Disclaimer: Rae Mistwood and Sheila Kelly are mine. Everything else belongs to either Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars) or Joss Whedon (Buffy et al).

Author's Note: WML will be done by the next chapter. Then away from continuity for a bit.

X X X X X

Buffy wanted to walk, but I pointed out that we had four cars available, and that if we were going to be involved in a major fight against vampires, maybe it would be better for those of us without superhuman strength to be as rested as possible.

(Four cars: My LeBaron, Giles' Citroen, Rae's old station wagon, and Queen C.)

She conceded the point and we all piled in. Even Cordelia grudgingly allowed a passenger.

Xander, I noticed. Maybe all wasn't lost there quite yet. (It was going to be oodles of from trying to bring them together, though. Maybe I should lock them in a closet or something.)

Rae and Sheila stayed in front, with Buffy; by necessity (and a car that would have had a hard time doing 50 miles per hour if pushed off a cliff), Giles brought up the rear, and Kendra rode with him. That left me and Willow. Yeah, we could have taken fewer cars, but sadly, I think the odds were that our vehicles would be safer in front of a vampire-infested church than Sheila's apartment building. Sunnydale wasn't particularly crime-ridden, except for the vampires (see Mayor: DC Safe Except for Murders!), but that didn't mean there weren't sections of it best kept out of if you could avoid it, even in daylight.

"So," Willow said, with mock enthusiasm as we all pulled out, "You all psyched for your first big fight?"

"Surprisingly, no," I said. "I try to make it my policy to avoid punching people who might be able to rip my neck off with one hand." There was one minor good aspect to this, though: Instead of two members of the Order of Taraka to deal with, we only had one. Not that One-eye wasn't a hell of a fighter. But he wasn't "Norman Pfister from Blush Beautiful Cosmetic" plus Patrice in one one-eyed package.

Assuming that Patrice hadn't simply killed everyone down at the station and walked out the front door. (No, I wouldn't be cheering if Lamb got brutally slaughtered; the man's a useless sycophant, but I don't think he quite deserves a violent death. At least, not right at the moment.)

Down, pessimism. Down, I say.

"In Sunnydale, you know, not quite as easy as it might be other places," Willow said.

"I've been slowly becoming aware of that," I said. "So, my plans were to take my gun and fire at anything with fangs. Sound good?"

"You meant your holy water gun, right? Because, vampires, not so much with the dying when you shoot them with bullets."

"I'd like to test that theory," I said. "I mean, I can sort of get why one wouldn't die, but I'm betting a couple of bullets to the head or kneecap might slow them down a tad."

"Do you have one of those guns with you?"

"No. I'm not licensed. I plan to rectify that." No, Dad didn't actually want me carrying, no matter that he'd given me basic lessons on how to handle an assortment of firearms. But I figured that holy water pistols might not be enough -- and tasers were still a bit outside the Mars family price range, here in 1997.

A moment or two of silence while we drove around a couple of corners; then Willow said, "So, Sheila's really a witch?"

"Unless you think she's yanking our chain right now, yes," I said/

"Not the way I meant it. Sorry," Willow said. "She still, you know, scares me a little, but she doesn't seem like she's going to bite my head off. I meant, I was looking into that a little myself -- I know someone else who's kind of a mystic type, a little, and there's another one whose mother was a witch, and while I may call my mom that some days, it's really not so much literal."

Pile on, why don't you, universe? If I was translating from the Willow accurately -- never a completely safe assumption, once the babbling began, and this was a prime example -- she was wondering how to get started as a witch.

Maybe a bit early -- her interest really seemed to heighten only when it was necessary, after Jenny Calendar's death -- but not ridiculously so. Willow's curiosity, I suspect, would have led her into magic whether Ms. Calendar had been killed or not.

Still, now that her curiosity was piqued, I sure as hell wasn't going to send her out to learn it on the streets, or from Amy Madison. I was guessing by this point Amy was already deep into her own studies, but as far as I know the first anyone learned of it was with Xander and the love spell. In any event, she was every bit the sociopath her mother was, even if it took her longer to show it.

"Can we talk about it once we're past the possibility of being disemboweled?" I asked.

"Oh, this is Sunnydale. We're never past that possibility."

I glared at her for a second as we came to a stop sign, and then put my eyes back on the road.

We really didn't talk about much else along the way. It took us another ten minutes to get there -- maybe five miles from Sheila's apartment, all told. When we got out, we were a block and a half past the church, down a side street. "No point in letting them know we're coming any sooner than we have to," Buffy said. "Kendra --"

"You and I should go in alone," she said. "That way we have a better chance of stopping Spike and Drusilla without having to worry about their safety."

At the moment? Kind of an appealing sentiment. As I keep telling everyone, I'm a detective, not a fighter. Even as many times as Philip Marlowe got involved in scuffles or whacked over the skull by some mug with a rod,

Still, this was my mistake that needed to be fixed, even if no one else knew it, so I really couldn't back out now. Not that that would have done anything more than likely get me killed, anyway. The neighborhood of the abandoned church was definitely in the bad part of the "not a whole lot of town" that was Sunnydale, and it was after dark.

And not that I was seriously considering it. Buffy and Sheila were my friends, so even if tonight didn't possibly have a bearing on my immortal soul, I wouldn't cut and run. But I don't think it's wrong of me if, inside, I was tempted just a little.

Confrontation? Big fan. Used it a lot. Physical confrontation? Not my specialty. I'm not a coward. I never have been. But I'm not a hand-to-hand combatant, either. I know basic self-defense, which against any vampire who's been alive more than twenty minutes isn't going to do anything other than get me eaten five seconds slower.

"Does anyone want to stay with the cars?" Buffy said. "You, Ms. Mistwood? You, Veronica? This isn't really either of your fight, you know."

Rae shook her head no, and I said, "Giles said this was a possible apocalypse. I'm not backing out now."

"Sheila?" Buffy asked.

Once again Sheila's grin came out for a second. "Possible violence. 'scool. I'm not going anywhere."

As we walked slowly towards the church, I went up next to Sheila and said, "Remember everything I told you."

"Relax, manhunter," she said quietly. "'mnot stupid. I'm tough and they're tougher and I ain't that confident in my ability to do magic that I think I can take whatever comes to me. But just because I'm not overconfident doesn't mean I don't think I can handle it." A pause, then, "Besides, I got a rep to maintain. And you and me and Summers got a conversation coming."

"Buffy?"

"Yeah. She's the one went breaking into my apartment."

And pretty much on cue, Buffy turned around and gestured for us to be quiet. Not rudely, just matter-of-factly. I didn't think the vampires inside were keeping a particularly careful lookout based on what I remembered from the original timeline; Kendra's entrance had startled pretty much everyone. Still, no real point in tempting fate.

That one, I know from personal experience, if you substitute "Adversary" for "Fate." I realize that using the word "wish" too casually in the Buffyverse would get you in trouble; who knew that it would apply in my universe as well?

Word of warning: "Bet" can get you into even more trouble than "wish."

Anyway, Buffy opened the front doors gingerly, but no one leaped out to attack us. Kendra seemed disappointed.

The front doors did not open directly into the main area of the church; there was an antechamber, small, but the inner doors that led to the "big room" were closed. (Can you tell I'm not a regular churchgoer? I've never quite been an atheist – kind of hard to be a complete skeptic in the Buffyverse – but my religion has never been especially organized. Neither Mom nor Dad were regular attendees, and me? Maybe a couple of times in my life, and strictly for the social reasons.)

Buffy and Kendra walked up to the (closed) interior doors and listened for a second, looked at each other, then back at us, and flung them open. I took a deep breath and followed them in.

The scene inside was familiar – it looked like we'd gotten there at around the same time (in terms of where Angel and Drusilla were in the ritual) as Kendra and the cavalry had on the first run-through. Maybe a bit later, I couldn't be sure. Angel and Drusilla were in their torture-chamber-meets-operating setup, dagger through their joined hands, and glowing slightly.

There were about a half dozen vampires plus Spike and the Cyclops. One-eye headed for Buffy with an audible growl, but Spike said, "No. That bitch is mine. People! Don't let them disrupt the ritual. I will be very cranky if they do." Cyclops seemed disappointed, but his disappointment didn't last long as Kendra kicked him in the stomach. He grinned and hit her in the shoulder. Spike charged right at Buffy, who had already started charging at him; nice how these things work themselves out sometimes.

Still, in the first go-round, Kendra had attacked Spike, and Buffy had duked it out with Patrice. A minor change, but still.

The other vampires, of course, needed no prodding, and came at us. Giles, being the only really experienced fighter (Xander may have logged a truckload of field time by season five, but this wasn't season five) took the lead, but that left plenty for the rest of us.

Unfortunately.

I sort of lost coherent track of everyone else, but Sheila hung back for a second; Rae was still talking to her. I took out my holy water pistol – full, but I didn't exactly have unlimited ammo. I fired it at a vampire who was going after Cordelia; as she yelped from the holy water burn on her face, Giles shot his crossbow directly into her heart. Another vampire swept it from his hands a half second later, then tried to assault Giles, but found this difficult because of the Willow that had suddenly sprouted from his back

Sheila closed her eyes, and then opened them again. She muttered to herself for a second and then threw a punch at the nearest church pew.

It splintered, leaving several highly useful shards of wood. "Take one," she said, picking them up. "And move. Don't want to hit you by accident." Physical magic. Highly useful.

As I picked up a shard and moved to one side – mostly being ignored, so far, and happy for it – Rae came with me. "Don't you need to stay with her?" The battle in front was something of a tumult. Spike was absolutely determined not to let Buffy past him, and Kendra was having a pretty hard time with One-Eye.

"Not now," Rae said. "At the moment, I'd just be in her way."

I couldn't hear what Sheila was saying, but as I saw the makeshift stake she threw bury itself in the chest of a startled and soon very dead vampire twenty feet away, I would have bet the mortgage it was "find the target."

This got everyone's attention. Xander and Cordelia, I noticed, were pounding away at one vampire, which unfortunately was out of my range.

Not out of Sheila's, though, though this time the wooden shard hit it in the back of the chest -- not quite deep enough to reach the heart.

Cordelia -- bitch though she always was -- showed her "layers" by diving to the ground behind the vampire. Xander was quick to pick up on the slapstick opportunities this presented, and promptly shoved the vampire backwards, where he tripped over Cordelia --

And drove the "stake" the rest of the way into its heart. When Cordelia stood up, she seemed to be bitching about the effect the dust had had on her clothes.

And what was I doing, you may ask? Well may you. Rae and I, for lack of any opponents, were creeping around the edge of the church, edging towards the altar where Angel and Drusilla were set up. Spike was too busy keeping Buffy busy, the other vampires didn't have the emotional investment, and the Cyclops just seemed to be there for the hitting.

Which, it must be confessed, he was good at.

I had managed to squeeze off a couple of more bursts of my hot-sauce-infused holy water along the way, hitting once. Didn't do more than distract the vampire, but at the moment? I'd take whatever I could get. Amateur vampire killers don't get to be choosers.

Of course, technically Buffy was an amateur, too. But you get the point.

I gestured for Rae to stay back -- I wasn't going to get her in any more danger than she was already. The vampires had ignored her, but that was largely because they were already busy. None of them had directly attacked me, either. As far as blessings went, that was a pretty good one.

Kendra seemed to have gotten the upper hand in her fight with One-Eye, but then the cyclops hadn't made the mistake of ripping Kendra's shirt that Patrice had.

I was worried for a second that Drusilla would see me coming, but all of her attention was focused on the dagger and the energy she was draining from Angel -- and in any event, she was still too weak. After edging as close as I could, I dashed to the altar, pulled the dagger from Angel and Drusilla's hands, and threw it as far away as I could. The glow vanished.

Drusilla called for Spike, who jerked his head back in my direction, growled, blocked Buffy's next punch and threw her into the pews.

Then he growled and stalked towards me.

Okay, now. Who out there thinks that maybe I didn't think this through quite as much as I should have?

Line forms to the left.