Keith Mars looked over his desk at the two young women who sat in front of him. "So what is it exactly that makes you interested in the Phoenix Land Trust?"

The woman who had introduced herself as Violet answered, "We have sources who believe that it has connections to—" She broke off, obviously unable to think of a suitable lie, and looked to her companion.

"Organized crime?" the woman named Faith offered.

Vi nodded enthusiastically. "Organized crime. We think it might have to do with organized crime, and we want you to find out what is really going on."

Keith nodded knowingly. He'd found that clients liked it when he nodded knowingly, and that it worked particularly well when he had absolutely no idea what was going on. "Why?"

Vi blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Why do want to find out what it is really going on? Most people would hear 'organized crime' and try to get as far away as possible. You're hiring a private investigator to find out more. Why?"

Vi looked at Faith in panic. Apparently, they hadn't even considered their own motives might be investigated. Of course, Keith had long ago learned that it was a rare case in which the clients weren't hiding at least as much as those who were to be investigated. When Faith made no show of noticing her companion's plight, Vi simply turned back to Keith with a blank look on her face. Apparently, they were going to go with no answer at all. Which was enough of an answer for Keith's purposes.

"Okay, then," Keith said. "Five thousand dollars, plus expenses. Are we agreed?"

The two nodded, Vi quite enthusiastically, Faith with a clearly practiced shrug of nonchalance.

"Good. Now that we have that settled, why don't you tell me the real reason a pair of Vampire Slayers want to find out about Cassidy Casablancas' company?"

"I designed this site, you know," Cindy Mackenzie said as she pulled up the Phoenix Land Trust webpage on her iBook.

"Did you know that you just happened to incorporate a Celestian Circle into the coding?" Vi asked.

Mac paused, unsure how much to confess. "Well, I did throw in a couple of technopagan tricks that I picked up on the internet. Simple stuff, nothing fancy. There's like six different ways to get around a Celestian Circle, and that's even without a crescent moon."

"Well, somebody's poured a whole lot of supernatural power into your 'simple tricks,' because our resident hacker and super-mojoed witch was completely repelled by them."

"Well, she didn't have an admin password." Mac's finger flew over the keys of her keyboard as a series of asterisks appeared in the password field on her screen. She hit enter.

USER NOT FOUND.
Please retype your password and try again.

"Looks like somebody deleted your admin account," observed Faith.

Mac nodded, looking somewhat disconcerted. "Well, that's what back doors are for," she said, taking time to crack her knuckles. She backspaced the row of asterisks and replaced it with a new, longer password, then hit enter again.

When the Lady's Moon is new,
Kiss thy hand to Her times two.

"Low-level ward," Mac explained as she brought her hand to her mouth twice, making a ritual gesture as she did so. She hit Enter when she was finished, and a series of windows popped up. "Wait," she said, her brow furrowing. "This doesn't make any sense." She clicked on the window marked "Recent Business Activity," bringing up a long list of transactions.

"Wow," said Faith. "Someone's certainly been a busy beaver."

For more information about the Phoenix Land Trust, Keith reasoned, it made sense to start at the residence of the late founder. That line of reasoning paid off when the Chief Executive Officer just happened to be the one to open the front door of the Casablancas residence--not all that surprising when one figured that she was one of only two residents left.

"Mr. Mars," Kendall Casablancas, née Priscilla Banks, said in her I'm-pretending-to-be-pleasant-but-not-enough-to-fool-you voice. "What a surprise."

He stepped into the doorframe. "Can I come in, Kendall?"

"If you must," she said, letting him in. "Don't think I'm going to offer you coffee or anything like that. What do you want?"

Keith took a seat in the living room despite not being offered one. "Phoenix Land Trust. Cassidy's company."

"My company," Kendall corrected.

Keith nodded, conceding the point--or, more accurately, letting Kendall think he conceded the point. "What's going on with it? Now that Cassidy's dead, I mean."

Kendall shrugged. "It was a gamble against that incorporation thing, and Cassidy won. The investors got paid or whatever, and I got to keep the rest. Game over."

Keith nodded. "Except it wasn't." In as melodramatic a manner as he could muster, he threw a manila folder containing the results of Mac's search of the corporation website on the Casablancas' coffee table. "Five purchases made in the last two weeks, most of it land bordering on cemeteries. Who made these decisions, Kendall? You?"

Kendall pulled herself up. "Why not? I'm not as stupid as you think, you know."

"Oh, yes, you're quite the accomplished con artist, Priscilla. But real estate is honest work. Is it your husband?"

Kendall laughed. "I haven't spoken to 'my husband' since he left the country, Keith."

"Then who?"

"Dick," she said, staring at Keith, daring him to contradict her. "Little Dick."

The answer was absurd, of course. Dick Casablancas had difficulty tying his shoes; if he was running the corporation it would already be bankrupt. But the look in her eyes when she recited the lie spoke volumes all by itself. "Be careful, Kendall," he warned her. "Look long enough into the abyss, and it will look back at you. I wouldn't raise up what you can't put down again."

"Don't worry, Mr. Mars. Rest assured, I haven't raised anything."

Which, to tell the truth, was exactly what he had feared.

"Okay," said Veronica, "I'm out."

Keith frowned. "It's dark outside."

Veronica looked at him, incredulously. "That's when the nightlife tends to happen, after dark. It's funny how that works, you know."

"Well, what's wrong with daylife?"

Veronica shrugged. "Nothing. I'm quite fond of it—at least when my life isn't sucking beyond the telling of it. But after an exciting day of daylife, sometimes I like to follow up with a little nightlife."

Keith nodded, defeated. "Just . . . be careful."

Now Veronica was clearly suspicious. "I'm going with Wallace and my taser, and besides all the PCHers leave me alone anymore anyway. I'd take Backup but I really don't think they'd let him inside."

"Just take this, too, okay?" Keith said, and handed his daughter a stake.

"Dad, it's a piece of wood."

"It's a stake."

By this point, Veronica's expression had gone past "incredulous" and "suspicious" and was pretty much hovering around "this has to be a joke, right?"—which was a problem, since the entire point of warning her was to make sure she took it all seriously. "You mean like a-stake-though-the-heart type of stake?" Veronica asked. "The kind you use to kill vampires?"

When at loss for a thing to say, seize on a trick of language. And an opportunity to boast in front of a college-aged daughter one wants desperately to impress. "Well, I haven't killed a vampire in years, but yes."

Part of Veronica seemed to relax, as if she had been able to convince herself that yes, he was joking, but still there was tenseness to her. Deep down, she probably could instinctively recognize when Keith was joking, and knew he wasn't joking. "Dad, there aren't any vampires."

"Aren't any in Neptune, you mean. Haven't been since you were six years old—it was one of the first things I got taken care of when I was sheriff. But, if you hadn't noticed, somebody else is behind that desk now, someone you can be damned sure doesn't believe in vampires, and I hear it from the professionals that the vampires are back."

"There are professionals? You mean like Van Helsing?" Nope. She was so not taking this seriously. Damn.

"They're all female," he answered, knowing that factoid did nothing to alleviate the ready absurdity of the situation.

Veronica nodded, a gesture of exaggerated mock-seriousness which, for the moment, could be taken as almost as useful as the real thing. At least she was listening. "So less Van Helsing and more Anita Blake, then."

"Who?"

Veronica sighed and took the stake from her father's hand. "Never mind," she said as she slipped it into her purse, quickly kissed Keith goodbye, and made for the door.

"Just remember," he interjected before she quite made her way out of it, "there are four ways to kill a vampire. Stake through the heart, beheading, fire, and sunlight. Crosses and holy water will burn it but not kill it. Understood?"

Veronica nodded, then gave a mock-salute. "Understood, sir."

Confident that, whether she believed it at the moment or not, she would remember, Keith at last gave a contented sigh as he watched his daughter leave. Raising a daughter was difficult enough in itself; raising Veronica was much more difficult still; having both vampires and Veronica in Neptune would raise the task to unprecedented levels of impossibility.

He crossed the apartment and opened a small drawer, from which he pulled out another stake and a small vial of holy water. There was no way he was going to spend the evening just sitting around when there were vampires in his city.

Kendall Casablancas stood on the roof of the Neptune Grand impatiently. Where was Dick, she wondered for the umpteenth time. It was not as if it were a question that was not often able to be asked of the boy. He was not known for his punctuality, nor for that matter for any positive quality save his wealth.

Which was positive qualities enough as far as Kendall was concerned.

Luckily, it was a warm summer night and Kendall didn't really mind waiting. She made her way to the edge of the roof and looked down. The Neptune Grand towered over Neptune, and from here she could see all the way to the city limits. All of this should be mine, she thought. One day, all of this will be. After all, it had been promised to her, had it not?

She looked down to the street below, and suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy—a rather unpleasurable emotion—for poor Cassidy. It was quite a long way down, and she couldn't imagine that falling could be a very comfortable thing to do, nor that the splat at the bottom would be exactly painless.

At long last, Dick appeared on the roof. He crossed the roof to Kendall, and gave his stepmother a quick kiss.

Well, a long kiss. A very long kiss. On the lips. With their mouths open. With tongue.

"You're late," Kendall pointed out after finally broke off the kiss. "I've been up here nearly twenty minutes."

"So?" Dick asked. "It doesn't look like the party started without me. But now the Dickmeister is here, and we can begin." He gave a little swing of hips to accentuate his point that Kendall would have paid money to be able to forget.

Kendall looked down at the street below again. "It gives me the creeps up here, considering."

A shimmer of—not quite light, not quite darkness, but of color and shape—began to appear in front of them, first just an outline, then slowly taking form, depth, a certain vibrancy of color, until a complete three-dimensional figure stood for them, distinguishable only from a living human being by the occasional flicker which would pass through the spectral image. "Think what it must be like to be me, then," Cassidy said once he had coalesced. "I'm the one who had to live through it the first time, after all. To be condemned to haunt this place for all eternity—well, it's a good thing that's not going to happen. Did you take care of what I told you to?"

Dick nodded. "Done and done."

"Piece of cake," Kendall agreed. "An idiot could have carried out your instructions, Cassidy."

"Which is precisely why I gave them to the two of you," Cassidy noted.

"Ha-ha, very funny." Kendall crossed her arms. "There was one problem."

Cassidy raised an eyebrow. "Which was?"

"Keith Mars showed up today asking why the Phoenix Land Trust was still buying property."

"Dude," said Dick. "That's so not cool."

"On the contrary, brother," Cassidy disagreed. "It was assured from the beginning that eventually the Marses would learn that the Phoenix was rising from its ashes once again. Everything is going according to plan." The ghost looked from the one living Casablancas to the other. "You understand what I need you to do tomorrow?"

"Don't sweat it, bro," Dick answered. "We've got you covered."

"Just see that you get it done," Cassidy said. "And that you're here tomorrow evening, right at sunset. On time," he added, with a pointed look at Dick.

"Okay, whatever, sure," Dick said. "Are we done here? Because I've arranged for a little booty call tonight." Oh god, he did that thing with his hips again.

"Go on, get out of here," Cassidy said with an exasperated sigh.

"Thanks, Beaver," Dick said, then turned to Kendall with a wink and a point. "And I'll hook back up with you later night."

"Oh, god," she said once he had left. "He's going to expect me to sleep with him tonight, isn't he?"

"Don't worry, Kendall," Cassidy said. "After tomorrow, we won't even need Dick anymore. I'm getting stronger, you know." He brought a ghostly to her face and she realized with a start that she could feel each finger as it stroked across her cheek. "After tomorrow night I will no longer be tied to this dismal place. The world will be my kingdom once again." His hand went insubstantial as he plunged it into her cheek, a cold shiver traveling through her as the wraithlike appendage pierced her flesh. "And if you want, Kendall, then you shall be my queen."

She struggled to concentrate on anything—anything!—but that ghostly hand as it traveled its way down her body. "You really aren't worried about Keith Mars?"

"Do you think I should be?" asked Cassidy, pausing the movement of his hand and letting it hover around the vicinity of her left breast. "What could he possibly do to harm me? I've already shuffled off this mortal coil. The question is, are you afraid of Keith Mars?"

And then he plunged that awful ghostly hand deeper, deeper as he went down, down, down. "And are you more afraid of me? I own you now, every breath you take is at my sufferance. Take it from someone who's tried it, Kendall: dying is a dismal business. So be a good girl and do as you're told.

"Do I make myself clear?"

It was all Kendall could do to nod.

Okay, this party is pretty lame," Wallace admitted.

Veronica shrugged. A lame party was better than a wild party of the Shelley Pomeroy variety, she supposed, but yeah, it was lame. "Okay," she said, "we can go if you want."

Wallace smiled noncommittally. "We can stay if you want."

"No," said Veronica, getting up. "If you're not having fun--" She turned away, but kept her eyes on Wallace, which meant she bumped right into--

Dick Casablancas.

Knocked over, Veronica fell to the ground. "I think it's definitely time to go," she announced. The last thing she wanted to do was to spend time in the same room as Dick. She'd think "especially after Beaver's death," but the truth was, there was no way to build on the degree to which it had already been the case.

Wallace helped her up, then picked up the stake which had fallen out of her purse when she fell. "The only thing I can think," he said, "is you're about to build a very small fence."

"Ha ha," said Veronica, not laughing. Great, now she'd have to explain the insanity with her father before, when she didn't understand it herself.

"My dad gave it to me," Veronica said, as she and Wallace made their way through the crowd to the door. "Something about protecting myself from vampires."

Thankfully they were right at the door when she said that last part, so the only response she had to deal with was Wallace's. "Vampires?" he asked, surprised, as they walked to the car. "Your dad has a strange sense of humor, you know."

"I know," said Veronica, thoughtfully. "But the thing is: I'm not sure he was kidding."

"You think your dad is really worried about you being attacked by vampires?" Wallace asked skeptically. "Your dad might be a lot of things, but he's usually pretty in touch with reality."

Yeah. If there was anyone who saw life the way it really was, it was Keith Mars, private investigator and former sheriff. "That's what scares me," Veronica admitted.

"And us?" said two hooded men, approaching them, as Veronica's hand automatically went for her taser, brushing against the stake in her purse. "Do we scare you?"

They attacked. Veronica tasered one of them, who went down howling, but the other grabbed Wallace and, his eyes glowing yellow--

Sank his fangs into Wallace's neck.

Veronica had had her world turned upside down many times in her life. Lilly Kane's death. Her father's recall. Her mother leaving. Shelley Pomeroy's party. Learning she might be Jake Kane's daughter.

It just happened again. Her father had been telling the truth. Vampires were real. They had just been attacked by them. One was drinking Wallace's blood.

Knowing she had no time to react this sudden paradigm shift, she dropped the taser and went for the stake. The vampire she had tasered was on the ground, still conscious but also still howling in pain, and she needed to not waste the precious seconds she had bought. Moving as quickly as she could, she spun around Wallace and, with as much force as she could manage, thrust the stake into the vampire's back around where the heart would be.

To her surprise, the stake penetrated much more easily and more deeply than she had expected, and after a moment there was nothing but dust between it and Wallace, who fell to the ground.

He needed immediate medical attention, she knew, but the other vampire was getting up on his feet and coming towards them. Veronica tried to get him with the stake as well, but he just grabbed her wrist in the air and twisted, breaking her arm. His other elbow contacted with her face and then--

Blackness.

Faith watched as Keith Mars looked down at his daughter in the hospital bed, emotions Faith knew quite well playing across his face.

"We got there just in time," she told him. "The doc said she's in critical condition, but he's hopeful she'll pull through."

The anger on Keith's face just darkened. "And Wallace? Her friend?"

Faith looked at Vi, who was better than her at that sympathy shit. "They said he lost too much blood," Vi answered. "I'm sorry."

"We'll do whatever it takes to stop this," Faith added. "I promise. As soon as we have a lead--"

She was interrupted by the ring of Keith's cell phone. "Hello?" he answered it, then listened for several seconds. "Okay," he said at last. "Meet me at my office in fifteen minutes--no, wait until dawn. Six o'clock." He closed his phone and looked at Faith and Vi. "That was Mac," the told them. "She found something."

Mac was waiting with her laptop outside Mars Investigations when they arrived. Keith unlocked the door, and then the four of them entered. As soon as she was in Mac made her way to the receptionist's desk and sat up her laptop.

"I was able to hack my way into the company email," she explained as she began calling up windows. "And look at what I found."

From: Cassidy Casablancas (
To: Kendall Casablancas ()
CC: Richard Casablancas, Jr. ()
Subject: Tomorrow Night

Kendall--

You know what needs to be done. The Neptune Grand roof, tomorrow night, 10pm. It all begins.

Oh, and bring Dick with you.

--CC

"It's dated yesterday," Mac pointed out.

"I've heard of e-mail addiction, but not being able to kick the habit from the grave is taking it a bit too far," Faith observed. "Least we know where we need to show up."

"I'm coming with you." The look of steely determination Keith wore in his eyes was one Faith recognized just as much as the sorrow and anger she had seen earlier.

She nodded. He had experience fighting vampires, and they might need the help, but mostly she knew there was no way he was taking no for an answer and respected that. "We'll meet back here, nine o'clock."

They met at Mars Investigations at nine o'clock, as agreed, the three of them: Vi, Faith, and Keith. They armed themselves in silence, speaking only when necessary, such as helping Keith pick out a sword he could wield with a minimum of training. The drive to the Neptune Grand, the ride up the elevator, and the walk up the last few flights of steps to the roof, were all just as quiet.

Kendall and Dick were already on the roof when they got up there, alongside a rather spectral semi-transparent young man. "That's enough," said Keith, the grip on his short sword firm. "It's over, Cassidy."

But Cassidy just smirked as a familiar voice called out from behind Keith, Faith, and Vi. "No, Mr. Mars," Mac said with a dry laugh. "I'm afraid it's just beginning."

Behind her, Keith saw when he turned around, were maybe two dozen hungry-looking vampires. A bolt flew from Vi's crossbow and one of their number turned to dust, but the rest charged forward and Vi dropped the crossbow and clutched her axe with both hands.

"Bring it on," Faith said, her face a portrait of fatalistic—no, nihilistic, even—determination. Keith would have preferred brazen confidence himself, and gulped as he held the sword.

Mac deftly made her way around the fray to where Dick and Kendall stood. "Why?" Keith asked her, still waiting for a vamp to get past Faith or Vi. One did almost immediately, and Keith impaled it with the sword, then beheaded it.

"Because this way I can be with Cassidy again," she said with the simple intensity of a teenaged girl mourning her dead boyfriend. Never mind that the boyfriend had been a psychotic serial killer; Keith knew in an instant there would be no reasoning with her. Besides, as Faith suffered an ugly gash to her shoulder and two more vamps rushed past her, there were more immediate things to worry about.

Still, even as Keith did his best to defend himself with his sword, he continued to watch Mac out of the corner of his eye. She had picked up a large ceremonial knife and was holding it in front of herself almost reverently. Then in a single quick and smooth movement, she lunged it into Dick's chest.

Kendall, suddenly realizing just in what capacity she was present at this ritual slaughter, quickly made her way away from Mac, but one of the vampires blocked her exit and sunk its fangs into her neck.

"I, Mac of the blood Sinclair," Mac said, projecting her voice into the night. Keith started; Mac's parents were the Mackenzies—that's where she got the nickname, even—and were about as different from the rich Sinclair as could be imagined. He didn't have much time to think about this puzzle, however, as a vamp snapped Vi's neck and a half-dozen of its kindred rushed forward.

"—do present this sacrifice of blood," Mac continued, "and offer myself as vessel to Cassidy of the blood Casablancas, so that his spirit may once again walk amidst this world in flesh."

"You don't know what you're doing," Faith called out, but she had already sustained several injuries and her voice was thick with blood. "He's using you."

But Keith recognized the expression on Mac's face as the one he had seen on countless repeat domestic violence victims. She wanted to be used.

"Oh, she knows," said Cassidy, and he was already brighter, more solid as he stepped towards Mac and then into her, a haze of glowing mystical energy surrounding the two.

Keith was doing his best to defend himself from the rampaging vampire horde, but he didn't have the strength or skill the Slayers had and already Vi was clearly dead and Faith pretty much fallen. If Keith had been in front instead of them he would have been dead in seconds. Even now, with only a few vampires left after Faith and Vi took most of their number down with them, he was pretty sure he didn't have long left to live.

Suddenly, however, Cassidy reeled back away from Mac as if repelled by an invisible force. "What!?" he shouted angrily as the glowing energy began to solidify into another spectral figure.

Keith watched in amazement—as he pushed a vampire off himself and decapitated it—as the second figure settled into a form at least as familiar as the first had been. Even without the teeny green-and-white Neptune High pep squad outfit the ghost wore or the grotesque head wound it sported Keith would have been able to recognize it in an instant as Lilly Kane.

"Not you!" Cassidy shouted at Lilly, his ghostly voice echoing. "This is none of your business."

"You hurt my friend," Lilly pointed out, her expression that of pure vindictiveness and malice. "And I'm not alone." Behind her, Keith could make out the faintest outline of more ghosts, so faded they were just barely identifiable as Cassidy's victims: Meg Manning, Marcos Oliveres, Betina Marone. "No," Cassidy said, taking a step back.

"You think you're all powerful, and you've been a ghost hardly a month. You're still bound to this pathetic place, even." Lilly was clearly relishing her position of power as she stepped towards Cassidy. "Well, as someone who's figured out a lot more of the tricks of the trade than you, let me say to you: Go. To. Hell."

Cassidy screamed as a vortex of light opened up behind him. Idly he tried to escape its vacuum as it inexorably sucked him in closer until he was lost within it. The, a second later, it was gone.

The ghostly figures behind Lilly faded, leaving Lilly and Mac standing next to each other, the dead body of Dick Casablancas at their feet.

The vampires who had surrounded Keith now looked at each other, uncertain what to do now that their boss was gone. "Boo," said Lilly, and they fled. Mac just stood there, staring out into space with a dazed expression on her face.

"Are you alright, Sheriff?" Lilly asked, the ghost already bent over the prostrate forms of the two Slayers.

"I think I broke my leg," he said, feeling somewhat awkward having a conversation with a ghost. Still he dragged himself over and joined Lilly in examining Faith and Vi. "Thank you."

Vi was clearly dead, but Faith still had a pulse. "Her Slayer healing is already working," Lilly said, "but her spirit has already departed her body. Did you know her name?"

Keith blinked. "Faith," he answered,

"Her last name?"

Keith shook his head. "She gave Lehane, but I'm pretty sure that was an alias."

Lilly nodded. "Let's hope this works then."

She stood up and, her ghostly voice projecting into the night, said, "I, Lilly of the blood Kane, accept this sacrifice of blood and take Faith of the blood Slayer as my vessel so that my spririt may once again walk amidst the world in flesh."

And with that Lilly plunged into Faith and Keith was left surrounded by four fallen bodies, one of which still drew breath, and a decidedly vacant Cindy Mackenzie.

He took out his cell phone and called 911.

"She's awake," an unfamiliar male voice said.

"Come back," answered a female voice. "Let her father be there."

Veronica opened her eyes to see, indeed, Keith Mars staring back at her. She was in a hospital bed, she realized. "What happened?" she asked, even as the memories slowly came back to her.

Vampires.

"How much do you remember?" Keith prompted.

Veronica looked doubtfully as the other two occupants of the hospital room, who stood in the corner watching the father-daughter reunion. One was a young woman about Veronica's age with long dark hair; the other was a man a few years older with an eye patch.

"This is Dawn Summers and Xander Harris from the Council of Watchers," Keith introduced them, understanding her concern. "You can talk freely in front of them."

"It was vampires," she said, and was relieved to see the expressions of the two strangers didn't change. "We were attacked by vampires." A horrible thought occurred to her. "Wallace?"

Keith frowned, and that was all it took for Veronica to already know the answer. "He's dead," her father said.

She felt her heart clench up. Another one of her friends lost. How many of the people around her—Lilly, Meg, Beaver—were going to be dead before all this was over? She had already come too close with her father.

But Keith looked pensive, glancing at Dawn and Xander and back at Veronica. "There's something else," he said slowly, and she braced herself for more bad news. "It's about Lilly."

The Watcher with the eye patch, Xander, pushed Veronica's wheelchair (she could walk perfectly fine, thank you very much, but the hospitals were always so paranoid) through the hospital down to the PT area. He stopped the wheelchair in front of a basketball half-court where a brunette about his age was shooting hoops. Every single one of her throws went in, no matter where she stood on the court or what else she was doing at the time. She was dressed in a pair of very short gym shorts and a tight-fitting midriff-baring athletic top.

"Hey," she said when she saw Xander. "You want to play?"

Xander just shook his head, his face a pale white as he mumbled out a "I'll just be over here holler if you need me" and went into the next room.

The woman just shrugged. "Every time those Watcher guys see me they always act like they've seen a ghost. Which I guess I was until just recently but clearly I got better." And she shot another three-point shot.

"Lilly?" Veronica asked, looking up at the woman from her wheelchair uncertainly. She looked nothing like Lilly, but the smile was hers, and there was something else, something about the way she carried herself.

"Hey, Veronica," the woman said, and the cadence was Lilly's own even if the voice was different, deeper. "I have to say I really liked my old body, but this one is pretty smoking hot too. Plus—look at this." She crouched down, then sprung up into the air, flawlessly executing a double backflip. "Awesome, huh?" You should see what I can do with a running start. And that's without any training."

Veronica just stared at what she still could only half believe was her—formerly dead!—best friend. "Is it really you?"

Lilly just smiled—and, no, Veronica couldn't deny that it was definitely Lilly's smile. "You better believe it," she answered. "And you can thank me for saving your life any time you want."

"Saving my life?" Veronica asked, confused.

Lilly shot another three-point shot. "Who was it that made sure you didn't get on that bus?" she reminded Veronica.

Veronica blanched. "I didn't tell anybody about that," she whispered, then remembered all the times she had felt as if Lilly had been there, guiding her in the quest to find Lilly's killer. And Lilly really had, Veronica realized, she'd really been there. All those moments had been real.

And here was Lilly just as real, really here again, in the flesh even if it was a very difficult flesh than last she had worn. "I've missed you so much," she whispered to her friend, embracing Lilly, pulling herself up out of the wheelchair, hospital regulations be damned. "Don't leave me again."

"I won't," promised Lilly. "I never did."

"I've worked everything out with the hospital," Dawn told Keith before she and Xander left. "There are still people working here who remember the time before you were sheriff. You won't be asked any difficult questions."

She paused. "We'll send a Watcher to train Lilly as soon as we can. Preferably . . . someone who didn't know Faith."

Keith frowned. "I didn't know Faith or Vi for very long, but they were good women. I'm sorry for your loss." He knew what it was like to lose a man in the field, under one's command.

Dawn's expression was a mix of sorrow and some other emotion Keith couldn't identify. "They were both unique, each in her own way," she said. "They can't be replaced. Thank you." Her features hardened. "I'm sorry for your loss as well."

Keith nodded. It was always hardest when kids were caught in the crossfires. "Wallace was a good kid, and will be missed." He paused. "And Mac . . . ?"

"She'll be better in our care," Dawn answered, back to business. "Acting as a conduit to the spirit world is a heavy experience. I promise you we'll take good care of her, but she may never be herself again."

"Understood." After what Cassidy had done in life to her, that may well have been true even if the supernatural hadn't impinged upon their lives.

Dawn turned to leave, then rotated back. "The Council is restructuring right now," she said, "and we can always use more good Watchers. If you or your daughter is interested—" She pulled out a business card.

Keith took the card but shook his head. "I'll pass it onto Veronica," he promised her, "but human evil has to be dealt with, too."

"I understand," said Dawn, and Keith could see that she did. "But if you ever change your mind. . . ." She turned away, leaving Keith alone.

Dawn Summers, the card read. High Watcher, Watcher's Council of Britain, then a London address and a UK telephone number.

"Ms. Summers," he called out after her, and Dawn turned back, looking at him. "I wish we had met under happier circumstances," he told her, "but . . . thank you. For everything."

Dawn Summers' smile was sad as she turned away again and left.

The End