Author's Note: No, this isn't going to go as smoothly as Veronica hopes. Is it going to work?
That's for me to know, and you to offer me bribes to find out.

X X X X X

Of course, I wasn't fool enough to simply drive around until I located someone willing to take me to Rack's waiting room, charge in, and start shooting; in the first place, I didn't own a gun, and, despite my opinions on how well they'd work against vampires, there's no guarantee they'd work on a prepared warlock like Rack, whether he's human or simply faking it.

And, anyway, violence, even in the mood I'm in? Not my style. Give me Aaron Echolls, or Warren Mears, and maybe I'd kick them in the groin a few times, but beyond that, not really.

Still, this was going to require some thought. This would be the first time I was attempting to prevent something where I was attempting to fix something that wasn't broken yet, and wasn't about to break, either. Rack was about four years in the future, and not an immediate danger to Willow.

He might be to Sheila, though. I trusted her; I didn't trust him.

If I started making plans today, though, they'd be bad plans, because right now I was running mostly on anger, and angry Veronica? Good for smartass comments and taking out frustrations on impotent petty tyrants, not so much good for taking on powerful warlocks who are more powerful than any individual I could think of who's on my side right now.

So, for the moment, I headed to the office. When I got there, Dad was in his office, talking to someone I didn't recognize; seemed to be some kind of reporter, though. If things ran the way they did the first time around, the story would run its course in a few days and things would get back to normal, until someone found out who the real killer was.

The Sunnydale police? Not happy with Dad right now. He'd made them look like fools, not that this required anything more than pointing at them and going "See?" But this made them look like fools nationally.

Still, there wasn't much they could do about it, not if the Mayor wanted national attention off his town again. So Lamb had given a press conference this morning about how they were grateful to Keith Mars' tireless work (choke on those words, Donnie; choke on 'em) and how they would now reopen the case to find the person who'd really killed Lilly Kane.

This, of course, was the Sunnydale police as led by Don Lamb, of course; I'd say something about the blind leading the blind, but really, why insult the blind? In any event, I wasn't expecting a whole hell of a lot out of them.

So, while Dad was enjoying his day in the sun, I retreated to the desk and went through the day's mail.

And answered a lot of phone calls, from potential clients – I took down their information and told them Dad would get back to them – to other reporters, to a couple of marriage proposals, which I turned down on Dad's behalf. The routine calmed me down, to some extent, though there was no day Dad would be able to take on this many clients. Still, it was nice to be able to pick and choose every once in a while.

(To some extent meant just that. I'd pushed my rage at the circumstances to the back of my mind, but it was there. Still, at least it was now at the back of my mind rather than dominating the front, the way it had been.)

Dad was still on the phone with a reporter from, I think, the Associated Press when I knocked on the door and told him I was pretty much done with everything I could think of doing that day. He told me I could go, so I went.

I locked the door behind me as I left. This replacement door was strong enough to keep out any vampires, though probably not certain demons, so I was reasonably sure of his safety.

On the way, I headed to the magic shop. Rae was there, just closing up, but she happily let me in.

She was a bit less happy when I asked her what she knew about that magic pusher she'd been talking about.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because it seems like that's someone the Slayer should be taking care of. And, you know, as luck would have it, we have one right here in town."

"This would be Buffy, right?" she said. I allowed as it would. "I'm not sure she's up to it."

"She might be," I said. "I'll give her the facts – better yet, could you do it?"

"Me?" Rae asked dubiously.

"Secondhand is better than thirdhand," I said. "I only know about this guy because you warned us – and I think Amy Madison mentioned him."

"Yeah," she said, sighing. "His name's Rack. He looks human; I never met him, and I don't woman. I think Amy Madison has been in his wheelhouse for a while. What he does doesn't work as well on novice witches. He wouldn't be interested in Willow yet, no matter how powerful she has the potential to be. But Sheila? Just starting to figure out how powerful she might be? Yeah. He'd be interested."

"I think Sheila would tell him to bug off," I said.

"That's the right attitude," she said. "But attitude isn't quite everything. You know how dealers – actual drug dealers – sometimes get people to start on their product?"

"First one's free," I said.

"It's beyond cliché, but it's true," she said. "The problem is, Rack simply doesn't offer his magic for free. He gives it away, whether his target wants them or not."

"How often does that work?"

"About half the time. But that plus the people invited by friends plus the occasional walk-in are more than enough," Rae said. "For a pusher, he doesn't push – he doesn't want to tick people off and get too much attention."

"He doesn't want the Slayer to get involved," I said.

"That would be my guess," she said.

"How do you know so much about him?"

"My customers," she said sourly. "There's a lot of overlap, unfortunately. I try to steer them away, but there's not a lot I can do otherwise. I'm not like you and the slayer, Veronica; I'm not a hero."

My eyes widened. "I'm not a hero. Never pretended to be one. Not a shield nor a sword do I carry."

"Philip Marlowe was a hero too, Veronica," she said.

Me? A hero?

Ridiculous.

X X X X X

I convinced her to come by the school tomorrow night after class and brief the Scooby Gang; I would be there as well, and so would Sheila, because a lot of this was about her, even if she didn't know it at this point.

And, for once, pretty much nothing else happened in the interim, nothing that I haven't told you about, anyway. I got questioned by the police, a little more adulation from the other students, glares from Snyder, and nothing whatsoever from Duncan, who apparently wasn't quite ready to apologize yet.

(Logan, I should note, didn't seem to be of the same opinion, though we didn't actually talk. Still, he wasn't glaring at me and he wasn't turning away as though my very presence offended him; Duncan did that a couple of times on Wednesday. Okay, fine. Let him be that way for the moment. He couldn't believe his father was innocent; he wasn't that stupid. So if he wanted to wait from an undeserved apology from me, he would be waiting until the Hellmouth froze over.)

Still, the point here is that between my conversation with Rae and her briefing the Scoobies? Not a lot happened. Which is good, because it let me concentrate on how the hell we could defeat Rack, and bad, because the reason I was so pissed on Tuesday hadn't particularly faded by Wednesday afternoon, though I did mange to avoid biting anyone's head off on Wednesday.

When everyone, including Cordelia, Rae, and to my mild surprise, Ms. Calendar (I had no objection to her being there, of course; the more the merrier), had shown up. Giles turned to me and said, "Miss Mars? The floor is yours."

"But please don't charge us rent for using it," Xander said. "'cause I don't have the money and I can't fly."

I chuckled at that, and then said, "So, I suppose you're all wondering why I brought you here today . . . "

"Damn skippy," Cordelia said.

"Might want to avoid saying that in this town," Ms, Calendar said, grinning. "Unless you've got something against Skippy, that is."

I cut off Cordelia's return retort by saying, "Last week I learned about someone who might fall under Buffy's mandate as Slayer: A warlock named Rack who apparently is exploiting young witches around here --"

"Around the world," Rae said. "Some teleport in just to see him. But most of his clientele are from pretty close by."

"Well, see," I said, 'That's why I brought you here. Rae knows more about this guy than I do. Rae?"

And Rae, with some prompting, explained everything she knew about Rack.

"I'm surprised you've never heard of this guy, Giles," Buffy said once Rae as done.

"Well, he is human," Giles said. "We tend to keep track only of the potential worldbeaters, in that category, and it sounds like this Rack is content simply making money and corrupting spellcasters. Which doesn't mean the Council has no information on him at all, just that I cannot recollect ever seeing it. I could check, if you like."

"Yeah. Do that," Buffy said.

Ms. Calendar laughed, but there was no humor in it. "For once I'm a half point up on you, Rupert," she said. "I have heard of this bastard, though I didn't know his name -- or that he was in Sunnydale."

"How --?" Giles asked.

Another bitter laugh. "Join the internet age. I know a wide variety of pagans and Wiccans online, from wannabes to people with real power. He's been a topic of discussion on a few of them. We've even had a couple of his addicts come try to recruit, but they're usually kicked off in short order. I'm definitely going to go these people and A, warn them, and B, find out whatever I can about him that Rae hasn't already told us."

"She just spent twenty-minutes detailing the bozo." Cordelia said. "What else do we need to know?"

"Gee, Cordy," Xander said. "What he looks like might be helpful. So far all we've got is 'man," which covers everyone from Gary Coleman to Wilt Chamberlain."

"Yeah, well, at least no one's ever going to think it's you."

"Got that righ -- hey!"

"Thank you, Mr. Giles, Ms. Calendar," I said firmly, cutting off Xander-Cordelia XXXVIII, This Time, It's Meaningless. "So you all agree we need to do something about this guy?"

'sclear to me, manhunter," Sheila said. "Just stopped drinking. Don't want something else takin' its place."

"Thanks," I said.

"Anyone have a problem?" Buffy asked. No one did. "Good. Thanks, Veronica. I told you we'd make you a Scooby yet."

"Nope," I said. "Confronting the bad guys? I prefer using words to fists, or magic. And something tells me this bozo's going to be hard to take down just by talking to him."

"Whatever we do," Giles said, "We should not act in haste. We should find out as much as we can about this man before we begin to formulate a plan."

"What plan?" Buffy asked. "We find him, we stop him." She snapped her fingers.

"It might not be that easy, Buffy," Willow said. "He's human. You can't Slay a human."

"That part of the Slayer rulebook?" Sheila asked.

"As a matter of fact, it is," Giles said.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "And actually, I agree with this part. I'm not going to kill a person who's not actually trying to kill me -- and even then I'd rather avoid it."

Sheila nodded. "Fair enough. I'm not a Slayer, though."

"You'd kill him?" Buffy asked.

"If someone has to, yeah. What's the alternative? Smack him a few times and tell him he's being a bad boy? 'snot like any jail's going to take him. You have a problem with that?"

Before the situation could escalate -- though Sheila wasn't asking the question hostilely, it could be hard for the uninitiated to tell the difference sometimes -- Giles said, "Talk of killing is premature. The man might prove amenable to reason --"

"I highly doubt that, Mr. Giles," Rae said. Ms. Calendar echoed that.

Giles nodded and continued, "Or, failing that, we may be able to restrict his activities short of ending his life. First we need to know as much about him as possible -- and his location."

Rae was visibly thinking, ending with, "No. I didn't tell you, did I? His home base moves. I don't know how often, or how long it takes. So even if we find his location tonight, it'll be somewhere else tomorrow."

"Damn," Xander said. "The man has his own TARDIS."

"I realize I said I'd only help you guys in the event of an apocalypse," I said. "But at least part of this is detective work. Plus," I looked over at Sheila, "It's also somewhat personal. I don't like it when people target my friends."

"How were you planning to help?" Ms. Calendar asked.

"Buffy Slays; you and Mr. Giles research; I find."

"And how were you planning to do that?" Buffy asked.

"Let me worry about that," I said.

X X X X X

They let me get away with it. Why, I had no idea. Because I was worried. While I was the one person in Sunnydale who couldn't possibly be affected by anything any of Rack's ticked-off clientele might do, I was the one person least likely to be able to find it simply by wandering around. Hell, Xander would have had a better chance than I would.

Still, I knew this going in, so when I went out that evening to see if I could track down -- pretty much just for the practice -- the thought of doing it that way never even entered my mind.

I'd been thinking about maybe following Amy Madison, but she scuttled that idea by simply heading straight to the Bronze and staying there. Sheila could have, and would have, but hell, to the power of no, would I let that happen.

Who could find Rack's lair?

If I remembered it right, witches and other spellcasters, and magical beings. Buffy's fairly sure Spike can help, but Clem's the one who actually finds it. Buffy herself? No go.

So all I had to do was whistle up a friendly demon.

Fortunately, I knew more or less where to find one.

And as it turned out, exactly where.

Angel hadn't even left his apartment yet.

I'd say luck was running my way, but you know where that leads.