This chapter features a brief crossover with my first fic here at Fanfiction dot net, Looking for Buffy Summers. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Robert B. Parker.

Chapter 8

The Couple

The next evening, I came to work trying to figure out how to get Anne alone and warn her about Clytemnestra. Just because I agreed to kill her first didn't mean that I would get to her before she got to Anne.

However, best laid plans and all that.

A couple came into the Diner at the beginning of my shift. She was maybe in her late forties, he was somewhat older. She was beautiful, in a dark and luminous way. He was as big as Heracles, with a greyish black crew cut and a trimmed mustache. They went over and sat in Anne's section, and they both watched her closely as she worked.

These people were not the Diner's typical clientele. They were too classy looking, for one thing (particularly the woman). Second, he had a look that said cop. Also, his face darkened briefly when one of the truckers tried to slap Anne on the butt (she dodged it without looking).

I got my own butt slapped while I was watching the couple watch Anne. I interpreted this as a signal to get back to work. I 've had my butt slapped a lot in my lifetime.

It was clear that the couple was not here to partake of Mitch's cuisine. Since they were watching Anne, I suspected they were here for her.

I watched what happened as closely as I could from a respectable distance. I watched as Anne checked them out. I watched as the man handed her a thick brown envelope. And as best I could, I watched what happened afterwards when Anne took a break (she hardly ever took breaks, and since I had to take her customers as well as my own, I couldn't take a break with her). Anne, her expression angry, went out and walked across the street where the couple was sitting in a car (a car that was also too nice for the neighborhood, for one thing, it had only once color of paint on it). The conversation was brief, and when Anne came back, her expression was no longer angry. It was thoughtful.

The car drove off, so whatever the conversation was about, it was done.

I did not get an opportunity to talk to Anne, and she ended her shift about ten minutes before I did, so I wasn't able to follow her either.

So, I did the next best thing, and completely disregarded her advice. I walked into alleys and stayed out of public places. I only had to evade one would be mugger (I still didn't want to draw attention to myself by beating up a mugger, and I didn't feel like I had the time to pretend to be a victim) before a trio of vampires found me. Three males.

I let one of them drink my blood before throwing him off of me. As he was gagging by the dumpster, I staked one of his friends (I'd carved myself a wooden stake last night) and grabbed the last one by the hair and slammed him face first into the nearest brick wall.

When I turned him around, his expression was terrified. It didn't get any better when his companion, the one who drank my blood, burned up from the inside (Funny thing, being the daughter of a supreme deity made my blood toxic to vampires. I wondered if that was true any longer for my brother, given that he has spent the last 3,000 years working for Wolfram and Hart's "senior partners". That probably lost him some holy points.).

"You're the slayer!" he gasped.

Well, I was short, blond except for some dark highlights, and stronger than your standard vampire, so the mistake was understandable. I didn't correct him. I suspected I might find out more if he did think I was the slayer.

"How did you...?" he asked, looking at the swirling ashes of his companion.

"Drank a canteen full of holy water before I went out," I lied. "Girl's gotta have some tricks up her sleeve."

Then I increased the pressure across his throat with my forearm, although when I think on it, I really don't think there was a point to that.

"Now, tell me where Clytemnestra is?"

"Who?"

"You know, the real ugly bitch."

"Who?"

"The female vamp who goes around with her hood over her face."

"The Mother of all Vampires?" the vamp asked. "Man, does she have it in for you. I'd get out of town if I were you."

"You aren't me, where is she?"

He didn't know, so I staked him.

I ran into seven more vampires that night, and none of them knew either. But I did find out that Clytemnestra was indeed after Anne. One of them even told me that the slayer's real name was Buffy, and that she lived in Sunnydale, home of the world's most active hellmouth now that Dunwich was shut down. This vamp, who knew I wasn't Anne, said something to me about being the "Jamaican's replacement". I didn't bother to ask him what he meant before I dusted him. No one knew why Buffy was now in Los Angeles and calling herself Anne (not that I could blame her for the name change). This confirmed Heracles' sense that something was up. The Watcher's Council usually didn't send a slayer to a hellmouth. When a slayer was sent to the hellmouth, it was usually for a suicide mission.

Ten was a lot of vampires to run into over one night, even for Los Angeles (vampires tend to like runaway destinations), and even for being relatively close to the world's biggest active hellmouth.

I suspected that Clytemnestra had brought many of these vamps with her, and was using them as stalking horses. I wondered if Anne had noticed the increase in vampire activity.

Clytemnestra was being careful, and that made me more impressed with Anne than ever. But it also meant that Anne was in big trouble, because all this caution meant that quite possibly the world's oldest surviving vampire was planning an ambush for her. And as a mere mortal woman, Clytemnestra had already killed one slayer.