Disclaimer:  Don't own the universe, but most of the characters (Dee, Anne, Anders and April) are my own creation.  The universe they're running around in is exclusively the creation of Mr. Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  Oz also belongs to Mr. Whedon, and a select few other characters who are given little more than a passing mention, but the rest are mine.

Chapter 1

"I'm sorry, Dee, you do not make enough to drive a $35,000 car."  April looked rather incredulously at the tiny roadster as Dee effortlessly hefted her heavy bag into her trunk.

Dee shook her head, "nope, I don't.  This is a company car."  She opened the driver side door and gestured for her younger sister to get in.

"What company, and do they have a position open?"  Anne was starting her first year at UCSD in engineering.

Dee smiled, "I think they'll probably want you to have a degree first."  She shrugged, "They sent me this car to replace the one I totaled on the bridge."

"So how's work been going?"

"Well, the woman who used to have my job has made my life a living hell, but apart from that, I've got no complaints."  In the few months since Dee had beaten Anne down on the bridge, she had been stepping up the pressure.  Seldom involving herself, she had been throwing a variety of beasties at the new Slayer.  As far as Dee could tell, she was safe at home, but she couldn't figure out why, exactly.  Anne clearly knew where she lived.  On a number of occasions, she'd been attacked, quite literally, on her own doorstep.

Dee had since moved to a condo in La Jolla, but the attacks hadn't stopped, or even slowed for that matter.  Oz's lawyer friend in LA had helped her around some of the bigger financial hurdles, such as the fact that she would die of old age long before she could pay off the mortgage to the condominium she now lived in.  When April had been accepted to UCSD, Dee had offered to have her live with her, provided her mother was willing to pay a portion of her mortgage, which still worked out to far less than it would cost April to rent an apartment.  Dee had started communicating with her mother again, but that didn't mean that she was willing to do her any favors.

Dee just hoped that April wouldn't notice when her older sister came home bloody and bruised.

Dee pressed the ignition button, and smiled as the car's engine growled hungrily.  The Honda S2000 wasn't exactly the most practical vehicle on the road, but it was probably among the more fun.  It handled like it could read her mind (which, judging by what she was able to get Oz to tell her about where the car had come from, was not necessarily an outlandish suggestion).

She coasted onto I-5 and turned the car loose as she accelerated to highway speeds.  Her sister had caught a fairly late shuttle in from LA, and the highway was relatively unpopulated tonight.  The sun had only been down for about twenty minutes.  San Diego had notoriously late sunsets, which was why it always struck Dee as somewhat odd that there would be so much Vampire activity.  It seemed to her that they would migrate to somewhat darker climes.

Oz's old girlfriend lived in Calgary, Alberta now with her new girlfriend (Dee had wisely decided not to ask Oz about the history behind that one).  Dee had spent a winter there with her father a long time ago.  She remembered how the sun practically never rose.

That made a lot more sense to be a hotspot (which considering the average temperature in Calgary, was a somewhat ironic term) of demonic activity.

Which, to be fair, it was.  But why on earth would someone with an aversion to tanning come to San Diego?

"Hello?  Earth to Dee?"

Dee shook herself out of her reverie and realized that April had been talking for five minutes, straight.

"Sorry, Apes.  I let my mind drift.  What were you saying?"

"I was just saying that I liked the new hairstyle.  It works on you."

Dee subconsciously reached back and ran her fingers along the smooth blackwood chopsticks she had holding her raven-colored hair in place, "Thanks.  I kinda like it too."  Her hair was now the shortest it had been in years.  She used to keep it long, way down to the middle of her back.  Now, unwilling to give any big nasties a handle to hold her by, she'd had it chopped off just above her shoulders.  It also gave her a convenient place to keep two rather deadly weapons, at least for any Vampires out there.  Her father had liked to say that the best place to hide a letter is on the living room table.  The best place to conceal a weapon is in plain sight.

She was somewhat surprised to see a minivan pull even with her.  She was traveling at over eighty miles per hour.

She felt, rather than heard or saw, the door of the minivan slide open, and a short, nasty looking submachine gun push its way out through the space.

"Apes, get DOWN!"

Dee brutally grabbed April's head, and drove it as hard as she could into her little sister's lap, while simultaneously slamming on the brakes.

The car dropped from over eighty miles per hour to less than forty in an eye blink.  The minivan's driver, unprepared for the sudden maneuver, overshot the tiny roadster as the gunman's finger squeezed the trigger.  The gun (Dee now identified it as an HK-MP5SD3) launched a line of projectiles into the road in front of her car.  Its integrated silencer, which made it a favorite among counterterrorist groups everywhere, kept the sound down to a particularly forceful whisper.

April was whimpering in the seat next to her.

"Apes, listen to me, listen."

"What?"  April was breathing fast.  She was clearly terrified.

Who could blame her?

"Under your seat, you'll find a small compartment.  Gimme the crossbow in it."

April instantly produced it.  Dee made a silent note to thank Fred for having the foresight to install something like that.  She was now one lane over, and her front bumper was even with the van's rear.  If the gunman wanted another shot, he was going to have to lean out of the van.

He did.  His vampiric eyes looking over the gunsights at Dee with a fury that nearly matched her own.

Dee shifted the pistol-sized crossbow into her left hand, and mentally prayed that she wouldn't have to shift any time soon.  The tiny hand crossbow she held didn't have a lot of range, but she was so close to the gunman that it didn't really matter.

For a split second, the six inches around his heart were unprotected, and Dee took the shot.  The vampire crumbled, the submachine gun falling harmlessly to the street, unfired.  She handed the crossbow back to her sister, "Reload."

Her sister struggled with the crossbow.  Fortunately, it was fairly straight forward, and she managed to do it without stapling her foot to the car's floor.

"W-what's going on?"  April's voice was shaking now, as she handed the now-loaded crossbow to her sister.

"Apes, I promise that I'll explain everything, just trust me now."

Dee accelerated, and prepared to fire a shot into the still-opened side door to catch anyone who might still be inside.

One of the vampires inside, however, beat her to it, and dove across the five feet between the minivan and the slayer's car, catching Dee by surprise.  Her wrist hit the door frame hard.  Not hard enough to injure, but hard enough to jar the crossbow from her grip.  He landed practically in Dee's lap, his fangs bared, preparing to bite into the slayer's exposed neck.

"Apes, take the wheel."  Dee let go of the steering wheel, after pushing it slightly to the right to prevent the unguided car from sideswiping the minivan, killing them both.

April, to her credit, grabbed the wheel, holding the car steady long enough for Dee to smoothly slip one of the chopsticks out of her hair and drive it into the center of the Vampire's chest, raining ash and dust down on the two sisters.

"April, a knife, please."  Dee's voice was cold, hard.  April had never heard quite that tone in her voice before, even when she was talking to her mother.

April looked down at the compartment under her seat.  "Which one?"  There were about six different knives down there.

"Pick one."

April handed her sister a particularly nasty-looking kris.  Its thin wavy blade, almost nine inches long, spoke to her.

"That'll do."

Dee flipped the Indonesian knife over in her hand, holding it by the blade, and threw it as hard as she could at the van's front right tire.  The thin blade slid smoothly into the tire, flattening it in moments.

At forty miles an hour, a blowout like that would have been minor.  At eighty, it would have been life threatening, had anybody in the van actually been alive.

Dee slammed on the brakes again, as the van swerved wildly to the right.  Its forward momentum forced the van to flip over and over before it finally came to a rest, upside-down, about two hundred feet away.  She brought her sports car smoothly to a stop.

"Apes, stay in the car."  Dee stepped out and made her way to the trunk.  April was freaking out, welcome to San Diego, li'l sis, Dee thought to herself.

Dee pulled April's bag out of the trunk and slid the false bottom of the trunk away.  She pulled out her personal favorite weapons, a pair of Wakizashi.  One of the shorter oriental blades which occupied the uncomfortable space between sword and dagger.

Two vampires were already getting out of the van.  They looked to be injured, but mostly intact.  There had been four of 'em.  They were hunting her in larger numbers now.  In the earliest of her slayer days, she'd have maybe one or two coming after her.

They attacked simultaneously, and Dee sidestepped their blows, letting loose a vicious sidekick at the driver's abdomen.  It didn't knock the wind out of him.  He had no wind to be knocked.  But it did drive him backwards long enough for her to concentrate her efforts on the other one.

He didn't allow her time to rest, and threw a punch at the slayer's head.  She spun out of the way, sweeping the Wakizashi in her right hand down at the vampire's arm, surgically severing it just above the elbow, she then sprung back at the vampire, sweeping the sword in her left hand across the vampire's neck, sending it flying a good distance before it crumbled to dust in mid-air.

She turned to the driver.

"Next."  She whispered at it.

The vampire threw a brutal sidekick, which Dee sidestepped and responded with a brutal snap-kick to his groin.

In inhuman pain, the vampire fell to his knees, tears of pain and humiliation welling up in his dead eyes, just before a smooth stroke of the sword severed his head from his body.

Dee walked back to her car, April had not moved since the car had come to a stop, her makeup was streaked by the tears still running down her cheeks.  In the dim streetlamps, she looked as white as the vampires she'd just watched her sister massacre.

"April?  Apes, are you okay?"  She quickly looked over her younger sister for any injuries.  She ran her fingers along her sister's scalp, looking for any cuts or bruises under her hair.

She heard the unmistakable whistle of a blade sweeping through the air, and felt cold metal pressed against her carotid artery.

April's voice trembled, but was hard and brutal, "what are you?"