The Burbank Wedding

Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or any of the characters in the series. I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of the characters in the series.

Author's Notes: This story is set in an Alternate Universe. A number of canon events didn't happen or happened differently in the series.

Chapter 1:

California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, May 31st, 2008

Somewhere in this club was a vampire. Caridad knew it - she could smell its foul stench clearly. But there were too many people to easily spot the demon. Too many on the dance floor, too many sitting in every corner, drinking, flirting and making out. Or doing so on the dance floor, she noticed, passing a couple who was dancing particularly closely.

A guy moved to dance in front of her, flashing artificially white teeth. She briefly shook her head and walked past him. There were too many trying to hit on her, too, to hunt the vampire in peace. Well, it wasn't as if they could help it - Caridad knew that she was hot and her clothes hid her weapons but not her figure. Her tight pants showed off her legs and her tube top and laced up boots drew attention away from her jacket, which held most of her weapons. Of course, she had to dress like this to fit in with the clubbing crowd. You couldn't hunt vampires looking like a hobo.

Then the song changed, and she had to squint and turn her head when strobe lights lit up, and suddenly, the entire crowd seemed to be moving in slow motion - or going backwards. Damn!

She clenched her teeth, growling under breath - couldn't the DJ have kept the slow music going on a little longer? Finding the damn bloodsucker was now much harder than before.

"Are you alright?" she heard John ask through the bud in her ear - she had forgotten about the throat mic concealed in her choker.

"Yes," she whispered. "Just annoyed at the DJ." She heard him chuckle in return. There was no need to go into details. This was just a temporary setback. No, just a slight annoyance.

Or - she grinned as she caught the vampire's scent much more clearly - an opportunity! The strobe lights made it difficult to see what was happening, but that went for everyone. Especially for potential witnesses. And she was close to the bloodsucker - it couldn't be further away than five yards, tops.

She closed her eyes for a moment and focused. Or tried to - she had never been a fan of all the mystic shit Chao-Ahn was so fond of. But she could find bloodsuckers with her eyes closed if she had to. Which she had.

She drew another deep breath. Phil claimed that she didn't need to actually smell to find the vampire, but it certainly helped. Stale cigarette smoke, cheap perfume and deodorants, alcohol, weed and other drugs… but also blood. Old blood. She slowly turned, her nostrils flaring again. Yes - the twinge and the scent came from that direction.

She opened her eyes and started walking. There was a man, standing at the wall. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a slightly too-tight t-shirt and definitely too-tight jeans. And he was talking to the bloodsucker. Which was a dolled-up valley girl. Tied-off shirt, Daisy-Dukes that tried too hard to be a thong, stiletto heels that doubled as daggers - no class, no fashion, but it certainly attracted horny idiots with no sense of self-preservation.

But how to separate the idiot from the corpse? The bloodsucker had him hooked line and sinker, or however the saying went.

Caridad cocked her head. The song had still two minutes left. Two minutes of flashing light that made it all but impossible to follow whatever was happening. And two minutes of loud music that would mask the sounds of battle. She grinned. Damn subtlety!

She tensed and stalked towards the vampire, gliding past a dancing boy. The demon didn't notice her until she was almost in melee range, and even then it didn't realise that Caridad wasn't just another girl trying to make a move on the boy - it bared its teeth at her in a snarl. "Get Lost! I saw him f…"

Caridad cut the vampire off with a blow to the stomach that folded it over, following up with a knee to its face, then grabbed the reeling vampire's head and smashed it several times into the concrete wall behind it. In the strobe light, it looked almost funny - as if the vampire was teleporting into the wall without anyone doing anything.

By now, the horny idiot had started to move, but a slight tap to the solar plexus stopped him in his tracks, and another tap to the chest sent him into the seat behind him. The vampire was starting to recover, so Caridad smashed its face in a few more times.

It was young and hadn't fed in a while - it wasn't healing as quickly as an older vampire would, much less a master vampire. Good - exactly what they needed.

Caridad broke the demon's arms and legs, then heaved it over her shoulder and quickly walked towards the closest emergency exit. "I've got it," she whispered. "Heading to the southern side alley."

"Copy," John replied, and she could hear his car's engine starting up.

By the time she stepped out of the club and into the dark side alley next to it, John was already waiting there with the car. And the metal cables that would hold the vampire until they reached a suitable place to interrogate it.

California, Los Angeles, Eastside, May 31st, 2008

The underground car park had seen better times, just like the small office building above it. Water had seeped in through cracks in the foundation, causing mould to sprout up, and all sorts of waste, human and other, were strewn about.

Caridad frowned - and not just because the stench assaulted her nostrils. People should know better than using the basements of abandoned buildings for shelter. Not only didn't they have any barriers that would keep vampires out, but they also kept sunshine out - places like the one they had just entered with their car were practically vampire blood farms.

Not for the first time, Caridad wished they could just go public with the truth about demons. It would save so many lives. But that would fuel the belief in magic. And because there were a shitload more people around since the last time everyone had believed in magic, that belief would wake up the kind of elder gods or demons no one, not even demons, wanted to wake up.

Well, they had to stick to the next best thing: Kill as many of the demons as they could! And their captive tonight would help them with that goal!

She looked around again, smelled the air to check that there were no witnesses, then pulled the vamp out of the car and dropped it in a corner, right into a puddle of cold water mixed with oil and gasoline. The fledgling had recovered during the trip here, but Caridad could still see some bruises on its face.

She grinned at the glaring monster and checked its bonds. All good. Reaching down, she ripped the gag out of the vampire's mouth, taking a fang with it.

"You bitch! I'm gonna kill you, meatbag!"

Caridad rolled her eyes. That vampire really was too dumb to, well, unlive. Exist. Whatever. Did it honestly think a normal human would have overpowered and kidnapped it? Well, John probably could've done it, but he wasn't exactly normal, either.

She grinned at the thought, and at the vampire. "Pipe down, bloodsucker."

Behind her, she heard John leave the car and walk over towards them.

"I'll kill you and your friend - I'll kill him first and make you watch!"

John stepped up his pace, and as he reached Caridad's side, he took another two steps forward and smashed his steel-capped boot into the vamp's face, slamming its head into the wall behind it. "Amateur."

Caridad made an agreeing noise and stepped forward to pull the monster up. "Shut up, bloodsucker, and look what we brought." She grabbed its hair - fortunately, it was freshly styled; some vamps, especially males had icky greasy hair that hadn't seen shampoo since they rose - and forced it to look at the bag John had brought.

John opened it and started to pull out various tools and stuff, lining it up next to it while he commented on his own work. "Holy water. Wooden nails. A lighter. Some gasoline. Pliers." He held up a set and grinned.

That, to Caridad's slight envy, finally made the vamp shut up and stare at them. "Who… who are you?"

That was her cue. She bared her teeth at the monster and said: "I'm the Slayer. And you're going to tell us all you know."

The gasp from the vampire was very satisfying.

She crouched down - out of the demon's reach, of course - and grabbed one of the wooden nails. "What do you know about Nathan?"

The vampire flinched. "N-nothing! I mean… who's Nathan?"

Caridad sighed - then glared and snapped her arm forward, sending the nail into the monster's biceps. "What do you know about Nathan?" she asked again, once the screaming had died down. This might take a while.

"I really don't know where he is! Only those who graduate from the training camp do! That's all! I swear!"

Caridad sighed, disappointed, as the bound, whimpering vampire shied away, pressing itself into the corner in a doomed attempt to get away from her. She turned her head and looked at John, who was standing to the side, holding a cross.

He shrugged. "I don't think it knows anything else."

They had the location of the training camp and a few more names. Not the exact addresses of the vampires, though - just a basement room serving as a meeting area. Not really ground-breaking, but it was a solid lead.

Caridad drew her stake. Time to finish this. Before the monster could react, or even scream, she staked its heart, then jumped back. No need to get all dusty, or lose the stake.

"If anyone takes samples from the ground, they'll have a surprise," John commented.

She shook her head. "They'll think someone spilt an urn here - the kind of dust vampires leave behind would require cremation in special facilities if it were a human."

"Ah." He nodded, and she knew he wouldn't ask again - he rarely forgot anything. And he was a gentleman where it counted.

She was smiling at his back as she followed him to their car. Technically, they had just finished a hunt...

California, Los Angeles, Los Feliz, June 1st, 2008

"There is the block," John said as they drove past it, "and the entrance the vampire mentioned."

Caridad took a look at the building. It looked normal - not abandoned or decrepit. No boarded windows, not many graffiti… and the one broken window was covered with plastic in a professional way. She frowned. "Are you sure the bloodsucker didn't lie to us?" That wasn't how vampire lairs looked - she had taken out enough of them.

"No, I'm not," he replied as they took the corner. "You can't be sure unless you can verify the information during the interrogation - or question a prisoner again. But the vampire didn't seem to be smart enough to consistently repeat a lie and add enough details to make it convincing."

She nodded a little reluctantly. "And vampires aren't loyal. They'll sell out each other to save themselves." But lying to spite the Slayer was a possibility as well. On the other hand, it had been a fledgling, not an older vampire, and a pretty dumb one. "I guess we'll have to check," she added, holding up and dangling the keys they had taken from the vamp before she staked it.

"Not right now," he told her. "If this is a trap we're unprepared."

"I can handle a training camp," she retorted. She could.

"Not if they're expecting you," he retorted. "Nathan is rebuilding his forces - and he's bound to have a cadre of experienced vampires by now."

Those who had 'graduated' from the training camps. Caridad frowned. Competent enemies with a plan were the worst. "It's unlikely, though, that they'd use a dumb idiot like our skanky vamp as bait. How could they have expected us to run into her?"

"Misinformation. Tell your troops the lies you want the enemy to hear, then send them out on missions where there's a decent chance of them being captured. They could've also been using this to test the trainees, see who among them is too smart to fall for it."

She frowned some more. Sometimes, she forgot that John wasn't a former soldier turned Watcher like others, but a former spy - or active spy depending on their next few missions, or something. And then he talked like this, showing that he still thought like a spy. "It's still unlikely," she said with a slight huff.

"Yes," he agreed. Before she could reply, he went on: "But we don't have to take the risk anyway. It's almost morning."

Which meant the vampires would've fed already. She clenched her teeth but nodded. Slowly. "Let's return here in a few hours, then." Around noon sounded good. "How are your ribs?"

It was his turn to scowl at her. "They're fine."

She nodded again, grinning a little. "Good. I was looking forward to trying out a new position."

She saw him glaring at her for a moment before he focused on the road again. "I was fine. It just hurt a little. Like a strained muscle. People have such small injuries all the time."

But not Slayers. Or Watchers as fit as John. "You didn't sound fine." And she'd had quite the scare, suddenly hearing him grunt in pain. Instead of, well… the other reason.

"I'm fine now."

That was good enough. She nodded. Every Slayer, no matter what they said, had some trouble controlling their strength at first. And while few Slayers might admit it, accidentally hurting your partner because you lost control during sex was a common fear among them, in her opinion. It was for her, at least.

Time to change the subject - his wounds were a sore topic for John. "So, what are you doing at Devon's bachelor's party?"

"I'm not the best man so I don't know what is planned," he replied.

She snorted. "You're the best spy. You probably know all about Chuck's plans."

John scoffed. "You expect me to spy on Bartowski to find out what he's planning? For the bachelor's party he's supposed to be organising?"

He sounded honestly puzzled. But he was a spy. And she knew him quite well by now. So she grinned at him.

He sighed. "We've discussed things. I told him the classics are the classics for a reason."

"So, booze, poker and strippers?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Can you see him hiring a stripper?"

"Honestly…. No." Not unless lives depended on it. She chuckled. "But Morgan?"

He groaned. "I'll talk to him."

"Hey, it's tradition. Big cake, stripper jumping out…"

That earned her a glare. "It's a security risk."

"You're going to vet the stripper?" She chuckled again. This was too fun... She blinked, narrowed her eyes and growled. "You're not going to vet a stripper!"

"Just a background check by Orion," he said. And he was grinning.

She huffed, crossing her arms. And people said John had no sense of humour. He had one, but it appeared at very inconvenient times.

California, Los Angeles, Central Los Angeles, June 1st, 2008

Caridad grabbed another sandwich - you could never have just one - and a soda and went to rejoin the others at the dining table in John's - their - home.

"I've gone through the resident's data trails," Chuck said, "and there are a couple obvious fake ones."

"Let me guess: They live in the basement?" Caridad asked before taking another bite.

"There's no apartment in the basement," he told her.

"Not officially," she retorted, "but I doubt that they're happy living just one broken blinder away from fiery death. Not to mention the fire hazard that would cause."

John snorted. "I don't think Nathan cares much about his minions' lives."

"Unlives," she corrected him with a smirk.

"Uh…" Chuck cleared his throat.

Caridad turned to look at him with an innocent expression as she ate the rest of her sandwich. "Hmm?"

"I'm currently trying to sort the residents who are illegal immigrants from those who are vampires," he explained. "Since both are missing a proper data trail, it's a little challenging."

She scoffed. "It's a good neighbourhood. That requires more money than new immigrants usually have. Just look at the more recent fake IDs."

"Uh… but what if there are exceptionally affluent arrivals? Or people sponsored by their relatives who have already settled in? We really don't want to target the wrong people here," Chuck said. "And Nathan might've used an older ID to rent an apartment for multiple vampires."

"As long as we don't kill them by mistake, it'll be fine," John said.

Caridad frowned. "We just need to check the windows - if the blinders are down and sunlight is being blocked, odds are, they're vampires."

"Or their AC isn't working," Chuck said. "Or they work nights."

"Or it was done deliberately to lure us into a trap," John said. "If this is a decoy, then such deceptions are to be expected."

"That would be a lot of effort for a marginal effect," Sarah retorted. "I don't think they would go to that length just on the off-chance that we would catch on and find the location."

"But they will be expecting us as soon as they realise that the vampire we caught didn't come home," Caridad said. "We need to strike soon. Preferably at noon." Which left them about two hours of preparation.

"Then we probably should disguise us as health inspectors, or something, and check all doors," Chuck said.

"Checking for rats?" John asked with a grin.

"That should work," Chuck said, a little defensively.

Caridad agreed. It was a good neighbourhood, but not a super-rich one. Then again, you had rats there as well.

California, Los Angeles, Los Feliz, June 1st, 2008

Caridad heard the resident walk towards the door right after she had rung the bell. Wheezing breath. Short, shuffling steps. Someone mumbling to herself. Unless Nathan had turned an old woman who was also a great actress, this was another bust - few fledglings bothered with faking a breath.

But they had to maintain their cover. She straightened and brushed a hand over her fake 'Department of Public Health' polo shirt moments before the woman reached the door and smiled brightly.

"Who's there?" The woman asked.

"Mrs Smith? Maria Juarez, Ma'am. L.A. Department of Public Health," Caridad replied. "This is Mr Black. We've received reports that this block might have a pest problem, so we were sent to verify that."

John just grunted.

"Oh. Pest problem?"

"Rats, mainly," Caridad told her.

"Oh, really? Yes, I've got a problem with rats!" The door rattled, and a face appeared in the gap. "Come in!"

Caridad winced at the invitation - that would get the woman killed if a vampire tried to visit her - and at the revelation that Mrs Smith actually had a rat problem. It was supposed to be a simple cover. Not actual work! "Thank you, ma'am."

The woman had a little trouble with the door chain, but after some fumbling, the door opened all the way, and Caridad could enter the apartment.

"They keep eating my dears' food."

"Your dears?" She hadn't smelt any pet. Nor could she smell any other person.

"Yes. I leave food out on the balcony, but rats eat it!"

On the balcony? "Are you feeding the birds?"

"Yes, of course."

Oh. She could almost hear John grinding his teeth as the woman led them through a slightly dusty living room to the door to the balcony.

"Oh, no! There's one right there! Catch it!"

Caridad stared. That was a squirrel on the balcony, plundering the bird feeder. "That's not a rat, Ma'am," she said.

"Of course it's a rat! Do you think I'm blind?"

Caridad did actually think the woman was nearly blind. How could she miss the big fluffy tail of the squirrel?

"Now catch it!"

She wanted to groan.

"Guys, what happened?" Chuck asked, sounding more than a little concerned. "You spent fifteen minutes inside that apartment."

"Nothing," Caridad snapped.

"Pest control," John replied.

"Pest control?" Chuck repeated.

"Tree rats."

"Tree rats?"

"I had to catch a bunch of squirrels to shut up the old woman," Caridad ground out. Squirrels who must have found some drug stash somewhere since they had been far too hard to catch for normal animals and hadn't smelt like possessed. "And if anyone mentions that ever again, especially in a report to the Council, I'll be very displeased."

"Are you quoting Phil?" Chuck asked.

Bloody smartass… Caridad blinked. That had been a rather British comment. "So?" she replied. "You'd rather have me quote Faith?" She suppressed the urge to clench her teeth at mentioning the older Slayer. Who had slept with John.

"No, no, Phil's good."

"Of course he is," Caridad said. She wished he were back in L.A. already, though. And not helping the Council sort out some legal issues in Merry Old England. Well, he'd be back very soon.

"Can we focus on the mission?" John snapped.

"Uh, sure, sorry."

"Yes." She nodded. John was always very professional. Sometimes too professional. Like when he resisted starting a relationship with her for the longest time because it would've been "unprofessional". Feh! At least he had finally wised up, and she only had to kill a dragon for it.

"Next suspicious apartment is number twenty," Chuck said. "Blinders are down, and we haven't caught a heat signature yet."

"I've got the windows in my sights," Sarah added.

"Good." The distance was a little far for a crossbow - unless it was one of the heavy ones only Slayers could really use - but it was almost noon, and any vampire that jumped out the window wouldn't be able to run very far.

They made their way to the next apartment, and Caridad checked that the stake hidden in her big notepad was still whole - she'd had to swat the last tree rat out of the air with it. If Vi ever heard of this incident…

"There it is," John interrupted her thoughts.

"Yes." Caridad took point - a Slayer was always at the front. Between the demon scum and her friends and allies. And lover. She took a deep breath as she raised her hand to ring the bell, and her eyes widened a little. She knew that smell. "Dried blood."

"Could've been an accident and a sloppy tenant," John speculated.

She shook her head. "No, I don't smell the kind of filth that you usually find in those apartments. Just dried blood."

He grunted - he probably hadn't expected anything else.

She rang the bell twice, then listened. Footsteps. Two pairs. And the smell of dried blood was growing stronger. Must be a fledgling - more experienced vampires wouldn't make that mistake. If you never cleaned up, even normal people would smell you.

Well, those vampires wouldn't grow old enough to learn, she thought, pressing her lips together so she wouldn't grin and give the game away.

The vampire looked through the eye-spy - she could see the light dimming - and then opened the door. "Yes?"

The vampire was wearing a young body, early twenties, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt so faded, she could spot the dried stains of blood. Ew. It must be a messy eater. She didn't take a deep breath - the stench was strong already. "Mr…" She glanced at her notepad. "...Stonehill? I'm Maria Juarez, L.A. Department of Public Health. This is Mr Black. We've received reports that this block might have a pest problem, so we were sent to verify that." After a dozen apartments, she knew the spiel.

The demon blinked. "Oh… pest problem?"

"Vermin," John chimed in with that growly voice of his that…

Not the time, she reminded herself. "Rats, mostly. Can we briefly check your apartment for signs of the little buggers?"

The vampire blinked a little, and Caridad almost frowned. Perhaps she had picked up a little too much slang from Phil. Then it nodded. "Ah, sure, sure… come in. Don't mind the mess, though. We had a, uh, party."

"We've been in a lot of apartments today," she told it.

"Some were worse than this," John added.

"Ah, good… wait!" The vampire blinked. "What do you mean?"

She didn't reply - the second vampire had appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, smiling at them. Caridad knew better than trying to take two vampires prisoner. She grabbed the stake in her notepad, then flung the pad at the vampire in the doorway before staking the vampire next to her.

She dashed towards the second vampire before the first's dust hit the floor. It had slapped the pad away, leaving it open to her attack, and her flying kick caught it in the chest, breaking its ribs and sending it flying back.

It grunted as it hit the wall behind it, falling down on its knees. She was on it before it could recover, her foot slamming into its chin and breaking its jaw. Its head hit the wall again with the sound of breaking bone, and it collapsed. It was regenerating slowly, like the idiot last night, but she took no chances and broke its arms and legs before John arrived with the steel cables to secure it.

The demon was starting to move again shortly after they had secured it, so she beat it up some more, cracking its head again - carrying a rolled-up carpet that moved and struggled out to the van would attract too much attention. Carrying a rolled-up carpet? Not so much.

"That apartment was infested by rats," she told the nosy older woman watching them in the staircase. "We had to remove the carpet, and, well…" She grimaced. "It's a write-off."

The women nodded. "I always thought Mr Stonehill was up to no good - he never was around during the day, he spent all night in clubs… and, well, he never cleaned his part of the stairs. Of course he'd have rats in his apartment." She looked around. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Last we saw him, he was leaving," Caridad replied, and smacked the carpet on her shoulders again for good measure. "With good reason - once we're done with him, he'll wish he were dead!"

That made the old woman smile.

The others were waiting outside, in the van - which looked quite like a real Department of Public Health vehicle. If they had such vans. They had official vehicles, at least - they had used the official decals for the van.

Chuck opened the doors for them and smiled at them. "You got your marks."

She narrowed her eyes - was he making fun of her for the squirrel hunt? No, this was Chuck. "Oh, it was easy," she said. "These vamps are idiots. Fledglings."

"That's a tautology," he replied.

John grunted. "Can we get on with this and discuss it after we secured the prisoner?"

"Sure, sure! Sorry!" Chuck blurted out, stepping aside to let them enter.

"You know, if the cops inspect or car, they'll arrest all of us," he commented while Caridad strapped the vampire into the van - without taking it out of the carpet. "It's a rather obvious kidnapping van."

"It's a moving van," John told him. "It's just that properly packaged, people and demons are as easy to transport as furniture."

"I'm not sure if that is reassuring or worrying," Chuck replied. "I'll never be looking at a moving van or truck the same way again."

She snorted at that, though John was just politely chuckling. She could tell. "Well, let's get the other vampires!" she said, "there should be three more according to our intel." At least if the idiot that they had caught in the club last night had been able to count to six - Caridad had her doubts.

Before they returned to the building, she broke the vampire a little more. Better safe than sorry.

The next vampire apartment they found - after two more duds, one with a woman who worked night shifts at a hospital, the other a college student who apparently played video games all night, but no more squirrels - had three of the bloodsuckers in it according to the records. And fresh blood. Very fresh.

Caridad staked the first halfway into her Public Health spiel, then charged into the apartment through the dust cloud he left. The second vampire managed to get into a fighting stance before she reached him. Karate, Caridad guessed as she ducked under his first strike and deflected the second. Yes, definitely Karate - she recognised that combo.

But only Karate, nothing else mixed in - and the vampire hadn't trained to fight before its death. It moved as if it were doing katas, tough with the speed of a vampire.

I didn't help the monster, of course. Caridad slid around it as soon as it was launching the next attack and rammed a stake into its heart from behind while the vampire was still going through the motions.

John had followed her in and was already at the closed bedroom door when a vampire broke through it and slammed into him. Caridad was about to gasp, but John let himself fall on his back and used the vampire's momentum against it, throwing it into the wall behind him with a modified Judo throw.

Caridad was on the monster before it could recover, breaking its right knee with a snap kick, then dislocated its right shoulder with a quick lock. The demon screamed, so she shut it up with a kick to the jaw that smashed its teeth together.

"Shit!"

That had been John! Caridad smashed her heel into the monster's head, then staked it and rushed towards the bedroom.

John was there, rendering first aid to a woman on the blood-soaked bed. Caridad saw the puncture marks on the arms and legs. And the blood bags in the open cooler.

They had been draining her. Slowly.

Damn - she should've made the monsters suffer before killing them!

"That's going to be in the evening news," Caridad commented as she watched the ambulance take the woman away. Probably as some horror story about people stealing blood for transmissions. And organs.

"And we're going to be in a police holding cell if we don't move," John replied.

A few calls would solve that - it wasn't the first time they had to call an ambulance to a demon victim - but with the LAPD still angry about the spy affair, it would be better to avoid them. She nodded. "Let's go."

"I've stalled the cops, but they'll be here soon," Chuck told them as soon as they entered.

"Hit it," John replied. "We're done here."

"Got the last three vamps," Caridad added. She casually hit the vampire in the carpet again, on its head - better safe than sorry.

Sarah started the engine and entered traffic just as the first patrol car arrived. Followed by the first news van. Yes, that would make headlines.

Caridad sighed once they were on the highway. "Nahan will definitely be warned now." So much for the plan to ambush the master vampire's courier - or liaison, as John called it - once it arrived for the weekly meeting.

"If we wanted to avoid that risk, we would have had to let them hunt until their master contacted them," John replied.

She glanced at him. He looked, well, as always. Slightly angry, ready to fight at the drop of a hat, determined… but she couldn't tell if he thought that they should have let the vampires kill a few humans to get to Nathan and save more in the long run, or if he was just pointing out that their original plan had had a few weaknesses.

"Uh, guys…" Chuck spoke up.

John grunted in response.

"I thought… what are the odds that the vampires managed to rent three apartments in the same building, within a few weeks?"

Caridad grinned - she had been looking for an apartment in Los Angeles in the past, and she knew how difficult that could be. Even with the Council backing her and a cover story to explain why she could afford the rent. As a freshly dead vampire? Probably using a fake identity? No proof of employment? "Nathan must have some influence on the building's owners."

"Or their administration," John said, baring his teeth.

"I'll hack into this," Chuck said, then pouted when neither Caridad nor John laughed.

Caridad didn't care. It was a stupid pun or whatever you called it, and they had another lead on the stupid master vampire that kept evading her.

And, she reminded herself, they had another vampire to interrogate. Even though it probably wouldn't know anything useful. But it was one less demon preying on humans.

California, Los Angeles, Echo Park, June 1st, 2008

"...and we do need to schedule the rehearsal for the rehearsal," Ellie said, putting down her fork.

Caridad mumbled something while refilling her plate - the roast was great! Ellie's Sunday dinners were always a treat - then blinked. "Rehearsal for the rehearsal?" What?

"Yes," Ellie confirmed, frowning slightly at her. "So the rehearsal goes off without problems."

"But… isn't the point of the wedding rehearsal that the wedding goes off without problems?" Chuck asked. "By letting you spot problems and mistakes before the real deal?"

"Yes. But in order to spot such problems, it's best if the actual rehearsal isn't plagued by problems you could've identified beforehand. Hence the rehearsal for the rehearsal," Ellie explained. She was frowning a little more now, Caridad noticed.

Devon nodded. "Just for the most important participants," he said, beaming at them. "Which means us here."

"But that's why you have the rehearsal!" Chuck protested.

Caridad almost sighed. He was trying, but she knew from experience that once Ellie was set on something, it was all but impossible to change her mind. She was just too stubborn, really.

But she was also a great cook. And any soldier or Slayer knew that you didn't annoy the cook. "Sounds logical," Caridad said as she grabbed another serving. "Will there be food, too?"

Ellie beamed at her. "Yes, it's also a good opportunity to try out a few courses for the wedding."

"Which could be done without having a rehearsal for a rehearsal. You know, by just eating at restaurants." Chuck, too, could be stubborn. Turning down free food? That was madness.

"I don't mind one more rehearsal," Chuck's dad added. "I wouldn't want to mess up my part."

"Dad! Your part is simple. All you have to do is walk Ellie down the aisle and hand her over to Devon!" Chuck shook his head. "A service dog could do that part."

"Chuck!" Ellie snapped. "We're talking about our wedding here, not one of your LAN parties!"

"I haven't had a LAN party since the nineties!" Chuck missed the point.

Sarah touched Chuck's arm, shaking her head.

"But…" Chuck sighed. "Alright. We'll hold a rehearsal for the rehearsal. Even though it's redundant!"

"I just want this wedding to go off without a hitch. No demon invasions. No apocalypses," Ellie said.

"No Spy vs Spy battles," Devon added.

Caridad snorted. "Don't worry. Apocalypse Season is over."

"And we quit the NSA and CIA," Chuck added. "Don't worry, Sis - your wedding will be perfect!"