
“Okay, all right!” he shouted. “I finished with him and tossed him outside last night! I put a cross around his neck and threw him out!”
“Why a cross?” Buffy asked, obviously puzzled.
“A fighting chance,” Rack muttered, dropping his head. “He was a sorcerer once.”
“Rack, listen closely,” Buffy snarled, squatting down in front of him. “Fair warning, pack up your traveling medicine show here and get out of my town. Next time I’ll let Strawberry take you out… painfully. You ever see a werewolf play with its food?”
Rack turned pale and nodded.
“Come on, guys, let’s find Dad,” Buffy said, turning and ignoring the pusher.
Once outside the magically shielded place,
“Did you do any energy tonight?’ Buffy asked, immediately concerned.
Throughout the two weeks of drawing Rack into trusting her
and finding Giles,
Tara and the Magic Instructor from the Watcher’s Council had
worked nightly with
“No, just him dropping his shields and me binding him,”
Willow sighed, leaning into Buffy’s arms as they walked around to the back of
the building.
After reassuring
“Okay, most likely he dumped Giles back here,” Xander said thoughtfully. “Can you track him magically now that Rack and Ethan aren’t blocking you from seeing Giles?”
“More than likely, if he’s alive, we’ll find him now!”
“While we’re following the trail like a bloodhound, would you fill me in?” Xander asked with a trademark confused look. “Anya and I get home tonight from a buying trip and you grab us for attack stuff saying you found Giles after he’s been missing for two months.”
“Well, Quentin suggested that we search for anyone with a connection to Giles’ past,” Willow smiled.
“That someone had to have a connection to Giles magically to
block his energy from all of us,”
“Especially you guys, major witch-fu types!” Xander agreed.
“So that led to Ethan? How did we get here and what was
“Well,” Buffy smiled and glanced over at her wives. “
“The Watcher was being watched?” Xander quipped.
“Yeah,”
“Meaning she hit him until he talked,” Xander smirked and
“Ethan did some major magickal stuff and got into debt with some unethical magic types,” Buffy explained. “Sleaze-ball in there bought the markers and Ethan was in debt to him.”
Xander blinked as his face flushed with anger. “How does Giles play into that?”
“Rack feeds on magical and life energy,”
“Magic, Giles once did magic,” Xander nodded, following the line of thought with a frown. “Ethan gave Giles to that bastard?”
“Yes,” Buffy nodded, her eyes pained. “Once we knew who, we had to find where. Took
“That’s why she looks like a street kid. Nice Doc Martins, there, Will. And here we are,” Xander finished, looking around at the grimy alley. “He just used up Giles and threw him out? In Sunnydale?”
“Yes,” Buffy whimpered.
“Is he… can he be okay?” Xander asked softly.
“We don’t know, Xan,” Buffy whispered as the air around them began humming with energy from her wives.
“Got it,”
“Let’s get Giles back,” Xander growled. “Then I want to come back and kick that guy’s ass some more.”
“Total agreement, Giles then ass kicking,” Buffy nodded.
# # #
Gator frowned as Molly tried to get the stranger to eat without much success. They had managed to clean him up fairly well. The group had lucked out and found a house where the owners were out of town on vacation and there weren’t any noisy neighbors. That meant something the group seldom had in their lives: electricity and clean water.
The older man didn’t even flinch or cover himself when the males pulled his sweat pants off and got him into a tub of hot water. Molly, having a more gentle touch, had bathed him and talked to him.
They had dressed him in a clean pair of boxers, sweat pants and an extra-large t-shirt from the owner’s dresser.
All the while, the stranger didn’t react to anything.
“He’s not all there, is he?” Gator asked softly.
“No, he’s deep in his mind or in the ozone,” Molly nodded, finally using the spoon to open his mouth. To her surprise he accepted the food and began chewing.
“Hey, progress, sweet pea!” Gator grinned.
“What do you think happened to him?” Molly asked as she fed the handsome older guy.
“Don’t know, was really bad, whatever it was,” Gator pondered.
“How do we help him?” Molly asked with a frown.
“We take him to the mission and leave him there in the morning,” Samson said firmly, looking in on his two friends and stranger.
“They’ll just toss him out, they won’t even notice he needs help,” Molly complained.
“Hey, buddy, you really need to snap out of this and let us help you,” Gator urged.
Giles’ focus shifted slightly, turning Magic black for a moment. The shattered sorcerer held out his hand, clenched in a fist. Molly, startled by the eyes changing colors, had squeaked and fell out of her chair.
Gator, not as easily startled, reached over and unclenched Giles’ hand and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Holy Mary!”
“What is that? A fifty?” Samson squeaked.
“Yeah, it is,” Gator nodded, undoing the crumbled bill.
“It was in the clothes,” Samson growled.
“No pockets and he was just naked like ten minutes ago,” Molly countered. “He hasn’t been out of our sight and he hasn’t gone rummaging through drawers.”
“Hey, Merlin, can you do that again?” Gator asked, grinning.
Giles’ eyes shifted again and he closed his hand and opened it, revealing a crumbled twenty. Still his eyes refused to focus on any of the teens in the room and he showed no emotion.
“Holy!” Samson grinned. “Merlin, keep that up and we can rent a hotel room and have decent food.”
Giles’ head dropped forward, his eyes closing.
“Okay, let’s put him on the sofa,” Molly said firmly. “We’re gonna help him. That cross means he’s one of us and not a muoggle.”
“We’ll take care of him,” Samson nodded.
Across town Ethan would find his wallet $70 lighter and would blame the succubus prostitute he had been with that evening.
# # #
”Baby?” she asked softly.
“We keep losing the trail,”
“Want to translate that, Will?” Xander asked with raised eyebrows.
“He’s not leaving a signature that he normally would because
he’s not mentally Giles,”
“So he keeps changing his magic scent?” Xander pondered.
“I am so going to hit you for thinking of me as a
bloodhound,”
“What do we do, guys?” Buffy asked with a worried frown. “Do we give up and try again or will the trail go cold?”
“We need to find him,” Xander said anxiously. “I mean, the longer he’s gone the longer Quentin Travers and Watcher types stay in town.”
“I know,”
“That’s not gonna
happen,” Buffy said firmly, kissing
“Definitely not,”
”We’re not going to find him before dark and I’m wiped out,”
“Let’s call Brad,” Xander suggested. “Now we know Giles is on the street, maybe he and the cops can actually find something for once.”
“Good idea,” Buffy smiled. It had been awhile since they had
seen Detective Santiago and his wife. He was usually kept very busy since
moving from
He and his wife had been accepted into the group and he had spent numerous hours searching for Giles along with the gang and Council members.
# # #
Brad looked up from his desk as a uniformed officer escorted
a beautiful young red-haired woman towards his work area. He wasn’t surprised
to see
He shook his head slightly as
“What kind of lead?”
Now Joyce looked ten years older and had lost her luster, her skin becoming almost gray. Buffy, Tara and Xander were running on caffeine and stress. Anya was overworked running the Magic Box and everyone was going crazy with Quentin Travers and several Watcher Council members hovering around, trying to help but at the same time encouraging the Slayer and witches to start moving on and back to their studies. The last time Quentin had suggested that Buffy had nearly thrown him through the window.
“What kind of lead?”
“A grocery store owner over on the westside thinks he’s seen Giles with some local kids. They’re regulars in his place, street kids. He wasn’t sure but he thought Giles was outside the store with one of them while the others ripped him off for food,” Brad said, pointing to a place on a map. “The kids are called the Jesus Brigade by the other street kids and homeless.”
“I’ve heard of them,”
“They know about Sunnydale,” Brad nodded, pieces falling together.
“Looks like,”
“Still can’t track him magically?” Brad asked wearily. He and his wife Teresa had been spending a lot of evenings with the group, Teresa cooking and Brad giving some relief in the seemingly endless search.
“No, it’s like trying to track three different people with
the paths crisscrossing or something,”
“So, in effect, he’s nowhere,” Brad nodded. “What’s so horrible about Ripper that he’d go to such extremes to avoid that?”
“We’re not sure,”
“That’s when he was involved with Ethan, right?” Brad ventured, having already gone over all of this with them.
“Yeah,”
Both detective and witch looked up as another detective approached Brad’s desk.
“
“Are you sure?” Brad asked, not quite believing it was that simple after Giles being missing so long.
“Yeah, description fits pretty well,” detective Romano shrugged.
Brad grabbed his car keys and sport jacket. “We’re going to check it out,” he told Romano.
“Good luck,” the other detective shook his head. “No one comes back in this town.”
“He has too!”
# # #
Moments later they were directed to the ICU ward.
Brad winced when a nurse finally pulled a curtain back from an ICU bed and the detective and witch got their first look at the unidentified male. The detective wasn’t sure he could identify him even if it was Giles.
“Giles,” she whispered, nodding to Brad as she began to cry.
“I’ll call the others and talk with the kids,” Brad said softly as she pulled a stool up to sit next to Giles. “I’ll find a doctor and we’ll figure out what’s going on.”
# # #
“Mom, the doctor wants to talk to all of us,” Buffy said gently, touching her mom’s shoulder as Joyce held Giles’ hand.
“I shouldn’t leave him,” Joyce whimpered.
“He’ll be okay, Mom,” Buffy said softly, trying not to break into tears again as she looked at her stepfather. “The nurses are right there and there’s all kinds of alarms hooked up to him.”
Buffy pulled her Mom to her feet gently, leading her mom towards the waiting room. Joyce whined but allowed it. She glanced at a clock and couldn’t believe that only an hour had passed since Brad had called them, it felt like a lifetime.
The group had rushed to the hospital in several cars to find
Quentin and the magical trainer stood back slightly,
watching
Now the street kids, Watchers, witches, detective and wife waited impatiently for the doctor.
Dr. Franklin Washington, a middle-aged man who hated to be teased about his name, entered the waiting room with raised eyebrows. He had never seen so many people gathered for one patient. He didn’t even try to count.
He sat down across from Joyce and Brad, having asked the nurse who the wife was.
“I’m Frank Washington,” he said softly. “I treated your husband when he was brought up from the Emergency Room.”
“How is he?’ Joyce asked anxiously, her hands rubbing together absently.
“Extremely malnourished and dehydrated,”
”Oh God,” Joyce whimpered, holding Buffy’s hand tightly as
“He wouldn’t eat,” one of the street kids said softly. “Then he wouldn’t drink.”
“It took awhile to get this bad off,” the doctor said.
“He was kidnapped and tortured before the kids found him,” Brad explained, flashing his badge.
“That explains the numerous healed cuts and badly mended
broken fingers,”
“Let me guess, his left hand,” Buffy said bitterly.
“Yes, actually,”
“He’s left handed,” Joyce explained. “It was meant to take his music from him.”
“The kids that were taking care of him said that he hasn’t said a word, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink anything,” Brad told the doctor.
“Depression is a common side effect of starvation,”
“How soon will we know if he’s going to make it?” Buffy asked.
“Forty-eight hours,” he informed them. “If he does survive, his recovery will take at least a month to rebuild enough strength to leave the hospital. Right now he’s in a coma and I don’t think he’s fighting back.”
“Thanks, doc,” Brad sighed.
Dr.
Quentin stepped forward with a frown.
“I think I might have an answer,” he said slowly. “To reach Rupert and get him to fight back but I’m not sure it would work and it would be dangerous for one of the witches.”