Chapter 6

Vince Black looked around the crowded living room and wondered what the heck he was doing here. He met the really green eyes of the amused looking woman across the room and joined her. She grinned at him.

"You look really out of place here," she said softly.

"Yeah. I think now that I've delivered the young lady I should best be leaving."

"Probably safer than sticking around. You could get your world view really bent if you hang around here for very long."

"Right." Somehow, he didn't really sound as though he believed her. He slid quietly out of the room and reclaimed the Harley.

Giles heard the motorcycle start and looked out the window. He frowned. The young man had, well, not been quite as young as his charges and a great deal more comprehensible on some levels. There was something about him. Well, he was probably a great deal better off out of the area. Giles turned his attention back to the bursting at the seams living room of his home. He continued to frown.

Cordelia, in her usual way, had started to sum up the two female members of the peculiar gathering who were not a part of her immediate life, as older, uncool types to be ignored. However, upon reviewing the looks that the possibly cool guy with the motorcycle and the equally possibly cool guy with the bulging biceps and blondish surfer cut hair were giving the black haired one, she was revising her estimate when the motorcycle guy left.

Cheri looked around the room and grinned. The grin elicited several raised eyebrows. "Well, it isn't often I get to look at a room full of semi-supernaturally supercharged types who are all looking lost." She looked at Giles. "I don't suppose you've got any ideas? I mean, Buffy arrived to help with Tanya when she was a vampire - come to think of it, how did you end up being a vampire?"

"What kind of a question is that?"

"A necessary one?" Cheri shot back brightly.

"I got bit. I died. I came back - well - I mean - I'm not certain what I mean. There was - uhm - something?" For once in her life, Tanya Kropotkin was looking bewildered as she tried to sort through her memories of being a vampire in the universe of Mortal Kombat.

"Demon," Giles and Xander supplied simultaneously.

Cheri looked at them in surprise. "Demon?" she echoed.

"Yeah, that would probably explain it - if I believed in demons, of course," Tanya agreed in an off hand manner. "Which I don't, of course. Although, it was definitely an unpleasant sort of entity."

"You seem surprised," came Giles' comment.

"Well, yes. I've - met a couple of vampires previously - they weren't demons."

"They weren't?" Oz and Giles and Xander and Willow and Cordelia, in unison.

"No. They weren't. Didn't particularly look like they'd been smacked in the face with ugly sticks, either."

"You're kidding," Xander voiced the feelings of the rest of them.

"No. There are a couple of activity centers of the other kind of vampire. Oh, most of them are annoying on one level or another. I mean, they all have this thing about human blood - luckily, most of the other type are willing to forgo hunting and stick with second hand supplies. Which the demon type don't seem to be particularly interested in doing."

"No. Kinda rip your throat out kinda guys."

"Yeah. Anyway, I was curious about why Tan stayed a vampire for so long." Cheri realized that the vampire slayers were all staring at her again. Rayden and Siro and Tanya weren't aware of her having said anything out of the ordinary.

"And how does one *not* stay a vampire?" Giles asked, although he wasn't entirely certain he wanted an answer.

"If you're already immortal, the other kind of vampirism is - well - kinda like a virus? And since dead is an unacceptable state of affairs, genetically speaking, it fixes itself. Uncomfortably, of course."

"Of course," Giles echoed. He was looking stunned. Vampirism as a curable death? was an extremely odd concept.

"How?" Willow asked, ever curious.

"It itches."

"Itches. Like - poison ivy?" Willow sought clarification.

Cheri thought for a moment. "Yeah. If it was inside and throughout every centimeter of your circulatory system."

"Do I hear a resounding 'euwwwww" here?" Xander asked, making a face at the very thought of that much itch.

"My thoughts exactly, and I had to cope with it."

"How?" Oddly, it was Rayden who asked. All of this was both new and interesting to the God of Thunder.

"Hot water. I sat in a 120 degree Jacuzzi for hours until it was over. Kinda lobsterish when I got through and went and seriously damaged the idiot who started it. We got to be pretty good friends afterwards."

"Friends? With a Vampire," Cordelia chimed in. "I don't believe this. There is someone besides Buffy who is "friends" with a vampire. Euwwww! That is like so -"

"Cordy, hush," Xander stepped into the breach his beloved seemed intent on creating. "So - where does that leave us with - uh - Mr. stern and long haired and Mr. biceps, here?"

"I dunno. Ri - I mean, Giles?"

"I've been - er - thinking about it. At the moment I really don't have - um - a clue, I'm afraid. Although I believe I'm with you on the probably momentous character of - er - whatever."

"Gee, Giles - that was encouraging," Xander chimed in. "The only thing missing is Angel."

"It's daylight, Xander. If he's not at my door by 15 minutes after sundown, we can probably relax," he responded dryly. He was only half joking. Giles was a great deal more worried than he looked. He was expecting Angel and some cryptic warning on his doorstep as soon as the vampire could manage to get out of his digs and safely to said doorstep. He had mixed feelings about dealing with Angel, but even his help could be useful if things were going to get as interesting as he anticipated. Now, if he could just get an inkling about what they were going up against.

"Willow."

"Yes!" Ever appreciative of being noticed, Willow brightened when Giles addressed her. Willow was as close to heaven as she anticipated getting for a while, Oz holding her hand and Giles needing something. "What?"

"I believe we need to research the possibilities -"

"Oh - like - research. OK. Uh, Giles - the computer's not here."

"I know, Willow. Neither is most of my research material. I believe it would be best if we went to the library."

"Oh, yes," Willow beamed, then her face fell as she realized it was Saturday. "But - I mean - it's like Saturday. How do we get in?"

Giles sighed. While his young friends were quite capable of breaking into the school if needed, he pointed out that being the librarian, he possessed a key to the doors. Willow seemed much happier with this thought than with the one about breaking and entering.

The biggest problem seemed to be transport. Rayden and Siro were not going to be left behind. Oz volunteered to transport Willow, Siro and Rayden along with the two he had brought with him. That left Cheri and Tanya to accompany Giles. They settled who was driving by insisting they take Tanya's car. Giles tried to object and was introduced to the back seat by a firm hand between the shoulder blades. Cheri grinned at him over the back of the front seat as he righted himself and fastened his seatbelt.

"Do you know where the school is?" he inquired.

"No. But I presume that your young friends do and I am following them, da?" Tanya's accent was getting thicker. It was an interesting sign. Trouble was on the way and she could sense it.

Vince Black found himself on the edge of town with a broken bike. He started to get really annoyed and then decided there was no point. He found a deserted warehouse to wheel the bike into so he could take a look at what was causing the problem. He found two clogged lines after a couple of hours of work. He got the bike back together about the time the sun started down. In the nearly deserted warehouse district, the vampires were beginning to come out to play for the night.

Vince finished off his bottle of water, tossed the container in a 55 gallon drum serving the area as a trash receptacle and threw his leg over his bike. He never really saw what hit him and took him down onto the concrete hard. There was a pain in his neck like a couple of icepicks plunging through his skin. He felt the drain of his blood flooding out into the vampire's mouth. He was lightheaded, the picture got fuzzy. He felt his attacker loosen his hold. He tried to move, tried to get a look at his killer, tried to speak. He felt his attacker roll him over onto his back. He tried to focus on the face. Female, he thought hazily. A face of angles and ridges, a little like a bat face. She smiled, her teeth still red with his blood. He felt anger trying to work its way through his extreme lethargy.

Well, this one might be worthy. She leaned over and gazed into his dark eyes, tilting her head to one side and then the other. With a swift slash, she opened her wrist with her teeth. She held the already healing wrist over his mouth, letting her black blood drain onto his face, into his mouth. The blood tasted foul, tainted, metallic and dusty at the same time. In spite of his revulsion, he swallowed convulsively, once, twice. The thing above him stretched its mouth in a feral grin. Darkness took him down a long, long tunnel into oblivion.

Above him, one of the lesser of the nights demons looked well satisfied with her work. The Master would be pleased at this addition to his legions. She left the body where it was. It should be interesting when the man awoke to his new state.

He lay there for a while, silent, dead. Rats, attracted by the smell of carrion, came cautiously out of the night, a few steps forward, hesitate, a few more steps forward. His eyes snapped open suddenly. The rats, knowing what he was now, scattered for their lives.

It was dark. The Harley stood next to him. He picked himself up off the ground, shaking his head. He felt - odd. His head buzzed slightly. He staggered, putting his hands to his head and brushing his hair out of his face. He stared around him as though he was unfamiliar with the place. He was. He heard a sound. Movement. His face shifted as the demon took control. With swift, lithe movements he went after his prey. A derelict, unfamiliar with Sunnydale, lurched into view. Reno Raines smiled, his fangs glinting in the pale light of the stars. He was hungry. The derelict would not rise again, Reno was careful to break his scrawny neck. He wiped his mouth on his hand and went back to the Harley. Man, this was the life. He laughed at the thought. It was not a nice laugh. The Harley snarled to life. Maybe there was some night life around here. Somewhere he might run into the red haired girl he recalled from the afternoon. What a nice morsel she would make.