Murphy's Law

by MegK1978

Summary: Before Buffy comes back; a new guy named Marco comes to Sunnydale, thinking that it’s a nice, quiet suburb, and he brings an invincible demon trailing along behind him. Read “Unchained Melody” before you continue. R+R

"Murphy's Law"

Editor/beta reader's notes: I did not write this. This story comes from the fertile mind of John, my brother. I based Marco (last seen in my story "Unchained Melody") partially on him, and he simply ran with it. All I did was beta read and added a few lines here and there.

Author's note:  I'd like you to read and review this.  Since you're already here, you're obviously going to read this, so I'd like you to take the 30 seconds to write:  "Good" "Bad" "Excellent" or "Harass Joss Whedon and make him give you publishing rights to this!"  Second of all, I acknowledge the superiority of the ever-warped mind of Mr. Whedon and his ownership of all the characters he owns (which is everyone but Cassie, Marco and Dominic).  This is, in part, satire on certain US Presidents.  Last:  September 11 is a minor element to the story, so please don't go hypersensitive on it because of that.  As a native New Yorker, I'm accustomed to all sorts of lunacy (no vampires, however…not yet, at least), so no analyzing me, the story, or anything else.  Enjoy it for what it is.

Summary:  Before Buffy comes back; a new guy named Marco comes to Sunnydale, thinking that it's a nice, quiet suburb, and he brings an invincible demon trailing along behind him.  Read "Unchained Melody" before you continue.

Let me introduce myself; my name is Marco Cattalano, and I am a genius.  The problem with being a genius is I get bored easily, as any true genius can tell you.  You may have met my sister, Cassandra, spinning romantic tales about her and a half-Irish half-demon (redundant, I know) visitor named Doyle.  I'm not a romantic; in fact, I'm known to be annoying and almost omnipresent; however, my little story begins because I met a group of people more annoying and obnoxious than I could ever be: the entire student body of NYU.  I had taken more biology courses than they required for my pre-med degree, and they complained that I was getting "uppity," when for the first time in my life I had kept my partially Irish mouth shut. 

So, in order to escape this obnoxious hive of scum and treachery, I decided to look around for a nice, quiet little town to attend classes.  I found what seemed to be a nice, quiet little suburb. 

"Sunnydale?" Cassie asked.  Her blond hair frizzed around her head as she shook it from side to side.  My sister was a little pudgy and had bright blue eyes.  The blue eyes and blond hair, coupled with gold-wire frame glasses perched on her nose, made her look "cute."  On my not-poorly muscled figure, they made me look like a Nazi storm trooper, especially when I had a crew cut. 

"Sunnydale," I repeated.  "A quiet little suburb, middle of nowhere, California.  It has a low crime rate, a few animal attacks here and there, but nothing major."

"Animal attacks?  Sounds like vampires to me."

I rolled my eyes.  "Vampires.  Ha!  Come on, Cassie, they don't scare me."

"I know," she said with a look as pointed as a ballpoint pen; "that's what worries me."

My sister thought I had been too reckless for trying to single-handedly take on a three-hundred-year-old master vampire that had walked into our apartment lobby one evening late last year.  I had never once pointed out it was I who carried the squirt gun filled with holy water, called in the local vigilante groups to watch over our building, had a set of wooden stakes soaked in turpentine, and sharpened the broom handle she used to send the Count Orlac rip-off straight to Dante's inferno.

"I carry silver cross," I told her in a bad impersonation of a Russian sentence structure (they don't have indefinite articles, which is why you here some of them speak English like Boris Badinov from Rocky and Bullwinkle).  "I still have my special stakes, with lighter, so it doesn't matter what attacks me so long as it's allergic to flame, and I don't attend parties at night, so I'll be in my dorm room where I shall invite no vampire or anything else.  I'll nail a crucifix to my door so vamps can't even knock.  And if anyone flies up by my window, sure as heck I won't let them in."  I paused.  "Although, now that I think of it, none of ours flew, did they?  Besides, it's not New York, and it's not Hell-A."

She rolled her eyes at my manic speech, sighing at my nickname for one of the largest cities, and location of one of the largest demon populations, on the West coast.  "When did you go there?  To look around?  You did look around, didn't you?"

"Of course.  I went about a few weeks before you took off for LA.  The dorm's rooms are nice, most of the people are friendly, and I even met this cute little redhead."

"Marco? Really?"

I sighed deeply at her teasing tone.  "Cassie, get a life.  I didn't go there to 'check out' the female population.  She was polite and intelligent, and pretty.  Hung around with a blonde who wasn't exactly my type, and another one who was fit, trim, and could probably tear my arms out."

"Wow."  Her eyes narrowed in concentration.  "What does this other blonde look like?  The one who could tear your arms out?"

"Cassie, it's not like I could take on a lot of people.  Vampires, fine, spray them with some holy water from an atomizer, no problem.  Had I the speed to go with my knowledge, I could kill with my bare hands, but people, no.  Heck, I'd say the redhead could tear my arms out, but she doesn't seem the type."

"She have a name?"

"Who?"

"The redhead," she prodded, like a child wanting to hear more of the story.

"I'm…hmm, I'm not sure.  Don't look at me like that; it wasn't like I took her phone number or anything like that.  Ah well, anyway, it's a nice little place." 

"You know, Sunnydale sounds familiar," she noted.  "I think I've heard of it before."

"Yeah, whatever.  Anyway, I'll be there, come back, and if it's too suburby for me, I'll stay back.  See if Harvard still wants me."

"I still don't believe you turned Harvard down."

"Cassie, I find the guys at NYU pricks, what makes you think Harvard guys'll be nicer?"

"Suppose you're right.  Now, what did this blonde look like?"

I sighed, still not believing how she clung to this.  I rattled off in a computerized, clinical monotone everything I could recall.  "Blond hair, blue eyes, Germanic cheekbones, though smoother than the typical angular German facial structure, and a nice figure.  I'd say she was an A or B chest…I really couldn't say, I wasn't looking that closely…a nice set of legs I paid slightly more attention to; about five-four, give or take two inches."

She thought for a moment.  "Are you sure her eyes weren't green?"

"Yes, just like I'm sure Mira Furlan's eyes are blue, despite how many Babylon 5 fan fiction sites say they're green."

Cassie held up her hands in self-defense.  "Okay, okay.  I surrender.  I just wondered…because I'm sure that place is familiar.  Even she strikes a chord."

I sighed deeper.  I tapped thumb and forefinger together.  "Do you know her?"

"Not—"

Thumb to middle finger.  "Do your friends here talk about her?"

"I don't—"

Ring finger.  "Doyle?"

Cassie blinked.  "Almost certainly."

I started back on the index finger.  "Okay.  Is it one you met over in Hell-A?" I spoke, of course, of Angel, the vampire with a soul looking for redemption, Cordelia Chase, his seer and assistant, Wesley Wyndham-Price, their resident researcher and bookworm, and Charles Gunn, a guy from the central area who had fought vampires before meeting Angel.

"No."

"So it means someone he talked about.  Oh, by the way, while I think of it, I know why I couldn't think of the redhead's name, she didn't look it.  Her name was Willow, and she isn't willowy."

Cassie thought for a moment.  "You might have met…Buffy."

"Buffy?  Isn't that the name of a dog?"

"No, the Vampire Slayer."

I searched my memory.  "Oh, you mean the one Angel slept with…the dead one.  Darn, and she was single, too."

Doyle had gotten emotional a few months ago when he'd heard about the death of Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer.  It was a pitiful display of self-loathing and a bad understanding of metaphysics.  God doesn't take out His own, that would be rather self-defeating.  The nice part about Hell is that everyone's out for his or her own skin, therefore treachery among demons isn't out of the question, as CS Lewis so wonderfully outlined in The Screwtape Letters, where Hell had a command structure like Communist Russia or East Berlin.

As for my reaction to the Slayer's death, I sometimes envy dead people, not because they're dead, but because they no longer had to deal with the obligations of life, taxes in particular.  I'm part of that old Irish tradition that has the corpse on the porch, whiskey in the kitchen, and everyone in the kitchen; after the wake, sex in the potato fields, the ultimate way of saying "screw you, death."

"Ok, so maybe there'll be vampires.  Like I said, they… don't… scare… me."  I reached into my sleeve and the little wooden knife I had up my shirt was in my hand and at her throat before she could blink.  "I scare them."

The day I moved into UC Sunnydale's dorms, I found myself down the hall from Willow and her friend, whose name I remembered was Tara, just in time to avoid a completely awkward situation.  Both were friendly and amicable, and looked slightly like the living dead.  Assuming they were both friends of Buffy, I could understand why.  It's not easy losing a friend at this age (or so it is for most people), especially one who's a superhero. 

"So, Marco, you're from New York?" Willow asked.  It was nice to know that I wasn't the only one who had trouble remembering my trip here. 

"Certo, bella donna," I told her in Italian.  The best thing about speaking a second language (aside from Spanish) is that you can get away with saying whatever the hell you want. 

Unfortunately, she blushed, which told me that I could've been a little subtler.  Ah well, it didn't look like she was going to rip my head off for that.

"So, what's it like?" she asked.

I lifted a box filled with textbooks.  The box was marked 100 pounds, but it felt too light.  "Oh, it's nice enough.  Easy to get lost there if you don't know what you're doing, which, of course, I never do.  I prefer leaving a trail of string behind me."

She giggled.  I had never heard a college student giggle, but it sounded nice.  I dumped the box on the floor of my room.  She hung back on the threshold of the door, like a vampire waiting to be invited in.  I mentally smacked myself in the forehead for that thought.  I made a mental note to whack Cassie in the forehead for planting such thoughts in my mind before leaving.  I figured she was either obsessed with vampires, Doyle, or maybe both. 

Then again, she did say that other vampire was cute.  That Angel guy…Fah!

"I'm not exactly sure how I would describe New York City for a foreigner."

"But I'm—"

I smiled.  It was the sort of smile that apparently carried as much volume as a spoken word, and she cut herself off.  "In case you haven't noticed, New Yorkers are slightly obnoxious and tend to think their home is a different country from the rest of the United States.  Trust me, I've been plenty of places; it is," I told her seriously.  "Which means someone around here is going to have to help me through culture shock…or I'm going to have to do that for the rest of the town."  I couldn't call Sunnydale a city.  A city was something that had a skyline, a train system, and a high violent crime rate.

"Why come here then?" the blonde—Tara!  That's her name!—asked me. 

"Because I was tired of the even more obnoxious, stuck up, perfect…" I cleared my throat "people at NY…U."

I think both of them knew that I wasn't going to say either "people" or "U."  But the words "bastards" and "NYScrew" didn't seem like the right thing to say in front of these two.  They seemed too…nice. 

"But to come all the way out here?" Tara asked.

I looked up at her with my patented "charming" eyes that made me seem as though I looked over glasses I didn't wear.  I practiced it in the mirror all the time.  "Because I would hate to miss out on all the nice quiet people you have hanging out around here," I said with such a pseudo-straight face that they had to laugh. 

Looking back on it now, I think that laugh had a little more subtlety I hadn't noticed at the time.

I went through the classes easily enough, and even wound up with Willow in one of them.  The entire town seemed ever more quiet the longer I stayed around.  The color seemed to be coming back into Willow's cheeks by the second week of September, and I can't recall Tara having any color in her cheeks to begin with, so there you are.

It was one night I had bad timing, or good timing if you want to call it that.  I had locked myself in my single person dorm room, and heard screams out the window.  Being from New York, my first reaction should've been to ignore it, but I figured that it was yet another opportunity for me to piss someone off.  Ever since I had arrived, I'd been charming, polite, courteous, and anything but annoying. 

It was time for a change.

I looked out the window and down.  It looked like someone had been "necking" in the courtyard below my window.  However, the creature pulled back and decided to terrorize his midnight—yes, midnight—snack, by showing off his vampire face, a design I would swear had been stolen from the movie Nosferatu.

I looked down at my heavy wooden paperweight, calculated that the six-story drop would at least honk him off, and simply dropped it on its skull before it could move in again.  The vampire stood there for a moment, dazed, then crumpled.  The woman he'd been attacking ran for the hills, and rightly so.  I watched the vampire for a moment as he slowly rose to its feet, looked up at me.  I smiled my constant smile meant to annoy a saint.

"If you're so annoyed, why don't you come and get me?" I taunted. 

The vampire rammed his fingers between the bricks and started climbing.  My eyes widened slightly as I wondered why I hadn't thought of that beforehand.  I pulled my head back into the room and waited for it to come to the window.  He reached the window and tried to climb through.

"Poor baby," I taunted.  "Can't tell the difference between being mocked and being invited in."  I shook my head and grabbed the lapels of his jacket, dragging the jacket past the window, slamming the vampire's face against the invisible barrier that kept it outside.  He snarled and tried to lash out at me, but I was safely out of his reach.

Someone knocked on the door.  "Yes?"

"Hey, Marco, it's me, Willow.  Can I come in a moment?" she asked, even though it was unlocked. (So polite, these people.) 

"Sure, why not?  I need an extra set of hands anyway."

The vampire looked at me with wild eyes and knew what I had in mind.  He tried to slip out of his jacket, but I pulled the lapels one over the other, trapping him in the high-quality leather duster (what is it with vampires and dusters?  Can't they just stay with a damn cape and be done with it?).

She came in and her very pretty blue eyes widened at the thing I had in my hands.  I slammed him against his own barrier several more times and said, "Do you think you can take over for a moment?  I need to get something…or you do want to stake it?  I hear you have some experience in this area."

The thing snarled again, and I slammed him a little more.  "Shut up, will you?  Can't you see I'm talking with the lady?  I thought vampires were only rude in New York.  Can't you people read Dracula or something?  Learn some manners?"

I looked back to Willow.  "Don't worry, he won't bite…at least, as long as you stay on this side."

She blinked, a little unsure of what I was doing.  I knew she was certain about the vampire, but not about me.  New Yorkers are weird, you know.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

I smiled politely.  "I'm either going to hold onto this guy until he's staked, or until about sunrise, whichever comes first.  So would you please hand me the stake or please do it yourself?"

I closed my hand around the collar of the duster and wrapped it tightly around its throat, so it couldn't escape, then put my hand out, waiting for her to notice one of the stakes on the dresser.  She handed me one.  I raised it, then noticed it didn't reek of turpentine.

Good girl, you carry your own, I thought.

Thank you, she thought back.

I blinked, then accepted that she was telepathic, and I had to be very careful about my thoughts (although, looking back, that's how she knew what I had said in Italian).

I dusted the vampire, and then sat back on my bed.  I looked at Willow, noting her "cute" little bunny slippers and button down pajamas that I thought only cartoon characters wore anymore.  "I hope I didn't ruin your sleep."

"No, I was about to get up, in about six hours or so."

"Okay. Thanks for the assistance.  I thought I wouldn't need to carry stakes up my sleeve while in my own room, but apparently I was wrong…and if you knew me, you'd know that's a heck of an admission."

"How did you… did you…?"

"Know it was a vampire?  There aren't too many creatures of the night that drink blood, although I may be wrong on that."

She opened her mouth, as though to tell me all about those creatures that drank blood then became terribly shy again.  I wondered if this was her natural condition.

"By the way, I know about vampires, your Ms. Summers (what she did for a living, a little of how she died), this little town, and I know you were friends with her, if I recall correctly.  You're apparently a telepath, which everyone seems to have missed, and I'm sure Cordelia from Hell-A says hello.  Any other questions?"

She blinked a few more times, then said, "Oh."

"Yeah.  Oh."

"Are you a telepath?"

"No, I heard you in my head.  You really must be more careful about that.  All you need is someone who keeps meticulous track of what he says and thinks—like me—and you'd blow your own cover."  I looked at my watch.  "And we should both be getting to bed about now, we have class in the morning.  Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

I keep forgetting this place isn't New York; therefore no one had any experience with someone who spoke faster than a New York minute, a speeding bullet, a locomotive, and a speeding car on I-95.  In the age of the Blue Nowhere, I thought everyone was used to instant communication.

"Um… Could we start again?"

"Sure.  My name is Marco Cattalano, nice to meet you."

"No, about the—"

"Vampire?  Oh, well, we had a few problems with them in Brooklyn a while ago.  No big deal, really, more like a nasty infestation of cockroaches.  In fact, I think we have nastier roaches."

I leaned back over my bed and picked up a glass bottle of water, then leaned forward.  "This is a bottle of holy water I had my friend the priest bless for me.  It's water from the East River, so if the holy water itself doesn't kill a vampire, the radiation probably will.  My preferred weapon of choice, however, is a stake doused in turpentine, which you as a fellow genius should know—"

"That it's the most flammable substance!" she cheered.

"Bingo."  She had finally caught onto my style of talking.  I'd make a New Yorker out of her yet.  I didn't think that however, lest she catch me at it.  "We had a friend of Angel's stop by, a guy named Doyle.  You probably don't know him, but he's at least heard of you.  Anything else you'd like to know?"

"I don't think so."

"Great!  Then I'll see you tomorrow morning, if there's nothing else."

"No," she said.  I'm not sure if she was intimidated (hardly) or confused (far more likely).

"Wonderful.  Thanks for the help.  Night, then."

The next morning, I took a brief jog in the post-dawn hours (I used to do predawn, but not in this neighborhood, thank you).  I felt courageous, so I went through the cemetery.  I went past a mausoleum, and made a double take once I noticed it was a little open.  I stopped, turned, and closed the door tightly, locking it.

"Eh, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing out there!" someone barked from inside.  I stepped back, knowing only two types of people who'd live in someplace like this. 

The door imploded as someone inside pulled it open, breaking the outside lock.  The man inside glared at me like he wanted to tear my arms off.  His bleached-blond hair stuck up in all directions, grown out to the point where I could see darker roots. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans with a pair of combat boots. His eyes were dark, which I believe corresponded with the contents of his skull or his soul; I suspected it could've been both. His cheekbones looked so sharp they could cut through the Titanic.

"Damn poofter!  What're you doing to my home?"

I registered the remark and translated it into New York English from the original mangled British accent.  I looked him over and said, "Sorry, I figured most people around here could afford their own homes.  My mistake."

"Eh?  Well why don't you come 'ere and we'll settle this."

With the level of malevolence I saw mounting in him, there was only one possible reason he didn't step outside and kill me.  "Better plan, why don't you come here?  You seem like the type who'd want to take this outside anyway."  I slipped the crucifix out of my shirt and he flinched.

I grinned now.  "Unless you'd really want me to come in there and stake your undead ass…. sorry, arse I believe is the proper word for your fractured English vocabulary.  Don't you people ever adapt to modern day speaking?  Good God, even Bella Lugosi had better English!"

His faced morphed into vampire mode, trying to scare me, and I sighed.  "Please, I've seen TV shows with better makeup. Go to Jim Henson's Creature Shop and get some improvements as soon as possible."

He reached out for me, but I was in direct sunlight, and his arm caught a nasty, instantaneous sunburn.

 "So there!" I laughed.  I turned and jogged away, still laughing.

Hplssrom1978: Hey, Marco. How's life in CA treating you?

TaliesinMS82: Classes aren't boring yet. Met with Willow and her friend Tara. That WAS Buffy I met last time I was here. They don't seem to have recovered just yet.

Hplssrom1978: Oh, boy, afraid of that. Any vamp attacks?

TaliesinMS82: One, outside my dorm. Decided coming after me might be good idea and climbed the side of the building to window. He didn't get far.

Hplssrom1978: (cocked eyebrow) I'm sure he didn't.

Hplssrom1978: Heard from Doyle. Says 'hi' and 'be careful', not in that order.

TaliesinMS82: oy…. Y did u tell him?

Hplssrom1978: (shrug) He asked how you were. He's not exactly a stranger again just b/c he's a country away.

TaliesinMS82: (sigh) I suppose. How is he?

Hplssrom1978: G Get this: he's gonna propose to Cordelia!

TaliesinMS82: Heaven help them both. How long's it been?

Hplssrom1978: Since I talked to him?

TaliesinMS82: irritable Yes.

Hplssrom1978: Been a few days. He asked ME for advice on how. (eye roll) Some days, think he's romantically impaired.

TaliesinMS82: You don't want me to go there.….  What did you tell him?

Hplssrom1978: Be sincere, don't overdo it, and MAKE SURE SHE'LL SAY 'YES'.

TaliesinMS82: Whatever happened to the traditional 'do you want to be buried with my people?'

Hplssrom1978: Marco, get real. If he proposed to Cordy like that, he wouldn't hear the end of it. Besides, Buffy, remember?

TaliesinMS82: What about Buffy?

Hplssrom1978: If she hears the word 'buried', she'll think of Buffy and think Doyle's being morbid, not proposing marriage.

TaliesinMS82: (sigh) Californians.

Hplssrom1978: Hey, don't tell me. You're the one out there right now.

TaliesinMS82: I'm not in California. I'm in a suburb, they don't count.

Hplssrom1978: Anyway, anything else interesting happen?

TaliesinMS82: I've been talked into something.

Hplssrom1978: OK, I'll bite. What were you talked into?

TaliesinMS82: A party.

Hplssrom1978: Whoa, hold on. I thought you said you wouldn't go to any parties while you're there, ESPECIALLY at night.

TaliesinMS82: Yes, but Willow made this little puppy-dog face, like a kicked puppy. So….

Hplssrom1978: (sigh) Marco Cattalano, big bad vampire hunter, done in by puppy eyes. What will people say? (Not that I'd tell anyone.)

TaliesinMS82: Nothing, b/c I don't have a rep as a big bad vamp hunter, I'd be put in an asylum for life.  Besides, she's a redhead w/ green eyes. (waggles eyebrows like Groucho Marx)

Hplssrom1978: lol. Where do you find these people?

TaliesinMS82: They find me.

Hplssrom1978: (groan) No doubt.

TaliesinMS82: In addition, it's a 'welcome back' party. Frankly, I qualify b/c I'm an upperclassman, i.e. higher than freshman.

Hplssrom1978: Well, enjoy, and don't kill anyone.

TaliesinMS82: If you insist.

Hplssrom1978: I do, aside from vampires. Gotta run. Talk again soon?

TaliesinMS82: Why not? Now that you're a whole continent away, I can tolerate you in large doses w/o a problem.

Hplssrom1978: Yeah, love you too, Marco. 'Bye.

I didn't want to go to that party, but I thought it would be nice, at least for a chance that there was someone else in this town aside from Willow that had an IQ. Don't give me that look; I'm dead serious.  I met her friends Xander and Anya; both of them seemed like nice enough folks, but I'm not sure how swift either of them were outside of staking things that didn't know enough to stay dead.  Somehow, I had impressed them with my tales of slaying, mainly since I was an "amateur."  And, apparently, taking on a three-hundred-year-old master vampire was something to be commended, even if I didn't kill him personally.

This party was off campus, and "all were invited."  That last part ensured that I carried a stake up each leg, two on each side of my chest, like shoulder holsters, and one up each sleeve.  The squirt gun was at the small of my back in a holster you'd see in a catalogue, and I had the holy water atomizer on a key chain in my pocket, where no one would notice. 

Before you ask, no, I was never in the Boy Scouts; however, I like to be prepared.  And I don't like to lose.

I almost immediately took up position on a landing at the bottom of the stairs, glancing around the dance floor, smiling my absurd little smile, and basically enjoying the entire ludicrousness of modern dancing, a code word for foreplay, in some cases.

"You're not dancing?" Willow asked.

I looked down at her from the landing, three steps off the floor, and smiled.  "Not if I can help it…" I gestured out to those in the midst of foreplay—Xander Harris and his fiancée.  "At least, not like that."

"Oh.  I see."  She looked over my body and grinned awkwardly.  "Um…is that a stake in your pocket or are you happy to see me?" she asked awkwardly, trying to utilize the bad phrasing to make conversation.  I knew it wasn't a pickup line by any sense of the word, and I don't think she could allude to sex if she tried.

I smirked and leapt down the three steps.  "I'm always happy to see a pretty face."

She blushed again.  Was I charming?  No.  Factual, of course, honest, yes.  But charming?  I am obnoxious and disliked, that cannot be denied. 

The music changed to the theme music from Ghost. "Unchained Melody", composed by Alex North.  It was simple and slow.  The fact that Doyle had sung it for Cordelia didn't make me depreciate the song at all.  Most of the floor dissipated except for a few couples who were more interested in dancing than fornicating (surprisingly enough, Mr. and soon-to-be-Mrs. Harris stayed).

I gestured to the speakers with my open left hand.  "This I can dance to."

I had made the unfortunate error of leaving my hand dangle a moment longer than I meant to, and Willow took it and moved to maneuver me onto the dance floor.  I thought about correcting her assumption, but then I woke up.  As opposed to all these people dancing with women's arms around the men's necks and the guys' hands around their waists, I danced with Willow the old-fashioned way, like one would see in Gone With the Wind: one hand clasped to another, my hand respectfully at her waist, and her hand on my shoulder.  I monitored the position of my feet at all times, making sure I didn't flatten hers.

"So, why all the sharp, pointy wooden thingies?" she asked.

"I'm from New York, ergo I am paranoid…. besides, I also believe in Murphy's Law."

"Who?"

"Murphy was an engineer, so his law states that 'Anything that can go wrong, will.'  I live my life ready to combat anything short of Armageddon."

"Oh, that's bad…I mean, that's good, in a bad sort of way."

I kinked a brow.  "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you know, you can't go out at night without…."

"The sharp, pointy wooden thingies?" I teased. "Oh, most days I don't worry about someone eating me.  Around here, I figure it's the least I can do, aside from hanging out with a dangerous woman like yourself.  After all, not only do you possess killer good looks, you can probably blast any vampire with a thought."

If she blushes one more time, red might as well be her natural color.

"In any event," I continued.  "I'm not scared to leave my home.  Death, I find, does not scare me as it does most people.  In fact, I'd say I was as scared as your friend was.  Did she strike you as the type to be scared or afraid?"

Her eyes dimmed a little.  "No."

Darn.  Bad example.  Change gears.

When the tempo picked up slightly at "Lonely rivers flow, to the sea, to the sea," I smiled like a bad Don Juan and pivoted, lifting her off the ground and spinning.  She beamed like a kid on a fast ride at the amusement park.  When she landed, I let her lead so I could recover my balance.  I wasn't used to this.

"I hope your significant other isn't the jealous type," I told her.

"Oh, no," she said innocently.  "She's not."

I let a laugh escape my lips.  

Willow furrowed her brows.  "What?"

I looked at her; my omnipresent smile still there, mirroring my amusement.  "I'm sorry.  It's just…I find my luck with women is somewhat lacking.  For example, I've recently found a beautiful young woman, friendly and sociable, and unable to find any interest in me even if I were Tom Cruise."

"Oh…Oh," she said, catching my meaning.  "I—"

"Don't give it another thought," I told her.  "I rightfully thought that a woman like you would easily find someone, and thus asked to make sure.  Heck, I'm glad I did.  Like I said, don't worry; I'm the only male on the planet you can tell 'let's be friends' and I'll take you at face value.  And so"—I whirled once more—"nothing has changed except I don't make passes at you, despite the temptation." 

I whirled back, and my eye caught sight of the vampire I had met the other day at his mausoleum, wearing the same kind of leather coat the last vampire I'd faced had worn.  "Could you reach into my collar and pull out the silver cross?  I just spotted a vampire, and I suspect I'll need to nail him soon."

Willow looked over her shoulder and noted the peroxide blond vamp.  She turned back to say, "Don't worry.  That's just Spike."

"Spike?  He's named after a dog?"

"No.  Railroad spike.  Don't worry, he's a good guy now."

"Oh."  I frowned thoughtfully.  "Like Angel?"

"No.  He has a chip in his head that stops him from killing us."  She said it so calm and innocent, and barefaced without subtlety, I believed her totally.  "He's been taking care of Dawn.  Giles is with her now, I think."  She turned us so she could see the clock.  "He should be taking over soon."

"And who does patrols?"

"Depends on the day.  You wanna help?"  She furrowed her brows and stiffened her lips to make a face that attempted to be serious, but dissolved into her soft features as she continued.  "I mean, you're big and strong, and prepared, and all that."

"I'm insane, and neurotic, somewhat mean, vicious and out of my mind with paranoia."

"Oh, that too."

Are these people not used to New Yorkers, or is this just my wild imagination?

"Willow, you're sweet, you're kind, and you're pretty.  I won't say adorable because I hate that word.  But I can't think of any reason why you'd need me hanging around.  I'd get in the way.  I'm reckless and I don't play well with others."  I glanced at Spike and added, "Including vampires who have such bad taste in hairstyles.  And couldn't he get a better dye job?"

She giggled.  I still liked it.  How anyone managed to stay so young after going through this place was beyond me.  I couldn't even stay young in New York.  The dangers and threats made one quickly develop proper amounts of distrust in what is there, discriminating threats from non-threats, allies from friends.  I had only arrived a little over a week ago, and already she trusted me enough to stay in such close proximity.  It was so easy for her to discriminate the good from the bad, no in-betweens and no doubts.

Is this the world outside New York, or is it just her?  And if it's just her, I want to move to whatever planet she's from.

"There are times," she broke into my thoughts, "we think we're the only ones who know anything about the supernatural… I was a little creeped out, seeing you hitting a vampire like you were…"

I knew the word Buffy had trouble escaping her thoughts.

"But then I remembered that we're not the only ones who know what goes on at night." A soft smile curved her lips. "And I wouldn't tell Spike what you think of his hair." The smile dropped and her eyes dimmed again. "He—hasn't done much with it, for a while."

I suddenly had the suspicion that Spike had somehow been involved with Buffy's death. No one seemed to have recovered enough to talk about what had happened.

"Okay, since Buffy died.  How exactly did she die?"

The music changed over to something else.  All of my attention was on Willow. 

"The music stopped," she told me, wanting to change the subject.

"I know.  You didn't answer me."

"Um…I don't think…um…"

My smile widened.  "Tell me… or I'll be forced to kiss you."

The term baffled barely described the look on her face.  "That's a threat?" she asked, as curious as a scientist with a new black hole to play with, completely unsure if it was or not. 

"I'd like to think it more as a fact.  I'm not exactly a pretty face.  So how did she die?"

I whirled her off to the sidelines, and she told me every detail, starting with a prologue: a troll god and his hammer, a little round glowing ball someone had stored away in a basement instead of hanging around Dawn's neck, and the most interactive sex toy ever made.  I listened with intense concentration, until I could see the images in my mind; Willow had also been concentrating on the details, so much so that she projected the final battle into my mind as we went along.  We had arrived at the point where the gateway had been opened and the world was, again, being e-mailed to Hell in a zip file, and then the program shut down as Willow blocked the images from her mind.

I blinked, and Willow's eyes were downcast, tears in them.  I cupped her chin and made her look at me.  "She jumped, didn't she?"

She nodded shallowly, her face beginning to crumble. 

I glanced around and decided to take her outside.   I slipped my left arm under her right, and shepherded her into the night air.  I closed the door with my foot and simply held her gently as she cried, saying nothing.  She made no noise as she cried, and I kept her close, observing the windows to make sure we weren't seen.  I know I wouldn't like to be seen in public, crying… if I could cry. I haven't been able to for years. I could never understand it.  Why waste the time crying about the problem when you could go fix it?  I know you can't fix death—most days—but I never found it a reason to cry. 

When she was done, she looked up at me and said, "Sorry. I look real dopey now, don't I?"

I smiled and maneuvered her to the porch seat outside.  I sat back and sighed.  "Okay.  So why are you crying?"

She looked at me blankly, her wet eyes looking at me as though I was a vampire in daylight. "What?" she asked, shaky.

"If you're crying because she's dead, then you're metaphysics is heavily unbalanced. You know there's a Hell, because you have hellspawn all the time.  Do you honestly believe there can be a Satan without God? Do you think that you can have higher-level devils like Glory without angels?  There's obviously a Hell you can send her to, so why not a heaven to send Buffy to? So we can assume there is a Heaven, so… do you think she can be rejected, perhaps?  Maybe Heaven's afraid she'll take over? I don't care if she slept with…Spike, of all people, no way in Heaven would anyone reject a Soldier of Light from arriving.  Are you familiar with St. Vincent DePaul?"

"No," she replied rather meekly…or was she merely confused?

"He's Catholic, so don't worry about it.  Few people like us nowadays anyway—except for Billy Graham, I think, he's only made fun of us once and complimented us at least as many times—but in any event, St. Vincent had a saying: 'To love another person is to see the face of God.'  Buffy jumped because she loved her sister, you, Tara, Xander and Anya, and the world.  If God 'so loved the world, He sent His only Son,' then I think we could rightly say that Buffy so loved the world, she gave her only life for it.

"Now, since we could rightly assume that Buffy is in Heaven, then I ask again: Why are you crying?  It obviously isn't because she died, is it?  A Slayer went out of the world, and another has probably already come into it by now. Buffy gets Heaven, and we're still stuck here beating the crap out of things that didn't know enough to stay dead the first time.  So why cry?"

"Because I miss her!" she snapped.  I had annoyed her, perhaps because I was right—I'm always right.  This was more like my normal day.

"So, you're being selfish.  You're not crying for her, but for you."

She seemed at a loss.  I had kept her properly unnerved by an emotional roller coaster ride from sadness to anger and to her current state.  "How can you be so… you?"

"Lots of practice." I handed her my handkerchief and said, "So, this means we can't even be friends?"

Willow almost laughed. "Will you stay one way or the other so I can stay mad at you?"  Her voice was still shaky, filled with amusement and more than half-dead anger.

"I am one way, straight. I don't swing between two ways, and I seldom hang a left or a right if I can find some way down the middle. I'm a juggernaught that way, I suppose. I stop for very little, and pause for even less.  So are we going back inside, or are you going to kill me with an evil glare?"

We went back inside. 

I don't work well in groups. I never have. Ever since grammar school, I'd go into a group, and so wonder what planet everyone was on that I'd usually have to do everything myself.

For once in my life, I didn't have to.

The first night, they didn't even know I had watched them. I analyzed their moves, how each of them fought and interacted with each other.

I'm now going to read your mind: Why in God's name was I doing this while not helping, and better yet, how?

Why I wasn't helping was simple, and intermingled with the how: I watched with binoculars from the roof of the UC Sunnydale dormitory. You must understand that, in New York, the city lights interfere with starlight, and you can barely see a half dozen at any one sitting, if you're lucky. I wanted to watch the stars, enjoy the air, and flip through the future chapters of the textbook. When my binoculars caught sight of the skirmish, it was well underway; if I had left to engage, it would've been over by the time I arrived.

Xander kept getting himself tossed about, but kept coming back. Anya launched her own awkward attacks, almost like she was afraid of getting dirty. Willow and Tara stood off to the side, and I took a wild guess that they didn't hold hands for romantic purposes, given that little wooden stakes flew through the air and vampires at the same rate of speed. 

Telekinetic as well as telepathic.  There anything else they can do?

Spike was the best fighter among them. He whirled, kicked, punched, and did everything but bite. I didn't think a vampire biting another would be healthy for either.  In fact, I still don't.

After the fight was over, I wandered away and wondered what I could bring to a team that had two teeks and a vampire. The last thing I needed was to get in their way, not to mention dying.  Dying wasn't high on my list of priorities.  In fact, it was right at the bottom, below "be canonized."

Right.  St. Marco the vampire slayer.  Ha!

I walked into The Magic Box and looked around.

"Ah, customer person.  Can I help you with giving us money today?"

The words alone told me it was Anya.  I turned to her with my permanent smile and met her semi-vacant gaze.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "It's you! Annoying New York person! Mark O'Catty-something."

I bowed slightly.  "Marco Cattalano.  And you're Enya."

She began to nod, then stopped. I saw the wheels turn behind her eyes, working hard to process my last word.

"Hey! Marco! What's up?" came Willow's cheery voice from the table tucked off to the side.  I turned to the sound as she trotted up to me, a bounce in her step.  Did she go everywhere with such enthusiasm and energy?  Darn, I wanted that.

Very little, I thought.  Did you know you're looking quite beautiful today?

"Thank you," Willow said.  It took her a moment of my absolute silence to realize her slip.  She slapped both hands over her mouth and said, "Oops."

"Don't worry, you're getting better.  Actually, I'm here to pick up some weapons.  I've asked around, and this supposed to be the place for old-fashioned weaponry.  My interests range primarily from crossbows to swords."

"Okey dokey."

I blinked. No one used that phrase anymore, at least not in New York. "Where is the owner of this store? She"—I pointed over my shoulder at Anya—"cannot be the proprietor, for this place would be closed within the week."

"Hey!"

"Quite right," said a British accent that thankfully belonged to someone other than Spike. A tall man with a triangular face, hazel eyes, and thinning hair walked around a bookcase, his wire frame glasses in hand. "But I'm sorry, we keep weapons, but we don't sell them.  Mainly for decoration."

"Really?  I saw Anya here just last night swinging…I think it was that up on the shelf over there." 

He looked at me a moment, trying to decide if I was friend or foe. 

"Binoculars are wonderful things, aren't they?  Anyway, I did a little fencing over at NYU, and thought I could get some use out of it."  I stepped up to him and offered my hand.  "Marco Cattalano, and I know you, I think. Willow has described you quite well, Mr. Giles. She has also invited me into your little team, and I want to see if I can contribute anything.  If I can use a sword or a crossbow, I might be able to help."

Giles turned a glare on Willow. "Don't worry, " I told him. "I knew most of it already. As for being invited, there aren't many people who could put a knife blade between Bartlett's Book of Incantations and the Maleus Maleficarium."

I flicked a wooden knife blade directly in between the two books, barely even looking at it.  I'd gotten in plenty of practice since that vampire in the lobby (I could've taken him out even then, if he could stand still long enough.  A fast human being could dodge a throwing knife; I didn't want to risk it with a vampire). 

"I'm also told I'm a borderline sociopath, which means I'd make a great Hannibal Lecter. Unfortunately, I have something of a conscience and emotional capacity.  I think I was diagnosed that way because I scared the shrink, I do that sometimes.  I don't feel fear most days, too inefficient a use of energy."  I walked over to the bookcase, withdrew both books and placed them down on the table.  Neither had been harmed.

"However," I continued, "I don't wish to be a bother if I would, indeed, be in the way."

"Hm." He looked at me a moment, wondering what planet I was from, remembered New York, then turned.  "I think we can do something."

I followed him without an invitation.  I liked the back room assault training ground.  The punching bag hanging from the ceiling looked well beaten.  I kicked it sharply, and the chain broke.  I hadn't even kicked that hard.  Must have been really well used.

Giles took a crossbow from the wall and loaded it.  He turned and seemed shocked to find me there, and then gave the evil eye to the punching bag.  I shrugged.  He sighed and handed me the weapon.  "Shoot for the target—"

Before he could finish, I twisted and fired for the target behind me (I didn't see one on the other three walls, ergo, it had to be the last).  It landed dead center, the result of years of training with a video game pistol.

I handed him back the crossbow.  "Think I can do something?"

"Yes. I believe we can make use of you," he said in a typically British understated tone.

For those of you who aren't Catholic, I'll give you a quick lesson in artifacts we use, one in particular: a Rosary.  The most popular form of rosary only has three decades on it, a decade in this case represented by ten beads, each bead in turn representing a prayer.  The three-decade rosary is the condensed version, broken down from the original fifty of St. Dominic's, the inventor of the first rosary.  The decades are put in a loop, and a final set of five beads is attached, forming a tail that ends in a crucifix; the crucifix is the cross with the addition of Jesus sculpted on it.  Originally, only a blessed crucifix would work against a vampire, but apparently, the Sunnydale vampires were all Protestants, because a simple cross would do to hold them at bay.  I wondered if a cross would work against a Jewish vampire, or if I'd need a torah.

In any event, a rosary is not jewelry, not supposed to be worn as an article of clothing or as a necklace; however, I doubt anyone would mind if I wore it around my neck in order to save me from vampires.  Since my rosary came down to my chest, it meant that the beads would protect my neck from being bitten, and the crucifix would prevent my heart from being torn out.  That didn't necessarily exclude a punch going through my stomach, or my arms from being torn off, but it was a start.  Limiting the places the vampire could easily strike made it easier to defend against it.

The patrols we were on were taken at a strolling pace, marked by congenial banter, except for Spike, who was as pleasant as a dark, brooding soap opera character.  I liked his sarcasm, but his attitude got on my nerves.  Since I carried a crossbow slung under my jacket and enough sharp objects to made a bed of nails, I hung back. 

At a scream to my right, I shot off on my own.  It was an automatic reaction to a woman's scream.  Being from New York, I should've ignored them, but I'm not your typical New Yorker. 

I twisted around a large stone angel and narrowed my eyes.  I released my hold on the crossbow and walked up to the couple.  The woman's blouse had been forcibly torn open, and the man smiled as he held her wrists.  His face hadn't turned fangy, so I decided to take my time as I sauntered over.  Her screams covered my advance.  I casually punched his kidney, making his back cringe.  I kicked sideways into his kneecap and grabbed him by the hair, tossing him backwards. 

I looked at her.  "Go." 

She ran.

I turned, looked at the assailant, and ground my heel into his crotch.  He screamed louder than his intended victim, and an octave higher.  I turned on my heel and walked back to the gang, running into them as they sought the source of the screams.

"What happened?" Willow said immediately. 

I shrugged.  "No big deal.  Would-be rapist.  Broke his knee and his procreation tool.  We were heading that way, weren't we?"

I continued the way they came, and Xander stepped in front of me, walking backwards, and put a hand on my chest.  "Hey, wait, you said rape?  Shouldn't we call the cops?"

"Nah.  She's gone, and he won't be doing this again."

"But how did you—?"

I grabbed the hand at my chest, straightened my arm, and stepped forward, putting my leg behind his.  I bent sideways, then slammed his arm and mine into his chest, tossing him over my hip.  The maneuver took less than a second.

"As easy as that."  I stepped over him and continued moving onward.

Do you remember me telling Cassie that I couldn't take a human being? 

I had lied. 

She never knew about the time someone decided to jump me and a friend of mine.  It was the time of the vampires, and when he pulled a gun, I pulled a stake.

I was faster.

Still am.

Willow moved in front of me, almost like Xander did; only she held me with her mind.  She looked into my eyes, and I saw the crumpled rapist behind my lids, and then the dead mugger I had taken out in New York.

"Later, please," I said in answer to her gaping mouth.  I glanced at my watch.  It was well past one in the morning.  I announced the time, and added, "Anyone really think we're going to find anyone out here for vampires to feed on, never mind vampires we can attack?  At the moment, we're the only living things out here at this time of night."

"That's right, you are," came a voice to my right. 

I twisted down to one knee and fired a bolt from the hip, making this to be the last night of one vampire's life.  Three other vampires had been with him, one on either side and one behind.  I dusted a second one and fired for the middle one while in mid leap, nailing him through the forehead.  Spike had jumped onto a mausoleum and leapt off again, landing on another one.  I let the crossbow fall back on its strap and pulled two stakes from my inside pocket, holding them point up like knives in Brooklyn on a Saturday night.  The vampire I had not killed rolled to its feet in front of a tree, but Willow and Tara knocked them out from under him.  I leapt on him with both stakes driving into his chest.  Spike held onto his vampire, head-butting him, as Xander jabbed a stake into its back.

I stood, my smile still there.  "Is that all there is to it?"

Two arms wrapped around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides.  "Don't move, or he dies," the thing behind me ordered. 

I rolled my eyes.  "Will someone shoot this overactor?  He can't bite me, and can't move his arms unless I get away," I told them as I reversed the stakes in my hands. 

"I can crush him!" it ordered.

I told you the rosary limited the places it could attack. 

I rammed both stakes into the sides of his legs, and he tightened his grip. 

Xander looked at me, rubbing his back, sore from having been thrown on it.  "Go ahead."

"Ever try baked Alaska?"

I felt him pause, hesitant as I slipped the twin lighters from my palms to my fingers.  "Wha'?"

"Pity."  I flicked the lighters at the stakes, letting the turpentine catch fire.  The blaze quickly moved up his legs and onto the shirt, traveling up its sides.  He ground his jaw together, trying to bear the pain. I sighed and slammed my head back into its nose, ramming the cartilage into its brain.  It finally let go, throwing me away as it tried to put out the fire.  It was more resilient than he was. 

Something was wrong in how determined the fire was to cook him.  I glanced from the flame to Willow.  She stood next to Tara, yes, but had her hands clasped in front of her.  I rolled to my feet, next to Willow, and laid my hand where the shoulder met her neck.  I don't know why, but I did.  I thought of patterns to draw along the vampire's body, and the flames followed my thoughts as Willow unconsciously picked up on them.  The flames crossed across his chest from the stakes, over his groin and to his shoulders.  The fire wrapped itself around the vampire's neck.  For a finale, the fire grew into a thick blanket that curled around its body and dusted it.

I removed my hand from Willow's neck and stepped away.

I spent the next hour in my dorm room, studying.  I lay on my side, skimming through the text.  A brief knock at the door started me away from my reading.

"Ja?" I asked in German.

"Can I come in?" the redhead asked.

"Jawohl."

The door opened and she walked in, as though creeping in by stealth.  I raised a brow. "Don't worry, no one will hear you, honest.  Everyone's dead by now."  I gestured to the foot of the bed.  "Would you like to sit?"

Once she settled in, I said, "You want to talk about what you saw in my mind, don't you?"

"Um, yeah…if you're cool with it and all, about me butting my big nose into your life and everything; I mean, you only arrived here a week or two ago, and you barely know me and—"

I broke into her endless sentence. "I find your cute little nose to be quite endearing, and we've already discussed enough for you to enter my personal life.  As long as it stays between us… what do you want to know?"

"Why did you move so fast to the screaming?  You didn't even wait for us.  You were our guy with the big gun thingy who backs us up."

"The heavy weapons specialist.  I know, but I've never worked well in groups."

"How could you hurt that guy so calmly?"

The rapist.  She could even tell the manner I took him down with.  "The same way I handled the vamps so calmly: monsters are monsters no matter the form.  Besides, I knew I could take him.  I had enough weapons to spike Spike two dozen times."

"But the way you did it, you didn't even touch a weapon."

"So?  I've trained myself to handle all sorts of predators.  He was nothing."

"And that man I saw?  The one you staked?  Was he—?"

"Human?  Of a fashion, I suppose.  Predators are predators, Willow.  They are all alike.  Be it a Glorificus or a back alley rapist, they only differ in degree."

"But, he was a human being," she insisted.

I arched a brow.  "Was the rapist I maimed tonight?"

"Wha—?"

"Was the rapist I maimed tonight human?"

"Yes."

My omnipresent smile brightened even more.  "You have a very broad definition of what's human, Willow.  There are as many evils in the real world as there are in the world you specialize in."  I bent myself over to a 90-degree angle on the bed, and touched the back of my fingers along her cheek.  "I'm just so glad that you don't seem to know of them." 

I let my fingertips glide behind her ear, down her neck, and off her shoulder, landing on the bed before I went beyond barriers of friendship.  I didn't want to make her think, for one moment, of spending the night here.  The human mind was a tricky thing, and if I even led her to wonder about sleeping with a guy, it could either tip the scales into guilt for just thinking about it or to the other extreme, her jumping me (I had no delusions about the latter, mind you.  I was far more concerned about the former, because it was far more likely, given the way she threw herself into things).

"You're such a sweet person, Willow, and I'm a little glad you're not straight."

She blinked.  "Huh?"

I let one corner of my smile bend into a lopsided grin.  "I'd ask you out, and probably propose on the third date.  They don't have women like you from where I come from."

The first reader who wonders about Cassie will be slapped upside the head.  She's not a woman; she's my sister.

Willow giggled, and I patted her arm.  "Off to your room, wouldn't want Tara to get any ideas."

"Okie dokey.  G'night."

I turned my attention back to the text.  She made it to the door when she turned and asked, "Do you ever think about it?"

"About what?" I replied, not looking up.

"About staking the pistol-guy."

I met her eyes.  "The mugger?  In what fashion?"

She shrugged.  "Like, I dunno, whether you could've done something else?  Guilt.  Like that."

"Willow, I killed a man, more or less in self-defense. I don't dawdle on it, nor have I given a first thought to it since. As for guilt…in all honesty, I sort of enjoyed it.  Sleep well."

Her face told me she wouldn't. 

I, Marco Cattalano, had given her nightmares.

Spike and I refused to get along.  Still liked the sarcasm, still didn't like the dark, brooding attitude. From what Cassie and Doyle had told me, he was beginning to resemble Angel (who happened to be Spike's sire, which meant it was genetic). And considering what he had been like pre-chip, this was a pretty dramatic turnaround from the cheerful and happy mass murderer everyone had come to know and loathe.

After classes, I wandered to the cemetery where I had first encountered him, retracing my route to find his crypt.  I knocked on the door that I had closed and locked what seemed like so long ago.  And just like before, he yanked the door open and glared at me.  The circles under his eyes were deep and dark, as if he hadn't been sleeping well.  (Cassie had often had the same symptoms after an all-night study session.)  His hair was still seriously mussed, his clothes looking as if he'd slept in them.

"Oh, you. What d' you want, eh?" He retreated into the shadows of the mausoleum and I followed.  "Red send you? Or Dawn?"

"No one sends me anywhere I do not wish to go," I told him in a deep and serious voice I had learned in a Shakespeare course.  "As far as I'm concerned, you can eat all the Catholic schoolgirls in America, and you really couldn't bother me—in fact, I'd give you the names of several people I'd love to see eaten—I fear death about as much as you fear hot lead; but what I absolutely hate is a whining, mopey bastard who's only happy when he's beating the crap out of something.  For God's sake, you sound like Angel."

Spike whirled at the sound of the name, but his anger died, as though he just couldn't give a damn.  "Yeah?  So wot d' you care, eh?  You like me about as much as I like you, and I'd give me left arm to rip your throat out."

I shrugged. "You wouldn't be the only one.  I seem to inspire that reaction in a lot of people.  In any event, I'd like you to get over Buffy. I'd like all of you to get over it; you grate on my nerves. Anya and Xander are getting married, and they look ready to cry whenever you say 'Buffy'. And you, you're big bad Spike. For God's sake, get over yourselves!"

He almost slammed me up against the wall, and held me there by the lapels of my jacket.  The chip apparently didn't see this as harm, only intimidation.  Even with the rosary under my jacket, I was sure it hurt to hold me, but his rage had totally blocked out sensation.  He was miffed and he had only demons to take it out on.  He wouldn't talk to the others (Willow, at least, would have talked with him; Anya, too, at least as professional courtesy), but I'd make him talk with me.

No, this isn't kindness; I just didn't like soap opera over actors.

"You don't know a damn thing about me, you bugger."

"Ah, but I do know you, Spike.  You loved Buffy."

He dropped me to the ground and skulked away.  "I'm a monster. She knew that."

I laughed. "Sociopathic, yes, but a monster?  You don't even qualify for a demon, anymore. Demons love only themselves, and arguably God, or that was at least Satan's argument."  I climbed to my feet and followed after him.  "You loved that girl, damn you.  You loved her enough to be tortured for her. Glory could have darn well killed you, and you know that.  Would you have done that for your ex-girlfriend?"

I grabbed him and shoved him against a wall.  "Demons don't love. You may have been a demon once, pal, but you don't cut it anymore.  Neither does Anya."

He whirled on me. "I'm evil, mate.  Live with it."

I shook my head and jabbed him in the chest with my fingers with each emphasized word.  "No. You live with it," I ordered, letting the venom drip from my tongue with contempt potent enough to burn through the earth.  "You, the big bad.  You, who liked representing evil. Evil can't love. Genetic fallacy, I suppose. You do. You can't let her go.  You—"

I ducked back as he took a swipe at me, the chip blasting him to his hands and knees, gasping in pain.  "You," I said, ever so softly, "who wouldn't remove the chip from your own head.  You, who could have jabbed a knife into your own brain—with a metal knife that wouldn't harm you—and destroyed the chip."

He looked up at me with those deep, dark eyes wet with pain and sorrow. "That doctor said—"

"He said he could not take it out without crippling you, yet he isn't familiar with what a vampire can do. And you had it in your head for almost a year before he said anything. Still, it never crossed your mind?"

"I never thought about it," he lied. 

Being a liar myself, I catch other liars easily.  "You," I continued in the same soft voice with annunciation from Shakespeare, "who would give your right arm to tear my throat out, had failed to consider a relatively painless way to get back the ability to maim, torture, and kill? Metal would hurt a little, but you'd heal, probably without brain damage.  And you never thought of that?"

He covered his face, and he cried soundlessly.  I turned and left, leaving him in peace.  He needed to cry. I suspect he wouldn't allow himself to most of the time, but he needed to.  We all needed to cry.

I couldn't cry.

Never. 

Something my sister doesn't know about me—one of the many things my sister doesn't know—is that the first night Doyle stayed in our home, I heard him screaming in the middle of the night.  She believes I wouldn't wake up unless a four-alarm fire bell went off next to my ear.  I let her believe that (besides, his scream had sounded like a five-alarm fire bell).  I let her believe that I didn't hear Doyle cry.  I let her believe that I never knew about his time in LA, and part of his secret past.  I almost wanted to cry that night.

Almost.

But I don't think I can….

No.  Sorry…

I know I can't.

Would I lie?

I had saved Spike the metaphysics lecture because he knew more about it than I did, probably. I knew why Spike had been like he had been: He's a fighter, over a hundred years old, a mean and nasty butcher who slaughtered wholesale for so long, and he couldn't stop the portal from opening. He blamed himself. After all, if he had protected Dawn like he should have, if he had been as good as he thought he was, Dawn would've been safe and Buffy wouldn't have jumped. The doubt must have been murderous. What if had been his "humanity" making him soft? What if he had kept the vicious edge of his personality, and thus defeated the thing called Doc? What if all that made Buffy treat him like a human being was what indirectly killed her?

I have no tolerance for "what if" games.

The week of vampire slaying ended as Spike, Tara, and Anya staggered through the cemetery, looking like they had all had a few dozen too many.  The vampires appeared like they always did—from nowhere—and surrounded the helpless trio.  It looked like the entire nest had come out to play.  Estimate a dozen vampires, perhaps?  As usual, they were all big, and mean, and ugly.  They liked to play with their food, which wasn't healthy.  Tara and Anya shrieked like Janet Leigh in the shower of the Bates Motel, and Spike stood up like the average human male with testosterone poisoning. 

Then the first notes of Flight of the Valkeries drifted over the tombstones, followed by the crossbow bolts from Xander, me, and Willow.  Xander and I had dusted six vampires within the first three seconds, while Willow had six to her own credit with the three-bolt crossbow and the bolts' subsequent reuse via her telekinetic powers.  The vampires turned on us, ready to feed, giving their backs to the bait. 

The ladies had hidden the fact that Spike had no soul, so none of them had been considered a threat.  Spike had four staked vampires, Anya two, and Tara three, before the hive mind noted the lack of their brethren; however, the remaining six vampires had noted the three of us on the outside.  Three ran towards me, one for Xander, and two more at Willow.  Willow, not blinking, had both vampires dead before they could really get a head start at her.  I couldn't take notice of Xander, but I smiled at all three of the vamps, who had taken one look at me and didn't hurry, before I tossed both the knives from my sleeves into two of them.

The remaining vampire tensed, unsure of another wooden knife.  It gave me time to pull out the rapier from the gym bag Giles had loaned out for the night.  I had it ahead of me, my feet held at right angles, my left arm behind me for balance. 

The vampire looked at me and laughed.  He leapt, intending to land on the steel and neutralize it.  I angled the blade up, so it went through its throat.  I slashed one way, then the other, and he became ashes.

The gang gathered around after the last vamp standing was turned to dust. "Never would've thought of using music as a weapon," Xander said with a lopsided smile.

"You never saw Apocalypse Now?" I asked.

Spike started to stalk away, then remembered he was still a team player, and lit up a victory cigarette. He shot me a momentary glare, our argument still in mind. He then lifted the cig in salute to the plan I thought of and resulted in a dustier city.  I nodded in return.

On Tuesday, September 11, I received a phone call at 7:00 am, local time.  I rolled over and picked up the phone with my eyes closed and my brain shut off.   

"Marco?" said Willow's voice. 

"Voice identification disengaged, please identify yourself," I said, letting my mouth run on autopilot while I woke up.

"It's me, Willow.  Something's happened."

My brain turned on.  Willow's voice was wrong, shaky, scared.  Scared of what? 

"My lovely redheaded witch, how are you?" The brain was on, but my mouth's autopilot was still on as well.

"Marco, something's happened in New York."

My eyes slowly let in some light.  Check that, there wasn't any light to be let in.  What time is it?

"My New York?  What?"

She told me.

I nodded.  "And this is another Tom Clancy novel?  He's done this once already."

She explained to me again.  Two planes had hit the World Trade Center in my hometown.  They fell town about twelve minutes ago.  Oh, by the way, the Pentagon is burning.  Someone decided to hit that with a Boeing 767 as well. 

My eyes snapped open.  "WHAT!!"

Over the next half hour, I think I had condolences from every person who knew I was in some way related to New York; if they only vaguely knew, they phoned.  Every teacher I had told me they'd understand if I took off from classes today—in order to get away from every well wisher on the planet, I did just that.  To get even farther away from them, I sat down in the cemetery with my book.

Unfortunately, not even that was safe.

"Psst!"

I looked up.  I had sat down along my jogging route.  And there was Spike, calling me from inside the grave.  I stood and walked over, putting a finger up before he could say a thing.

"Listen, I've heard more condolences today than ever in my life.  So if you intend to give me any, I will cripple you for life, am I understood?"

He nodded.

Terrorists had decided to take it upon themselves to trash my city, my home.  They, in turn, had offended me. Someone wished to bring death and chaos to this country. 

I decided to bring death and chaos in my own fashion.

Spike had mentioned he thought there was a nest in the Gellar mausoleum just on the edge of this pathetic little town. There were also other suspected locations I wanted to check out.  I began in daylight, and into the night.

The first place I stopped, I listened intently at the door, then nodded after the noises of vampires inside.  I placed four bottles on top of the crypt, two of them with rags.  I lit the rags, put away the lighters, then tossed open the doors.  They had just torn into a new kill, already dead. 

"Surprise."

I ripped the Molotov cocktails from the doorway above and tossed them to the floor beyond the foot of the stairs, letting the flaming alcohol consume the floor, and block the way.  I grabbed the next two bottles and broke them over the stairs, letting the holy water seep into the stone.  I grabbed the doors and closed them, sliding a stake through the outside lock. 

One down.

Nest number five developed a slight problem at the Whelan grave.  Four vampires leapt over the flames and past me.  I locked the door, wheeled round, and tossed the knives from my sleeves.  My hands let go of the knives and reached for the stakes at the base of my neck, cut for balance. I tossed to dust one, but the final one leapt to one side before I could nail him.  Three were dead, and I looked forward to hand-to-hand.

His feet left the ground and he headed for me.  I crouched on one side and slashed down with the stake, tearing half its throat out.  It rolled to its feet and smiled as it turned. 

"I was in 'Nam, boy," he said like a proper redneck.

"And I'm from Brooklyn."

The vampire paused, wondering if this was of significance.  Then he bore his teeth again and went into a decent combat stance.  He had been trained for knife fighting, but not for me.

I reached into the small of my back and he expected another knife, but drew down on him with the squirt gun and fired holy water into his eyes and chest.  He fell back, blind and in pain, clutching at the burns.  I strolled over to him and stabbed down into his skull, driving the stake through his brain.  He crumpled, paralyzed.

I dragged him over to the local Catholic Church and found they had a baptismal font for grownup full submersion, bigger than a hotel bathtub and five feet deep.  I drew a wooden blade along its throat so it wouldn't scream.  As I made it up the steps, it started to move its hands, slowly.  I grabbed them both and thrust them underneath the water.  His mouth stretched into a silent wail of pain as his hands dissolved.  I held them there until the very bones disintegrated.  I smashed his head against the marble stairs once or twice, then dragged him up by his shoulders, lowering his feet into the pool.

It took me an hour to get up to just below its heart.  I changed to the arms, and then I tossed what was left of it in. 

At three the next morning, I stabbed a vampire repeatedly in the spine, above and below the heart.  It was at another nest.   I can't remember the number or the place. I was so far gone, I couldn't be bothered to check or keep track.

"You seem to have been most busy," a soft voice told me.

I froze.  "Yes. What are you?"

"Someone who wants to kill you.  Well, I should say you and everyone else in this town."

I drove the stake home before turning to look over the unremarkable person.  His hair and eyes were brown, his skin tanned. He wore a black mortuary suit. I suppose he was handsome, although I've been told I'm also handsome, so there's no accounting for taste. He looked and sounded vaguely Slavic.

I held both hands behind me, one reaching for a cocktail. "I take it you're not Dracula?"

He chuckled.  "No, not hardly.  Vlad was always too much for my taste. Too overbearing, you see. Very snobbish."

"I see.  So you're not a vampire?"

He laughed, as though at a good joke from an old friend.  "Hells, no.  I'm something so much more."

"You're not related to a man named Doc, by any chance?  I hear he has a death warrant on his head."

"Oh, I'm a cousin of his. We in the family have been very disappointed by his actions recently. Glorificus was always trouble, way back when."

"Understood.  I have a large family myself, I know how hard they can be on the nerves."

"Yes, aren't they so?"

I nodded.  "So, what are you?"

He smiled beneficently.  "I am death."

I looked him over, completely under-whelmed.  "Sorry, you ain't that frightening."

"Oh, I know.  You aren't scared of me.  You should be, though."

I lit the rag and tossed it at him.  His chest ignited in flame, but he just stood there, unconcerned.  "That's annoying." 

He dropped, rolled, and sprang to his feet, put out. 

"Efficient," I complemented him. 

Spike's broadsword suddenly ran through his chest and pulled up, lifting him off the ground, then nailing him to a tree.  The vampire turned his glare on me, his deep blue eyes flashing the yellow of his demon.  "Wha' do ya think y' doin' out 'ere a' this time o' night?"

"Hunting."

Spike turned to the nailed one, pulled out another sword and swung it like a baseball bat through its neck.  The sword bit into the neck and cut through, but it healed so fast he might as well have hit a hologram.

"Leave him," I said.

Spike grimaced, but he kicked the first sword handle, driving it deeper into his chest, and we left.

His name was Bob.  That's right, Bob.  Actually, it was more like twenty letters long, but the first three were "Bob", so we stuck with them.  He's older than Spike, and most species on this planet, including the bugs.  He's also noted for killing whole cities.  The Black Death took the blame for some of his kills, but they would've died if he hadn't gotten them first.  He was also spotted in Europe throughout the first half of this century, and in Northern Ireland for the 70's, and spent most of the latter half of the 1900's in the USSR, thus the accent.  He used to be British, apparently, working with the government during much of their later colonial period, after they had outlawed suti and the Thugee.  After they did all the decent work, he appeared. 

Although Giles briefly mentioned he might've been in Ireland during the 1160's, when the English first invaded Ireland, and in 1601, when they conquered the place.

"You know, the British have always been such pricks," said the partly Irish Marco Cattalano.  I looked at Giles, who wouldn't remove his eyes from the book on the counter of the Magic Box.  "How many of the Watchers are out-and-out scumbags?"

Xander looked up from the magic books on the table.  "All of them."

"Which is why they kicked Giles out, right?" Tara asked, looking from Willow to Xander.

"Bob," Giles continued, ignoring everyone, "as you want to call him, has extraordinary healing abilities, almost like he's never been hit."

"So we blow him up like that Judge guy," Xander said with enthusiasm.

I looked at my watch. "As of 24 hours ago, somebody decided to blow up the World Trade Center, so the military would shoot to kill anyone seen on a military base raiding supplies.  Besides, an artillery shell would go right through this guy."

"Oh?" Anya said, "and how do you know? When was the last time you blew up some demon?"

I smiled at her. "About the last time a neuron flared between your ears."

"See!" she boasted. "I knew he's never done something like this."

Sarcasm just ricochets right off some people. I turned to Giles. "What's this guy's biology?"

He blinked at me a few times.  "Apparently, he's quite human except for a few changes.  The healing, advanced strength."

Spike, leaning against a bookcase, said, "How much strength?"

"Oh, the usual vague terms about strength enough to level armies, that sort of thing."

The British ability for understatement must be genetic.

I smiled at the news, however.  "Okay, we'll get rid of him next time he comes out in the open."

Everyone looked at me, wondering what I was doing perched on the loft staircase like a vulture, proclaiming his death before a plan had even formed. "And how, oh supernatural expert who's been here for only three weeks?" Xander asked.

"Well, oh smart ass, I need a baseball bat or similar object, if you wouldn't mind.  I'll show you."

"Ooh!  Ooh!  I have one!" Anya enthused.  "From when we went against…"

I knew it: Glory.  I rolled my eyes.  I was grateful for the silence, but not that she fell into it.  "Oh, get over yourselves!" I snapped, making Giles even look up.  I leapt off the stairs onto my feet.  "You people have all been a bunch of self-pitying whiners on the subject of the Vampire Slayer, and she wouldn't have it!"

I made eye contact with Willow, and she nodded, letting me continue. 

"I've been a pretty nice guy since I've gotten here, believe it or not, and I can't even mention the word Buffy without some people becoming all teary-eyed."  I glared at Xander.  "Or others going silent.  I've had enough.  No more tears, otherwise someone's going to freeze one of these days, and you'll all get killed.  So enough!"

"He's right," said a light, solid voice from behind me. 

I glanced back at Dawn as she came out of the back room.  I knew she wouldn't stay where she was told.  She was one of the few people with a core of iron on the subject of Buffy, and had a mouth like mine, which made me wonder why anyone had let her live so long.  The only reason I had lived as long as I have was I kept my mouth shut until I was scary enough to survive on my own.  I suppose Buffy had had restraint. Dawn was all too pale, and barely fourteen at an estimate. Her eyes were pale blue and I'd say offhand that her nostrils were a little too wide.  She had long brown hair, and I wondered how anyone could think she wasn't adopted—she looked nothing like any of the pictures floating around of Buffy or her mother.

She gave me a smart-ass look like she was afraid to yield a fraction of ground, and said, "I told you what she said to me, told you why she did it, and you still act like she shouldn't have died.  She shouldn't have, but she gave herself to save your butts anyway, and how do you spend it?  You two should have been having loud obnoxious sex,"—she said to the Harrises, and to Spike—"and you used to be cool. Now you're moping around like Dwayne Nopski in third grade.  You're almost pitiful."  To Giles: "And you're supposed to be the grownup.  Act like it."

She gave an "hmmph" and went inside to continue her homework.   

I nodded my head as if in deference to Dawn, even if she did only agree with me. "I rest my case."  I glared at Anya. "So where's the damn bat?"

When she handed it to me, I said, "Spike, come here a moment."

He cocked an eyebrow and sighed, sticking the lit cigarette into his mouth.  He walked over and stopped, spreading his arms at his sides.  "What?"

I lifted my recent reading off the stair and held it up.  It was a hardcover, airport edition, of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.  It wasn't in the best of shape, and I had another copy at home.  "Hit the book."

He looked at me, groaned as though it had been a long morning, and lightly punched the book.  I narrowed my eyes and slapped it across his face, bringing it back into position.  "Hit it, moron, don't tap it."

He snarled and punched the book once. 

"Again… harder…faster… what sort of vampire are you?" I taunted as he hit the book with increasing force. 

When he pulled back for a final blow, I let go of the book and his fist went through it, covers and all.  He threw his hand back, tossing the book remains off his arm, and I handed him the bat now that I had him ready to kill me.  I needed to desensitize the restraint the chip had put him under, letting him operate without thought, or the intent he needed to trigger it.  He wound up for a home run hit and I ducked down, swiping my hand into his forearm, thumb first.  The bone in my finger dug into the nerve point just below the wrist, making his fingers go numb.  The bat fell from his hand and he leapt back, crying out in shock and not a little pain.

"Wha' the 'ell did you do to me, you poofter!" he snapped, working the fingers to get sensation back into them.

"Nerve point.  If I can do to it what I just did to you, then we have a weapon."

"But that only works for a few moments, and only if you can get in close enough," Giles noted. 

I scanned the shelves of the chemicals behind me.  I reached over and grabbed a jar of hydrochloric acid and placed it on the table.  "He can heal tissue, but let's see him heal at the molecular level."  The blank looks I received from all but Willow told me to explain.  "Atoms of acid lack at least one electron on the uppermost level of the electron rings.  It burns because it basically steals electrons of matter that hold atoms together." 

Anya's blankest look I answered with, "Your body is made up of sugar as the most common component.  If I dipped your hand in acid, it would caramelize and turn to a lump of coal, okay?"

"Oh."

I flicked my eyes up and back in my version of a roll.  "Anyone know what attracts him? Giles?"

"Who?"

"Bob.  Why did this guy just move to Sunnydale?"

He glanced back at the books.  "He tends to follow patterns of rage.  The greater the rage, the more it attracts him."

Spike looked at me, and we understood that my rampage last night counted.  The attitude of the majority of Americans after the attack yesterday was shock, emotional numbness, so I must have lit up like Hiroshima at midnight of a new moon in December of 1945.

I nodded at Giles' facts and turned, accidentally meeting Willow's gaze.  She knew.  She wasn't in my head, but she knew.  She knew me so well already.  She said nothing, but she knew.  As I'd told her, if she weren't gay, I would've dated her immediately and married her by the third date. 

I remembered a scene in Victor/Victoria (both the film and the play with Julie Andrews) where a woman tells a homosexual, played in the movie by Robert Preston (who would later only play tough cowboy types), "I think the right woman could reform you." 

"What a coincidence," he replies, "I was about to say the same thing about you."

Ah well.  "And you, Willow, as a telepath, would be able to get inside his mind and rip him from the inside out, right?"

She sucked her lips in for a moment of thought.  "Maybe.  But I'm a witch."

"No you're not, I've met some witches in my time, but you don't—"

"She means a real witch," Xander corrected me. 

"We both are," Tara said, absentmindedly taking Willow's hand. 

I blinked, processing what they meant.  "Ah… apparently I missed the memo for that staff meeting.  In which case, this hit squad should consist of me, you two, Spike, and Giles, if you really want to be in on this."

Before Anya could protest, the Watcher said, "Yes, quite right.  However, I'm not quite certain about you, though."

"No offense, but I'm faster than you are, and you'll need someone there to use these types of points close up; for that, you'll need someone that isn't intimidating, like me. Spike has his strength, the witches their magic, and you your experience. I'm no one."

Spike looked at me with curiosity, as though I had admitted a deep dark secret. "Most demons work best at night," he said. He glanced at his watch. "Almost dawn soon, so 'e should be put on 'old for a day."

I nodded.  "That allows us to make the time and place of our response a matter of our choosing, not his."

How was I to know that George Bush would steal my line?

Giles: "And how do you intend to do that?"

I smiled at my most annoying.  "Trust me."

I walked into my dorm room and turned on my computer and the videophone linked through the computer.  I waited for five minutes as I looked for Dominic's phone number.  He was in the computer industry, and was worth more than the World Trade Center before they were rubble.  An Italian Bill Gates, so to speak.  He's totally mute, and speaks six types of sign language, in addition to American.  He insists I'm the only one he knows that speaks ASL with a perpetual attitude.

Yes, kind, sweet, and gentle me.  Who knew?

I did.

The uplink took a few minutes to load, and I sought out my sister, who had already started her day with a morning jog around the Internet. 

TaliesinMS82:  Good morning, Clarice.

Hplssrom1978: Enough with the Hannibal Lecter.  Did you hear?

TaliesinMS82: About WTC?  Yup.  Armageddon arrived and didn't send a memo.  How rude.  Anyone you know?

Hplssrom1978: No, Thank God, but a few close ones saved by being late.

TaliesinMS82: Amen for sloth.  Who says it's a deadly sin? … Could you tell?

Hplssrom1978: By the giant ground based storm cloud?  Kinda

TaliesinMS82:  Sorta…

Hplssrom1978: Bklyn bridge is covered in ash, you can't walk across it.  They're predicting approx 10,000 casualties, but an average day can bring 107,000 people.

TaliesinMS82: This I know.  Tell me what I don't. 

Hplssrom1978: You haven't been watching the news since this came out?

TaliesinMS82: No time.

Hplssrom1978: It's almost a day later, Marco, what have you been doing?

TaliesinMS82:  My job.  This is a problem?

Hplssrom1978: You don't have a job.

TaliesinMS82:  I do now… ttyl, gtg. Ciao

I cut Cassie off and clicked on Dominic's link to my call.  He was up, running and stranded in Italy, eight hours ahead of EST, and eleven past my time zone.  He had his own private jet, which meant he wouldn't be going anywhere.

The dark eyes underneath the equally dark hair regarded me through the phone link. Marco, how's life in California? his hands asked me.  What's been happening over there?

"The world's gone to Hell, Dommy," I replied, using the affectionate, insulting nickname for my second cousin.  "Listen, I need a favor."

Marco, a favor?  Last time you asked about that, you crippled that senior in high school.

"I only broke his knee, blast it!"

With a baseball bat!

"Golf club," I corrected him, my hands slicing the air out of habit.  "I needed it; I was only in the third grade!"

Whatever, he signed airily.  What do you need?

"I need you to break the current ban on air traffic, reach your vast money-plastered hand across the Atlantic, and get me something by tonight."

He cocked an eyebrow that my computer digitally enhanced perfectly.  What?

I told him.  "So?"

What is this for? he asked suspiciously.  More demons?

I had almost forgotten I told him about the vampires of New York.  No way in hell, however, did I tell him about Doyle; he would've hit the roof, Cassie, me, and then he would've put a hit out on Doyle. 

"Correct. Only more so."

Done.  You'll get it by tonight…trust me.

"Like I have a choice!" I snorted.

I prayed for the fifty thousand people who worked daily inside the World Trade Center, and I prayed that the guilty bastards would be swiftly blown off the face of this planet.

But I didn't cry for the attack, the people who died.

I can't cry.

At ten in the morning, I opened my eyes to a knocking at my door. 

"Who?" I asked flatly.  Four hours of sleep was never the time to wake me up, especially if you valued your life and most of your sensitive body parts.

"Me."  Willow's voice.

I grabbed the water pistol filled with holy water at my side and said, "Come."

The redheaded witch came in, looking beautiful and well rested. I sat up in bed and swung my legs over the side. I hadn't redressed myself since that morning and my rampage through the city last night. 

"Morning."

Her smile fluctuated, unsure of herself, as usual.  I sighed and told her to sit, pointing my pistol at the other end of the bed.  I rotated my body, folding one leg under another.  She sat down and mirrored me.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

I smiled against my feelings.  "Why shouldn't I be?  Somehow Spike found me last night and saved me from being sautéed."

"I mean, about the New York thing."

"Oh…Oh!  Sorry about that, this seems a little more worrisome than something that's over—the initial attack, I mean.  We still have this threat right here in River City."

"Where?"

I closed my eyes and they burned with need for rest as I took a deep breath.  I opened them. "It's from a play called The Music Man, later a movie starring Robert Preston and Ron Howard. As for now, I'm fine as long as Bobby boy doesn't come through my door."

"And you're not worried about the towers?"

"Why should I be?" I said, almost disinterested. "I can't do anything from three time zones away, and neither can you. What we're doing is just as important as the military's job in hunting down the…persons who made the Twin Towers job possible. We're saving the world, smoking one demon at a time. Who knows when today's vampire will be tomorrow's Angelus? The lives in New York cannot be retaken, but death doesn't bother me, as I said. The buildings can be rebuilt, and probably will be built bigger, if only to piss people off. The monsters who did it will be hunted down and staked, and probably with a 2000-pound missile through their front door."

I shrugged. "It was horrific, yes, monstrous, yes, evil, definitely; but I let nothing interfere with my life unless I let it, and I refuse to let it. The mayor and the president requested normal life to resume, and I voted for both of them, so I do what I can.  Besides, if I give blood today, it'll probably be without a needle and a lot more painful."

"But—"

"But what? Sunnydale has no high profile targets, and only New York has both the symbolism and the body count to make anything worth it—there and DC."  I took her shoulders gently. "Nothing to worry about, eh?"

I looked into her eyes and saw hope sparkle there. She nodded.  I continued to look at her wonderful pale skin, and I wondered about my attacker.  His skin was tan.  If he had spent most of the past fifty years in Russia, he wouldn't have developed a tan of any kind in the almost year-round winter.

However, he would've done well working in the Middle East.

"What is it?"

I blinked.  I had drifted again.  "Nothing important.  Why?"

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what again?"

"What you did last night.  What attracted him.  I could feel you.  What are you?"

"Human, like most people."

Willow tossed her head from side to side.  "Uh-uh, not like other people.  You're different."

"So are you. Your point?"

"But I didn't look inside your head, I shouldn't have been able to know—"

"That I was on a killing spree last night?  Why not?  You've hung out with me, so you'd be more attuned to me than you are to 90% of this town, and I was possibly the only one out there last night with any emotion.  The planet was numb."

"Which is how he found you."

I agreed. 

"And you feel responsible," she added. 

A total fallacy!  Slander, I say!

"And you're going to do something, aren't you?  Something you're not telling us.  What?"

"I need some rest, Willow.  I'll see you tonight."

She frowned, ready, I'm sure, to look into my mind, but that would be rude. "Okay," she said, the same way she would say "dopey."

I patted her cheek.  "Are we all right?"

"Yeah."

I studied her face.  "Great… There's something else, isn't there?"

"I dunno, you felt different."

"Felt different?"

"Last night.  You feel stronger than you look, stronger than most.  Xander feels that for Anya, Tara…But you feel that way all the time. The longer I'm near you the more you feel that way."

"I place no limits on my emotions, Willow, only on how I express them.  There's nothing to be gained by reigning in one's feelings; however, if I expressed mine…Ah well, I need sleep.  Off with you now."

After Willow left, I waited a half-hour before raiding the chemistry lab. I picked the lock with needles from my dissection kit, then quickly found glycerin, nitric acid and sulfuric acid, as well as a dozen test tubes with cork stoppers.  In my room, I poured out a level of one acid, covered it with a layer of candle wax, a layer of acid, wax, glycerin and stopper, driving a nail through the cork and stopping halfway through the glycerin. 

Once I did this eleven times more, I lay back to sleep, closing my eyes and letting myself pray.  I knew it wasn't politically correct, and I'm halfway surprised an ACLU lawyer didn't knock my door down for having a crucifix on my door, but I'm not PC, and when you're going up against a demon who could've been there to enslave the Hebrews in Egypt, you take what help you can get.

God, hey, it's Marco…yes, that Marco…I know I'm a pain in the ass, but I've got a slight problem…No, dirty fantasies about a green-eyed redhead are not it…not this time, although I must say I've been tempted.  I must say that when you made women, you made them quite…well, I must keep this G-rated, lest I stray too much from my intended topic.  You see, I've got a new set of friends, two of them, I think.  They're close pals of Yours, too, I imagine.  A woman named Willow and a bastard named Spike…I know he's a vampire, but a vampire, according to the metaphysics of this world, is a corpse with a demon inside of it.  Demons, as we both know, are fallen angels, and I think this one wants back in, if only to meet up with your knee breaker, Buffy, in Heaven…I mean, what sort of a name is Buffy for a member of God's storm troopers? Buffy! I mean Joan D'Arc is a name with strength, power, resonance, but Buffy!

Anyway, I want the two of them to get out of this business in one piece.  I either have a bad case of love or lust after Willow, and Spike… he's trying, I'll give him that.  He's very trying.  But he's working on Your side, even if they do call you The Powers That Be…What sort of a name is that anyway, The Powers That Be?  It sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would use…anyway, I would like to mention that this is totally selfish on my part. I like both of them, and would feel very bored in Sunnydale without them.  I expect you to respond despite this.  After all, they are Your people, and Spike at least is covered under "with the Lord, all is possible."  I expect you to cover their butts while I handle Bobby boy.  And if I die before he does, then I'll expect you to personally smite him with enough voltage to reduce this "Hellmouth" to ashes. 

And if I die, I'll see you soon.

I stood in the cemetery that night and silently raged, waiting to reduce Bob to a pile of shattered glass.  I scanned the tombstones around me, waiting for him to jump from behind any one of them.  I turned around once more and found him standing in plain sight. 

He wore a wonderful, brand new Brooks Brothers suit with a silk shirt and cheery green tie.  "What did you intend to accomplish by setting a trap for me?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Oh, I expected to kill the monster who's been causing havoc in the Middle East. It took me awhile to think you moved in a definite pattern and kept going right next door: Ireland to England, to Germany, migrating to Russia, probably sliding into Afghanistan during their war against the Soviet Union.  What did you do from there? Spend a little time in the Sudan, maybe?  I remember Osama bin Ladin staying there.  Then you moved overseas?"

He grinned.  "You are very wise for one who has not yet lived one lifetime."

I smiled in turn. "And you cannot realize how nice it is to meet a demon who's at least read Dracula.  Now that you're wearing a nice, New York Brooks Brothers suit, I'm only curious as to whether or not you flew one of the planes used on Tuesday."

He bowed slightly.  "The second plane.  I'm impressed at your mental capacity.  Most people wouldn't have made such a leap."

"I specialize in history as a hobby, like most CIA analysts. Do I have time to inquire how you managed to keep the whole thing under wraps?"

He waved it away as though it were trivial.  "Your last President was no great problem to make a deal with, as long as we gave each other certain concessions.  I even managed to get him to cut down your military 40% since the Gulf War.  I think I've been able to cripple your CIA and military capacities for the next three years."

Always knew the Devil would be a Democrat.  "If you live that long."

He took a step toward me.  "Forever."  Another step.  "It doesn't matter how many times you shoot or stab me, because I am an army of darkness."  One more step and he stopped.  "My true name is Legion, for I have the strength of many."

I nodded.

In five seconds, twelve metal bolts came from four separate, fully loaded triple crossbows. Instead of the annoyance he had showed at the blaze this morning, he screamed in agony, falling back from me, doubled over in pain.  He glared up at me, his eyes now pools of—literal—fire, staring as so though to burn me.  I think his eyes were a window to his soul.  Not exactly prime vacation territory.

One of the blazes twitched.  "What have you done to me?"

"Metal arrowheads laced with anticoagulants to prevent the blood from clotting."

He cocked an eyebrow, wondering why it was metal instead of wood.  He found his answer as Willow and Tara stepped out from behind the Greenwalt grave and fired what looked like bolts of electricity at him.  Each bolt went straight through each arrow and into his body.  Bob pulled back his upper lips in a snarl, and turned his gaze on the witches. 

The lighting bolts went off as they conserved their power.  He straightened in time for Spike to leap on him, driving a fist into the nerve spot behind the ear.  The blow would've knocked out a human being, but only stunned Bob.  Spike drove a knife into his kidney before hitting the spot again.  The kidney shot was a normally lethal blow, causing extreme anguish to the point that the victim can't even scream through the pain.  That blade was also covered in anticoagulant. 

Bob twirled and threw Spike off of him with a shake that tossed the vampire over my head and almost three blocks away. He turned to me, eyes burning with rage.  He reached up and pulled out the first arrow, and I could see it heal as he pulled it out, not half as fast as before.  He dropped each bolt to the ground, extracting each with infinite patience. When the last bolt hit the ground, I rammed a nail through the cork and the layers in the test tube, shook the tube and tossed it at him.  He caught it with a graceful ease and smiled as he held it in front of him.  He dropped it to the ground and stepped on it. 

The resulting explosion knocked him off his feet, severing the front half of his foot from the heel, and sent it flying over my shoulder before he had a hope of healing it.  I drove a nail through the next tube, shook and tossed it at him while he struggled to his feet on hands and knees.  It exploded and sent him sprawling, pieces of glass shining in his face.  He rolled to his foot, the missing body part bleeding.  I tossed another chemical bomb at him, and he caught it and shook it as I did.  I should've told him not to do that, because it didn't need any more mixing and exploded around his clenched fingers, blowing them off as well. 

"You can't do this to me!" he cried as the next explosion fell between his legs, nearly severing another foot. 

"Wanna bet?"

I wondered how long I could keep this up before I got bored.  I had eight more of these left.  His already shredded Brooks Brothers suit didn't look like it could take much more.

He looked up at the witches and pushed off his good hand and foot to charge them. They hit him with a direct blast of lightning. Unfortunately, no one had ever severed parts of him before, because we would've known that energy contacting against his skin—as opposed to into his body through metal arrows—only rejuvenated him.  I saw energy crackle around him, heading out to the extremities, where fingers magically appeared and a foot formed. 

At least it won't affect the anticoagulants already in there.

Bob leapt back and stared at the witches.  I cried, "Get back" too late and the rippling power turned black against his skin and fired back at them.  Tara broke off, but Willow was a little slower on disengaging.  The power hit her full blast and hurled her off her feet.  I tossed two tubes on either side of Bob, knocking him around a little in time for me to throw myself shoulder-first into his stomach. 

We rolled on the ground before I showed the good sense to roll off.  He sprang to his feet and swung at me casually, as though I were more an annoyance than anything else, now that I was hand-to-hand.  I dropped him with an unprofessional kick between the legs and leapt back again.  He doubled over in pain and received the gift of two more test tubes at his feet, breaking legs and feet and other parts. 

The last thing I needed was him to bounce back so fast.  The chemicals released into his bloodstream must have worn off faster than I suspected.  His eyes glowed and he smiled manically.  He stepped toward me, ready to kill, when a bottle of acid broke against his head. He cringed, gasping as Spike followed up his attack with a broadsword through his chest.

"Die, you damned bugger! Die!" he growled.  Bob pushed him away again with all his strength and sent Spike on another flying trip.

"Do you really want to give him so many frequent flyer miles?" I asked.

He smiled and rushed me, taking his time, comparatively, and brushed me aside, sending me against a marble slab.  I sunk to my knees as Bob stood over me, ready to kill.  I looked up at him through cloudy eyes, and I saw Tara again, staring at him, chanting in Latin. I listened and identified one word as murderer.  Then it hit me like a brick to my skull.

Willow's dead.

My mind shut down at that one thought.  Such a beautiful woman, murdered before her life had really started.  Kind, caring, considerate, loving, lovable. A dam cracked somewhere inside me as I let tears roll down my face as the pain settled in on me, crippling me. Tara would release more power, feeding it, and then she'd die too. Then he'd kill Spike and Giles, and even Anya and Xander. 

My mind shut down.  I rose from one knee like a robot standing.  I stepped behind Bob, who readied himself for Tara, and I slammed my elbow behind one ear, then delivered a hammer blow to the other, stunning him.  I slammed my foot sideways into his knee, breaking it at an odd angle.  I punched his kidney, then slammed my knuckles into the small of his back, paralyzing him for—I guessed—moments.  I spun him around and drove my palm into his nose, sending it into his brain, temporarily killing him.  The acid burns on his head still hadn't healed, and I bet that they wouldn't.

"Now!" I bellowed, driving two mixed test tubes into his pocket and shoving him away.

Bob staggered backwards as Xander came in on the motorcycle I had Dominic ship from Italy, among other items.  He leapt off the vehicle and it slid along the ground, cutting the feet out from under Bob.  The test tubes exploded, ruining the pockets of the jacket and causing damage I didn't want to think about to the stomach. 

I grabbed the motorcycle and the handcuffs from my pocket and cuffed his ankles to the seat of the bike.  I drove off without another word, dragging Bob behind me.  This was the part I told no one about, not even Willow.

Willow…

I refused to get sentimental and drove onward, letting nothing get in my way.  I drove straight for the beach and headed onto the dock.  With the engine at full speed, I jumped off the motorcycle into the water as it left the wooden planks, soaring through the air and straight down, into the water, on top of Bob.  I took a deep breath and dove down after him, knowing this wasn't over just yet. 

Bob shoved the vehicle off of him easily and moved as fast as though he were aboveground.  He moved fast enough that I felt the currents shifts around me as I landed behind him.  I slammed a foot behind his ear, then fell onto him as I drove my elbow into his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs.  The normal time is fifteen minutes of being paralyzed, but this would last for fifteen seconds.  I swam away from him as he recovered, and when he did, he smiled as his body automatically strove for breath.

His eyes widened in shock as he realized he had automatically taken a lungful of seawater. 

I moved back toward him as he struggled frantically with the handcuffs, almost forgetting about his own strength.  He spared me only a glance and punched at me, even though I was yards away.  His motion sent a fist of water into my stomach.  I floated to the top as he broke the handcuffs.  I made it to the dock by the time he had figured out to drop the suit and wing-tipped shoes so he could surface.  He would die if he didn't get oxygen within five minutes, and I didn't think even he could resurrect himself from the dead.

He surfaced and climbed onto the dock, trying to fill his lungs with air.  He looked at me and charged, making no sounds with his open mouth.  I bent one leg and swept his legs out from under him.

I used another test tube to blow a hole in the dock beneath him.  He fell through, but I wasn't ready to give up just yet.  I heard the screeching tires of Giles's red convertible pull up and I ran over to meet him, springing the trunk open. 

"You all right?" he asked.

I didn't answer as I pulled the large tank from the back.  I placed it on the ground like a missile as Giles drove his car away.  I ran away from the dock, and Bob came through the wooden planks, raging, dying.  He ripped up a board from the dock and rammed it through his chest, letting a hole in his lungs to release the water trapped there.  I looked over, and there was Tara, as planned, concentrating on the release valve of the pressurized tank.

The tank shot off with the force of a rocket, slamming into Bob, and he held it in his hands, shooting us a look of contempt.

"Pressurized air?" he snarled with what little breath he had already gained, and slammed his fist into the tank.

As he destroyed our final weapon, I remembered explaining this to the gang after it arrived.

"Where did this come from?" Xander asked, wondering why it was in the Magic Box.

"Dominic DiBiasi, a cousin."

"And what is it, a cruise missile?" Dawn asked.

"An oxygen tank?" Giles inquired.

Anya: "A phallic symbol?"

I smiled and plucked a rose from the vase on the table, sliding it behind Willow's ear.  "Hold on to that for me, will you, love?"

I rolled the tank to the table and let some of the contents pour into a plastic cup.  I took the flower from behind Willow's ear and slid the open petals down her cheek, wishing it were my hand.  I then dipped the rose into the cup, pulled it out, and then shattered it against the table as it exploded into a million pieces like glass. 

Bob drove his fist into the tank of liquid nitrogen, and it exploded like the oxygen tank in Jaws, spraying him with the chemical over three hundred degrees below zero.

I waited until the fog of gas dissipated.  It had completely covered Bob, freezing him like a statue.  I walked up to the dock, and then looked into Bob's eyes.  They were still alive and aware, even behind the ice.  I spoke to him softly and evenly, never letting my voice above a whisper.

"You have killed everything I loved. You attacked my city and killed soldiers of light. You murdered my only friend here, and the only person I could say I have ever loved. You followed the lines of rage here, my friend, and here it stops, now, today. Your body is frozen, down to your core and your metabolism, like any other human being. You're dead, and you don't know it yet. Your efforts have all been in vain, because we will all rise up, and your friends in the Middle East will pay for what you've done. 

"You didn't learn from World War II, and you were there for that.  There's something you've still yet to learn: humans don't surrender, we don't give up, and we don't break. We bend like hell, over backwards some years, but we never break. When you attack us, we come back like cockroaches, wave after wave. We do not stay silent, we do not stay docile while our civilians get killed, and we will get your associates, demon and human alike.  No nation shall protect them, no army will save them, and no godforsaken devil shall keep vengeance from reaching them."

I moved closer, almost until I was almost nose-to-nose.  "Take this message back with you to Hell: from here on in, we have declared war on your kind. They are not welcome here. They will not be allowed to terrorize us any more. We are not afraid of you, or of death, or of the suffering you think you can bring, the division or the hopelessness, because they cannot touch us. You cannot scare us or defeat us, given a thousand of you or a million of them.  The Hellmouth no longer belongs to your kind.  There is a fortress of light in Sunnydale, and we shall sustain it, no matter the cost."

I was content to let him melt, drop by drop, until he was no more, but his nerve endings were probably frozen numb anyway.  I slid the last test tube into his iced fist and said, "In case you wondered, glycerin plus nitric and sulfuric acids equal nitroglycerin."

I stopped thirty feet away from him with the rest of the team, standing next to Spike and Giles.  I pulled a knife from my sleeve and hurled it into the tube.  Bob glittered into the night sky, along with the dock, which had collapsed under him.

"Pretty," Willow's voice stated behind me.

I whirled on her, stared with wide eyes a split second before lifting her up in my arms, crushing her to my chest as her feet dangled off the ground.  "I thought I'd lost you," I whispered without thinking.

"I'm fine," she said once I put her down.  She stared at me.  "Are you?"

I blinked away a tear.  "Of course."

"You looked like you were crying."

"I can't cry," I stated obnoxiously.

We knew better, but she wouldn't contradict me here.

"Let's go home."

And we all went home.  Spike to his mausoleum, where he watched a late night soap opera and smiled at his heroics of the day, thinking how Buffy would be proud.  Giles went back home and wondered how to tell us about his plans to leave for England.  Xander and Anya went home and made frantic love.  Tara and Willow were left alone with their own thoughts.

And I went back to my dorm room, alone.  I checked my AOL account, and found in my e-mail a photo of the explosion from the WTC building, where a giant face formed in the flames.  It looked a little like Bob.

After that, things were quiet for a while. 

And then Buffy came back from the dead, and things livened up again, so to speak. 

But that's another story.