I may be twice dead, but I'm not suicidal."

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Jen, a tall, skinny sixteen year-old Chinese girl and Juanita, a petite fifteen year-old Dominican, had also been patrolling Washington Square Park. Brazen killings in a public space, like those of the previous night, had become rare, thanks to their combined efforts. Juanita noticed the two men running. Jen said to wait a few seconds, since it could be a feint to lead them away while other vampires attacked in the square. Juanita went a block north and saw two men fighting to the east. The Slayers race over and see a vampire beating on a human. Devlin had been very careful not to show his vampire face. It pays off. As Spike is about to snap his neck, Jen knocks him away from Dev with a right cross and puts him on the ground with a left hook.

"Oh bloody hell," Spike says, looking up at the two angry teenage girls.

"Thank you, Jesus," Devlin exults before running away.

"I'm Spike," he says as he stands up. He blocks Jen's right kick and lands a right cross to her face. But Juanita connects with a right hook kick and left roundhouse. "The vampire with a soul. You've heard of me, right?"

"Sorry," Jen responds, knocking him into the banister with a right kick to the body.

"I'm on your side, luv," he says to Juanita. She grabs his jacket and throws him head-first into a lamp pole.

"Don't you dare call me that, you bloodsucking fiend," Spike staggers into the middle of the narrow street. Jen blocks his path back to the square.

"You've got the wrong guy. People will die."

"If we let you go," Jen says. Juanita charges, and Spike backs up onto a staircase, getting five feet above the Slayers. A man comes out of the house.

"What do you want?" He sees Spike's monstrous face. "Ahh," he yells before pushing Spike down the stairs and rushing back inside. The Slayers surround him and kick him while he's down. Juanita pulls out her stake. Spike holds up his hands.

"You're making a huge bloody mistake."

Devlin uses this respite to excellent effect. He climbs up the sixty foot-high arch and look down at the multitude. "I am the lizard king! I can do anything!" The four vampires skulking in the southeast corner of the square look up and smile. Dev leaps down into the large fountain that dominates the center of the square. He grabs one of the singers and bites him. It's his first meal since leaving Debbie. The other singers scream and run away. He snaps the man's neck and runs down the guitarist, biting and draining him. For one hundred yards around Dev, pandemonium reigns. Jen hears the sounds of panic.

"Juanita! Something's happening!" They run back. Spike gets up. Despite his bad knee, he manages to pass them. He knows he has to get Dev and finish him off once and for all.

"Told you," he says as he races by. Devlin grabs a woman in her early thirties and bites her from behind, looking north towards his pursuers. Before he can finish her off, Spike rushes through the arch where he created Dev and past the fountain. He snaps the woman's neck, throws down her corpse, turns around and runs south. Spike keeps gaining, and is within five feet when they reach the street at the south of the square. Spike is hit in the left knee by a car which cannot stop in time. He goes down in immense pain. Jen and Juanita leap over his body. The driver steps out to see how the man he hit is doing. Spike waves him off and limps to the nearest subway entrance. At the end of the street, the four vampires jump Jen, tackling her. Juanita continues chasing Dev. Jen vaults to her feet and kicks and punches her four attackers. Chuckie lands a right hook to her face, but she ducks a punch from another male vampire, spins round and stakes the other guy. Vivian turns tail and runs east. Chuckie and the other vamp follow suit.

Devlin runs two blocks south and turns right. This is his old stomping ground. He knew it well even before becoming a vampire. When Juanita gets close, he climbs up a four-story building.

"I can wait all night," she says from down on the sidewalk.

"I can't." Dev leaps down into the alley between the buildings. The Slayer leaps over a fence and moves in on the trapped vampire. But Dev pulls up a sewer grate and disappears underground. She knows better than to follow a vampire down there.

The three surviving vampires quickly lose Jen, who is worried about Juanita. She soon gets a call. "Where are you?"

"Don't bother. He's gone. I'm coming back."

"You don't wanna." Jen looks at the bodies and hears the cop cars rushing to the scene. "Let me meet you there."

"I said he's gone."

"Where?"

"Underground."

"And you just let him?"

"No exactly. But I'm not chasing no bloodsucker into the pipes. Look — I'll meet you on Bleeker."

"I got one. Three got away. We gotta follow."

"Where?"

"The East Village. Tompkins Park. Maybe Union Square. A lotta bodies there." There refer to ordinary humans as bodies.

"We'll get 'em, Jenny. We always do."

"What the hell was up with that blonde guy?"

"I dunno. Probably part of the gang. We'll get him too."

Before the fight, Vivian had told the other vampires to meet up in Union Square if anything went wrong. When the other two arrived, they recalled this, and it made them suspicious. "It's almost like you planned for us to fail," Chuckie says. This is hypocritical, since he was actively conspiring against them with Spike until Spike's stock dropped after two straight failures.

"I just wanted to be careful."

"That why you ran so quick," the other guy asks.

"Devlin was gone. The other Slayer could have attacked. Things looked bad. But now they're looking up." She holds out the key. "Devlin left us something special."

"What?"

"Let's go to Penn Station and find out." She looks south and sees Jen and Juanita approaching. "Fuck! They just don't give up." The other two vampires see them, forget their differences and join Viv in running down into the subway. The Slayers comb the area but find no one. Jen decides to call Giles. He answers at close to 5:00 Rome time.

"Sorry to call so late. Or so early."

"It's okay. I was just getting up." An hour later, but no matter. "What is it you want to tell me, um - "

"It's Jen. From New York City."

"Of course. Is, er, Juanita there?"

"Yeah. We've had some problems."

"I heard about last night. Don't worry. You can't be everywhere at once. Even Buffy had to accept the occasional massacre."

"He struck again."

"One vampire?"

"And some friends. Including a guy named Spike." Giles gets out of bed and puts on his glasses.

"I beg your pardon?"

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Spike calls Angel from the tub, where he's resting his hurt knee. Angel's in his car. He looks at the number. "What do you want?"

"Bloody Slayers. I had him! Wus about to kill 'em. And they show up and attack me while he kills people!"

"Clearly you have communication problems with Slayers. What can I do about it?"

"Call Wolfram & Hart's New York office. They must know where the girls live. Then I go over and see them."

"Sounds like a good idea yesterday."

"Yeah. You're right. Did I just say that?"

"I gotta go."

"Why? Are you on a date with Nina?"

"Nope. Not that it's any of your business, but I'm staking out a client who's up to no good."

"Isn't that all your clients?"

"This guy's up to a special brand of no good."

"Can't you have you goons do the scut work?"

"I don't trust them. So are you coming home no that you failed?"

"I haven't failed! I will get the boy. And his sister. He's gonna see her now. And I'm going to meet them. This time I do it right."

"Good luck with that," Angel says dismissively before hanging up. He still thinks a Slayer will kill Dev before he can cause much more trouble.

Devlin takes the sewer west towards the Holland Tunnel, which he runs across. He parked his car in a lot on the New Jersey side, planning for a quick escape. Now he has to go someplace Spike would never think of looking.

"Here it is," Vivian tells the two skeptical vampires. She opens the locker.

"It's a gym bag," Chuckie says glumly. She opens it and smiles.

"We got gatts!" Chuckie reaches in, but Viv slaps his hand. "Not here." She looks around and sees a few cops. The guys realize that's smart. Viv rushes into the ladies' bathroom, and they follow her into a stall. "You can't be in here."

"Very funny." She pulls out a gun. The woman in the next stall hears the male voice.

"Oh my god." Viv looks over one of the guns.

"Silencer. Some sort of sight."

"A laser sight," the male vampire says, pointing it at the wall.

"I can't believe I didn't think of this before," Chucky comments.

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The trunk door opens, and Elektra bolts out. She's in a forest. Nobody else is visible. "Do you have any idea who I am," she asks as she skulks around. "You're going to be very sorry. I kill punks like you for breakfast! Come out, you fuckers!"

"Careful dearie, or I'll have to wash your mouth out with soap."

"Mom?" She can't see her. "Mom, what's going on?"

"The world is on your shoulders. You can't hold it much longer. Naught by yourself." She follows the sound of her mother's voice and finds her among the trees in the pitch black night. It's been a while since Leks has been in the country, and the smell of pine sap is overpowering. Dru wear as long black dress with silver trim.

"Couldn't you like send a note or something?"

"No time. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold."

"Big fucking deal." Dru slaps her. "Jeez. Sorry, mom."

"He's waiting for you."

"I got a lotta guys waiting for me. Hundreds. I'm a popular girl."

"Your brother. And your father."

"Dev's free? Cool!"

"A hunted thing is naught free."

"Ohhh. I get it. Spike's chasing Devlin down, now that he's on our side, and you want me to rescue him."

"He will rescue you."

"Okay. So what do I do?"

"Find him."

"Then how is he rescuing me?" Dru slaps her insolent daughter again.

"We used to hoide in coal mines, your father and I."

"Yeah. So? Sorry. Please continue." Elektra knows further disrespect will only bring on more hitting.

"Your brother is lost, confused. He doesn't know which soide he's on. You have to carry him our way. Else we are doomed."

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"So if they did nothing, this vampire would be dead and three people would be alive, as would another vampire," Gretchen says to Giles over the phone. "Not a good night. Maybe we should release an A.P.B. on the vampires who should not be killed. There's only two, right?"

"He shouldn't have been in New York. If it wasn't for Spike, Jen and Juanita would have killed that vampire and several others." Giles isn't about to give Spike credit at his Slayers' expense.

"He fit the description of the vampire in Orange County. And Cleveland." Giles doesn't want to speak of how Devlin hurt and killed Slayers.

"On the plus side, that means there's a Slayer out there for us," Gretchen notes, referring to Debbie. "Not that she's anywhere on our list of concerns right now."

"Do you think the girls in Cleveland are getting overconfident?"

"Well, there's six of them, they've never come close to losing — how couldn't they be overconfident?"

"Robin has to remind them that they haven't faced any strong vampires yet. What they're doing now doesn't count."

"They know about Vi and Rona. That's enough to keep them focused."

"I see your point. Is Robin around?"

"He's at school, keeping tabs by phone. The girls are in pairs, stalking the local feeding spots. From what I hear, the pickings are fat. More vampires arriving by the day. And dying by the night. Do you miss me?" Rupert is struck by the sudden question.

"Of course. We all miss you."

"You know what I mean."

"Over the years, I've grown accustomed to being alone. But over the previous months, I've come to take companionship for granted."

"I miss you, too. The situation here should be stabilized in a week. Robin can handle it from there."

"Do you think they need reinforcements?"

"Not now. We have enough flypaper." Buffy came up with a Flypaper Theory, whereby the vampires are drawn to the Hellmouth in large numbers, where they can be efficiently slayed. Giles doesn't like this model because it dehumanizes Slayers.

"They're not bloody flypaper. They're girls."

"And we have enough of them. If things take a turn for the worst, we can certainly call in Tiffany and the others. It wouldn't be too hard to get ten girls here. And I don't see how we could need more, even if the world is about to end."

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Leaving on Friday, Elektra arrived at her destination early Saturday morning, which was before Devlin even thought of going to this place. He spent Saturday driving around Pennsylvania, trying to anticipate Spike's next move. By early afternoon, he decided upon a place Spike wouldn't pass by, since it was on the way to Binghamton and Syracuse, rather than Philadelphia or Boston or Cleveland. In other words, it was out of the way. Leks spent Saturday sleeping in her car, then went out looking for her brother. But she soon got hungry, went to the local outlet mall and drained three people. She finally burst into her brother's motel room shortly after midnight. He was at his computer, a bottle of vodka in his right hand. Playing on the laptop's speakers was Nine Inch Nails' "Something I Can Never Have."

"You're just like dad. After he broke up with mom, it was nothing but Pretty Hate Machine' 24-7." Dev turns around.

"What on earth brought you to Wilkes-Barre?"

"Mom. Why else would I be here?"

"She wants to see me?"

"She wants us to hook up. But not in that way." Dev charges Leks, grabs her shoulders and slams her back into the wall.

"And what makes you think I'd want that?" He slams her forehead into the mirror. "You broke us up! You cost me everything."

"Oh give it up, martyr-boy. Hey, I'm bleeding. You bastard."

"I have nothing left to live for."

"Wrong. There's Buffy."

"She's only something to die for."

"It was your choice. I didn't put a gun to your head. So stop blaming others. It's your nature. You couldn't resist. And you still can't. Now let's go kill more Slayers. We're already rock stars."

"Spike's on my trail. The entire Slayer Corp's after me."

"Isn't that how you like it? Like in Afghanistan?" He manages a small grin.

"Sure. But this is very different. We can't kill the enemy."

"Why not? We already started."

"How many Slayers are now in Cleveland?"

"Six. It sucks. That's why I need you."

"We can't take six. Plus there's Spike. Maybe we should go to Europe. Or South America."

"I have my reputation on the line. You told me to stay in Cleveland."

"That's when I thought you'd be alone. Things have changed. I need help." She smiles.

"Guess we got that in common."

"How many Veterans?"

"What?"

"How many of the Cleveland Slayers are Veterans?"

"I dunno. It's not like I have time to interview them about their careers."

"High risk. Low reward. How many vampires are there?"

"About a dozen. More arrive every day, and die every night, so it kinda balances out."

"That should be enough."

"We also have lotsa demons."

"We won't use them."

"Why not?"

"We need to hog all the credit, make them subservient. Otherwise what's the point?"

"But they make great fodder. And some of 'em can fight."

"You've allied with them?"

"Of course. But it's been tough. They don't like me."

"Why would they? Demons hate vampires. On top of that, most of them come from highly patriarchal societies, so they'd feel ashamed to take orders from a woman."

"Sexist, speciesist pigs."

"Our problem right now isn't the Slayers. It's Spike. We have to knock him out of the game."

"Kill daddy?"

"If it comes to that. We can't take them on until he's of our backs."

"Maybe we can trick the Slayers into going after him."

"He'll join up with them first. We need to strike some psychological blow. To Spike and the Slayers."

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Driving close to one hundred miles-an-hour the whole way, Spike makes it into Cleveland just before dawn. He knocks over a sign and steps out of his car, cigarette in mouth, his forehead bumpy and his eyes yellow. "Home Sweet Hellmouth."

He spends the day sleeping in his car and listening to the demon chatter underground to get a sense of the situation. He hears plenty of complaints, and notices plenty of burn marks. Wood and the Slayers have been raiding demon hideouts during the day, surprising the enemy and burning them out of their holes with the flame thrower. Those who can't escape are chopped up by the Slayers. They're hoping to get the demon leader, but he keeps moving around with his band. He did take one piece of Elektra's advice and reorganize the demons into teams of six with one leader commanding the other five. Before then, demons had separated by species. Now, for survival's sake, that barrier was broken. The bands are based on his own group of elite fighters, who Elektra had noticed were quite capable of holding off the Slayers.

Once the sun sets, Spike goes to the high school he heard was the center of the operation. After waiting three hours, the Slayers and Wood finally show up. Spike's waiting in their training room. The girls at first think he's a janitor or homeless or something. Except for Kelly, who recognizes him, and can't believe her eyes. "No."

"Oh yes." Spike walks up to her. "Go ahead. Touch me." She punches him in the nose. He laughs. "A lot better than in the old days, Kel."

"That's for all that training' you gave us." The Potentials thought Spike liked beating up on girls, and couldn't understand why Buffy indulged this desire. "How the Hell did you get out?"

"I'm not quite sure myself. Doesn't matter. I'm here."

"Buffy ain't. She's in Rome."

"I'm not here for Buffy. I heard you have a little vampire problem."

"Problem," Veronica asks. "Only problem is we kill so many we're breaking our stakes." The other girls smile and nod.

"So you've taken care of the vampires who killed Rona and Vi?"

"Don't say their names," Kelly orders. "You don't have the right."

"Sounds like I touched a nerve. You girls don't like to be reminded you can die. But you can. I know that personally."

"He killed two Slayers," Kelly informs the others. "Like a million years ago. Now he's got a soul and he's harmless. You still have a soul?"

"If I didn't, you think I'd take on six Slayers? I may be twice dead, but I'm not suicidal."

Wood enters. "I got the ax." His jaw drops. He grips the ax tighter.

"Come on, Robin. How bout a hug?" Spike jokingly holds his arms out. Wood throws the ax for his neck. Spike ducks just in time, and the ax goes into the drywall. "Bloody hell!"

"What the hell are you doing here? What are you doing anywhere?"

"Don't blame me for coming back, Robin. It's not like it wus by choice. I'm here to take care of your Slayer killers."

"That's mighty generous of you," he responds sarcastically. "But they've moved on."

"To New York. I almost staked one of them, until two of your girls tried to kill me. Short black girl with a Spanish accent; Chinese girl about yeah high."

"That's too bad. What's make you think they'll come back?"

"They will. I know them."

"You know them," Wood looks down at the ground, shakes his head and chuckles ruefully. "You made them."

"One of them."

"I should have guessed. You haven't finished with your killing. You're just doing it by proxy."

"Piss off. I would give my bloody life to stop them. You think I'm happy about Rona and Vi?"

"How did you know about them," he asks suspiciously.

"Word travels fast in the underground. Do you want my help or not."

"No."

"We don't need your help," Katie tells the stranger. Spike chuckles.

"Bollocks. I can find Devlin. I can sense his presence. And I can't be killed by his bloody bullets." Wood thinks this over. He remembers when Elektra shot up his house. He knows about what happened in Orange County.

"So let me get this straight: In exchange for absolutely nothing, you're willing to fight and bleed and even die so you can help us."

"Pretty much."

"Go find your boy. We have lives to save." Spike stares Wood down for a few seconds before walking away. Robin looks at a map to decide where to send the girls this Saturday night.

"Mister Wood really hates vampires," Jessica whispers to Kelly.

"Especially ones who killed his mother," she whispers back.

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Devlin and Elektra are still 500 miles away, so Spike fails to detect them on this night. Instead, he goes to the Hellmouth to get a sense of what it's like and how it compares to Sunnydale. Six demons approach him. "You call this a Hellmouth," he jokes.

"I thought you were dead," the lead demon replies.

"I get that a lot. Zapol?"

"Hello Spike." He walks over to shake his old mate's hand and gets punched in the jaw and falls to his knees.

"Bloody hell. Wut was that for."

"Traitor." Zapol kicks him in the stomach. Spike rolls over, then gets up.

"Traitor? How? I only ever fought for myself."

"You kill your own kind."

"I started killing demons long ago. Nothing's changed. I just don't kill people anymore. Most people."

"Tool." Zapol takes another swing. Spike ducks. "Sellout." He throws a left hook Spike backs away from.

"Typical demon. Doesn't know whether to talk with your mouth or your paws." The other demons try to rush Spike, but Zapol holds his arms out.

"No. This is my fight."

"Let's rip him apart!"

"I'll rip him apart." Zapol approaches Spike and throws a right punch, which Spike blocks. He blocks Spike's right hook and knocks him down with a left kick to the chest. Zapol's friends decide Spike's not too tough and leave. Spike runs away from Zapol and towards an abandoned factory in the process of being demolished. Zapol chases. When Zapol gets close, Spike falls to the ground and trips Zapol up. "You fight cheap."

"I do wut I need to win. But I didn't come here to fight demons." Zapol strikes Spike with the back of his left hand. "Doesn't mean I won't. Spike head-butts Zapol, who proceeds to land a flurry of punches, often getting Spike with his claws. Spike grabs Zapol's horns and tries to snap his neck, but Zapol performs a suplex and slams Spike to the ground behind him. He then throws Spike through the glass and enters the building. Spike grabs a large piece of broken glass, cutting his hands, and drives it into Zapol's stomach. He goes down, and Spike pulls it out.

"You think a flesh wound will kill me?"

"It's a start."

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On Saturday night, Juanita patrols Times Square while Jen takes Central Park. They decide not to make any changes to their routine because of recent killings, and hope to catch the few remaining vampires at their usual feeding grounds. The three vampires split up to canvas the Park for a Slayer. They're usually hardly this bold. But tonight they're packing. However, none of them has ever fired a gun, and most vampires who try to kill Slayers with firearms fail due to bad aim. When one vampire finds Jen, he does a fake bird call which the others can hear from far away, and they rush to the angel fountain where Elektra made her first kill. He reports where she is and they rush over.

Jen's watching some teenagers drink beer out of cans covered in paper bags, knowing they're easy marks. She hides behind a tree, careful to stay out of sight. The vampire who saw her comes into view and attacks a young man, who screams. Jen rushes forward and starts pounding on the vampire while the kids flee. Meanwhile, Vivian and Chuckie come out of hiding. Chuckie fires first, but his three shots sail over Jen's head despite his use of a laser sight. (He's lifting the gun as he fires.) The Slayer turns, having heard the bullets hit trees, though she did not hear the silenced shots. The vampire she was attacking takes out his gun to shoot her in the back, but she turns around and kicks it out of his hands as he fires. He runs away, and Jen gives chase since he's running away from where he shots came from. Vivian realizes things are about to fall apart, and rushes after the Slayer. Her first four shots miss, but her fifth catches the Slayer in the right calf. She goes down, but takes out her opponent with a left sweep kick. Then she gets up and rushes to Viv's right, hiding behind trees. The shot was hardly disabling for a Slayer. Viv misses five more times. The Slayer comes round to attack her from behind. Viv panics because she can't find her. She looks in every direction, firing wildly, unable to distinguish the Slayer's footsteps because the other two vampires are also running around, figuring out what to do. The Slayer climbs a tree, walks out on a limb and leaps at Viv, stake in hand. Chuckie fires four times, hitting Vivian once in the shoulder, but also getting Jen in the chest. She goes down in pain. Viv backs up and aims carefully.

"Now you know what it's like to be afraid." She shoots Jen in the face. The bullet passes through her jaw and left cheek and doesn't kill her. Jen gets up and rushes the frightened vampire, who starts to doubt that you can kill a Slayer with a gun. But Chuckie, who's moved behind Viv, fires five more times, putting all his bullets in the Slayer's chest. She goes down again, but is still not dead. The third vampire retrieves his weapon, hurries over and puts three in her skull. Chuckie adds four more to the body, and his clip falls out. Vivian then turns right, points her gun at Chuckie and shoots the vampire who saved her left in the head. She does the same to his stunned friend with her last bullet. Viv picks up Jen's stake, finishes off the two vampires and sucks the blood out of one of the Slayer's chest wounds. She didn't kill the Slayer on her own, but who's left to disagree with her if she says she did?

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"He's in Cleveland," a stunned and annoyed Giles says to Gretchen on the phone Sunday morning. It's half past one Saturday night where she is.

"I think Robin made that abundantly clear."

"Well that's just bloody perfect."

"If he wants to help, I don't see the problem as long as he doesn't get in the way."

"Spike IS the problem, and he will get in the way." There's a knock at the door, and Olivia answers. Spike's standing there, holding the leader demon's severed head. His left eyes is swollen shut, his nose bloodied, his face bruised and scratched, and his shirt torn and his chest bleeding from claw marks.

"Care to let me in? I brought a gift." Olivia runs into the kitchen.

"Mister Wood. It's Spike! He's got that demon's head." Wood and Kelly rush over.

"This bloke mean anything to you," Spike asks as he tosses Wood the head.

"That's the leader," Kelly points out to Robin's chagrin.

"What do you want?"

"An invite."

"Go to hell."

"I did you a favor."

"Hold on," Gretchen says to Rupert. She enters the living room and sees Spike's trophy. "Nice work. Come on in." She invites him in, just as her sister Ingrid did before Spike raped and bit her. Robin's peeved at her gesture of good will. She goes back into the kitchen. "Well, well, Rupert. Looks like the nuisance helped out after all.

Spike collapses on the coach, causing three Slayers to stand up. "I'd like a place to crash. No staking while I'm asleep. And do you know where I could find some pig's blood around here?"

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Dev and Leks arrive in Cleveland early Sunday morning. He explains their mother's coal mine reference by pointing out that Wilkes-Barre was built near a giant coal mine. She wants to go straight to sleep in her hotel room, and is annoyed to discover Kat and Ricky, along with three new arrivals, sleeping in there. "Get out of my bed," she yells, tearing off the sheets.

"I wouldn't get too comfortable," her brother says.

"Spike can't sense me."

"But the Slayers can ask around. They found you before. Our main advantage is that we know where they live, but they don't know where we live. We initiate the attack at a time and a place of our choosing. I'd like to keep it that way."

"And I'd like to get some shuteye. After I'm done with you." She grabs a muscular young vampire with curly black hair. Men who sleep with her have a way of pledging to die for her, and she could use a few good bodyguards.

"Keep it in his pants for a little longer," Dev says with a sigh. "We're fighting for our lives here, against incredible odds. Winning will take a miracle. But I know we can do it. Slayers can walk away without a kill. We must fight to the death. A little more than a week ago, this town was ruled by two girls who seemed invincible. Now they're in the ground. It's time to show Buffy what vampires can do when their backs are against the wall. This past year has been her time to shine. Now it's our turn."

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This is the final chapter of my story. It will be continued in a new story entitled "For Every Action." Thank you to those of your who wrote reviews (Darklight). As for the rest of you, there's still time. The more reviews I get, the quicker I write and post my chapters.