Chapter 5

Buffy slammed her foot down on the gas pedal, still fuming. For Dawn’s sake, she’d resisted the urge to punch Dean Winchester’s smart-ass mouth, but she wasn’t sure she’d continue to be able to do so. She supposed it should be Sam she really wanted to hit, but he’d seemed as truly shaken by the whole matter as Dawn, and Buffy had a feeling hitting Sam would have seemed a lot like kicking a puppy.

The worst part about the whole thing was, when she’d first laid eyes on Dean, Buffy had gotten that melty feeling she hadn’t felt in a very long time, not since……well, not since Riley, she supposed. She had never had that oh-look-cute-boy feeling with Spike, because, well, he was Spike. And although she had loved the way the Immortal wined and dined her, and they had had a lot of fun while it lasted, she’d never really gotten weak in the knees around him. So why did she have to feel that way now, and about a smart-ass jerk who turned out to be her—well, what was he to Buffy, anyway, if her sister was married to his brother? Some kind of in-law?

Buffy sighed. What was it about guys in leather jackets, anyway? And that arrogant swagger…..

She forced herself to focus on what she was doing, which was strange enough. Giles had her out collecting mystical artifacts, since apparently the Hellmouth attracted them, and otherwise things around Cleveland had been pretty slow. Giles insisted the Cleveland Hellmouth had never been as active as Sunnydale’s, but Buffy was almost downright bored. She’d never thought she’d be wishing for a pending apocalypse, but she hadn’t seen a demon in months, and the last few vampires she’d staked hadn’t even challenged her enough to break a sweat.

The mystical artifact scavenger hunt Giles had her on wasn’t exactly exciting, either, but he insisted it was important for the Council to get as many of them as possible, to keep them out of the wrong hands. So far, she’d retrieved six amulets, three mystical books, four magical weapons, and an honest-to-god magic mirror, but this one had to take the cake. This time, Giles was sending her after an antique gun.

“A gun?” she had asked him. “Why? What’s special about it? Guns aren’t usually very effective against demons and stuff.”

“This gun would be,” Giles said. “It was created specifically for that purpose.”

“So, what?” Buffy said. “You could shoot this gun at a vampire and it would go poof?”

“Yes, according to the legend,” Giles said. “But the real reason it’s important for us to acquire is that the legend also claims that the gun can be used in a ritual to open a Hellmouth. According to my sources it was in the possession of a gun collector in Cleveland who recently died. The collection is being sold by a local gun dealer.”

“You want me to buy it?” Buffy said. “Can we afford that?”

“It would be best to acquire it through legal means; however, if that should prove impossible….”

“Then I should make with the theft,” Buffy said. “Gotcha.”

So Dawn had found the exact date and time of the sale, which turned out to be the same afternoon Buffy found out she had a brother-in-law and was going to be an aunt. Which was why she was going to be about an hour late to the sale. She could only hope that the gun she was after hadn’t been sold yet.

Buffy felt very conspicuous in the gun shop. There were no other women in the entire place, and a few of the guys gave her funny looks when she walked in. Buffy didn’t like guns. They were of no use whatsoever against vampires and demons, but they worked on her and her friends just fine, and she was just glad that most of the evil things she faced never seemed to think of shooting at her.

She approached the counter, intending to talk to the only salesperson that seemed to be in the place, but he was talking to an older guy, mid- to late-fifties, tall, dark hair, salt-and-pepper beard. Good-looking guy, Buffy thought, too bad he was old enough to be her father. And he was asking about the gun.

The man behind the counter was explaining that he had sold the antique gun first thing.

“Who’d you sell it to?” the older guy asked.

“Sorry, can’t tell you that,” counter guy said. “Against store policy.”

The guy whipped out a badge. “You sure about that?”

“You got a warrant?” counter guy retorted.

Apparently, the cop didn’t. “I’ll be back,” he said, and left.

Buffy supposed it would be futile to ask the same questions, and unless she wanted to try beating the guy up, she doubted she’d get an answer either. Oh, well. She hadn’t broken into a single place since moving to Cleveland. She could use the excitement.