Rain had fallen that evening in a brief, rare cloudburst. Now, in the dark, the puddles still lingered in the potholed and unevenly paved back streets and alleys of Los Angeles, where disreputable things gathered for nefarious purposes and road maintenance was demonstrably far from anyone's thoughts.
Water sloshed underfoot, soaking through Wesley's shoes and carrying the uncommon chill of the night in with it. Shivering, he hugged his jacket tighter across his chest and missed his left arm with a chilled, morbid intensity.
Heaps of garbage lined the edges of the alleyway around him, much of it from the club to his left. Further down, the stripped corpse of a car offered one possible explanation why some of the puddles smelled of petrol, and also made Wesley suspect that they would be very lucky if vampires were all the danger they encountered tonight. The high brick walls hemming them in made the space seem narrower, and although by an unusually generous turn of fate he'd never been claustrophobic, he had no trouble at all imagining them pressing in.
The noises of blows echoed along the alley, reverberating from wall to wall, their sound made metallic by the moisture in the air and on the ground, punctuated abruptly by a thud and a harsh grunt as Costas slammed the vampire back against the brickwork.
"Good. That's better," Wesley offered with approval, watching carefully as the vampire shook itself, growled, and swung at the detective. Costas blocked and retaliated. Wesley frowned. "Your left arm's falling a trifle too low, especially in the blocks... yes, that's it. Much better. Excellent, in fact."
The dazed vampire (youngish, with leather paraphernalia and some dated punk-style trappings Wesley dismissed as an affectation - this was a fledgling of half a dozen years at most) managed to duck under a blow and stagger clear. Backing away, darting edgily from side to side as Costas moved after him, he succeeded in staying just out of reach.
"What the hell is this?" the vampire asked in a voice far removed from 'fierce undead creature of the night' and, in fact, verging on a petulant whine. "Does he have to be here? I mean, it's kind of annoying. How am I supposed to concentrate with the British guy doing the running commentary in the background?"
"I know exactly how you feel," Costas muttered.
"I resent that." Wesley straightened stiffly, his spine crackling audibly, and stood to his full height, drawing the attention of both man and monster to his position. He wilted a fraction under their glares. "I'm merely endeavouring to prepare you for the field as requested. The least you could do is be gracious. Now, please, let's practise that staking manoeuvre."
"I want to vote we practise some other manoeuvre," the vampire piped up, eyes shifting between the two of them.
"No," Wesley said.
At the same time, Costas said, "Shut the hell up."
They exchanged glances. Wesley huffed and jabbed a finger towards the creature. "Just stake the vampire, please. It's being... rather distractingly vocal."
"I guess you just can't get quality evil these days." The vampire shrugged and set his head on one side, then sprang suddenly, barrelling into Costas. "I guess we'll be going with practising the 'you die in horrible bloody fashion and I get a two-for-one happy meal' manoeuvre."
Costas stumbled, almost went down under the tackle. But even as Wesley automatically stepped towards the affray, the detective recovered his balance. His elbow jerked back and then plunged forward in a smooth motion with all his body weight behind it. The vampire's surprised features held their shape for an instant in the dust before it cascaded over the alley floor. Costas staggered, caught himself against the wall, straightened and brushed down his coat. "You can come out of hiding now," he said dryly, looking across to Wesley.
"A little prudence never hurt." Emerging from behind the stack of empty packaging crates, a position safely removed from the action while offering sufficient view, he picked his way across the damp debris, through puddles clogged now with grey-black dust that adhered to his shoes and gave a slimy texture underfoot.
"I thought that went terribly well, considering," was his verdict, given in somewhat preoccupied fashion whilst trying to scrape vampire off his shoes with the pieces of broken crates scattered about the alley floor. He noticed Costas rubbing his upper arm, face scrunched up as though the area was tender. "Not more than bruised, I hope?"
"Just bruised," the detective confirmed. "I guess even the bargain basement rejects of Evil would still have to have super-strength."
"Ah, yes. Hardly the most spectacular example of a vampire ever," Wesley agreed, with a click of his tongue and a chuckle.
Costas tossed his stake in the air, letting it revolve lazily, and caught it with a deft snap of the wrist as it passed his dangling hand. He twirled it once in his fingers and slid it back inside his jacket.
"Is it really necessary to - indulge so?" The move reminded him rather too keenly of Buffy's penchant for frivolity.
The remark earned him the sort of hard look he'd learned to associate with Costas' displeasure at a certain tone the detective claimed best suited for chiding a misbehaving child. Wesley sighed, gave in. He stomped his feet, trying to get rid of the last of the sodden ash. Stopped, one foot half raised in the air, his balance wavering, as he saw Costas' gaze drift beyond him, saw the detective's eyes widen.
There was the faint noise of something cracking under a light footfall.
Reaching for a weapon, he spun. The realisation he had nothing struck home as he saw the second vampire and every joint in his body locked.
The vampire smiled and pretty features framed by blonde curls twisted to the aspect of a demon. She looked at his shoulder and pouted. He could imagine her mentally deducting a pint.
Costas, unseen, had retreated into shadow.
"Hello," she purred, getting close enough to Wesley to touch, and promptly touching. Her fingers trailed down his face and neck, followed along his tight-fastened jacket collar to the front, where they ran down and popped the buttons all the way to his belt. She pushed the jacket back, baring his throat, snaring his arm. "Did we not play so nicely with Danny?" Her toes flicked the saturated dust, splattering it across the alley. He felt globs hit the legs of his trousers. She shrugged and leaned into Wesley, her arms curling around him in almost an embrace. A fierce movement knocked them back against the wall, divesting him of breath, transforming the loose curl of her arms to a forceful cling.
Her face fit neatly in the hollow between his neck and chin, and he felt a nip at the skin of his throat. She giggled at the flinch that ran through him. He stared blankly at the opposing wall. "He was a stupid fledgling. Those of us who've been around longer wouldn't--"
"Thank you!" Wesley said, the squeak of his voice loud on the empty air as he frantically brushed dust from himself. He babbled further extrapolation on the thanks until finally forcing himself to stop and breathe. Costas was putting a crossbow away. "I'm sorry," he said, trying to reinstate composure. His voice shook, but was at least back to a normal pitch.
"So that was one of those vamps with the mesmerising ability," Costas said.
"With--?" Wesley flushed and stuttered weakly. "Ah, no. No. No, it was not. But I... there was nothing I could do in any case."
Costas stared at him. "Yeah," he said sarcastically. "Why don't we stand still and let them eat us? Damn it, I know you know the moves, you've been showing them to me. One arm or two, you can try. Why the hell didn't you--?"
He stopped.
Wesley was shivering - uncontrollably and, he dared say, very visibly.
"Come on." Shaking his head, Costas placed a hand on Wesley's shoulder, guided him into movement. "Let's get home and get some rest."
He'd never minded mornings before waking became a process of realisations. In his subconscious he still had a whole body, a position, a mission. He was not sure he would ever grow accustomed to arriving at consciousness in a borrowed bed in a borrowed home, hopeless, worthless, scarred and maimed, sleepily rolling over onto his left side where actuality blasted through his senses and jolted him to awareness.
He rose with slow, agonised care and headed into the bathroom to take more of the painkillers that had worn off while he slept, came back still half in a daze to tug the bedclothes up off the floor onto the bed, going through the tedious routine of tidiness in case Costas should look into the room.
After that, he returned to the bathroom, where he let the shower wake him fully while avoiding looking at the lump of reddened flesh that ended his shoulder.
The gentle fall of water upon the still-tender scar tissue was soothing, beneath the faint sting, and he leaned into the wall, closing his eyes, blocking the absence from his thoughts, feeling the water wash away the sweat of his nightmares.
He was not doing so badly. Better, certainly, than he'd ever thought possible again in that long week after Penn.
While in training with the Council, it had been a possibility, always, underlying every lesson, that he could end up crippled by his calling, if not dead. There had been enough scarred soldiers around the academy - researchers, teachers, their stories whispered rumours among the students. As a youth he had shivered with the imaginings, unable to fathom how he would cope should they come to pass. Now, he woke to start another day.
The perception of 'normality' could change so astoundingly quickly, and he supposed it must be the same for Costas too, dealing with vampires and demons on a daily - nightly - basis.
For himself, Wesley found it hard to imagine growing up in a world where the demons were mere fairy stories.
Once upon a time, the boy he'd been had dreamed of the hero he'd be once he left the shadow of his father and the strictures of the Watcher's Academy. He would not fail them; would prove the responsibility they entrusted him with to be justified. The possibility of failure did not apply to him - no, because he was going to show father he was good enough, he was going to show them all. Doubts? He did not admit such things as those. (No, he pushed them aside and buried them deep, so they could claw up and choke him at every wrong moment.)
He towelled dry and avoided looking at his cut-off shoulder as he pulled on clothes. He didn't like getting dressed. Had never been exactly fond of his naked form - too thin, too pale, paper-white skinny body, ribs and stringy muscles too much in evidence - but he'd not flinched from the sight before.
The amputation itself was neat and surgical, not very ugly, but still he hated the way it looked. In priority, he pulled on a dark green shirt with a sewn-up sleeve, hiding the scar from sight, and hiding with it the bruises from the previous evening's encounter, themselves hopelessly swamped within his regular cocktail of pain.
He recalled briefly the decision that finally saw him give up on suits when attempting to purchase a new wardrobe. The absence of an arm was all the more obvious against crisp, tailored lines, the ugliness of his new lack of symmetry a mockery of the formality. He'd settled instead for loose, bulky, casual wear that bagged on his thin frame - thinner even than it ordinarily was, still in the aftermath of sickness - obscuring the damage as best he could, though he could never hide it.
Putting on trousers one-handed was a torture he would not willingly have inflicted on the worst spawn of Hell. As for shoelaces... well, he was very glad of his room's adjoining bathroom, that Costas did not have to know how long it took to make himself presentable to the world, or the contortions he had to undergo to do so. Finally, he reached for the watch on the cabinet, pulled it onto his fingers, and tugged the elasticated strap over his hand with his teeth, working it around so its face nestled neatly at his wrist.
He had been back to the hospital a few times and they had been more or less satisfied with how the healing had progressed. The first such visit, the doctor had tutted at him for discharging himself, berated him for not taking care of the wound so well as he ought, 'hmm'ed at the remnant of Penn's bruises on his skin. Lord knew what the man thought he'd been doing. On the second visit, his painkillers had been reduced to a milder alternative whose effect he'd noticed immediately in his shoulder's increased, wrenching ache day and night - and in the decrease of the terrifying, lurid, hallucinatory quality of his dreams. His mind seemed to work sharper, his senses clearer, and on the whole he was content with the trade-off. His concentration span returned to almost normal and research considerably eased.
Finishing in the bathroom, Wesley ventured down the light, airy staircase. The sun streamed through an uncurtained skylight at the top to bounce down the pale walls and flood stairwell and hallway alike, seeping into his eyes through scrunched lashes.
Through the glass door of the porch, he could see the pile of morning papers. He stuck his head outside, still blinking at the day, collected them up, and carried them through to the kitchen under his arm. He dumped them on the breakfast table. "Good morning."
Costas was glaring intently into a cup of coffee. "Morning. Yeah," he acknowledged after several seconds' delay.
Wesley found no second cup of coffee waiting for him, which irked him, but was mostly a blessing considering the detective always made it far, far too strong for ordinary human consumption. He'd been half-contemplating testing for any demonic heritage in the man's background, utterly baffled how Costas appeared able to not only digest but to savour it.
He took his time preparing the coffee in his linear fashion, one eye on Costas, who was not a morning person, idly picking at a newspaper. A couple of slices of bread in the toaster would suffice for breakfast; he need only struggle to spread them with margarine while they led his knife a chase around the plate.
He took the toast to the table and set it down; came back for the coffee. He sat and extricated the newspapers from Costas, who seemed largely interested in folding the corners into a messy breed of origami. He scanned the front page, then folded it back to display the second and arranged it on the table top to read while he ate and drank.
He read, ate, occasionally turned the pages, listened to Costas' silence. Every so often, picked up a pen and circled an article. When he'd finished the first paper, he moved on to the next. He'd almost finished the pile by the time Costas came to life.
"Find anything?"
"A growing number of 'muggings' and 'attacks' reported in an area rumoured to have recently gained a high vampire population. There's likely a nest somewhere. We might do well to check that out. If we compile information on the attacks, perhaps it would be possible to pinpoint its location, although I'm not certain the two of us ought tackle--"
Costas snorted.
"All right," Wesley said snippily. "I'm not certain you ought tackle a nest. But perhaps if we're clever... a daytime attack could work, if planned sufficiently well..." His brain pounced on options, letting them roll off his tongue even as they crystallised.
A loudly cleared throat stemmed the flow of his thoughts. "I am not," Costas said, "A seventeen-year-old girl. You want to know how many police raids I've taken part in? Armed sieges, perhaps?"
Wesley felt himself flush, the line of his mouth harden, the muscles of his jaw bunch in annoyance. "I was merely--" The clock on the wall caught his eye and he released the rest of the breath. His teeth snapped closed audibly. He said archly, "Aren't you going to be late?"
Costas looked at the clock and cursed as if by rote, leaving the impression that this was not news to him and that if Costas felt like being late he'd damned well be late. The attitude was very like the detective; the apathy was not. Wesley's irritation was replaced by concern.
"Are you feeling quite well? No injuries from last night that you're hiding away?"
"No. I'm good."
Standing, the detective drained his coffee with a gulp and a wince. He transferred his jacket from the back of his chair to his shoulder, car keys jangling, and headed for the door. He looked back as he stepped over the threshold. "You all sorted for today?"
"Absolutely. Plenty to be getting on with. Don't worry about me. Please do remember to keep your cellphone switched on this time, though."
"Goddamn it, you sound like my wife. You have no idea how disturbing that is. Call if anything comes up, then. I'll do the same."
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut in his wake, the day begun for real.
Wesley did not like to be alone in the company of his thoughts, miserable comrades as they were at the best of times, and he did not linger over the remnant of breakfast once Costas had gone. He stacked the dishwasher and returned to the newspapers. Briefly, assessing, he flicked back through the pages of each, gauging the density of pencilled circles within their pages. Less than yesterday, and many would be duplicates. He pushed them away from him, stood back from the table.
Restless, very much not wanting to sit back down, he wandered the house. As always, Costas' absence made him feel deeply uneasy. He was an interloper here. He'd not wanted to come, had tried very hard to avoid it until Costas' argument and logic wore him down. And... the atmosphere was strange, in this place. A cast about it of loss, of bereavement, although he knew nobody had died.
The house itself was a tasteful, well-sized property. Costas lived in incongruous comfort amid a neighbourhood of families with pets and children. The money had apparently been Irene's, and she'd taken it with her, though she hadn't wanted anything of the house. Costas seemed to possess no special desire to sell it and move on.
The light, airy decoration of the hallway was a continued theme throughout, but cracks and chips in the paintwork and yellowing smokers' stains spoke of the age of the influence that had placed it there. Irene had liked creams, beiges and yellows. Muted green. A blue so pale it was almost icy white. Contrast indeed to Costas' less subtle influences, more sparsely littered around the house. The expansive television set and sound system downstairs. The games room upstairs, with its slot machines and pool table. Uncompromising, bulky, modern.
Perched against the arm of a chair in the small lounge downstairs, Wesley watched the slow movement of trees dispersing the sunlight flooding in to the room via the window looking onto the back garden. Through the window, an unremarkable vista. Half-tended flower beds and a relatively tidy lawn. A white outdoor dining set, rusting, and a long yard shaded towards the bottom by the building at the end of an adjoining street.
This had meant to be a home for a family, he reflected. And now... now, it was mainly a home for ghosts, stray shreds and little pieces of dreams still wisps on the edge of thought. If you turned your head to the side, you'd maybe catch an obscure glimpse - but there was nothing real here. Costas had invited him in to live among a myriad of other dead hopes. Maybe they weren't so oddly matched after all.
It did not make him feel any less of an intruder that he understood why Costas had been so ready to bring a stranger into his home.
The sunlight shifted on his face, making him blink and avert his eyes. The piano in the corner of the rarely-used lounge slid into his line of sight.
He'd wondered about it before. Had meant, countless occasions, to quiz Costas about it. Was it his? Did he play? Wesley found it hard to visualise the detective sitting on that piano stool, broad hands spread out across the fine instrument. Indeed, the image had something comedic about it. Yet surely Irene would not have left this, if it had been hers?
He paused in front of it several moments before reaching down to lift the lid from the white and black keys which, uncovered, grinned up at him challengingly. Almost of their own volition, his fingers descended and crawled across the keys in a slow, awkward melody, caught in the distant memory of childhood lessons.
He walked his fingers along in a scale, let them wander. As the moments stretched, a tune started to emerge. He reached out with his other hand to form the chords--
And slammed the lid back down with a force that shocked himself and knocked the flash of anger clean from his brain. Worriedly, he bent to the piano, examining the finely worked wood for scratches and blemishes he might have made. Raised the lid again to ensure he had not damaged its underside, or the keys beneath.
There was no harm that he could find, and he'd never been of particular musical talent, the lessons a mere pretension of parents who considered them part and parcel of raising a child in the same way nappies were, but in any case the incident had shaken him out of all urge to meander around the empty house. He returned to the kitchen, where he set the kettle to boil and then tea to brew before resuming the tedium of cross-referencing the newspaper articles, grouping by incident and area, comparing with those of previous weeks, sipping at the tea periodically and feeling it scald its way down his throat.
While the fact the morning's crop of possibly supernaturally-connected reports had been unusually sparse was assuredly a good thing for the citizens of Los Angeles, it was very much the opposite for his wandering concentration. Muggings, attacks, one stolen artefact from a city museum that could conceivably have a mystical past, and he really needed something more substantial to occupy his mind.
Dinner claimed that role for a short while, though he neither tasted the food nor possessed any real appetite for it, chewing and swallowing by rote and necessity, and feeling overall that the meal had hardly been worth the effort of its preparation. His infrequent, unwilling bites slowly registered as his subconscious trying to waste time. He had work he ought do if only he could bend his mind to it. He swallowed the last scraps down hurriedly, cleared the utensils into the dishwasher. A miracle of modern appliance, indeed.
Returning to the table, he sat down again and stared at the page. Let the figures on it blur before his eyes as he presently gave up trying to draw them towards pattern or sense. Another while later, and he was staring over at the shapes made by the cracks in Costas' beige kitchen tiles, and not at the pictures at all.
Wesley jerked out of his stupor as the surgeons knife (its blade exaggerated in false memory to the approximate size of a machete) grew to fill his view, hovering over a whole left shoulder and incongruously undamaged arm.
He shuddered, trying to shake off the last threads of the unlikely re-enactment as he bent to the floor and scraped his papers back onto the table from the disarray into which his shocked awakening had tossed them.
Then, he headed for Costas' telephone.
He gathered the files he'd need into the slim shoulder-bag he'd taken to carrying. A more casual relative of a briefcase, he'd discovered it was ideal for his purposes, allowing him to carry a surprising quantity of heavy papers and books and suchlike, yet leaving his arm reasonably mobile.
He hadn't long to wait until the blare of a horn drew him outside. He pulled on a light padded jacket (its bulk disguising enough that people often didn't look twice at him passing), swung the bag over his shoulder, and went out to meet the taxi. He remembered at the last minute to retrieve his own, newly acquired, cellphone from where it was recharging next to the refrigerator on the way. A necessary purchase - they had needed some way to keep in contact.
"Mr Wyndham-Pryce?" the driver, half-familiar from a handful of other such runs, greeted him with a bored drawl and a grimace. "Library, wasn't it?" Blunt fingers tapped on the wheel, in time with strains of melody from a radio turned so low Wesley could barely catch them.
He climbed in the back with little thought for small talk, though, and reached over his own body, twisting to slam the door shut. He carried the upper section of the seatbelt harness around the back of his neck so that it wouldn't rub against his bad shoulder. "Yes. The library."
He'd needed to visit the library anyway - had the details of two particular demon types to research for an old case Costas had dug open again on the theory that it might have an otherworldly solution. He'd been considering putting the visit off, despite Costas' grouching about a superior who anticipated results (Lord knew what Costas had told the man). Much as he disliked the long days alone in the house, he disliked leaving it more, but there was only so much he could do without the appropriate research tools.
The cab pulled out into the street and the driver guided it efficiently down the block, avoiding the occasional child running or meandering into the road.
Wesley watched the hands on the wheel with envy and familiar frustrated calculation. He could probably still drive a car. An automatic gear shift would be easier, but no, driving would not be out of the question. He would have to re-learn, quell numerous habits (the dislocating moments when he'd be surprised, wondering why his fingers failed to connect) but it certainly should be possible. All he had to do was try.
His gaze was caught by another group of children pushing and shoving each other on the sidewalk. He shelved the thoughts - to reconsider, he told himself, some other time.
The taxi rolled slowly into the city, the hour not a good one to be negotiating LA traffic. Streets he and Costas had patrolled through by dark looked less ominous in the day. It was almost comical to think of how they'd made his heart quicken and his head ache with strain last night. That he'd taken that signpost to be a figure, had jumped as that wire hanging loose down the side of the building on the corner rattled in a breeze.
They drew up outside the library. Wesley paid and got out, walked smartly up the steps and engaged in his ritual struggle with the doors.
He was known here, too. The staff greeted him, if not by name, certainly with a smile of familiarity, a vaguely pitying understanding, and an apparent tolerance for anything he might request of them. Three weeks, and already a fixture. There was a desk half-hidden in a corner that was becoming somehow 'his'. He festooned desktop and chair with books, papers and coat while he left to scour the shelves for the material he'd need.
The thick carpeting muffled the sound of his footsteps, pretty much the only sound in the room, almost empty in the early afternoon. Staff talked in hushed whispers if at all.
He wondered what they thought of him; the crazy one-armed man who came in to research obscure volumes on mysticism and demonology. He wondered if they whispered behind their hands when his back was turned. Then he came down to reality, and doubted that he merited any such attention at all.
The library had an astonishing array of mystical texts for a public place. He'd been appalled at first, being of the opinion that many of them should be locked away from the possibility of misuse by ignorant innocents or enthusiastic hacks. Still, such irresponsibility was admittedly his good fortune. He could little afford to purchase more than the most basic texts for his personal collection.
He awkwardly flicked through volumes he wedged between the span of a shelf and his contorted hand; placed the books he selected into the open bag he'd hooked back over his shoulder.
He returned to his corner, and a stretch of time later, measured in the dull ache in his back and the twinge behind his eyes, he slipped outside, leaving his things as they were. On the sidewalk just beyond the library entrance, he took out his cellphone and called through the information about the first of the demons.
Costas sounded hassled. He rushed through the exchange with a disinterest that rather left Wesley feeling he'd wasted the last few hours.
Wesley returned to immerse his thoughts in the books. This was his strength, after all, the filtering and compiling of information. The next time he paid the exterior world any heed, it was due to the ringing of his cellphone, and irked glances were being directed at him by a number of library browsers who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere since last he'd bent his head to the page.
He snatched up the cellphone. "Yes?"
It was hardly any surprise whose voice responded when there was all of one other person in the world who had his number.
"Got a case for you." Supposing his own tone hadn't been much better than Costas' aggravated reply, Wesley took a deliberate, calming breath as the detective continued, "I think you'll want to come over and see this."
"See what?"
"A corpse."
Wesley winced. "Bite marks?" The attempt to lower his voice to a covert hiss was in retrospect a mistake, only resulting in him having to repeat himself louder.
"Kind of... They're putting it down to some large carnivorous animal attack at the moment. Freaking about bears roaming the streets of LA. I figure you've got more chance of recognising what kind of creature could make this mess than either the forensics people or I do."
He was right. Wesley reluctantly gave up any hopes towards finishing off the research on the second demon that day, let alone looking into the origins of that stolen artefact. "Very well. Where are you?"
Costas outlined directions detailed enough for someone still relatively new to LA to follow and Wesley, who couldn't write them down, hoped he'd remember accurately. "How soon can you get here?"
"I'm at the library. It shouldn't take me long." He considered. "I'll probably see you in about half an hour."
"You do that." Costas rang off.
Wesley tucked the cell away again, slid his jacket on, and reluctantly returned his research material to the shelves. He happened to glance at the time as he was leaving and it hit him like a gut-punch. Almost six o'clock, another day all but passed with him hardly noticing, and maybe he was doing too good a job of keeping his mind too occupied for thought.
He hurried out and down the street, money considerations convincing him, despite LA's pedestrian-hostile environment, of the need for a brisk walk rather than a taxi in the busy traffic.
The alley - garnished with police tape, topped off by a fan of police cars splaying out over the main road, accompanied by a morgue van and far too many interested spectators - could almost have been the one in which Costas had killed two vampires the night before. The thought that it could have been their bodies some itinerant discovered today made chills run through him. The official personnel on the other side of the tape gave him much the expected bother when he tried to talk his way past. Even when he explained Costas had called him in as a consultant they refused access until they'd brought Costas over to verify him in person.
The detective, as was becoming very much par for the course of late, treated it as though it was through some fault of Wesley's own that he'd had to be summoned. Although there was perhaps a small trace of consolation to be found in the fact he was just as short with the young officer who had blocked Wesley's path. If Wesley was feeling inclined to take such consolation.
"There's really no need to be so testy," he berated Costas' back as the detective led the way under the tape and around a skip of waste material from construction on a building nearby. Wesley had noticed the workmen sitting bored in their truck on the other side of the police tape.
"Careful where you step," Costas said.
It was necessary to pick their way through an array of refuse sacks that presumably someone had dumped in the alley prior to the attack, many of which had split to leak less-than-savoury items out over the floor of the alley. Wesley did his ungainly best not to tread all over the evidence, stepping in Costas' wake using the odd few clear patches of ground like stepping stones.
The body was tucked around the back of the skip, half-buried under more rubbish, a photographer already there taking pictures from a variety of angles. Wesley didn't catch a full look until the photographer stepped back, and he grimaced, unprepared despite the natural fifty-fifty chance that the corpse Costas had described as in so messy a state should be that of a woman.
Fortunately, he was inured enough against the sight of spilled human blood and entrails not to embarrass himself or Costas with any unfortunate displays, although he imagined it wouldn't be the first they had seen that day. The woman had almost literally been gnawed to pieces and, yes, he mused, peering closer, those were definitely teeth marks on the wounds, distinctive even from six feet away.
Costas was looking at him expectantly, as were a couple of other plainclothes individuals who might be the detective's peers or something other. Wesley moved in closer and squatted down on his heels next to the dead woman, trying to keep any of his clothing - whether it happened to be flush with his body or the trailing wings of his jacket - from touching the garbage, mixed this close to the body with a soggy mass of human blood and other tissue matter.
Balance was awkward in that position, and for a moment he thought he was going to keel, but then he felt a steadying presence at his back and a steadying hand at his shoulder. The latter lasted only a second, but the detective pressed close enough that Wesley's back touched his leg and that was sufficient support to keep him upright. Costas might have been of inexplicable ill-temper lately, but the instinctive sensitivity to the needs of others that the man had apparently still lurked beneath the brusque exterior.
Wesley leaned over to examine the torn flesh. The smell, so close up, was overpowering. "The teeth marks are massive," he said, mostly to himself, partially to Costas, and with all too much awareness of the other law enforcement and emergency services personnel looking on unwelcome. He wobbled on his heels and was embarrassed to have to grab Costas' knee to avoid tipping over. He righted himself and patted a kneecap in apology, then felt himself redden even further as the action registered. Very definitely not looking up to see Costas' expression, he endeavoured to return his attention to the corpse. "These wounds certainly weren't made by any ordinary creature."
"Alligators?" suggested someone who might have been from the morgue staff.
"No. The bite marks aren't even remotely the right shape. The wrong shape for a bear, as well. Too large for dogs, even wolves." He was already running through numerous other possibilities in his mind, but none of them that he could share in the presence of anyone save Costas. "I don't believe we'll find a match for any known carnivore that might have escaped from any theoretical nearby zoo," he added in sarcastic tones that came from the depths of his Council training.
Someone loosed a bark of laughter; he ignored them.
"I don't believe its sole purpose in killing was to feed." Wesley would rather have liked to inspect closer inside the wounds, but lacked any surgical instruments to poke around and indeed the permission to do so. "Much of the tissue that has been removed from the body seems to be, ah, still here. Around." He flapped his hand weakly to indicate the piles of rubbish. "So presumably its mauling after feeding was - what? Rage? Playing with the food? Perhaps it was even extracting a particular part."
He stood up. Costas caught him with a hand either side of his ribcage and guided him around through the debris until he was safely several feet away from the body. A number of their little group of bystanders were looking green. Costas was looking at Wesley as though he'd had some expectation confounded.
"What?"
The detective shook his head. "Just that I'd never have pegged you to be the one guy here not desperately trying to keep his dinner down."
"I did tell you I was trained in autopsy." It had been considered very outre back at the Council, theirs one of the first years of students who would be backing up their demonology expertise with the analytical tools of hard science.
"I know. But I didn't think you meant - never mind." Costas swiped a hand through the air as if batting the subject away.
"You're very strange lately," Wesley said, annoyed.
The detective snorted with unmistakeable reciprocation. "So what did you really find?"
"Well, I can make a pretty good guess at the shape of the demon's jaw and a number of its habits in making a kill and, ah, devouring its prey. I should be able to narrow it down to a handful of species and then we may be able to map where it's chosen as its hunting ground and find whatever it might have of a lair. It would be immensely helpful to find out if there are any internal organs missing."
"It's definitely a demon, then?"
Wesley blinked. "Oh, yes. Definitely a demon. Nothing animal could have done that - and certainly nothing human could have falsified it, if that's what you're wondering."
Costas nodded. Wesley realised for the first time that his complexion was looking a little fragile.
"They found her driving license on the corpse as identification," he said, "Though it'll probably be necessary to double check with the dental records. The picture..." He shrugged as his voice disintegrated, and pulled it back together to say only, "Pretty girl."
"I'm sorry," Wesley said as it struck him Costas was watching closely for his reaction. "I was taught to disconnect."
"Useful."
"I take exception to your implication. I am not, in fact, unaffected, and I hardly meant..."
"Why am I not surprised to find you here?" interrupted familiar smoky, sarcastic feminine tones. Wesley turned around to find Kate Lockley there, addressing Costas. She saw him and her brows raised in surprise. "And the conquering hero, too."
Wesley flinched and flushed. "Please don't call me that."
Lockley frowned. "All right." She glanced between them both a moment, and summed up her observations succinctly: "You two look like shit."
"Thanks," Costas responded with irony. He apparently chose not to point out in kind that Detective Lockley also had dark rings under her eyes and a significant pallor.
"How is it that whenever I get assigned a case that looks - shall we say 'particularly interesting' for arguments' sake - you two come sniffing around?"
"One precedent does not make a habit," Costas shot back. "Besides, I thought he might stand a chance of knowing what it is."
She turned to Wesley. "Well - do we know what it is?"
"Demon," supplied Wesley.
Detective Lockley rolled her eyes. "Like I couldn't work that one out. Not that you didn't help before, but I do suspect your consultancy value in this case to be nil. And, Jack - this is not your case. If it was your case, it would have been assigned to you. How about you do me a favour and move on out, huh? Take the... the Armless Wonder with you."
Wesley had no time to force a retort to that past his incoherent spluttering, courtesy of Costas planting a hand in the centre of his back and propelling him away in compliance with Lockley's request.
The detective craned his head over his shoulder to shout back, "We'll give you a call if we find anything."
Lockley's response was silent, and Wesley suspected it involved strategically raised fingers, although he did not turn around to see.
"So she says go and we jump at her word?" he said archly.
"Pretty much." A moment later he apparently felt the need to add to that, and did. "She's got seniority."
"Really?" Wesley mused, pitching his voice higher than its norm.
"Shut the hell up."
"Are we really going to share whatever we find?"
"No. Yes. Maybe. We survived the last time at least partly because all three of us were there. Probably."
Wesley saw something vaguely familiar move in the darkness under a scaffolding affixed to the adjoining building, and he narrowed his eyes, replaying the flash of a wing of black trenchcoat in his mind. But it was gone now, however much he scoured the shadows until he wasn't entirely sure he'd ever seen it at all.
But he said, "I get the feeling she has her own supernatural help."
"You too, huh?"
They exchanged a fairly amiable moment of mutual recognition - of the fact that neither of them was so stupid as the other often thought them, Wesley strongly suspected - before glancing away again and falling back into the abrasiveness that was becoming a way of life.
Costas' car was parked at the end of the road, recognisable amid the mass of midlife-crisis-mobiles that represented the other plainclothes police personnel present, and they headed slowly toward it.
"You think she really likes him?" Costas asked, glancing back again, his voice pained. "'Cause, you know. Dead guy."
"I couldn't say." Wesley grimaced. He hoped not, though probably not for the same reasons. "He seems to have, ah, displayed a certain appeal to the female of the species in the past, lack of a pulse and certain necrophilia issues aside."
"Don't tell me he has a thing for blondes?"
Wesley pressed his lips together and remained obediently silent.
On those evenings they did not patrol, Costas liked watching police television dramas and nitpicking. Wesley rather liked when they finished and he shut up. Despite much cajoling, Costas categorically refused to watch game shows, but had at least surrendered all sports matches not absolutely essential (by whatever criteria Costas judged this), albeit not from consideration but the claim he 'couldn't hear them for Wesley's bitching anyway'.
Costas sprawled out in the chair closest to the television set, the remote control and a can of beer on the table next to him. His shirt was loosened, his hair disarrayed, shoes kicked aside to display worn patches in the socks underneath. His eyes fixed on the hard-talking detective interviewing a suspect on the screen.
Wesley perched at a desk pushed up against the wall, as far removed from the television set as it was possible to be and still remain within the room. Surrounding himself with papers and books, he tried to shut out the background noise and Costas' "The damn lawyers would never let him get away with that".
He'd made a multitude of notes on their carnivorous demon's characteristics, and mused for a time on the diagrams of his estimates of the approximate shape and size of its mouth and jaw. Many demon species that could provide a potential match he knew from memory, and before long he had drawn up a respectable list of unusual suspects. However able his memory, though, he would need to double-check at the library tomorrow.
The evening wore on through two more possibilities and one elimination as he studied in more detail the data on where the body had been found and the likely time of death (Vitnuks ventured out only very rarely at any time other than sunrise and sunset, and never to feed); wore on through NYPD Blue, a movie so bad even Costas admitted its lack of quality, and something from the seventies that Wesley didn't recognise.
As the credits rolled over jarring, spiky music, Costas eyed the clock and said, "Time to kick back from the books and have a beer, Wes."
"I need my concentration," he responded wearily. It was not the first time, that evening or any other. "I don't want to relax. I have to do... I have work to do."
He knew there was something underneath the casual appearance of Costas' shrug as he turned back to the television, and though Wesley spared him a brief frown over the top of his glasses, neither of them vocalised their thoughts. Wesley sighed, concentration broken, and thrust the list of demons aside in favour of once more casting an eye over his observations from that morning.
The suspected vampire nest certainly merited checking out the next available evening, if no progress had been made regarding their demon. If Costas' bruised arm was recovered sufficiently by tomorrow, he thought, then they would go. He noted it down so he would not forget.
He worked on. His vision blurred and multiplied, and he sifted through doubles of every word.
"Wesley?"
Costas was standing over him, the television blank beyond his form, the table lamps dim, Wesley's own desk lamp the only oasis of light remaining in the room. "Yes?"
"I'm going to get some sleep. Don't forget to switch everything off when you go to bed." A pause, then, "Don't forget to go to bed."
Wesley laughed a little, the sound skittering in and out of registers and silence. Really. It had only happened the once. "Of course. Good night, Jack." He offered a faint smile.
Costas nodded, releasing a huff of air from his nose. Turned, still nodding, and headed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Wesley listened to the slow passage of footsteps diminish up the stairs before bending his head back down to his work.