Okay, I wasn't inventing new swearwords, but I was certainly giving the old ones a strenuous workout.

God damn it to hell. I take one afternoon off, and the universe decides to throw Anyanka at me.

Is that it, Adversary? Are you just piling on and piling on until I finally say uncle?

Because that is never going to happen. Ever.

Of course, it was entirely possible The Adversary had nothing to do with it. It could just be Veronica Mars' luck running its usual course.

Technically, I supposed I was a scorned woman -- Duncan had dumped me last year without bothering to explain why -- but no way was I going to try to wish my way out of this.

Reasons why?

1. Vengeance Demons tended to go by the letter, not the spirit, of the wish. I was smart, but even I wasn't sure about my ability to properly word a wish so as not to have it blow up in my face.

2. Any wish would have to be about vengeance on Duncan. That would not only make it a lot harder to word the wish, I didn't particularly want vengeance on him, anyway.

3. It probably wouldn't work anyway; I suspected my immunity to magic would prevent me from making or being directly affected by wishes, though if one created an alternate universe I would probably be swept up into it until I could figure out how to restore things. (That? The easy part. Destroy the necklace. Pulling it off? Harder. And you can read 'pulling it off' any way you want to, there. Giles was lucky that Anyanka was so overconfident during "The Wish." I might have the advantage of surprise, but that would be about it.)

Well, that was about the only advantage I had now, that and it didn't seem that anyone had made a wish yet.

Anyanka's existence long predated me being here, of course, and so I could tell people about her. There was no way I was going to try to take her on by myself unless I had no choice.

Unfortunately, almost no one who could help me was on the guest list. Giles, Buffy, etc., weren't getting in; Xander could probably brazen his way in -- he was good at that -- but staying unnoticed wasn't exactly one of his strong suits. Sheila was probably on the security guard lists to be shot on sight. And while Dad was on the guest list, I was trying to keep him supernatural-free for as long as humanly possible.

That left me two allies, neither of whom would be my first choices; but I really had no other options at this point.

Still, right now I needed to be sure Anyanka wasn't about to grant the bartender a wish. I walked up to the bar. "--there's no one who's ticked you off recently?"

"No," the bartender said irritably. "Now, if that's it --"

"Whatever," Anyanka said. As she turned to go, she looked at me, blinked, and said "Not you," to herself, and walked away.

Interesting, but at the moment -- I stepped up and said, "What was that about?"

The still annoyed bartender -- her name tag read "Ashley," but that didn't mean anything because neither Dad nor I were assuming Viola was dumb enough to sue her real name -- said, "Beats the hell out of me. She kept wanting to know if a man had scorned me recently and what I wanted to do about it. A, it's none of her business, B, I'm in a happy relationship, and C, it's with a woman. Weird chick. So, what can I get you?"

Well, unless she was lying to absolutely everyone, that scotched her as being Viola Kerrigan. "Ginger ale," I said, keeping half an eye on Anyanka as she wandered around the room.

"Coming right up," she said.

As I took my first sip, Dad came towards me in a decidedly bad mood.

"Want me to turn that frown upside down?" I said.

"I don't think you're strong enough," Dad said. "But what do you have?"

Anya, for the moment, seemed like she was staying in the room. Good. On the off chance reality shifted around me, I'd have to run up to her and rip the necklace off toot-sweet. "One, I don't think the bartender over there is Viola. Don't know if you caught her, but unless she's an actress to rival Streep, she's gay and in a committed relationship."

"I did," Dad said. "But I could ask for her license, and did. Still glad to have the backup."

"Okay," I said. "There were also a couple of catering company employees outside unloading a van and they mentioned another employee who was headed back to headquarters to pick up something. Name of Nancy. Neither of the two I saw was anywhere close, so it wasn't them."

"I'll check up on Nancy. Good going," he said.

"So what's got you so upset?"

"While Lynn was down here greeting guests and overseeing the final preparations, guess where Aaron was?"

"From the tone," I said, "I'd guess upstairs, not keeping it in his pants."

"Pretty much," Dad said. "And with one of the servers, no less. Not Viola Kerrigan unless she has a better phony ID than I can spot, but still, monumentally stupid."

"For him, maybe. For us?"

"I know. Still," and he said the next part very quietly, "I'd like him to be alive to stand trial."

"Yeah." I saw Aaron across the room. "I see you got him to zip it back up."

"I stood there until he did and the young woman was out of the room," Dad said. "He bitched and moaned but I did remind him that that what was what he was paying me for."

As long as he didn't give you five minutes to get out of the house and say he wasn't going to pay you, I'm good," I said. Anyanka, I noticed, was still making her way around the room. When she looked at Aaron, Aaron gave her a brief flirtatious grin, which she simply ignored. As she turned away, though, her own grin was broad enough that she could have stunt doubled the Joker.

As if I didn't already know, that pretty much clinched for me why she was here. Aaron Echolls was a fertile enough target I was surprised he didn't have a vengeance demon assigned to him full time.

Something Dad had just said struck me. Could it be that easy? "You're checking licenses?"

"Yes, of course. Why?"

I pointed subtly to Anyanka. "Do you see that young woman over there? Short brown hair, red dress?"

Dad nodded. "Yes. Do you think she's Viola Kerrigan?"

"Maybe," I said, when it struck me that yes, she did more or less fit the vague description, given that Emma Caulfield wasn't a teenager either when she was cast for the first time. "But even if she's not, something about her seems suspicious. She was grilling the bartender about whether any man had, to get country on it, 'done her wrong,' and was apparently obnoxious about it."

"So she's not a sparkling conversationalist," Dad said. "That hardly seems like the standard to wangle an invitation."

"Gut feeling," I said. "Please check her out?"

Dad nodded. "Okay, sweetie. Gut's important. If she seems off to you, I'll see what I can find out."

"Thank you," I said. "Did everyone else check out?"

"I think so," Dad said. "I'm going to double-check to make sure I didn't miss anyone, but you've done what I needed you to do."

"Thanks. I'll keep my eyes out, of course." Even if Anyanka hadn't decided to put in an appearance now, the rest of the night would be something of a busman's holiday; as it was, any recreation I had was going to be theoretical.

The house was starting to fill up with guests, and the servers were beginning their job in earnest. As Dad tracked down Anyanka, I looked around. Logan and his friends were out in the poolhouse starting their poker game, and I might need help with the supernatural aspects, but that wasn't who I was searching out right now.

I'd been wrong, earlier. There was one other person here who could help me, who knew about the supernatural, even if she and I weren't exactly bosom chums.

Cordelia, of course.

And here she came now, pulling away from two adults who were apparently her parents. She moved towards a good-looking guy about our age I didn't recognize, and dangerous as it was to get between Cordelia Chase and a hot rich guy, I had no choice.

She did her best to run me over, of course, but I stopped her by saying, "This is business."

"I'm off the clock," she said. "And what mystery could you be solving right now? Unless it's the mystery of how to act around people who matter."

I leaned in and said, "Creature of the night business."

She got a pained look on her face, but followed me away from the crowd. "Okay, Veronica," she said. "What is it and why haven't you called Buffy?"

"I haven't called Buffy because for two reasons. One, my Dad's keeping a very sharp eye out for any unauthorized guests and he both knows her by sight and knows she isn't on the guest list. Two, I'm not sure we have as long as it would take for her to get here."

"How do you know about this?"

I took out my cell phone. "Has anyone told you about someone named Epimetheus?"

She thought for a second and said, "Yeah. Librarian-guy mentioned him –"

"Her –"

"Her at one point. Said she was jerking people around and he didn't know why." It hit her. "She called you?"

"Yes. She did. Don't sound so surprised. She called me once before when that group of assassins came to town. Helped Buffy with one of the assassins."

"That was that bug-person, right? Don't tell me there are any bug-people here this time. Because, you know, ick."

"No, no bug people," I said, repressing a sigh. "Just a vengeance demon." I gestured to where Dad was talking to Anya, who seemed anxious not to be talking to Dad. "See the girl talking with my father?"

"Yeah." After a second, "That's a demon?"

"Yes, and if you don't broadcast it to the room, maybe she and us'll be the only one who know it. Look. She's here to 'take vengeance' on behalf of a scorned woman." I wasn't going to spill what Dad's business here was, specifically, unless I had to.

Snorting, Cordelia said, "I'm not surprised, considering who the host is. You do know his reputation, right? He'll sleep with anything that moves?"

"Anything female, yeah. So no, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there are more than a few women here he's pissed off." Anya started to walk off, and Dad stopped her.

"And we should stop this demon why? Seems to me if a few guys got this message there'd be a lot less cheating go on."

"You'd think, but she's been doing this for several hundred years now," I said. "How's that working out?"

"Huh."

"Anyway, their idea of vengeance isn't necessarily as neat as simply as killing the guy or cutting their penises off," I said, though I was reasonably sure Anyanka had done more than her share of those activities in her millennium-plus-length life. "There's a big possibility of collateral damage." Hell, if all she was going to do was kill Aaron, I might not try to stop her. But I couldn't even come close to counting on that.

So, Dad was my first line of defense, here. Me, Cordelia and, yes, probably Logan would be the second.

I had no third. First one to suggest Drusilla gets their fingers chopped off. One, I didn't know if Drusilla was watching me and hoped like hell she wasn't. Two, if she was, Anyanka wasn't a direct threat to me, and if I made her a visible, things would have long since gone to hell. Three, of course, is that Drusilla was only slightly less easy to predict than I was, and I had a universe backing me up.

Fourth, and most important, is that if Anyanka for some reason didn't opt out, if she decided to stick around and fight, this place would become a war zone. Neither Anyanka nor Drusilla, when they have their backs up, is any kind of respecter of people and property, and I'd really fucking like not to have any repeats of what happened last night, thank you. One mass murder scene per decade is about my limit.

I realized I might not have a choice in the matter, if Drusilla set her mind to it. But I would still do my best to avoid such a scenario.

In the meantime, Cordelia nodded. "Yeah. I get that. How can I help?"

"For the moment? Could you keep an eye on her?" Because Anyanka had finally taken what looked like a billfold from her pocket. Dad looked at it, down at a list in his hand, and said something, I couldn't make out what, with a look of exasperation on his face, and walked towards me. "And maybe interrupt anyone who looks like they're about to wish for something?"

"Okay," she said. "But you owe me a conversation with a hot guy."

"Fair enough," I said. As Cordelia walked away, Dad walked up. "So?"

"She had a legitimate invite and a photo ID that didn't look faked -- she's a student at UC-Sunnydale. Why she gave me such a hard time, I have no idea." Hmmm. Maybe vengeance demons had powers beyond what was explicitly seen on the show. Though it wasn't hard to imagine a fake ID being more or less de rigueur for vengeance demons posing as human, I do know that if Anya had had a driver's license it hadn't survived the loss of her necklace in the Wish. Sunnydale High didn't have picture ID's.

Still. "Seems suspicious."

"Yeah, it does, and if we were just here for the cocktails and the chilled shrimp I might try to figure it out. The most important thing, though, is that I'm reasonably certain she's not Viola Kerrigan."

"I suppose that'll do for the moment," I said. "I might keep half an eye on her, though."

"As long as it's only half," he said. "I'm going to go find out about our missing caterer. Excuse me." He headed off towards the kitchen.

Cordelia was following Anyanka, and not being particularly subtle about it; beggars, I suppose, can't be choosers.

I hustled out the back door towards the poolhouse. Opening the door, I found the game already in full bore, with everyone who was boozing thinking they were being clever by putting their drinks in soda bottles.

"Hey guys," I said. "Helpful hint. Sprite isn't a nice amber hue. Next time? Cans."

"Listen to the tiny blonde one," Logan said. "She knows whereof she speaks at least half the time." Noting the look of incipient outrage on my face, he added, "Which puts her well up on any of you losers." They snorted and sipped their "Sprites" while Logan asked me, "Come to lose your money?"

"Not quite yet," I said. "And just to let you know, I won't be losing anything. Logan. A word about things that go bump in the night?"

"Ah," he said. "Deal me out this hand, gentlemen. The tiny blonde one requires my advice, and really, who am I to say no?" He maintained the jovial, sardonic look on his face until we got outside. "What is it?" he asked seriously. "I know you wouldn't be bringing me into anything unless there was a serious problem."

I gave him a two-minute summary on Anyanka and what she was doing here. "You have Chase watching her?"

"It was a choice between her and no one," I said. "And she's not quite as bad as you might think."

"She couldn't be," Logan said. "Okay. Hold on." He leaned his head back into the poolhouse. "I'll be back in a bit, folks. Miss Mars requires my skills for longer than a couple of minutes."

Despite everything, it was a straight line I couldn't resist. I poked my head in too and said, "So you know what we won't be doing."

Raucous laughter followed us as we headed back towards the house. "So," he said. "What's the plan?"

I stopped before I got to the back door.

What was the plan?