Chapter 8: Meet

"So?" Buffy asked as she and Dawn stood in the foyer of the house.

"I have to know why he wanted us here," Dawn said. "Why he believed we are still at his beck and call."

"Okay," Buffy said as they grabbed their overnight bags and went upstairs to their old room.

Buffy and Dawn woke the next morning and once dressed headed for the stairs just as

Clay's door creaked open. They heard the padding of bare feet on hardwood. They turned around to see that Clay stood at the top of the stairs in nothing more than his boxers. "How 'bout some company for breakfast?" he asked.

"No," Dawn said. "Buffy and I are fine by ourselves." She and Buffy started back down the stairs. They got exactly three steps when Clay came up behind them and grabbed her elbow.

Clay heard a growl and looked at Buffy as he released Dawn's elbow. "Let me get you two breakfast," he said. "I'll meet you both in the sunroom. I want to talk to the both of you."

"We don't have anything to say to you, Clayton," Buffy said.

"Give me five minutes," Clay said and before the sisters could answer he jogged back to his room to get dressed.

At the bottom of the stairs, a smell stopped the sisters in their tracks. Honeyed ham and pancakes, Dawn's favorite breakfast.

Buffy wondered if the pancakes would be in funny shapes. She remembered when Dawn was younger before Tara's death that Tara had always made Dawn pancakes in funny shapes. Dawn had continued the tradition of making funny shapes for breakfast after that. She wondered if her sister did it out of respect for Tara's memory or because she just loved to have them in funny shapes.

They stepped into the sunroom and saw stacks of ham and pancakes waiting on a steaming platter. They heard footsteps as Jeremy walked in behind them. "It's getting cold. Sit and eat," he said as they sat down and dug in.

"Are you going to tell us what's going on?" Buffy asked.

"Are you both going to listen?" Jeremy asked. "Or are you both trying to pick another fight?"

"We haven't left, have we?" Dawn asked.

A commotion at the front door caused Buffy and Dawn to glance up, as Nick Sorrentino burst into the sunroom. He caught sight of the sisters, covered the room in three running steps, and swung first Dawn and then Buffy before pulling them both into an embrace.

"You two were gone too long, little sisters," Nick said. Even though Buffy was not a wolf, he still considered her one of the pack like the rest of them. "Much too long." He kissed first Dawn and then Buffy.

"Well, just make yourself at home," Clay drawled from the doorway.

Nick turned to Clay and grinned as he released Buffy. Still holding the Dawn captive in his arms, he strode across the floor and thumped Clay on the back. Clay's arm flew up and grabbed Nick in a headlock. He pulled Dawn away from Nick before shoving Nick away.

Nick regained his balance and his grin, and bounced back to them. "When did you two get in?" he asked Dawn and Buffy, then poked Clay in the ribs. "And why didn't you tell me they were coming?"

"The prodigal has returned," Antonio Sorrentino said as he grabbed Dawn from behind.

"You're as bad as your son," Dawn said, wriggling out of Antonio's grasp. "Can't you guys just shake hands?"

Antonio laughed and let Dawn down. "I should squeeze harder. Maybe that would teach you two to stay home for a while." He then turned to Buffy and pulled her into his embrace. "Hello, Buffy."

"Hello, Antonio," Buffy said as she returned the embrace. She smirked as she did squeeze harder.

"Buffy," Antonio gasped, "getting hard to breathe." Buffy laughed as she let him go. He turned and pulled out a chair beside Jeremy. "Has Peter arrived yet?"

Jeremy shook his head.

"So everyone's coming?" Dawn asked.

"Finish your breakfast." Jeremy said, giving Dawn and Buffy a critical once-over. "You two have lost weight."

Buffy laughed. "And you know that is a physical impossibility."

Jeremy smiled and nodded. "True. Being immortal has its ups and its down." He then turned to talk to Antonio.

Buffy and Dawn sat down and began to eat. While they could not die from hunger, they still felt the hunger pains all the same.

Clay reached over Dawn's shoulder, snatched a hunk of ham, and downed it in one gulp.

"Keep your fingers off Dawn's plate," Jeremy said without turning around. "Yours is in the kitchen. There's enough for everyone."

Antonio was first out the door. When Nick went to follow, Clay grabbed his arm. Nick nodded and bounded off to fill two plates while Clay took the seat beside Dawn.

"Great," Dawn muttered.

Clay's fingers darted out to snag another piece of ham off Dawn's plate. Grabbing her fork, Buffy, with Slayer speed, reached across and stabbed the back of his hand hard enough to make him yelp.

Jeremy looked up at Clay and Buffy and shook his head. "You know not to antagonize Buffy," he said.

"But its fun," Clay said in his own defense.

Antonio came back into the sunroom, plate piled high. Nick followed his father and dropped Clay's plate in front of him, and then pulled up a chair beside Buffy, turned it backward, and straddled it.

Then the doorbell rang. Nick went to answer it and came back with Peter Myers. Once again, they went through the rituals of bear hugging, back thumping, and mock punching.

"When's Logan coming?" Buffy asked as everyone settled back to the business of eating.

"He's not," Jeremy said. "He had to fly to Los Angeles for a court case. Last-minute legal substitution. I contacted him last night and let him know what's going on."

"Which reminds me," Clay said, turning to Dawn. "Last time I talked to Logan, he let something slip about speaking to the two of you. 'Course, that's not possible, since you both cut off all contact with the Pack, right?"

Buffy and Dawn didn't say anything. But they didn't need to Clay could tell in their eyes that what Logan had said was true.

After everyone finished breakfast they all moved to the study, where Jeremy explained the situation. There was a werewolf in Bear Valley. The wild dog story was a plausible explanation devised by locals desperate for an answer to werewolf activity; much like a barbeque fork was used to explain vampires in Sunnydale. There had been canine tracks around the body. The kill itself was canine, throat ripped out and body partly devoured. It looked like a dog kill, so the locals had decided it was.

Everyone in the room knew better, the killer was a werewolf.

"What we need to do first is find this mutt," Jeremy said. "Dawn has the best sense of smell, so she'll be—"

"Dawn and I are not staying," Buffy interrupted.

The room went silent. Everyone turned to look at the sisters.

"I thought you two came back," Nick said. "You are both here. I don't understand."

"We're here because Jeremy left us an urgent message to call him. Dawn tried calling, but no one answered, so we came out to see what was wrong," Buffy said.

"I called," Dawn added. "And called and called and called. And we decided to come and find out what Jeremy wanted. We asked him last night, but he wouldn't tell us."

"So now that you two know, you both are leaving. Again," Clay said.

Buffy turned on him. "This is Jeremy's problem, not mine or Dawn's. That was the agreement when we left for Toronto. I would stay out of Pack business as long as he took care of the mutt problem around Stonehaven."

"Jeremy called you two for a reason, Buffy," Antonio said, stepping between Clay and Buffy. "We need to find out who this mutt is. Buffy, you kept the dossiers. You know them. That's your job."

Buffy sighed. "That was my job, when Dawn and I were still a part of this Pack."

Nick straightened up, confusion now mixed with alarm. "What does that mean?"

"It means Buffy, Dawn and I have something to discuss in private," Jeremy said. "We'll continue this meeting later."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Nick, Peter and Antonio cleared the room quickly. Clay thumped back into his seat.

"Clayton," Jeremy said.

"I'm staying. This has as much to do with me as it does you. Probably more. If Dawn or the Slayer thinks they can show up, and then walk right back out, after we've been waiting for over a year—"

"You'll do what?" Buffy said, stepping toward him. "Kidnap us and lock us in a hotel room, like you tried to do to us when we said we were leaving?"

"That was four years ago. And I was only trying to convince you both to talk to me before you left."

"Convince? Hah. We'd probably still be there if we hadn't convinced you to set us free by hanging you off the balcony by your ankles. If we'd had any sense, we'd have let go while we had the chance," Dawn said.

"Wouldn't have done any good, darling. I bounce. You can't get rid of me that easily."

"I'm getting rid of you now," Jeremy said. "Out. That's an order."

Clay sighed before hauling himself to his feet and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

"We need your help," Jeremy said, turning back to the sisters. "Buffy, you've researched the mutts. You took that on as a job. You know more about them than any of us."

"I only took that on when we were still part of this Pack to protect Dawn," Buffy said. "I told you—"

"We need Dawn's nose to find him and your knowledge, Buffy, to identify him," Jeremy cut in. "Then we need your help to get rid of him. It's a tricky situation. Clay's not the one to handle this. We need to proceed with absolute caution. This mutt has killed on our territory and he's insinuated himself into our town. We need to lure him out without calling attention to ourselves or making him panic. You two can do that. Only you two."

"I'm sorry, Jer, but this isn't our problem," Dawn said. "We don't live here anymore. And we don't deal with mutts on your territory. The agreement we all agreed to said …"

"That it was my job, I know. This should never have happened. I wasn't paying enough attention. But that doesn't change the fact that it's happened and we're all in danger because of it—even the two of you. If this mutt continues making trouble, he runs the risk of being caught. If he's caught, what will prevent him from telling the authorities about us? Think about it Buffy, if he tells them about Dawn. While mortal illness and old age can't kill you. You lose your head, you are dead and so is Dawn."

Buffy sighed. "I know. But the thing is that is not what has you worried. It's the fact that he's killing," she said.

"You're right, Buffy," said Jeremy with a sigh. "I've tried to live a peaceful life, as you well know, with humans, even before the agreement you keep reminding me of. But eventually their eyes will turn to us if he is not stopped. Once this is all cleared up, you two can do as you wish. Please."

"And if we wish for you to honor the agreement and we leave the Pack again?" Dawn asked. "Will you honor it?"

"I was angry last night. There's no reason to be in such a rush to make this decision. I've honored the agreement for four years; I've not phoned either of you for anything else. I haven't let Clay contact either of you. I haven't summoned either of you both back for the other Meets. No one else would get that kind of treatment. You both got it because of the agreement, because I couldn't force you to return before the two of you were ready."

"In other words, you're hoping we'll return because we either will grow out of some misplaced childish behavior or we'd need you for something," Dawn said. "Jeremy, you know Buffy and I are well over two hundred years old. This is not a passing phase for us. You know as well as we that we can't remain here for the next hundred years before people realize that we don't age."

"I'm asking for your help. Asking, not demanding. Help me solve this problem and you both can go back to Toronto. No one will stop you." Jeremy glanced toward the door where they knew Clay was listening. "I'll give you two some time to think about it. Come see me when you both are ready."

Buffy and Dawn stayed in the study for over an hour discussing what they were going to do. Neither of them liked the situation that they were being placed in. But they knew Jeremy had been right, after Dawn had been bitten she had become the best tracker the Pack had. And Buffy, because she was the Slayer, she had been able to find the werewolves that were causing problems and had maintained the dossiers that listed each of the problem werewolves.

"I think," Buffy said. "It might be time to think about changing our identities again. After we're done here, we need to disappear into the system."

"Maybe," agreed Dawn.

Buffy and Dawn told Jeremy they'd stay long enough to help them find and kill this mutt on the condition that, when it was over, they could leave without him or Clay trying to stop them. That it was time to change their identities and disappear even from Jeremy and the Pack. Jeremy reluctantly agreed. Then he went to tell the others, taking Clay out back for an extended explanation.

The plan was twofold. For the first part, the Pack, minus Jeremy, would split up and search for the mutt. If they found the mutt's lair, Buffy or Dawn would determine whether or not the mutt could be killed safely. If it wasn't a safe kill, they'd gather information to plot the killing for another night. The second part would come into play if the mutt couldn't be killed safely.

After lunch, Dawn and Buffy went to the study to check the dossiers, hoping to find something that might help to figure out which mutt was causing trouble in Bear Valley. The dossiers were missing from their location in Jeremy's wall safe. They would have to wait for Jeremy to return from a run before they could ask him where they were.

As Dawn closed the safe she saw The Legacy. It was a book that supposedly told the history of werewolves, particularly of the Pack.

As the sisters looked at the book, a pair of hands grabbed Dawn under the armpits and hoisted her off the chair.

"Wake up!" Antonio said, tickling Dawn as Buffy smiled, then dropping her back onto the chair and doing the same to Buffy. He then leaned over Dawn's shoulder and picked up The Legacy. "Just in time, Pete. Five more minutes of reading this and they'd have been in a coma."

Peter walked in front of the sisters and took the book from Antonio, and made a face. "Are we such bad company that you two would rather hide out in here reading that old thing?"

Antonio grinned. "I'd guess it's not us their avoiding, but a certain blond-haired tornado. Jeremy sent him to the store with Nicky, so you two can come out of hiding now."

"Actually we came in here to look at the dossiers," said Buffy.

"Ah," said Peter. "We came to ask if you two felt like taking a walk. Stretch our legs, get caught up."

Antonio lifted first Dawn and then Buffy by the armpits again, this time putting them on their feet. "Actually, Peter, they were just going to come find us and tell us how much they missed us and are dying to get caught up."

"We'll go," Buffy said. "By the way have either of you seen the dossiers? There not where they should have been. We figured Jeremy must have them. We were hoping maybe they'd help us figure out who could be behind this. Do you guys have any ideas?"

"Plenty," Antonio said. "Now come for a walk and we'll tell you." They walked out of the house and headed into the forest. "My money's on Daniel."

"Daniel?" Peter frowned. "How'd you figure that?"

Antonio lifted a hand and started counting off reasons on his fingers. "One, he used to be Pack so he knows how dangerous this kind of killing on our territory is, that we can't—and won't—leave town. Two, he hates Clay. Three, he hates Jeremy. Four, he hates all of us—with the exception of Dawn and Buffy, who, conveniently, weren't at Stonehaven to be affected by the mess, which I'm sure Daniel knew. Five, he really hates Clay. Six—oh, wait, other hand—six, he's a murderous cannibalizing bastard. Seven, did I mention he chose to strike when Dawn and Buffy weren't around? Eight, he really, really, REALLY hates Clay. Nine, he's sworn undying revenge against the entire Pack. How many more reasons do you need?"

"How about one that involves utter suicidal stupidity. Daniel doesn't meet that qualification. No offense, Tonio, but I think you're seeing Daniel in this because you want to see him in it. He makes a convenient fall guy—not that I wouldn't like to help him with that final fall. But if you're placing wagers—small wagers, please, I don't have your capital to blow—I'd go with Zachary Cain. Definitely dumb enough. Big brute probably woke up one morning, thought, Hey, why don't I kill some girl on Pack territory for a kick. Probably wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. Because it's stupid, stupid."

"It could be someone minor," Buffy said. "One of the bit players tired of being banished to the wings. Any mutts been making a ruckus lately?"

"Petty stuff," Antonio said. "None of the minor leagues making any major plays. Of the big four, Daniel, Cain, and Jimmy Koenig have been quiet. Karl Marsten killed a mutt in Miami last winter, but I don't think this Bear Valley problem could be him. Not his M.O., unless he's taken up not only killing humans but eating them. Unlikely."

"Who'd he kill?" Dawn asked.

"Ethan Ritter," Peter said. "Range dispute. Clean kill. Thorough disposal. Typical Marsten stuff. We only know about it because I was passing through Florida earlier this spring on a tour. Marsten caught up with me, took me to dinner, told me he'd offed Ritter so you could strike his name from your dossiers, Buffy. Had a nice little chat, rang up an astronomic bill, which he paid for in cash. He asked if we'd heard from you two, sent his regards to everyone."

"I'm surprised he doesn't send Christmas cards," Antonio said. "I can see them now. Tasteful, embossed vellum cards, the best he can steal. Little notes in perfect penmanship, 'Happy holidays. Hope everyone is well. I sliced up Ethan Ritter in Miami and scattered his remains in the Atlantic. Best wishes for the New Year. Karl.'"

Peter laughed. "That guy has never figured out which side of our fence he's on."

"Oh, he's figured it out," Dawn said. "That's exactly why he takes us out to fancy dinners and updates us on his mutt kills. He's hoping we'll forget which side of the fence he's on."

"Not likely," Antonio said. "A mutt is a mutt and Karl Marsten is definitely a mutt. A dangerous mutt."

Buffy nodded. "But, as you said, not likely to be eating humans in Bear Valley. I'm as biased as you, but I really like the idea of Daniel. Do we have his last known whereabouts?"

"No one's been keeping track," Peter said. "Not since you two left."

After dinner, Buffy and Dawn were heading to their room when Nicholas pounced out of Clay's room, grabbed first one sister and then the other and dragged them inside the room.

He released Dawn and threw Buffy onto the bed and jumped on top of her, pulling her shirt from her jeans to tickle her stomach. He grinned suggestively, white teeth glinting beneath his dark mustache.

"Looking forward to tonight?" he asked, running his fingers from Buffy's belly button farther under her shirt.

Buffy slapped his hand back down to her stomach. "You do remember I'm gay, right?"

"Now that you mention it," Nick said with a sigh as he got off Buffy.

"We aren't supposed to have fun," Dawn said as Nick turned toward her intending to throw her on the bed like he had Buffy. "This is a serious matter, requiring a serious attitude."

Clay laughed as he came out of the bathroom. "You can almost say that with a straight face, darling. I'm impressed." Dawn rolled her eyes and said nothing. "Come on. Admit it. You two are looking forward to it." Buffy and Dawn shrugged. "Liars. You two are. How often do we get to run in town? An officially sanctioned mutt hunt."

Buffy let out a sigh. She could feel the Slayer inside her itching for the hunt.