Disclaimer:  Still don't own 'em.  Mr. Whedon does.

Be warned, this is where things get a little on the graphic side.

Chapter 10:

Sapporo, Japan

Eri could feel her strength failing her.

In the five years since she'd assumed the mantle of Slayer on the Sapporo hellmouth, she had literally faced hundreds of vampires, demons and other nasties.  Five years, and she'd been so far undefeated.

Until today, she never felt that she'd met her match.

Granted, a few had been difficult, some had been downright hellish.  But never until this moment had she seriously entertained the possibility that she could lose a fight.

The vampire had the edge in brute strength, but Eri felt she was a fraction quicker.

But that's all the difference was between them: fractions.

More eerie than that was the fact that each of them seemed to sense the other's moves the instant they were made.

Had it not been for the obvious differences in ethnicity, appearance, dress, height, and mortality, Eri would have had the strangest impression that she was fighting against herself.

The vampire took a step backwards, distancing herself from Eri.  Almost casually, she brushed her red hair away from her eyes.

There was no fear in the vampire's eyes.

This caught her by surprise.  She'd killed hundreds of vampires, and each time she'd seen an unmistakable wave of fear spread over them once they realized that she was a Slayer.  They'd inevitably try to kill her, but part of them always knew that they would lose.

This red-headed vampire didn't think she was going to lose, on the contrary, she seemed rather certain that she was going to win.

She launched another attack, grabbing for Eri's throat.  She'd had enough of the fight, now it was time to go in for the kill.

Eri spun out of the way, pulling a small wooden stake out from behind her back.  She continued spinning, bring the point of the stake directly at the center of the Vampire's chest.

The vampire caught Eri's arm at the wrist, halting her spin and throwing her off balance.

Then, in a swift, efficient motion, the vampire brought the palm of her hand down on Eri's forearm.

Through red-hot bolts of agony, Eri heard a sickening crackle as the radius and ulna of her right arm both snapped cleanly about halfway between her elbow and her wrist.  The next thing she heard were her own screams.  She noted, in a detached manner, that she had done the same attack herself.  Vampires were dead, but they still felt pain.

She heard the stake drop from her nerveless fingers to the ground.  She felt the vicelike grip of the vampire's hands under her jaw and at the base of her skull behind her head.

She could see her stake, the one weapon she needed only a few inches away from her right hand.

It may just as well have been on the moon.  Her right had refused to move to grab it.

Effortlessly, the vampire snapped Eri's chin upwards, surgically severing the spinal cord at the third vertebrae; an injury commonly known as a Hangman's Fracture.

All the muscles and nerves in her body, cut off from the brain which controlled them, stopped firing and relaxed.  Her body sagged almost gracefully to the ground.  Her lungs collapsed, releasing the last lungful of air she had held, as her brain signaled in vain for them to expand.  The heart continued beating, an utterly useless gesture, not unlike bailing water out of the Titanic with a teacup.  It had no oxygen to pass to the tissues.

As Eri's brain ultimately succumbed to oxygen starvation, as she saw the darkness press relentlessly in in front of her eyes, she heard the even footsteps of the vampire walking away from her.

"One down," she heard, "How many hundreds to go?"

Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada

Gaëlle swung the sword viciously at the vampire's neck.

The vampire ducked, although the razor-sharp edge of the sword very nearly cut a lock of red hair free from her head.

Whoever this vampire was, she was good.  She'd never seen her before, which, now that she thought of it, wasn't all that unusual.  She only ever encountered most vampires or demons once.

She reversed her grip on the sword and stabbed straight at the Vampire's heart.  It wouldn't kill it, of course, but it would probably slow it down a little.

The vampire twisted her body just enough that the point of the sword stabbed through empty space, then she punched the young, blonde slayer in the solar plexus.

Gaëlle stumbled a few feet backwards, trying to get her lungs to function properly.

Finally, her lungs obediently expanded, and Gaëlle finally spoke the first word she'd spoken since the fight began: "bitch."

She threw a kick that caught the vampire in the center of her chest, knocking her back a few feet, then she swung again at her neck with the sword.  The vampire clapped her hands together, catching the sword by the blade.  She then snapped a kick at the side of Gaëlle's head.

Gaëlle lost her grip on the sword and stumbled, stunned.

The vampire gripped the sword by the hilt.

"Goodnight."  She whispered, bringing the sword down viciously at the slayer's throat.

The slayer's head struck the asphalt of the dark alleyway with a sickening thud. It was followed moments later by the sound of her body collapsing to the ground.

A small smile spread across the vampire's face.  "Next," she whispered.

Chernogolovka, Russia

Bog just didn't get it.  He'd never seen anything fight off five fyoral demons, much less a small, rather fragile-looking vampire.  Hell, this chick was deadly.  She was fast, strong, she was beating back demons who were four times her size.  And she was doing it without breaking a sweat.

Although, admittedly, he wasn't entirely sure that vampires sweated.

Fyoral demons are among the less vulnerable of the various demons.  They were vulnerable to silver, and very little else.  Beyond that, they were considered to be huge, unstoppable killing machines.

And this vampire was holding back their onslaught.  Countering their sheer brute strength with her own speed.  She was quite literally dancing circles around them.

Bog, on the other hand, was significantly more killable.  He was a thinker, not a fighter.  His particular breed of demon were the planners of the underworld, and he'd thought that he'd had everything worked out.

He'd amassed a huge force of Fyoral demons.  They could hold down and control the hellmouth here in Chernogolovka basically indefinitely.  Or as long as it took for Baal to figure out how to control it.

Most had seen the destruction of the First as the end of an era.  Baal had seen it as a power void ready to be filled.  The question was, really, who would fill it.  Bog was counting on it being Baal, once the dust settled.

Of course, he hadn't counted on this vampire being able to single-handedly take on a group of Fyoral demons.  Whoever had sent her, if he had more like her, could easily bring Baal down.

The vampire pulled what looked like a silver knitting needle from under her leather jacket, and in a series of quick motions, stabbed each of the Fyoral demons through the heart.

As each of the demons fell to the ground, she approached Bog.  Slowly, methodically.  As if she couldn't really be bothered to rush.

Bog held up his hands: "Hey, wait, I think we can make a deal here."

The vampire brought up a hand and gripped him around the throat.  "Nope."

She stabbed down through Bog's forhead.  With no fanfare whatsoever, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he went limp.

As if bored, the vampire released her grip on his throat, dropping him to the ground.

"Don't worry," she whispered to him, knowing that some small vestige of consciousness still remained in Bog's mind, "the rest of your demons will be joining you in a moment."

In the space of a week, the red-haired vampire single-handedly eliminated countless demons of all varieties, and a handful of slayers in the same cities.

And through the eyes of the victims, Dee watched them all die.