Author's Note: This little fic was inadvertently spawned from reading IDK's Almost Lina. I toyed around with the idea for a bit, and after listening to Buck-Tick's song Ijin no Yoru (from which I gained a great deal of influence), I went directly into plot development and presto!

Let me know what you think! Please remember: all questions, comments, constructive criticism, and/or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Slayers. I just like to write for fun. ^_^

Nights of the Stranger
By Kuroneko

Curiosity killed the cat.
Satisfaction brought it back.
– Old Proverb

The Stranger

Lina Inverse groaned aloud and smacked herself on the forehead, the bright display on her laptop illuminating her frustrated features in the dimly lit living room. A quick glance at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen told her it was practically one in the morning, but there was no way that she was going to pack it in for the night. Professor Valazard demanded to see rough drafts out of all of them in class first thing, and Lina barely had her thesis statement composed!

'I knew I should've asked Zel for help,' she though ruefully. Cajoling Zelgadis Greywers for assistance was never easy, but at least the work got done. Never done for her, of course. Not only was it against Zel's standards to do someone else's homework for them, but Professor Ascher Valazard, psychology professor extraordinaire at Saillune University, could sense a plagiarized paper all the way from Sairaag, even if he was blind.

That wasn't exaggeration; that was the truth. Amelia's older sister, Gracia (best known as Naga in all the nightclubs), had been in Sairaag for a theatre club's usual competition, and had decided to copy off a paper written by someone guy named Jeffrey. That had been a stupid move on Naga's part, Lina reflected – no matter how much Jeffrey's mother Josephine harped about her son's supposed greatness, the fact remained that Jeffrey Maelstorm was a social klutz, physically challenged, and far-and-wide the worst student of psychology (or any other subject, for that matter) this side of the Demon Sea. The end result had been Jeffrey receiving a failing grade and Naga getting booted out of Valazard's class for infringement of the university's academic honesty policy.

Not even Josephine's infamous (and what many rumored to be demonic) attempts at proving her son's worth changed the professor's mind, which caused both students and staff to wonder if Valazard was even human. Everyone knew that Josephine's husband, Goldias, had long ago disappeared with the excuse of going to get milk; according to all the rumors, he supposedly had run off to somewhere in Dils. It was a general rule of thumb just to promote Jeffrey along in order to avoid his mother no matter what the truth was. Valazard had been the only one to break that Golden Rule; no one knew whether to label him as brave or insane.

Rumor had it that Josephine was still plotting revenge against the man.

Lina wouldn't have expected anything less of the professor whose favorite pupil just happened to have been her older sister. Luna Inverse had graced the professor's desks with sharp-witted answers and carefully constructed essays; her presentations always left permanent impressions on those in the room. Valazard's assistant, a strangely effeminate young man named Miwan, had also been left astounded. Luna was probably the first and only student to have left the psychology professor's class with a perfect grade.

Unfortunately, that just put the pressure on Lina tenfold. Sure, she was a pretty darn good judge of character, but was it really necessary to have to memorize all those concepts and applications? She doubted highly that anything she wanted to do would require her to accurately detail Pavlov's conditioning experiments with dogs, and she didn't believe for one moment that she would have to remember the particulars of anything Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung did.

This paper on Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development didn't exactly improve her attitude towards the psychology course requirements.

She cast another wary glance over to the pile of books to her left again and finally let her head fall into her arms with another loud groan. Even if she got the rough draft done, she still wouldn't have time to finish mythology assignment Zel's great-grandfather Rezo had handed out. And she still hadn't finished the Chemistry worksheet he'd instructed them to do before class in the morning.

"I'm so tired…" she moaned to herself. "I'm never going to get any sleep at this rate… it's no fair…"

The living room was stifling even with the ceiling fan and the fan next to her both running on their highest settings and the window in front of her opened to allow in the night breezes. Because of all the expenses that came with renting an apartment, Lina couldn't afford to run the air conditioning even if it was working. The previous resident had beaten the unit to a pulp after they'd been evicted for nonpayment; the landlord still hadn't gotten around to fixing the stupid thing.

Despite her best efforts, Lina could already feel herself nodding off. The apartment was quiet; the only sounds the traffic and laughter coming from below like some kind of lullaby. The smells of the city were the strangely comfortable ones of car exhaust, food from the restaurants three streets over, and whatever else came made up the nightlife scents of Saillune. All of it was familiar and, even if it wasn't good to breathe in, it eased her tension.

'I'll just take a quick nap… it won't hurt if I take a break for a little while…'

Blessed sleep evaded her yet again that night, for no sooner had Lina resolved to relinquish her body to those circadian rhythms Valazard had been discussing two days ago she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle – an indicator that she wasn't alone in the apartment.

Careful not to alert whoever-it-was to her being aware of their presence, Lina carefully slipped one hand under her desk where she had a small bat stashed. She'd have to thank her sister for this bit of wisdom: Luna had once told her that, back in olden days, a bartender's best friend was a bat under the bar.

Considering those words had come from a waitress, and that waitress had been Luna Inverse, Lina had taken them very, very seriously.

She didn't hear any breathing behind her, but she could still feel the presence. She knew all too well that this person was an unwanted intruder; no one she knew would enter her apartment so silently. Amelia would just bounce in unannounced, Gourry would pound on the door a few times before letting himself in, and Sylphiel would knock and ring the doorbell before standing back and waiting for Lina to answer the door. On the rare occasions he actually came over, Zelgadis would ring twice and stand there with his arms folded before he resorted to pounding on the door, and he'd only done that once when Lina had taken too long in the shower.

No, it wasn't any of them, and it couldn't possibly have been Filia or anyone else she knew.

"You know, it's rude to enter a girl's apartment without knocking or ringing the doorbell," she said testily.

She received no answer, which made her even angrier despite the chill that had gone up her spine. The idea that someone had entered without her knowledge was frightening, but, damn it all, she'd just paid the rent for this place! Like hell she was going to just let this guy just waltz in and take things!

Without another word or thought, Lina swung her bat with all her might, catching a flash of purple as she did so.

The bat never connected.

Lina stood, shell-shocked and shaken as she watched the bat go through the man's coattails. She hazarded a look to his face and nearly dropped her weapon in the process.

He looked to be older than she was, with a mop of dead-straight purple hair that went nearly to his shoulders. He wore a classy black suit with a matching long overcoat that hung a few inches from the floor. In his grasp was a long staff of darkened wood, a large blood-red jewel at the top.

What really got Lina was that he was just standing there and grinning like the Cheshire Cat, almost as if he was currently enjoying some kind of personal joke.

She shook off the oddity of the man's appearance and glared at him. The mystery of her bat's lack of connection flew right out of her mind as the most important question of all flew out of her mouth:

"Who are you? And what are doing in my apartment without permission?"