Wow, again a long delay. Not intentional, sorry, I was just trying to get nice and ahead of myself before posting and I got a little carried away. Anyway, thanks for the reviews for the last part and I hope you enjoy this part. It's a bit longer than usual because I wanted to bookend with Buffy and Faith scenes to balance out all the plotty stuff - I hope it works, but as always, please feel free to tell me if it doesn't.


Barnies was packed

Barnies was packed. It was far busier than it had been on disco night. Nearly every table was filled with ghouls, ghosts and goblins of all shapes and sizes not to mention a few movie heroes, famous singers and fairytale leads. Jugs of beer were flowing freely and laughter and chatter mingled with the cheesiest music of the eighties and nineties. Alex's cousin, otherwise known as their electrician, was dj-ing again and he nodded to both of them as they passed.

The vibe was fantastic. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and for the first time since they'd moved into the camp, Buffy wasn't feeling any hostility from the locals. There were none of the unwelcoming looks or cold shoulders she had come to associate with a night on the town. It was as if Halloween had broken down the barriers between the insiders and the outsiders and for tonight at least, they were accepted. Or perhaps with everyone in costume and pretending to be someone, or something, they weren't, her and Faith just didn't stand out as strangers so much.

Or maybe the beer was just really flowing.

Whatever the reason it was nice, and when they made it past the door without getting kicked back out, they both relaxed. A little. Enough to smile at each other a bit more; enough to laugh as Alex warned them both to behave or else before giving them their first drink on the house. Once Faith had a beer and Buffy had her favourite green cocktail in her hand, Alex also went as far as to point out the only vacant table in the joint.

"Okay, so this is pretty much Dating 101, but I'm gonna ease you in." Buffy grinned as they made their way through the crowds to the back room. "First, pulling your date's chair out for them is always a good solid move."

Faith went to do it, but stopped herself. "I thought you were taking me on a date now. Doesn't that mean you have to pull my chair out for me?"

"Huh, I guess so." With her free hand Buffy pulled out one of the chairs and then smiled at Faith, or where Faith had been. Now she was on the other side of the table sitting down.

"I just pulled out a chair for you." Buffy waved at the chair. "You're supposed to wait and sit in it."

"I thought you were kidding." Faith frowned. "Well I not moving now; I'll look like a bigger idiot than I feel."

Buffy sat down. "Don't worry, that's normal. Everyone feels like an idiot on a first date."

"They do?"

"Oh yeah. It's all 'Do I look okay?', 'Do I have food in my teeth?', 'Am I smiling too much?', 'Am I talking too much?', 'Am I interesting enough?', 'Smart enough?', 'Sexy enough?'…"

"I'm not the only one who's nervous here, am I?"

Smiling sheepishly, Buffy ducked her head to suck at her straw, hoping Faith wouldn't realise she was blushing. She really was feeling nervous. She hadn't been on a first date with someone who made her feel as tingly all over as this since Riley, and that had been years ago! She could hardly remember correct protocol herself and here she was trying to teach and reassure Faith at the same time. They needed an icebreaker, but she was freaking too much on the inside to think of one.

Faith played with her beer bottle, pulling at a corner of the label with her fingernails. "We could always get all that hard shit out of the way right now."

Buffy looked up to smile across the table. "You mean like I could tell you that despite the week old corpse make-up you look pretty great tonight?"

"Yeah," Faith glanced up and then back down at her bottle. "And then I could tell you that you don't have food in your teeth."

"You're not smiling too much," Buffy promised, and then frowning slightly, she added, "Although, you're not really smiling enough either."

Faith looked up. "Yeah, well, you're talking too much."

Not sure whether to be amused or offended, Buffy gave a tiny cough-like laugh that was somewhere between the two. "Yeah, well, you're not being very interesting."

"Says the dumb blonde." Faith smirked.

"I'm dumb? I know tonight was all about you trying to get me into bed and you come looking as sexy as a dead body?"

"Don't try and kid me, girlfriend, we both know dead bodies turn you on."

"Undead bodies turn me on!" Buffy retorted, and then wished she'd just let that one go. "And only two of them. It's not like I've dated an entire living dead football team or anything. And I have never been attracted to a zombie; zombies are all… yuck."

They stared each other down for a minute, maybe two, before Faith relaxed back into her seat, smiling.

"That feels better. More normal, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Buffy smiled and slurped up some of her drink. "Not sure what that says about us, but... meh."

Faith carefully peeled the label from her bottle. Buffy chewed on her straw.

"So you really don't think zombies are sexy?" Faith asked.

"You really think blondes are dumb?" Buffy asked back.

"Ya know, I heard dating was a minefield," Faith grinned. "But I never really believed it."

"Yep, big minefield, lottsa mines." Buffy slurped the last of her drink up through her straw. "If you don't tread carefully, you could lose a foot, or, you know, any hope you have of sex this year."

Faith looked nervous again and Buffy kicked herself.

"But you're gonna tell me how to avoid the mines, right?" Faith checked.

"Totally!" Buffy said quickly, after all, she wanted sex again this year too. "Second rule: never leave your date without a drink." Smiling encouragingly, she pushed her empty glass across the table.

Faith groaned, but stood up again to go back to the busy bar. "You know, I'm gonna check with Red about these dating rules before I ask you out again."

Buffy grinned as she walked away and made a mental note to get hold of Willow first.


Willow had reached her mope-quota for one night, and now, frowning at her bedroom walls was just getting boring. Wearily rising from the bed, she trailed down the front stairs to see what was happening. At the least there would be candy.

Xander was laughing at something on the television, his hand digging into the big bowl of popcorn on the couch next to him. He was only in his boxers and visibly jumped and covered himself with a cushion when he realised he wasn't alone.

Willow giggled at him. "Hey."

"Hey. I thought you'd gone to bed."

"I got up again." She went and sat on the other side of the popcorn bowl.

"And you're staying? Does that mean I have to put on pants?"

"I've seen you in your boxers before, Xan," she reminded him, reaching for a handful of the buttery kernels. "I've seen you naked before."

"What? No you haven't!"

"Yuhuh! When we were seven and your mom caught us making mud wrestling in your yard and she made us take a bath."

"Oh, right." Xander smiled fondly as he remembered that particular sporting misconception. "I've grown a bit since then."

"I'd be worried if you hadn't," she mumbled with her mouth full. "Aren't you more worried Giles or Vi might see you?"

Apparently the practise patrol last night with the new Slayer and her parents did not go down well so Giles is having an early night." Xander pointed at his bedroom door with the remote. "And I told Vi she could only come to the party if she was in her underwear."

"Xander!"

"That's exactly what she said. So she's watching the portable TV in mine and Andy's room."

His focus was back on the television as he talked. He leaned forward, over his cushion, for the bottle of beer on the coffee table, but only had a small sip before returning it to its coaster and settling back to enjoy the cartoon again.

Willow shook her head at him. "You seem in better spirits today."

"Yeah. I think this is officially one of my good days. I do have them now and then."

"You wanna talk about your not so good days?" Willow asked.

She and Buffy were still trying to wear Xander's funk down and pull him out of the jaws of despair, but so far he was being super-annoyingly resistant to all their methods. Maybe this good old fashion popcorn fest was the perfect time to stage the next attack. Some back-up Buffy would have been good, but she was obviously still out having fun on her stupid Faith-date, and it wasn't as if Willow hadn't pulled Xander up by his bootstraps before. Their best friendliness had been a twosome long before it was a threesome.

"Not in a million years." He shoved a big handful of popcorn into his mouth so he had reason not to add anything.

"I just thought when you're up it might not get you so down to talk about what's been on your mind. About what's been on all our minds. It might be easier, just the two of us here, talking about what's bothering us, with buttery goodness to help it go down easier."

"I'd rather just stay up if you don't mind." He reached for his beer again, and this time when he settled back against the couch, his beer came with him.

"Okay." Willow knew when to back off, but she told herself, as she fell silent and watched The Simpsons with him for a while, this was just a tactical retreat. At some point tonight she was going to gain some ground, even if it only turned out to be a hillock. "Is there any candy? It's Halloween, there's supposed to be candy."

"In the bowl on the bookcase. I was saving it for when the corn is done."

Willow got up to look, smiling happily when she realised just how much tooth-rotting badness was piled high in it. She took it back to the couch and chocolates, gummy bears, jelly beans, sour worms and hard candies nearly showered the floor as Xander suddenly grabbed the bowl from her.

"Hey!"

"Hey yourself." Xander hugged the bowl to his chest. "You're not having any."

"You're not the candy boss!"

"They're for the party. The party has a dress code. You're not observing the dress code; therefore you can't be at the party."

"The dress code?"

Xander removed the cushion from his lap and waved a hand down himself. "I am observing the dress code."

"I'm not stripping down to my underwear, Xander."

"Then you better go watch TV upstairs with Vi."

"But I wanna spend the evening with you," she whined, meaning the candy and making a grab for the bowl.

"Then you do what you gotta do."

He picked out a particularly mouth-watering piece of chocolate, stuck it in his mouth and made nummy noises around it.

"Fine!" Willow stomped for the stairs. "I'll compromise."


Rona was still standing at the foot of the stairs looking up when the house hiccupped itself into a new reality. She grabbed the banisters when the shaking started, blinked a lot when the lights began flickering on and off, and was staring at the shiny black and white tiles in confusion when Dawn, Naomi and the other Slayers came running into the foyer in search of Reece and Kennedy.

"They're upstairs," she said, too distracted to explain further, and grabbed Miranda's arm as she passed. "But look."

"At what?" Alison looked around the foyer.

"The dry-leaf-and-dirty-foot-print free floor."

"What about it?" Naomi asked, looking at her feet.

"We don't have time for this." Dawn reminded them and they all ran up the stairs.

Rona stared after them and the tiles again. Apparently cleanliness was not a sign of evil then. They'd taken less interest than if she'd stopped them to point out that grass was green. She had to admit she agreed, it was just weird. Everything was weird. The music coming from the ballroom was weird. The suddenly sparkly clean house was weird. The fact that the chandelier above her head was no longer made of candle-shaped bulbs but from real white wax candles was weird. The grandfather clock opposite her suddenly chiming the hour when the hands hadn't moved all night was weird.

High school kids still wandered through the large foyer, but aside from complaints still being voiced about the music, none of them seemed to notice anything off. A couple heading for the living room were carrying fluted glasses of sparkling wine and paper plates piled high with pheasant legs, quail eggs and salmon sandwiches… The only food Rona could remember spotting was a dozen or so bags of Cheetos scattered about.

She looked around, spotting more differences, subtle and not so. Yeah, weird was the word here. She didn't know if there was a contingency plan for dealing with threats of spotlessness and materializing gourmet food, but if there wasn't she had an uneasy feeling they better start thinking one up.

Halfway up the stairs she heard irregular footsteps coming in the front door. Instinctively, she looked over the banisters to see who was joining the party so fashionably late and her eyes went wide. Late was the only thing they could be accused of being fashionable for.

The dude confidently entering the foyer was bald, hunchbacked and walked with a pronounced limp. Rona couldn't tell if his old fashioned surgeon scrubs were a costume or not, but she did know they really didn't go with his bowling shoes. He sure wasn't a high school student, and considering his manic grin, she had trouble believing he was just a concerned parent here to break up the party.

Unaware he had a spectator; he capered across the gleaming tiles deeper into the house. After only a moment's thought, Rona followed him into the living room filled with students.

Discreetly watching him make a circuit of the room, talking and laughing with the kids he passed, but never stopping long enough to let them get a good look at him, Rona ran her finger along the mantelpiece while she waited. It was completely dust-free. The living room back at the camp wasn't this undusty despite Andrew's best efforts. She looked up from frowning at her finger in time to see the stranger – the stranger stranger – slipping back out of the room.

Aiming for the ballroom next, he likewise did a tour of the room, appearing to be looking for someone, but in no hurry to find them. For a half lame guy with a hump he was light on his bowling shoes. He tapped his way down the middle of the ballroom, grabbing a random girl halfway down and waltzing her in a circle like he was Fred Astaire. Rona smiled as he moved on, leaving the girl tottering on her heels and looking dizzy five feet from her date. Then something more interesting caught her eye and she stopped to take it in.

"Okay, that explains where the all the rich food they had came from," she murmured, staring at a banquet table that stretched nearly the length of the ballroom. "Doesn't explain where all this rich food came from though."

The table had everything; so many plates and dishes it was a freaking miracle it wasn't collapsing. Although, she might be speaking too soon. The solid wood did look like it was buckling a little under the weight of the roast stag in the centre. How none of the kids thought this suddenly appearing feast was odd was… odd, but it made a little more sense why they were putting up with the classical music for so long.

Grabbing a couple of shrimps to go – all this shadowing was giving her an appetite – and looked around for her mark. He'd gone. After swiping a shrimp at the crab sauce, she quickly weaved her way back to the door, scanning the crowd.

He was entering a door further up the corridor so she held back for the time it took to eat a shrimp and then followed him into a packed study. It was a nicely decorated room, wealthy and elegant and all that – the students crammed in there didn't give a crap. Quasimodo didn't either. He mingled his way around the room, slapping the hand of one guy – who, by the way he looked at his palm after, hadn't enjoyed it much – and slyly stealing a bottle of vodka off the desk as he made his way back to the door.

Spotting Dawn's friends in the mess of people around the desk, Rona used them as an opportunity to slip away from the door as he approached.

"Hey, Rona, right?" Fen smiled. "Any idea where Dawn is?"

"Upstairs with Reece," Rona said without thinking.

Fen laughed delightedly. "I taught that girl well. Hey, babe, we should follow her example."

Rona had been watching the door, but her eyes went wide at the proposition. She was turning to say thanks but no thanks when she realised the chick was talking to a boy behind her.

'Kennedy's got me hallucinating lesbians everywhere.' Smirking, she flicked her eyes back to the doorway to see her quarry leaving.

"Hey, Rona, you want some Vodka? Hey, where is the Vodka?" Fen started looking around for it.

Rona wasn't about to tell her it was walking out the door, that would just draw attention she didn't want drawn.

"I think there's some wine bottles going around. I'll go grab one." Rona said as an excuse to slip away.

As she left the room she saw him limping down a corridor opposite, swigging unashamedly from the pilfered vodka.

She moved closer, realising the further from the foyer and the ballroom the corridor went, the less kids there were. It was as if once the bright glares of the chandeliers gave way to the gas lamps they didn't dare to go any further. Not that any one except her seemed to notice that the gas lamps were now powered with actual gas instead of being electric look-alikes.

The fact that she noticed and nobody else seemed to didn't make her want to advance down the shadowy hallway much herself, but she was gonna do it. She was, just… in a minute. It wasn't fear that was stopping her from going further, it was intelligence. Obviously it was stupid to follow this guy into what looked like a dead end, all he'd have to do is turn around and she'd be busted.

At least, that's what she told herself as she waited to see what he was up to. And what was he up to? Was he just some local oddball that always came to high school parties? Could a guy that pricked a slayer's senses really be something that benign? Or was he a human monster, here to screw with the kids at the party, perhaps literally?

All the Slayers had heard about Dawn's heroic – although in Rona's personal opinion she felt the word foolish applied just as well, not that she was ever going to say so – capture of her sleazebag teacher. To be honest, it was the only thing Dawn was really known for in their circle. She wasn't a Slayer, she wasn't a Watcher, she didn't really do anything around the house like Andrew and Xander did. Dawn was just the baby of the original band of demon fighters, and Buffy's little sister too. So the bait and capture of her human monster teacher – and the fact that she was sort of dating Reece - were pretty much the only thing that made her worth talking about. In fact, it had been the first thing Fen had brought up when they had all been introduced earlier.

So with all that fresh in her mind, Rona reached into her pocket to touch the camera hiding there. Suddenly catching Reece cheating on film was the lesser of two evils she might snap tonight.

Halfway down the corridor the potential molester threw open a door and bounced excitedly through it. Rona waited until the door shut behind him and then it took three mental attempts at 'one two three go' before she actually managed to get herself moving towards the closed door.

A closed door was suspicious all on its own, not many other doors were closed and at first she assumed he was in there doing some nasty little thing alone, but as she drew closer, she could hear talking. Although she couldn't make out more than murmured conversation over the sounds of the party, intrigue kept her ear to the door.


"You made it." Owen smiled as his old friend barged into the room. "I was afraid you had decided not to come."

"And mith catching up with my favourite guyth? Never."

"No, that would be a shame," Victor might of muttered, but he made sure his mutter was loud enough for Igor to hear.

"Mathter!" Igor smiled; showing crooked, but surprising white teeth, and waved the bottle of vodka in Victor's direction.

The scientist looked away grumpily, not taking the offering, and Igor just smiled wider.

"Lighten up, Vic," Zeke growled from the hearth rug. "We've got bigger things to deal with."

"Tho I noticed," Igor said. "It'th wild out there."

"Did anyone folly yer?" Paddy asked, gesturing for the bottle of Vodka.

Iggy handed it over. "Oh yeth, young girl, African princeth ith I'm not mithtaken. I lead her a dance though, pretty thure I lotht her."

"The discouragement spell should keep them all ten feet from this door," Owen said, but he was still frowning.

He had put so much work into making tonight perfect and now it was all for nought. He had hoped, when the children first descended, that at the very least his cloak would not be breached. If that had been the case, both parties could have existed together peacefully without ever infringing on each other. That had been a vain hope. Someone, somewhere had played a very powerful trick on him tonight, tearing through his wards so suddenly that he and his friends had been forced to scamper like vermin to avoid being seen.

There were only two people in the area with enough raw energy at their fingertips to do such a thing to him. He couldn't imagine what Lucie would get out of ruining his party, except perhaps the displeasure it was causing him was reason enough for her; and as far as he knew, Ms Rosenberg was not even aware that there was anything here to uncover.

"…So here we are in our elegant yet rapidly tiring bolthole," the Count finished explaining the situation to Iggy.

"Why?" Iggy capered about in the middle of them, as excitable as ever.

"Cos thars aboyt two hundred nasty 'uman kids oyt dare!" Paddy bounced in his seat, his feet swinging wildly. "Dat's why."

"I resent that remark," Owen told him. "I'm human."

"Oi cadge yer pardon." Paddy apologised amiably.

"He's hit the nail on the head though," Ptah said.

"Why ith that a bother?" Iggy asked. "They're only little boyth and girlth. What can they do?"

"That is food for thought," Victor's friend intoned. "What can they do?"

"Point, stare, laugh. Some of us blend less than others." Zeke growled, pointing a long claw at his hairy face. "You included. You're nine feet tall with a big square head and a voice like a crumbling tombstone."

"There is no need to call names," Victor told him off pompously.

"Just statin' facts," Zeke muttered as he sat back to scratch under his shirt collar.

"Not one of us would pass as a high school child," Owen said, ending the bickering. "We'd be noticed immediately."

"Who careth? It'th your party."

"What are you suggesting?" Victor asked disdainfully. "That we run them out of the house?"

"Well, we are all creatures of the night, gentlemen," the Count smiled, warming to the idea immediately. "And I have always wondered what would happen if the mobbers became the mobbees. As a party game it would beat charades hands down."

"Aye, but de mobbers outnumber us twenty-five ter wan," Paddy reminded them.

"And they're aren't exactly mobbing us," said Ptah.

"Are you so scared of babies?" Victor's friend asked, his voice a hollow thunderclap of derision. "Or are you just scared that the babies are no longer scared of you?"

"Oi ain't scared av nathin', an if they ain' scar'd av me ter begin wi'," Paddy reached inside his green duffle coat and pulled out a carving knife nearly the length of his arm. "They soon 'ill be."

Owen glared at him until he put the knife sheepishly back inside his coat.

"I can't chase them," Zeke sounded disappointed. "Call me a coward if ya like, but they're just a bunch of walking, talking hormones. Just sitting here is making my hackles rise in that good tingly kinda way. If they start screaming and fleeing in terror, I'll be burying their bones in the back yard by morning."

"At least it will give you something to do next All Hallows Eve," Victor quipped. "You can dig them all up again."

"And then bury them again!" His friend chuckled.

"Great, play the stereotype card, that makes you sound really intelligent." Zeke growled at them.

Owen stood up quickly to intervene. "I think cabin fever is starting to set in. Let's all take a breath, settle down and remember that we are friends."

"No, Iggy is correct; we shouldn't be cowering like frightened villagers." The count stood up as well, his cold smile showing long, sharp incisors. "Already we leave the streets and fields safe for them on this night and now they are trying to drive us out of our private residences too? That is not acceptable. I say we go out there, run these walking blood-bags out and take back the party!"

"Here, here," Victor cheered, also standing up.

"That'th not what I'm thaying." Igor frowned at them. "Thee, thith ith why I rethined. You're alwayth tho anti-thocial!"

"Anti-social?" Victor fumed. "We're paranormal beings living on the fringe of an ignorant and uncaring society; we're not supposed to be social! We're freaks to them as much as they are freaks to us."

"Again with the stereotyping." Zeke got to his feet, all four of them, and shook himself.

"Yeth, ever thought that the reathon humanth are tho rude, callouth and judgemental ith becauthe they think we are?"

"What are you suggesting, Iggy?" Owen asked, although he had a feeling he knew. It wasn't a good feeling.

"That inthead of taking back the party, we join the party! They're having a blatht out there. We could have a blatht too and maybe help thupernatural/natural relationth along a little while we're at it."

"Yes, but there is a line you don't cross," Ptah said. "Things humans are better off not knowing. That's why we put the whammy on our homes and tombs; to keep people from finding out more than is good for them. I didn't spend the last three thousand years designing booby traps and perfecting curses just to wander out there now, shake some kid's hand and introduce myself."

"Use a false moniker," said the Count.

"A fake name isn't going to stop them from noticing my shroud."

"Pretend you are in cothtume." Iggy threw his arms wide as he beseeched them. "This is the night when everyone is in cothtume, we'll blend right in."

The room went quiet as everyone looked around at each other, waiting for the next objection to be raised. When they realised they were out of them, all eyes turned to Owen.

"Your house, your call," said Zeke.

""Yes, Olwyn, think about this," said Victor. "You are the one who has to live here with these people."

Owen did try to think about it sensibly. He knew rationally that to join the party with the students from McKinley High and Boudenver Academy was foolhardy; there would not be a single child in there that had not once come to him to exchange a sticky handful of nickels for candy. However his home had been invaded, his night had been ruined and he was angry. Not to mention he had spent a fortune – and not a small one – on the spread he had laid out and he was not okay with letting it be wasted on gluttons who would not know the difference between a venison burger and a Big Mac.

Making a decision he pulled on the lapels of his robe and raised his chin. "I think, as the host of this party, I should make an appearance."

"Yeth!" Iggy gave the air a victory punch.

Nobody argued with him. The Count's smile grew wider and slightly warmer. Victor sighed in defeat, drew a handkerchief from his pocket and helped his friend shine his bolts. Paddy finished the last of the Vodka and leapt down from his chair. Ptah went to the mirror to tidy and tuck in the loose ends of his bandages.

Zeke stood up on his hind legs and shook the creases out of his dress pants. "Should I tuck my tail in?"

"No, it makes your arse look fat," the Count said casually.

Owen addressed the group. "Let's not use the door, arriving en masse would send the children shrieking for the hills, costumes or not, which would no doubt endanger Zeke's human-free diet. I think heading through the back corridors and merging with the main house at different points will be the best way to avoid a slaughter-party."

"Nathin' wrong wi' a gran' slaughter-party," Paddy said.

"There is when we are the ones getting slaughtered," Victor put in.

"I would prefer no slaughtering of any kind in my house," Owen warned, before leading them towards a particular bookcase at the back of the room. "Are we all ready?"

He reached for a hardback copy of The Great Escape on the middle shelf and pulled it out. Sliding his fingers into the inch of space provided, he pressed the lever down and the bookcase swung outwards. He gestured for everyone to go through before stepping into the narrow passage himself and pushing the moveable bookcase back into the place.

"Why's it so feckin dark?" Paddy complained.

"Because we're between the walls of the house, nimrod." Zeke growled.

Owen made a fist with one hand and whispered to it.

"Here." When he opened his hand again eight female glow worms wriggled on his palm.

"You couldn't have conjured candles?" Ptah gingerly picked his up with a look of disgust.

"My man-servant would love some of these." The Count smiled broadly. "Do you have any spare, Olwyn? I would like to take him back some holiday candy anyway and this way I can use him as a night-light afterwards."

Victor picked up two and handed one to his friend before carefully inspecting his own. "You know, it might be possible to incorporate something like this into our next experiment."

"You would like me to eat glowing insects so that light will shine out of my stomach?" his friend asked in surprise.

"Actually I was thinking of putting them behind your eyes so that you always have light to see by." Victor explained.

"Come on," Iggy urged, turning and leading the way with his own light bug held out in front of him. "Let'th go dance!"

With the sigh of a man who knows he is doing the wrong thing, but is going to do it anyway, Owen brought up the rear. "Head for the back wall, the doors we want are at that end."


They had split into threes to search for Rona. Reece was wishing they had split into ones.

"I get it," Dawn was sniping. "You think you're the only one who gets to have relationship drama."

"You're not having relationship drama." Kennedy snapped back. "You're having a delusion."

"Just because you're a slayer doesn't give you the right to ride roughshod over people's feelings, you know." Dawn kept on.

"We were just talking!"

"Why did you have to talk to my boyfriend, why not talk to me?"

"Do you have any idea how pathetic and insecure you sound?" Kennedy asked scornfully.

"Yeah, well if I'm the kettle, you're the pot." Dawn shot back.

Reece did his best to ignore them and the headache he could feel getting worse as they searched room after room with no sign of his Slayer.


Rona was still listening. She hadn't been able to make out much of the conversation behind the door, but what she had heard had kept her glued to the spot.

Eventually the voices petered out. One minute they were there and the next they weren't. She knew it was time to take a peek behind the door, but she waited another five minutes first in case whoever was in the room had just run out of things to say. When she was convinced – sort of – that they were either dead or gone, she slowly twisted the door knob, pushed slightly and placed her eye to the crack. She could see chairs, but no one was sitting in them. Spurred on by this, she eased herself into the room.

Holding her breath, she listened for any tell-tale noises. Now she was a Slayer her hearing was so good she could hear Reece and Craig snoring from the other dormitory. If it was good for annoying the shit out of her, in other words, it should be good for saving her ass too. She could hear nothing beyond the party noises so she relaxed and, leaving the door wide open in case she had to make a fast exit, she took a look around.

There were six chairs in an informal circle and end tables scattered about. On one was the vodka bottle and on another was a nearly empty glass of something rich, red and with a tangy, coppery smell that made her nose wrinkle in disgust… blood!

Had that dude been a vampire? He might have been bumpy, but not in the way she expected of vamps. She had thought she was following some kind of sick psycho here to mess with the kids, but add in a glass of blood and sick psycho might be underestimating things.

Even more alert now, Rona kept looking, but there wasn't much more to see. There were other glasses on the tables in various stages of empty and full, but none of them looked or smelled like anything but alcohol. On the floor was a ceramic bowl half filled with beer and the hearth rug was covered in a light layer of brown hair.

The room was lined floor to ceiling with books. The tables and chairs and a desk took up the middle of the floor and a few free-standing bookshelves made it a cosy, closed in space by the fire. Walking around the outside of the room, Rona was able to make a complete circuit in less than a minute. It wasn't a big room and no one was hiding in it.

So where had the voices gone?

Rona walked around the room again, going the other way this time, mostly keeping her eyes on the floor or ceiling for trapdoors. She was along the back wall, her eyes just shifting from down to up when she spotted something weird. A whole case of books was a tad off-centre, throwing the line of the room out.

"Obvious," Rona muttered as she cautiously reached out and gave the bookcase a little push. It swung outwards, revealing a secret passage. "Too obvious? Probably."

She debated with herself for a minute. She didn't need Buffy or a Watcher to teach her that walking into the dark after an unknown number of mysterious people was a quick way to die. Fear for her own skin – and if a Vampire was in the mix, her own blood as well – was doing a good job of keeping her teetering on the brink of heroism. Unfortunately, she didn't need anyone telling her that a bunch of weirdo's – possibly including one or more vampires – stalking in secret around a house full of oblivious teenagers was something she couldn't ignore either.

In the end her fear and her calling came to a compromise. She would tail, but not engage… unless anything really bad went down right in front of her, and then she would engage with the nearest heavy thing to hand. She wished she'd worn an outfit more stake-accommodating. Lesson learned for next time.

Leaving the bookcase wide open to give her as much light as possible, she slipped in and along the brick-lined walkway in search of… who the hell knew.


Barnies was only getting busier as the night went on, not that Buffy and Faith really noticed.

Faith was laughing uncontrollably as Buffy had difficulty spitting a cherry stem out of her mouth.

"Here try it again." She threw another cherry – fresh not glace, hence the stems – into Buffy's glass, causing a mini geyser of green cocktail to spray up.

"No way?" Buffy spluttered. "I give up, you win, your tongue is a better boy scout than mine."

"You won't even try?"

"I've tried five times! Are you trying to choke me? And here I thought we were having such a nice time." Buffy grinned.

"I don't see how you don't get it," Faith laughed, sticking her fingers in Buffy's glass to retrieve her cherry. "I've been tying knots in cherry stalks since I was eight." Faith popped the whole thing in her mouth to demonstrate.

"Okay, first of all, that's very disturbing. Second of all, I always thought you were supposed to tie the fruit in a knot, no one told me about the stalk. I wasted my teenage years rolling the cherries around the tip my tongue."

Faith stared at her for a beat, not sure how to take that, and then burst out laughing again. "Hot and funny – who knew?" she teased.

Buffy playfully slapped the back of her hand. They were still sitting close, but not quite as close as earlier, Faith needed room to gesture after all.

"Did ya swallow the stalk too?"

Faith stuck out her tongue. There was the stalk with a knot in the middle.

"Ih hor ooh."

"What?" Buffy laughed.

Faith dry spat the stem onto the table. "I said: It's for you."

"Thanks, just what I always wanted." Buffy went to pick it up, but stopped her fingers just shy of it. "I'll treasure it, once it's dried off."

Faith grinned, looking around the bar for the next attraction. "Wanna go challenge Harry Potter and Elvis to a game of pool."

"Now there's not something you get to do every day," Buffy grinned too as she looked to see who Faith meant.

They were sat around the corner from the bar tonight, where usually only the old men sat supping from their tankards. There was a pool table back here that Buffy had never even noticed before and right now a wizard and an Elvis impersonator were just finishing up a game.

"You any good?"

"I just spent over four years in prison, B."

One of Buffy's brows hitched up. "And all ex-prisoners are eight-ball pro's?"

Faith chuckled, getting to her feet. "Only the ones who spent their entire incarceration playing on the table outside their cell in an effort to forget where the hell they were."

"Entire incarceration?"

"Well, there was yard exercise too, and the whole being locked in a cell for twenty hours a day."

"But you're pretty good?"

"I don't suck."

"You're going to shark them, aren't you?" Buffy realised with indelible certainty.

"Now why would I do a thing like that?" Faith's eyes sparkled and her dimples dimpled as she held her hands out to pull Buffy from her chair.

"Oh God!" Buffy groaned, but she was grinning as she followed Faith to the table.

To be continued some time next week - I'd promise, but you all know what my updating promises are like :)