Disclaimer: Any character that you've seen on the show is owned by Joss, not me.
Colleen: Buffy's successor both as the Slayer and as the guardian of the Hellmouth.
Jordan: Psychic chosen by The Powers That Be to guide the Slayer with The Visions.
Holly: The daughter of a human and a Sellar Demon.
Mike: Something previously unseen on this Earth: A Living Vampire.
Dawn: The ancient energy known only as The Key given a human form.
Aaron: Although not the most powerful warlock in the world, this teenager has developed an impressive amount of power.
*****
Jordan visually scanned the Bronze in vain. There was no clock hanging on any wall or at least none of the walls that Jordan could see. Having no other option, he decided to count down from ten very slowly in his head. Crossing his fingers, he looked back across the table.
"Okay," Jordan said, "That's it. I can't take this anymore. You two have been making out for seriously like two minutes now. And normally, I would have no problem with this under typical circumstances, but when the only conversation I'm getting is listening to you two suck face, well, forgive me if I'm a little perturbed."
Dawn and Aaron continued to kiss for a few more seconds before they finally broke apart. "I'm sorry," Aaron said to Jordan, "Were you saying something?"
Dawn laughed from her position on Aaron's lap and kissed him one last time before she went back to her own chair, ignoring Aaron's hurt expression.
"Oh shut up," Dawn said to Aaron's pouty face, "You know you'll get more later on."
"And we have just entered the 'too much information' zone," Jordan said with an exasperated laugh.
"Okay, okay," Aaron said with a bemused smile, "We should get back to the objective at hand. This is supposed to be talk time tonight."
"It seems like we haven't really been living up the whole big group thing lately," Dawn pointed out. "Although it's not exactly like we've been spending less time together."
"Everything has just been so couplefied lately," Jordan said. "I mean you two are might as well just have one pair of lips and now Mike and Holly seemed to be going down that road too. On top of all that Colleen is hot for Eben."
"What about you?" Aaron asked Jordan. "How was your hand been treating you?" Dawn, not liking Aaron's joke, hit Aaron hard in his ribs. Aaron wondered if maybe he was being a little cruel but Jordan's laugh reassured him.
"You're not far from the truth," Jordan said. He noticed Dawn's horrified look. "No, not about that. But yeah, lately I've felt like the seventh wheel." Jordan looked at the way that Aaron's hand kept creeping up Dawn's leg and the way that Dawn playfully pushed his hand back, pretending to be annoyed but still smiling. Jordan sighed. "And with that I think I'm going to get something to drink."
Jordan stood up and excused himself from the table. The Bronze was unusually crowded for a weekday night. A local band that Jordan had never heard of was playing and seemed to have really pulled in a crowd. Although Jordan wasn't really into the style of music they were playing, he had to admit that they were catchy.
"Can I have a Pepsi please?" Jordan asked the busy bartender. He wasn't sure if he had heard him or not and soon he was too far away to even get his attention. Jordan sighed and took a seat at the bar.
"Jordan, right?" Jordan turned towards the unfamiliar voice beside him and hoped that his eyes hadn't bulged out of his head. Sitting next to him at the bar was one of the most attractive girls he had ever seen in his life.
"Yes," Jordan tried his hardest not to sound. "I am the one who is called Jordan." He failed miserably.
The girl gave a smile that seemed to show that she thought that Jordan's comment was funny. She reached out with her hand to shake his. "I thought that was your name. I've seen you around school."
"Oh," Jordan said as he shook her hand. "You go to Sunnydale?"
"Yeah," the girl said. "I'm a freshman. You're a junior right?"
"Yeah," Jordan said. He had absolutely no idea what to say next.
The girl laughed a little. "I'm Danica by the way."
"Wow," Jordan said as he processed that name, seeing if had ever heard anything about her before. "That's a unique name."
Danica smiled back at Jordan.
*****
Mike jumped over the vampire that Holly launched in his direction. Holly had meant to collide the vampire with the wall of a tomb but Mike had gotten in the way. Luckily, Mike jumped just in time.
"Sorry," Holly said as she rushed at the vampire, hitting him several times in the face.
"Not a problem," Mike said as he kicked a female vampire's feet out from under her. He was on her in a second with a stake in hand and turned her into dust. Holly finished her vampire off quickly and sunk her stake deep into its chest.
"So where were we?" Mike asked as he walked over towards Holly. She smiled as he leaned into her, kissing her on the lips. They leaned back against the wall of the tomb, focusing on each other instead of the preternatural for once.
"Get a room," Colleen said as she snuck up behind. Colleen found herself a little torn about Holly and Mike's relationship. She was happy that her friends were together, but actually seeing them together was a lot different then thinking about it on paper. Pretty soon she was going to need someone of her own before she got really jealous.
"Sorry," Holly said, blushing a little at being caught with Mike.
Colleen laughed. "Don't worry about it," she said, then changed the subject. "So how many vampires did you guys dust tonight?"
Mike sighed. "Nine," he admitted. "The unsubstantiated influx of vampires seems to not be ending any time soon. How many did you get?"
"Six," Colleen told him. "So that's fifteen between us. Plus however many Sunnydale's newest vampire hunter chalked up tonight."
"No sign of Eben?" Holly asked Colleen.
"Nope," Colleen told her. "We know that he patrols at night. You would think that we would run into each other every so often."
The three began to move towards the exit of the cemetery, Holly and Mike holding hands.
"So do we have any idea why all these vampires are suddenly coming to Sunnydale?" Holly asked. "Or why they are all after Mike?"
"Nope," Colleen confessed. "It's going to be a big relief when we find out though."
"You're telling me," Mike said with a very bittersweet sarcasm.
*****
"So Jordan, who are you looking for?" Colleen asked the psychic as the whole Scooby Gang with the exception of Mike were walking to Aaron's Jeep. Mike once again had basketball conditioning. Jordan was scanning the crowd trying to spot Danica.
"It wouldn't happen to be the hottie that we saw you chatting it up with for about an hour last night would it?" Dawn asked Jordan. Jordan blushed bright red. "It is!" Dawn exclaimed with excitement.
"There's no chance that we're going to be able to drop this is there?" Jordan asked the others.
"None at all," Aaron confirmed for him.
"So who is it?" Holly asked Jordan.
"Yeah Jordan spill," Colleen told him. "Did you get her number?"
"I feel like we're about to start singing that song from Grease," Jordan tried to joke his way out of having this conversation. It didn't work. Jordan sighed. "Her name's Danica."
"Danica?" Holly asked. "Are you sure she goes here? I never heard of her before."
"She's a freshman," Jordan explained.
"Uh oh," Aaron said with a wide grin on his face, "Jordan is going after the jailbait."
"I'm not going to even dignify that with a response," Jordan told Aaron as he unlocked the doors to his car.
"So do you see her anywhere?" Dawn asked Jordan as they piled into the SUV. "You could offer her a ride home and then 'accidentally' forget that the car is already full and she would be forced to sit on your lap."
"I should have just stuck with clairvoyance," Jordan said as he shook his head and shut the car door. "But no, I had to move past my psychic powers and actually look around."
*****
In keeping with his own style, Jack Coban was the last person in the computer lab. Although it was pretty common knowledge that Jack was pretty much a computer geek he still didn't like to be seen doing his thing in public. He always waited at least fifteen minutes for most of the students at Sunnydale High to leave the building before he entered the lab. Sure, computer geeks were more socially acceptable in this day and age, what with girls realizing that they could potentially be worth a million dollars, but it still wasn't a badge that Jack wanted to wear with pride.
Jack was just finishing up his latest project for AP Computer Science. Normally this is the kind of thing that Jack would have done at home, but lately he found that it was hard to concentrate at home. Of course, in Jack's mind he didn't have a home anymore. His home was sold to strangers which was almost funny because he was living with strangers himself. Jack sighed as he took his disk from the computer and logged off.
"Ah!" Jack yelled as he turned around to be face to face with someone he didn't know was standing behind him. "I mean," Jack tried to cover for yelling, "Hello."
"Sorry," Eben apologized. He pointed towards his feet. "Quiet shoes."
"I see," Jack said. There was an awkward silence.
"Sorry," Eben apologized again. He really needed to learn a lot more about interacting with peers on a daily basis. "I'm Eben. Your Jack Coban right? Mr. Ballis said that I should talk to you if I wanted to get caught up in Computer Science."
"Oh," Jack said. "What do you need help with?"
"Pretty much everything," Eben said with a smile. "I'm not good with computers."
"Do you have a free period or anything?" Jack asked Eben. "Or do you have anything after school?"
"I have everything free after school," Eben said. "I'm still pretty new here and I don't really know anybody."
It didn't happen much, but Jack felt a little bad that Eben didn't know anyone. "Well what are you doing now?" Jack asked Eben. "Because I was about to head to a home that I'm not really comfortable in yet and it would be nicer to have someone to talk to instead of my step dad."
"New step dad?" Eben asked. "That's rough." Eben pretended to speak from experience.
"Yeah," Jack said as they walked towards the door of the lab. "New family, new dad, and a new brother. It's everything that I never wanted."
"New brother?" Eben asked Jack nonchalantly.
"Yeah, Mike Dalton," Jack said. "The basketball player."
"Really," Eben said, pretending to be finding out something that he didn't already know.
*****
Jordan waved towards his friends as they pulled out of his driveway after they had dropped him off. He had a good three hour block of television time to look forward too.
"Hey," Jordan was surprised by Danica who stepped over from the side of his house. A tinge went up Jordan's spine. It's very hard to surprise a psychic.
"Hey," Jordan said as he looked at Danica curiously. "Don't take this the wrong way, but what are you doing here?"
Danica smiled at him. "Well, I ditched school today. And now I'm just waking up and I'm bored so I figured I would come see what my newest friend was doing."
Jordan considered her words for a moment. He very badly wanted to read her mind to know what she was thinking but he knew that it would have been wrong. How do normal people figure out if a girl likes them or if they just want to be friends?
"What did you have in mind?" Jordan asked with a playful smile.
*****
"I can't believe you're choosing this over a night with your boyfriend," Dawn teased Holly from the backseat of Colleen's car.
"And I couldn't say the same about you?" Holly asked Dawn.
Dawn rolled her eyes. "No, believe me I love Aaron, but you guys are friends with him. Even I need a break from him every now and then."
Colleen and Holly both laughed. "We have had this coming for a long time," Colleen said while she drove. "We have been seriously neglecting our girl time."
"Definitely," Dawn said. "So, what's on the agenda?"
"Well first we need to go to my house so I can check in with my mom," Holly told Dawn. "Then we need to stay there for a while because I need to stop by Mike's really fast after he gets done with practice, and then the night is all ours."
"See," Dawn explained to Holly, "The typical girls' night out is spent independently from the boyfriend."
"Well," Colleen said to Dawn, "Seeing as how a large part of our night is going to involve slaying vampires, I don't think that we need to criticize Holly's lack of a typical plan."
*****
Aaron hadn't spent much time in his house before he realized that there was absolutely nothing to eat. Dipping into the money his parents always left when they were out of town, Aaron grabbed his keys and headed for his car. Once he got into his car, he spotted Jordan's backpack in the backseat.
"Figures," Aaron said to himself as he started the engine. "As soon as Jordan meets a girl there just isn't room for anything else in his brain."
Aaron backed out of his drive and got onto the rode. "Well," he said to absolutely no one, "If I'm bored enough to start talking to myself then maybe it's a sign that I need to go spend some quality time with Jordan."
*****
"So who would you say is your favorite band?" Danica asked Jordan while they walked through the park eating ice-cream cones.
"I guess I would have to say The Smiths," Jordan told her. "How about you?"
"The Beatles," Danica told him. "Without a doubt The Beatles."
"I like a lot of their stuff," Jordan told her. "But then again who doesn't?"
Danica smiled at him. "So where did you live before coming to Sunnydale?"
"Right outside of Cleveland, Ohio," Jordan told her. "How long have you lived in Sunnydale?"
"For a while," Danica told him. "My family moves around a lot though."
"This was my only move," Jordan told her.
"So what do you think of Sunnydale?" Danica asked him.
"It's a lot less boring then my old town," Jordan told her. It was one of the biggest understatements he had ever heard in his life.
"Yeah," Danica agreed. "There is a ton of interesting stuff." Danica's eyes flew open as she suddenly remembered something. "Oh! Have you ever seen the caves over on the other side of the park?"
"Nope," Jordan told her.
Danica smiled and grabbed Jordan's hand. "You have got to see these. They are so cool." Danica lead Jordan away and he really didn't have any complaints.
*****
Everyone knew that if you worked with anything even remotely tied to the occult in Sunnydale that you were asking for trouble. Take The Pen and Quill for example. It was a book store in Sunnydale that was known for its many books detailing accounts of magick and things of that nature. The owner, Mr. Allen Dockson, worked in the store from when he graduated High School to the day he died.
Mr. Dockson's dead body lay on the ground of his store. Cassio sat at a table in the back of the store flipping through a pile of books. From the look on his face he wasn't happy.
"Looks like this was another dead end," Cassio said with a sigh. He looked over at the body of the dead shop owner. "I guess it wasn't a total loss. I got a meal out of it."
Cassio stood up to leave when he noticed something in one of the books. He looked closer at a passage and flipped through to the next couple of pages. Curious, Cassio took the book with him as he retreated into the basement of the store and its sewer access. Maybe this Oracle would be able to help Cassio find out how to remove the spell form the Living Vampire.
*****
Aaron pulled into Jordan's driveway and parked his car. The sun was starting to set but there wasn't a single light on inside of Jordan's house. Aaron had a strange feeling in his stomach as he walked towards the house. When he stepped onto the porch though, he was suddenly able to place his feeling.
Aaron wasn't the most powerful warlock in Sunnydale. He was actually far from it. He hadn't even been practicing for three years yet. However, like everything else that Aaron put his mind too, Aaron was a quick learner. And although his senses weren't that fined tuned yet, Aaron could definitely feel the hairs on the back of his neck going up.
"Head rush," Aaron said to himself as he sat down on Jordan's porch swing. He put his head back and tried to focus. There was definitely something supernatural going on but he had no clue what it was. It took a while before Aaron realized that whatever was playing with his senses seemed to be leaving a trail.
Aaron looked down at his cell phone and then in the direction of the energy trail. Aaron knew that he should probably call someone for help. He knew that it was stupid to put himself in a potentially dangerous situation without at least trying to find some back up.
Aaron walked over to Jordan's door and rang the doorbell. He waited a minute and then rang it again. No one came to the door. He shrugged and then began to walk in the direction of the trail.
"Not the first dumb thing I ever did," Aaron said to himself as he tried to hone his senses, "And I'd just be kidding myself if I said that it was going to be my last."
*****
"Wow," Jordan said as he took in the site of the cave system. "This is incredible."
"Isn't it?" Danica said, her voice filled with excitement too. "I love this place. It's just so magical."
"Magical?" Jordan said, smiling at her choice of words. "Interesting adjective. I would have gone with ominous myself."
"Can't you feel it?" Danica asked Jordan. "There is magic in here. Cults used to come here to perform rituals."
"Are you a tour guide or something?" Jordan asked with a smile.
Danica returned the smile and again took Jordan's hand. "Come check this out." She led Jordan through the dark caves to an area that seemed to be some kind of dark church with everything carved out of stone.
"You weren't kidding when you said cults," Jordan said as he ran his hand over the altar. "Do you think they did sacrifices here?" He asked with a smile.
Danica joined him at his side and ran her hand over the cold stone as well. "That's a little morbid," Danica said to him with a smile. His hand continued to move across the stone until it was on top of hers. Gripping her hand, he turned towards Danica and looked down into her blue eyes. Soon, Jordan felt his hands behind her neck and felt her lips pressed against his own. It was the first kiss that Jordan had in a long time. It was almost unreal, and for some reason Jordan felt himself getting dizzy.
Suddenly, Jordan broke the kiss. He stumbled away from Danica, very disoriented. With a puzzled look on his face, he looked at Danica, trying to understand the smile on her face while also making a feeble effort to read her mind. He didn't get the chance though, because before he knew it he was on the floor unconscious.
Danica smiled and walked towards the back of the ritual area. She came back towards Jordan with a dagger in her right hand. With her other hand she performed a waving motion and Jordan was lifted into the air and set on the altar.
"I'm sorry Jordan," Danica said as she approached him. "But I'm not interested in your body. It's your mind that I'm after."
*****
"Okay," Dawn prepped Colleen and Holly as they walked from Colleen's car towards Mike's house. "This is going to be really quick. In and out."
"Got it," Holly said as they got to the front porch and rang the door bell.
"It might even be quicker than we thought," Holly said as she pointed towards Mike who was pulling into the driveway. He parked his car and walked towards the girls on his porch.
"I thought this was girl's night out?" Mike asked Holly after he kissed her hello.
"It is," Holly told him, "But I left my other shoes in your room the other night and I need to grab them."
Mike smiled at her. "I see," he said with an amused voice, "This is all just a ploy to get my hopes up that I wouldn't be incredibly bored tonight."
Holly laughed and the four of them turned to walk into the house when they saw the last thing they ever expected to see. As the four of them were about to walk in, Jack and Eben were walking out, laughing with each other about over some unheard joke.
"Oh," Jack said, surprised by the group of people in front of him. "What's up Mike?" Mike was too stunned to answer and Jack wasn't really all that interested anyway. Jack and Eben walked past the group and headed towards Jack's car.
"Colleen. Mike," Eben said a simply greeting and left them with a smile as he walked towards Jack's car. The four Scoobies could do nothing but watch and try not to look shocked.
"Okay," Colleen said after the two were gone. "What was that about?"
*****
Not surprisingly, the longer Aaron followed the magickal energies the less calm he got. He knew that he should have gotten someone to come with him, preferably someone with super strength. However, the closer he got to the source of the power, the more he felt the need to make sure that Jordan was all right. The closer he got to the caves at the park though, the less he thought that Jordan was okay.
"Although," Aaron said to himself, "Colleen certainly had some good times in caves."
Aaron walked through the dark caves. Muttering a single word in Latin, a gentle glow illuminated Aaron's hand. He held his hand out in front of him like a torch to see what was happening. Fortunately, Aaron heard Danica speaking and was able to put out his light before she saw him. Ducking behind a stalagmite, he heard Jordan's voice as well.
"Danica," Jordan said. He was just waking up. "What's going on? Let me go."
Danica gave Jordan a smile while she continued to set up her ritual. "I'm sorry Jordan, but I can't do that." She stood over a podium, occasionally saying a phrase or two in a language that Aaron didn't recognize.
"What are you doing?" Jordan asked Danica.
"It's called the Ritual of Uratu," Danica explained to Jordan while she continued to anoint her dagger. "It's going to take the demon, and hopefully your visions, out of you and put them into me."
"What!" Jordan said horrified. He struggled against the mystical bonds that held him in place. "You can't. Please, Danica, let me go."
"Why?" Danica asked Jordan, looking up from her work for the first time. "Jordan, I wasn't faking my attraction towards you. This is your ticket out of the demon world. You get to go back to living your normal human life."
"But I don't want a normal human life," Jordan explained to Danica. "This is my life. Danica, I've never been normal, and I've never had any desire to be normal. I have a purpose here. I have people that depend on me. You can't take this away from me."
Danica looked hard at Jordan. She saw the desperation in his eyes and could almost feel his terror about losing his powers. She considered that for a moment. "Sorry Jordan," Danica said as she walked towards him, holding her dagger out. "But an open channel to The Powers That Be is just too good to pass up."
"What are you?" Jordan asked her as she stood next to him.
"I'm human," Danica told him. "Well, I was human. Doing magick for a few hundred years can tend to replace little parts of your humanity."
Danica held her dagger over Jordan's head ready to plunge it into his gut when she was suddenly engulfed in a blue light. Slightly disoriented, Danica stumbled backwards a little, and Aaron was right there to hit her. Danica turned to fire a bolt of magickal energy at Aaron, but nothing escaped her fingertips. Aaron went to punch the smaller girl again, but this time she blocked his blow.
"My powers," Danica said in confusion.
"I think that's the least of your worries," Aaron said as he wrapped his hands around the dagger that was high above Danica's head. Physically, Aaron was bigger and stronger than Danica. However, Danica's energies were quickly returning. An insidious expression came over her face as she began to get the dagger closer and closer to Aaron. Aaron struggled but the dagger just got closer and closer to his head. Panicking, Aaron made a move to try to turn Danica's weight against her. However, in the struggle, Danica accidentally stuck her dagger in her own stomach.
Aaron backed away as Danica's screams filled the cavern. A bright white light poured out of her. The light continued to envelope the cavern to the point of not being able to see anything. When Aaron opened his eyes again, Danica was gone. He turned to Jordan who was sitting up on the altar, no longer bound by magick.
"Okay," Jordan asked Aaron, "How did you do that?"
"I got lucky," Aaron admitted as he helped his friend up. "Sometimes when someone is doing ritual magick it's possible to temporarily separate them from their center." Jordan took a few steps while supporting himself on Aaron's shoulder but soon he was walking fine. "Good thing I was bored the other night at work and decided to do some reading. You're lucky I didn't have homework."
Jordan walked over to where Danica had last been standing. There was nothing that even hinted that she even existed. Aaron joined him and neither of them said anything. "She wasn't a demon," Jordan said, finally breaking the silence.
"Depends on your prospective," Aaron told him.
*****
"So she was a demon," Colleen said as the others sat outside of their school on picnic benches the next day.
"Not exactly," Jordan told her. "She was just kind of corrupted by the power."
"Evil girlfriend," Dawn said with a little chuckle. "I have to tell Xander about this one."
"Why?" Holly asked her.
"Because Jordan is keeping up his tradition in the Scoobies," Dawn told her.
"If it makes you feel any better," Aaron told Jordan, "From what I saw it seemed like she really cared about you."
"I think she did," Jordan said. "Underneath everything." There was a moment of silence between the group. "Besides," Jordan eventually broke the quiet, "I only knew her for like a day."
Everyone turned at that point to see Eben and Jack walking through the parking lot after school towards Eben's car.
"Okay," Aaron said, completely confused. "What is going on there?"
"Oh yeah," Mike said, "Our latest unsolved mystery."
"Jack and Eben are all buddy-buddy now," Colleen told Aaron and Jordan.
"You have got to be kidding me," Aaron said. "What could they possibly have in common?"
"We're guessing a Living Vampire?" Holly explained.
"Great," Jordan said. "No good can come of this."
*****
Author's Note: Big things coming in the next couple chapters. Review so I put my story at a higher priority than studying for my finals. I want to know what you guys thought of this chapter.