Author's Note: Special bonus to anyone who can tell me where I got the name of Kennedy's father's law firm from.
Disclaimer: nope, still 'tain't mine.
X X X X X
This aura thing Tara's got – damn. I am impressed, but take that impressed and double it and you'll see how worried I am. If she can read emotions, then she knows I lied about how I feel about her.
Still, she didn't seem to push me away or anything and she said she could turn it on and off, so I have to hope she turned it off when she looked at me.
It was going to be a lot harder for me now. Now I was going to have to pursue a woman who could know everything I was feeling – and whether I was lying about it.
Tara's the most ethical person I know. I can't see her reading people without a good reason. I know a lot of people who if they had this power would abuse it, even if they were abusing it for what they thought were good reasons.
Tara's not like that, thank God. It's all I've got to pin my hopes on at this point anyway.
I was doing a little mock sparring with one of the other Slayers – some were starting to get antsy to get home for a while, or to go out and kill some demons, or both. The only thing Giles told them was that if they wanted to go out and Slay in LA, to take a local guide with them. This meant the other vampire with a soul, Angel; his girlfriend, Cordelia, or a couple of other Angel Investigations employees. I'd been out once, by myself, with Cordelia and Angel.
Angel, now, I knew he could fight; I'd heard stories about him. Though this Cordelia chick looked like she knew how to use that sword I wasn't expecting that much out of her.
We ran across a nest of about a dozen Burchells' demons who weren't especially happy to see us. (Turns out they were drug dealers.) Angel took out a couple, I killed a couple more, and Cordelia was doing some damage with her sword.
When the numbers were down to six-on-three, another dozen Burchells' came pouring out of a nearby building. Cordelia said, "Enough!" and began to glow with a bright white light. Angel put his hand over my eyes before I went completely blind. When I could finally see again, what I saw through the spots was eighteen or so very dead demons.
"How the hell did you do that?" I said. "And if you could, why didn't you do it earlier?"
"The point of these excursions is for you slayers to get out and kill things," she said. "Not for you to get a guided tour of the back alleys of Los Angeles while watching me glow." Then she said. "Besides, this is kind of the atom bomb of demon-fighting. Not what you want to use as your first resort, and it takes something out of me every time I use it. A lot easier to use a sword unless you've got no other choice. As for how . . . I'm Angel's link to the Powers that Be. A while back I found out that my visions were killing me, so I had to become part demon in order to handle them. This ability to glow and kill evil is just kinduva nice fringe benefit."
"I'd say." Still, I kind of prefer the Slayer powers I already have. I'm a hands-on type of girl. Not that Cordelia's abilities wouldn't be useful to have around, but they wouldn't be as much fun. Go out. Find demons. Glow. Go home. Repeat until bored.
Anyway, that was all the Slaying itch I needed to get scratched at that point – just enough to keep me in the game while I waited for Tara to get out of the hospital.
And now there she was, talking with Dawn. Then Dawn got up and came over towards me.
I've never been sure what to make of Dawn. She always seemed to kind of resent us potentials. But, I gotta say, she came through when it counted. Still, we've maybe said ten words to each other that weren't strictly business. So I had no idea why she was walking towards me.
"Kennedy," she said. "Could we talk?"
Then, without hearing me say either yes or no, she began to half-drag me away from the other Slayers. I let her, because I was in a bit of a good mood. Would've been fun to see her try to drag away a Slayer determined not to move, but I didn't have any particular reason to give Buffy's sister a hard time.
"So, what do you want?" I asked.
"You're interested in Tara," she said. So whatever happened to small talk?
"She told –"
"She didn't tell me anything," Dawn said. "I saw the way you looked at her when you called her a tough chick. You're completely into her."
"Not completely."
Her eyes narrowed. "It had better be completely. She was dating one of the most wonderful people on the planet. If all you're after is something casual, you can keep going. Because I won't let you hurt her."
"Won't let me?"
"To quote Willow: 'If you hurt her, I will beat you to death with a shovel. A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend."
She was deadly serious.
Now I could've blown this off, told her to go take a flying leap, and walked away. And I was tempted to do it. In one sense, this wasn't her concern. Tara's an adult, I'm an adult. But I've faced my share of protective friends – a couple of times, I've been the protective friend. And pissing off a protective friend is never a good thing.
That didn't mean I was going to let the threat pass without some kind of response on my part.
"Two things. One, I believe you. Two, I wouldn't hurt Tara any more than I'd hurt myself. And three, if you threaten me like that again, you'd better have the shovel with you."
"I'd planned to," she said. The girl had steel ones, I had to give her that. I guess facing off against her sister for the last several years had toughened her up. "So, you like her." It wasn't a question.
"Yes. And there's no guarantee that anything's going to happen between us. But I'm going to try my best to see that it does. Just remember one thing."
"What?"
"I'm not Willow. This doesn't seem to bother Tara and I hope it doesn't bother you. Because if it does, that's on you, not me."
She opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said, "Fair enough."
I wondered how many times I'd be getting that speech in the next couple of weeks.
X X X X X
It turned out the answer was "three." Buffy, Xander and Faith all gave me variations of it, though Xander's was fairly friendly and Buffy at least made the effort to be civil about it. Faith, on the other hand, just threatened to outright kill me if I caused Tara any pain.
I knew there was a reason I liked her. We may come from opposite worlds economically, but there's something about New England chicks. We're feisty.
As for the rest of the core "Scoobies," Giles had more important things to worry about, and Anya was more concerned with having as much sex with Xander as possible. Lucky guy. I wish I'd ever had a partner as interested and enthusiastic as Anya. I'd ask her for tips except I'm fairly sure she's never crossed to my side of the street in 1100 years.
Hell, maybe I should ask Xander. Anya wouldn't be dragging him off so often if he wasn't good at what he was doing.
In the meantime, the actual reformation of the Watcher's Council continued. They had plans for twelve offices around the world: The LA and Baltimore offices, of course; Christchurch, New Zealand (near a Hellmouth) and Darwin, Australia; in Kyoto, Japan, and a bit outside Mumbai, India (Hellmouth location); in Alexandria, Egypt and Port Elizabeth, South Africa; in London, England, and in Moscow, Russia (Hellmouth location); and in Sao Luis, Brazil -- closest to the Hellmouth about twenty miles off the coast in the North Atlantic -- and Santiago, Chile. There were apparently two other Hellmouths in the world, but one of them emptied out 25,000 feet down in the Pacific Ocean and the other was somewhere under the polar icecap. There were magical circumstances as well as practical ones that made those essentially unusable for anything but a few specific demon species. The one off the coast of Brazil was in shallow enough waters that it was a different matter. Any Slayers there would have to undergo extensive training in underwater combat.
Thank God I wasn't one of them. I can swim, but duking it out with kraken has never really appealed to me.
One of the biggest hassles was right here in LA -- Angel, after all, ran a business here as well as "helping the helpless," so they had to figure out a way to work together without getting in each other's way. I wished them luck at that. My Dad's the one with the head for business in the family, not me.
If my Dad had had his ideal kid, I would've been in training for an MBA about now. While he was definitely disappointed that I didn't follow in his footsteps, he's never given me a hard time about it. As long as I'm happy and don't get myself arrested, he's okay with what I do, as long as I did something. He wasn't about to let me become a member of the idle rich.
Not that there's much chance of that now, of course. I may still have rich nailed -- I plan to use some of my own money to help out the council if they need it -- but a Slayer's life is about as far from "idle" as you can get.
I was able to help out when Giles told me that he was still having trouble finding a place in Warren that met our needs.
"Give me a list," I said. "I'll see what I can do."
Then I took the list -- enough living space for about 100 students, faculty and staff; classrooms, a gym area, a library, several other things -- and called the law firm my dad uses for a lot of his business, Woodman & Weld, out of New York. (He has a local firm on call for immediate matters, and Woodman & Weld for anything lengthy.)
I was paged through to one of the lawyers quickly. "Ms. Kennedy," a smooth voice said. "How can I be of assistance?"
I explained to them what we needed. "I realize you're not a real estate firm," I said when I was done, "But I figured if you guys can't help me directly you should at least be able to track down someone who can."
"Give me those requirements again," he said. I did so. "And will you be needing our assistance in making the purchase?"
"No, just in tracking down someplace to purchase. My friends have their own money, but we're all kind of stuck here in Los Angeles. Even with the internet it's hard to do coast-to-coast real estate transactions."
He laughed. "I understand completely, Ms. Kennedy. I can have them call you back with a list of appropriate locations."
"Rupert Giles is the man you should be calling," I said. "When you call back here, ask for him. If he's not here, I'll take the call."
"Certainly, Ms. Kennedy."
"You know, I just realized that I have no idea how much this is going to run me," I said. "What are your hourly rates?"
"On the house, Ms. Kennedy," he said. "Your father's given us plenty of business; we can afford to do you this one small favor. Just maybe suggest us to your friends if they ever need legal representation in the New York area."
I said I'd do that, and hung up the phone. When I did, I said, "Yes!"
Tara overheard me -- hell, the entire lobby overheard me, but she was the only one who came over. "What's got you excited?" she asked.
"Besides you standing five feet away?" I said.
She blushed slightly at that, but said, "Yes. Besides that." Damn. A blush. I'm good.
"I've just made it a lot easier for us to find a place to work in out of Warren, Maryland," I said, and explained what I'd done.
She smiled when I'd finished. I love that smile. It's the smile that means "You've done good," and she didn't bring it out for just anybody. "Good job."
"Well, they still have to actually find a place," I said. "This should just make it easier." Then I said, "Did Giles manage to get someone to come test your goodness?" Like that needed testing.
"Althenea suggested a local witch, a solitary practitioner with an impeccable reputation. She'll be coming by tomorrow. After that I should be good to start exploring my new limits."
"Speaking of exploring limits . . ." I said.
"Yes?"
"Want to go grab a bite to eat?"
"You mean like a date?"
"Is that too high-pressure for you?"
"It depends. Were you talking the most expensive place in Los Angeles, or popping down to the nearest diner?"
"Which would you prefer?" Honestly, I didn't know anywhere to eat in LA. Everything I'd eaten, I'd eaten here at the Hyperion.
"Let's just explore and see what we find."
I nodded. "That'll work."
