Shock was setting in. Like the last time I'd faced Drusilla all by myself.

I couldn't let it. Not yet. She was still here and I was within fifty feet of ten dead bodies -- and this wasn't a back alley, either. Someone would come along and I couldn't be here when they did. Even Don Lamb would be capable of reading this evidence and jumping to a wrong, but justifiable, conclusion.

I looked back at Drusilla and said, as convincingly as I could, "Yes. I do like it." This was harder than it sounds, and I don't think I'm making it sound easy. Her face, skirt, and nails were covered in blood and she was grinning from ear to ear.

She smiled. "I'm glad to hear that. I would have been unhappy if you hadn't."

"Well, we wouldn't want that," I said. "Thank you for saving me."

She curtsied, and if there's a stranger sight than a lunatic vampire, covered in the evidence of her slaughter, curtsying as though she were meeting the queen of England, I never, ever want to see it. "You are very welcome. I couldn't let them."

"Let them hurt me?" I hadn't wanted them to hurt me, either, but this wasn't even close to how I wanted that to happen.

"Of course not," she said. "I can't, you know, because I'm afraid of what's behind you, and I don't want them to pull back the curtain if I can't. And anyway you're my Martian, not theirs."

"Can I be my own Martian?"

She giggled. "Of course, silly. Both at once and it doesn't even break that silly law of contradiction. I'm not going to put you in a cage. Martians would look silly in cages, don't you think?"

"I do," I said. "Would you mind if we left? I don't want anyone seeing me standing here with the bodies."

"Don't be silly," she said. "Martians use ray guns."

"Yes, but people around here are kind of stupid," I said. "They might not know that."

"They are stupid or else they'd leave, wouldn't they? And they don't. I guess that's how come I was able to kill them all."

Every last one of them had been a witch. How had Drusilla stopped them?

How didn't matter. She was fast, she was strong, she could hypnotize anyone but me, and she'd apparently taken most of them by surprise. And crazy as she was, she wasn't stupid.

And I sure as hell wasn't going to ask for any kind of play-by-play.

They were dead and I couldn't be found anywhere near them and I would not succumb to shock now while Drusilla was standing ten feet away acting like a cross between the Joker and the Queen Mother.

"So," she said, "Where would you like to go?"

Unconsciously quoting Buffy, I said, "Anywhere but here." I realized in the back of my head that it had probably been Drusilla stalking me for the last day, which meant she knew where I lived, but I was still hoping that maybe it was the witches; in any event, I wasn't taking her back there, when Dad might be there, because that was a confrontation I would give my left hand to avoid ever happening.

Okay, my entire left arm.

She closed her eyes and pointed in what looked like a random direction. "They won't be coming from over there," she said.

That was in the rough direction of Angel's apartment, so that was fine by me.

Note: I know: Ten dead people. Ten people who would not be dead if I hadn't forced a premature confrontation with Rack. Yes, I have to think about that. Hard.

But do you mind if I don't think about it a whole hell of a lot right now?

Drusilla and I walked quickly away from the scene. When we were maybe three blocks away I said, "Could I ask you to slow down?"

"Of course you can," she said. "Martians can ask anything. That's what makes them Martians."

"Will you please slow down?"

"Why, certainly." She was not holding my arm and not forcing me. I still knew better than to run. Right now two things were keeping me alive: Drusilla's twisted sense of courtesy and her reluctance to see what was behind me. I wasn't going to push that.

"Thank you very much, Sparhawk." Yes, I'd managed to squeeze in the time to read the Elenium since the last time Drusilla and I had chatted. It seemed like she might appreciate it if I called her my champion. (Yes. I'm shuddering mentally at the image.)

She giggled. "Thank you, but you're anakha and Sparhawk is anakha and I still can't read you, not one line, so I can't be Sparhawk; I think I'd rather be the wise woman, the one who protects Sparhawk with her magic."

"Lady Sephrenia?"

She laughed and clapped, "Oh, goody! I like that! I shall be your Lady Sephrenia and protect you from all the nasty beings who want to hurt you." She leaned in and said conspiratorially, "I hope we run into the troll gods."

"They're fictional," I said.

Taken aback, she said, "But anakha and Lady Sephrenia are fictional and here we both are, as real as the rain. So why not the troll gods?" Another giggle. "I think they'd be fun."

Yes, she would think they were fun, wouldn't she?

We were still walking along the same street maybe ten minutes later when rescue arrived in the form of a man in a Citroen. (Giles, of course.) I was very careful not to seem happy about it.

Giles wasn't dumb enough to simply stop and get out of the car. No, the first inkling that he was there – we'd been passed by cars before, not a single one of which, in true Sunnydale style, had seemed to notice that Drusilla's hands and dress were soaked in blood, never mind that I was still operating under a possible concussion and looked like it – was when he smashed into Drusilla at about thirty miles an hour.

Drusilla went flying down the road as Giles yelled, "Get in!"

He didn't have to tell me twice. Hell, he didn't have to tell me once; I was moving for the passenger side before he opened his mouth.

Giles hadn't been going fast enough to do more than knock Drusilla down and about ten feet away. She stood up as I was getting into the car and said, "Is the evening over?"

"It is!" I yelled back.

"I had fun! We must do it again sometime! Then, as if she hadn't just been hit by a car (alright, a Citroen, but close enough), she turned and ran off down a nearby side street.

Giles backed up and said nothing until we were headed in the other direction. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm alive," I said. "And unfortunately, completely sane. I was hit in the back of the head by something, I'm not sure what. How did you know?"

"Buffy came across the scene of the massacre about – he checked his watch – fifteen minutes ago. It was starting to draw a crowd. When she saw your car not far away--" I'd been maybe fifty feet past it when I woke up – "and that you were nowhere among the deceased, she jumped, correctly as it turns out, to the conclusion that whoever had slaughtered those poor people had taken you."

"I'll have to thank her later," I said.

"What happened?"

I took a deep breath. "Well, those 'poor people' were attacking me when they were killed. They were some of Rack's clients. Apparently, when you cut off their supply, addicts tend to get upset. I didn't want them dead, but they're not innocent."

We rounded a corner. "Drusilla killed ten prepared magic-users?"

"Apparently. How, you'd have to ask her, because I'm never going to. Best I can figure is that they were prepared for me, not her."

"Could you tell me what happened?"

So I told him everything I could remember, from when I left the Bronze to when he plowed into Drusilla.

"This is worrisome," Giles said when I was done.

"Worrisome? Worrisome is finding out the guy next door used to rob banks for a living. This is full-blown panic-inducing."

"You're quite correct," he said. "And no understatement of the danger was intended. Drusilla is troublesome at the best of times. Now that she fancies herself your protector –"

"I have to worry about what she might think is worth protecting me from," I said. "This time, as it turns out, she was right. Hell no, I'm not approving her methods, but the magic-users weren't chasing me down the street throwing spells to invite me to a tea party. That doesn't mean that next time she might not think you, or Buffy, or Sheila, or my Dad, is hurting me, and that she needs to protect me from them."

"Indeed," he said grimly.

I had a thought. "Hey – turn right here."

"Why?"

"Because I'd like to retrieve my car, assuming Lamb hasn't has it towed on principle as being close enough to a crime scene that he can use that to justify harassing me."

"Did anyone see you?" he asked.

"I sure as hell hope not," I said. "I was too busy trying to be polite to Drusilla."

"Polite?"

"She's a big believer in courtesy," I said. "Courtesy by her definition, of course. Miss Manners would only recognize about half of it."

"Here we are," Giles said. "Where are you going next?"

"I can't go home," I said as I stepped out of the car. "Not yet. Fortunately, I'm not supposed to be home for another hour and a half, so I have that long to collect myself to make sure my Dad doesn't notice anything different about me."

"The library?"

"That'll do," I said. "Do you have a first aid kit there?" I blinked. "Of course you do. What am I thinking? I'll see you there as soon as I can." That would give me some time to think about what had happened. If I was going to go into shock, I would have done so already, but that didn't mean I wasn't stopping myself from going into semi-hysterics by sheer force of will.

And never mind my unintentional alteration of the timeline. Yes, Amy Madison disappeared from the storyline from nearly three years, but without her love spell?

There would be time to think about that later. I reached for the door of the Le Baron and a nauseatingly familiar voice came from behind me. "Hold it!"

"Which may be a while. If I don't make it, have Buffy or one of them call me at home," I told Giles, and turned around, forced a smile onto my face – believe you me, it didn't want to go there, not tonight, but I was going to be damned before I would show the owner of that voice anything but a defiant attitude. "Hi, Deputy," I said.

"Veronica Mars," he said. "I've been waiting for this."

"For what?" I asked.

"Here you are, at the scene of a murder."

"Yes. So are several dozen other people. Not including the victims."

"Don't give me that. Not with what I have."

"I think they have medicine for that," I said. Some people were good at bluffing. Donnie was merely competent, which meant I could read him like a Large-Print book. He had nothing on me.

"You won't be laughing when I'm done," he said.

"I'm not laughing now," I said.

"I have a witness."

"A witness to what?" Giles said from behind me. Unnoticed by me, he'd gotten out of his car and was now standing behind me.

"Who the hell are you?" Lamb asked.

"A concerned bystander," Giles said with steel in his voice. "Now answer my question."

Lamb looked at Giles, figured out he wasn't going to be able to bluster Giles away, decided threatening wasn't the effort (not that that would have worked, either, but it would have been interesting to watch), and said, "A witness that saw her here earlier tonight."

"Of course I was here," I said. "My car's here. I was here to drop it off, and now I'm back to pick it up. I have no idea how those people up there got killed, and if I'd seen anything, I'd tell you."

"Really?"

"Really," I said. "I hate you, Donnie, and I know you hate me – enough to distract you from a brutal murder scene just so you can bust my chops, apparently – but if I knew anything that would help you solve it, I wouldn't hold it back in a fit of pique. If I'd seen anything, heard anything, I'd tell you. I heard nothing; I saw nothing. And my LeBaron isn't talking."

I could tell in his eyes that the witness, if there was one, hadn't seen anything remotely incriminating, or he would be joyfully putting the handcuffs on me preparatory to hauling me off to the station.

"Well, you're going to have to wait to pick it up," he said.

"What on earth for?" Giles asked.

"Because it's close enough to the crime scene that there might be evidence on it."

I could tell that was a bullshit answer, especially when someone whose car was twenty feet closer but not in the actual zone of death was allowed to leave not ten seconds later, but this was Lamb proving to me that he still had power, so fine, I let him have this one. However: I reached into my bag and took several photographs of the car, inside and out.

"What are you doing?" Lamb asked.

"I'm not saying you'd let something happen to my car just because you don't like it," I said, leaving no doubt I was saying exactly that, "But just in case something does happen, now I have proof of what it was like. Just in case."

"Whatever," he said. "You can pick it up tomorrow morning. Unless we need it for evidence."

"Whatever helps you solve the case!" I said, refusing to let him bait me. "Mr. Giles? Could I get a ride from you?"

"Certainly, Miss Mars," Giles said, all too happy to play along. "Bear in mind, Sheriff: I am a witness to this young woman's good character and the state of her automobile. Kindly do not let any damage occur to either if it can be avoided. Am I understood?"

Ah, Ripper was coming out to play for a moment. Always a good time.

"Understood," Lamb muttered, and turned away.

Once Giles and I were in the Citroen and safely away from the scene of the crime, he said, "That man is the Sheriff?" I nodded. "Were no Keystone Kops available? Good Lord. There are ten people viciously killed not fifty feet away and he decides to give you a hard time instead of investigating. Admittedly, he probably wouldn't be able to track down Drusilla, or do anything once he caught her."

"Probably?" I said. "Drusilla could have a neon sign over her head saying 'murderer' and Lamb wouldn't be able to find her. I almost hope he does."

"Miss Mars," he said in a tone of mild reprimand.

"No, Mr. Giles. That man has done a great deal to harm me. More than you know and more than I'm going to share." Here, as in my original timeline, I'd gone to Lamb when I'd been raped at the Christmas party, and here, as in the original timeline, he'd essentially laughed in my face and told me he had better things to do. "He's in that list of people who I don't necessarily actively want dead, but wouldn't waste five seconds mourning, either."

He thought for a second, nodded, and said, "Fair enough."

"Now, could we not talk for a few minutes?" I asked. "I've been holding myself together with spit and baling wire and I'd like to not have to for a bit. My Dad knows of my other encounter with Drusilla – no, not that she's a vampire; you'll notice I'm here and not in Guam – and I don't want him to be the tiniest bit suspicious about anything other than the placement of my car."

"Understood," he said soberly.

And the rest of the way there – barely ten minutes, even the way Giles drove – I sat there, and thought.

About everything, pretty much. About the damned Adversary and the bet. About Amy and what her absence would do the Buffyverse. (Without her love spell, Xander and Cordelia stay broken up; and that's just the beginning of that one. Minor or not, she'd had her part to play, and her absence would change things, in ways I couldn't predict.

About ten dead people. That was a complicated moral issue, no two ways about it. Yes, they'd been trying to kill me. Yes, if it came down to it and I had to answer on pain of whatever fate worse than death was the flavor of the day, a choice between them and me is no choice at all. It's not like they were ten people picked at random; they were ten people doing their damnedest to end my life.

Even that doesn't mean they earned Drusilla.

About Drusilla and that the lives of all of my friends – and my father now depended on Drusilla's nonexistent ability to make good judgments. The only reason I wasn't going to demand we clear out of town was that that would pretty much be me conceding the bet.

And I couldn't do that. If it was just my pride, my money, my honor, or even my life on the table, I'd throw in the towel.

It was more than that.

If I went down, others would come with me.

That? Not happening.

We drove on.