"This town is isn't just infested with vampires, they're dug in." Mason complained. "In less then a week my team has destroyed over a dozen and marked five nests, each with multiple vampires in them. They've been here for quite a while, Diana."
"That's disturbing. Numbers like that don't happen in a town Sunnydale's size." She handed him a cup of coffee. "Maybe in Los Angeles, with it's much larger population, vampire numbers like that would go unnoticed, but in Sunnydale there just aren't enough people to account for it. Why do they stay? The Hellmouth draws them, yes, being around it would be like a vacation destination. Stay a week, move on, staying long term anywhere risks being found by humans and vampires don't want exposure. Humans would actively hunt them in large numbers, if the public knew they existed for real."
"And Sunnydale doesn't have the easy to catch homeless prey large cities have, but it does have children and teenagers and vampires prefer them, if they can catch them." Mason sipped his coffee. Teenagers that included the ones that personally mattered to them, not just the general public they were sworn to protect.
"Will it be difficult to clean out the nests you've found?" Diana asked.
"Mm, no." Mason shook his head. "We may train to fight up close and personal, but it's a last resort. We hit the nest just before dawn when they can't escape. We plan it out ahead of time and we know before we go in how many vamps are in there. We're well equiped and well protected." He assured her.
"How's the investigation of Xander's family situation going?"
"Oh there's no doubt the old man's a drunk." Mason said grimly. "Same as the wife, arrest records go back years for drunk and disorderly and the neighbors report fights when they get physical or loud. The investigators have gotten ahold of Xander's medical records too, clear evidence of far too many 'accidents'. It shouldn't take a judge too long to rule with everything that's been found in just a week of looking. Can't happen soon enough for me, I want the kid out of that house. Vampire hunting is safer than living there. A hunter has a team they can count on around them, protections and equipment. A teenager with little training, no weapons or backup trying to defend himself against a bigger and stronger opponent would have a hard time protecting himself. Fighting one's father is a lot different than a vampire. Tony Harris lives in Xander's nightmares for a reason and that gives him power over Xander. Power I hope to help him fight." Mason finished determinedly.
"Something's wrong!" Four teens burst into Diana's kitchen unannounced.
"Calm down." She took a deep breath and unconsciously the teens copied her. "Okay, let's start at the beginning. Or maybe alphabetically. Cordelia?"
"The earthquake last night gave me one of those feelings you want me to pay attention to. Big time dread."
"Ditto here!" Xander raised his hand. "The earthquake gave me a wiggins too."
"Faith, do you have something to report?" Diana asked.
"Does blood pouring out of the faucets in the girls locker room count as bad?" Faith asked sarcastically.
"Yes." Diana and Mason chorused.
"How about the fact that I got an email that bypassed the spam blocker on my school account from some guy calling himself Brother Luca insisting a prophecy about an Anointed One is about to happen?" Jesse asked. "Cause before I would have just thought he was a fruitcake, but Cordelia's subconscious told us about the prophecy about the Slayer and predicting she'd die. Do you think it's the same one?"
"I hope to Hell not!" Diana exclaimed. "But Faith isn't going to be doing anything that doesn't involve massive amounts of protections right now. We do not walk into prophecy or invite it in to play, we do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen."
"Wait, the Anointed One." Faith frowned. "That sounds familiar. Mr. Giles! A couple months ago he told us about a prophecy about an Anointed One. Something about five would die and some kind of warrior vampire would be made from the ashes."
"And you ran into that religious nut job vampire." Xander remembered. "When Mr. Giles thought a bus crash with five people dead was about the prophecy."
"Unless that vampire was created as a distraction." Diana suggested. "And a second vampire is the actual Anointed One. And we have no idea which vampire it is."
Mason stood up. "My team and I'll take out the nests we've identified, this vampire could be hiding in any one of them. It's riskier going after nests at night, but we can't wait until dawn on this."
Xander bit his lip, he hadn't even known Mason a week, but already the guy had done more for him than Tony Harris ever had or would. "Just be careful, okay."
"Vampire hunting knocks the cocky out of you real fast, kid." Mason assured him. "Reckless people don't survive as hunters and I've been doing this since I wasn't much older than you. And now I have a personal reason to be careful, my own kid to look out for." He added awkwardly. "I'll do what I have to, to come home. And when you're out there hunting, you do the same." He headed out to gather his team and get ready.
"Jesse," Diana focused the teens back on her, she needed to keep them and herself occupied. "Can you call up your student account on my computer, I need this Brother Luca's address. I have some questions for him."
"Yeah, I can." They all gathered around the computer grateful for the distraction, however long it lasted.