Chapter 1

"So, then this big ugly demon jumped out from behind the bushes! He was green and had this gross gooey stuff all over him!"

"And you saw him? Ewwww!"

"He was really creepy. Anyway, my mommy jumped right on him and then William grabbed him from the back. They stabbed him with these big knives, and he fell dead into a pile of green slime."

"You didn’t really see it!"

"I did too... I was right in the car. My mommy and William were taking me to the movies, and we saw this demon, so they had to go kill it. It’s their job!"

"You made the whole thing up!"

"I did not! "

"Did too, did too. Emily Giles is a big fat liar!"

Aubrey Cole looked up from where she was helping Michael cut photos from a magazine. She sighed. Emily was at it again. She got up and went over to the altercation. In her most patient voice she asked, "Do I hear outdoor voices?"

"Miss Cole… Jeffy called me a liar!"

"Emily’s making up monster stories again!"

"Emily, we have talked about this. These stories are scaring the other children. It’s very nice to make up stories, but we don’t want to scare people, do we?"

"I wasn’t making it up. It really happened."

"She said her mom killed a big ugly green demon. Right in front of her! And she says that her mom’s boyfriend is a vampire!"

"Emily, please come over to the time-out corner. I want to talk to you. Jeff, please go over and color with Letetia. She‘s all alone over there."

Over in the corner, Aubrey looked down at the small miscreant. Golden blonde hair, a winning smile... the child looked like an Angel. Unfortunately, what came out of her mouth was far from angelic. Several children had complained of nightmares after one of Emily’s stories. Creativity was all well and good, but this strange morbid fascination with evil creatures wasn’t healthy. Aubrey knew poor Emily’s history. Her father had died when she was three, and her mother had moved them from California here to New York a year ago. Now her mother was apparently dating some creepy lowlife; why else would Emily refer to him as a vampire? Poor child. No wonder she was traumatized. Nevertheless, this situation had to be dealt with, before she received complaints from any more parents.

"Emily, do you remember that you promised not to tell any more of your scary stories?"

"But, I *saw* it this time! I *had* to tell Jeff, because he never believes me."

"But, Emily, vampires and demons only live in the world of make believe. They aren’t real." She knelt down and faced Emily at eye level. "You know if there is something really scary happening to you, you can tell *me*. That’s why I’m here. Like if someone is touching you, or hurting you in some way. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ll protect you."

"My mommy and William protect me. Nobody hurts me."

"William. Is that your mother’s friend? Do you like him?"

"William is funny. He sent me frogs when I was in Sunnydale, and he fights with my mother and he sleeps all day and we have to be quiet."

"Does he live in your house?" This was worse than she thought. The man was obviously a drunk or a drug addict.

"Sometimes, when he and my mommy have been out late, fighting. It’s okay. I don’t mind being quiet."

Such a shame. A lovely woman like Buffy Giles.

"Does he have a job?"

"He and my mommy work together. They have an office. There’s a real skull on his desk!"

"Miss Cole… Michael’s eating paste again!" The cry interrupted Aubrey’s reaction to that tidbit. She stood up, realizing that she was neglecting the rest of her kindergarten class. Fortunately, Natalie, her assistant was on the job. Still, the best solution would be a conference with Emily’s mother. "Emily, I want you to remain here in time out for 5 minutes and think about what I told you about scaring your classmates."

Emily’s face dissolved into tears. "I-I didn’t m-mean to s-scare anybody."

Aubrey sighed. "I know, sweetheart, but you sit there anyway. Snack time will be in five minutes and you can join us then."

Resigned to her punishment, Emily sat down on the chair in the corner, and wondered again why nobody ever believed her.

"And then Miss Cole made me sit in time-out for five minutes!"

Emily was eating an after-school snack of peanut butter crackers. Her mother listened to Emily’s tale with sorrow and frustration. Ever since the Hellmouth had opened in New York City more than a year ago, the sightings of vampires and demons had become almost nightly occurrences, yet nobody believed in them! It was a most peculiar phenomenon that Buffy had first observed in Sunnydale. Vampires and demons existed outside the scope of human reality, so people simply ignored them, until of course, it was too late, and they were dinner. Buffy had made sure that Emily was protected. She wore a cross on a chain around her neck, and she knew enough not to open the door for strangers or to invite anybody into the house, no matter how innocent they looked.

Buffy and William did everything they could to keep Emily out of the way of their slaying. The incident the other night had been unfortunate. They had been on a simple family outing to see the latest Disney movie, 109 Dalmatians, when a demon had leapt out of the bushes at a little old lady walking a poodle. It had snatched the poodle, apparently as an appetizer, before moving on the old lady herself. William had pulled over, and he and Buffy had jumped out of the car, leaving Emily safely locked inside. Of course, she had received a ringside view.

Buffy suspected that another parent-teacher conference was in the offing. For the first time, Buffy began to understand what *her* mother had gone through when Buffy had become the Slayer - all those conferences, and lectures and suspensions... not to mention Buffy’s expulsion from High School. Twice! And Emily was still only in kindergarten! William thought that Emily should just tell her classmates that her mother was a nurse, and William was a cop and they both worked the night shift, but Buffy didn’t want Emily to lie. She also didn’t want her to tell her classmates about the slaying, especially since it was causing bad reactions among the children. But how do you keep a chatty, outgoing 5-year-old quiet about certain topics without making her afraid to open her mouth at all? It had been hard enough for Buffy to keep her slaying a secret during her high school years! Poor Emily.

Buffy went into her bedroom, where William was asleep. It had taken a while for Buffy to get used to seeing him sleep, since vampires tend to look dead, when they are dead to the world. She still felt a tiny frisson of fear whenever she saw him like that, so still and cold and unbreathing. Much like her mother and husband Giles had looked, except that, thank goodness, William’s eyes were closed. His face in repose was so beautiful, like a Greek statue. She leaned down and kissed his cold lips. Like Leora in the fairy tale, William came instantly to life, and was the vibrant man that she loved. She whispered in his ear, "Emily is home. She had a bad day."

William stretched and yawned, though the yawn was merely an old human habit, and had no physiological basis. He got up, and went into the kitchen. Emily jumped up when she saw him and ran to give him a big hug. He picked her up and swung her around. They had a special bond, her lover and her child, and Buffy loved to watch it. "How’s my tadpole today?" William asked Emily as he placed her back down in her chair.

Emily pouted as she told him her sorry tale once again. It had grown slightly in the retelling, Buffy noticed, since Miss Cole was now sounding a lot meaner, and the timeout had stretched to ten minutes. Emily *was* very imaginative and creative, and living in the midst of a real-life horror story as she did, just gave her imagination more to feed on. Had it been a terrible mistake, moving here and remaining in the slaying business? Was she doing Emily irreparable harm, dating a vampire and killing demons for a living? But, dammit, she had never been happier.

She was no longer *the* Slayer. *The* Slayer was a 15-year-old girl named Tina, who so far was holding her own, with the help of a prune-faced watcher named Priscilla Scott. Buffy was finally free of the Council of Watchers and free to go her own way. She had joined Big Bad Investigations with William, and the two of them had a great time making The Big Apple a safer place to live. Of course, they couldn’t do anything about the human muggers and thieves, but ironically enough those bottom feeders were often the prey of vampires, so the human crime rate in NY had actually gone down, while the mysterious and unexplained death rate had gone up.

William still maintained his funky office on Broome Street in Greenwich Village, but he and Buffy had fixed it up so that it was fit for human habitation. William had insisted on keeping the skull. He claimed that it was an old friend of his, and Buffy refused to ask him about it in fear that it would prove to be true. She only knew that it couldn’t have been a vampire friend, since their skulls became dust along with the rest of their bodies at death.

They had hired a secretary of sorts. Winnie had obviously seen way too many sitcoms featuring ditzy secretaries, and was determined to live up to every possible cliché. She also fancied herself a witch, though after a few mishaps, she was forbidden to practice in the office. Buffy and William secretly referred to her as Winnie the Witless. However, Winnie, for all her faults, was all they could afford, and she did answer the phones during the day, and her cat, a balding mangy creature optimistically named Fluffy, kept away the rats and roaches.

The telephone rang. As Buffy suspected, it was Miss Cole requesting a parent conference. Buffy scheduled it for the following afternoon. She still had no idea how she would explain Emily’s preoccupation with supernatural beings, or the factual base of her story telling. And how could she possible explain William to a person whose idea of vampires probably began with Bela Legosi and ended with Willem Dafoe? She couldn’t even explain William to herself. He defied all the rules and everything she had ever read about vampires in the Council’s archives.

William and Emily were laughing about some silly joke that Emily had picked up at school. They were so good together, and that made no sense at all. Of course, William was useless at discipline… Buffy always had to be the heavy. He would let Emily get away with anything, eating candy for dinner, playing video games or watching television all night. When she left Emily alone with him, she had to make a list of rules and insist he follow them. But he could play with Emily for hours, long after Buffy would have lost patience. In many ways he was just a big kid himself. He was also very protective of her. He would never let her do anything that would cause her any harm. So Buffy trusted him implicitly to care for Emily.

"Dawn will actually be home for dinner tonight," Buffy announced, as she took some chicken out of the refrigerator. Dawn was now majoring in Theater Arts at NYU. She loved the city and had a lot of friends in the theater community. She supposedly lived at home with Buffy and Emily, but was seldom there, except to change clothes and do laundry. There was a boyfriend, Jason, who was attending the NYU film school, and Buffy assumed that most of her nights were spent with him these days. Buffy just hoped that Dawn wouldn’t settle down too young. She herself had married at 21, but only because the life span of a slayer was traditionally short, and she had wanted to marry and have a child. She had loved Rupert Giles, even though he had been much older than she, and she had no regrets about marrying him. As it turned out, Giles was the one with the shorter life span. He had died when Emily was three. At 27, Buffy had broken all slayer records long ago.

William sat with Emily on his lap and watched Buffy preparing dinner. At 27, she had lost her young girl prettiness, but she had gained a beauty in maturity that was even better, William thought. Of course, he was probably prejudiced because he was so in love with her. This last year had been the best of his life and his unlife put together, which was saying quite a lot. And Emily… she was an unexpected gift in his life, a little girl with no prejudices against his kind, who was the image of her mother. Emily had captured his heart the first moment he saw her little face peering at him as he slept on Buffy’s sofa after Giles’ funeral.

Buffy heard the front door open. Dawn came in and tossed her backpack over an empty kitchen chair. Years of dancing lessons had made her graceful, and her long brown hair enhanced the effect. She wasn’t a beautiful girl, but she had interesting looks that attracted attention, and made her more versatile as an actress. She didn’t resemble Buffy at all, but this was not surprising, since Dawn had been created out of pure energy by the Monks of Dagon only 8 years ago. She had come to terms with this bizarre life history years ago, and the air of mystery that it lent her only added to her allure. She was apparently quite a talented actress and, though this was only her first year at NYU, she had already snagged a couple of leading roles in school productions. She was in the middle of rehearsals for the part of Emily in Our Town. She loved the fact that her character shared a name with her favorite niece. "Hey Emily."

"Hey Dawn!"

"Hi Buffy, William. Did Jason call? I have to throw some wash in before dinner. What are you making? "

"Hi yourself. Yes, Jason called. Chicken. Rice. String beans."

Dawn made a face. Buffy wasn’t a very inspired cook. But Emily was a fussy eater and William hardly ever ate people food, and Buffy herself just didn’t care all that much, so she had no reason to become a gourmet cook. And it was a free meal, so Dawn was in no position to complain. She went into her room to gather her laundry.

They all sat down to dinner together, at the kitchen table. It was such a rare event these days to have her small family together in one place and it meant a lot to Buffy. Of course, contentment was fleeting.

"Why do I have to eat yucky string beans when William doesn’t have to?" Emily whined.

"First of all, William is a grown-up. When you are a grown-up, you won’t have to eat string beans if you don’t want to. Second of all, William would *love* to eat string beans, but he can’t because they make him sick. "

"They make me sick too." She began coughing dramatically.

"And I thought we only had one actress in the family," commented William, as he nibbled a small piece of chicken which was all he ate in front of Emily. The phone rang, its shrill tone interrupting the domestic scene. Buffy answered it, annoyed.

It was Priscilla Scott, Tina’s watcher. She was as stuffy as Giles and Wesley had been when Buffy first met them, though both had loosened up in time. But now Miss Scott sounded concerned.

"Buffy… please forgive me for interrupting your dinner but have you by any chance seen Tina this evening?"

"Tina? No, I haven’t."

"Oh dear... I was hoping that perhaps she had decided to spar with you this evening. She didn’t come home form school this afternoon. "

"Did she have any extracurricular activities?" Not that *Buffy* had had any time for such activities when she had been in High School.

"No… I require her to come home from school every afternoon. She really cannot waste time with frivolous activities. I am afraid that she appears to have gone missing."

"Well, I’m sure that there’s a logical explanation," Buffy said comfortingly, "but William and I will go out and have a look right after dinner."

"William… do you really think that a vampire…" Miss Scott was too polite to finish her thought but she didn’t have to.

"William knows this city much better than I do, and he can pass for a *regular* vampire to get information, unless you want us to just stay home." She wouldn’t really do that, but "Prunella" Scott’s prejudices really annoyed Buffy.

"Well, if you must bring him, I won’t argue with you."

"Does she have any friends? Maybe you could give me their names."

"She doesn’t associate with those children at school. They wouldn’t understand about her special circumstances. And her slaying has to be kept a secret."

‘Poor kid’, Buffy thought. She didn’t know Tina very well. They had begun to bond before she was called as a slayer but, afterwards, Miss Scott had deemed Buffy a bad influence. Apparently her reputation with the Council of Watchers had followed her to New York. Marrying her watcher, having best friends who helped her patrol, dating vampires… Buffy was the poster child for how NOT to be a slayer.

"We will do what we can, Miss Scott. We’ll start at the school and work our way from there. Don’t worry, we’ll find her." Buffy hung up the phone, and winked at William.

‘I know how you feel about slayers, William… want to help me find one?"

Chapter 2

Tina O’Brien sat slumped on the hard wooden bench staring off into space. She paid no attention to the people milling around her, except to be amazed that Grand Central Station was still crowded, even at this hour. She looked down at the train schedule in her hand. The problem with running away was that she knew what she was escaping, but had no idea where she was heading. She had hardly any family that she knew of. Her mother had died when Tina was 12. Her mom had loved her and they had been happy in their tiny Brooklyn apartment, although, as a single parent, her mother had been forced to work double shifts as a waitress. When she died of breast cancer, Tina became a ward of the state. The foster family who took her in was kind but impersonal, and when the Council of Watchers sent Priscilla Scott to her when she was 13, she was happy enough to leave.

Miss Scott had let her remain in Brooklyn, in a small apartment, so that she could still attend her old school, and her life had been more or less normal, except for the Slayer training and lessons in the supernatural aspects of her calling. All that changed when Faith had been killed, and Tina had become the new Slayer. Miss Scott had moved them to Manhattan, to a much nicer apartment, and put her in private school. Tina hated it. The uniform made her look six feet tall, and skinny, and the other girls were snobs. She wasn’t allowed to participate in extra curricular activities, and was not encouraged to make friends, even if she could have. Worst of all, Buffy Giles, who Tina had met for one week last year, had moved to the City, but Tina was hardly allowed to talk to her. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask Buffy, but Miss Scott was always hovering. Buffy, according to Miss Scott, had broken all the Slayer rules. She had put her friend’s lives in danger by allowing them to patrol with her, she had fraternized with vampires, demons, and lesbians, and, worst of all, she had seduced her Watcher, and actually married the man!

Tina looked at the train schedule. There weren’t any trains leaving until morning, even if she could decide where to go. Her maternal grandmother lived somewhere in Florida, but had no contact with her daughter and granddaughter, and Tina had no idea how to reach her. She *could* go to California. Buffy came from there and had said it was really nice. Tina figured that at 5’10" she could pass for 18, easily and get a job that didn’t involve sticking pointy pieces of wood into the hearts of vampires. Even working at McDonald’s would be a treat compared to that.

"You look lost." The soft voice broke her reverie. Tina looked up. A pretty blonde girl in her early 20s or so stood there holding a pamphlet. "I know how you feel. When I first came here, I was lost too."

"So what? What’s it to you?" she challenged the blonde.

"Don’t worry, I’m not the police or anything. We run a shelter for runaways. "She held up the brochure. Oh, this was rich... this girl thought that she had run away TO New York! "I’ll bet you’re hungry."

Actually that was the first smart thing the girl said... Tina *was* hungry. She had grabbed a granola bar when she left straight from school today, but that was long gone. She had planned to buy some food at the station, but the train tickets were so expensive that she was afraid to spend money until she decided where she was going, and had paid for her ticket.

"Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll get you some dinner? I think tonight is meatloaf night, but it’s pretty good." The girl came closer and put out her hand to help Tina up. Their eyes met for a long moment.

"Bug off!" Tina said suddenly.

Something flashed in the girl’s eyes, and she smiled. "Okay... no problem… if you change your mind…"

Tina reached for her purse. When she looked up, the girl was gone.

The blonde walked into the main terminal where a dark haired girl waited by the main information booth. She was twirling gracefully, like a dancer, her eyes on the ceiling, lost in her own thoughts. The blonde came up to her and the brunette said, "The stars are twinkling at me. They have sung me a song."

The blonde sighed, "Dru, there *aren’t* any stars…" She looked up at the ceiling where Dru’s eyes were fixed. Oh. There *were* stars. A whole ceiling of them in constellations. Darla was so used to Dru’s insanity that when she did make sense it was a bit of a shock.

"What do they say, dear?" She asked patiently.

"That girl with her hair on fire... she is a worm in the beautiful apple."

"The redhead? I had a feeling about her… A slayer, huh?"

"A Slayer like the one who stole my Spike… a very naughty girl to take away my poor Spike."

"Wait! If this girl is a Slayer, Dru... that means the Buffy bitch is dead! "

Dru sighed dramatically, "No… this beautiful apple has *two* worms. Worms that bite, like snakes."

"Shit. Buffy is here too? That’s just perfect. Two slayers... no waiting. Let’s leave, Dru. We can get on the next train out of here."

Dru looked stricken. "Without giving Spike his birthday present? Nooo... We’ve come such a long way, and it’s taken such a long time to get it. And it’s something that he really wants. We have to give Spiky his present."

"Dru… we’ve been in this town an hour, and we’ve already run into the Slayer. Doesn’t that tell you something? And Buffy is here too? Is she with Spike?"

"She has my Spike in prison, but I can set him free."

"I’ll take that as a yes."

"I’m hungry, Darla. I haven’t had my tea today. That train was too crowded; it didn’t have a dining car, like the Sunnydale train did."

"I know, Dru. I haven’t eaten either. You stay here. I’ll be right back." As Darla read the signs, she realized that where she had found the Slayer was actually the Departures gate. Was the slayer leaving town for some reason? Wouldn’t *that* be nice? Darla headed for the Arrivals gate, pamphlet in hand, ready to take a lost runaway out to dinner.

Buffy and William had been looking for Tina for an hour. Nobody had seen her since school let out. Miss Scott said that when she left for school that day, she had her backpack, and was wearing her school uniform. "Did she bring any clothing to change into?" Buffy asked, talking on her cell phone, as she and William looked into every dark alley between Tina’s school and apartment.

Miss Scott’s voice was very upset when she phoned Buffy back. "Apparently, she has taken several changes of clothing, her toothbrush and sponge bag… even her pajamas."

Buffy thanked Miss Scott, and told her not to worry. It was evident that they were dealing with a runaway rather than foul play. She and William decided to split up. He would take the Port Authority bus station; she would take Grand Central. They had their cell phones for keeping in touch. They headed for the subway.

When Tina looked up and saw Buffy coming towards her, her eyes filled with tears. She felt totally lost and alone, and that run-in with the blonde vampire hadn’t helped. As soon as the pretty blonde had looked into her eyes, she had known; they both had. So now, the blonde knew that there was a slayer in town. Good. Maybe she would leave and be one less vampire to deal with.

"Tina! Thank goodness. We’ve all been so worried about you."

"Hi Buffy. I guess I look like a total idiot, sitting her in a train station like I have someplace to go."

Buffy sat down next to the unhappy teen. "Are things really that bad?"

"I hate being a slayer!"

"Yep. Been there done that. It’s the pits isn’t it?"

"It’s like my whole life. I have to go to this dorky school and wear this dorky uniform and the kids all hate me because I’m 17 feet tall and have funny hair, and if they knew the truth about me, they would think I was crazy too!"

"Oh, Tina. I know just how you feel. When I first came to Sunnydale High School, I had been expelled from my previous school for burning down the gymnasium! I was lucky not to spend my high school years in prison! So you can imagine that I was Miss Popularity!"

"But did you have to wear a uniform?"

"No. You’re right. A mere gym burning pales in comparison with having to wear a uniform."

Tina almost smiled, but caught herself in time.

"So, did something awful happen that caused you to run for the hills?" Buffy asked.

"No. Not really. It’s just that all the girls have been talking all week about what they were going to do for their summer vacations. Marie is going to Tuscany. Lizzie is going sailing on her father’s yacht. Blah blah blah! School is bad enough. But now summer vacation is coming up, and I just can’t stand the thought of spending all summer doing nothing but slaying!"

"How about Prunella? Is she kind to you?" Buffy asked.

"Prunella?" Tina giggled in spite of herself. "Oh my God. She *does* look like a Prunella, doesn’t she!" Tina sobered. "She’s all right. She’s just so strict, and no fun at all."

"Yeah, watchers can be like that. It took me years to get mine tamed. But they do come around eventually. The problem is that they don’t have children of their own, and apparently were never children themselves."

"Yeah... I think Miss Scott was born 40 years old."

"They’ve also got these ideas about how slayers should be and what they should do. As you have no doubt heard, I was not very good at following the rules."

"I’ve heard."

"I was so dying to really talk to you that week we spent together. But ‘you know who’ was always breathing down our necks. I guess she was afraid I was going to tell you to disregard all the rules."

"What *were* you going to tell me?"

"To disregard all the rules! Tina... look at me. What do you see?"

"Huh? Uh... a slayer, I guess."

"A very, very *old* slayer! And do you know how I got to *be* 27 years old?"

"How?"

"By disregarding the rules. I had friends and a family. They kept me alive in more ways than one. They are the best things that ever happened to me. The other thing is to not be too quick to believe everything that you read."

"What do you mean?"

"Fact. All vampires and demons aren’t evil. Just like all humans aren’t good. It took me a long time to learn that lesson because of what I had been taught. "

"But doesn’t that make it tough to kill them if there’s a chance that one might be good?"

"Well, the way I’ve learned to deal with it is this... if it’s attacking me, or somebody else... I just assume it’s evil. Call me judgmental, but... "

Tina laughed. "Yeah. That makes sense."

"But if you happen to meet a vampire or a demon walking down the street minding his own business, there’s probably no reason to kill him."

"What if a vampire comes up to you in a train station and offers you a free meal?"

"Well, in that case I would remember that old saying, ’there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’"

"Yeah, well, I was almost hungry enough to take her up on it."

"Well, if you have your heart set on dining with a vampire, why don’t I call William who is busy looking for you at Port Authority, and we’ll get you some dinner?"

Tina shook her head in wonder. She had heard and read all sorts of awful things about Spike, aka William the Bloody. And here was Buffy inviting her to dinner with him like it was no big deal. I guess this gets filed under ‘don’t believe everything you read’.

"What about Prunella? Do you *have* to call her?"

"Well, she is very worried about you. I swear. I could hear actual concern in her voice. Besides, I want to arrange a little talk with her. See if we can’t fix some of your woes. I honestly didn’t realize that things were that bad for you."

"Miss Scott means well, I know she does. When I had the flu she sat up with me all night, just like my mother used to."

"Well, see, she is practically tamed already! You’ll have her eating out of your hand before you know it."

"Well, I don’t want to marry her!"

At this, Buffy started to laugh and Tina joined her, and they laughed until their sides ached. They were so busy laughing that they didn’t see the two pairs of eyes, watching them from behind a bank of telephones.

"Perfect. Just perfect," said Darla sarcastically, "they’re friends. I was hoping that they would be at each other’s throats. Would have made things just a little bit easier. Two worms in one apple… once again, Dru, my crazy darling, you have hit the nail right on the head."

Continue to Chapters 3&4

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