The Prophet by Rainne

Disclaimers: Dakota and Mercedes belong to me; everyone else belongs to the Great Joss.

Author's Note: Yes, I have played fast and loose with time lines. Here's what you need to know: (spoilers for season 5/6 here) after Joyce's death, Willow moved into the house with Buffy and Dawn. Buffy died, Willow took care of Dawn, Buffy came back, Buffy dealt. (I'll deal with that more specifically in a sequel.) They did not meet Tara until later. *whew*

Summary: An old friend returns to Sunnydale and turns the Scoobie's lives upside down.

The funny thing about prophecy is that, while it always comes true, it doesn't always come true in the way you'd expect. Take the Slayer Codex. "When the Slayer faces the Master, she will die" or some such nonsense. And she did die. And then got CPR and lived.

And the funny thing about prophets is how reviled they tend to be by those they prophesy to.

I've got this talent. I've always had it. All I have to do is make eye contact with someone and I know everything about them—past, present and future. It can be a bit disconcerting. By the time I was five, I'd learned to look at people's noses when speaking to them—they think you're making eye contact, but you're not catching up on what they had for lunch on August 14, 1983.

I always thought it was a harmless little talent, no big deal. Until the year I was in sixth grade. That was the year I met Kimmie Martin. I accidentally made eye contact with Kimmie one day over the science lab table, and got the full force of my little gift right in the teeth. Kimmie's uncle lived with her family, had done so for some years, and was doing things in secret and against her will that no man should ever do with a little girl.

I told. Kimmie begged me not to, repeating all the threats he'd made to her, but I told. And when asked how I knew, I told them I saw it. I tried to explain, but the next thing I knew I was being checked out by doctors for evidence of abuse myself.

By the time it was all over, my dad put in a transfer request with his software company and got himself switched to their Sunnydale location. We sold the Silicon Valley house I'd grown up in and moved.

Sunnydale was a nice town. Not much to do in the eyes of a kid who'd grown up with a Starbucks on every corner, but still pretty nice. Mom and Dad felt safe letting me walk around by myself.

I learned quickly not to make eye contact with anyone in Sunnydale. More often than not, their futures ended with a horrible monster draining their blood. My parents were no help—they didn't even believe in my gift, how could they believe in vampires? So I learned to keep my head down, not to make eye contact, and to be home before dark. In this way I survived for three years. I even made friends with a girl in my class named Willow Rosenberg, who was just as shy and just as into computers as I was.

In the summer between ninth and tenth grades, I wasn't careful enough. I was on my way home from Willow's one evening and a vampire named Darla nabbed me when I crossed through the shade of a house. She dragged me through the cemetery and into the tunnels. There, she and another vampire Turned me, thinking to make me serve the Master along with them. There was no way I would have done so. I escaped them and, thinking to kill myself, ran out into the sunlight. Nothing happened. I turned and looked back into the cave entrance I'd escaped, looking at the vampires who'd tried to catch me. They couldn't follow me out. They couldn't walk in the day. I was free.

I left Sunnydale before dark, knowing that if they caught me, they'd kill me. I went east, to Las Vegas. Vegas is a great town to be a vampire in because you can always drain and rob a rich high roller or drain and steal the wardrobe of a well-dressed tourist. I never messed with the locals, though. They're the reason idiots come to town. I learned quickly that somehow, in the Turning process, my soul never left my body. I postulate that my soul is the reason I can walk in the day, but I'm not sure: I've met one other souled vampire and he couldn't. Whatever the reason for that, my soul was definitely the reason I went all Anne Rice and fed only on the evildoer, as Lestat would say. I couldn't deal with killing innocents. Fortunately, in Sin City, there is no dearth of evildoers. I was happy in Vegas and, more importantly, safe from the growing power of the Master. I never thought to return to Sunnydale.

But word travels fast in the demonic underworld, and the Kinfolk buzzed from San Francisco to Omaha when the new Slayer was Called, came to power in Sunnydale and—gasp- killed the Master. Then, two years later, when she successfully prevented an Ascension, the demonic community buzzed again. By that time, any time one heard the name of the Slayer, one also heard of her compadres, referred to either as Scoobies or as Slayerettes. If someone spoke of Buffy Summers, they also did not fail to mention Xander Harris or Willow Rosenberg.

I don't know if it was my gift which permitted me to retain my soul, or if, as I said earlier, my soul is what permits me to walk in the daylight with no smoke, fire or other unpleasantries; but I do know that one thing the presence of my soul retained, besides my conscience, was my affection for friends and family back home. I missed my parents bitterly. And I missed my friend Willow. After I heard about the Ascension and realized that it had happened at Willow's high school graduation, I noticed just how much time had truly passed since my Turning and I wondered how Willow was doing with her new friend, the Slayer. After a couple of years of careful consideration, I decided to go and find out.

Nothing is simpler for me to find in Las Vegas than an appropriate victim is. Generally they hang about the poker and blackjack tables, often with a lame' clad sylph at his side. If I need a little money, I nab someone leaving the quarter slots with two full buckets. If I need a lot of money, I wait for one of these to send his hooker up to the hotel room to wait for him. Then I sidle up to him with a grin and a promise of a free suck off just because I'm underage and looking for a good time. Often as not, he takes it. It's not the kind of suck he expects.

When I decided to go back to Sunnydale, I knew I was going to need to stock up. After all, there's no casino in Sunnydale and one can't be forever commuting to Vegas just for a quick fifty bucks. I spent a few weeks cruising the casinos, hitting three or four a night, doing my usual dance of death. I was careful, not wanting to start a panic. I picked men who I was sure wouldn't be missed by anyone at home for some time. For a week I did this every night, collecting cash and chips from each victim, hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. Enough to ensure that I needn't worry about money for a long, long time. I cashed the chips slowly over that week, never more than a thousand dollars per booth, hitting each booth in each casino probably three times a day. I used a lot of this money to prepare for my move.

I knew a vamp in Reno at the time who did fake ID's for vamps like me who like a little legality in their everyday lives. Drivers' licenses, social security cards, birth certificates, that sort of thing. And he's a joy to work with because he doesn't like to be paid in money—all you have to do is hunt for him. For the measly price of three victims, culled from the casinos up there, I obtained a new driver's license showing me at twenty-one years old, a copy of my birth certificate and a new Social Security card, and removal from the National Registry of Missing Children. I also obtained, free of charge, the information that my parents had died in a car crash and their estates been liquidated. That money was waiting for me until my actual thirtieth birthday, at which point I was to be presumed dead and the money donated to several missing children's charities around the country.

I got in touch with the probate attorney and claimed recent recovery from amnesia. He sent a certified check to a human buddy of mine, who in turn delivered the check to me at Harrah's Casino on my last morning in town. And then my killing started in earnest.

I began at Harrah's. By the time I was done, six men were dead and six wives and six sets of children would be the better off for it. From there I moved across the street to Caesar's Palace and thence to the Luxor, the MGM Grand and the Mirage. By the time I was done, I wouldn't need to eat for two weeks, and some fifty men and four women lay dead in my wake. I cashed in all the chips at once at each casino. No need for secrecy now. I was leaving. Just before the Jeep dealership closed, I walked in the front door and grabbed the nearest salesman by the arm.

He looked down at me condescendingly. "Yes, dear? Here to pick out your first car?"

I glared at him for a moment, and then began pulling five-hundred-dollar bills out of my pocket. I counted several grand across the top of his desk and then stopped. "Why don't we call that my down payment on the test drive?"

He could see that I still had money in my hand, and probably more in my pocket. He wasn't an idiot. In half an hour, I finished counting bills out to the tune of twenty grand for a brand new, fully loaded Jeep Cherokee. Signed, sealed, delivered, no payments, no waiting. Boom. I drove away. The twenty grand hadn't even made a dent in what my parents left to me, much less my own "earnings."

I drove straight to Sunnydale without stopping for anything except gas and a little blonde hitchhiker who looked about ten and claimed to be seventeen. She gave her name as Tina Marie until I told her it had been done already, then she sighed and confessed that it was really thirteen-year-old Cassandra Blackwell from Daphne, Alabama and she was running away from home to be a movie star. A cell phone call to my buddy in Reno gave me a referral to another ID hacker in Bakersfield, this one human, who worked her up a set of documents with her real age and the name Mercedes Walsh.

Back in the car, I turned to her. "Now, I'm going to warn you, Little Bit. Those documents didn't come free." She got a look on her face that told me she knew that—nothing came without the price of a blowjob or a quickie in back of a liquor store. I shook my head. "Not that kind of price. You're going to come to Sunnydale with me. We're going to enroll you in Sunnydale Junior High as my little sister. You're going to stick with me until you're eighteen. Then, if you still want to be a movie star, we'll see what we can do. But you're going to get an education and you're going to grow up the right way first. Got me?" She nodded unconvincingly and I leaned closer to her. "Don't think you can run away from me, Little Bit. If you do, I'll find you, and I'll call your parents to come get you."

"Trust me," I said, settling into my seat and turning the car on. "You'll like Sunnydale. A lot."

We made Sunnydale that night and got a hotel room. The next day, I set a realtor to finding a house for us in a decent neighborhood and I enrolled Mercedes in school. Then I hit the tunnels.

Sunnydale has an entire network of sewer tunnels, electrical tunnels, and just plain caves running underneath it. You can get anywhere in town without ever seeing the light of day. I knew if I were going to find a local vamp, the tunnels would be the place to do it. And sure enough, I hadn't been down there twenty minutes before running across a tall, platinum-haired British fellow dressed all in black like the latest Big Bad. I gamefaced so he'd know I was Kin and introduced myself. "Dakota Walsh. How ya doin'?"

"Better be careful about that," he warned. "We've a Slayer in town. A good one."

I nodded. "I heard. Sounds interesting. Might have to stake her out." I grinned at my own pun.

He eyed me carefully before answering. "Slaughterhouse sells it, or you can break into the small version of Fort Knox they call a blood bank here. Or hunt."

I shook my head. "Nah. Not in a little burg like this. Not enough bad guys, and I'm not into driving all the way to L.A. for a midnight snack." I looked to my left and then my right and spied what I needed—the ladder to the manhole cover above me. "Watch yourself," I warned.

As he backed away, he realized what I was doing. "Are you mad?" he called from a safe distance. "It's not even noon yet!"

I laughed. "I know. I've got someplace to go. Oh, say, you wouldn't know where I might find Willow Rosen- well, never mind. As famous as she is, I shouldn't have too much trouble finding her. Thanks for your help!" I climbed out into the daylight above me and closed the manhole cover. Then I gathered my bearings. Directly across the street from me was a little store called the Magic Box. And in the window, seated at a table and poring over a large tome, was Willow Rosenberg.

Spike sped through the sewers as fast as he could, to a place he knew of where he could get to a pay phone without being exposed to the sunlight. He dropped in his quarter and dialed a number from memory. When it was answered, he spoke quickly. "You've got a problem."

Buffy finished speaking to Spike, then closed her cell phone and turned to Giles and Xander. "A day walking vampire, looking for Willow. This is bad."

I opened the door of the Magic Box and stepped inside. It was quiet, sunny and smelled of herbs and incense. I liked it immediately. It reminded me of a library, but without the dark and the mustiness and the "Shh!"

The shopkeeper, a bright-faced young blonde woman, hurried over to me. "Hello, welcome to the Magic Box. May I help you acquire anything?"

I shook my head, smiling my disarming little smile. I practiced that smile a lot. "No, thanks. I'm actually here to talk to her." I indicated Willow, who was at a table in the corner with her back to us. The woman nodded once and walked away. I watched her for a moment, wondering what it was about her that was not quite right. She held herself too stiffly, maybe, or could it have been in her speech? I wasn't sure and, when I couldn't immediately put my finger on it, I dismissed her from my mind and focused on the young woman who had once been my best friend.

I cleared my throat as I came up behind her. She turned and looked at me blankly, and I grinned weakly and gave a little wave. "Uh, hiya, Willow."

She blinked at me for a long moment, cogs turning behind her eyes. I saw the recognition the instant it came onto her face. "Dakota!" She jumped up and hugged me with a startling fierceness. "Where have you been?"

She nodded, her eyes bright with excitement and the lovely smile I'd missed so much on her face. She gathered up her things and then walked over to the counter to speak to the shopkeeper. "Anya, this is my friend Dakota. We're going to go get some coffee. If Buffy comes looking for me, will you tell her we're at the Espresso Pump?"

Anya agreed and we left the store, Willow chattering all the while about how excited Xander was going to be to see me and how great it was to have me back. I realized quickly that I hadn't truly realized how much I missed Willow Rosenberg. She was just so… so… Willow.

The coffee shop was not far away and we settled onto armchairs in a back corner, nursing mochaccinos as I tried to figure out how to tell her what I was now. She saved me the trouble by asking me directly. "Something bad happened to you that night," she stated, staring me in the face. "Didn't it?" When I nodded, she leaned forward as though to take my hand. I pulled it away quickly before she could feel my skin. I knew she would notice it was colder than a live person's skin would be, and I didn't want her to freak out. She gave me what I used to call the Patented Willow Encouragement Look ™. "Tell me, Dakota."

I sighed. "I know you know about the things that go on here," I told her. "I know you're friends with the Slayer. So I know you'll believe me. But I don't want you to freak out, Willow, and I don't want you to be afraid or anything. Please don't hold it against me. I didn't want it to happen, I really didn't. But I've made the best of it that I could. I've done my best."

She was staring at me now, eyes round as saucers and glistening. "Tell me, Dakota. What happened?"

I made sure no one was looking our direction and I gamefaced for just a brief second, then I put it away again. She gasped in shock. "Oh, no!" Then something seemed to cross her mind, and she glanced down at the large patch of sunlight I was sitting in, then at the copious amounts of sunshine streaming in through the wooden blinds, then back at me. "But…?"

She looked bewildered but intrigued at the same time. "Well, what- what about crosses? And, and holy water? And stakes?"

"Crosses don't affect me," I informed her, showing her the gold one I was wearing. "I haven't been to church since it happened so I couldn't tell you about holy water. And stakes, well, I must say I've been fortunate enough not to have had the misfortune."

"Well, then, let me see if I can't rectify that situation for you," said a new voice from behind me, one with an undercurrent of ice and steel.

I turned to find a skinny blonde girl behind me holding a small stake in her hand. I smiled. "Ah. You must be Buffy Summers. I've heard about you. Why don't you put that thing away before you frighten the civilians and sit down for some coffee with us." When she didn't seem inclined to take me up on my suggestion, I added acidly, "I'm hardly going to eat anyone in broad daylight in a crowded coffee shop, now am I? Honestly, Slayer, just put it away and sit down before you alarm someone!"

Obviously against her better judgment, Buffy took the armchair next to Willow's. "Fine," she said flatly to me. So talk." And she proceeded to glare at me.

I made a couple of false starts in an attempt to pick back up where I'd left off, but with her looking daggers at me every time I opened my mouth, I couldn't get the coherency together to string three words into a sentence, much less explain myself. Finally, disgusted, I set my coffee cup on the end table beside me and stood. I shouldn't have come back. I might have known the Slayer would be too much of a Neanderthal to have anything but a knee-jerk reaction to a vampire, no matter what kind of vampire said vampire actually was." And without pausing to see if that last bit had made any sense, since I strongly suspected it hadn't, I turned and made my way out of the shop.

I smiled at her, fondly remembering the little geek she had once been and warmed to the bottom of my undead heart to see the strong, lovely, compassionate young woman she had become. "Will, do you know how special you really are? I believe you still care about me, even though…"

She held my wrist tightly. "Of course I care about you, Dakota, you're my friend! Of course I care."

I shook my head, trying to get my hand away without hurting her. "I can't stay, Will. She'll just stake me at the first opportunity."

"I won't stake you." Her voice came from the doorway. Willow and I both turned to see her standing there just behind us and I took a step forward, coming nose-to-nose with her and deliberately looking her dead in the eyes.

"Don't make promises you won't keep, Slayer," I murmured, low enough so Willow couldn't hear me. "She wouldn't like it."

"I'll keep that promise," she murmured back, "until and unless you hurt her. If that happens, though-" and suddenly the point of her stake was against my chest.

I grinned easily, showing no fear, and then delivered my parting blow. "Don't be so quick to discount me as just another demon, Buffy Anne Summers," I warned her, grinning more to see her eyes widen in shock. "I could just be a valuable ally to you. Oh, and don't worry—I won't tell her about the dreams. Won't breathe a word of it."

I stepped away from her then, nodded sharply in farewell, and turned to Willow, who smiled at me. "I'll- I'll call you later, Buffy, okay?"

"Sure, okay," Buffy replied, obviously on autopilot as she continued to stare at me, dumbfounded. I gave her a little wink and then turned away to walk off down the street with Willow.

Buffy watched in shock as Willow and her friend, the vampire, strolled off down the street in the midday sunlight, chatting like old friends. She suddenly knew what that phrase meant that Giles sometimes said: "The mind boggles."

She turned away from them at the thought of Giles, heading toward her Watcher's house and pondering the vampire's little parting shot. How had she known Buffy's real name? More importantly, how had she known about the dreams?

Buffy's palms began to sweat. She wiped them on her jeans and kept walking. How had that vampire known about the dreams? Nobody knew about the dreams. Not Giles. Not Xander. Not Spike. Not even Willow, her best friend. Especially not Willow. After all, how do you explain to your best friend that you've been in love with her since the day you first met her, and that in the last year or so, you've begun having extremely graphic sex dreams about her? Buffy grimaced at the awkwardness of even the contemplation of the thought of telling Willow.

She wandered down to the park across from the middle school and watched the children as they were dismissed. She didn't see Dawn, but Dawn could've been anywhere in the crowd.

A gaggle of girls came across the street and into the park, near enough to Buffy that she, sitting quietly as she was, could hear their entire conversation.

"Mercedes Walsh. She's in my reading class. Mrs. Johnson sat her next to me and made me share my book with her."

Walsh. The vampire had introduced herself to Spike as Dakota Walsh. Was the little sister a daywalker, too? She couldn't imagine a vampire in a familial situation.

"I don't know. She was hanging out with Dawn Summers. Dawn knew the other woman. Called her by name. I was standing there. I heard the whole thing."

Buffy was now sitting bolt upright and breathing hard. The next sentence she heard sent her flying though the park.

"Yeah. Dawn left with them. They must be friends or something." The girl who was speaking looked up as a blonde haired woman went racing through the park and down the sidewalk. "What a weirdo. Hey, did you hear about Devon McMichael's party this weekend?"

Giles looked up from his research books as Xander came through his front door. "Hey Giles! You called and here I am."

"Ah, Xander, so glad you could make it. Please, sit- sit down." As the young man took the indicated seat, Giles pulled his glasses off and cleaned them on the tail of his shirt. "Xander, tell me please about Dakota Walsh."

Xander looked blank for a moment, then registered the name. "Oh, yeah, Dakota. I remember her. She was cool. Very nice." He thought for a second. "She came here from Silicon Valley in sixth grade. She was a computer geek just like Willow and they bonded instantly. Disappeared during the summer after ninth grade. The cops said she ran away, but I figure the vamps got her. Why?"

"Do you recall," Giles inquired, "whether she had any special abilities or talents?"

Xander thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Nah. Just the computer thing. Look, what's this about? What's going on?"

Giles shook his head. "Not so much as you might think. Spike ran into her in the sewers earlier today. Your postulation that the vampires had gotten her was quite right. But the frightening thing, Xander, is that as Spike watched, she exited the sewer through a manhole onto the street at eleven-thirty in the morning. Broad daylight."

"But then—" Xander stopped. "Wait. Are you telling me we have a vampire that can walk in the broad daylight?"

"Indeed I am," Giles confirmed. "And apparently she hasn't forgotten her good friend Willow."

Just as Xander was attempting to wrap his mind around that bit of unwelcome news, Buffy burst into the house. "Giles! She's got Dawn. The new vampire. She's Willow's friend. She's got Dawn!"

I brought Willow back to the hotel with me. She'd asked if I wanted to go to her house, but then she dropped the minor fact that she roomed with the Slayer, and I politely declined. I had no intention of being found in the Slayer's house without her express permission, possibly not even without an engraved invitation. Maybe not even then.

Willow was telling me about some of the things that had been going on in her life. "So then the Mayor turned into this giant worm thing, and ate the Principal—"

"Oh, no, no, no—Mr. Snyder. Mr. Flutie got eaten by hyena people in tenth grade year. That was right after Buffy came. The worm thing ate Mr. Snyder. It was actually a pretty good thing."

We sat in silence for a moment, just as we once had as teenagers, then glanced at each other briefly and caught the giggles. When we finally calmed down, I asked her if she was seeing anyone.

She went totally deer-in-the-headlights, and it would've been comical if I hadn't been afraid she would pass out. "You didn't forget."

I smiled slightly. "How could I?" I asked softly. "Relax, love, no one else knows. And I won't tell them. Your friends don't even suspect." Not even the one who'd cry for joy over knowing it, I added in my mind. So, who's the lucky girl?"

I could almost feel her thinking fast. "Well, there's this girl, Tara, who comes to the Wicca group," she began. "She's really nice. And I think she might be interested in me, too." There was a hint of a question to her voice.

I could have found out everything I wanted to know easily, but Willow was my friend. And once, maybe more. I could never invade her like that, tear through her barriers and abuse her trust. I simply looked at her, examining her face carefully. She wouldn't meet my eyes. I just shook my head. "Don't lead this Tara on if she's not the one you really want," I cautioned quietly. "It'll just lead to heartache in the end—for her, for you, and probably for whoever it is that you really love."

I'd have said more, but my cell phone rang. It was Mercedes. "School's out. Can you come get me?"

"Sure. Be there in a bit." I closed the phone and turned to Willow. "Gotta go pick up Mercedes. Ride along?"

I explained about my "little sister" on the ride to the junior high school. Willow was appropriately appalled by the thought of a thirteen-year-old child hitchhiking from Alabama to California. "I think the Alabama part might even be true—she's got a little accent," I confided.

I pulled up in front of the school and Mercedes was waiting for me with another young girl. Willow put her window down as we approached. "Hey, Dawnie!"

"Hey, Willow," the girl replied. She was cute in an understated sort of way. "What are you doing here?"

I sighed theatrically. "Now, look, Mercedes, how many times have I told you, stealing is NOT the right way to get a little sister?"

The car filled with giggles as Mercedes moved over and let her friend into the car. We started down the road and were waiting merrily at a stoplight when Willow, in an undertone, dropped her bombshell on me. "Dawn is Buffy's little sister."

If I didn't have nerves of iron, I swear I would have wrecked the car. "What?!" When Willow nodded in confirmation, I groaned. "Oh, great. Just what I need. Now I have the Slayer chasing me, wanting to rip my head off for snatching her kid sister. Wonderful."

"You didn't snatch me," Dawn replied, munching on a candy bar she'd pulled out of her bag. "I came on my own."

"Oh, even better." I was beginning to think I should've stayed in Vegas and just sent a postcard.

Arriving at the Slayer's house, the two girls dashed inside while Willow and I came up behind them. We were on the porch steps when the phone began to ring and Willow, being Willow, dashed inside to answer it, forgetting that some members of our little group needed an invitation to enter the house. I was stranded at the door, waiting for her to come back, when Dawn and Mercedes came out of the kitchen carrying sodas and heading for the stairs. Dawn gave me a quizzical look. "Why are you standing out there?" she asked, and then suddenly seemed to come up with the answer for herself just as a screech of tires announced a car pulling up at the curb at a very high speed. "Oh my God," Dawn said. "You're a vampire." And then she started to scream.

"Oh, for God's sake!" I exclaimed in frustration. But I didn't have chance to say anything else as I went flying across the porch to land in a heap next to a planter, my head feeling as though it had taken a direct hit from a twenty-pound cannonball.

The cannonball turned out to be the Slayer's booted foot; she'd decked me with a well-placed roundhouse to the left jawbone that was sure to leave my ears ringing for an hour. As I lay on the wood floor, moaning in agony, she came to stand over me. "You stay away from her," she growled.

"I didn't do anything!" I exclaimed. "I came here with Willow, for Christ's sake! She forgot I needed an invite, Dawn saw me waiting on the porch, put two and two together and came up with fangs! I never touched her!"

"And look where she is now! At home—her home!" I retorted. The looked up as Dawn's small hand offered me an ice pack. "Thank you, love," I told her as I took it and placed it gingerly against my face.

"We took her from school," came the voice of my savior. Willow came around Buffy and helped me up. "She asked for a ride home. She's not Spike, okay, Buffy?" As I was sorting out the modifiers of Willow's pronouns, she was helping me sit down on the stair with my back to the roof post. Standing around me now in a loose little circle were Buffy, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Mercedes and a gentleman whom I did not recognize. Willow was glaring at all of them and so, I noticed, was Mercedes. "She- she- she's not with the chip and all, but she's got a soul. Like Angel. She doesn't kill people. Well, not much. Okay?"

"Friendship." The answer came from Xander, who was looking down at me with a strange expression.

"Friendship. Dakota and Willow were best friends from day one. The only person who knows more about Willow Rosenberg than I do sits before you with an ice pack. Friendship's a strong tie. I'd defend you, Buffy, or Willow, just the same if the roles were reversed."

"Yeah," Willow agreed, looking down at me with a smile. "We really were best friends. Sleepovers and everything." Then she laughed. "I guess it's kind of hard to fear the evil when you know what it looks like in its jammies."

The resultant laugh eased the tension somewhat and then Xander had the presence of mind to introduce me to Buffy's watcher, Giles, who then suggested that we adjourn to the interior of the house to prevent the neighbors from wondering what was going on. But something still wasn't sitting well with Buffy. She looked at me carefully, as though gauging whether or not I could be trusted with an invitation into her home.

Suddenly, I was mad. Here I was, minding my own business, I'd killed no one and done nothing but put my "sister" in school and try to find a house, and already here's the Slayer with an intent to kill. "Is everybody in this town guilty until proven innocent? What is it with you, Slayer?"

"Yeah!" said a voice which entered the conversation now for the first time. Mercedes was suddenly standing over me, all defiance and righteous wrath. " You act like she's killed somebody's mama or something! I didn't know she was a vampire until Dawn said so, but I don't care. Even if she is, I don't care. If she'd of wanted my blood, she could have had it any time in the last three days. But she didn't. She picked me up, fed me, got me a shower and some clean clothes and made me go to school like she gave a crap about me, which is more than what my mama or daddy ever done for me. So you better be nice to her or I'll—I'll—well, I don't know what I do but I reckon you won't like it much!" And she crossed her arms and glared at Buffy with giant, pointy daggers in her eyes.

There was a long silence, and then Giles spoke softly. "Well, Miss Walsh, It would appear that you have a more staunch defender than any of us would have expected or imagined."

"Yeah," Dawn said, somehow grinning at me and glaring at Buffy at the same time. "A little sister can come in handy sometimes, huh?"

Everyone looked at Buffy, who was staring at me. She seemed to be deep in thought. Finally, she extended a hand to me and helped me up, looking me square in the eyes before I could avoid it. "Dakota, would you like to come in?"

Her intentions were as clear to me as though she'd written them on glass. She really was willing to give me a chance. I smiled. "I'd be honored."

The girls, assured that nobody was going to get staked, escaped upstairs to talk about girl things. The rest of us sat in the living room. Buffy glanced at Giles and then took reluctant charge of our "meeting."

I shrugged. "Willow said it. On the porch. 'She's got a soul, like Angel.' Which I'll dispute, thanks: while I do, in fact, have a soul, it is nothing and may I repeat nothing like Angel's. So, how do you know him?"

"He- he used to live here. In-in-in Sunnydale. He helped us defeat the Master, and prevent the Mayor's Ascension," Buffy explained. That wasn't the end of the story, I could tell; but it was all I was going to get. It wasn't my business, anyway.

"Well, I met him in L.A. I heard about him through some friends—a souled vampire isn't something you hear about every day, either. So I went out there to meet him. To see. If he was like me. Because I thought maybe my soul was what makes me immune, you know? To sunlight and crosses and stuff. Turns out, it wasn't." I shook my head. "He tried to get me to stay and work for him, but his business isn't really my style. I'm a little more, shall we say, financially motivated. I am a creature of comforts, after all."

"I have it on good authority," I replied. I could see that she was working something out in her head.

"But you hunt. You have a soul, yet you hunt. With the killing and the sucking of blood and everything." This was from Xander. Trust Xander to say something really inane.

"Only those who desire or deserve it," I told him, carefully enunciating my words. "There's a big difference. It's more like… um… bounty hunting for snacks."

Giles stood impatiently. He was obviously fascinated by me and was masking this fact poorly. He silenced Xander with a severe look and then took over the questioning himself. "Your soul does not trouble you as regards your past killings?"

He cleaned his glasses again. I was beginning to suspect this was simply a nervous habit. "How did you know that a particular victim desired or deserved to die?"

"The ones who desire death are easy to spot. They stand around on street corners with dead eyes and dead hearts, waiting for their bodies to follow. Just staring. But the ones who deserve it"—and here I think I smiled—"they are truly worthy to be called prey."

I stood, advancing on Giles with each slow word. "They're easy to spot, you know, in a place like Vegas. The poker rooms, the blackjack tables, they're full, and… and ripe. Not the slots—those are usually manned by low-budget tourists on honeymoon. Innocents. Not my style.

So you stake him out at the blackjack table. He's got a whore on his arm that's gonna cost him more for a thirty-minute romp than he was willing to spend all last year on both his kids' school clothes. She's worth it, too, I'm sure. After all, chances are, I've had her." Giles' back was against the wall now and his brow was sweaty. I took pity on him, turning away to slowly circle the room as I talked and bestow my gift of knowledge on each person. I was remembering a particularly sweet kill, and my mouth was watering.

"So he's playing blackjack, and his hand goes a little farther under her skirt every time he gets a twenty-one which by the way is often. He's hot tonight. Or he could be counting cards. The chips are stacking up, blue and red in alternating stacks. This guy's a real high-roller.

"But you know, he's also a sick son of a bitch." I leaned over Xander's shoulder and spoke the last sentence in a hard voice that carried throughout the room despite its lack of volume. "This guy's got a wife at home with bruises and probably a cracked rib under her clothes, and two little girls ages five and eight that he's teaching the fine art of giving Daddy head. And here's this whore and believe it or not, boys and girls, I know her. Know her name, know her face and know the sound of her voice when she screams my name in the dark. I know her. She's a good girl. But she's got three kids and no education and she's got to feed the babies somehow. And this guy, this sick fuck that makes his kindergartener suck his dick, this sick fuck is also into strangling whores and screwing them while they die."

Buffy, sitting across from Xander, went green as I recounted what I'd seen. But I wasn't done. I started to walk again. "So you stalk him. It might take all day for him to get done at the table, but eventually he does. The chips go into his pocket and he leads the whore to the elevator. But as he's about to get on after her, he sees you there in a corner of the lobby. And he knows what he sees and he likes it 'cause you're just what he likes. And he gives the room key to the whore and tells her he'll be up directly. And then you give him a grin and ask him if he wants to have a good time."

I laid my hand on Willow's shoulder and spoke as though to her alone, simply confiding in my best friend. "Now, most guys with a thousand-dollar hooker waiting for them upstairs would tell you to haul your underaged ass out of there before they call security. But not this guy. Oh, no. Because you're just what he likes. And though you might be able to pass for twenty-one in makeup and a fancy outfit, well, with your hair up in braids and the hollow-eyed look on your face for effect, he takes you at your word when you whisper that you're just twelve. After all, when he wants to believe it, he'll believe it. Right? He likes 'em young. So you pull him off into a service corridor and he starts to unfasten his pants and he asks you how much. And you tell him just the price of a meal. And then you show him your real face."

Now standing just behind Buffy, I gamefaced and leaned close to her. "And then he's yours," I sighed. "The best taste you've ever experienced because let me tell you something, Slayer, Anne Rice was right: the blood of the evildoer is sweet. It's also thick and rich and warm, and more intoxicating than the strongest wine known to man, beast or demon." And I changed back to my regular face, standing up. "Everything after that," I continued flatly, "is just details. But sometimes the actual amount of money he's carrying on him can be a pleasant surprise.

"So, Giles, does my soul trouble me about letting two little girls grow up without having to learn about the birds and the bees hands-on with their dad, raised by a mother who's too afraid of him killing her to step in and protect them? No, not especially."

The atmosphere hung silent as I finished for a long moment, before being broken by slow, sarcastic applause. "Oh, bra-vo," came the dry British accent that did not belong to Giles. "Bloody dramatic artistry, that was," the voice continued, and I tracked it to the kitchen doorway. There stood Spike. He wasn't finished talking. "I've heard of you," he said. "Nice rep you've got, and with only a few years of working at it. Good show."

"Heard of me, have you?" I responded, consciously mocking his accent. "No need to ask who you are, Spike. Nice show of pathetic sarcasm to mask your, ah… incapability, shall we say? And of course, a hopeless crush on our dear friend, the Slayer."

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Just 'cause you can read minds, bloody well doesn't give you the right to go about spreading my secrets."

I laughed. "I didn't have to read your mind, you pathetic little sod. You're a joke among the Kin, William." I sneered. "William the Bloody. Ought to change your name to William the Buddy, don't you think?"

He gamefaced and growled at me. "My chip won't stop me from killing you, you little bitch," he snarled. "Think you can get away with saying stuff like that to me."

"Yes, I damn well do think I can, so put that face away. You can't scare me. You're a pathetic excuse for a vampire, William. You're nothing."

"Wow," Xander interjected with false brightness. "Didn't know we were going to get involved in a territorial pissing contest between two vampires."

And then Willow was there, laying a calming hand on my shoulder and pressing me back into a chair. "Just calm down, calm down" she was whispering to me. "It's okay. Just calm down."

I turned and looked at her. And then I shook my head. "I shouldn't have come back. This was a bad idea. I should have stayed in Vegas."

I sighed and put my head in my hands, rubbing my temples. "Why aren't you scared of me and chasing me away with stakes and holy water?" I asked her quietly. "You should hate me. I'm a vampire. You fight vampires all day long."

"Maybe so," she whispered back. "But you're also my friend. And friends stick by each other. Okay?"

But Spike had one parting shot before he left. "Careful there, Dakota," he called to me on his way back into the basement. "Don't want people thinking you've a crush on the witch there. Might be bad for her reputation." And then he was gone.

It must have been a dream, because I was human. I was strolling down the main street of downtown Sunnydale, looking at shop windows. Willow was walking with me, chattering about something. The sunlight shone on her red hair and flashed off her bright smile. She was the light at the center of my universe.

"Well, well, look who's here, Dakota and Willow, come to look at things they either can't afford or haven't got the fashion sense to accessorize with."

"Oh, no," Willow whimpered. I looked at her, and the smile was gone. My world was darker for its loss.

"Don't worry," I whispered back. "I'll take care of her." I turned to face our tormentor. "Cordelia! Oh, and Harmony, too! How lovely to see both of you," I exclaimed in a loud voice.

They looked at each other, startled, but I didn't give them a chance to react more than that. "Look," I continued, drawing them to one side and speaking loudly enough that some boys from our school who were sitting nearby turned to look. "I've been thinking really strongly about your offer, but I gotta tell you ladies, I'm flattered but I'm just not into the idea of a threesome. Not that I'd never do it, you know, but just that the thought of being in bed naked with the two of you is really rather repulsive. Sorry."

They were too dumbfounded to say anything as I turned then and, taking Willow by the hand, walked away. We could hear the laughter of the boys all the way down the street and into the bookstore. We fell, laughing, into the floor behind the computer book rack.

I just grinned. "I'd been looking for an opportunity to use that one," I told her. "I thought it up weeks ago." She was still holding my hand, her eyes bright on my face as I looked carefully around hers, and I took a deep breath. It had been tough not to exercise my talent on her, to find out how she would respond to what I wanted to tell her, but I had managed to do it. I wasn't going to use it on Willow. I would never ever do that to Willow. Not that it wouldn't make my job easier, but I just couldn't bring myself to invade her mind. So I took a deep breath. "Willow, I have something I want to tell you."

She blinked at me for a second. "Well, I love you too, Dakota. You know that."

"No." I shook my head. "I mean I love you. Like love. Really love. Like the heart-pounding, violin-playing, ring-buying, real live love."

She seemed to stop breathing for a second, and then something changed in her face. Suddenly I could see something there that I'd never seen before. And she was smiling. "Dakota… I love you too," she whispered, just before she leaned forward and kissed me.

In the manner of dreams, when the kiss broke we were lying on her bed. I looked around the room at the clothing strewn everywhere—we hadn't been too careful when undressing each other—and knew when I was. Her parents were out of town, and I was staying with her to keep her company. We had declared our love to one another some three weeks previously and, alone in the house together, had found the pressure of hormones and young lust too much to bear. One thing, as things tend to do, had led to another and here we were now, basking in mutual First Afterglow.

She snuggled closer to me. And she was asleep. And I just held her close, loving her so hard that I thought my heart would break with it. And I knew that no matter what happened, I would never let her go. In my dream, I fell asleep and then awoke to find her looking at me in wonder. "What's that look for?" I asked with a sleepy grin.

She smiled. "For you," she told me, kissing me quickly. "Because you're so awesome."

I grinned cheekily and winked. "Well, you know, I kind of figured from the way you were saying my name…"

She poked me in the ribs and I squealed, ticklish. She followed her poke up with a full out tickle assault, which turned more into a wrestling match, which ended in another sweet kiss.

And again in the manner of dreams, when the kiss broke, we picked up our study things and tromped down the stairs. I said goodbye to her mother, who was standing in the kitchen, and we stepped out onto the front porch. The Sunday afternoon sun was sinking quickly and I wanted to get home before it was gone. I could make it if I was quick.

I didn't know that they didn't need full dark. I didn't know that all they needed, really, was protection from the sun. I didn't know that the cool, dark place between Mrs. Bentz's house and her garage, blocked from the view of the street by thick azalea bushes, was enough of a safe place for them. So I wasn't careful enough. And then they had me, and Darla's voice was whispering in my ear, and I was trying to scream, but there were teeth in my throat and I couldn't get enough air, and then—

Then Darla's voice became Mercedes', begging me to wake up, and Darla's hands on my shoulders became Mercedes', shaking me hard in an effort to rouse me. I blinked at her for a few seconds before her fine little features came into focus, trying to remember where I was. Then I realized it was just room 112 at the Sunnydale HoJo, and I sighed. "Sorry, sweetie. Did I wake you?" I asked as she tumbled into the double bed beside me.

She shook her head. "Not really." I glanced over her at her own bed and saw that it was strewn with schoolbooks. "I couldn't really sleep," she explained, "so I figured I'd catch up a little bit. They're ahead of me on the science and the math by about two weeks." She snuggled closer to me. "What were you dreaming about?"

"When they made me a vampire," I told her, thinking it safe to tell her that part of it.

"Oh," she replied and then was silent for a moment. "Did it hurt?" she eventually asked, reaching up to turn off the light.

"Nah, not really," I said after some consideration. "It wasn't, you know, pleasant or anything, but after the actual bite itself, you don't really feel anything. Mostly you just get weaker and… well, I do remember being very cold."

She shook her head. "Not really. It's just different. Tell me about it. When they made you. What happened?"

And I told it to her. Not really a suitable bedtime story for a seventh-grader, but I told her anyway. If she was going to be my sister, she had a right to know. I began with leaving Willow's house, and then told her how Darla had come out of Mrs. Bentz's azaleas at me, grabbing me before I really realized what she was doing and pulling me behind the bushes, where another vamp held me down while she drained me.

I explained the Turning process to her, how the vampire drains you nearly dry, then replenishes you with his or her own blood. I told her that in most people, with the introduction of the demon into their body, that the soul is released and what is left is a demonically possessed shell, personality intact but the person themselves ordinarily gone.

"Oh." I paused. Honesty, eh? "Well, yeah," I finally admitted. "Yeah. I do like her."

She nodded. "Good. I do, too. She doesn't care that you're a vampire, and I don't either. So go for it."

I grinned. "Perhaps I will, at that," I told her, but she didn't hear me. She was asleep.

Giles and Buffy were sitting at the island in the Summers kitchen, seriously discussing their new vampire in town. "I just don't know how stable she is," Buffy was commenting.

"I'd say she's not very stable," Giles remarked. "She had me positively terrified during her little... ah… dissertation this afternoon."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "I definitely get the feeling that she's not playing with a full deck. The big question is, how short, exactly, is she? One or two cards and she could be okay. If she's missing the entire suit of clubs, though, it could be cause for alarm."

"Yes," Giles said. "Certainly the fact that she has a soul and won't be gadding about indiscriminately draining innocents is a help, as we won't have to watch her too closely. But what exactly are her criteria?"

"Yeah, I was wondering that, too," Buffy remarked. "I mean, sure, the guy she talked about today had it coming and a lot more besides. But how does she know these guys really do these things? I can't imagine he was bragging about it all around and she just happened to overhear. So what makes a bad guy, in the Dakota Dictionary?"

Giles nodded. "Xander's theory of friendship certainly makes sense. After all, look at how he responded when his friend Jesse was made a vampire. He gave Jesse many opportunities to prove that he hadn't become evil. I am simply concerned as to how big of a blind spot Willow may have. Will she recognize the fact if Dakota should go over the edge? Or will she staunchly defend her friend to the death?"

Willow, upstairs, was trying to fall asleep and didn't know that Giles and Buffy were a floor below her, concerned with her loyalty. She had been through a long evening after Dakota's story, wondering just how much she was going to be able to relate to her friend with this new facet to her personality. Certainly she'd seemed the same old Dakota when they had been talking that afternoon, but this new vampire part of Dakota was someone Willow didn't know.

Willow thought back to the last time she'd seen her friend—no, say it Willow, lover—before Dakota had disappeared. And how badly she'd hurt when Dakota went missing and nobody could find her anywhere. How heartbroken she'd been that she didn't even get a phone call to tell her, "Hey, Will, it's been fun but I've gotta split now." It had been hard to heal.

Xander had been awesome, and Willow thought perhaps his caring, considerate reactions to her during that time had possibly been what drew her to fall in love with him when she had. But she knew now, through much trial and error, that she could never be completely happy with a guy. Xander, Oz, guys just weren't for her. And she'd just been about to prove it with the young girl from her Wicca group, Tara, when suddenly the first love of her life returned. Fortunately, she hadn't actually gone anywhere with the Tara angle yet, so if she decided not to, there wouldn't be any painful removal of herself from that relationship. She could simply stay on a friendship level with the other Wicca and nobody would be the wiser.

She sighed. And then there was Buffy. There were too many choices in life. And she fell asleep to dream of making love to Dakota for the first time.

Mercedes and I spent the next couple of weeks house hunting. There was real estate available all over Sunnydale; apparently the town has an inexplicably high mortality rate and transfer rate. Go figure. For that reason, we had a large selection of places to choose from. I wasn't sure if I wanted to actually purchase a house, since I didn't know if we'd stay, but Mercedes was in love with Sunnydale and quickly building a circle of new friends that I was loath to part her from.

Other than house hunting, I had nothing to do and I was bored out of my mind. In Las Vegas there was always something to do. I would sometimes spend entire weeks stalking one victim. In Sunnydale there was nothing besides a trip to the butcher shop or the blood bank to occupy my time. I took to bumming around the business district, wandering in and out of shops and cafes for hours on end, people-watching. I dropped into the Magic Box on a daily basis when I knew Willow would be there and we'd often go for coffee or lunch, enjoying the sunlight and philosophizing about things. We slipped back into the routine of best-friendship easily, though I knew I was now sharing her friendship with Buffy. That didn't bother me in the least. What did bother me was that brief glimpse I'd had into Buffy's eyes, a glimpse I had deliberately chosen not to repeat. I could still see those things that I'd seen in her mind: the dreams, the emotions, all those things that were strongest on the surface. I wasn't sure if I could handle seeing them again.

On the second Friday after coming to Sunnydale, I got a call from the realtor who had found us a "charming" lease/purchase that she thought we'd just love. I met her at the house, which turned out to be on the same street as Willow and Buffy's home, just a few blocks down. It was wonderful and I told the realtor that, barring Mercedes' nixing the choice, I thought we had a winner. 1924 Revello Drive had three bedrooms and two baths upstairs, all with large windows and closets; the living room downstairs had beautiful built-in bookshelves; the kitchen was large and airy with gleaming chrome appliances; the back yard was large, sunny and tree-filled; and there was even a dusty attic. Plus, the fact that it was within walking distance of Dawn's house would be a big help.

From the house, I went for my daily wander downtown. I settled into a chair at a table in front of a small café with coffee and croissants, and I was just sitting, basking in the warm sunlight and thinking about becoming an artist just for grins, when a voice from behind me startled me out of my reverie. "How's it going, cutie?"

I jumped, nearly spilling my coffee. Willowlaugh bubbled up from behind me and I turned with a grin as she joined me, her own cup of coffee in her hand. "Hey, Will. You're out early."

"Hey yourself. Class got canceled. Instructor's sick. How's the French cuisine?" She indicated my croissants.

I nodded. "About two years ago. I wanted to see if I could find the real Louis and Lestat."

I shrugged. "Not exactly. There was some evidence to indicate that they had existed… nothing solid, though. Someone's grandmother's friend knew the seamstress who had fitted the little girl's dresses but she'd been dead for twenty years, that sort of thing. All circumstantial. Locations mentioned in the books looked completely deserted. The only thing that told me I might be onto something was this one voodoo priestess who, believe it or not, sought be out on Royal Street one night. I was just wandering, and she came up behind me. She was the reason I finally left New Orleans."

I shivered, remembering the look on the priestess's face as she'd spoken to me. "Told me I was asking too many questions. Advised me that the smartest thing I could do would be to stop asking them and leave New Orleans. 'This night, you are still safe,' she said, 'but when the sun goes down tomorrow you will not be. I advise you not to be here.' So I left." I shook my head. "When a voodoo priestess tells you that you're not safe in a city, you're best advised to find another city to be in. I caught a flight back to Vegas before noon the next day."

I grinned. "Willow. I thought you were brighter than that. I was getting too close. And I didn't even realize it. I still don't know today what I was onto. But I was onto something and I was told quick to get off of it."

"Night Island," she repeated. "The one vampire in the book, Armand, owned Night Island in Miami. Go there."

I stared at her until she asked me what the funny expression on my face was about, then I had to laugh. "Will, think about it. They called in the voodoo to get me out of New Orleans. Do you think they'll kindly warn me out of Miami the same way, or will they just have a priest of Santería turn me into a chicken?"

We wandered the streets of Sunnydale together until it was time to go pick up Mercedes and have a look at the new house prospect. I invited Willow to come with us, and she enthusiastically accepted. In the car, she rested her hand on the console, her fingers just brushing the denim of my jeans.

Dawn was waiting with Mercedes today, which was not unusual; but they wanted me to take them to the mall. "Sorry, kids," I said, shaking my head. "We've got a house to look at."

Dawn wanted to come, giving me the puppy-dog eyes that thirteen-year-olds seem to all be so good at, and I made her call Buffy on my cell phone to ask for permission. When she hung up, she had both permission and an invitation to dinner for Mercedes and myself. I was flattered and Mercedes excited. The girls immediately planned to make it a sleepover, since the next day was Saturday. I grinned at Willow as we listened to them chatter, because I remembered when she and I sounded just like them.

I had been right about the house. Mercedes' reaction to all the other houses we'd seen had been lukewarm at best, but this house she fell in love with as soon as she saw it. The little bookworm in her rhapsodized over the bookshelves in the living room; the part of her that was still a child immediately wanted to build a treehouse in the back yard; and the budding teenager was in ecstasy over the upstairs corner bedroom with window seat, white walls and blue carpeting. She and Dawn immediately began deciding how they would decorate: the poster of Eminem would go there and the poster of Blink-182 would go here.

Willow and I went back downstairs and sat on the rusty little wrought-iron bench on the back porch. She sat very close to me, and I could feel the heat of her body as we talked about silly little things like bird feeders and vegetable gardens. And then, so suddenly that I'm still not sure how it happened, I was kissing her. And she was kissing me back.

She leaned into me as our kiss deepened, her mouth hot and her hands clutching my arms tightly. I buried my hands in her flame-red hair and kissed her for all I was worth. I heard her make a tiny sound deep in her throat, and I released her lips, working my way down the line of her jaw to her throat, where the pulse beat. She whispered my name and I returned to her lips briefly, planting several tiny kisses on them before drawing her close to me to simply hold her tightly.

She clutched me as though she feared drowning, her face buried in the junction where my shoulder met my neck. She was crying.

"Because I missed you so much. I didn't even realize how much I missed you. I love you, Dakota, I still love you, no matter what."

I rocked her gently as her crying slowed. "I know, sweetie," I told her, stroking her hair. "I know. I love you, too. That's why I came back."

Dinner that night was not the restrained, cold affair I had feared. Instead, the environment was warm and inviting. Buffy was obviously accustomed to entertaining vampires because, in addition to the delicious meal, there was also a mug of warm blood at my plate. This courtesy made me wonder about Spike, whom I had very conspicuously not seen since the opening sally of what was probably going to end up being a war for territory. Obviously William the Bloody was accustomed to being Head Vampire In Town and wasn't prepared to give up his position to what he probably saw as a young upstart from out of town, still wet behind the ears. I wasn't too concerned about what he did or didn't want.

Buffy's Watcher, Giles, had joined us for dinner. He was obviously fascinated by me and kept asking me questions. The one I'd been dreading came over dessert. "How did you know, Dakota? When you stalked your victims, as you told us before, and found the evildoers in the casinos, how did you know their life stories? I'm assuming they weren't bragging about them."

I snorted. "You'd be surprised. Some of them did. But others, no. Others I had to use my Gift on."

I sighed. "I should've told you this a long time ago, Will, but you know how insecure kids are. I was just sure you'd run screaming into the night and hate me forever." I shrugged. "There's this talent that I have. I've had it ever since I was a kid, and I think it might be tied to the whole day walking thing. But whether it is or not, it's there. It's kind of like being selectively psychic. If I make direct eye contact with someone, I know things about them."

"Direct eye contact?" Buffy asked. I saw her eyes flash and knew she was thinking of what I said to her in front of the Espresso Pump about her dreams.

"Yeah. You know, walk up to somebody and look them dead in the eye. I hate it. It's so noisy." I grimaced. "But sometimes it's useful. One can use it, for example, to intrigue someone so that they don't kill you at the first opportunity, but instead wait for a chance to figure out how you knew what you knew. Then you have the chance to dazzle them with your brilliant wit and sparkling personality, and perhaps they decide not to kill you, after all, but instead to invite you over for a lovely dinner." I finished with a winning smile and an innocent blink-blink-blink, which made her laugh.

"Very perceptive," she conceded. "Especially after you showed up here and I thought you'd snatched Dawn." She shook her head at me.

Dawn and Mercedes closed themselves into Dawn's room after dinner, listening to loud music, and Willow and I retreated to her room to talk. We were sitting on her bed, me leaning against the headboard and her with her head in my lap, when she asked me if I'd ever read her mind. "No," I told her emphatically.

I smiled, touching her gently on her cheekbones just below her eyes, on the bridge of her nose, and on her eyebrows. "There. That's where I look. Because you're my friend, Willow, and I don't do that to my friends. It wouldn't be right."

She nodded. "I know you wouldn't." And then she sat up, straddling my legs and getting very close to my face. "But I want you to."

I blinked. Se was wearing her Resolve Face and I knew what that meant, but I had to be sure. "Are you sure, Willow? I mean, I can't pick and choose what I'll see. You might not want me to—"

So I looked. And I saw her heart. All the love she held for me, the pain she'd felt when I disappeared and she thought it was her fault, the deep, intense desire to be with me again—I saw it all. I also saw some things that broke my heart with loving her—and I laid my hand on her cheek. "Oh, Will. I do love you. Are you sure?"

I wasn't sure. I wavered between choices as I stared through her eyes and into her soul. Everything she was, everything that was Willow, was laid bare before me, and I wanted to weep. And as she slid her hand behind my neck to pull me down into a kiss, I got my answer from an unlikely source. One of the girls down the hall turned the volume up, and my decision was made for me by a man's voice which thudded through the walls.

And I knew. Willow. She might not be totally mine—in fact would never be totally mine—but she was everything I'd ever wanted. I let her pull me down into the kiss and we were naked before the second refrain, exploring places and sensations we had learned once before, years ago.

Her mouth was hot on mine as we kissed, tasting deeply of one another. We left each other breathless with wanting and needing and, before long, my hands were relearning their favorite paths down her neck, across her shoulders and chest, and down her sides to her hips. I held her hips and slid a knee between her thighs, bringing it up to rest gently against the thatch of cinnamon curls where her legs met.

She moaned my name when my lips captured her breast, her back arching to meet me. I held her hips tightly, rocking against her rhythmically with my knee. I hissed when she raked her nails down my back and, in retaliation, I slid my hand down over her hip and belly to replace my leg.

She was hot and exquisitely, silkily wet. I teased her with my fingertips, sliding them around and tickling her opening until she was panting and gasping with desire, then slid two fingers deeply inside her. She froze and so did I as her body struggled to deal with the sensations caused by my intrusion. She was whimpering, biting down on her lower lip, and I nuzzled her cheek with my own. "Give it to me, Willow," I whispered into her ear, and she relaxed slightly into me.

I thrust with my hand then, taking her mouth with mine at the same moment, and she screamed into my mouth as she came. Her nails dug into my shoulder blades and, surprised, I bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. I couldn't resist the spicy taste of her as she came again in my arms, and I held her tight, kissing her and making love to her, as the music throbbed though the walls in time to the rhythm of her heart.

The next morning, Willow and I awoke to the smell of sausages frying downstairs. After a long and satisfying snuggle, she found some clothes in her closet that I could wear and we started out of her room to grab a quick shower before presumably joining the rest of the household in the kitchen for breakfast.

There was a piece of paper hanging on the outside of the door. It was inscribed with a large number seven, below which had been printed the words That has got to be some kind of new world's record.

Just then, giggles from the stairwell caught our attention. Dawn and Mercedes stood at the head of the stairs, grinning at us in a decidedly evil manner. "Nice performance last night, Stud," Dawn said, looking directly at me.

"Yeah," Mercedes chimed in. "Sounded like everything, um… worked out okay." She giggled again. "We were sure you guys would still be asleep, so Buffy sent us to wake you for breakfast."

Willow, for some unfathomable reason, decided to play innocent. "Sleep late? Why?"

I just rolled my eyes as the response came from Dawn. "Well, it's got to take massive amounts of energy to go all night like you two did. Especially at that volume."

"It's gonna take massive amounts of energy for you to heal after I kick your butt back down the stairs, Smarty-pants," I mock-threatened, menacing her in a comical manner so she'd know I was teasing.

"Ooh… I'm sooo scaaaared," she drawled back at me, her eyes twinkling. "Mercedes, help, your sister's gonna spank me!"

Mercedes was no help at all. She simply burst into boisterous laughter that echoed down into the hallway. I pointed my finger at both girls in general. "You two are bad influences on one another."

Willow sighed. "Just go tell Buffy we'll be down in a minute, okay? We have to shower."

"Be careful you don't drown!" came Dawn's parting shot as they thundered back down the stairs in the manner of young elephants.

I sighed and followed Willow into the bathroom, where I found her examining her shoulder. I had bitten her accidentally the night before, and I think she was just realizing it. She touched the wound gently, then glanced up at me. I bit my lip, chagrined. "Oh, God, Will… I'm sorry..."

But she was looking at it more carefully. "Dakota. These are just normal teeth marks."

I leaned closer into her shoulder, noted that she was right, and shrugged. "And? I still bit you. Not very much with the coolness." I sighed. "Maybe we shouldn't… I mean, what if I… I don't want to…"

She laid her finger across my lips. "Dakota. They're ordinary teeth marks. This is a deep bite. You drew blood. But they're ordinary teeth marks."

She smiled at me, stood on tiptoe and kissed me gently. "You controlled yourself." I must have looked completely blank, because she continued. "I noticed it at dinner last night. Angel used to vamp out whenever he fought or tasted blood, and he had a soul, like you. Spike still vamps out whenever he tastes blood. I've seen him do it. But last night, at dinner, didn't you notice everyone kind of flinch when you went to drink? Nobody wanted to watch you change, but we were kind of stuck. Everyone sort of steeled themselves.

"But you didn't change. I noticed it. You drank blood, but you didn't vamp out. And here, on my shoulder. You tasted blood—human blood, even—but you didn't vamp out.

"I think we should tell Buffy and Giles. You have more control over the demon than I've ever seen in my life. I'm not sure you're an actual vampire in the sense of the regular vampires. I think you're something new. And then, there's this one last detail." She pointed.

I followed her finger, looking from her shoulder to the mirror, where I studied my reflection carefully. "Um. Will?" I knew it was my reflection, because its lips moved when I spoke, and it looked as terrified as I felt. "That… um… that wasn't there yesterday."

The girls came back down the stairs sounding for all the world like a cattle stampede. I glanced up from the stove as they came down. "Can you guys make a little more noise next time? I think the next county missed your arrival."

"Oh, Buffy." Dawn gave me her version of the Look of Shame. Obviously I was embarrassing her in front of her friend. "They're up. They said they were going to take a shower and then they'd be down."

"I hope they don't drown," I mumbled under my breath. Last night had been possibly the roughest night of my life, and I had neither fought nor killed anything except perhaps my own personal demons. Lying awake in bed until three o'clock, listening to the woman I loved more than life itself make love to a strange day-walking vampire who had been her best friend before me was a new and unwelcome experience that I hoped I'd never have to live through again. I was surprised I didn't have dark circles under my eyes.

The girls were waiting for their breakfast, though, and plotting mayhem and destruction for the rest of the day. I thought it was wonderful that Dawn had a best friend, and I thought that perhaps Mercedes was just the kind of person Dawn needed in her life: bad enough that Dawn didn't feel that she was hanging out with a goody-two-shoes, but good enough that whatever trouble the two of them got into was probably not likely to involve drugs, alcohol, prostitution or the police. I scrambled eggs quickly to go with the sausages I'd been frying in another pan and, in a feat of timing both unprecedented and unexpected, timed the cooking of both foods to be completed exactly as the toast popped out of the toaster. I dished quickly and slid the plates across the island to two hungry and much-impressed teenagers.

"Wow, Buffy, I've never seen you do that before," Dawn commented. "Nothing's even burned or cold."

"Hush before I take it away from you," I threatened with a wink and a grin. I turned back to the stove to throw on some more sausages for the grown ups as the girls carried their plates and glasses of milk into the living room to eat in front of the television.

I peeked into the refrigerator for more eggs and to see if there was blood left for Dakota. I certainly hoped so, because I'd be embarrassed if there wasn't. Luckily, there was still one pint left. I pulled it out, poured it into a mug and tossed it into the microwave. Well, not literally tossed it.

The sausages were almost done and I was scrambling more eggs as Dakota and Willow, scrubbed and fresh-faced, came down the stairs and into the kitchen. I tried to recreate my feat of culinary splendor but failed, and the toast was cold by the time it arrived on the plates. Willow had turned the microwave on and Dakota was sipping at her mug of blood, no vamp face anywhere in sight. I wondered if Willow had paid any attention to that fact. Dakota just looked like a regular person sipping at a mug of coffee. Willow reached for her plate, wincing a bit, and switched arms abruptly.

"Will? You okay?" I asked without thinking. Then I blushed, realizing what the possible source of her soreness might be.

"Nothing new there," I commented, but I was focused on her anyway. When Willow Rosenberg says something weird is going on, she means it.

Dakota set the mug down. "No bumpy face when I drink blood. I never realized it before, but the only time I go bumpy-face is when I do it consciously. Even when I've… uh… fed. Even then, if I don't remember to go bumpy, I don't go bumpy."

She glared at me as though I were mentally challenged. "Think about it, Slayer," she spat, stretching the title as though it were an insult. "Look at me! I walk in the daylight; crosses don't burn me; garlic doesn't faze me, or don't you think I noticed we were having garlic bread at dinner last night; I don't gameface when I feed; what does it all add up to you, Slayer? The only thing I've got in common with a real vamp is being locked out of people's homes, not having a reflection and drinking blood. And to be honest with you, I'm not even sure about being locked out of people's homes. I've never tried going into one without an invitation. Not even this one. I just stopped on the porch, thinking to myself 'Well, here we are, self, stuck out on the porch in sunlight that ought to turn us into a big pile of dust but instead just gives us a nice suntan.'

"And then this morning I get up, I walk into the bathroom, and what do you know? For the first time in six years, I look in a mirror and I've got a reflection. Bit of a nasty shock. So what do you think, Slayer? Personally, if I'm really a vampire, I'm no vampire I've ever seen before. I'm starting to feel a little bit like Darryl Hannah in Clan of the Cave Bear, you know? Not my people, gonna go see if I can find some other pretty blonde folks. You know?"

She came and stood beside me, read the bottle I'd pulled out of the cabinet, and held her hand over the sink. "Do it."

Willow came up behind us to see what we were doing and cried out in protest as I splashed the holy water across Dakota's outstretched hand, but she was too late stop me. Dakota's teeth gritted in preparation for the pain and I flinched back in preparation for the ungodly smell. We were both pleasantly surprised.

Dakota's hand neither smoked, smelled nor burned. It just got wet. "Sunlight, holy water, garlic, crosses, nothing. And a reflection. No bumpies." I mused out loud, studying her face, which looked rather panic-stricken. "Dakota, I think I know what it is."

The knock on Rupert Giles' door startled him, as he'd been watching something very engrossing on the American BBC. God, he missed the BBC. He stood, walked to the door and opened it. Buffy stood there. "Hi, Giles. Don't say anything, just for a second, okay?"

He nodded, unsure what was going on but willing to play along for the moment. Then the day-walker stood before him. Fascinating young lady. She laid a finger on her lips as he automatically started to greet her, reminding him to keep his silence. Then she stepped forward.

He stepped back, expecting to see her recoil at the threshold. Instead, she crossed it and entered easily into his living room. She sighed and turned to Buffy. "I was right."

Buffy turned to Rupert. "That's why I didn't want you to say anything. I knew you'd invite her in, and we wanted to test it." They quickly began filling him in on the events of the morning and the conversation they'd been having. He was fascinated.

"I'll have to do quite a bit of research. I don't know anything about vampires evolving. I didn't know it was possible, pardon me Dakota, but I didn't believe it was possible for dead things to evolve."

"Well, you see," Dakota said quietly, "That's my real concern. I mean, what if I'm not really dead?"

"You're definitely dead," Buffy said, and I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. I think I was more just confirmed. After all, had I not been dead, surely I'd at least look my age. But no, I still looked sixteen. Thank goodness for vamps with high-tech fraud equipment.

"Well, that's… something, anyway," I said. I looked over at Mercedes. "I think we kinda knew that anyway."

"Well yeah. Body heat not being an issue." She nodded. "But, hey, at least you can do something different with your hair now that you can see it."

I glared at her. "What's wrong with my hair?"
"Nothing!" she exclaimed hastily. "It's just… the same. All the time."

I transferred my glare to Dawn. "Um, hello, dyke with a curling iron. Scary! So, probably not much with the curls."

"Or I could just drain you dry and leave you dead in a gutter," I responded. "I think I like my idea better."

"That was a charming picture you just painted, Dakota, thank you so much for that," Giles commented dryly.

"Yes. Quite." He was holding a book in his hand. "I'm trying to research what kind of demon might be inhabiting you. You certainly look like a vampire with your full… er, what did you call it?"

"Yes. That. So, I'm examining possibilities of possessions that might somehow supersede the vampire, defeating its weaknesses while still maintaining its basic physical characteristics."

I thought about this for a moment. "So, what you're saying is you're looking for something that would beat the vampire but still look like it, but leave me able to do all the yummy things I do, like bask on Malibu beach?"

He looked at me, then at his book, then back at me. "Actually, I rather think I'll be all right with just Willow to help. She's accustomed to my filing systems."

I grinned. "Afraid I'll hurt your books? Relax, Watcher. I like books." I shrugged. "But, I won't force myself on you." I turned to the girls. "Who wants to go to L.A. and buy furniture with me?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Only the good stuff. None of this namby-pamby Sunnydale Furniture Store. I want fashion." I paused for a moment. "Well, that and I haven't been in a decent mall since… well… since I was alive."

Buffy's head popped around the corner of the kitchen door where she'd disappeared. "Somebody say mall?"

Giles nodded. "Here it is. The Lignatior is a higher-planar entity that inhabits the recently dead, especially dead possession victims. It requires blood to survive on account of inhabiting a corpse. It has been known to coexist in one body with a vampire demon, but usually subsumes the vampire demon, retaining the soul of the human. It lives symbiotically with the human soul, content simply to exist within its host. The human itself maintains every other impulse except that of feeding on blood."

Again, Giles shook his head. "Angels are very specific beings in the service of a deity. The Lignatior is simply a higher-planar entity. On the positive side, the entities that exist on the higher planes generally do not bear any malice towards humans. In fact, whereas demons are considered to be evil, the higher-planar beings are ordinarily considered good."

"Uh-huh. And the part that enjoyed killing those people in Las Vegas?" Xander shuddered, ignoring Willow's glare. "I don't think I'll forget that little speech she gave anytime soon. I had a nightmare the other night about her coming for me because I'd been bad."

Giles shook his head. "It could have been part of the vampire which hasn't been subsumed yet, or it could simply be part of Dakota's own personality."

Giles sighed. "Yes, thank you, Anya. Unfortunately, you're correct: Dakota could simply be slightly unhinged. Unhinged enough to find some pleasure in the killing she must do to survive." He glanced at Willow. "And stop glowering like that. You know as well as the rest of us that she's a killer. She's admitted it."

Giles laid a hand on Willow's shoulder. "Willow, we understand that you love her still. But you can't love her blindly. She's not a regular human."

Over mochas at Starbuck's, Dakota confessed to me that she was bored. "I don't have anything to do, Buffy," she complained. "In Vegas there were days and days of hunting, taking in shows, gambling, messing with street preachers… oh there was all kinds of different entertainment. In Sunnydale there's nothing to do."

"So get a job or something," I suggested. "You have all the money you need. Take a job doing something you enjoy. Or take classes at the University."

She cocked her head. "That sounds interesting. Actually, I was thinking of becoming a preacher."

Dakota grinned evilly and I could smell something fishy in the air. Figuratively speaking, of course. "Sure," Dakota told Dawn. "Why not?"

Dawn didn't even realize where she was being led. "What church could you preach at?" she asked incredulously.

"The First Reformed Foot-Washing Tabernacle of the Resurrection," Dakota replied promptly, straight-faced, and it was all I could do not to fall out of my chair when she continued, "Sing and pray 'til midnight, fight and fuck 'til daylight, you must be present to win." Then her grin came out and both the girls roared with laughter. She continued in a Southern-Baptist-preacher voice: "Now-uh, if-uh y'all will-uh please-uh turn-uh to Hymn-uh Numbah Four Hundred-uh and-uh Ninety-uh Three-uh." She cleared her throat loudly and began to sing, drawing the amused attention of our surrounding tables. "Mrs. O'Malley / down in the valley / suffered from ulcers we understand. / She ate a bar of / Grandma's lye soap / now she's got the cleanest ulcers in the land!"

Life passed uneventfully for us over the next month. I concentrated on Mercedes, mostly: getting her settled, making sure she had all the things she needed to be a normal, happy kid. I knew she'd not made the best impression on people her first day at school, but she'd been anxious to start and I hadn't had the time to get her a new wardrobe, so she'd gone in the ragged things she'd been wearing on the road.

Willow and I were slowly building our relationship, finding the place where we'd left off as a teenage couple in their first real love relationship and trying to make it mesh with the place where we both were now: grown women with both good and bad experiences in the love field behind us, new and different interests, and of course that whole inconvenient vampire thing.

Mercedes was totally cool with the idea of her "big sister" being a lesbian; she liked Willow a lot and Willow liked her, too, which really took a load off my shoulders. It usually helps when your family likes your girlfriend.

But Willow wasn't in love with me. And I knew this. She loved me, true enough, and loved me enough to be in a relationship with me, but she wasn't in love with me and believe me, there's a difference. We had a wonderful rapport, almost always knowing what each other was thinking and feeling... quite possibly, we had the ideal relationship. But there was that one thing missing. I knew it going in, though... Willow had asked me to look into her eyes, and I had seen everything there that I needed to know. She did love me. She always would. But I saw the future in her eyes, as I always do when I look, and I had seen the end as well. And I had seen that I myself would be the catalyst of the end.

But that was a long time off. I liked to focus on today, and the happiness that we felt together. So when a teenage boy came into my back yard one day looking for me with a message, I knew I had to do something about that British gentleman who considered himself Head Vampire In Town.

The boy, wearing too much leather and not enough brains, strolled into my back yard one sunny Tuesday afternoon about two months after my return to Sunnydale. I was sunbathing, enjoying as I always do the irony of not becoming a big pile of dust as I basked in the ultraviolet radiation. I heard him come around the side of the house and freeze in his tracks when he saw me there. I grinned inwardly. I knew I was hot, but I did love to have my ego stroked. Teenage boys are good for that, especially when you're bronzing yourself in a white string bikini. I waited for him to calm himself and come closer, but he didn't—he simply remained frozen in his tracks. I opened one eye and glanced over at him. "Did you want something, Scooter, or are you going to just stand there and drool all day?"

He managed to close his mouth and move somewhat closer to me. "Uh, my n-n-n-name's n-n-n-not S-S-S-S-Scooter," he stuttered.

I opened both eyes and pinned him with a cold stare. "You stutter all the time or just now on account of losing all muscle control?" I asked him.

"Don't be sorry. Slow down and think about what you're going to say before you say it. You won't stutter as much. Now, what can I help you with?"

"Oh." He took a deep breath before speaking and seemed to be trying to remember something word-for-word. "I-I-I-I have a m-m-m-m-m-message f-f-for you. F-F-F-F-From Sp-p-p-pike."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please, the suspense is turning me into a big pile of dust."

He glanced at me quizzically. "L-L-L-L-Lady, I d-d-d-don't know n-n-n-n-nothin', o-o-okay? I-I-I-I g-g-g-got a g-g-g-guy o-o-o-offers m-me t-t-t-ten b-b-b-bucks to c-c-c-c-c-arry a m-m-m-message, I j-j-j-j-just d-d-d-do m-m-m-my j-j-j-job, o-o-okay?"

"Hold it." He stopped and looked at me quizzically. "Come here." He stepped closer to me and I took hold of his chin. "Now just relax. Look at me." I couldn't stand it any more. I hated to do this to some innocent kid, but then, if he was hanging around with Spike, how innocent could he be? And with my first glance into his eyes, I knew I was right. He knew exactly what Spike was, he thought he knew what I was. He knew nothing about the Slayer or her friends, a fact for which Spike needed to be profoundly grateful. If he'd compromised them in any way, I'd have had to kill him instead of humiliate him. But this boy, whose name, incidentally, was Jonah, knew nothing of that. He wanted Spike to make him a vampire. He didn't know about Spike's chip, he didn't know that there was no way Spike could turn him. He knew nothing. But he did have his message. Through his eyes I could see and hear Spike dictating that message.

"Tell her, Jonah," Spike said. "Tell her to come out of hiding. She can't stay in the sunlight forever. Neither can her sister. Neither can Willow."

I released Jonah from my grip with a disgusted sound. "Jonah. Honestly, boy, what do you want hanging around with Spike for?"

I laughed. "He can't make you a vampire, boy, don't you know that? He's got a chip in his head, makes him incapable. He can't do any harm to anyone that's human." I shook my head. "Go back to school, kid, get an education. Make something out of your life other than a short and miserable undeath. Because I'll tell you something, kid—there's a Vampire Slayer in this town. And a damn good one. You get turned in Sunnydale, you can expect your days to be numbered in the single digits. Go make something out of yourself."

And as I had known he would, he turned and fled. But I was comfortable in the knowledge that he would take my words to heart, he would confront Spike about the chip and the Slayer, and discover that what I'd said was true. And he would take my advice. I had, however briefly, held in my hands the life of the boy who would one day save the life of the President of the United States. I thought that was pretty cool.

But now I had other fish to fry. William the Bloody thought he could threaten my lover and my sister and get away with it? I didn't think so.

I knew Spike's crypt. Willow had pointed it out to me once on a daytime stroll past the cemetery. I kicked the door in and stepped back into the sunlight. "Spike! You coward! Come on out here!"

He stepped forward into the dimly lit area just outside the sunlight which poured in through the door. "Who's the coward, then?" He asked, staring at me as I stood in the light.

I smiled. "Who's the coward? Threatening innocents? Threatening children? I'm a coward? I think not, Spike old buddy. You know, I was content to let you alone. I wasn't going to mess with you at all. You wanted to be the big man on campus? I was going to let you." I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the glass bottle I'd carefully prepared before I left the house. "But you pushed it, Spike. You wanted to fight. And when I wouldn't bring the fight to you, you threatened my sister and my lover. Not smart, Spike. Weren't you in the room when I told the story about the man in Vegas? I thought you knew, Spike. I may not be an evil vampire, I may have an upper-planar entity inside me instead of a demon, but Spike..." I pulled a cigarette lighter out of my other pocket and lit the rag hanging out if the bottle's mouth. "Oh, Spike. You poor, misguided fool. Just because I don't have a personal demon doesn't mean I'm not one crazy-assed homicidal bitch. And, my dear, you just wrote yourself onto my shit list."

With a perfect throw, I tossed my Molotov cocktail into the open door of Spike's crypt. It exploded directly in front of him, showering him with flames which rapidly began to spread inside the crypt. I stepped forward and pulled the metal door shut to keep those flames from spreading, then I turned and walked downtown. It was just now noon. Perhaps I might find Willow at the Magic Box.

He made it out of his burning house through the basement into the sewers and from there into the water pipes. He found a place where one of the mains was dripping and let the cooling water fall onto his burns. He could feel his skin healing, knew the evidence of the burns would be gone before the sun went down, but the fear they had generated still remained. He had underestimated the daywalker. And he could not afford to do so again. She'd said she was content to leave him alone until he sent his challenge. Perhaps he'd be wise to call a truce with this one.

I wandered through downtown Sunnydale smiling at people randomly as I wended my way toward the Magic Box. The day was warm and pleasant, and I had that familiar and welcome tingly sensation that I always had after committing random acts of violence. I thought briefly about Giles's Lignatior entity, the higher-planar being that liked to take over from vampires sometimes. I wondered if a higher-planar entity could take the kind of pleasure in bloodshed and chaos that I did. Somehow it just didn't seem right that something of the upper levels could get such a tingle out of arson.

But I felt it and there was no denying it. It was the same heady rush—almost orgasmic—that I felt when I killed. I liked to kill. I wasn't sure the Scoobies, even Willow, would be able to understand or accept that fact about me. I liked the killing. It was the best high I knew of, and I'd tried plenty. The stalk, the prowl, the lure, the scent of sudden fear and revulsion at the first sight of my gameface, the tearing of the skin at the juncture of neck and shoulder, the sudden rush of the blood across my lips tasting stronger and sweeter than any wine, flavored with the evil and the sudden stark terror of the realization that I am what I am and that death is imminent and merciless… all these things, just thinking about them was enough to make my skin hot and my pupils dilate. If I'd had a heartbeat, by the time I arrived at the Magic Box with these thoughts in my head, it would have been going at a triphammer pace.

And there in the window at the table, absorbed in some huge, dusty tome, was my Willow. The sun was shining right in on her and she wore an expression on her face of the deepest concentration. A tiny furrow had appeared between her eyebrows and she was chewing on her bottom lip as she read, turning the pages slowly. Her hair shone so brightly that I wondered if there was any fire left in the forge of Hephaestus. I rather thought not—it was all down on Earth, masquerading as Willow's hair. I grinned at myself suddenly at the ludicrousness of such a metaphor, and that was when she looked up and saw me standing there.

Her smile answered mine. A nuclear missile could've detonated on the sidewalk next to me, and I don't think I would have noticed. She was, at that moment, my entire universe. And I knew that I was lost in her.

And I had to have her. I let my desire show on my face. I knew she saw it, because her expression slowly changed from Willowgrin into something wicked and sexy. I crooked a finger at her. Come here. She nodded and took her book to Anya. I watched through the plate glass as she walked, every step she took seeming to send a message straight to my libido. She spoke briefly with Anya and then came toward me. When her eyes met mine I felt like I was suddenly on fire. I had to have her, and I wasn't going to be able to wait until we got to my house.

When she stepped out the door, she opened her mouth to say something and I stopped her with a finger to her lips, shaking my head slightly. She obeyed, her eyes twinkling, and I took her hand, leading her down the sidewalk. We walked without speaking for several blocks; fingers entwined tightly, thumbs rubbing the backs of each other's hand, the occasional brush of hip or thigh serving only to heighten the tension between us.

And then I pulled her into the dimness under the overhang of the old Bijou theater, recently restored and showing classic movies to the older crowd that were still willing to patronize it instead of the mega-multi-plex out by the college. I smiled at the elderly party behind the glass and held up two fingers, paying and taking the tickets without a word. Then I led her into the cool, dark interior of the lobby.

I had to give the decorators credit—I felt like we'd fallen into the forties with the furniture and movie posters they'd used. They'd done a fabulous job. We passed the popcorn counter without a second glance. Salt was a bad idea for what I had in mind.

There were three movies to choose from: The Maltese Falcon, Weekend at the Waldorf (a Ginger Rogers classic I simply adored), and "Three Hours of Charlie Chaplin's Greatest Silent Films." Oh, the Fates were kind that day.

I led her into the theater where the marathon was just beginning and led her into the darkest corner, pushing her gently into a seat and straddling her knees as I bent down to capture her lips with mine. Her mouth was hot and I could feel her smile under my lips. I kissed her gently but thoroughly, making sure to leave her breathless, and then I slid my mouth down to suck gently at her pulse point. She gasped and I grinned, then nipped playfully at the spot where I most liked to bite my victims. I felt a tremor go through her body as her hands slid up my sides, and I reached behind me to take her wrists and very firmly plant her hands on the arms of her seat, accompanied by a stern look. She got the message and left her hands where I'd put them.

With three hours of Chaplin I wasn't in any kind of hurry. I carried my kisses and nips up the left side of her neck and back down the right, listening to the little hitches and gasps that my actions put into her breathing. Just that sound and the feel of her hot breath on my ear was enough to make my head spin. And I wanted to rock her world.

I licked the outer edge of her left ear and took the lobe between my teeth, tugging gently before sliding behind it to bury my face in her hair, inhaling the scent of the fruit-blend shampoo she was using while my hands slid slowly up her arms, just barely touching, feeling the gooseflesh rise. I trailed my fingers over the shoulders of her t-shirt and down her front, pausing at her breasts to tease them through the thin cotton. Immediately I felt two stiff peaks rise and I made sure to give them my complete attention as I returned to tasting her neck. Just this little bit of stimulation was dizzying to me; I could only imagine what it must feel like to be on the receiving end of my ministrations.

Quite possibly even more erotic than the actual touches was the absolute silence that we had to keep in order to avoid being caught and thrown out of the theater and possibly even facing criminal charges. I didn't dare speak to her, for fear that whatever I might whisper into her ear could carry across the theater. Certainly she had to restrain herself as well; she was a moaner and a screamer and here she could do neither.

Suddenly I couldn't wait any longer. I left her neck, sliding my hands under her shirt and bra, moving both articles of clothing out of the way with one motion, and took her breast in my mouth. Her nipples were hard as rocks under my tongue and her skin was hot and deliciously musky, smelling of citrus body-wash, arousal and pure lust. The aroma was intoxicating and I breathed it in as deeply as I could while I switched sides, ministering now to the other breast.

I could feel her straining beneath me and I knew what she wanted. It seemed cruel not to give it to her. Just my luck, or the Fates watching out for me again, she was wearing a skirt—a long, loose thing that I had no trouble pulling up as I slid off her lap and knelt between her knees. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut and her hands clutched the arms of her seat convulsively as I trailed my fingers teasingly from her knees up her inner thighs toward the place where I could smell her lust the strongest. Her hips bucked once and I knew she was close. I hooked a finger under the waistband of her panties and drew them down and off, then I gently stroked the outer rim of her sex, feeling the heat and reveling that I was the one who had done this to her. She gasped when my fingers touched her, and as I slid one finger into that moist heat her entire body tensed and she came, shuddering.

I took a brief moment to be impressed with myself, and then got back to the business at hand.

I moved the now-slick finger out of her and up to the tiny bud that was the root of her pleasure. My ministrations were gentle at first, bringing her up from the first orgasm until her hips were thrusting gently in rhythm with my movements, then I threw one leg over hers and began to stroke her at a more rapid pace. She wasn't expecting it and she gasped as the pressure and intensity picked up, biting her lip to keep from crying out, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her hips rocking with me as I worked my finger in that one place. Suddenly she went from biting her lip to gasping for air and I knew the moment was at hand. I leaned forward, taking one of her nipples in my other hand and teasing it as I claimed her mouth with mine.

I could feel the shudders like little electric shocks through her body when she came that time, and she lost control enough to let go a tiny whimper in my ear. I waited until her breathing slowed and her eyes opened again before laying a finger across her lips in warning and shaking my head. She nodded, biting her lip again, and I smiled, leaned forward and kissed her very gently, almost a peck on the lips. She sighed and when I lifted my face from hers, I saw that her eyes had fluttered closed. They flew open again though, in something akin to panic, when she realized I was kneeling down between her legs. I saw in her eyes that she knew what I was about to do, and she shook her head frantically at me. I winked at her and pushed her knees apart, leaning forward and taking one moment to deeply inhale the aroma of arousal on the woman who was mine, before my mouth laid claim to her hot sex.

She was hot and delicious and I reveled in the feeling of the tender tissues that were now my banquet table. I wrapped my arms around her hips and held on for dear life as she bucked under me. A glance upward showed me that she was biting the side of her hand in order to keep from crying out.

I closed my eyes and focused on driving her over the edge, and I succeeded faster than I thought I would as she convulsed in my arms, her entire body lifting out of the seat as her orgasm took her. Her flavor was making me drunker than any liquor ever could have. Even the blood didn't taste as good as she did, and I licked her clean before I let her go, gently straightening her clothes and then lifting her up and sliding into the seat under her. She sat in my lap, spent, clinging to me with arms too weak to really do more than just lay across my chest. Her breath was coming in great heaves and her eyes were closed. She looked almost as though she were asleep, but I knew that she wasn't. I brushed a finger along her cheekbone and her eyes opened, looking into mine. They were deep and limpid and I felt a sudden rush of satisfaction at the pleasure I'd been able to bring her. I leaned over and whispered into her ear, "Are you gonna be okay, sweetie?"

She grinned and whispered back, "Just you wait until I get my strength back. I'm gonna get you so bad. In about a million years." Her eyes fluttered closed again and she snuggled into me. I grinned, holding her close to me as she fell asleep in my arms, and settled back to watch Charlie promenade across the big screen.

Days turned rapidly into weeks and then months for me, as I settled into a routine. I was slowly being accepted by the Scooby gang, even so far as to be involved in patrols, demon-hunting and Apocalypse-averting. I found that I really enjoyed the patrols, enjoyed fighting side-by-side with Buffy in the battle against my more demonic cousins. She and I rapidly formed a bond through the fight, and as the nights wore on, we found ourselves talking more of things beyond just the slay.

"So you knew about my dreams," she said one night as we sat on a picnic table in the park, wishing for something to fight. I had known this topic was going to come up eventually, and I said so. She gave me an enigmatic sort of half-smile. "Yeah. Does it bother you?"

She shrugged. "Knowing that I'm in love with your girlfriend. It would bother me if I were in your place."

I smiled. "Does it bother you?" At her perplexed expression, I clarified: "That you're in love with my girlfriend."

She sighed, her shoulders slumping. She toyed with her stake for a few moments before responding. "It does. It bothered me when she was with Oz. I covered it up as well as I could. But yeah, it bothers me."

She looked up at the stars, thinking about it. "Hm. Tough question. I think, looking back, that I fell in love with her the first day I saw her, standing next to the water fountain with Cordelia making snarky comments about her dress. But I thought it was adorable. I thought she was adorable. But then I got involved with Angel. I got sidetracked. And then she was with Oz, and I couldn't get between them. There was no way I could have brought myself to do something like that. Plus, I had no idea that Willow would be open to that kind of a relationship. I figured she was strictly dickly, as the saying goes. And now there's you. When did you fall in love with her?"

I sighed. "The summer between sixth and seventh grade." At her astonished expression, I grinned. "Yep. Young love. Puppy love, probably… little girl gets a crush on her best friend. I transferred here in the middle of sixth grade and Willow was willing to help me catch up on my schoolwork. I suspect you've heard this story before."

Her grin was wry and ironic. "I just find it funny—that's how she and I bonded."

I nodded. "So she tutored me through sixth grade and we became friends, but it was during the summer that I fell in love with her. She didn't know it, though, until the beginning of ninth grade. We were walking down the street and came across Cordelia and her minions. I had a witty comment all ready for them, and when we escaped into the bookstore, I told her." I smiled, remembering. "And she felt the same way. We were together until… until…"

I nodded, sighed and continued. "Then, when I came back… well, I was already suspecting that you might be an item from some of the reports I heard. It was never just the Slayer, like it was when I was first Turned… you know, Slayer this and Slayer that… it was the Slayer and her friend Willow. Or the Slayer and her Scoobies. Everyone knew. You're the first Slayer in millennia to have friends and associates outside of the Council. You're the talk of the undead world. Then there were two Slayers, and nobody quite knew what to think. I was interested, but not enough to risk my life coming back to a town with two Slayers in it."

She sighed at this. "You'd have been perfectly safe if you'd picked the right Slayer to run into."

I nodded. "Oh, yeah. I heard about that. A rogue Slayer, working for the forces of Darkness? Such a thing hasn't happened, according to a buddy of mine, since the Middle Ages. But anyway… my point is that, no matter what news came out of the Dale, it was never 'Slayer', it was always 'Slayer and Co'. And some of the rumors said that the Slayer and her witch were an item. So when I came back, I kind of expected to find that you were. Then, when you came on all Rescue Rangers in the Espresso Pump, I was sure… and then when I saw your dreams outside the Pump, I knew the truth." I looked up at Orion, and then back at the Slayer. "And I was terrified."

I stood then, pacing around the table. "I knew how you felt. And I could suspect from some things she said and from… well, mostly from the way she looked when you came into the room, or even into conversation, I could suspect that she felt the same way about you."

I shrugged. "If you want to know for sure what she feels, you're going to have to have that conversation with her. I only know what I see and what I think, and how I interpret people's behavior patterns. I could be way off base."

She turned suddenly and drilled me with her stare. "You've got that psychic thing going on, though."

"No, Buffy. I'm not going all Miss Cleo for you and telling you your future as I see it in her eyes. It's a betrayal of trust. The same way I would never think of telling her about your dreams. What happens in your head is private. If you want to know, you're going to have to have that conversation with her yourself."

She sighed and turned away from me, but not before I saw a tear roll down her cheek. "I can't."

I blinked and thought about this, and then I started to laugh. "Oh, Buffy. Don't worry about me, okay? Believe me. There's so many things you don't know. I...just don't worry about me. You do what you need to do, okay?"

I touched her shoulder and she looked up at me. "Don't wait too long," I warned her. "You never know. Opportunity may only come around one time, and when it comes, it doesn't shout in your face. It whispers in your ear." I looked up at the moon. "Ready to pack it in?"

She nodded and we left the park, heading towards home. She was silent the whole way.

Buffy lay awake into the early morning hours after parting with Dakota, thinking about the daywalker's words. Willow seemed happy in her relationship with Dakota, though there were several things that the witch had confessed to her best friend disturbed her about the vampire, not the least of which being the arson she had committed on Spike's crypt. The chipped vampire had come to the house one evening to call a truce, which Dakota had graciously accepted. After he left, she had gleefully shared with Buffy and Willow the story of her attack on Spike.

"She likes the violence. She likes to kill, too—she said so, Buffy. I don't think a higher-planar being could do that."

So Buffy had gone to Giles and asked him to keep researching. He was doing so, but in secret to prevent Willow or Dakota from becoming alarmed. He had yet to find anything, but had just the previous week called on an old friend and valuable information source in the Watcher's Council who might have records that Giles ordinarily could not access.

But what Dakota had said about Willow… was the vampire serious, or only toying with Buffy? The Slayer couldn't be certain. Then she thought about what Dakota had said. "There are so many things you don't know." But she thought perhaps Dakota did know them. And if Dakota, of all people, was encouraging Buffy to have a serious heart-to-heart about love with Dakota's girlfriend, then there must be something that Buffy and Willow needed to talk about. She resolved herself to talk to Willow the next day. She would go up to the college, get Willow, and take her someplace private so that they could say what they needed to say to each other. This resolution firmly in her mind, Buffy rolled over and went to sleep.

When she said these words to me, I was a little shocked and surprised. Anyone would be, really, I think, what with the way they came out of the blue and all as we were snuggling in bed together when she came back from patrol. She had been gazing into my eyes as she loved to do, now that she had my permission, and the words came out of the blue. I blinked at her, confused. "What?"

"Willow, pay attention. This is important. You and Buffy need to talk. It's time."

"What about?" I asked. I wondered if Buffy had told her that she was upset with me about something. The thought truly bothered me.

She sighed and shifted position, pulling me close to her. "Okay. Before I say this, I want you to understand a few things. You know that I love you, right?" I nodded. She continued. "You know that I want the best of everything for you, and I want you to be happy, right?"

I nodded again. I did, in fact, know that these things were true. "Dakota, what's this about?"

She smiled slightly, stroking my cheek. "Will, I do love you. You're the most wonderful person I've ever known. And you deserve so much better than me."

Suddenly, I knew where she was going and I sat up straight, facing her angrily. "Are you trying to break up with me?"

She pulled me back down next to her and kissed my forehead. "Relax, firecracker. Relax. I'm not breaking up with you. Not exactly."

She stroked my hair. "Willow, you deserve better than me. I'm a creature of the night. I'm violent. I like to hurt and I like to kill." She sighed. "Baby, I love you, but I'm bad for you."

I sighed. I didn't like it, but I knew she was right. I loved her too, but I wasn't in love with her, and there really were a lot of things about being with her that bothered me. I think the worst of it was when Mercedes came to stay with us and Dakota left town for a couple of weeks. She would bring back presents from wherever she'd been, but it all added up to one thing: she was leaving town to go somewhere that she could hunt and kill without having to engage Buffy's Slayer instincts. Speaking of Buffy... "What's that got to do with Buffy?" I asked.

She gave me a look. "You know perfectly well what it has to do with Buffy. Will, how long have I been back in town?"

She nodded. "And in that almost year, do you realize how many times you've called her name out in your sleep?"

I could only stare at her in shock. I dreamt about Buffy almost every night. I had no idea I talked in my sleep. She smiled gently. "Honey, I want you to be happy. You're content with me; I know this. But content and happy are two different things. Why be just content, when you could be so much more?"

I nodded and snuggled closer to her, holding her tightly. "I'll think about it," I allowed.

Willow was pleasantly surprised the next day when she came out of class to find Buffy leaning against the wall opposite the classroom, waiting for her. "Hey!" she exclaimed, giving her best friend a hug. "What are you doing here?"

They went together to a quiet area outside in the sun, sitting together on a bench, facing one another. "What's up, Buff?" Willow asked.

"I... um... Will... I'm not really sure where to start." Buffy was obviously nervous, looking anywhere except at Willow and twisting the rings on her hand. Suddenly she stood and began to pace. "Because, you know, it's not something that you can just dive into, is it? I mean, these things are delicate, they require special handling, you know? And I'm not really good at this kind of thing. You know? Cursed and all, I've started to think. So—"

"Buffy," Willow interrupted. Buffy gratefully stopped speaking at stared at Willow, misery on her face. Willow sighed and grinned a little. "Relax, okay? I'm the one that's supposed to babble. Sit down." As Buffy settled herself again, Willow steeled herself. "I'm glad you're here... I've actually got something to tell you, too. Since you're having trouble, I'll go first."

She concentrated on breathing for a few seconds, screwing her courage up so tight that the whole thing came unwound. Taking a mental running start, she leaped directly into it. "Buffy, you know I love Dakota, but I've got this kind of issue, because there's somebody else that I love, too, and I really need your advice."

Willow nodded and looked down at her feet, then back up at Buffy shyly. "Yeah. There's this other girl... she's wonderful, really, and I like her a lot. Well... I love her, really. I do. I love her. And I'm not sure how to tell her. Because she knows about Dakota, you know, but Dakota knows about her, too, and she's okay with it. But what do I do, you know? I love this girl... and I think maybe, just maybe, she loves me too... but we've both been scared to say anything for a long time. For years, really. So, what do you think?"

Buffy stared at Willow for a long moment, feeling rather shell-shocked, as though all the air had been sucked out of their immediate vicinity. Willow's eyes were shining brighter than Buffy had ever seen them as she struggled for breath enough to reply. "Well... well, if... if she's got any sense about her, Will, she loves you more than life itself."

Buffy smiled back, a tear rolling out of her eye and down her cheek. She took Willow's hands in her own. "Really," she said, leaning forward to capture Willow's lips gently with her own.

Willow leaned into the kiss, reveling in the feel of Buffy's soft lips. She felt Buffy's hands tighten on her own and squeezed back. They kissed for a long moment, lips barely touching—tiny, chaste kisses that did little but fan the carefully banked coals of their love into a merry blaze. When they finally broke, they were both wearing dazzled expressions and Willow had tears running down her face.

The Slayer pulled her witch close. "I love you, too, my Willow." They held one another, reveling in this newly acknowledged affection. Then Willow gasped.

"No worries," said a cheerful voice behind them, and suddenly Dakota was there, straddling the bench behind Willow with her arms around the witch's waist. "I figured you guys would be up here. I got here just in time for the joyous declarations and figured that wouldn't be the best time to interrupt." Smiling, she placed her hand on Buffy and Willow's joined clasp. "I'm glad."

"Really?" Buffy asked, searching Dakota's face for any sign of negative feeling.

"Really," Dakota said firmly. "I mean, come on. What kind of friend would I be to either of you if I didn't want you guys to be happy?" Then she grinned wickedly. "Besides, I knew this was coming."

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The Prophet

By Rainne

Djgirl1978@bellsouth.net