The moon shone down on Sunnydale, rising half full over the cemetary, and shedding silver illumination on the headstones. Deep shadows pooled in crevices and covered the engraved names in darkness. Buffy walked across the grass, hair tucked into a cap and wrapped in a warm jacket against the chill of the night.
She stopped by a fresh grave, and stared at the mound of earth. Idly, she pulled a stake from her pocket and began to clean her fingernails with it. "Now, Mr. Redstone," she said conversationally to the grave. "I hope you're not one of those late risers. I've got a paper due tomorrow, so whenever you're ready."
The minutes ticked by with only the moon overhead and the silent graves around to keep her company. She fidgeted, checking her watch from time to time. The vampire didn't rise.
A slight noise to the left caught her attention, and she whipped her gaze around in time to see a large figure dart across a moonlit area, disappearing into the darkness. Another one followed a second later. By the shape and fluidity of the figures, she could tell they were a far cry from human.
"Finally, some action," she muttered, hopping down from the tombstone and in the direction the demons vanished. She stalked the demons through the shadows, following their mystical trail. Slayer intuition struck another home run. She came upon the two demons as they were attempting to break into an old crypt.
"That's so sweet," she said cheerily, stepping from the shadows with her arms crossed. The rest of her smartass comment, something about demon couples and how it was nice to see them shopping for a home, died on her lips as they spun to face her, snarling. She couldn't help taking a step back, grimacing in disgust. She'd seen ugly, and she'd seen hideous. But these things went beyond such simple description.
They were naked, unless green, viscous slime counted as clothing. A double row of jagged and broken yellow fangs that would make a tyrannosaurus proud glinted at her in the moonlight. Covered in scales, with green flamelike orbs for eyes, they vaguely reminded Buffy of textbook pictures she'd seen of dinosaurs. Simple glyphs ran down both their skulls, carved right into the skin of their faces. Something in the back of Buffy's mind niggled at the image the glyphs formed, but the rest of her was boggling at the demons.
The demon on the right took Buffy's lapse of equilibrium to jump at her. Only luck saved her from becoming the main course. As she went down with the demon atop her, a squeal of pain erupted from the demon's throat. It shuddered once, convulsed, and the hellish lights faded from its eye sockets. It had fallen on her stake.
"Mr. Pointy saves my ass again," she told herself. "I'm going to have this thing bronzed." She groaned, and heaved the corpse off her, hand-springing back to her feet in a defensive stance. Just in time, it seemed. The demon's corpse hissed and bubbled and dissolved. Into what, Buffy didn't see. The second demon came at her with a low, snarling hiss, swiping with a clawed hand at her head.
She ducked and the swing went wide. The demon stumbled, and she followed through with a low, solid kick to the thing's solar plexus. It grunted and dropped to the ground. One taloned foot lashed out, caught her ankle and dropped her to her back. She rolled with it, felt something whistle past her shoulder and she was on her feet once again.
The demon and she stared at each other for a moment, slowly stepping left to circle each other. "You're good girl," it snarled.
She shrugged and smiled brightly. "I work out, eat my green veggies, early to bed."
"Smart mouth too."
"You're not the first to tell me that." Buffy rolled one shoulder, still smiling as bright as the sun. She let utter confidence leak into her next statement. "I'm sure you won't be the last." Deliberately, she let her shoulder drop as she finished the roll. The demon, seeing the opening, went for it. She smiled triumphantly as she moved lithely out of the demon's path, stepped behind it, and drove her thrice-blessed and sanctified knife through the top of its spine. Lightning-fast, she twisted the knife, and pulled it back out. Smoke followed the blade out as the demon's flesh seared from the holy blade.
"You demon types," she clucked as the demon fell limply to the ground. She kicked it over onto its back. "You're so predictable."
The demon laughed, through the luminescent blood bubbling through its lips. "You'll never stop the Coming," it gurgled through its laughter, and stopped to cough. "The blood of the daywalker brings him forth, and you will not be able to stop it. He shall feast on your bones, and he will...will..."
"Will what?!"
The demon choked, and the twin fires that were its eyes died out. It sank back limp, limbs askew, lifeless in the grass.
Buffy sighed and moved back from demon's corpse. She watched as it went the way of the first, dissolved into greenish slime. The slime sank into the grass after a moment. "I'm going to need a note for that term paper."
The snarl of the late-rising Mr. Redstone was the only warning she had. She stopped, rolled her eyes and pulled out her stake. "I'm tired and covered in ick, so no games, okay?" She whirled and plunged the stake through his heart. A rush of screaming wind sounded, and the late Mr. Redstone fell to dust.
"I sense another sleepless night coming up," she said wearily to herself, and began the walk to Giles' house.
=====
Giles answered his door after the eighth pounding knock, yawning and dressed in his bathrobe. He blinked owlishly at Buffy and muttered something that might be a "come in" or a "go to hell".
"Good morning to you too sunshine," Buffy said, and stepped past him into the Watcher's living room. She had changed out of her clothing on the way here, tossing the slimed garments into the river. Buffy had learned to keep a spare change of clothing in the gym bag she toted most places, for these exact reasons. But she hadn't yet managed to get the goop out of her hair. She plunked down on the sofa and distastefully picked at the hardening slime in the locks of hair framing her face.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" he murmured through another yawn as he shuffled over to the couch and sat beside her.
"Oh, I'd say roughly about three in the morning," she said, and pulled her cap off. "Time to get up, in fact. We might have a problem."
He blinked again, his focus coming sharper. "A problem?" he asked, suddenly alert. He rummaged in the pocket of his bathrobe for his glasses and slid them into place on his nose.
"Yeah. Sorry I couldn't wake you up with good news. Doesn't seem to work that way." She ran a hand through her hair and looked up at her Watcher. "Demons. Two of 'em. Big, slimy, scaley, green glowy eyes. Glyphs of some kind carved into their heads. Teeth that would send an entire generation of dentist's kids through university. Oh, and." She held out a lock of hair that was more green-blue than blonde. "Slimy. Did I mention slimy?"
"Yes, yes I believe you did." He cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes. "They showed up while you were on patrol?"
She nodded. "While I was waiting for sleepyhead Mr. Redstone to roll out of the grave, in fact."
"Did they, they say anything?"
She shrugged and crossed her ankles on the coffee table, leaning back against the couch. "Said something about a Coming. Standard apocalypic fare. Grinding of bones and feasting on flesh. The usual, you know."
Giles was looking more and more alert all the time. "A Coming of whom? When? Did, did it say?"
"Nope. It dissolved into radioactive-green ick while it was mocking me." She reached into a pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. "These are the glyphs they had carved into their heads." She passed the rough sketches over to Giles, who unfolded the paper and adjusted her glasses. "One of them looked kinda familiar, but I've looked through so many demonologies and compendiums over the past two years that I... Giles?" She half-rose off the couch, alarm sharpening her tone. "Giles, what is it?"
Giles' face went sheet white as he stared at the scrap of paper. His hand trembled, rattling the paper. "I believe I know where you've seen these before," he said faintly, and stood up. He moved to the bookcase, slid a book from the shelf and flipped through its pages. He compared the sketches to something in the volume, and looked decidedly unhappy. With his skin positively ashen, he handed both back to Buffy.
She carefully took the book, still watching him in concern. When she turned her own gaze to the page Giles had left open, she could feel her own blood rushing from her cheeks.
The sketches weren't much taken separately. But if she put them all together, they added up to something that looked suspiciously like the centerpiece of the crest of the family Giles.
"Lucy, you got some esplainin to do," she said quietly.
=====
Willie the Snitch rarely closed his bar. Rarely did he have opportunity. Between daytime demons and nighttime vampires, he had business aplenty. But lately there had been rumors of a new cabal of demons that had taken up residence in good old Sunnydale, and most of the regulars were laying low. The truly cowardly had fled the Hellmouth altogether. They'd return -- they always returned -- when the danger was over. Should things go truly south, well... there was another Hellmouth in Cleveland where they could take up residence.
But a nice, slow Wednesday morning was just the thing he needed to catch up on inventory and paperwork and the like. And yet... something was wrong. Willie was only a human, but he'd been around demons long enough to know when something was up. A different scent wafting from upstairs, the slightest noise... Something alerted him in time to turn to stare at the stairs.
One boot came into view, black leather with a two-inch heel, most of the leg hidden beneath tight black leather pants. It was followed by a second Willie followed that leg up past a well-toned thigh, over a softly-rounded bare hip and up a golden expanse of torso to the tight red shirt holding in a nice pair of breasts. The cascade of black hair surrounding her shoulders started there, framing a face set with bright green eyes between the strands and a black velvet choker around her throat. A pair of detached sleeves in the same deep maroon shade as the shirt she wore, starting at the biceps, flowed past her wrists in large bell shapes. If it had been anyone else, Willie would be in love. But not with this one. Oh no. Not with this one indeed.
She folded her arms, and took another languid step down the stairs. "You know," she said conversationally. "I'd feel a lot better if I knew you weren't undressing me with your slimy little eyes."
Willie belatedly realized that his mouth was flapping like a fish out of water. He took a step back, and his shoulders hit the wall. "They-they-they said you were dead."
One more lazy step and her mouth twitched in a half-smile. "Many have tried, Willie. Many have tried."
"Butbutbut... you're not... not supposed to be here."
"You see, Willie." One more step, followed by another in slow progression. "That's the funny thing about the Hellmouth. It's a center of mystical convergence, and it draws people and things to Sunnydale. There is no such thing as coincidence in this town."
He swallowed, licked his lips a few times. "Strange things happening in town these days. Walking dead and a couple of new demon cults and the like. Busy week for the Hellmouth. Now you. Gotta wonder at that."
She laughed. "Oh no, Willie. I've been here for awhile. Right under the Watcher's nose, in fact."
Willie swallowed, forgot that he was flush against the wall and tried to take another step back. "Spike know you're here?"
A perfectly arched eyebrow raised. "Bleachhead lives on the Hellmouth these days like a common demon? My, how the mighty have fallen."
"Has been for awhile now. Same as you." Wheels started turning in Willie's head. If she didn't know Spike was here, there was a damned good chance Spike didn't know she was here either. If he hadn't heard, Spike definitely wouldn't have heard. And since no one had come his way asking about the daywalker... Terrified or not, if Willie lived in a cartoon, he'd bet that there would be dollar signs in place of his pupils right about now.
"Ever the opportunist aren't you," she purred, and Willie was suddenly very afraid. Somehow, she had gotten right in front of him while he had been off in his daydreams, and now she was no more than a few inches away.
Her scent washed over him, drowned him. Her eyes filled his world, and try as he might, he couldn't look away. "You wouldn't dream of selling me out, would you, Willie?" Fangs flashed in his vision. Dainty, catlike fangs that gleamed sharp and bright. He gulped air, and the cold sweat migrated to the rest of his body.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he whispered. Inwardly he was thinking that this must be how the mouse felt in the gaze of a snake.
"Good," she said, and abruptly moved away. "I'd hate to have to bespell you, or kill you. It's not good karma. But since we have an arrangement..." A hand disappeared behind her, and reappeared a moment later full of crisp new twenties. She tossed them onto the counter with a lazy flick of her wrist and turned back to the exit.
"See that no one hears word I'm in town. Not until I'm ready." She began to mount the stairs again, then paused in a shaft of sunlight. It lit her hair with a halo of gold, and shone in a bright aura around the rest of her body. "Oh, and Willie?"
He froze, one hand outstretched to the bills on the counter. There was that hypnotic stare again. "Yeah?" he squeaked.
"I know how adverse to pain you are, and how some of your clients like to threaten you with bodily harm. I don't care, particularly. I bought your silence, so stay silent. If you find yourself wavering just remember..." She flashed her fangs again in a smile. "I can do much worse than even they could dream."
She disappeared up the stairs without a sound, but it was a long time before Willie dared to move. "After graduation day," he muttered as he snatched up the small packet of bills and thumbed through them, "I'm moving out of this crazy town."