Disclaimer:  Universe is not mine, nor is Oz.  I'm just allowing a few of my own characters to run around in it for a while.

With apologies again for taking so long to update.  I ran into the great shitstorm of 2003 at work this week.

Chapter 2:

This will have to be the dumbest way a Slayer has ever died, Dee thought to herself as she felt her sister pressing the blade a little harder against her neck.  She could feel a single drop of blood rolling down her neck from the point of the knife.

"April.  Apes, it's me."  Dee was very careful not to make any sudden movements.  She was pretty sure her sister wasn't exactly in the most rational state of mind.

"You, you just killed four people.  Dee could never do something like that."  April's tear-streaked face hardened.

You'd be surprised at what I could do, Dee thought to herself.  "Apes, I didn't kill them."

"I saw you.  You shot one, stabbed another and beheaded two more.  Who— what are you?"  No, April definitely wasn't in the most rational state of mind.  Not that Dee could really hold that against her.  Dee looked again, judging the distance between her sister and herself.   She was close enough that she could probably knock her out with a single punch, but she wasn't entirely certain she could do it before April thrust that knife home.

Not to mention that it wouldn't go very far towards building trust between them.

"Apes, they were already dead."  The fact that this was one of the biggest hurdles that Dee had had to get over during her first months as a slayer was not lost on her.  It had taken her a long time to accept that she wasn't actually killing them, that they were already dead.

"What?"

"How many living people do you know who crumble into dust when you stab or behead them?"

"I don't know, I've never killed anybody."  The point of the knife pressed a little harder against Dee's neck.

"Neither have…"  Dee caught herself.  April didn't deserve a lie.  "I didn't kill them," she repeated, lamely; not knowing what else to say.

"Don't lie to me!"  April twisted the knife against her neck.  Dee winced against the sharp pain as it dug in to the soft skin of her throat.  A little flick of April's wrist, and Dee would be bleeding to death.  She would slit the carotid artery wide open, and Dee would bleed out in minutes.

I wonder if there are any other slayers who were done in by their own sisters, Dee couldn't help pondering, through the sharp pain.

"Apes, do you really want to hurt me?"  Dee forced her voice to be gentle.

"The thought had crossed my mind."

Dee winced, that sounded way too familiar.

God, I wish Oz were here.  Oz had a way of calming her down whenever she was losing control.  April, it would seem, had a lot of the same genetics she had.  But Dee didn't have Oz's gift of stoicism.

Silently, she prayed that Anders had been right about slayer super-speed, and tensed herself for a single strike.

In a single motion, she snapped her head backwards a few inches, out of contact with the knife, while she simultaneously slapped it aside with the back of her left hand.  She gritted her teeth against the pain as the razor sharp edge of the knife sliced deeply into her, very nearly scoring the bone of her hand.

She hoped that Anders was right about slayer healing too.  The knife had just sliced most of the ligaments in the back of her left hand, not to mention a few major veins at the same time.

Before April had a chance to react, Dee drove her right fist forward, catching her baby sister under the right eye, snapping her head backwards.  Rattling her brain just enough to knock her out, and hoping that she hadn't applied too much force.  She didn't much know her strength these days.

Dee did a quick check of April's face before she got into the car.  It didn't look like she was hurt.  Her pride maybe, and she would probably have a pretty ugly-looking bruise in the morning.  Hopefully her unconscious state would give her a chance to cool off a bit.

She got back behind the steering wheel of her car.  The bleeding in her right hand and her throat had already stopped.  Perhaps there was something to this slayer quick-healing thing.

Now, though, she needed to pay Oz a visit.

Anne quietly flipped off the video camera as she watched the slayer drive away.  From her perch high above the highway, she had seen everything, and had got it on tape.  She'd figured that about here would be where the slayer would get the van to stop.  Dee was getting good.  Very good.

Osiris had been less than thrilled when he'd found out that she'd tried to kill off San Diego's newest slayer.  He'd been even less pleased about the fact that she'd failed to do so.  It was something of a sore point that his ex-slayer vampire had had her ass kicked by a wet-behind-the-ears human.

The fact that the human in question happened to be a slayer wasn't lost on him, he just didn't care.

She could still feel the inhuman burning pain from his punishment.  He'd had her stripped, hung upside down, and dunked over and over again in a vat of holy water.  Never long enough to kill her, but long enough to take her to the very edge of death.  The burns that had covered her whole body had only just faded to her skin's normal pale, cold luster.

Osiris was a decent guy to work with, most of the time, but he didn't suffer fools lightly.  Anne had to admit that she'd been foolish.

She wouldn't be making the same mistake twice.

The frantic knocking at his front door snapped Oz away from the book he was reading.

He stood up, and opened the door.

"Hi," he paused when he saw that she had an unconscious young woman in her arms, "Dee."

"Oz, meet April," she nodded at the unconscious woman, "April, Oz."

"Your sister?"

Dee nodded.

"What happened?"  He asked,

"She fell."

"On what?"

"My fist."

"I've heard of sibling rivalry, but…"

"Oz, not now, okay?"  Dee sounded marginally annoyed.

Oz ushered her inside and allowed her to place her sister's limp body on the couch.

"What happened?"

"She was about to make me get a little too friendly with one of my own knives."

"Oh."  Oz nodded.

They were both silent for a long time.

"She saw…?"  Oz left the question unfinished.

Dee nodded, "How did Anne know when April's flight was coming in?"

Oz shrugged, "She knows practically as much about you as I do.  She seemed rather interested in your file just before she… left."

Dee shuddered.  You could fit an awful lot of information in a file as thick as Oz had on her; and that didn't count the files he had on the computer that she wasn't supposed to know about.  If she could access those, Anne could too.  You could find just about anything about someone these days, if you knew who to ask.

"So, you want to tell me what really happened here?"

Dee shrugged, "she saw me kill four vamps, she freaked.  I had to beat her into unconsciousness to keep her from knifing me."

"And you're sure it was Anne?"

"Sure seemed like her.  She hasn't shown her face lately, but it sure seemed like the kind of homework she would assign to a few minions."

Oz nodded, sadly.  What on earth had happened to Anne?  It was one thing to try to go after the slayer, but to risk catching an 18-year-old in the crossfire?  That was sloppy, by Anne's standards.

He shook the though out of his head.  This wasn't the Anne he had known.

"You know April's not safe here."  Dee's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Oz shook his head, "no, she's not safe anywhere, not anymore."

The color drained from Dee's face as the reality of the situation sunk in.  There was a mad vampire out there with the strength and training of a slayer, who had a burning urge to see her dead, and who knew how to find her younger sister.  "Shit," she whispered.  The single expletive seemed to summarize the situation nicely.

"But she's safest whenever she's within three feet of you."

Dee nodded.  Oz was right, and she knew it.

As if on cue, April moaned quietly, and snapped her eyes open.

"Rise and shine."  Oz told her, his voice deadpan.

April sharply drew in a breath and was about to scream.  Oz reacted (surprisingly enough) before Dee did.  He slapped a hand over April's mouth.

"Shhh."  He whispered, soothingly, to her, "It's okay, you're safe here."

April winced as his hand pressed against her newly-bruised left cheek, but she seemed to calm down a little.  Oz had a way of doing that.

"I'm Oz.  I understand that you're April."  He smiled, "and I understand you've already met Dee."

April pointed, nervously at Dee, "She killed…"

Oz held up a hand, cutting her off, "I know what you think you saw, but I'm going to ask you: if she killed four people in cold blood, is it that inconceivable that she could have killed you while you were unconscious?"

April seemed to relax a little more, as Oz's logic seemed to make sense.

She lay calmly, as Oz told her everything.