1. Chapter 1

It's good to get paid.

That's the thought that was going through my head when I unlocked the door to my office, which up until that morning had had the words "SIDNEY GREEN, DEMON HUN" proudly painted on the window. The sweet payday I'd gotten from the Axelrod case meant I could finally pay that bastard of a sign painter to finish it. "Demon Hunter" should attract a lot higher class of clientele than "Demon Hun." I didn't really need to hear from people who were actually in the market for a barbarian from Hell in a horned helmet. Word was, that Hitler fella over in Germany already had all of them on payroll, anyway.

So with a spring in my step and a fat billfold in my pocket, I switched on the light and went over to my desk to make sure all my vital equipment was in order. Luger, check. Crucifix, stakes, holy water… check. Even holier water (bourbon)… check.

First things first… I took out the bourbon and got ready to kick off another productive night of work. Like always, I took off my hat and tossed it jauntily across the room at the hatrack, like private dicks always do in the pulps. And like always, I missed by a country mile. But this time, the hat didn't make it to the floor. Instead, it came to rest in a lovely brown hand, which happened to be attached to a lovely brown girl. Cho.

Cho was the other good thing that came out of the Axelrod case.

She was Korean, and beautiful. She'd just turned eighteen, which was mighty nice of her. And she could handle herself in a fight with the kind of style, grace, and flat-out strength that would make Max Baer swallow his gum and give up the ring for good.

Cho was one of a kind. Well, one-at-a-time of a kind, at least.

"Nice catch," I said, pouring myself a bourbon. "That hat's ratty enough as it is without spending any more time on the floor."

She smiled and, without looking, flipped the hat over her shoulder, where it came to rest neatly atop the hatrack.

"Nice," I said. "Your Slayer training teach you how to do that?"

"No," she said. "Charlie Chaplin movie."

(Since those are her first lines in this story, this might be a good time to say her pretty, exotic accent did wonders for a man of the world like myself. I won't say it every time she talks, but you'll know I'm thinkin' it.)

Cho and I had met three weeks earlier when we'd run into each other – literally – creeping around the Axelrod estate, which had fallen into the hands of a demon cult that was very good at fooling the authorities into thinking they were human, and therefore had to be dealt with on the QT by people like me and her.

We'd hit it off, kinda.

"Are you drinking already?" she accented, exotically.

"I sure am, doll," I assured her. "I got twelve years of Prohibition to make up for, and God only knows how little time to do it in."

"You drank all through Prohibition, did you not?"

"Hell, yes. But that was illegal drinking. Now I gotta balance the scales by having a _legit_ drink for each _illegal_ one I had. It's the only way to make things right, morally speaking, and atone for my wayward… ways."

She gave me a bewildered look with those purty almond eyes of hers.

"That's a gorgeous dress you're wearing," I said. "Very Hollywood. New purchase?"

"Yes," she said, pleased that I'd complimented it. "Mr. Hardy said that I could buy it, to look like an American. I saw Barbara Stanwyck wearing one like it in the picture shows. I like her very much."

"Yeah? Me too." _Only for different reasons than you do. I hope. _"Speaking of the stuffy English fella, how is he?"

"He is still in the hospital. And do not say that he is stuffed. He is my Watcher."

"Lucky him. Can I watch too?"

She smiled at that, and didn't beat me up. Good sign.

"He sent me here to speak to you. I need your help."

Cradling my bourbon, I took a seat behind my desk and put my feet up. "I'm all ears."

"Have you ever heard of the Tiberius Manifesto?"

I considered. "Can't say as I have. Is that some kind of Commie book?"

"Mr. Hardy says it is a translation of a manuscript from many centuries ago. It describes the tricks that the demons and vampires use to scourge our world, and how they can be defeated. It has been lost for many years. But I know where to find it, and I know that we _must_ find it."

"Pardon… you know all this how, exactly?"

"I dreamed it."

"You dreamed it? Sweetheart, dreams are just dreams. Which in my case, is a good thing for the world at large."

"You are not a Slayer," Cho said grimly. "When we dream, many die. What we do decides whether it is people who do the dying, or demons."

The look in her eyes told me all I needed to know.

"So," I said, finishing off my bourbon. "Looks like we got a book to check out."

* * * * *

"You look terrible, Buffy." Giles was in one of his direct moods.

"Thanks," Buffy said with a glare. "Would you like to add that I look fat in these jeans, and Dawn is prettier than me?"

Giles gave her that sideways glance that indicated he was going to opt out of the banter this time around. "My concern is as your Watcher and friend, not as your adoring entourage. Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"I've been getting plenty of sleep," Buffy yawned. "But the last few nights, the only _rest_ I've been getting has been when I'm _awake_."

Concerned Giles look. "Really? Have you been having disturbing dreams? Buffy, you need to tell me when…"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Slayer dreams, prophecy, blah blah blah. It's kind of hard to tell when your _regular_ dreams are also all about demons and mayhem and apocalypses… apocalypsi?"

"What have the dreams been about?" Giles asked patiently. "Has there been a recurring theme?"

Buffy thought. "The old favorites. Fear, confusion, mayhem. Fire, sirens, looting. Big-scale stuff. More Michael Bay than Stanley Kubrick."

"Thank heavens for popular culture," Giles sighed.

"…And a creepy narrator… Vincent Price, I think? Talking about something called St. Vigeous Fire."

Giles started visibly. Buffy hated it when he did that.

"Buffy… think carefully… did you say _St. Vigeous Fire_?"

"No, Vincent Price did. But those were the words."

"Oh, dear."

Buffy threw herself back in her chair with a heavy sigh. "I _hate_ Oh dear."


	2. Chapter 2

"This is nice," Xander said cheerfully. "Another _How Can We Avert the Apocalypse_ all-nighter at Giles' place. Someday, when I'm sitting around McDonald's with my senior citizen's coffee and complaining about the government with guys in John Deere caps, I'm gonna look back on these little gatherings with fondness."

"You're planning on qualifying for senior citizens' coffee someday," Willow said, looking up from her laptop. "Good attitude. That's the first step toward a successfully averted Apocalypse."

Giles sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes with frustration. "The second step, though… actually finding out how to avert it… is a different matter. Perhaps if I had easy access to the Vatican Library…"

Buffy put down the book she'd been absently leafing through… a 1572 survey of standing stones along the northern coast of Brittany. "Well, we know what we're up against, don't we? St. Vigeous Fire. We can name it. And if you can name something, you can hit it. Right? Can I get a _right_?"

"I'm afraid hitting it would be the worst thing you could do," Giles said glumly. "St. Vigeous Fire spreads by touch."

"So… it's like Vampire Flu," Xander observed.

"Essentially," Giles agreed. "During an outbreak of the Fire, vampires acquire the ability to spread their condition by simple touch. The usual cumbersome method of creating new undead is set aside. Simplified. The infected then spread the disease to others through touch, and so on. By this means, vampirism can spread throughout an entire community in a single night, like fire… hence the name."

"Creating a _Night of the Living Dead_ scenario," Willow put in.

"Geek points for the perky redhead," Xander said with admiration.

"It was low-hanging fruit. Tara likes that movie, believe it or not. She thinks it was originally filmed as a documentary, but the government jumped in and told everybody it was just a story."

Giles gamely cracked open another musty book. "The biggest challenge is the fact that the vampires created by the Fire are essentially mindless. They don't realize they've become vampires, and they do nothing to avoid the things that would destroy them. It makes them fairly easy to kill – if one can get past the horror of staking one's friends and family members through the heart and watching them turn to dust. The vampires don't even know to avoid direct sunlight. Most outbreaks of the Fire last only a single night… until sunrise comes and eliminates the problem."

"That must make for a dusty morning," Buffy remarked.

"And a tragic one," Giles added. "We have testimonials from people who lost every single person they knew the moment the sun crested the horizon. It's said the Tiberius Manifesto contained a spell that could reverse the disease and save its victims, if it could be cast before sunrise. But that book has been lost for centuries. I've no idea how we could save the infected without it."

"So when and where is this blessed event due to hit?" Xander asked. "Do we have a ticking clock? Increasing dramatic tension until it seems all is lost, and then we pull another save out of nowhere?"

"I wish I knew," Giles said. "Buffy had the dream last night. I'd think we should be prepared for something in the near future."

"Speaking of ticking clocks," Buffy said, "I have to get home. Dawn had tap class tonight, so we're eating dinner late."

"Dawnie is taking tap lessons?" Willow smiled. "Aww, that's adorable. Does she have a little top hat and cane?"

"And two left feet. She's the most enthusiastic spaz ever to put on a leotard."

"You should be more supportive of her, Buffy…"

"I am supportive. I didn't strangle her when she stole my blue spangled minidress to make a Roxie Hart costume with."

"Oooh, did the dress survive?" Xander inquired urgently. "Please tell me that dress survived."

They opened the door of Giles' apartment to reveal a pleasantly mild, twilit late summer evening. Crickets chirped in the shrubs nearby.

"Lots of sirens out tonight," Willow remarked, listening to the steady wail that seemed to be coming from all directions and all distances at once. "Even by Sunnydale standards."

"Uncle Rory must have violated probation again," Xander sighed. "Guess I'd better get home and gather with the family round the TV to watch the news. Maybe he'll wave at us."

Giles came up behind them. "Buffy," he said. "Your mother just rang me. She's concerned that Dawn hasn't come home from her dance class yet. I told her I'd drive you over near the studio to see if we could find her."

"Hey," Xander said, "If lifts are being given, I could use a piece of that action. It's only, what, five or six blocks out of your way?"

"And this laptop is _heavy_," Willow said, making a big show of trying to lift it. "_Oooof_. See?"

Giles sighed. "God forbid you young people should insult your muscles with any form of physical exertion. Very well, get in. And no eating in the car, on pain of my being very stern with you."

"No food," Buffy agreed, "but if Dawn is wearing my spangled minidress again, there may be bloodstain issues to deal with."

"Oh, so the dress _did_ survive!" Xander said, brightly.

* * * * *

So there I stood with Cho, at the top of Mount Lee up above the HOLLYWOODLAND sign, waiting for a Very Important Demon.

"I hate making deals with demons," I told her for what must have been the fifth time. "It's so much more satisfying to, you know, cut their heads off and then take what you need. The old Marie Antoinette Haircut." And I made a cutting motion across my throat, in case Cho didn't know who Marie Antoinette was.

"Niemand is bald and has no hair to cut," Cho replied, missing the reference completely. "And he has something we need. He is a very powerful demon, the leader of the Brotherhood of Seven. Mr. Hardy says that they have killed a dozen Slayers over the centuries. We must beware of them. It gives me no pleasure to deal with him in a less than violent way, but we must do what is necessary to save lives."

"He's got a flair for the dramatic, telling us to meet him here. Or the pretentious," I said, looking down at the top of the sign. "You know, a girl killed herself last year here. Climbed up to the top of the 'H' and jumped off."

"She did not jump," said a raspy voice from a few feet away where nobody had been a few seconds ago. "She fell. Having one's brain removed will cause such mishaps. This is a favorite spot of mine for such… transactions. I find it inspiringly grandiose."

"Pretentious it is, then," I said irritably. "Were you hoping to scare me with your big bad demon talk, pal? Maybe we should cut to the chase and just whip out our dicks? I brought a ruler."

Niemand was obviously just going through the motions of trying to look human. He looked like exactly what he was… a demon wearing a human suit, and not really caring if anyone bought it or not. Lugosi could have taken a few pointers from him.

Nice suit, though.

He glanced at me like I was a mildly interesting specimen under a bell jar, then turned to Cho.

"You have the funds you promised?"

Cho reached into the cloth bag hanging on her belt and pulled out a roll of hundred-dollar bills. Enough Ben Franklins to make a merry Christmas in May for every poor sap standing in every soup line in the city down below. The Watchers' Council had deep pockets.

"And you have the book?" she asked.

"Of course," he said. "I never lie to mortals. It's so demeaning." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small book bound in old-looking brown leather.

Cho handed Niemand the roll of hundreds with her left hand, and took the book from him with her right. Was it really gonna be this easy?

I should never ask myself that.

As soon as Cho took the book, the air around us shimmered like a highway on a hot summer day. Then the shimmer turned big, and solid, and hungry. Lots of demons. And unlike Niemand, not worrying even a little bit about looking human.

"Making deals with mortals is demeaning as well," Niemand said mildly. "But lest you question my honor, this was none of my doing. You've simply triggered a spell laid on the book by Vigeous himself, after he relieved Tiberius Magnus of the manuscript, and of his hold on life. This is the original volume, of course, not a copy. Only the best for the Slayer. Ah, well. I'll be back to collect it when this is finished."

Niemand put his hands in his pockets, and turned and strolled away. The bastard would have lit up a pipe if he'd had one.

"Not unexpected," Cho muttered. "I count ten of them. Probably confused and off balance at their sudden summoning after many centuries. Perhaps the poison in this modern air will slow them."

"They're from hell, sweetheart. I don't think the bad air is gonna faze them much."

Cho ripped at the belt of her Barbara Stanwyck dress, and the skirt came right off to reveal a pair of beautiful bare, brown legs, all ready to kick hell out of our new visitors.

"Whoa," I said. "Let _me_ do that next time. That's man's work."

"Crack wise later," she said. "Let's take care of these mugs first."

I whistled. "Beautiful, strong, and watches gangster movies. I think I am in love."

And then the demons were on us, and there was no more time for daydreaming or sightseeing.

_**To be continued…**_


	3. Chapter 3

Even with my life in pretty immediate danger, it was hard to keep my eyes off Cho. Not because of the gams (well… maybe _partly_ because of the gams), but because she made violence into such a thing of beauty.

I'd never seen anybody move like Cho did when she fought.

It seemed like she was everywhere at once… a handy thing in a ten-against-two situation. She spent as much time on her hands as on her feet, and you could never tell which way she was going to bounce next. These demons didn't look like very limber specimens to begin with, and they had no idea what to make of this crazy human dame who wouldn't stop kicking them in the face, and whose neck never seemed to be where it was supposed to be when they reached out to grab and snap it.

Cho formed a one-woman circle around me, kicking and punching and slashing and keeping all ten demons back on their heels long enough for me to draw a weapon. I pulled out my trusty Luger… which actually, now that I thought about it, wasn't very trusty at all when it came to demons.

Some species of demon can't really be hurt by firearms, like vampires. But I figured these ones were medieval types, because that's when Vigeous had bound them into the book with his curse. Demons can usually be hurt by technology that didn't exist yet when they started out. They've got no defenses against it.

So I drew a bead on the one who seemed to be closest to breaking through Cho's wall of wild-cattery, offered a bribe to whatever Power might be listening at the moment, and let her rip.

The bullet bounced right off it. Armored carapace. Dammit.

Cho cartwheeled right past me, threw herself into the air, and suddenly had her left leg hooked around the neck of one demon, and her right hooked around the neck of the one next to him. She jerked her knees together, and the two demon skulls cracked against each other with a satisfying sound. Cho and the two demons hit the ground. She did a backflip and was in motion again within seconds. The demons just sort of laid there.

"Isn't she something?" I asked the demon nearest me. "You know, you should be glad you lived long enough to see that." Then I put a bullet through his eye. It ricocheted around inside his skull for a while, and his day was over.

I was clear for the moment. A few feet away Cho was mauling a confused demon with hands and feet… seemed to have him under control, but another one was coming up behind her. I reached inside my jacket and pulled out one of the six glass bottles I had stashed in there.

I shied that bottle right at the head of the demon trying to flank Cho… direct hit, and the goon found himself showered with broken glass and holy water. He forgot all about fighting, and staggered off clawing at his smoking face and howling.

"Those medieval demons really hate the holy water," I muttered to myself. Cho was still busy with her demon, and I couldn't get a clear shot at it, so I just called her name and tossed a bottle toward her. She caught it in midair without looking, like I knew she would, and smashed it right into the demon's face. Blinded and staggered, he found himself stumbling backwards as Cho kept up an impressive flurry of kicks against his chest. A few seconds later he toppled right over the side of Mount Lee, and down into Hollywood. That'd be the last we saw of him. A glamorous way to go. Probably lost on him, though.

Cho ran up beside me. "That's five down, five more to go," I told her. I handed her another holy water bottle, took one myself, and raised my gun to take good aim at the eyeball of one of the remaining, very uncertain-looking demons.

"I always find the first five are the hardest, don't you?" she asked brightly.

"Remind me to ask you out on a date when we're finished here," I said.

"I will accept. You can take me to San Francisco."

"San Fra-wha?"

"San Francisco. It is where we need to take the book. I will explain on the way. And if we survive, you may take me to dinner afterwards. Hopefully we will be the ones eating, and not the ones being eaten."

Those last five demons probably wondered why I had such a goofy smile on my face… but then, they had bigger problems to deal with.

* * * * *

By the time they got three blocks away from Giles's apartment, Buffy's heart had already started sinking.

It was early evening, the sun had just set, yet there seemed to be almost nobody on the streets… no pedestrians, and no vehicles except for the occasional police cruiser or ambulance, speeding by with lights and sirens on.

Buffy turned the radio on, dreading what she'd hear.

"…_saying there has been no intelligence regarding possible terrorist cells based in Sunnydale. However, the spontaneous nature of these incidents suggests coordination and planning, and in the absence of any triggering event that we're aware of, all possible explanations must be explored…"_

Four blocks out – nearly halfway to Dawn's dance studio – they saw the first of the vampires. It was a middle-aged man, still wearing the suit he'd apparently had on at work. He was still carrying his leather briefcase, as if unsure whether he'd need it or not. The newly-minted vampire seemed momentarily surprised at the sight of Giles's car, as if he didn't know what it was. Then he spotted the people riding inside it. A look of animal fury instantly came over his face, and he ran out into the street after them.

The vampire's ignorance regarding automobiles was apparently total. Giles slammed on the brakes, but too late. There was a soft thud, and the man came to rest twenty feet down the street, on his back. Loose papers from his briefcase fluttered all around like confetti.

"That was Mr. Neuberger," Xander said. "He used to be on my paper route. Gave me a twenty-dollar tip every Christmas."

The former Mr. Neuberger was badly damaged, but still struggling to get up.

"He'll be mobile again in a few minutes," Buffy said in a hollow voice. "Better finish him off now." She pulled out a stake and started to open the car door.

Giles put his hand on her shoulder. "Buffy, perhaps we should leave him be until we're certain we have no way of reversing the Fire. There may be a possibility that we can save him and the other victims. If not… I'm afraid there will be little we can do to deal with the problem more effectively than sunrise can."

"There's a happy thought," Willow said.

"I'd like to petition for a little more advance warning with these Slayer dreams," said Xander. "I mean… the night before the apocalypse? That makes about as much sense as an air raid siren during a nuclear attack. Just enough time to duck and cover…"

"…And kiss your ass goodbye," Willow concluded.

"Yes, well. Let's not kiss any asses prematurely," Giles said. "Our concern right now is to see that Dawn is safe."

"Better gun it," Xander warned. "Here comes _Mrs._ Neuberger."

An attractive fortysomething woman had appeared on the sidewalk. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said "Soccer Mom" with a picture of a cartoon lady in a pants-suit kicking a soccer ball. She glanced uncertainly at the weakly flailing body of her husband out in the street, then looked at the car and snarled viciously. Giles drove off, courteously driving around Mr. Neuberger.

They saw a few more vampires on the way to the dance studio, but thankfully none who were menacing any actual humans.

The studio itself seemed eerily quiet as the four of them cautiously went inside. It seemed to be deserted, although the door was unlocked and the lights were still on. Buffy tried calling Dawn's name, but her voice just echoed loudly in the empty building.

"She's not here," she said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. "She could be anywhere."

There was a bloodcurdling shriek, and a girl about Dawn's age appeared in the doorway that led to the locker room. She was dressed in blue jeans and a bra, and had obviously been in the process of changing clothes when the Fire had taken her. Without another sound, she charged across the parquet floor at Buffy and her companions.

"Don't let her touch you," Giles shouted. "Buffy… your cross!"

Buffy yanked the silver cross pendant from around her neck and held it out in front of her, letting the fluorescent light glint off it. The vampire girl – only a few feet away now – skidded to an abrupt stop, falling on her butt as she did so. She threw up noisily, all over herself and the floor, and scrambled on her hands and knees back the way she'd come, sobbing in terror. She didn't know why that horrible shiny thing frightened her so, but she knew that she had to get away from it.

Buffy and the others watched as the girl finally found her feet, and fled whimpering back into the locker room.

"That was Gina Bruni," Buffy said. "She's been over to the house a few times. She'd dress up as Velma to Dawn's Roxie. Nice kid. Former."

"We'll figure something out, Buffy," Willow said. "Maybe there's a spell…"

"Yes," Giles agreed. "We've never been in the business of giving up. Buffy, these characters you keep mentioning… Roxie and Velma somethingorother. These are from a show of some sort?"

"_Chicago_," Buffy said. "Dawn's favorite."

"And do you think Dawn might actually be wearing this blue dress of yours? It should make her easier to spot if she is."

"I guarantee you," Xander piped up, "if that dress is out there, I _will_ find it."

"I dunno," Buffy sighed. "I think I'm just paranoid about that dress. I really like it, and she's gonna ruin it. I even dreamed she was wearing it the other night."

"Another dream? Buffy…"

"I know, I know, but trust me, Giles, this was just a regular dream. It was kind of stupid and goofy. Not an apocalypse in sight. Do I have to report every single dream I have? Because if I do, you're gonna spend a lot more time fumbling with your glasses."

Giles fumbled with his glasses. "No need for that, but I think you'll agree that any possible clues we might have are worth mentioning. Is it safe to ask what this dream involved?"

Buffy took a deep breath and concentrated on remembering.

"We were standing by Dawn's locker at school. Not her current school, but Sunnydale High… which is pretty odd, since it's a pile of rubble now. She was wearing the blue minidress, and being all smug about it. She said _Don't worry, Buffy, I'll be okay_. And I said, _No you won't, unless you take off that dress_, and she said _Should I take it off right here?_ Because she's a wiseass. And I told her to finish up in her locker and come right home. And she said, _I have everything I need right here_, and showed me the inside of the locker. There was nothing in it but one of those Harry Potter books she's always reading.

"Then she closed the locker, and on the front of it there was no number, but just a letter Z. Dawn pointed at it and smiled, and said _Zzzzzzzzzzz_. And I said, _What the hell does that mean?_ And she said _It means you're asleep, Buffy. Wake up._ And I did."

Xander and Willow looked at each other and shrugged. "You're right," Xander said. "That dream was wise in the ways of goofiness."

But Giles seemed to be deep in thought. "Buffy," he said. "Are you certain Dawn's locker had a letter _zed_ on the front of it?"

"Nooooo. It had a letter _zee_."

"And you're certain it was located at Sunnydale High?"

"Absolutely sure. I could even smell that stuff the janitors would put down when some kid barfed in the hallway."

"A universal Sunnydale memory," Willow agreed.

"We did a lot of barfing at ol' SHS," Xander added. "Good times."

"What are you thinking, Giles?" Buffy asked.

"I'm thinking we should go find Dawn," he said. "And then go and break into the construction site at Sunnydale High."

"Sober?" Xander asked. "That would be quite a break with local custom."

"Dawn first, trespassing later," Buffy declared. "I want my sister back. And don't tell her I said that."

_**To be continued…**_


	4. Chapter 4

It was a harrowing drive up to San Francisco. Not because anything happened, but because it didn't.

"You worry too much," Cho told me around 2 AM, as we we shot through the only intersection in some little burg called Sunnydale without slowing down.

"I'd worry a lot less if you'd let me round up some of my pals to bring along," I said. "I know a few bruisers as wouldn't mind getting in a little bag-work with some demon's head."

"Niemand might not know where we went," she said, too optimistically in my view. "The thing we are looking for, he does not know exists. At least… he _shouldn't_ know."

"Sister, _demons_ shouldn't exist. Ask anybody who's never met one." For the seventh time, I took a quick mental inventory of my equipment. Luger, cleaned and loaded, with extra bullets. Crucifixes made of ashwood, iron, silver, and granite, plus a plain cross (in case we ran across any Protestant vampires). Good assortment of knives. Enough holy water to baptize a small army. Bishop Cantwell wasn't too crazy about me using the stuff in bulk like that… especially with me being a good Jewish boy… but he understood, being an old demon hunter himself.

"I think we are beyond the stage of beating things up, as much as I always hate to admit that," Cho said. "If the Brotherhood of Seven do come after us at this point, they will do so in force. I won't be able to kick enough heads to stop them, though I'm sure you'd appreciate another look at my legs anyway."

"You know me too well," I admitted. "No, really. You know me too well. It's generally around this point that most nice girls lose interest."

"I am not most nice girls," she said with that Mona Lisa smile that was probably gonna get me killed someday, if I stuck around with her.

"You said it," I agreed. "Say, what is that thing you do with the kicking and the flipping and the knocking heads together? Is it that _judo_ thing I've heard about?"

She shook her head. "Korean ninjutsu."

"Can you teach me that?"

"No."

"Ah. Well, I'm probably too fat for it anyway. Hey, look. San Luis Obispo, ten miles. I'll drink to that." I took out my flask.

"Demon rum?"

"Nah. Saint Bourbon."

"You should not be drinking when you are driving, in the middle of the night, with no sleep, when a large demon may leap upon the roof of this car at any moment."

"Think I can't hold my liquor? Sweetheart. You wound me."

"Not yet."

Okay, now she was glowering. I put the flask away with a sigh.

"Running around with a beautiful Slayer is a two-edged sword. You know that?"

"I have mine, if you'd like to borrow it."

* * * * *

It was a night the Sunnydale Chamber of Commerce would probably be leaving out of the brochures. The increasingly frantic search for Dawn had so far turned up: a young woman in the process of eating a small dog she had apparently been walking (the leash was still attached); a prostitute and one of her customers, both fanged, one half-dressed and one not; and a little old lady who tried to chase Giles's car down the street with her walker, exhibiting admirable tenacity for a vampire of her years and physical limitations.

"I'm surprised she still remembers how to use the thing," Giles said, deeply disturbed.

"Giles," Buffy said. "You know that little playground on Vineland? The one with the swing set and slide? I think we should check it out. Dawn stops there sometimes after her dance classes. She says swinging keeps her from getting leg cramps."

"Worth a try, I suppose."

The little park was deserted, but the four of them got out of the car to look for any sign Dawn had been there recently.

"Anybody see anything?" Buffy called, checking underneath the slide.

"Nothing," Xander replied from the swingset. "Maybe we need to find something with her scent so we can track it. Hey, what is her scent anyway?"

"Strawberry shampoo," Buffy replied. "Probably mixed with Teen Spirit deodorant, since she's been to dance class."

"Well, we shouldn't need a bloodhound for that," Willow said.

"Quiet, everyone," Giles called in a stage whisper. "Does anyone else hear a _clicking_ sound coming from somewhere nearby?"

They all fell silent to listen. Sure enough, an irregular clicking noise was coming from somewhere in the vicinity, quite audible even over the distant sirens. There would be a series of fast clicks, followed by slower ones, then none at all, then suddenly another fast series…

"Mandibles," Xander said. "Clicking sounds mean giant insect mandibles, unless 1950's horror movies have lied to me."

"I don't think giant insects are a common feature of St. Vigeous Fire," Giles said, distracted, trying to listen for more clicks.

"Well, maybe it's mutated… like the flu. If we develop a vaccine against this thing, we'd better remember to include one against giant insects too."

"You're babbling, Xander," Giles said.

"Yes. Yes, I am."

Then came a sudden acceleration of the clicking sound, accompanied by a loud rustling noise in the shrubs at the far side of the park. With a weird scream, a young dark-haired girl dressed in a 1920's flapper showgirl dress burst out of the bushes and ran toward them. She still wore her tap shoes, which explained the clicking sound.

"Dawn!" Buffy called.

Dawn didn't reply, nor did she slow down. By the light of the park's one streetlamp, Buffy was startled to see a look of rage and… hatred… on Dawn's face that went far beyond little-sister-temper-tantrum territory.

Buffy froze as Dawn raced across the grass toward her. It wasn't the horror of seeing her little sister transformed into a vampire – she'd been mentally preparing herself for that since the encounter with Gina at the dance studio, and she'd already put aside her horror to be dealt with at a later time. Rather, it was the challenge of how to stop Dawn without touching her… or killing her.

She quickly made the decision to try to leap right over Dawn's head, then hope that she'd chase after her rather than going after her friends instead. If she could lead Dawn out into the surrounding streets, she might be able to find something like a trash can lid to defend herself with, and maybe some kind of pole to hold her at bay with, and, if necessary…

"_Silig_!" shouted Willow from somewhere off to Buffy's right.

Dawn stopped dead in her tracks as the spell took her. Her forward momentum was too strong, however, and she fell forward, hitting the ground nose-first.

Willow and Buffy both gasped reflexively at that. "_Dal_!" Willow called. Dawn lifted slowly up off the ground and hung a few feet in mid-air.

Willow ran to Dawn's side, concerned, and examined her face. Blood dripped from her nose as she hung there, silent and helpless, glaring at Willow with mindless hatred.

"I think her nose is broken. I didn't mean for her to fall like that," Willow said, distressed

"That looks to be the least of her problems," Xander pointed out.

"Her vampire healing should take care of her injury," said Giles.

The others all looked at him.

"Well, we should be thankful for any small pieces of good fortune," he said.

"Doesn't matter," Buffy said quietly. "If we can't figure something out, Dawn dies at dawn. Funny, huh?"

"We'll laugh about it later, Buffy," Xander said. "After everything's turned out alright."

"Yes," Giles said. "A great many people, besides Dawn, are depending on us to find a solution, so let's occupy our minds with that. You'll find a very sturdy canvass sleeping bag in the boot of my car. I suggest we put Dawn inside of it – carefully – so she'll be restrained when Willow's spell wears off. We don't want to lose her again."

"One Bag o' Dawn, coming up," Xander said, and went to get it.

"Plan?" Buffy asked Giles.

"Same as before. Get to the Sunnydale High construction site and see what your dream was pointing us to."

"You know," she said morosely, "I also dreamed I was singing the National Anthem at the homecoming game, with no clothes on."

"That must have been embarrassing."

"It was. Have you heard me sing? Anyway, the point is, not all my dreams mean anything."

"I'm fairly certain this one does," Giles said. "You dreamed of a locker with the letter Z on the front of it. That sounds like a Zed Vault. The Watchers' Council had them created over the course of several centuries, and placed them in various locations around the world. Only a Slayer could open one of the Vaults, and anything placed in one could be retrieved from any of the others. I've never told you about them, so the fact that you've dreamed of one suggests that it was indeed a prophetic vision."

Buffy smiled. "So I won't have to sing naked?"

"Um, I don't think so. Not unless you want to, of course. I'll be open to any suggestion if this fails."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Because the _bombs bursting in air_ part? Not pretty."

Giles smiled back. "Your mother will be worried," he said. "You should call her and tell her that we've got Dawn."

"I'll leave out the fangs part. And the broken nose."

"Probably a wise decision."


	5. Chapter 5

We pulled into San Francisco in the wee small hours of the next day. Cho had already been studying a map of the city, looking for the address her Watcher had given her. One thousand Cayuga Avenue, in Mission Terrace.

Which turned out to be… a high school. Balboa High School. Newly built, good looking campus. Why we were there, I still had no idea.

"Here we are, hon," I said. "Hallowed halls of learning. Praise to our alma mater, sis-boom-bah. Me, I dropped out. Now what?"

"Now," she said, "We find the library, so we can put this book in its proper place."

_Steady, old man_, I said to myself. Took a deep breath. "Right," I said to her. "Four hundred miles we just drove, with the cast of Dante's Inferno probably out beatin' the chapparal for us the whole time… so you could drop off a book? Is it overdue? By a few hundred years, looks like. That's gonna be a lulu of a fine."

She ignored me. "We will be looking for a cabinet or a closet of some kind. It will have the letter Z marked on the door. Only that, nothing else."

"You know, I didn't ask to be reimbursed for mileage, on account of I like you. Just wanted you to know that."

"You are a true romantic. Most men think of only flowers and chocolates, when free car fare is the true way to a woman's heart."

"What can I say?" I shrugged. "I'm a working man."

It was Cho who reminded me that we should stock up on all the weapons we could carry before we went into the library, despite the lack of demons on the drive up. It was a good thought, because we'd only made it about halfway down the first corridor when they jumped us.

* * * * *

Willow's spell wore off before they got to the school construction site, and the sleeping bag in the back seat of Giles's car suddenly seemed to acquire a population of several very angry and energetic cats. If Dawn had been capable of rational thought, she might have been able to put her vampire strength to good use in trying to escape that super-sturdy German military surplus sleeping bag… but as it was, all she succeeded in doing was breaking off all of her press-on nails and getting herself covered in her own spit. Still, Xander and Willow were obliged to sit on her to prevent general chaos in the back seat.

"How long do we have until sunrise?" Buffy asked.

"About two hours," Giles answered, glancing at his watch. "If it's any comfort, that canvas should protect Dawn from the sun's rays. In fact, now that we've got her, we should be able to keep her safe indefinitely, given a bit of luck."

"Hooray for Dawn," Buffy said. "Not so hooray for everyone else." But, she was ashamed to admit Giles's words did make her feel a little bit better.

The Sunnydale High construction site was surrounded by portable fencing, which was rightly regarded as something of a joke by that segment of the town's youth looking for a place to get drunk, stoned, and/or pregnant. Buffy didn't feel like wasting time, so she just grabbed the fence links with both hands and tore a person-sized hole in it.

"Do you think we need to bring Dawn along?" Buffy asked Giles. "She was the one showing me this Z Locker in my dream, after all. Is it because she's a Key?"

"I doubt her mystical nature has anything to do with the Zed Vaults," Giles said. "Only the hand of a Slayer can open one. Perhaps she was in your dream because your subconscious mind was showing you the _key_ to solving the problem. Or perhaps because Dawn would be the one you most want to save. Still, it can't hurt to have her along, just in case."

"It can hurt, actually, if you get within eight inches of that bag," Xander said from behind them. "That distance has just been measured exactly, and scientifically, by yours truly."

Buffy and Giles turned around to see Xander and Willow standing there (Xander holding his bruised nose) with the Dawn-filled sleeping bag floating between them, a few feet off the ground.

"Willow," Buffy said, "the convenience of your witchery knows no bounds."

"I know," Will smiled. "Need a toilet unclogged? I learned that one last week. Plumbers are expensive."

They levitated Dawn over the top of the fence, and in moments were inside the ruins of the school, which had fortunately been shored up for the safety of the workmen.

"Phew," said Xander. "It still smells like Mayor-Demon Sashimi in here. That's a smell you just don't get out of the carpets."

"You'd think finding a few dozen cubic yards of demon guts in these ruins would have warranted a headline in the paper," Willow observed.

"So what are we looking for in here?" Xander asked. "A locker with a Z on it, right? Might be a problem. It looks like they've already taken out all the old lockers, or what was left of them. Maybe this Vault thing got blown to pieces along with everything else?"

"Zed Vaults were constructed with the most powerful binding magic known to man or demon," Giles told him. "You could strike one directly with a nuclear missile, and unless there happened to be a Slayer riding on that rocket, it would do little more than rattle the door of the Vault."

Xander whistled. "You don't see workmanship like that anymore."

Giles stopped. "You know – that reminds me. You're right, Xander. You _don't _see Zed Vaults being created anymore. That's because the magical formulae for making them… along with the records of where the existing ones were located… were all lost during the Second World War."

"Blown up in the Blitz?" Willow asked.

Giles shook his head. "Incinerated by demon Nazi stormtroopers. Hitler found a way to teleport them in past our defenses. But my point is, the lockers in this school were all made much more recently than that. None of them could have been Zed Vaults. Unless there are some older ones, somewhere. Somewhere they'd be overlooked for decades, and never replaced…"

"Maybe the basement?" Buffy suggested. "Nobody ever went down there except for the janitors and vampires and kids trying to sneak a smoke."

The basement, as it turned out, had been left relatively intact by the blast. There was a lot of water damage everywhere from where the pipes had burst, but most of the old disused equipment and junky old furniture was still lying around where it had been.

After a bit of searching, they came across a row of old metal cabinets in a musty corner of the basement. None of them had the letter Z on their doors, however. One had a few misspelled obscenities scratched into its paint, another had the tattered, half-scraped-off remains of a 1980's-vintage Van Halen bumper sticker, and one had a rusty horseshoe bolted to it.

At Giles's suggestion they started opening cabinets, looking for any hints of a Zed Vault that might have been well hidden… too well hidden, in fact.

Xander opened a cabinet. "A pair of crusty old overalls," he reported. "Last washed sometime before Watergate, judging by the smell."

Willow pulled a stack of dog-eared paper out of hers. "This is more like an X-Vault," she said. "Somebody's stash of 70's porn magazines. Look at that. This poor woman needs a bikini wax, stat."

"I think I know just the skeevy janitor those belonged to," Xander said.

"Oh, I know the one," Willow agreed. "The guy who always used to mop the hallways on pep rally days, when the cheerleaders wore their uniforms to class."

"That's the one. Cordelia called him Centipede Eyes, because she could always feel his stare crawling up the backs of her legs…"

Buffy grabbed Giles's wrist and looked at his watch. "Seventy-four minutes, guys," she said tightly. "Until a whole bunch of our friends and neighbors turn into fertilizer. Maybe we should _focus_?"

"Focusing," Xander said. "Plenty of time for hairy porn later. Or never. Better never. This one with the horseshoe is stuck. Anybody see something I can use to break off the lock with?"

A little searching turned up an old hammer, but several whacks resulted in nothing more than a sore hand for Xander.

"Okay," he grumbled. "High-quality pre-war construction, you shall not win this day." He took the hammer in both hands and brought it up over his head in preparation for a mighty whack.

But Giles caught his arm and stopped him. "Omega," he said to himself.

"You're in America, Giles," Xander told him. "Swear in English."

"That's not a horseshoe. It's an omega."

Willow seemed to know where he was going with this. "But omega is the letter O, not Z," she said.

"Still, it's the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and that's the significance. Buffy… I think we need you."


	6. Chapter 6

Two members of the Brotherhood of Seven had chosen to grace us with their presence, and that of their demon goons. These goons, I assumed, would be a little better versed in modern mystical combat than the medieval relics Niemand had trusted to take us out.

One Brother, who looked like a beachcomber, with bare feet and beard, faced us from one end of the corridor, while a big guy who looked like an Oriental wrestler held down the other end.

"The bearded one is named Nadie, and the fat one is Nessuno," Cho whispered to me. "Nessuno is Japanese. Please let me be the one to hit him, if the chance arises."

"How do you know all that?" I asked her.

"I read the book," she replied with a shrug. "_The Brotherhood of Seven: Danger or Distraction?_ by Edna Fairweather Giles."

"I never heard of that one," I grumbled. (I was kind of steamed. Thought I had the best demonology library in California.) "Where can I find a copy?"

"Become a Watcher. Or a Slayer."

"Sweetheart, from what I've seen of you, I don't think I'd have the balls to be a Slayer."

"You've got two too many," she said. "We cannot beat these demons in a fight. We need to get past them. Can you follow my lead, and be ready to be thrown around a bit?"

I nodded. "I think the throwing around part is inevitable at this point. I'd rather you be the one doing it."

Nadie, the beachcomber demon, called down the hall to us. "You did know Niemand has access to scrying magic, didn't you? Did you think you'd be allowed to run away?"

"You let us run a hell of a lot further than you should have," I called back. "Not leaving yourselves much margin for error here." I hoped to hell I knew what I was talking about.

"You two have a lot of heart," he called. "That's good, because I'm in the market for a new one. The girl's, preferably. Unless you'd prefer to eat it, Brother?"

"No, thank you," Nessuno responded from his end of the hall. "Korean food makes me sick."

"Here are your options," Nadie called. "You can turn the book over to us, and… _hey_!"

Cho, it turned out, wasn't polite enough to listen to this bastard stand there and deliver a mustache-twirling speech like the heavy in a suspense picture. Instead, at that point she grabbed my hand and started us sprinting full-out at Nature Boy and his thugs.

The demons all squared up for a fight, but at the last second Cho grabbed me and used my momentum to throw me right up in the air, clean over Nadie's head. I found myself in midair, nose-to-ugly-nose with the big startled brute who was standing behind him. I took the opportunity to hook my arm around his neck as I went by, and brought him down with me. I heard the back of his skull crack against the floor, and he went limp.

At the same time she'd thrown me, Cho had dropped to the floor on her back and slid into Nadie's legs, bowling him over, and then had continued on right between the legs of the other big demon, who actually bent over to look between his own legs and see where she went. It was no problem (and more than a little bit fun) to put my shoe on his ass and send him sprawling.

I bent down to help Cho up, and she instantly braced herself in my arms and kicked straight out to the right and left, catching two smaller demons right in their kissers as they lunged at us.

"This way," she said, and took off down a side corridor. I followed.

As she ran along, she seemed to be studying the metal lockers that lined the hallway, looking for something.

I felt the need for a little extra fortification, so as I ran I pulled a flask out of my pocket and upended it into my mouth.

Suddenly, Cho seemed to spot what she was looking for, and put on an extra burst of speed.

The air shimmered, and Brother Nessuno materialized right in front of her. She was too close to stop herself, and ran right into his beefy arms. He spun her around so she was facing away from him, and put her in a choke hold.

"Teleportation," he said. "Not fair, is it?" Then he opened his mouth… and kept opening it, and opened it some more. It unhinged, like a snake's, until it was wide enough for Cho's entire head to fit inside. She and I both realized at the same time that he meant to bite her head right off with one snap of his jaws. It was the first time I ever saw fear in that girl's eyes, and I didn't like it.

So I leaned forward and sprayed the mouthful of holy water I'd taken a minute earlier, right into both their faces.

Cho just sputtered, but Nessuno howled and put his hands up to his burning eyes, blinded for the moment. Cho took that opportunity to heel-kick him right in the jewels (luckily, he had a pair), and broke away.

We both knew that wouldn't stop a demon like this for very long. Cho grabbed me and pulled me over to the row of lockers. The numbers on the front of them ran _1307… 1308… Z… 1310…_

Cho seized the handle of the "Z" locker and hauled it open. Then she stuffed herself into the narrow opening, pulling me in after her as I let out an _oooof_ of surprise, and slammed the door behind us. A split second later, we heard one very angry Brother slam against it outside.

The big frustrated bastard stood out there yelling and swearing, and banging and rattling the locker door for all he was worth, but it did no good. He couldn't seem to budge it.

As for Cho and me, we found ourselves in a space way bigger than any school locker I'd ever seen. It was a little room, maybe ten feet on a side, and I couldn't see the ceiling in the darkness up above. In the middle of the room was a little wooden table, and sitting on it were several items I didn't recognize, but that looked suspiciously mystical.

Cho leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you for the help," she said.

"I guess the water wagon is the best choice sometimes," I said. "The holy water wagon. Bishop Cantwell is gonna have my head."

"That would be a shame, since you just saved mine." Cho pulled the Tiberius Manifesto out of the front of her dress (I forgot to gallantly look away as she did) and laid it carefully on the little table.

She reached up and pulled a hairpin out of her hair, leafed carefully through the book until she got to a specific page, and hooked the hairpin on the edge of it.

"Good luck, pretty blonde Slayer," she said softly to herself. "I am sorry we will meet only in dreams."

The noise from outside had stopped. "C'mon," Cho drawled with a smile, doing her best Stanwyck impression. "Let's get outta here." And she pushed open the locker door.

"Hey! How do you know the coast is … clear?"

The door swung open to reveal a completely different scene than the one we'd just left. It was a huge room filled with rows of tables and glass-topped cases, the walls lined with shelves and cabinets of all kinds. We stepped out of one of these cabinets, which had a wooden door with a glass knob, and the letter "Z" inlaid into it in a lighter wood.

Not a demon in sight.

"Okay," I said, looking around. "How did you do that, and where are we?"

"Every Zed Vault opens into every other one," Cho told me. "They're used mainly for storing things Slayers will need as they travel around the world, but they can also be used in a pinch for long-distance travel. If you don't mind taking your chances on where you randomly come out." She looked around. "Judging by the pictures Mr. Hardy showed me, I would say we are in an exhibit preparation room in the _Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle_. In Paris."

I blinked at her.

"You seem surprised," she said. "Aren't you used to magic by now?"

"It's not that," I said. "It's hearing you speak French. You know how sexy that is?"

The Mona Lisa smile again. "No. Tell me."

"Well… a lot." I tried to look debonair. "Paris, huh? Looks like I'll be taking you on a higher-class date than I thought."

"Hmmm. You were planning to take me on a low-class one?" she teased. "We must go first to the Watchers' Council safehouse so I can send magical word to Mr. Hardy that I'm safe and the mission is accomplished. And get changes of clothes for both of us. We smell poorly."

"I hadn't noticed," I said, truthfully.

"You know," she said, "the Brotherhood of Seven will keep coming after us. They are known for their tenacity. Perhaps we should stick together for a while. If you have no objection."

"Are you kidding? Turn down the chance to spend time with a gorgeous gal with pretty bon-bon eyes who fights demons even better than I do? My mother didn't raise any dummies."

_**To be concluded…**_


	7. Chapter 7

Buffy pulled on the handle of the Horseshoe Locker. It opened easily.

"Now, that's just embarrassing," Xander said. "Somebody bring me a jar of pickles with a stuck lid. I need to reclaim my manhood."

"Manhood has nothing to do with it, in this case," Giles told him. "In fact, it's a drawback."

Buffy stuck her head into the locker and saw that it was, in fact, a dark little room, full of dust and a musty smell. In the middle of it, she could just make out an antique-looking little table. Climbing in, she saw that it had a few items on it. One of them was a very old-looking book, bound in dark leather, which she picked up and brought back out to Giles.

"Doesn't look like the Harry Potter book I dreamed about," she said.

"Yes, that most likely was just your mind's way of indicating a book about magic. I haven't read any of these Harry Potter things myself, but I'm told their description of wand-based magic is quite_… good lord_."

"_Good_ good lord or _bad_ good lord?" Buffy inquired anxiously.

"Buffy… this is the Tiberius Manifesto. I… I can't express how valuable a find this is. It's been lost for ages. And all this time it's been sitting there in the Zed Vault? Amazing." He began leafing through it, and went wide-eyed. "I believe this may be the original manuscript," he marvelled. "It's of a sufficient antiquity. The copies were usually written out in elaborate calligraphy and illuminated, but this is written in longhand, like a notebook. It's unbelievable."

"That's great," Buffy said, "and I'm sure there's a History Channel special to be gotten out of this, but how will this help us save Dawn? And all the others."

Giles checked the time. "Less than an hour until sunrise. The sky will be starting to lighten soon. Since I'm afraid Tiberius wasn't kind enough to include an index, we'll have to go through it page by page. Quickly but thoroughly, without panicking."

"Did Tiberius use bobby pins?" Buffy asked, poking at the edge of the book as Giles held it.

"Not that I… oh. That is odd." Giles opened the book to the page the pin was clipped on to, adjusted his glasses, and translated the Latin:

"For the mitigation of the demon-fire plague, the ritual I inscribe here must be invoked before the sun is seen in the sky. By these words, given me by the holiest of angels, may the Evil One's designs be confounded and the Light bring life rather than death."

Willow had come over and was looking at the book over Giles's shoulder. "The incantation itself is in Enochian," she said. "I can read it. Pretty language, but Sumerian would have been better for this kind of thing."

"By all means," Giles said, and handed the book to her. "My Enochian is a bit rusty, I'm afraid."

"It always is, unless you're an angel," Willow told him.

She studied the passage for a few moments, then cleared her throat and began to perform the spell.

The words did indeed sound pretty to Buffy, but they sounded strange as well, as if a human voice wasn't the right medium for them. They fizzled and tickled in her brain, and she had to fight off the urge to shake her head and giggle. Dawn finally stopped struggling inside her floating sleeping bag.

The spell took about a minute for Willow to read. When it was finished everything went silent, like the moment after an orchestra finishes playing. There was no dramatic light show or thunderclap to signal the destruction of the Fire. But the world somehow felt _cleaner_.

"_Mmmmmmfff!_" said the floating sleeping bag, wiggling about.

"Oh, gosh," Willow said. "Dawn needs air!"

Xander quickly unzipped the bag and opened it. "Dawn?" he said into the opening. "It's okay. It's me, Xander… Please don't be a vampire anymore."

Dawn stuck her head out, and what a head it was. Her blue eyes peered blearily out through a chestnut-colored rat's nest of hair. Her face was scratched and spattered with blood from her broken nose.

"What are you…._ahhhh_!" she looked down to see that she was floating several feet off the ground, and pulled her head back into the bag like a frightened turtle.

"I'd say that's a successful de-vamping," Xander said with a satisfied nod.

Buffy got a good grip on her bagged sister, and when Willow released her spell eased her more or less gently to the floor. It took a few moments of struggling before Dawn could wriggle free. She seemed more or less whole, although her borrowed (stolen) dress was a total, tattered loss.

"I feel like somebody kicked the backs of my eyeballs," she gasped, as Buffy gave her a quick look-over to make sure all her parts were accounted for. "And also, _owwwww_! Why does my nose hurt so much?"

Buffy looked closely at the nose in question. It seemed to have repaired itself, thanks to vampire healing, but it would be eye-wateringly sore for quite some time, if Buffy's own experience with quick-healing broken noses was anything to go by.

"You'll be fine," Buffy told her. She gave Dawn a tight smile. "You were a vampire for a little while, but it's okay."

Dawn fixed her sister with a wide-eyed stare. "What part of _Dawn, you were a vampire_ is okay? Did I bite anybody? Please say I didn't bite anybody!"

"No. But you did drool a lot." Buffy dabbed at Dawn's chin with her sleeve.

"I don't _want_ to have been a vampire," Dawn whined.

"We all have our crosses to bear. If _you'd_ been bearing one like I keep telling you to, maybe you wouldn't have gotten vamped." Buffy jiggled the silver cross hanging around her neck. "Nice dress, by the way."

"Oh." Dawn looked sheepishly down at the ruined frock. "Sorry."

"Everybody can see your underwear," Buffy said. "That should be punishment enough, I guess." Dawn blushed and tried to rearrange the remains of the dress, without much success.

"I know I shouldn't have taken it," she said mournfully. "I just wanted to be a triple-threat superstar."

"Do you even know what that means?"

"_Yes_, duh. I wanted to learn to sing and dance and be a big star so you could stop Slaying and you and mom could come on tour with me and be part of my posse, and not have to do anything but get me Cheetos and stuff whenever I want some."

Buffy raised her eyebrows at her. Dawn sighed. "I want mom," she said sadly.

"She wants you, too." Buffy put her arm around her. "And so do I. Um, you can keep the dress."

"Thanks," Dawn sniffled.

* * * * *

That night, Buffy dreamed of the same locker at Sunnydale High that Dream-Dawn had shown her earlier. Someone was standing beside her, but when Buffy turned to face her, instead of Dawn she saw a beautiful Asian woman in an old-timey dress… the kind of dress grandmothers wore when they were young and pretty and the world hadn't switched over to color yet.

"Nick of time?" the woman asked with a smile.

"As usual. Um, who are you?"

"You don't know me. Well, not really. I was a Slayer."

"Really?" Buffy looked her up and down. "Did you leave that book in the locker for me?"

"Yes."

"Thanks, dream Slayer. I owe you one. It's nice to know I can count on my sisters."

"Sisters," said the woman. "I like that. Sid says hello, by the way." She smiled sadly. "We will see you soon."

"Sid?" Buffy thought to herself, trying to remember.

Then the dream changed. She and Dawn were sitting on top of giant mushrooms, wearing old-fashioned pinafores and striped leggings and big bows in their hair. They were drinking tea.

"Goldilocks is coming," Dawn said conversationally. "Papa Bear's blood was too thick, and Mama Bear's blood was too thin. But mine is _just right_."

"Dawn," Buffy sighed, "shut up and drink your damn tea."

_**The End**_


End file.
