dragonyphoenix

Title: Weak Link
Fandom: BtVS
Prompt: 445 - Firebrand
Rating: PG
Summary: Part 15 of Shanshu
Word Count: 807
Note: Written for a prompt at Taming the Muse: firebrand.
Note: Looks like it's pick an Andrew week. I make him miserable in Not Your Momma's RPG and he apparently likes what's happened in the comics but, damn! Really?
Note: With the school's motto, I'm referencing my own story, Mission Statement because if you leave Andrew and/or Xander in charge, this will happen.

When camera surveillance had tracked Harris to the airport, Millay had thought she'd lost him. Granted, she could track him but only if he was traveling under his own name, which seemed unlikely if he was running. Turns out he wasn't running, just picking up. His text, to one Andrew Wells, mentioned Willow and meeting him at the school. Millay watched as Xander hugged a young woman. A quick scan of incoming flights and passenger lists came back with a name, Willow Danielle Rosenberg. Not the Buffy Will had spoken of, just as well. Much as Millay wanted the other side of Will's tale, getting Will back came first.

The mention of a school sent Millay back to the info she'd pulled up on Harris the other night, and there it was. The website was smaller than Millay would have expected, but Alex Harris was listed as the Director – not Principal or Headmaster, which seemed a bit odd but whatever – of the Jenkin's School for Gifted Girls. After a further search, she found Andew Wells listed as the school's Grand Jedi Master, but it got weirder. The school's motto was spelled out as Dissipet Omnia Monstra. That had to be a hack. It was a private school, a smegging girl's school at that, from the looks of it the kind of place where the country club set felt perfectly comfortable leaving their spawn. There was no way its motto was the name of a Japanese monster movie.

Deciding she wanted eyeballs on the guy, Millay called on some friends to watch the vid footage while she staked out the school. After grabbing a latte at the closest Starbucks, she sat down at a bus stop across the street and waited across from the campus which extended out for six square blocks on Sunset Blvd. As she waited, Millay regretted her decision to come to the school. She could have been back at home, watching through cameras as she gathered more data. Well, she wasn't about to turn back now. She'd been sitting there about a half-hour when her cell rang.

“Tell me the car's on its way here.”

“About five minutes out, sugar.”

Millay fell back against her seat in relief. “If it doesn't come around to the main entrance, let me know.” She didn't know what she was doing, chasing after them like this. Vid feeds were much more efficient. “Did you get anything else on them?”

“Not much you need to know now but there was one interesting tidbit. It seems they all hail from Sunnydale. Must be a convention in town.”

“Why am I not surprised? Thanks, I owe you one.”

“You just get Will back. Ta for now.”

Millay leaned forward as Mr. Wells and some girl stepped out of the building. She would have thought the girl was a student, but the pink hair, Nerf Herder t-shirt, and holey jeans suggested otherwise. At least the girl looked comfortable. Under the midday sun, Wells had to be dying in that tweed. After the car had pulled up, Harris handed the keys over the to girl – maybe she was somebody's relative? – and didn't seem to give her another thought as she drove off with his car.

Millay put the oddness of the girl out of her mind and took a look at the two newcomers. If Harris, with his eye patch and black clothes, looked like Hasselhoff playing Sergeant Fury, Rosenberg's brown dress, amber necklace, and flame of red hair made Millay think of a burning ember. As they turned toward the school, Wells tripped over a step and was caught by Harris before he hit the ground. That didn't seem to stop Wells from talking though. He'd been going a mile a minute ever since Harris and Rosenberg had stepped out of the car. The two of them shared a glance as Wells, walking off to one side of them, kept expounding on something. Millay wished she could hear them. He seemed to be quite the talker and almost certainly knew something she didn't. Millay wondered what it would take to get him to open up.

Millay pulled out her cell. The other end picked up after two rings. “Big Rico's pizza.”

“Put Rico on. Tell him it's Millay.”

After about thirty seconds, Rico's rough tone came over the phone. “Yeah?”

“Hey, can Mona come out and play this evening? Will's missing. I've got someone I want to question.”

“Missing? As in trouble? You want me to grab this perp for you?”

“Thanks, but the situation's delicate. I don't want to scare him off.”

“Okay, you got her, but I want to be in the know, you know, once there's something I can know.”

“Soon as I can, I'll stop by.”

Andrew Wells, guy who can't stop babbling, meet Mona Jameson, irresistible force.