They started coming the next day.
Hank and Joyce had been distracted all day, caught up in their worries about Mr. Giles's visit and yet unwilling to accept it as any more than concern that a crackpot might be stalking their daughter. Buffy, meanwhile, milked their distress for all it was worth, getting ice cream for breakfast from her mother and getting driven in to school by her father for the first time since her first day of school.
She wasn't worried, though. She was special. "Kimberly?" she asked at recess. "Are you a slayer?"
Kimberly shrugged. "I don't know. What's a slayer?"
Nicki didn't know, either. Neither did Lakisha, or Jason, or even Sarah. Ricky said that he was a slayer, but Ricky always lied about these things.
At recess, she watched her friends play from the side of the schoolyard, feeling very superior. Buffy was part of something big, something grownup that made people come from England to see her. People like…
She squinted across the yard at the figure standing in the corner near the fence. It almost looked like the woman from the night before, who had been with Mr. Giles. As she watched, the woman turned to stare steadily at her, long enough for her to make eye contact with Buffy. Buffy blinked, and the woman was gone, so completely that she wondered if she'd imagined her.
Later, she'd received a note from the office informing her that her father would be picking her up, too, so she sat patiently on the stairs to the school and waited for him to arrive. She wasn't surprised when he didn't come until every other kid had been picked up. Her father was always like that.
What did surprise her was when the enormous horned creature came hurtling toward her, slavering viscous yellow mucus from what was probably its mouth and roaring deafeningly as she screamed in horror.
She stumbled away from it, letting the terror overwhelm her and carry her away from the school at a faster speed than she'd ever run before, twisting midway to see if the monster was following her. Its mouth twisted into some sort of grotesque sneer that made her shudder with fear and keep running. TV monsters never looked like that!
She passed the fence surrounding the schoolyard when she was struck by an idea. Lacing her hands between the chains, she jumped upwards, finding purchase against the side of the fence. Her small feet found footholds between the metal chains, carrying her up the screen and stopping only when she reached the barbed wire at the top.
Below her, the monster yanked at the barrier, and she discovered something horrifying. It couldn't break the metal fence, but it could bend and shake it, sending Buffy flying. She grasped blindly as she lost her hold, screaming in agony as her hands wrapped around the sharp barbed wire.
Gotta get over the top, gotta get over the top… Determination overpowered the pain, and she pulled herself higher, ignoring her cut and bleeding hands. The barbed wire tore at her new jeans, sliced at the soles of her shoes, but only once she'd passed over and landed safely on the other side did she allow herself to recognize the pain she was in. She watched with wide eyes as the monster howled in fury and tried uselessly to tear down the fence, huddling in the back corner and letting out gasping, frightened sobs as the monster gave one last shove at the fence and finally retreated.
And that was where Hank found her twenty minutes later.
"You did this!" Hank shouted into the phone. "I won't respond to blackmail!"
Buffy curled against her mother, still shaking from her earlier experience. Her hands and legs were tightly bandaged in so much white gauze that she looked like a mummy, but she still felt like she was bleeding everywhere, like the monster would hunt her down and take her…
"I can't accept that!" Hank was growling now, and Buffy hid herself under her mother's arm.
"Enough!" Joyce hissed at her husband. "Take it outside! You're scaring Buffy."
Hank rolled his eyes at her, but shut himself into his study with a half-hearted grunt of irritation. Buffy raised anxious eyes to her mother. "It was really strong, Mommy. What if it can get into our house?"
Joyce stroked her hair. "Don't worry. Your father is talking to that Mr. Giles, and he's going to take care of it. Okay?"
"Okay." Buffy was silent again as she thought about it. "I don't want to go to school tomorrow," she informed her mother.
"I don't want you to go, either," Joyce agreed.
Hank emerged from his study, looking annoyed. "That bastard."
"Hank!" Joyce said, aghast at his language. Buffy wasn't as shocked. Hank said things like that all the time when he drove with her.
Hank slammed his phone on the table. "He says that since we're not sending Buffy to him, they've removed the protection over her. As if they can blackmail us! Don't they know who I am?" He clenched his jaw. "I'll have a lawsuit on them by morning, I swear-"
"And what are you going to say?" Joyce asked tersely. "A crazy British man set a monster on me? You'll be the laughingstock of the entire legal community."
"What else am I supposed to do?" Hank demanded. "Dammit, Joyce, our little girl was almost killed tonight!"
Buffy started to cry. Not that she didn't want to anyway, but she also found that crying on cue was the best way to separate her parents and end their fights. And immediately, Joyce gathered Buffy into her arms worriedly. "What's wrong, sweetie?"
Buffy sniffled and peeked up at her mother's concerned face. "I want to go to bed now."
She dreamt of demons and vampires all night, until she climbed into her parents' bed and snuggled into the comforting embrace of her mother.
It took another two days before Buffy was ready to go back to school, and only an hour after she'd left before the next demon attacked. Melanie had invited her over, and Buffy had almost said no, but Melanie was the new coolest kid in the class and she had the special edition Barbie Dreamhouse. Even monsters couldn't keep her away…no matter how enormous and nasty they were.
"Meet me in the yard," Melanie ordered, opening the refrigerator. "I'll get the juice."
Buffy stepped out into the dimly lit backyard, smiling at the woman who was seated at the patio table. "Are you Melanie's mommy?"
The woman glanced at her with utter boredom. "Yeah, sure."
There was something about the way the woman looked at her that made Buffy's blood run cold. She edged back toward the door, but before she was halfway there, the woman was blocking her path and smiling with a predatory leer. "I don't think so."
"MELANIE!" But the woman was getting closer, and abruptly, her face distorted. Her eyes turned bright and yellow, her lips curled up to reveal long, ugly fangs, and her forehead crunched into something bumpy and inhuman.
Melanie came to the door, saw the woman, and ran away screaming.
And it was then that Buffy decided that Melanie wasn't that cool, after all.
She bolted, the monster- the vampire¬¬- following at a slower pace, and she instinctively knew that the vampire could run faster. She was toying with Buffy, playing with her like some of the big kids did her classmates in the playground, watching them flee before catching up and stealing their toys.
Buffy felt a surge of rage at that thought. She might get eaten today, but at least she'd get eaten on her own terms! She turned to face the vampire, hands still scarred from her last supernatural encounter clenching into tight fists.
The vampire stopped, its amused golden eyes glowing in the dark. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty," she purred, stalking forward.
"Stay back!" Buffy warned, grabbing the first thing she saw. "I'm gonna hurt you!"
The woman laughed. "That's a plastic baseball bat, sweet little snack." She moved with a surge of speed until she was grasping the bat with Buffy, and she easily pried Buffy's trembling fingers off of the bat to drop it. "You smell divine," she breathed, moving even closer.
Across the street, a motion-sensitive light went on, and both Buffy and the vampire looked up, startled. The woman with Mr. Giles- and now Buffy was positive it was her- stood silently, framed in the light, her watchful eyes fixed on Buffy and the vampire.
The vampire spat in disdain. "Figures." With a shove, she dropped Buffy to the ground and retreated, leaving Buffy gaping in wonder at her second chance at life.
"I want to do it," she told her mother the next day, after the saggy-skinned demon with the funny tentacles had accosted her during recess and vanished when the other kids had noticed it. "I want to become a slayer."
"Buffy!" her mother gasped, putting an automatic hand on her forehead to check her temperature. "Do you know what you're saying?"
Buffy shrugged. "I want to be able to fight back," she said simply, remembering the vampire, its teeth on her neck and feelings of helplessness threatening to overcome her.
Her mother sighed heavily. "Your father is trying to convince Mr. Giles to assign you a full-time bodyguard. You're going to be fine."
But she wasn't, not when they awakened to the smell of fire and found a dozen little gremlins on their lawn, laughing gleefully as they forced the Buffy and her family from their home. Her father rammed a few with his Bentley as they screeched away to a hotel to spend the night while the firefighters fought to preserve their house.
"The firemen don't know how to call Mr. Giles," Buffy mumbled tiredly from the backseat.
"I'm sure they'll be fine without him, honey," Hank said, terse fingers clenching the wheel until they turned white.
Buffy slouched down lower in her seat. "Whatever."
In the lobby of the hotel, she thought she saw the woman again, but she was gone before Buffy could point her out to her parents. Instead, she let her mother hurry her into a small room adjoined to the main one they reserved and lay down in a futile attempt to get some sleep.
No sooner had her eyes closed when there was a sound like a muted explosion and, in a flash of sparks, a hideous creature appeared in the center of her room, striding forward as she sat up and gathered the covers to her chest in fright.
It was humanoid in shape but for the shadowed, skeletal pattern that decorated its head and the sharp eyes that seemed to bore right through her. "Vengeance has been called, and vengeance shall I wreak!" the demon roared, and Buffy flinched.
"DADDYYYYYY!"
Hank Summers flung open the door from his room, recoiling at the sight of the demon. To his credit, he didn't flee, but instead ran swiftly to Buffy to stand between her and the monster. "Stay away from my daughter!" he growled.
The creature moved closer, her lip curling in a sneer. "I am Anyanka, patron saint to the scorned woman," she snapped. "Away!" She extended a hand, and Hank went flying across the room.
"I'll call the Watchers Academy on you," Hank threatened, and Buffy noted with relief that the monster backed up on that.
"You wouldn't," the demon hissed.
"I know Rupert Giles's number by heart," Hank informed it, lifting the hotel room phone as he spoke.
With a soft curse, the demon vanished in a whirl of smoke, and Buffy breathed a sigh of relief.
Her father turned to stare at her with a sudden sadness. "Buffy…"
"I know," she whispered, her heart pounding. "I know."
"You'll be able to send letters back and forth," Mr. Giles assured her as he helped her into the car. His male associate heaved the last of her luggage into the trunk. "You might be homesick at first, but the training for potential slayers is quite rigorous, and you'll find that it often distracts from family worries."
"Potential slayers?" Buffy repeated curiously, but then her parents were coming out of the house and she had to run to them and give them one last hug.
"Make me proud," her mother murmured, wrapping her in her arms one last time. Buffy didn't cry. She was going to have to be strong if she was going to be a slayer. Instead, she stood smartly and extended a hand to her father.
He shook it, bemused, his eyes still hooded with worry. "Goodbye, Buffy-pie."
"Bye, Daddy," she said, kissing him on the cheek when he bent down for it. "I'll write to you."
And with one last hug for her mother, she headed for Mr. Giles's car.
This time, they had another passenger, the mysterious woman who now sat in the front seat, tapping manicured fingernails on the dashboard impatiently.
"Hello," Buffy said uncertainly.
"Ah, you've arrived!" Mr. Giles smiled warmly at the woman. "Allow me to introduce a friend of mine." He nodded to her. "Buffy, this is Anya. She isn't a teacher, but you'll probably see her at the Academy from time to time."
"He means he's shagging her," the other man informed them.
"Ethan!" Mr. Giles said reprovingly. Ethan smirked unrepentantly and took the seat beside Anya.
Mr. Giles joined Buffy in the backseat. "Are you ready?"
And there was nothing to do but nod.