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"NOW!" The teens leapt into action, brandishing wooden stakes, crosses, and clubs. Anger bubbled over, and the teens channeled it to their benefit, using the extra energy to punch, duck, and slash. Wooden stakes were plunged into chests, but the teens didn't stop to watch their adversaries burst into dust. Blood was spilled, and some of the teens went down hard. The lucky ones wouldn't rise again, but the unlucky would, carrying the curse that their attackers passed onto them.
Despite the overwhelming strength of the vampires, the teens were holding their own. They held their ground, and continued the fight. Unfortunately, vampires took much longer to tire, and the teens began to fall as their energy died and their anger was replaced with fear. Just as it looked as if all the teens would fall to the vampires, a distant rumbling came nearer, and the street was flooded with light. The war wagon, as affectionately termed by its driver, plowed through a group of three vamps, dusting them on its wooden stake covered side. Screeching to a halt, one teen stepped out of the truck, brandishing a specially made hub cap axe.
"The calvary's here, boys!" Swinging his axe, Charles Gunn, the leader of the ragtag group of teen vampire slayers, leapt into the fray. Dust and blood continued to fly, until only one vamp was left, surrounded by the surviving group of teens, and one very angry Gunn.
"You gonna tell me what you were doing here, or do I have to get you to talk the hard way?" Gunn glared down at the cornered vamp. Every vamp attack on his territory he took personally, but especially when the vamps targeted children. Gunn tried to focus on the vamp in front of him, and not the carnage this vamp and his crew had wreaked on Estelle Warden's nursery. He tried not to think of the blood covered little hands or the glazed over eyes of the kids he used to visit while their parents were off working the street, and he definitely tried not to think of how his crew had to ensure that none of the kids would rise again.
Trying to mask its fear, the vamp glared back at Gunn, and snarled. It wasn't about to be cowed by this piece of meat, and it made sure its body language told the story.
Slowly, the teens began to crowd closer to the vamp, but backed off at Gunn's signal. He knew they wanted blood and vengeance. Hell, if Alonna had been young enough to be in there when those vamps struck, he knew he'd want the same. Falsely sensing an opening, the vampire made a lunge at Gunn, but he met the blade of Gunn's axe and gently showered dust onto Gunn's shoes.
Although Gunn knew his crew wanted answers, they still gave him looks of approval. Vamps weren't to be trusted. Slowly, Gunn made his way to the back of the war wagon and lowered its tailgate. Without having to address the teens, they all began to assess the damage and to tend to their injured friends. In silence, the fallen were placed on the back of the war wagon, and their weapons were collected for use by other fighters.
With a last glance at the empty street, Gunn jumped into the driver's seat, and headed back to headquarters.
***
Alonna waited quietly for her brother and his crew to return. She always worried when they set out on their patrols of the streets, but she knew what they were doing was necessary. They couldn't let the vamps take over their territory, and they definitely couldn't let them continue to feed. She only wished her brother would let her do something besides making stakes and protecting the group that remained back in the warehouse. It made her feel useless, and she couldn't stand the thought of losing him, not after that night in the sewer all those years ago.
Maybe that's why he went out, night after night, killing vamps -- he was preventing other kids from losing their parents in an attack. Sometimes Alonna wondered if he wasn't trying to bring their parents back from the dead though.
"Alonna? What you doin' thinking so hard?" Alonna jumped before she realized it was her brother addressing her.
She rushed up to Gunn and embraced him, glad to see that he was still alive. Her smile faded, however, when she saw how few of her friends had returned with him. Pulling away, she found her hands covered with a gritty mixture of dust and blood.
"They got Estelle and the kids," Gunn looked at Alonna's hands, uncertain of how to continue. He wanted to spare her the gory details, but there wasn't much to tell besides those details. Sure, they had dusted the vamps, made them pay for what they did, but he lost six members of his crew in the process.
Maybe they weren't cut out for this. They'd only been slaying for a couple of months now, but it seemed like ages. Usually they'd managed to take on a couple of vamps at a time, but tonight…something was different. It was the worst loss they'd suffered so far, but it didn't make Gunn want to stop. More than anything, he wanted to be out there, fighting.
As Gunn focused on his sister's face again, he was interrupted by Bobby and some gangly teen, panting with exhaustion. Bobby looked fairly shaken, and the teen's eyes were wide with horror.
"More vamps. Over at that new shelter on Crenshaw," Bobby didn't waste words. If they wanted to stop a repeat of the nursery, they had to act fast.
With a last look at his sister, Gunn rallied the remaining members of his crew and headed back out into the night.
***
Not knowing what to expect, Gunn and his crew cautiously approached the shelter. The freshly painted sign read "East Hills Teen Center" and Gunn couldn't help but wonder how much longer this shelter would be around. Shelters opened up all the time in the area, but more often than not, they lasted about two months before they shut down again. The people running the shelters had good intentions, but the rep hadn't been helped by the rumors of a shelter that sent kids to a hell dimension to do slave labour. Of course, that shelter was long gone; apparently shut down by some blonde girl.
The front door hung on its hinges, and Gunn tentatively stepped into the front hall. He noticed a couple of bodies lying by the main staircase -- too late to help them -- and led his crew towards the back of the shelter. He could hear the sounds of a fight coming from that general direction.
Bobby pulled in front of Gunn, figuring as how he dealt with the hysterical kid, he should get the jump on the action. Entering the back room though, Bobby wished he had hung back.
Ten vamps had the inhabitants of the shelter cornered. They weren't killing to feed; these vamps were killing for the pure joy of it. The teens that weren't dead or being killed were huddling behind a blonde woman wielding a large torch. She waved it threateningly at the advancing vamps, but that didn't stop them from grabbing new teens to kill.
Not needing encouragement, the armed teens leapt into the fray.
***
Panting heavily, Gunn surveyed the damage. The ten vamps had all been dusted, and fortunately only minor injuries had been received. The blonde woman put her torch down and brushed her hair out of her face before coming up to Gunn.
"I'm Anne. Thanks," she held out her hand for Gunn to shake. There was something different about her, Gunn thought. She looked as if she knew the score, and she definitely had the look of someone that had lived on the streets.
Gunn introduced himself, and figuring she could handle it, he told her about his crew and their nocturnal activities. To her credit, Anne didn't seem taken aback. In fact, she treated it almost as if it was old hat.
In the distance, the sound of approaching sirens could be heard.
"Gunn." Bobby was getting antsy. The last thing they needed was to be there when the police arrived, especially if it was the same officers that had caught Bobby and a couple of his friends raiding the local market for food a couple of days ago.
With one last look at Anne, Gunn motioned for his people to move out.
***
The sun slowly began to rise above the LA skyline as Gunn walked back towards the teen shelter. The fall leaves crunched beneath his shoes, and he could feel the cool breeze through his sweater. Another year was beginning to draw to a close, and Gunn wasn't sure how he felt about it. Sure, he and Alonna were still alive, but they weren't thriving. He could be taken out by a vampire any night, she could be kidnapped or even worse, social services could finally catch up to them and take Alonna away. Place her in a home somewhere where Gunn wouldn't be able to see her. That was the last thing he wanted. He wouldn't lose Alonna; she was the only family that he had left.
Hands shoved in his pockets and head down, Gunn almost bumped into two kids. At the last second, the older of the two managed to swerve out of Gunn's way, drawing attention to himself and his sister. Gunn stopped to watch the kids run out of his sight. He wasn't too worried about them running around by themselves, seeing as the sun was coming up and all. No vamp worth his weight in dust would be caught out in the open at dawn. The kids reminded him a bit of himself and Alonna, and when they'd been younger. Alonna had always been trying to catch up to him and even now, she wanted to be out with him, slaying vampires to prove a point. He had considered letting her join him, but he always came to the same answer -- no. Even though she had already seen so much, he still wanted to protect her. And if that meant she stayed away while he and his crew slayed, so be it.
Chuckling to himself, Gunn wondered what it was about the fall that always made him think so much. It was almost as the shortening days and cooler weather triggered a change in him, which was a bit unsettling. He knew that he wouldn't last long on the street, fighting day in and day out. One day, some vamp was going to get lucky, and that would be it. The chances of that happening now were a lot greater, just because nature seemed to be on the side of the vamps, giving them a longer night to cause trouble in.
Who knows, maybe he'd be a lawyer or something one day. Make a real difference in the world, not just in his neighborhood. Or he could open up a shelter for kids orphaned by vampires. Hell, maybe he'd do both.
Of course, he could always chalk up all the thinking to being thankful. Even though he didn't have much, he had Alonna which made all the difference. And maybe, just maybe, that would be enough in the future, but Gunn wasn't too sure.
Slowing down, Gunn climbed the steps up to the shelter. It'd been a couple weeks since he'd been there last and it had been cleaned up so you almost couldn't tell there'd been a vamp attack there. Full of purpose, Gunn mounted the last step to knock on the door, and lost his balance. The wooden porch had begun to rot, and Gunn had stepped right into the middle of it. Suave Gunn, real suave, he thought to himself as he knocked on the door.
***
"…and this is my office. It isn't much, but I'm working on it." Anne couldn't help but be proud of her shelter. She had fought city council tooth and nail for it, and she was pleased to be able to show it off to someone.
"That was quite the tour. You've really done a lot with the place. I remember when the place was full of…" Gunn trailed off. He was pretty sure the last thing Anne wanted to hear was how her shelter used to be a vamp lair. Of course, thanks to his crew, it was cleaned out.
"I know. It was full of vampires. How do you think I was able to afford setting up here?" Anne smiled at Gunn, and went over to her desk. Gunn couldn't help but grin back at her. He had a feeling that she'd make the place work.
"Just making sure we're clear. I'm still not sure how you got into this though. Me, I started slaying to keep my neighborhood clean. Not to rag on you, but you definitely aren't from around here," Gunn watched Anne, slightly concerned he said too much. If she was going to be around her for any length of time, he knew she'd have to get used to the questions, maybe even threats from people who didn't understand her.
"I know what it's like to need to get lost, and I know how important it is to have a safe place to come to, and to have someone to help you out. I was lucky that I found a friend here, and she helped me out. Pretty much saved me, gave me a place to stay, a purpose," Anne wanted to tell Gunn more, but remembering what she had been like when she first arrived in LA with Ricky was still painfully. If it wasn't for Buffy, she'd probably be dead, or still out on the street, living from day to day. At least now she had a chance at being something.
From the tone of her voice, Gunn knew there was more to the story, but he wasn't about to push her for more information. She had shared something fairly personal with him, and if she wanted to share more, it would be in her own good time.
"You want anything to drink? I've got some coke or water if you'd prefer." Anne went over to the little fridge she kept behind her desk. Still a fan of the sugar rush, she grabbed herself a coke.
"Nah, I'm fine. I really should be getting back," Gunn turned to leave when he remembered the rotten staircase. "You know, I could bring a couple of my people around later to fix up your staircase. Wouldn't want anybody falling down and cracking their head open." Gunn waited for her reply, unsure of how she'd take the offer of help.
"Sure, I'd really appreciate it. I'll see you later then." Anne followed Gunn to the main door to see him off. He really was a piece of work. She could get used to having him around.
***
The 'hood sure was changing. Gunn had a feeling that the next year was going to be filled with change, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that yet. As he made his way through the leaf-filled streets back to his people, Gunn remembered a bit of poetry he heard when he and Alonna had still been back in that shelter on Plummer Street and tried the words out, letting them roll off of his tongue.
"So dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay."
Better not let Alonna hear him quoting some dead white guy; she'd think he'd gone soft or something.