"It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper." - Jerry Seinfeld

"What am I doing here?" asked Mirany, tossing the magazine down and glaring at Cordelia. "What is the point of this?"

"We're trying to make you a girl," said Cordelia simply.

"You know what. I want to be a guy," said Mirany. "In guy magazines, they don't put stupid advice in them because guys think they know everything they need to know. Girls seem to think they don't know a thing, so they want to know every stupid piece of information they possibly can. Men just think in simple terms. All they think is 'I know what I'm doing, show me something naked.'"

I burst out laughing.

"Thank you Mirany for summing me up in ten words," I chuckled.

"Nine actually, but sure, no probs," said Mirany.

Cordelia was scowling.

"It's not pointless information," she said firmly. "Angel tell her."

"It's pointless information," I confirmed.

"There are fifty-thousand better things I could be doing at the moment," Mirany muttered, picking up the newspaper. "I could be training or fighting vampires or even, ugh, doing taxes. Why am I...here?"

I looked up at her as her tone of voice completely changed. She was staring at the paper in horror.

"Oh my god. It's them."

She looked up.

"Didn't anyone even bother to look at this this morning?" she asked.

"Of course I did, there was nothing interesting. No demonic sounding deaths today. Only human ones," said Cordelia.

Mirany looked like she was going to strangle her. I ran a hand through her hair as I looked over her shoulder.

"Mirany, somebody got kidnapped. It's just another human thing. I'm not getting involved," I said.

"Angel, I know these people. They're Watchers," she said. "They have a son. He's a telepath. It's the same sort of thing as mum and dad."

I took a closer look at the article. The more I read, the more closely linked it seemed to Mirany's own case. The paper didn't say it, but if Mirany was right, then they were both Watchers, and they had a son with special abilities. The kidnappers had just appeared at the door as friends of the family, had been let in, then had left without a trace except for the boy, who was now orphaned, with no other living relatives.

"This is too close for comfort," I muttered. "Do you know where he lives?"

Mirany nodded.

"What are they doing?" she asked. "Why? Why us? Why not us? Why our parents?"

"We're going to find out," I said softly, kissing her cheek and pulling her to her feet. "Trust me."

Mirany didn't look quite as sure as I sounded.

...

"Brydan?"

Mirany banged on the door.

"Brydan, open up. Please. It's Mirany! Brydan, come on."

"Mirany, he probably doesn't want to talk," I said reasonably. "He's probably been talking to press all day and just wants to be left alone."

"He wouldn't just ignore me," said Mirany. "Brydan!"

She banged on the door again and it finally opened. The boy was the same age as her, possibly slightly younger, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He had sandy blonde hair and was just shorter than Mirany. Bottle green eyes shone through the fringe that fell down around his face, but sadness could still be seen in them.

"Mirany, I'm really not in the mood..." he started, but Mirany completely ignored him, walking in.

"Invite the vampire inside, be a good boy," she said carelessly.

Brydan glared at me, not saying a word.

"He's a good vampire Bry," said Mirany. "Trust me."

"I know he is," said Brydan. "Still doesn't mean I have to like him."

"He sounds just like you," I said to Mirany.

"Brydan, invite him in," said Mirany, sounding bored.

Brydan muttered a very resentful 'come in' and I followed them into the living room.

"Mirany, why are you here?" Brydan snapped.

"Hey, there's no need to get snarly with me. We're both in the same boat."

"No we're not! Don't say that! My parents aren't dead!" Brydan snapped. "I know it!"

I swallowed. A volatile telepath was no better than a volatile Mirany.

"Brydan, we want to help find them," I said soothingly. "Can you tell us anything about the people that took your parents?"

"If they even were people," said Mirany.

"They were vampires, yeah," said Brydan, surveying me with caution and deep rage, obviously trying to decide whether I was friend or foe. "They tricked me into inviting them inside."

"Why didn't you do your mind reading thing to see who they were?" asked Mirany. "Or to stop them?"

"I don't mind read every single person I meet! I don't like being a telepath Mirany!"

I could tell that something was obviously coming to a head between them so I took over.

"You were probably fairly shocked, but anything you can tell us would be helpful," I said.

Brydan stared at his feet.

"The main one, the vampire that was running the thing, he told me to tell the Slayer that they're coming back," he said, not meeting Mirany's eyes.

"What?" Mirany snapped. "Why didn't you tell me straight away? You know I'm the Slayer Brydan! Why would you keep that from me? We could have found your parents already!"

Mirany! Shut up! Wait outside if you're going to go off your head.

"There's no point in doing the mind thing. I can hear you. You project to me as well when you project to her. And don't worry. She goes off her head regularly at me. I'd be more upset if she wasn't," said Brydan. "That would mean something very bad was going down."

"Something very bad is going down," Mirany muttered.

"Sorry, I forgot you're a telepath," I said. He was unnervingly skilled. "Anything else?"

Brydan nodded and got to his feet.

"Wait here," he muttered and left.

"Just keep your mouth shut, alright?" I told Mirany. "When you said you knew him I didn't think it's be in a mutual dislike."

"Brydan and I have our problems, yes, but we don't dislike each other. He's a really good friend," said Mirany.

"Then prove it. Try to make an effort to be nice," I said.

Brydan came back.

"There was a woman with them," he said. "She was human. I was in shock, I didn't even think of reading her mind."

He handed me a sheet of a paper with an exception portrait of the woman in question. Mirany and I both stared at it then up at each other.

"I knew we couldn't trust her," I muttered. "Yet another reason why I'm glad I didn't let her help us."

"This doesn't make any sense. Why would she rescue me if she had it in for me?" Mirany asked.

"Gain your trust," said Brydan.

We both looked up at him.

"That's what I would do," said Brydan. "If I wanted to get close to someone for evil purposes, I could gain their trust then backstab them."

"Which is just one of the reasons why we don't hang out," said Mirany.

"He's right," I said. "Easiest ploy to pull really, particularly with you."

"What?" Mirany growled.

"Once you trust, you trust completely," I explained. "It wouldn't be hard to get away with things that could otherwise be explained as strange and not at all good."

"But, I don't trust easily," said Mirany.

"She saved your life," I pointed out. "You trust me and all I did was give you emotions."

Mirany grunted.

"Guess we better pay a visit to dear old Kay," she muttered.

"Brydan, I want you to stay at Mirany's for a few days. See if we can't sort this out," I said.

"No!" the both of them said indignantly.

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself," Brydan snapped. "Her place is no safer than mine when it comes to them. They've been invitied inside as well."

"True, but there are a lot more people at Mirany's than there are here," I said. "And a whole lot more places to hide if it comes down to it. Please. I want your whole family to come out of this unscathed."

...

"Oh dear," I said unenthusiastically as we drove up in front of Kay's house. "Something's gone wrong here."

The door had come off it's hinges, resting at an odd angle in the doorway, and a few of the windows had been smashed.

"Good," Mirany snapped. "Let's go and get on with this then."

"Wait," I said. "Let's check it out. There may actually be something of importance in there."

"Importance," Mirany scoffed as I covered myself from the sun. "Nothing in that place could be of any importance to me."

I rolled my eyes and pulled her out of the car, stepping carefully around the door and into the dark house.

"Man, this place doesn't look like it's been lived in for years," Mirany muttered, running a finger along a windowsill and showing me the large dust pile it had collected.

"That's not possible," I said. "You were here. I remember coming here."

"Sure you didn't take a wrong turn?"

"Yes," I said firmly. "It was definitely here."

"Well either we're both losing our minds, or we've been tricked," said Mirany.

"If that doesn't tell you something about her guilt, I dunno what will," I muttered.

"How about this?"

Mirany had walked into the next room and I followed her. My mouth fell open slightly. The room was covered in pictures of people. Completely covered. Walls, ceiling, windows, door. It was a stalker's dream room, except that the pictures were of different people, of different ages, races, appearances.

"What's the betting that they're all Watchers?" I asked, staring around.

Mirany pulled a couple of photos off the wall.

"These are Brydan's parents," she said.

"They look farily recent compared to some of these," I commented, looking at the crisp, bright photos then at a group of seriously faded ones.

"This has bene going on for years," said Mirany. "But why?"

I was beginning to see a pattern. The walls were covered with Watchers, but the ceiling was covered with much younger people, some teenagers, some small children.

"Somehow I'm thinking that you and Brydan aren't the only ones with special abilities born into Watcher families," I muttered.

Mirany was silent and I drew my eyes away from the pictures on the ceiling to see what she was looking at. From what I could tell by the appearance of all the photos, she was looking at some of the very first ones.

"My parents," she whispered. "All of these people...they were targetted."

"I would assume that most of them were killed," I said. "Brydan's were probably only kidnapped so that he would get a message to you."

Mirany was seething.

"I'm going to kill her," she said fervently. "I'm going to rip her apart!"

I took her around the waist and tried to shift her towards the door, but she wouldn't budge.

"Mirany, let's go," I said. "Come on. We have everything we need."

Her eyes were still fixed on the photos of her parents. She was fumbling in her pockets.

"Mirany, we should go," I said firmly.

Mirany ignored me and pulled a lighter from her pocket, igniting it and holding it up to the corner of the paper.

"This will stop," she told the flames as they took to the paper immediately. "We're going to make this stop."

I'd never seen her more determined before. I still couldn't get her to shift. The flames began to eat into the rest of the room.

"Mirany!"

She seemed to jerk back to her senses and let me pull her out of the burning room and back to the car. There was silence most of the way back to her house before she finally spoke.

"Why would anybody do that?" she asked quietly. "It's not like you can build an army when they're all against you. Why?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe in her own wacked out mind Kay thinks that she's actually doing good. Makin gyou stronger or something. Maybe she's just psycho."

Mirany paused.

"Why would someone hire assassins then come along to watch them kidnap someone?" she asked.

I raised an eyebrow. I hadn't actually thought that it might have been weird that Kay had come along to watch.

"I...that's a very good question," I said.

"What if she didn't have a choice?" asked Mirany. "What if she's being set up by someone else? Someone with way more brains than we originally thought?"

She seemed to be coming to some sort of conclusion.

"Someone who's been trained to think about things like this. Someone who might get others to teach their children to think differently so that when they attacked the parents, the children wouldn't think outside the square."

"Someone like a Watcher?" I asked, pulling up outside the mansion and turning to look at her.

Mirany stared at me.

"A Watcher with connections like that...I only know of two," she said shakily.

"Your parents," I agreed.

"If they faked their own death, they could never be caught, particularly if the people who are most likely to catch them saw it happen," said Mirany.

I could see exactly where she was coming from, and I had to agree that it was a pretty solid lead. The Hunter's certainly had the skill to fake their own death. But it did mean that Mirany would ahve to change her whole mind set. It meant I would have to change my whole mind set. Mirany's parents had been good people. Why would they be killing off or kidnapping Watchers? It made no sense.

But motive was the last thing to worry about right now. Finding Mirany's parents, if they were still alive, would probably provide us with a motive anyway. Mirany seemed to realise what this meant.

"Oh god," she muttered.

I took her hands in mine.

"Mirany, we can forget this conversation," I said. "There are other lines we can pursue."

Mirany shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "No, we...we have to do this."

She didn't look happy about it, I wasn't too crash hot about it either, but we both knew it was the right thing to do.

"Alright then," I said. "Let's put that super computer of yours to good use."

...

"What the hell do you mean, they could still be alive?" Lilah snapped.

"I mean just that Lilah," said Mirany. "It's the only explanation that makes sense."

"This is just...this is ridiculous," said Wesley.

"Wesley, think about it," I said. "It does make sense, and it's certainly not impossible for them to pull it off."

Lilah was scowling.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"I need to link computers," said Mirany. "I want as much power as possible."

"And you want my help doing...?" asked Wesley.

"I need you to call every single Watcher you know," I said. "Anything that you can find out is good."

"We'll get right on it," said Wesley.

"Send Connor over," said Mirany suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

I had gotten the vibe that Mirany was just as keen to avoid Connor as Connor was to avoid her.

"I need him," she said. "He knows how to work technology much better than you do."

She gestured at all the computers around.

"Fair point," I muttered, hanging up on Wesley.

Lilah sighed.

"If we link interfaces, I'd be jeopardising my entire career," she said.

"Lilah! This our parents!" said Mirany indignantly.

"Fine," said Lilah. "I'll connect with you but I won't do anything else on this computer. That way they can come to the conclusion that you just hacked in."

"You better be coming around here then," said Mirany.

"Do I really have a choice?" asked Lilah pointedly, turning off the camera and sending the huge screen black.

"Right," Mirany muttered, pulling the gloves she used to control the computer on. "Mark and Tanya Hunter. Where are you hiding?"

She was shaking slightly as she pointed at two different computer screens, flicking her fingers and sending the images to the huge screen, then she paused, staring at one of the now blank screens. I hugged her close around the waist.

"This is hard, I know, but you can do this," I said. "I know you can Mirany. Breathe."

"They've been dead to me for three years," she said. "What if they are still alive? What does that say about how much they actually loved me?"

"Nothing Mirany," I said. "If anything, it says that they were trying to protect you. From the truth, from people out for revenge...don't think that they didn't love you because it's not true. They loved you more than the world. It's a pre-requisite of being a parent."

Wow, I sound really old.

Mirany squared her shoulders.

"Right," she muttered, shaking herself slightly and turning to the computer determinately. "Then let's get started."

I moved away as she began to do her technological thingo. I had absolutely no idea how anything in this room worked, but she was mastering everything better than I think anyone could ever dream of. Connor arrived half an hour after she started.

"What does she want?" he asked quietly.

"I have no idea. I thought she wanted you so that you could man a computer but she's doing a pretty good job all by herself," I muttered.

"Connor, you're here to help me if something goes wrong," said Mirany, not looking away from the screen.

Her hands were flying around in the air so fast they were just big, blurry lines whooshing around the place. She'd throw her hands aorund for a while, then she'd start typing even faster. Connor and I just watched in silence as she did this. Something in the back of my mind was telling me that it was not good that this was taking so long. She could usually find any information within seconds.

"Connor! Computer on my right! Someone's trying to attack me!" said Mirany suddenly.

"Where?" I asked, staring around.

Connor rolled his eyes as he began to type, not quite as fast as Mirany, but certainly fast enough to make me feel far too overwhelmed.

"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" Mirany yelled, dashing from computer to computer.

"Mirany, this isn't working," said Connor warningly.

The whole room fell silent as the computers all powered down. Mirany stared around.

"I just got french fried," she said. "They completely took me out."

She snatched up the phone, scrolling through contacts before puttin gon the headset.

"Lilah. Tell me you have a connection still."

Mirany's face gave away the answer.

"Great. Just bloody brilliant!" Mirany snapped, hanging up and kicking the wall angrily. "Someone really doesn't want me to find out anything about them."

"Which basically screams 'we're still alive'," I said.

"Mirany!"

Brydan dashed in, panting.

"Mirany, they're here. They're after you," he gasped.

Mirany stared at him. I could see the idea forming. Brydan could hear it.

"No," he said. "No Mirany, that is not the way to sort this out."

"Brydan's right," I said. "You can't give yourself up. They may not give you any information."

"I have to try it," said Mirany.

"No Mirany."

Even Connor was joining in now.

"There's got to be another way," he said.

Mirany looked at each of us in turn.

"I'm sorry," she said, dashing out of the room before any of us could react.

"MIRANY!"

Connor and I dashed out after her, but she had already disappeared. I sniffed and headed off after the telltale wolf scent she left wherever she went, but I was too late. I heard car doors slam, then wheels screeching away. I stared through the open door as the car disappeared.

Why can't you ever just listen for once?

There was silence.

Mirany?

"She's unconscious," said Brydan, coming up behind me. "She's not going to answer any time soon."

...

MIRANY

If you've ever been kidnapped, you'll know that a comfortable bed isn't generally the place you find yourself in when you wake up or have the blindfold taken off you or whatever, so you'd understand why it was weird for me to wake up in one. If you haven't ever been kidnapped, I wouldn't recommend it. The headache that came with the chloroform wasn't nearly as welcoming as the surroundings I found myself in.

The people I found myself with were about as welcoming as the chloroform. As everything came into sharp, painful focus, I noticed the inhabited chairs nearby, and recognised all too well the people sitting in them.

"I guess reincarnation really does exist," I said coolly.

Mum and dad looked calmly at me.

"We're glad to see you awake," said mum.

"You probably have questions," said dad. "Which we will answer once you answer ours."

I gaped slightly at him.

"In your 'rising from the dead' thing, did you get driven mad?" I asked angrily. "You have got to be bonkers if you think that I'm going to answer anything you ask me until I get all my questions answered. I'm not the one that's supposed to be DEAD!"

Mum moved from the chair to sit on the bed beside me. I clambered away, falling off the mattress and scrambling to my feet, glaring at the pair of them as I backed away.

"You know, I can get over the killing people thing. I've done it myself, it's not that hard," I growled. "I can get over the never contacting me. What I can't forgive is that fact that you staged your own death IN FRONT OF ME! YOU HAD ME WATCH WHILE YOU PLAYED DEAD! YOU...ah!

I collapsed against the wall, clutching at my stomach, wanting to tear my insides right out as the wolf tried to take advantage of my anger. How long had I been out?

"Mirany, you should get back in bed," said mum worriedly, moving towards me.

"DON'T COME ANYWHERE NEAR ME! DON'T YOU DARE!"

I lashed out at her with a foot to prove my point. I was a good few feet away from her, but she still withdrew. Dad wasn't quite as scared of me. In fact, he came right up to me and lifted me back onto the bed. At once, the pain stopped. Somehow, the wolf was controlled.

"We have a lot of explaining to do," he said. "I guess the best place to start is the beginning."