In a Corner of My Soul: Angel: Dust

[dragonyphoenix]

Summary: Rewrite of season 1 with Giles as the Big Bad.
Master List for In a Corner of My Soul (previous chapters / scenes)
Note: This is the last scene of the Angel chapter; see you again in I Robot; You Jane

Buffy leaned across the fence and scanned the grassy – um – grass, the dark rocks looming overhead, as well as the shortish water slide. The zoo really was dead at night. The otters were either invisible in the dark or off someplace where she couldn't see them, most likely the second. Otters were too cute to be demonic.

As she continued down the path, scanning for clues relating to the missing girl, she passed a tank full of water. The manatee, also off sleeping apparently, was, well, not as cute as the otters but not really ugly. When they'd been here for their school trip, Buffy hadn't seen the appeal. It just swam about. Slowly. So not fun.

The seals she could at least see but they were little more than dark blobs on dark rocks. Also asleep. She came to the end of the aquatic exhibit and to a sign telling her to head right for the big cats or left for the bird house. She turned left. Some of the cats might be awake – they were as nocturnal as house cats, right? – but the birds were closer to the exit.

She'd been certain that her Slayer senses would turn something up that others had missed, but Giles had been right. She hated to admit it, but there were no clues here, nothing to tell her what had happened to that missing girl, or at least none she could see in the dark. She might as well move on to her regular patrol.

At the edge of the zoo, to the left of the main gate, Buffy stopped to look over the park. A girl had gone missing here and she'd done nothing to stop it. Well, she couldn't have stopped it because the girl had been missing when she'd arrived, but she could have pushed her way into the search. She could have found the girl where the police had failed. Maybe her Slayer sense would have tingled or something.

Jumping over the fence felt like giving up, but the zoo wasn't offering up any clues. Maybe killing a fledge or two would cheer her up. It didn't. Two cemeteries and three dusted vamps later, the guilt still hung heavy like a lump of lead in her heart. Maybe she should up her patrols, add in an extra cemetery each night or maybe mix up her routes so she'd be less predictable.

“Hey, get off of me.” The shout came from outside the cemetery. Maybe it wasn't a demon attack. Maybe it was a normal fight or mugging. Let's see. Sunnydale. Hellmouth. It was probably a demon attack. She heard a scream. Maybe she should get her ass in gear and save that guy.

He'd been knocked to the sidewalk or maybe he'd fallen, and what was he doing walking so near a cemetery late at night anyway? The way the vamp was leaning over him suggested the guy had been knocked down and … hey, that vamp was blocking her view of the guy. If she got between the guy and the vamp, she could stake it without him seeing and wouldn't have to explain why his attacker had vanished into dust.

As she yanked the vamp by the back of its suit jacket, the demon flailed for its footing. She stabbed the stake through its heart and, presto, dust! All her kills should be so easy. Now all she had to do was convince the guy on the ground that mister three-piece business suit had been a crazed druggie on PCP.

She turned, looked down, and stopped. Owen, still sprawled on the ground, stared up at her. “Buffy.”