Chapter 1: Close Encounters

The day it finally happened, Buffy was running through a wooded park in Bucharest. Her pulse was pounding in rhythm as her feet flew over the ground — watch that branch, veer left, jump over that root, was that a flash of yellow between the trees?

"This way!" she yelled to Vi with urgency. The demon was heading deeper into the woods, away from the trail lights, and Buffy didn't want to get separated in the darkness.

They had been tracking the scaly little — well, not so little — bastard through the city for hours. The local slayer had been trying for days, and the body count had been stacking up alarmingly when she called in reinforcements.

"Buffy, watch it!" Vi called, and Buffy dove to the right just in time to avoid running into the solid yellow wall of demon that had just crashed down from the canopy.

"Nice entrance," she said to her snarling foe, bouncing to her feet and brandishing the knife she had concealed. "Hope you've put some thought into your exit strategy!"

The demon jabbed at her with its enormous fist, and she ducked as Vi swung herself from a nearby branch and landed a solid kick to its head.

The demon roared, but instead of trying to fight back, it tucked itself into a surprisingly small scaly yellow ball. Vi landed next to it, and she prodded it gently with her sneaker.

"Um, Buffy...?" The ball began to shake, and Vi snatched her foot away. Right before their horrified eyes, the ball split into two, and each unfolded into a towering, full-size demon. "I didn't know they could do that! Did you know they could do that?"

"Guess our briefing was a little too brief," Buffy said with resignation as she dodged Demon 1. Demon 2 got its big hands on Vi and lifted her into the air as if she weighed nothing. "Hey, Big Bird! Put her down!" She managed to stab her knife into its arm before Demon 1 slammed into her. She bit the dust, hard, and the demon's clawed foot came down on her back, pinning her in place. She struggled mightily, but only pressed herself deeper into the dirt.

She was trying to reach a non-scaly, non-clawy spot to attack when she heard the unmistakable sound of a broadsword singing through the air and slicing into a meaty demon neck. The pressure on her back lifted as Demon 1 teetered and collapsed heavily to the ground beside her.

She rolled over, wondering where in the hell Vi had hidden a sword on her not-very-large personage. But the figure looming over her, from boots to long leather coat to spiky brown hair, didn't look like Vi at all.

"Need a hand?" he asked, reaching one out to her.

She said the only thing she could: "Angel."

†††

Buffy wasn't able to tear her eyes — or her hand — from his until a guy she'd never seen before clapped him on the back.

"We gave chase, man," he said breathlessly, "but the unmellow yellow thing got away. We lost the trail."

"That's not good," Angel responded, frowning. "Michianius demons are brutal. They kill humans for fun. We'll have to stick around until we've gotten them all."

"Welcome to the club," Vi said, using her sleeve to wipe at a cut on her face. "And thanks for the save. But who the hell are you?"

Buffy stumbled through the introductions, her eyes continuing to linger on Angel's face. He looked good. Well, the same. He always looked the same. But the last time she'd seen him — outside of her dreams — he'd been a little hell-shocked, his face drawn and his lips often pressed tightly together. Now he smiled easily enough as he introduced his friends.

Gunn was tall and oh-so-handsome, and Buffy didn't miss the way his eyebrows lifted when he heard her name on Angel's lips. She was surprised that it made her stomach flutter, to know that Angel had told him about her, but it did. His name was familiar too, but she knew very little about him.

She knew even less about the woman Angel introduced as Gwen, but she didn't exactly like what she saw. Not that she was one of those catty jealous types, but, well, she felt a little catty and maybe a tad jealous to see the willowy brunette so close to Angel.

She fought it back down. She and Angel were long over. And, given the way their last encounter had gone, she didn't expect that to change. No time to lament that now, though, not with a two-for-the-price-of-one brutal killer demon on the loose.

"Not that we don't appreciate the help," Buffy said, "but what are you doing here?"

"Gwen had a vision," Angel answered simply. "We've been traveling nearby."

"Doing the Grand Tour? Doesn't that get a little tricky if you don't have ID?"

"There's always a way," Angel said, without elaborating.

"L.A. isn't the best place for us right now," Gunn added. "The new chief of police didn't take our little hellcation, and she isn't inclined to give us the benefit of the doubt."

"We can talk about all of this later," Angel said. "Right now, we need to find the michianius."

Buffy pulled out her phone. "I'll check in with Xander. Maybe he and Sofia have had a sighting."

"Sofia is a slayer who lives here," Vi explained to the others. "And Xander's part of our team. He came with Buffy and me from London. We like to call him our friendly factotum. He doesn't like that so much."

As Vi spoke, Buffy edged a few steps away. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She fought the urge to pace. She was going to have to hold it together if she was going to spend the night with Angel. Spend the night tracking a demon with Angel, she quickly amended. The last thing she needed was for her brain to turn traitor on her. It was already focusing a little too much on the electric feeling of his palm against hers as he'd helped her to her feet.

This was stupid. She wasn't a 16-year-old schoolgirl anymore. She was 24 and the head of an international network of superheroes. She'd been through more apocalypses than she could count and, dreams or no dreams, she wasn't going to let an old boyfriend showing up throw her off her game.

Yeah, just an old boyfriend. That's all he was. She shook her head at herself and clicked to place the call to Xander.

†††

The hunting was not happy.

Xander had no new information, so staking out the park seemed to be the best option. Splitting up to cover more ground made the most sense, and Buffy could tell that Vi didn't really want to go off with strangers in a strange land, so the two of them joined up with the local slayer, Sofia, to monitor the perimeter of the park. Angel, with his superior sniffing ability and better night vision, trawled through the interior, assisted by Gunn and Gwen.

Many boring hours passed in which Buffy had little to do except fend off questions from two excited young women. Vi knew Spike's story from Sunnydale, but Sofia had never heard of a vampire with a soul. Her dark eyes twinkled in her still-childish face as she asked question after question.

Buffy stuck to the basics and gave anything that even hinted at her personal life a wide berth. She kept trying to get more information about the michianius out of Sofia, but it was clear the Bucharest-based slayer didn't know anything more than they did. Buffy would have to get the research team back in London on this — unless Angel had a lucky break.

But luck wasn't on their side, and eventually, they all trudged back to the hotel that Xander had found for them, minus Sofia, whose apartment wasn't far from the park.

Along the way, Angel fell into step beside Buffy, the set of his jaw and shoulders telling her how frustrated he was by the lack of progress. Buffy hoped that at least they had kept the demon pinned down and the morning news wouldn't be filled with more reports of mangled bodies.

She didn't know what to say to him. Hey, any chance you've been having X-rated dreams about me? That was definitely out. Hey, remember when I found out you had a teenage son with your sire and I totally freaked? Not any better.

She settled on talking shop. "Did you know they could split into two like that?"

"What?" Angel asked, clearly startled from his own train of thought.

"The...Mickey Mouse demon. It split itself in two when Vi and I were fighting it. Did you know it could do that?"

He looked over at her with a half-smile on his lips, and she felt the old flutter in her chest.

"No, I've only come across a michianius demon once before, and at the time, killing it was the last thing on my mind."

"Well, maybe this guy's special. I'm going to ask the team back home to look into it."

He nodded and they walked for a few blocks in silence, the sky slowly beginning to lighten around them.

"That might be why your friend got a vision," Buffy blurted as the idea occurred to her. "If this is a special kind of demon, I mean."

"Maybe," Angel said.

"Unless—I mean, was the vision—"

"You weren't in this one," Angel said. "I didn't know you would be here."

"Oh," Buffy said, not sure from his tone whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe he was regretting this particular mission. Or maybe he was worried that she was not happy to see him. "Angel—"

But just then, Vi asked her where to turn as they neared the hotel, and when she looked back at Angel, he was conferring with Gwen, their heads close together.

Buffy walked quickly ahead.

†††

While Vi cleaned up in the bathroom of the hotel room, Buffy flopped down on one of the beds to call Giles. She really didn't want to hear anything he might have to say on the subject of Angel, but she needed the research team's help with the mysterious case of the doubling demon.

"We'll go through our references again, Buffy, but I'm nearly certain there has never been a previously recorded instance of a michianius demon spontaneously bifurcating."

"So this guy is a special case."

"It would appear that way. Although..."

"Although?" she prompted.

"Another possibility does present itself in situations like these."

Buffy could practically hear Giles thinking over the line. She wondered if he'd taken his glasses off to polish them, or if that was too unwieldy while also holding his phone.

"A showy display like the one you describe could suggest magic — a conjurer's trick."

"You think the demon is not really real? Tell that to the claw marks in my new leather jacket."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say the demon wasn't really there, Buffy, just that there could be other forces in play."

"Any chance you could give me the 'Demons for Dummies' version of this? I'm not quite following."

"The demon may have been summoned by a third party. This entire situation could have been orchestrated to...well, as you might say, to mess with you. You and Angel. You have to consider that you may be in serious danger."