The hard desert sun blazed through the cheap blinds and thin curtains and laid a stark, barred pattern across the faded carpet and over the twin bed. The occupant of said twin bed twitched and grunted in discomfort as the heat reached an uncomfortable level.

Faith rolled over and swung into a sitting position, blinking past a hand upraised to ward off the glare. Her mouth was dry; her head throbbed. She heaved herself to her feet, wobbling slightly, and shuffled across the floor, feeling the grit under her bare feet. It took two stabs to find the cord for the blinds; she closed the thin metal slats and recoiled as she caught a whiff of her own funk. Last night must have been… she couldn't really remember what last night had been.

"Shower," she mumbled.

As she dried herself with the threadbare towel, her reflection stared back from the mirror. She looked better than she felt, for sure. Slayer powers might not ease the feeling of a hangover, at least not right away, but they did keep her from looking like she felt, which was death warmed over.

She stumbled back into the room and sorted through the clothing scattered on the floor, found a pair of jeans that didn't pong too badly and a black T-shirt. Everything else, though… She yanked open the drawer of the cheap press-board nightstand, reached underneath, and pulled out the money taped to the bottom. She riffled through her funds; enough for a few more days before… But if another honey trap lay on the horizon, she needed to do laundry. Even the skeeviest johns didn't go for girls reeking of BO and puke.

She jammed handfuls of clothing into her duffel bag, then zipped the mess closed, grabbed the cheap Ray-Ban knockoffs she'd shoplifted from a convenience store, and went out into the harsh early-afternoon sun. In Vegas, hotels were "on the Strip", "off the Strip", "adjacent to the Strip", and "convenient to the Strip", and then there were motels like the Sunset. The bitter aptness of the name brought a mirthless smile to Faith's face as she raked a hand through her still-damp hair. She toted her bag to the diner across the street, where she had a Home Run Special Breakfast and changed a ten for a roll of quarters. The diner was good for that; it had six slot machines at the entrance, so they always had a supply of coins. The roll of quarters clutched loosely in her hand, she walked through the heat toward the bar/laundromat down the block, where most of the machines worked and the winos and junkies would leave her alone, and where she could conveniently pick up a beer... or two... or a whiskey if she felt really frisky.


Buffy stopped inside the door of the computer lab, very aware of the many sets of eyes turned toward her. "Uh, Will," she said, "when you told me to stop by after school, I thought it would be just the two of us."

"Oh, it's okay." Willow waved a hand. "This is just an informal club meeting."

Buffy paused and pointed at a girl with raven-black hair and skin the color of teak. "I know you… Happy Burger? Right?"

"Yes." She waved a hand. "Indali."

"Yeah, yeah… the storm… good to see you when the sun's out." The Slayer shrugged and waved her hands, then crossed the room to sit beside Willow. "Um, that girl looks familiar." Buffy twitched her head, subtly indicating a slender girl with shredded bangs working at a terminal in the far corner of the room.

"Yeah, that's Casey Porter," Willow said. "You remember, last fall, when Cordelia… well, she was–"

"Oh, the one who stayed for the police." Buffy glanced quickly over her shoulder. "Should I say something to her?"

Willow gave a quick shake of her head. "I don't think so. She's pretty shy."

Buffy's eyes widened. "You… consider her… shy? Wow, how does she even go out in public?"

Willow snickered. "Stop it. Anyway, I got your information. A lot of it was on Google–"

"What's that?"

"I told you about it. It's a search engine that came out last year. Some students at Stanford started it. They called it BackRub at first."

"Ewwww."

"Very ewwww. Can you imagine saying 'let me BackRub you' or "let me BackRub that'? Gross. Anyway, some of the info was public domain, some of it I had to hack into the UCS database, took a little side trip to the DMV–"

"Stop there. I'm starting to feel like I'm corrupting you." Buffy shook her head.

"Please. I do harder searches than this just to wake up." Willow tapped a couple of keys. "So, your guy is Herve Calderon, bachelor's in Middle Eastern studies from Cal State Northridge, masters and doctorate, same subject, UC Davis, taught for four years at Monterey Bay, then two years at San Luis Obispo, then switched systems and came to good ol' UCS. He's the vice-chair of the… huh, that's a little odd."

"What it?" The Slayer leaned in.

"He's vice-chair of the department of Middle Eastern Studies, which, yeah, but he also teaches courses in the Humanities department."

"Okay, you've lost me."

Willow squinted at the screen. "Let's see what those courses are…" rapid-fire typing "...The Thousand-and-One Nights in Arabian Literature… huh." She sat back. "'Mystical Traditions: Jewish Folklore and the Kabbalah', 'Ancient Near East Writings', and 'Supervised Study'."

"What's that?"

"I don't know, probably one of those courses where the students figure out what they want to learn. Anyway, here's his address… he drives a BMW… Hey, let me…" a blur of clicking-and-clacking "...he's traveled to the Middle East a lot."

"Well, that's what he's a professor of, right?"

WIllow shook her head. "The times aren't right… they're not long enough to be sabbaticals… maybe conferences… I can check on that, but… the timing doesn't seem right."

Buffy patted her friend's shoulder. "All right, go dunk your head in a bucket of water to cool down, Turbo. This is plenty right here, more than I know what to do with, actually." She stood up. Thanks."

"Buffy?"

"Yeah?"

Willow worried her lip with her teeth. "Oz asked me to talk to him after school tomorrow. What do you think that's about?"

Buffy shook her head. "I'm sure he wants to apologize and beg your forgiveness… as he should. Don't tie yourself in a knot."


Nightfall was the worst… and the best. It was when the shadows built up in the Sunset Motel, and instead of one thin-matressed twin bed, there were two, and instead of the room being empty and silent, a ghost walked through the room…

Nightfall was the best, because when the memories became too overwhelming, Faith fled into the faux-daylight of Vegas. She hadn't completely forgotten about being the Slayer, but Vegas was tough; sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between vampires and the human bloodsuckers. Still, it didn't hurt to ash a few fangs to balance the books before finding a party…

And there was always a party, and they were always easy to find. Some were good, some were bad, and some were awesome, but they all served the intended purpose: to burn away the dark hours until she stumbled back to the Sunset and fell into a deep, dreamless unconsciousness.

Like the party she was at. Faith wasn't quite sure where it was, another of those weird Vegas neighborhoods where cheaply-built, slightly run-down houses and apartments abutted sun-blasted warehouses and auto-body shops. This one was cranking along pretty well; she simply walked in the front door and insinuated herself into the rhythm of the night. She scooped a beer out of a tub full of ice and slipped through the crush of bodies to the back yard. The short trip left her slick with sweat; that house really was a sauna. Faith ran the beer bottle over her forehead, letting the cold glass and bits of ice cool her brow. She noticed a couple of guys watching her, and she made them straight away: college choads getting into the 'dangerous' side of Vegas, probably frat guys from UNLV. She grinned and winked; the idiots responded as expected. The pattern was established: a dance, a suggestion, a winking refusal, next guy, next dance. A couple of the refusals had to be reinforced, but only with a subtle squeeze of or knee to a sensitive area. She was on her third beer when she leaned against the house's pitted siding for a break.

The young woman's glossy black hair fell almost to her shoulder. As she danced, her head whipped back and forth, and Faith caught a glimpse of a sharp cheekbone and an almond eye. Lindsay

Faith felt puke rising in her throat, acrid and sour. The girl turned as she danced, and the illusion was broken; she was Faith's age, high school or early college, in baggy jeans and a black baseball jersey with a hip-hop record label's logo. Faith choked down her rising panic with a healthy pull from her bottle. She realized she had to pee, and she thought about putting down the beer or throwing it away, but it was two-thirds full. She shrugged; she'd done worse than kill a beer on the crapper.

She almost killed it, but there was still a swallow left when she stumbled out of the bathroom, bouncing off the door frame as she did so. She stopped for a moment, and heard a sound that was different from the usual party hubbub. She followed it to a closed door. The sound came from that room, so she pushed it open.

A guy and a girl were on a bed; his hand was groping its way down her pants as she tried to push it away. His other hand covered her mouth. Two more sides of beef bracketed the bed, grinning. In a flash, Faith knew why they were there: guards, to keep the girl from running away.

"Hey," Faith said, "I don't think she wants to play." The two bros on guard duty jumped. The guy on the bed, the head meathead (Faith grinned sloppily at her own wit) looked over his shoulder.

"I think you wandered into the wrong room," he said.

Faith could see the girl's eyes, wide over the boy's hand. "Nah, I don't think so." She winked. "I think I'm right where I belong. Let her go."

One of the secondary meatheads spoke up. "Maybe we'll let her go if you take her place," he smirked.

Faith tipped up the beer bottle and drained the dregs, then dropped her hand to her side. "Oh, jagoff, you are stupider than you look, and that's sayin' somethin'."

"Really?" Meathead #2 stepped away from the bed and shook his shoulders. Faith almost snorted; the asshole was trying to impress her with his gym moves. He turned and spoke over his shoulder to his buddies. "This could get ug–"

He turned back full into the beer bottle that Faith whipped around from her hip. The bottle was thick, especially the bottom, and did not shatter on his head like the movies. The meathead's left eye orbital and zygomatic bones cracked like a pianist's knuckles. His nose broke in the opposite direction as the bottle reached the end of its arc and Faith whipped a backhanded swing along the same plane.

"Hey!" Meathead #3 launched his attack as his broham crumpled to the floor. Faith brought the bottle over her shoulder in a straight strike. It was a little awkward, but the bottle's base caught him flush in the middle of his forehead, just above his eyebrow ridge. His eyes rolled back in his head and he would've dropped straight to the floor, but Faith kept him upright for a heartbeat with a hard kick to the nutsack. Then he went down and didn't move.

Head Meathead stared at her, his eyes showing white all around the irises. He stammered, "Wh-Who are you?"

"I'm fuckin' Wonder Woman, asshole." Faith gestured with the bottle. "You still got your hand over her mouth."

"Wh– Oh." He yanked said hand away as though it touched a red-hot stove. "Listen–"

"You got nothin' I wanna hear." She stepped forward and brought the bottle down squarely on his skull. He pitched to the side and rolled off the bed onto the floor. He lay there twitching. The girl scrambled back and crouched against the headboard.

Faith looked at her, suddenly very tired. "Listen, I don't know what you're gonna do, but I'm gonna get outta here, and I'd advise you to do the same." She dropped the bottle, turned, and headed back down the hallway. She had just negotiated the crowded living room and reached the front door when she heard the first screams.


"Your assessment?" Matti asked. She was kitted out in her usual all-black patrolling BDUs, the H&K USP Compact snug in its hip holster.

"I think that it's very possible." Stefan Warner said. He was similarly attired.

The Knights were atop the Fish Tank. Both used Steiner 10x42 binoculars to scan the Sunnydale docks as they sat on the tarpaper-and-asphalt roof.

"They're definitely there, and definitely keeping an eye out for something." Warner made a walking motion with his hand. "No roaming, not even a whiff of looking for a meal."

"That's weird," Matti said. "Vamps are greedy mofos."

"It's their nature," Warner said. "Which means that these guys are getting all the blood they can handle at home. They have to be, to just sit there like that."

"Why do you think they're doing it?"

He shrugged. "Obviously, waiting for the Seal."

"But why just sitting here every night? That's not very efficient."

"They don't know when it's going to arrive, and they have to be ready?"

Matti lowered her binoculars and nodded. "Yeah, could be. Do you think they're worried about the crosstown traffic?"

"I would be. Last thing I'd do is leave any aspect of the operation uncovered with that psycho around."

"Speaking of operation…"

"You are the queen of segues."

"What's the word from our betters?"

Warner lowered his binoculars and the Knights locked eyes. "At the present time, we are to hold our positions, continue to report, and maintain operational readiness."

"So, sit twiddling our thumbs."

"You got it." Warner raised his glasses. "Ready to resume twiddling?"


Faith stumbled along the gravel shoulder that passed for a sidewalk, sweating and shivering as the adrenaline leached out of her system. The three meatheads hadn't been much of a challenge. Challenge? She laughed harshly, and that was it. Her stomach jumped and she bent over as its contents emptied into the gravel at her feet. When the heaves finished, she stood up and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She stood in the circular glare of the streetlight as traffic buzzed past and shook her head, a puddle of her own vomit at her feet. She was a little lost, but she'd get home eventually.