To note: T and Scott Campbell were also both created by Susan Harris, though these particular iterations are mine.

X X X X X

Despite the situation, Jessica Tate laughed. "Now I know you're my daughter."

"Because of vampires?"

"No, silly. Because of the eep."

"The eep?" Willow asked.

"Yes. I've been eeping when I was surprised since I was a small child. I've done it so much people thought I was a robin. They'd look around and say, "Where's the robin?" And then they'd see it was me and say, "Oh. It's just Jessica being surprised again." So, you see, eeping runs in the family."

"Are you afraid of frogs?" Willow asked.

"No. Except on the dinner plate. Disgusting." She shuddered." They make you think they're chicken legs, but they're really not." After a second, she said, "So I heard you say something about vampires?"

"No! Vampires? Why would I have said vampires? Everyone knows vampires don't exist! No, I said umpires!" Willow said

"I see . . . so you just told your girlfriend to go kill some umpires?"

"Um – yes?"

"Hate baseball that much, do you?" Jessica asked.

"Yes. Baseball! Horrible sport! Icky!"

Jessica said, slightly sternly, "Willow . . ."

"Yeah. I said vampires." Willow looked at her birth mother nervously.

"I thought so, I mean, I may be old, but my hearing's still good." She moved over and sat next to Willow on the couch. "I was going to ask you about your life but I think maybe I need to start with this."

Willow opened her mouth and closed it again. She hadn't anticipated this, not in her wildest imaginings. When they knocked on the front door of the Tate mansion she hadn't even been sure that the people behind the door would even want to see her; despite that she hadn't been given up entirely voluntarily that still didn't mean they hadn't moved on. But they hadn't, or at least Jessica hadn't, and Willow didn't want to give that up so soon by mentioning what she and Kennedy did for a living.

"If you're worried that I won't believe you, dear, you can relax," Jessica said. "After all, we fought the devil in this very house."

Okay, that hadn't been anything close to what Willow was expecting to hear. "What?" she said. Never mind that they weren't even sure that the actual devil, as in Satan himself, even existed, but that her birth mother and her family had fought him?

"Oh, yes," Jessica said. "Timmy – I know he wants to be called T now but he's always be Timmy to me – Timmy's father was a priest who left the priesthood to marry Corinne, and then Corinne got pregnant and the pregnancy only lasted a couple of months and then Timmy was born and he was so beautiful but it turned out that somehow Satan was possessing him. First he just started moving things around the room, trapping Benson under a crib, and so on, but then he started doing a lot more until finally Tim – Corinne's husband – came home and they decided to try to exorcise him. Me and Tim and Corinne and Jodie and Benson tried, but something didn't work and the devil threw Tim out the window! But he landed on some bushes so he was fine. And then Satan told us all we needed to do to make him stop was to admit that he was the one in control and then he'd stop torturing us and maybe even give us things. And we told him no, that he would never get my family, we would never accept him, no matter what he did. And then he left and Timmy was normal again. So you see dear, after dealing with the devil himself, vampires really aren't that much of a stretch."

Willow's head was reeling during and after Jessica's story. Was it possible? There were spells she could cast to find out, but her admittedly rusty aura reading skills hadn't noticed there was anything particularly evil about this place, at least, no more so than any other house. The only way to really find out was to check Timmy himself.

As for whether it could be Satan – again, no concrete evidence that he actually existed, but there were certainly enough major powers that could have done something like this who would have been perfectly willing to cash in on the legend.

The level of babble Jessica had thrown out, though – definitely related. They were definitely related.

"Okay," Willow said. "I'll tell you the truth." Well, what of it I can fit into five minutes, anyway. "But first tell me something. You say vampires aren't that much of a stretch. Well, what do you feel about witches . . .?"

X X X X X

For the dead, Dunn's River was kind of dead. Demons, she found, but not one of them doing anything more harmful to the public good than getting loudly and publicly drunk, and if Slayers started doing anything about that they'd never do anything else.

If she started drifting closer to New York City, she'd probably find something – Dunn's River was one of those places that was yet wasn't a suburb of the place – but that would take her too far out of range, which Kennedy wasn't going to do at this point unless she ran across a literal screaming emergency.

The first cemetery she'd run across on her patrol had been one where the most recent date of death was sometime in the late 19th century. She'd given it the once-over anyway just in case anyone was pulling a Spike and making themselves at home in a crypt, but no dice. The crypts hadn't been disturbed in decades except by mice and dust.

She was headed back when she saw another one – and this one had evidence of recent use, and recently dug graves, for that matter. Which still didn't necessarily mean vamps, but it was still worth a check.

Twenty minutes later, she was about to give up when she heard faint sounds of a struggle somewhere in the distance – behind a small stand of trees. She pulled put her stake and ran towards it, stopping just before she got there and peering around a tree to see what was going on.

Vampires. Finally. They were attacking a guy who looked like he was maybe Willow's age –

Or trying to, anyway. They couldn't lay a hand on him, which was difficult to believe for any ordinary guy unless the vamps were total rookies and the guy was Captain America, which this dude definitely wasn't. It was just like they kept -- missing him, somehow.

"You wouldn't like me even if you caught me," he said. "I don't think I'd taste very good."

"We'll be the judge of that!" One of the vampires said.

Okay, enough was enough. The guy was lucky, or talented, or something, but Kennedy couldn't let them actually catch him, which they would eventually.

When one of the vampires got close, she jumped out and staked it in one motion.

One of the other two saw what Kennedy had done and leapt to attack; it wasn't quite a rookie, but it wasn't smart enough to think "Slayer!" either. It was dust in about thirty seconds.

That left the one that was biting the guy on the neck.

Shit!

Kennedy moved forward, but before she could reach them the vamp staggered back, tried to spit out the blood, and said, "What--?"

"I told you you wouldn't like me," the guy said as the vampire fell to the ground, exploding into dust before it got there. Then he turned to Kennedy and said, "Nice job."

"Thanks," Kennedy said confusedly. "You too. You part-demon or something?"

"Or something," he said. "I'm Scott. Scott Campbell. Nice to meet you . . ."

"Kennedy."

They shook hands, and Scott said, "Okay, Kennedy. Want to grab a coffee and we can swap what we're doing out here?"

"Just to let you know, I'm gay," Kennedy said as they walked out of the graveyard.

"Nice to know, and if I were planning on hitting on you I'd be disappointed," he said. "I have a girlfriend. This is just the first time I've ever seen anyone out here but me and the vampires, so I was just wondering who you were."

"Likewise. Let's go get that coffee."

X X X X X

Since Jessica believes in Satan, will she believe in vampires? How about witches? Will Willow want her to believe in them? Now that Kennedy's met Scott Campbell, will she learn the source of his weird abilities and how his blood poisons vampires? If it's the coffee, shouldn't they get tea instead? These questions and many others will be answered in the next chapter of this fic!