slayers_desire | its a tourist trap

The bodies have been here too long to identify the couple completely. The female has a British flag on her torn blazer.

Getting closer, April freezes up again sighting the leather duster on the male. "That is Spike's jacket."

Clark takes a closer, sharper look at the duster. "But it's not him. It can't be." Which is the one piece of good news here. "The question is, why is he wearing it?" Up close, the smell of death and decay is worse, but he shoves that aside in favor of scanning the bodies and clothing for any trace of... something. Anything unusual.

"No. It would just be dust. No body."

Both victims were bruised and beaten before their deaths, by evidence of Clark's scan. He also notes several pin-prick holes in the neck of the female.

April glances around the church, seeking answers to her questions. "I don't even sense that Spike had been in this building. It was too... holy."

Clark thinks about that as he scans the room for more clues, and notes the positions of the explosive charges so they can defuse them. "Someone who knows explosives, isn't affected by holy ground, and likely exited through the bell tower. Both bodies look like they were assaulted while they were alive. And the woman might've been injected with something. Or bitten."

Moving closer to the woman, April frowned. "They aren't bite marks. Those close enough to duplicate it. It is almost someone wanted to make people believe that she was biten, and he was the biter."

"We should defuse the explosives. We could learn more from them."

"So, pretty definitely not a real vampire. Trying to frame one? Though obviously doesn't know much about them, or they'd know there would just be dust."

He nods, and moves to the nearest explosive charge, taking a close look at how it's wired. He's not an explosives expert, but he's taken his fair share of bomb blasts. So if he does something wrong, he knows what to do to prevent anyone or anything else from being caught in the blast. He begins to try to defuse the explosives.

The explosives themselves are pretty mundane looking, and quite easy to disable. It looks like the killer was going to quantity over quality, because there is a lot to disable.

"Could the killer be trying to frame Spike?"

Once he figures out that it's safe, the defusing happens much quicker. And before long, the explosives are harmless. "Could be. Especially if the man's wearing his coat. How would someone have gotten that?" He would ask if Spike has any known enemies, but he knows that for a vampire his age, it's a stupid question.

"It would have been a fight." The jacket is something that Spike treasures. "It could mean he is in trouble."

"When's the last time you heard from him?"

"Weeks. I have been giving him space." It sounds weak. But in reality April has been scared that Spike left for a reason.

"We need to find him." But before they go, he takes one last, close look at the explosives, and the surrounding area. Just in case there's something they're missing.

She nods. "Lets get out of here. Before someone else figures out that they need to investigate this place."

((working for the next little while))

Satisfied that they're missing nothing, he takes her hand and leaves the way they came, retracing their steps so as to not disturb any more evidence, if the police eventually find this place. "Where should we start?"

"We could start at the Villa, and see if we can find traces of which way he went. When he left with Buffy. But it has been weeks."

"They didn't tell anyone where they were going?" He doesn't expect they did, but it's worth asking. "Is there a chance they're still in the city somewhere?"

"No. And I hope they stayed close. But there is so much about where they were going that is unknown."

"It would make sense. Whoever's trying to frame him, they would've had to get their hands on his coat and bring it here. It's possible they could've brought it back from somewhere wlse, but it seems farfetched to me."

That reminded her. "Should we take the coat with us?"

He stops, looking back at the room with the corpses. "I don't know. If the police find this place, it could be seen as tampering with the evidence, if we did. But if we don't, they might connect it to him somehow."

"I don't want to interfer with the job that the police have to do." April sighed, running her hands through her hair. "But I really don't want Spike to get framed for this either."

"Then we should probably take it, and try to leave the body how we found it." It isn't going to be an easy task. Or a clean one.

"Or... I could try burning it. Make sure that the body's intact, but the coat's not recognizable."

Both scenarios sound uncomfortable. She doesn't want to disturb the body. And feels really torn about this.

"Maybe they won't get any clues from the coat."

He doesn't really want to do either one, himself. "Maybe there's another way. Not burning the coat, but going over it really closely and getting rid of any... hair, or skin, or anything else that might link him to owning it. What feels right?"

"That feels more respectful. You think you could manage it?"

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