Eighteen

SUNRISE, SUNSET

The clock radio on Grace Cabral’s nightstand woke her up at precisely one hour before sunrise. Grace always kept the volume low. In the dark before dawn, The Eagles whispered in her ear.

Oh, you’re a hard one

But I know that you got your reasons...

Grace opened her eyes. She sat up naked in her bed and didn’t yawn, didn’t stretch, didn’t take a moment to banish the cobwebs from her mind. She never needed to. She was fully awake and alert the moment she opened her eyes, just as she was every morning.

These things that are pleasin’ you

Can hurt you somehow

She sat naked in the dark, as the song played on, and looked toward the window. An hour before dawn the sky should have been turning gray but instead it was black as a tar pit. The darkness in Sunnydale was different from the darkness in other places. In Sunnydale the darkness wasn’t merely a lack of light. It was alive with malevolent intent and it called to you, if only you could hear. Grace had grown up in Sunnydale, and she was used to the ways of its darkness, and she was not immune to its allure. But she resisted its vicious charms and did not let herself hear its siren song.

Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy

She’ll beat you if she’s able

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet...

It was a cold morning but she always kept her bedroom window open because she didn’t like feeling shut off from the world. She lived in the house her mother had left her: a beautiful old ranch house on a quiet street in the suburbs, with dazzling flower gardens in the front and back yards that Grace tended to with care, because her mother had loved the flowers so much. But Grace knew any house was really nothing more than a box--a coffin.

Now it seems to me, some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the ones that you can’t get...

Grace shut off the radio, and got out of bed, and stood in front of the window in the dark. It had been hot the night before but now it was cold: cold as some terrible mountain peak or the bottom of the ocean. Like its darkness, Sunnydale’s weather was not typical. But where Sunnydale’s darkness brooded, elusive and cunning, Sunnydale’s weather clamored for attention, wanton and impetuous: from moment to moment it could be as warm as a mother’s embrace, its gentle breezes kissing your skin; it could burn for you like a lover, its sultry heat carrying the smells of sweat and perfume like a whispered promise of passion; it could cut open the clouds like a dagger to the heart and rain down endless tears as if weeping for a love that was gone or freeze you with its cold indifference. And when the thunder and the lightning raged through the churning black sky like battleships firing broadsides across a roiling black sea you would get off the street if you were smart, you would drop everything and just run: because in Sunnydale a storm could be vindictive.

The icy breeze surging through the window was the merest cool caress against Grace’s naked skin, but she felt its intent anyway: felt for a moment as she stood there in the dark that she was a puny spark in a vast, terrible frozen void that had existed long before her and would go on long after she was dust. Felt completely, utterly alone.

She looked up at the crucifix on the wall. It had been her mother’s. After a few seconds, the feeling came: the same feeling Grace always had when she looked at a crucifix for any length of time. A pressure in her chest. A crushing weight. A loathsome tingling on her skin, like insects were crawling all over her. A sense of being in a small space that was shrinking a little more every second, like one of those old movies where the hero explores an ancient cursed tomb and ends up becoming trapped in a secret stone vault and the walls start closing in. She felt like she was under the ground, far from the world of life and light, sinking deeper and deeper, and if she didn’t escape soon she would be trapped for eternity like she had been buried alive...

She looked at the crucifix for as long as she could tolerate it, and then she looked away. She stood in the dark for a moment and steadied herself, as the claustrophobic pressure and the crushing weight and the unbearable tingling feeling faded.

She turned on the light. She didn’t need the light to see in the dark but there were certain things she did anyway because people did them. Certain simple things that filled the moments of her days and were precious in their way. She would not allow herself to lose touch with those things. Her grip on her life was tenuous enough as it was.

By habit, she looked in the mirror. She spent some time, doing that; a moment or two. She imagined herself. She thought her hair was probably a mess; she had a thick, luxurious but unfortunately unruly mound of long black hair and it seemed to possess a mind of its own. She assumed it was probably time to go to the salon again. She thought she’d try something different this time. A new style. Something simpler. A little shorter, a little neater. She looked down at her arms. She frowned. She was looking rather pale, she thought. Grace was Brazilian and she had always loved her beautiful olive skin but it had been a long time since she had been in the sun.

There was a photograph of her mother on the little antique French rosewood bureau in a gold gilt ornamental frame: the photo was taken when Grace was a girl. In the photograph she and her mother were in the cancer ward together. As Grace laid in the hospital bed hooked up to all the machines, bald at age eleven, emaciated as a concentration camp survivor from the endless rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, too scared and too exhausted to have much hope, but smiling, because she was trying to be brave, her mother held her in her arms.

“Good morning, Momma,” Grace whispered, and touched her finger to her lips, and then touched her finger to the photograph.

There was a string of rosary beads looped around the photograph, each bead an aquamarine, with a gold crucifix dangling from the end. The beads had been her mother’s, and her grandmother’s before that. Grace took the crucifix in her hand, and closed her eyes.

It burned her. After a second, smoke started to rise from her flesh as the pain grew worse. Naked, she stood there and held on as long as she could.

She looked up at Christ hanging on his silver cross on the wall.

“Am I really that terrible to you?” she said.

She put the crucifix down, and carefully looped it again around the framed photograph. The symbol of the cross was burned into her right hand; she had held that crucifix so many times that it had made a permanent scar which never healed. She wasn’t sure why she took that crucifix in her hand every morning; she knew it would always burn her. She guessed there was a part of her that hoped someday it wouldn’t.

She went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She kept the pig blood she procured from the butcher shop in a pitcher. Most vampires preferred their blood straight from a human neck, and there were times she thought she might too, times that she fantasized about what it would be like as she laid naked in her bed, touching herself and loving a dream girl. In the fantasy the girl gave herself to Grace, let Grace take her blood because she loved her and she wasn’t afraid. Taking her blood was a consummation.

But Grace had never taken blood from a human being, and she had never found that dream girl. A car horn beeped, far away; downtown, it sounded like. Closer to where she was, a girl was screaming. Grace stopped and listened, focused in on the sound. The screams weren’t screams of fear or pain but passion. The girl, wherever she was and whoever she might have been, was making love. As Grace bent her concentration upon the sound and shut out everything else she heard other sounds with it: she heard the bed creaking as the girl, delirious with passion, took her lover inside her. She heard the girl’s ragged, gasping breath as it matched the rhythm of her lover’s thrusts, and she heard the girl’s moans, and the little thrill of fear underneath them. And then Grace heard the girl’s lover: a woman.

“Hello,” Grace whispered with a wide-eyed smile. “You don’t hear this every day.”

Grace heard the woman as she spoke into the girl’s ear, a whisper on the cold wind...

“Take me inside, baby,” the woman whispered, as she filled the girl up, and the girl gasped and moaned and screamed, and the bed creaked. “That’s it...that’s it. Take it all baby, take it all so I can make you come...”

“Okaaaayyyy...uh...wow,” Grace said. The two lovers were fairly close by; a block or two away, she estimated. Now that she was locked onto their sounds, it was difficult to ignore them. But she did ignore them, because listening made her feel like a voyeur. Even worse, it made her remember that it had been a very long time since she had taken a woman home. Her bed was cold. She shook her head, tuned out the feverish lovers, poured some blood from the pitcher into a little pan and heated it up on the stove. She pulled a spice jar from the cabinet and stirred in a generous helping of tempero baiano, a spice mixture that had always had a prominent place in her grandmother’s kitchen. Grace had tinkered with the blend over the years, finally formulating a mixture that worked perfectly with pig blood.

When the blood was warm she poured the contents of the pan into a tall mug, and drank it at her kitchen table, as she looked out the window. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving; the Mayor was handing out turkeys today. She wouldn’t be able to accompany him in the sun but she had organized the events and she would be running the office while he was gone. Grace had never celebrated Thanksgiving. She and her mother had both been born in America but they had kept touch with their roots--Grace’s grandmother had made certain of it, and as far as Nana had been concerned, Brazilians simply didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. But Grace loved Christmas, and Thanksgiving always reminded her of it. There was something special about this time of year, when the days became short and the weather turned cold and the air was sharp and sweet and the stars shimmered like diamonds and the night was sacred and silent. It made Grace want to light candles and watch It’s a Wonderful Life and bake cookies. But she didn’t really have anyone to buy presents for--no parents, no grandparents. No aunts or uncles, brothers or sisters, nieces or nephews. Her grandmother was dead, her mother was dead, her father had left when she was a little girl, and she was alone. Every year the Mayor bought presents for his staff, and he always bought a special one for her, because she was his personal assistant and also his favorite. She would buy a present for the Mayor, and other than that, she was in a Christmas Grab with the secretaries. But that was all. The Mayor always had a lot of balls in the air and as his personal assistant Grace consequently worked long hours--she worked six days a week and sixteen hour days weren’t uncommon for her. And she couldn’t go out in the sun either of course, so it was hard for her to meet new people. She had a few friends at work, people she could have lunch with, or go out for drinks with at the end of the day. But Grace was a vampire, and the human beings she worked with felt uncomfortable around her. They didn’t mean to; it was just instinctive. They knew she was a soulless thing. A dead thing. And she scared them. But Grace felt uncomfortable around other vampires. They wanted her to hunt with them and that was a line Grace was afraid to cross. She was often alone.

“Sleigh bells ring,” Grace whispered, as she looked out into the dark. “Are you listening?”

Grace knew she would be spending this Christmas alone...just like she did every year. There would be an office Christmas party that she would attend the Friday before the holiday, and the Mayor would invite her to come to his house on Christmas Day just like he did every year, but she would come up with an excuse and refuse because part of her felt like she didn’t belong with people. In the end it would just be her and Jimmy Stewart and cookies she could barely taste, and a mug of warm blood.

The two lovers were still there, at the edge of her perception; the girl moaning and crying a little now, frightened by the ferocity of her passion, the woman whispering soothing words in her ear as she made love to her.

“Such a sweet lil’ strawberry,” the woman whispered. “I’ll kiss it and make it all better after, okay baby?”

“I’m gonna...oh Goddess I’m gonna...I’m gonna...” the girl whimpered, her voice rising in pitch now, becoming shrill, almost panicked; turning into a scream.

“Come for me, Willow,” the woman whispered.

The girl came, screaming. The woman held her, and kissed her. Grace drank her blood.

There was a cat somewhere in the backyard; a female cat. Grace could smell her.

A moment later the cat appeared: she was a sleek white Siamese with green eyes that were bright as diamonds in the dark. She met Grace’s ebony eyes, held them for a moment, and then disappeared into the shadows.

At two minutes before sunrise Grace was showered and dressed and made up and perfumed and sufficiently fabulous looking, and ready to face the day. She walked out the back door, briefcase in hand, and looked up at the sky. It was gray now, finally; pregnant with the new day. As she always did, she thought about the fact that she would die if she stood there. All she had to do was stand there.

She stood there for awhile, and thought about her mother.

Then she walked along the bluestone path that meandered through the lawn past the rosebushes toward the sewer grate by the birdfeeder. The Siamese cat was back. She watched Grace, her green eyes bright and unblinking, from behind the willow tree. She didn’t have a collar. She didn’t belong to anyone yet.

“I have to go to work, but if you’re still here when I come home tonight you can stay with me,” Grace said. “I’ll give you a nice bowl of milk and some yummy food. Okay, kitty cat?”

The cat watched her. She seemed afraid as she skulked behind the willow tree, but she seemed curious too.

Grace smiled and waved goodbye to the cat, stooped beside the sewer grate, and lifted the heavy metal disc like she was handling a frisbee. She climbed onto the metal rungs of the ladder that was built into the cylindrical stone wall down there, and, with a wink at the curious cat, replaced the sewer grate over her head.

The sun rose, and Grace descended into the shadows.

The sun rose. Willow laid naked in Buffy’s arms, exhausted and smiling.

“That was...that was...” Willow whispered.

“C’mon Will,” Buffy said, and kissed Willow’s hair, and ran her fingers down along her bellybutton, and reveled in her scent. “Gimme one of your super-cute Willow words. Put it all in perspective.”

Willow thought about it. Coming up with cute new words was a responsibility she took seriously.

“Awesome sauce,” Willow said.

Buffy laughed. “Awesome sauce!” she practically shouted. “That is so totally perfect. Awesome sauce totally needs to be a thing. People totally need to start saying it.”

“I’m still disappointed boink hasn’t gone mainstream yet. I put a lot of effort into boink.”

“Boink’s time will come. But now we need to start saying awesome sauce.”

Buffy kissed her. She ran her fingers down along her hips--Willow was sensitive there, Buffy had discovered. Willow moaned in her ear.

“You still haven’t let me...y’know...” Willow whispered. “...Kiss you there.”

“How about after I make you breakfast,” Buffy whispered back. “Buffy’s world-famous waffles.”

“Mmmmm...” Willow purred. “But I want my dessert first.” She curled up against Buffy’s breasts. “I wanna be on my knees for you. I wanna taste you and take my time.”

“Okay,” Buffy whispered. She smiled. “Since you’ve been so completely awesome sauce.”

Willow tried to get out of bed. The moment she moved her pussy ached like a croquet ball that had been smacked through one too many hoops. When she stood up, her legs wobbled like rubber bands.

“Whoa,” Willow said, and giggled, and tried to keep her balance, nearly toppling back onto the bed. “Um...am I high? I feel kinda high.”

Buffy took Willow in her arms, and brought her back into the bed, and held her close again. She couldn’t get enough of holding Willow in her arms...she didn’t want to let go.

“You’re a little pooped,” Buffy said. “You need food. I’ll cook for you, okay? Then dessert after. And I’m gonna want some dessert too. Does it hurt down there? You a little sore?”

“Yeah,” Willow said. “But in a good way. Feels like a long day at the rodeo.”

Buffy kissed her way down Willow’s stomach, and gently opened Willow’s legs.

“Yeah, you look a little sore,” Buffy whispered. “I’m gonna kiss it and make it better, okay? Then I’ll make you breakfast in bed.”

“Okay,” Willow said. “Can you wear a little maid outfit?”

“I can, in fact,” Buffy murmured, as she covered Willow’s pussy with gentle kisses, and Willow began to moan. “Got one from a couple Halloweens ago. I’m gonna spend today being your maid, okay? Catering to your every whim. After I make you feel better down here I’ll bring you breakfast in bed, then a bubble bath and a nice baby oil massage.”

Willow spread her legs wider, and ran her fingers through Buffy’s hair, and watched her. Buffy looked beautiful, down between her legs.

“Personal servant, huh?” Willow said. “What did I do to deserve all this pampering, sweetie?”

Buffy began tonguing Willow’s pussy. She nuzzled her nose against Willow’s clit, and moaned as Willow’s concentrated scent filled her nostrils. She felt her pussy dripping.

“You’re Willow,” Buffy whispered. “This making you feel better, baby?”

“Totally better,” Willow moaned, as Buffy went on licking her. Buffy had fucked her hard and fast and relentlessly and she had made Willow scream for hours. But now Buffy was gentle with her, and she was going slow. Like a storm that passed, and left a soft breeze in its wake. “So much better. But you’re gonna...gonna...make me come again.”

“That’s the plan,” Buffy whispered, from between Willow’s legs. “I’m gonna make love to you all day long. I’m gonna make you come all day long. Plus I’m gonna give you a new hairstyle. And a bubble bath. And a baby oil massage. And two thousand, four-hundred and eighty-one more kisses.”

“And...at some point...we’re gonna talk. We gotta talk about us...and about Faith.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Sunnydale was actually two cities. The one on top, and the one beneath.

The Mayor had built Sunnydale atop the Hellmouth a century before. Grace knew that, though she didn’t know why he built it, or how he had managed to live so long without appearing to have aged a day over forty. “I owe it all to clean living, Gracie,” the Mayor always said with a chuckle, whenever she asked him. She had been his personal assistant for six years now, so she knew a lot of things about Richard Wilkins, but she certainly didn’t know everything. And she never asked him too many questions, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers. She loved him like a father, but he scared her sometimes. There was something about him...an ability to compartmentalize things, to separate himself from things, that scared her sometimes. His indifference toward things scared her sometimes.

And then sometimes, he would go out of his way to do something thoughtful for her, something no other boss ever would have done. The day after she finally managed to get her college degree--she had taken business courses at U.C. Sunnydale at night--he had thrown a party for her in the office and bought her a five-hundred dollar hand-stained Coach Beekman briefcase as a graduation present. The day her mother died, he pulled some strings to make sure she received a Christian burial. It took a lot of doing and he had to call in a lot of favors with the arch-diocese: even in Sunnydale, giving a vampire a Christian burial was pushing it.

The city on top basked in the sun as the human beings lived out their mundane lives in blissful ignorance of the real world and its secret workings. Beneath them, a city of clean, well-lit stone pathways criss-crossed the Sunnydale sewers in an efficient grid pattern that gave the vampires and the demons who infested the shadow-haunted metropolis unfettered access to any part of town they wished to travel to: the airport, the train station, the hospital, all the cemeteries and every public building had sewer access. And for the convenience of his employees the Mayor had seen to it that many of the public buildings had elevators that reached the sewers, if you knew the code to press.

So when the human beings who took their lives under the sun for granted woke up in the morning and pulled themselves out of bed and prepared to run their rat race once again, Grace did too. Every morning, she made her way underground through the secret city and avoided the cruel eye of the sun.

“Yo, Grapes,” a voice called out, echoing along the tunnel somewhere behind her as Grace made her way down familiar paths toward the elevator that would take her right up into the City Hall lobby. “What’s shakin’, pretty girl?”

She stopped, and turned. ‘Grapes’ was her nickname among the Sunnydale vampires--at least, the few she socialized with--because according to them, she smelled like grapes. She took their word for it.

Billy Gianelli smiled from a cross passage, his yellow eyes glinting in the shadows.

“Hey,” Grace said, as he fell in beside her. Billy was one of the Mayor’s bodyguards. They worked in shifts under the security chief, a very powerful vampire named Troy who regularly scared the hell out of Grace just by glancing in her direction. But Billy, even though he was every inch as big and mean-looking as Troy, didn’t scare her. Billy was a sweetheart. “Trying to sneak up on me, Billy? These passages are so full of concentrated vamp scent that I can never smell anyone coming down here.”

Billy smiled, and showed Grace his fangs. They were long and white and sharp enough to cut through tree bark. “None of us can, hon. Keeps the peace. Keeps us all honest down here when anyone can sneak up on anyone else.” He put his arm around her waist. She smiled and rolled her eyes. He was always making excuses to touch her. “But we can always smell you coming, pretty lady.”

“You really need to do something about this terrible lack of confidence you have around girls. Really, Billy, it’s pitiful. It’s like, painful to watch.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. When you’re an ugly bastard like me it’s not easy to talk to girls, you know?”

“Yeah. It must be tough, being as ugly as you. Thank God you can’t see your reflection. Every time I look at you I just wanna gag. You’re ugly like a circus freak.”

“Ain’t it a tragedy? Shit, Grapes, I cry myself to sleep at night.”

Billy Gianelli was part Italian and part French and part Spanish and entirely gorgeous. He was in fact the sexiest man Grace had ever seen up close. He was tall and powerfully built and he looked like a thug, but in just the right brutally handsome way, and there was nothing self-conscious about him, not an iota of ego or artifice. He could laugh at himself. He could be obnoxious. He never, ever took himself seriously. He was fun, and just as much as his looks, that was the reason he did so well with women. But Grace didn’t like men. That didn’t stop Billy from trying though--she was the one he couldn’t have, so he always kept coming back and saying obnoxious charming things.

“You’re about to try again, aren’t you?” Grace said. “It’s been a couple of weeks and you’re gonna try again.”

“Could be. I’m like a missionary, Grapes. I’m here to convert you.”

“Sorry, I’m devout in my worship of girls. And don’t you already have like sixteen girlfriends?”

“Three right now, but none of them are serious. And once you go Billy, you never go back. Let me take you out tonight. We’ll have some wine. We both know we’re written in the stars. We both know it’s just a matter of time.”

Grace giggled. She gently took his hand from her waist. He smelled like a vampire and in the beginning, when she was first turned, she hadn’t liked that smell...other vampires all smelled like rotten meat to her, even her mother did. But she got used to the smell in time. Now she even enjoyed it...it was earthy, almost musky. And she thought it made Billy even sexier.

But Grace was different from regular vampires: she had been from the very beginning. She didn’t smell like a vampire. She carried not even a trace of the typical vampire scent and it had led to a few close calls with hunting vampires who had assumed she was prey. It always took a vampire an extra moment to realize Grace was one of them; vampires lived by their noses and Grace didn’t smell right. But vampires had an excellent sense of hearing as well, and any vampire who crossed Grace’s path soon realized that she didn’t breathe and she didn’t have a beating heart.

She hadn’t been a vampire for very long but she had met a good number of other vampires in her travels and they all smelled alike. They all smelled like the dead things they were. Grace didn’t know why she didn’t smell like them, but she had a theory. When Grace was sixteen and she lay frightened and emaciated and dying in the hospital, and there simply wasn’t anything else the doctors could do other than make her death as comfortable as possible, her mother made a great sacrifice. Her mother had grown up in Sunnydale and she knew about vampires. She knew which parts of the city to avoid and she knew what precautions to take. And she knew vampires were immortal: that no sickness, no disease could ever touch them.

Grace’s mother found a vampire who was willing to turn her. Then she turned her daughter, so her daughter could live and be happy...so her daughter could have the life a cruel fate had denied her.

Grace’s mother had turned her out of love. And Grace believed her mother’s love had made her different from other vampires. It wasn’t scientific, but she believed it with all her heart.

“We could go on a double date with a couple of your girlfriends,” Grace said. “Whatshername, the new-agey chick that works at The Magic Box? She’s hot. But then she always ruins it when she starts talking.”

“Soleil does talk your ear off, that’s a fact,” Billy said.

“Soleil. And you’re not even kidding, are you, you poor thing? She’s not a vamp, so why the goofy name?”

“She changed it herself. I think her birth name’s like Julie or something.”

“People who pick goofy names for themselves should be seen and not heard. You gonna turn her? She’s a wannabee, right? All the human girls you date are wannabees.”

“I’m thinking if I turn her I’d have to listen to her forever and that might get annoying. But back to us. I’m gonna write you a poem. Just wait. I’m gonna come to your house with like an orchestra and read the poem while they play violins. I’m gonna profess my eternal love.”

“You’re so not gonna write me a poem.”

“Okay, yeah. But I might show up drunk and naked at your door though. If I give you the full monty I bet you’ll swoon.”

“Boys have cooties. And you already showed up drunk and naked at my door once.”

“Yeah, but I was pretty damn shit-faced that night and I don’t really remember anything that happened after I knocked on the door. So it doesn’t count.”

“It’s too bad you don’t remember. I got naked too and then we kissed and had the sex. The crazy, crazy sex. After I got out my magnifying glass.” She giggled. “When we were doing it I was like, is it in yet? Is it in yet?”

He laughed. “Yeah, but I make up for being a tiny, tiny man by being a great cuddler. I’m Alan Alda over here, ask any of the girls. Well, was our night of forbidden love memorable for you at least?”

She looked at him and smiled. “Absolutely. That was the night I decided to become a lesbian. I owe it all to you, Tiny.”

He laughed again. “You’re a cruel woman, Grapes, toying with my heart like this. So what’s up with him today? His schedule’s light, I’m the only one on.”

“Thanksgiving,” Grace said. “He’s gonna be handing out turkeys at the shelters and the churches starting at nine this morning so I’m running the office all day. I’ve spent the past week buying up all the damn turkeys for a hundred miles. Plus he has me beating the bushes looking into Cleveland.”

“Looking into Cleveland?”

“There’s a Hellmouth there. He wants to know everything there is to know about the power structure in the city and he wants me to put together a presentation. The vampire covens, demon activity, the Mayor and the police, all of it. Why he’s becoming interested now all of a sudden, I have no idea.”

“I know why. There’s a rumor out there about Cleveland now.”

“What rumor?”

“You need to get out more, Grapes. You’d know all this stuff just like the rest of us do if you didn’t hide in your house all the time doing your nails. Some of the vamps around town think you think you’re too good for ’em.” He smiled. “And yeah, you and me both know that at the very least you’re too good for me. But you should be out there. Hunting. Keepin’ your nose to the ground like the rest of us.”

“I don’t like hurting people. I don’t wanna hunt.”

He stopped her. He put his hands on her shoulders. He wasn’t smiling now.

“I like you a lot, Grace,” he said. “You’re a good kid. But there are things you won’t let yourself understand, because part of you isn’t willing to let go.”

“Let go? Of what?”

“What you were. You aren’t human anymore. You need to stop thinking like them.”

“So you’re saying I have to go out hunting to have the full vamp experience? I have to be a killer? Not all vamps do it, you know.” She pointed to the corridor behind her. A few miles back along the passages, there was a store set up in an abandoned generator room that was owned and operated by a very old vampire who sold a million little things that vampires and demons wanted and had trouble finding. “Jerry doesn’t. He’s been running that store of his forever and he never hunts, he buys all his blood from the blood banks. I used to know a couple of college professors who got turned, they never hunted either. They didn’t want to kill people.”

“Then Faith killed them, her first night in town. And she didn’t give a shit whether they went out hunting or not. Because she understands the rules, she knows how the world works. It’s us against them, Grapes. Cowboys and Indians. Kill or be killed so saddle up.”

“Faith?”

“The new Slayer in town. Something else you should be keeping in the know about. Look. You’re my friend. You know I’ve got your back and I always will. You know that if any vamps ever bother you all you have to do is come to me and I’ll dust ’em. But human beings aren’t people, hon. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can be happy.”

His yellow eyes stared right through her like a wolf watching its prey.

“Can’t fool me, Grace,” he said. “I know you’re not happy.”

She turned away from him.

“I have to get to work,” she said, and started walking again.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “Looks like I pissed you off again. Guess I gotta call you Sour Grapes for awhile, huh? And you only just let me outta the doghouse a couple weeks ago for the last time I pissed you off.” She heard the smile in his voice. He never took himself seriously.

“I’ll get over it,” she said, as he fell in beside her again. “If you tell me that big Cleveland rumor going around that all the vamps in town except me have apparently heard.”

“There’s a new power rising in Cleveland. And Richard’s worried he’ll make a mess. You know Richard hates messes.”

“A new power? What do you mean? What kind of power?”

“Our kind of power. The strongest vampire in the world.”

“Strongest vampire in the world, huh? Remember when Angel arrived in town? Half the vamps in Sunnydale were asking for his autograph until they found out he was the Slayer’s boyfriend. You sure all this talk about the strongest vampire in the world isn’t just gossip? The vampires in this town gossip like old ladies at a sewing circle.”

Billy shook his head.

“His name is Evan,” Billy said. “And Cleveland’s just the beginning for him. He’ll be coming here. Coming to kill the Slayers.”

Buffy took a quick shower, but she wouldn’t let Willow shower. “I want your smells,” she had whispered in Willow’s ear. Buffy intended to give Willow a bubble bath later, but first she was going to give Willow a treat. Willow laid on Buffy’s bed, naked and blindfolded with one of Buffy’s silk scarves, and waited for her.

Willow heard the shower water stop. A few minutes later, she smelled perfume that made her heart beat faster, and felt soft fingers caressing her cheek.

Willow took off her blindfold. It was dark in the room. Somehow, the day had passed... sunrise had become sunset. Night covered the world and made it a place for predators.

Faith was standing in front of her, naked in the moonlight.

“F-Faith...?” Willow whispered.

Hey, beautiful, Faith whispered, her eyes shining golden under the moon.

Willow woke up in Buffy’s bed with a gasp. She still had the silk scarf around her eyes.

She heard the shower water stop. A few minutes later, she smelled perfume that made her heart beat faster, and felt soft fingers caressing her cheek.

“Buffy...?” Willow whispered.

“Madame may take off her blindfold now,” Buffy said, in a surprisingly good French accent.

Willow took off her blindfold, and left the moonlit world of the dream, and came back to the sun. Faith faded. Buffy came into focus. She stood before Willow, a little bit shy, wearing a French maid costume.

She had no reason to be shy. Buffy in a French maid costume was a vision of beauty that would have made strong men weep. And when Buffy decided to be a French maid she didn’t skimp: the costume was the real deal, with all the bells and whistles. She had the frilly black and white corset, the black garter belt and fishnet stockings, black lace panties, fuck-me heels and even a little black bow in her hair. It was the French maid costume that launched a thousand ships and Willow felt the wind filling her sails.

Buffy smiled, and did a slow turn. Willow drank her in. “Does Madame like?” Buffy murmured. “Am I, how you say...pleasing to Madame?”

“If you don’t let me kiss every inch of you right now I’ll scream,” Willow said.

Buffy giggled.

“Yes, Madame,” Buffy purred, and crawled into the bed with Willow. “But wouldn’t Madame like her breakfast first? Buffy was going to bring breakfast in bed for Madame.”

“I want dessert first,” Willow said.

They had the stereo on now, but hip-hop hadn’t seemed appropriate for the mood. Willow had decided to go with a soft-rock station instead. Piano notes suddenly flitted through the room, sickly-sweet and numbingly familiar.

“Uh-oh,” Buffy said, before the lyrics even began. She had heard this song a hundred times and so had Willow and so had every single person in the United States, by Buffy’s estimate. “Eagles alert. Monty, I can name that tune in five notes.”

“Monty?” Willow said.

“Whoever the guy was.”

“Desperado...” Willow sang, along with Don Henley. “The song that every single guy on planet Earth loves. It’s like a law. Xander always got this look in his eyes when this song came on the radio. Literally every guy I’ve ever met, they all get that look in their eyes when this song plays. Xander always did, I think even Giles did once. I’ve never understood it.”

“This song cuts to the heart of guyness,” Buffy said. “Guys like to think of themselves as like, lonely cowboys out on the prairie or the range or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Willow said. “Every guy on Earth has this record. And that Aerosmith Greatest Hits album too.” She rolled over and kissed her way down Buffy’s legs, pulling her black lace panties down as she did.

Oh, you’re a hard one

But I know that you got your reasons...

“Even Angel always got that look in his eyes, when this song came on,” Buffy said. “And he hates modern music.”

These things that are pleasin’ you

Can hurt you somehow

“Guys are goofy sometimes,” Willow whispered. She loved the silky feel of Buffy’s stockings against her lips. She looked at Buffy’s pussy as she kissed her ankles. Buffy had a pretty little patch of wispy blonde pubic hair.

“Madame...” Buffy whispered. “You are seducing me. I am helpless in your clutches.”

“You so definitely are,” Willow said, as she pulled Buffy’s panties off, and moved up between her legs.

“But Madame...I’m just a poor innocent French girl. Are you really going to have your way with me? Sacre bleu!”

Willow giggled. “Open your legs for me, lil’ innocent French girl. Let me taste that French pastry.”

“Yes, Madame.” Buffy opened her legs, and revealed herself to Willow.

Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy

She’ll beat you if she’s able

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet...

“Didn’t you say once...that you’re a queen of swords?” Buffy said. “I mean...in like, tarot cards.”

“Yeah,” Willow said, and gave Buffy’s pussy a kiss. A little spasm went through Buffy and her long, thick thigh muscles flexed. Willow knew those thighs were strong enough to crack her neck like a walnut.

“And you said tarot cards are like directly related to regular cards, right? Like, playing cards are descended from tarot.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Willow murmured, as she ran her lips across Buffy’s pussy, taking her time. She wanted this to be a feast. She loved Buffy’s smell, and her taste...

That was the moment Willow knew that Gertrude wasn’t just an aberration. That was the moment she knew there could be other girls...that she could be happy with girls. She knew she still liked guys but she could be happy without them if she met the right girl...

Maybe she already had.

“So...what’s a queen of swords in the regular deck?” Buffy whispered, and closed her eyes, and rested her foot over Willow’s shoulder.

“Swords are spades,” Willow said. “Cups are hearts, coins are clubs, wands are diamonds. You’re a queen of cups...a queen of hearts.”

“That time you read my cards last year. When I asked about love. The queen of cups came up.”

Willow nodded. “And you made that joke about how maybe you were in love with yourself, or maybe Angel was gonna get a sex change operation. Except Angel’s a sword too so, not so much with the sex change.”

“He’s kinda metrosexual though.”

“It’s the hair. Actually the shoes too. The guy knows shoes.”

Now it seems to me, some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the ones that you can’t get...

“What’s Faith?” Buffy whispered. “I mean...her tarot card.”

Willow went on kissing Buffy’s pussy, but she looked up at her now while she did it. Buffy was looking back at her. She seemed nervous.

“She’s a wand,” Willow said. “A queen of diamonds.”

“The Eagles are saying not to draw the queen of diamonds,” Buffy said. “She’ll beat me if she’s able. They’re saying the queen of hearts is my best bet.”

“Well, we can’t argue with The Eagles.”

“You’re a spade. The Eagles say it won’t work between us. Maybe the Eagles think...that maybe you and I just need to be friends. That if we keep going like this...we’ll wreck it.”

“Friends with benefits?” Willow said, and began licking Buffy’s pussy in earnest. “That seems to be where we’re headed. And me trying and totally failing to keep a clear head so I can talk about relationship stuff like this when I’m deliriously horny for you isn’t gonna get us anywhere. Let me make you come, sweetie. Let me worship this beautiful body. We’ll talk about stuff later.”

Buffy threw her head back and moaned, as Willow played her tongue over her clit. She spread her legs wide and let Willow have every perfect inch of her.

“They’re...some pretty awesome benefits,” Buffy said.

“You want me to do this every day, sweetie?” Willow said. “You want me to kiss every inch of your beautiful body and eat this pastry every day? Like, friends with benefits?”

Buffy ran her hand through Willow’s hair, as Willow licked her pussy.

“Yeah,” Buffy said.

“And y’know...Gerty’s a queen of wands too,” Willow said. “She’s, y’know, a queen of diamonds. So maybe The Eagles are talking to me, not you. Maybe the queen of hearts is my best bet. Maybe...maybe we could be more than just friends with benefits. Maybe you’re my queen of hearts.”

Buffy yelped, as Willow took her clit into her mouth and sucked on it. Willow felt Buffy’s orgasm coming; Buffy’s whole body seemed to flex, and then she started trembling.

“The...the reading you did...said...said...my true love’s a queen of hearts,” Buffy said. “But I want you to be my true love, Willow. I want it to be you. I want it to be...be...oh God...oh Goooooddddddddddddddddddd!”

Buffy came, bucking and kicking like a bronco. Her hand dug into Willow’s hair and held her against her pussy lips as her legs spasmed and flexed and kicked out over Willow’s shoulders with enough force to knock down a concrete wall. Willow rode out the storm until it passed. Waited between Buffy’s legs, giving her soft kisses there, until Buffy stopped trembling.

When the storm had passed, Buffy smiled down at her. “Madame,” Buffy whispered. “Madame...you take such good care of your Buffy. Let me make you breakfast in bed. Let me be your maid.”

Willow shook her head. “I want another helping of this French pastry first,” she said, and kissed Buffy there again.

The hours passed. The sun rose, and filled the hotel room with its warmth and its light, but Tara still felt cold inside. She actually shivered with it sometimes. Faith held Tara in her arms on the couch, and pulled a blanket over her.

Tara was getting worse. She muttered things sometimes, and when Faith asked what she was saying, she just shook her head. She cried sometimes, and she giggled sometimes too, as she stared hungrily at the crystal that held her soul. She would stare at it for minutes at a time without blinking or looking away even for a second, then she would cover it with one of the throw pillows from the sofa and not even so much as glance at it for hours, as if she couldn’t bear to see it. She rocked herself back and forth sometimes, holding her head in her hands. Her hands shook, sometimes violently. Sometimes she would lunge toward the crystal that held her soul like it was an oasis in the desert and then she would pull away from its light as if it burned her. Once, she picked up the crystal and flung it toward the window with all her strength. The crystal cracked the window, but luckily it didn’t break it and fall eight stories to the street. After that, Faith took the crystal and put it in her pocket, and wouldn’t let Tara touch it. When Tara started pulling at her own hair, ripping clumps of it out of her head, Faith had to restrain her to stop her from hurting herself. She laid down on the sofa with Tara again, and hugged her under the blanket, and held her tight. Tara curled up against her, and wept. When Faith tried to tell her it was going to be okay, Tara just shook her head and said she wanted to die.

Mercifully, sleep came to Tara eventually. An hour or so after that, Clea came into the room and gave Charlotte two more injections.

“How is she?” Clea whispered.

“Bad and getting worse,” Faith said, keeping her voice low. She was still lying under the blanket with Tara, holding her tight, keeping her warm. “She’s goin’ crazy. She feels cold all the time, like every second. Being with me like this is the only way she can keep warm. And she’s been acting wild. Pulling out her hair, hurting herself.” She motioned toward the window Tara had cracked. “She almost chucked the crystal out that window over there. She needs it so much she can’t stand to even be in the same room with it. She’s falling to pieces, Clea. She...” Faith’s eyes filled with tears. “She wants to die.”

Faith sensed Rebecca standing behind her. She felt Rebecca’s fingers stroking her hair.

“She’s not going to die, Faith,” Rebecca said, speaking softly. “You saved her at the lighthouse and now we’re going to save her again.”

“If...if we can’t get it back...if Charlotte won’t open the crystal...” Faith said.

“We’re going to get it back.”

“But...but if we can’t...”

Rebecca sat on the arm of the couch. And when she talked, her voice had that tone it got sometimes...the one that made Faith sit up straight and would brook absolutely no argument. Even when she whispered.

“Listen to me, Faith,” Rebecca said. “There are times in life when failure simply isn’t an option. There are times when you simply have to know you’re going to succeed. This is one of those times.”

“But...how?” Faith said. “How do you know?”

Rebecca smiled.

“You just have to have faith,” Rebecca said, and kissed her cheek.

“Okay, I’m wrecked,” Clea said. “Need more sleep to recharge the batteries. Those shots I just gave her will keep her out until Angel gets here, no problem. We should order some food. No one’s eaten since yesterday and we’re all gonna need our strength.”

“I’ll handle that,” Rebecca said, and went back into the bedroom and moved toward the phone on the nightstand. “My hungry Slayer would like a nice rare steak I’d wager. Better make it two steaks.”

“Steak at eleven in the morning?” Clea said.

“Faith likes steak. Perhaps a nice turkey club sandwich for Tara for when she wakes up. And I’d kill for some French toast with cinnamon sprinkles.”

“Make that two on the French toast,” Clea said.

“Wait a minute,” Faith said. “Clea, I know you said only Charlotte can open that crystal but...Coyote’s a god. Can’t he do it? Can’t you ask him to do it?”

“I asked,” Clea said. “First thing I did. He won’t do it.”

“Why the fuck won’t he?” Faith said. “Does he need Tara to frigging put out for him first? That all he cares about?”

“Faith,” Rebecca said.

Clea came over to the couch, sat on the coffee table in front of Faith, and let out a breath.

“He can be hard to understand,” Clea said. “The reasons he does things aren’t always clear and even when they are I don’t always agree with them. But he has a different perspective about the world than we do. He sees the big picture, he’s in it for the long haul.”

“Seems to me like he’s in it to get laid,” Faith said. “Like with Buffy.”

“He’s a beast, Faith. He’s a god, but his animal nature is what defines him. That doesn’t mean he goes around jumping in the sack with every girl he sees. What his animal nature really means is that he cherishes freedom. Everyone’s freedom. Not just yours and mine. Charlotte’s too. He doesn’t think anyone should be in a cage. And part of that philosophy is the idea that we should solve our own problems. Yeah, he could open that crystal for us. And after that he could destroy any vampire in the world including Evan or Drusilla with a snap of his fingers. He could destroy our enemies in a day. But what would happen to us if he did? Think about it. What would happen to our lives? You are who you are because of your experiences, because of the hardships you’ve endured, the enemies you’ve come up against. It isn’t just the good things in life that decide the kind of people we’re going to be, it’s the bad things too. The challenges, the obstacles, the things that break our hearts. If Coyote took those things away from us we wouldn’t be us anymore. If he destroyed every enemy we ever came up against for us we’d have nothing to strive for anymore, no way to make ourselves better. So he wants us to solve our own problems, and he doesn’t interfere except when he thinks it’s absolutely necessary. And think about this. If we somehow convinced Coyote to give Tara back her soul today, what would we say to Amy Madison’s family tomorrow? What would we say to the families of the hundreds of other people Charlotte has victimized over the years? Sorry for your loss, but Tara Claremont is really cute so she gets special treatment?”

Faith smiled, despite herself. “She is really cute.”

“Be that as it may. You see my point?”

“Yeah.”

“This thing between him and Buffy. Not my business but maybe you should cut Buffy some slack. No one’s prepared to meet a god. No one.”

“Learned that the hard way.”

Grace stood in front of the window in the Mayor’s office, basking in the sun.

All the windows in Sunnydale’s City Hall were necro-tempered. Necro-tempering was a chemical process which could be applied to glass, allowing the glass to block that specific wavelength of sunlight that was harmful to vampires while still permitting the rest of the sun’s radiation to pass through. In practical terms what this meant was that a vampire could stand in front of a necro-tempered window basking in the rays of the sun, feeling all the sun’s warmth and seeing all of its light, without suffering any ill effects whatsoever. It was one of the reasons Grace loved her job.

As she looked out at the city glimmering in the sun she thought about what Billy had said to her in the tunnels...that she wasn’t happy. That she needed to let go. She knew, had known for a long time now, that he was right. She knew that the first time she tasted human blood, the first time she took it from some terrified victim, she would revel in it...revel in her power, her separateness.

But she knew she would lose something, if she did. And once she lost it, she could never get it back...

She hadn’t had a lover for over a year now. She wanted to date human beings, not vampires. But those girls all ran away terrified when they found out what Grace was...they shunned her. One had even tried to kill her.

She could date vampires. She’d had offers...

The Mayor’s limousine pulled into the lot beside the building. Grace walked over to the Mayor’s immaculate ebony desk, picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Tom,” Grace said. “The Mayor’s getting in. Tell me you guys finally finished the preliminary FY 2000 budget projections that he wanted to see by today. Tell me they’re on my desk. Say, Grace, they’re on your desk.”

Tom Leidecker was the senior accountant in the Mayor’s budget office. He was a nervous, quiet little man with a number of strange nervous tics who collected little ceramic figurines of mice which he kept in neat little rows on a shelf above his desk and he reminded Grace of a small, blind baby bird that had just been hatched and was afraid of everything in the world. He never, ever got invited out for drinks after work but he was a hell of a good budget analyst and he had personally saved the city tens of millions of dollars. If the Mayor needed money for some new boondoggle he had come up with on a whim--and the Mayor came up with new boondoggles a lot--Tom could always be relied upon to find the money, somehow, somewhere, without squeezing any of the important stuff.

“Grace they’re on your desk,” Tom said.

“You’re a sweetheart,” Grace said, and hung up. She walked out of the office, to her own office which directly adjoined it. Her office was a little bit smaller than the Mayor’s but not one iota less immaculate: Grace was just as much of a stickler for neatness as the Mayor was. It was one of the reasons they got along so well. She liked wiping away errant particles of dust from otherwise pristine surfaces, she liked organizing cluttered rooms, she liked alphabetizing files, she liked sharpening packets of pencils to precisely the same length and then laying them all out side by side. The budget projections were on her desk, as promised. The only other things on her desk were a phone, a rolodex, a computer, a desk calendar, and ten pencils all sharpened to precisely the same length and laid out side by side.

She perused the cover sheet of the FY 2000 projections as she went to the coffeemaker in the little pantry in the corner of her office. Being the Mayor’s personal assistant was a demanding job that consisted of a lot more than just secretarial duties. She saw to all his needs, whatever they were. She picked up his dry cleaning, ordered his food, dealt with the cable guys when they came to his house, dealt with the mechanics when his car had to be repaired, arranged his dates with Julie Jenkins, did all his Christmas shopping. She made his coffee too, and the Mayor was very particular about his coffee, just as he was very particular about every other thing in his life. Grace made the Mayor’s coffee. No one else made the Mayor’s coffee. He could always taste the difference if someone else did.

When the Mayor got off the elevator Grace was standing beside his desk, ready with his coffee and his budget analysis.

“Gracie!” the Mayor said, walking into the office with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, just like always: the man had seemingly inexhaustible reserves of energy and optimism.

“How did the turkeys go?” Grace said, returning his smile. He always made her smile. “Bet you could use some coffee.”

The Mayor giggled. “Boy could I,” he said, and took the coffee gratefully from her, and sipped it as he shrugged out of his windbreaker and sat behind his desk. Grace took the coat and hung it in the closet. “Yes indeed, that hits the spot. It’s brisk out there today and I must have handed out a thousand turkeys.”

“Eleven-hundred forty,” Grace said. “I took the estimates from the churches and the shelters based on last year and added twenty percent to be on the safe side. And you could’ve worn a winter coat, Richard. It’s not just brisk, it’s freezing out there today. That windbreaker couldn’t have been much help.”

“Oh, pshaw,” he said, waving her off. “I grew up in Maine. We’re hardy folk in New England.” He gestured for her to sit. She sat across from him. “Ah, but the smiles on those kids’ faces, Gracie. That’s what it’s all about. I could stand out there in the cold all day long just to bask in those smiles.”

“Now it’s time to bask in the FY 2000 projections, unfortunately.”

“And things were going so well.” He leaned back and stretched. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Come up to the house.”

“Thanks very much for the invitation, but like I tell you every year, Richard, you know I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

He giggled. “But it’s Thanksgiving! Turkey! Cranberry sauce! Football! And stuffing! I make the best stuffing you’ll ever taste. It’s my great-grandmother’s old recipe...”

“Mister Mayor,” a voice said.

The Mayor looked up. Grace turned around in her seat.

Xavier Grant was standing in the doorway. He was the Mayor’s wizard and one of the very few people Grace had ever met who truly frightened her. He was never less than perfectly polite. But there was something about his black eyes...they were like bottomless pools that might drag her down. Like two little universes of terrible possibility.

“Xavier,” the Mayor said. “Tell me you have something more interesting for me than budget projections.”

“I do,” Xavier said, his deep voice rumbling up out of his stomach like some panther’s purr. “And you are most definitely not going to like it.”

Tara slept for a long time. She woke up just as the sun was setting.

Tara seemed confused for a moment. She looked around the room, and then she looked at Faith. Faith hadn’t moved. She was still lying on the couch, holding Tara in her arms under the blanket.

Tara looked down into Faith’s eyes for a moment, as it all came back to her, and she remembered...where she was, and why.

“Thought it was a nightmare,” Tara said. “No such luck.”

“No,” Faith said. “No such luck. You sleep okay? You feelin’ a little better?”

“No,” Tara said.

She looked down at Faith again. She ran her fingers through Faith’s hair.

“You’re the only good part,” Tara said.

“We’re gonna get it back, Tara,” Faith said. “Becca’s on her way to the airport now. His flight’s comin’ in soon. An hour or two, she’ll be back here with him and then we get to work on Charlotte.”

“Part of the reason you’re holding me like this is you’re afraid I’ll hurt myself again. Start pulling out my hair again, maybe do something worse.”

“It’s not the only reason.”

Tara nodded. “You like holding me. ’Cause of the dreams...you feel like...we’re connected. But there’s that other girl...Buffy.”

“Not exactly the time to be talking about this stuff.”

Tara tried to sit up. Faith held her fast.

“Can I fucking get up?” Tara said. “It’s like I’m in a fucking straightjacket.”

“Yeah,” Faith said, and let Tara sit up. “Sorry.”

Tara sat up and sighed. “I’m sorry. That was bitchy. I’m just...I’m just fucking tired. I feel...empty, y’know? Out of gas.”

Faith sat up next to her. “It’ll get better. We’ve got a good plan here. We can do this.”

“You keep forgetting I’m a mind-reader. I’m reading your mind. You’re sorta lying to me. Not completely lying. You’re hoping this will work. But you have no idea if it will. You’re treating me like a fucking mental patient. Like I’m on suicide watch.”

“I think...part of you still wants to jump. I don’t want that to happen. There’s a sandwich.” She pointed at a sandwich in plastic wrap on the table. There was a carton of orange juice next to it. “We ordered a turkey club sandwich for you from room service. You should eat. It’s been like a whole day since you ate.”

“Thanks.” Tara unwrapped the sandwich, and took a bite. She took a sip of juice.

Then she chuckled.

“It’s funny,” she said. “This hole in me? This...this cold I feel all the time? It’s affecting me already. Changing me. I think I understand how vampires work now. Yesterday I wouldn’t have read your mind without permission. Now I don’t give a shit. It’s gonna be little things at first. Little things like that.”

Tara started crying.

“Christ hates me,” she whispered. “I abandoned him and...I’m c-c-cold and I’m gonna become...a m-monster. I’m gonna go to Hell. I’m gonna go to Hell...”

Faith took her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. None of that shit’s gonna happen. We stick to the plan. Yeah, okay, I don’t know if it’ll work. But it’s what we’ve got. And you’re not a monster. You could never be a monster.”

“Wanna know a secret?” Tara said, and smiled, and wiped her tears away.

“What?”

Tara giggled. “You love my tits. You’re like, mesmerized by them. You wanna fuck me? No one else is here. You know I’m gay. And I think you’re hot, baby. And I’m a virgin and I really don’t wanna die a virgin. Teach me, Faith. Deflower me.”

“Tara...”

Tara kissed her. She pushed Faith down on the couch and covered her lips with kisses.

“Tara...this...this isn’t you,” Faith said.

“Maybe it’s the new me,” Tara said, and sat up, straddling Faith’s chest. “You liked those kisses. You wanna fuck me. Can’t lie to a mind-reader, baby.”

“Tara...I think you’re beautiful, and I love your scent. You know it. But...”

Tara leaned in very close to Faith then. She was grinning and crying and trembling at the same time...falling apart.

“Christ abandoned me?” Tara whispered. “He let that cunt over there take my soul? Well then, fuck Christ.”

“You don’t mean that, honey,” Faith said. “You’ve got it rough right now and it’s making you a little crazy. But you’re gonna come out the other side of this. We’re gonna help you and...”

Tara sat up again. She looked Faith right in the eyes and this time, she didn’t blink. “I’m tired of people lying to me. All my life people have lied to me. My church. My parents. If you lie to me one more fucking time about anything at all I’ll never talk to you again. You understand?”

“Yeah.”

“This plan of yours. How much of a chance do you really think it has?”

“Thought you knew this stuff just looking in my head.”

“Your head’s got a lot of weird shit in it. Coyote gods and people from the future and a million other things. So just tell me.”

“It’s a coin-toss. On the one hand the crystal can’t be opened unless Charlotte does it. Coyote maybe could have done it according to Clea but he won’t because he thinks we should solve our own problems, keeping her magic in check for us is as far as he’ll go. Plus like Clea said, Charlotte’s not stupid. She’ll know we intend to kill her so why give us what we want? No way Clea will let her go even to save your soul. So that part sucks. But Angel’s the X factor. You don’t know him. He’s been around a long time and he knows how to hurt people, how to get in their heads. He did a number on Buffy and all her friends when he lost his soul for awhile. If anyone can get Charlotte to come across it’s him. And there’s one more thing. One more thing I haven’t told anyone...I haven’t told Becca or Clea. My own little amendment to the plan.”

“You...you’re planning on making your own deal with Charlotte,” Tara whispered. “If Angel can’t get this to work. You’re planning on knocking Clea out, and maybe Rebecca too if you have to. You’re gonna offer to let Charlotte go if she frees my soul.”

“Yeah,” Faith whispered.

“You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though it might mean...Charlotte does this to someone else.”

“What I’d offer Charlotte is a head-start. Once she starts running, I go after her.”

“But...Clea’s like...a really strong witch and...I mean...how would you do it?”

“Don’t care how strong a witch is. Like Becca proved last night, all it takes is one hit if they don’t see it coming. I guarantee Clea won’t see it coming.”

Tara nodded. Faith laid beneath her. Tara ran her fingers through Faith’s hair.

“Do you...really think I’m beautiful?” Tara said.

“Yeah,” Faith said.

“No one’s ever thought of me that way before.”

“Their loss.”

Tara bent down and hugged Faith for a long time.

Then she sat up again.

“Do you want to see my breasts?” Tara said.

“Yeah,” Faith said.

Tara took off her sweater. She knelt above Faith in her bra, and hesitated.

“You don’t have to do this,” Faith said.

“I want to,” Tara said. “No one’s ever wanted me before.”

“I want you,” Faith said.

Tara took off her bra, and showed Faith her breasts.

“You’re beautiful, honey,” Faith said.

Tara took Faith’s hand, and brought it to her breasts...over her heart. Faith’s golden pendant around her neck was pulsing with rainbow light.

“You’re beautiful in rainbows,” Faith said.

Tara’s nipples were hard. Her scent was a jumble: a riot of conflicting emotions were changing it every second. Tara was scared and despairing and angry and aroused, all at once.

“I need you to promise me something,” Tara whispered. “We gotta...make a pact.”

“A pact?” Faith whispered back.

“That if I don’t get my soul back...if we can’t manage it...then you’ll kill me.”

Faith hesitated.

“I know what you think,” Tara said. “That suicide’s the coward’s way out. That life is always worth living, worth fighting for. But you can’t even imagine what I’ve lost. You’ve got no frame of reference for this at all, for the way I’m feeling. If you really care about me, then if we can’t get my soul back, you’ll kill me. You’ll let me go. You won’t...won’t condemn me to have to live like this forever. Forcing me to live like this instead of killing me lets you feel good about yourself, like you’ve upheld some kind of moral imperative. But that’s selfish. If you really care about me you’ll be willing to feel bad about yourself for awhile to free me from this.”

“Yeah,” Faith said.

“Yeah what?” Tara said.

Faith brought Tara back down to her, and kissed her cheek, and held her.

“One way or the other,” Faith said. “I won’t let you live without a soul.”

“Thank you,” Tara whispered, and her eyes filled with tears again.

Willow spent the day being pampered.

Buffy doted on her. She paraded around in the French maid costume because she knew Willow loved her in it, and she brought Willow breakfast in bed and gave her a bubble bath and a full body baby oil massage afterwards. She made love to Willow all day long as the sun climbed the sky and held her close after she came. She knelt in front of Willow, and called her a goddess, and kissed her feet.

And then the sun set.

And Willow thought that a change seemed to come over Buffy when the sun set, and darkness beat at the windows, and the shadows grew: it was as if Buffy had a physical reaction to the change in the quality of the light. She suddenly seemed nervous.

Willow was sitting in a chair now in Buffy’s kitchen with newspapers on the floor all around her because Buffy was getting ready to give her the new hairstyle they had talked about. Buffy had been giggling and joking just moments before. But the moment the sun set... everything seemed to change.

“Desperado,” Buffy said, as she combed Willow’s hair.

“What’s that, sweetie?” Willow said.

“Xander...he always got that look in his eyes. I remember too. He always got that look.”

Willow turned around in her chair. “What?”

“We gotta...we gotta talk about us. Remember? We said we had to talk about us...me and you...and Faith.”

Willow took her hand. “We will, sweetie. We said we were gonna order pizza after this, remember? I figured we’d talk about all this stuff then.”

“We’re gonna turn into pumpkins.” Buffy giggled. But her hand was trembling. “At midnight we turn into pumpkins.”

Willow got out of the chair. She held Buffy’s hands in hers. They were shaking so badly Buffy dropped the comb.

“Sweetie,” Willow said. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s--”

“I lost him,” Buffy whispered, as tears filled her eyes. “And now I’ve lost her. And...and maybe something’s wrong with Giles too now and...”

Buffy’s legs buckled. Willow caught her just in time. Buffy sank to the floor as Willow held her.

“I can’t lose you, Willow,” Buffy whispered, and burst into tears. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t...”

“You’ll never lose me, Buffy,” Willow said.

“I can’t...”

“You won’t. You won’t, Buffy.”

Buffy looked up at Willow as she sat on the floor in her French maid costume, trembling all over, her face red, tears running down her cheeks.

“We can’t do this,” Buffy said. “If we do this I’ll...I’ll lose you someday and...and I can’t...”

Willow kissed her hair. “You won’t lose me, Buffy. You--”

“I can’t, I can’t!” Buffy said, shaking her head back and forth now, and pulling at her hair. Willow tried to stand her up, but Buffy wouldn’t move. She sat on the floor and trembled and cried and she wouldn’t move from that spot.

“Buffy. Buffy, sweetie, look at me. I’m your best friend. We went through a rough patch but we came through it because we love each other, because our friendship is strong enough to weather anything. Even if...even if we wanted to get together, it wouldn’t--”

“I CAN’T LOSE ANYBODY ELSE!” Buffy shrieked.

Willow held her, and rocked her in her arms as they sat on the floor together. They were both quiet for a long time.

“Let’s make a deal,” Willow whispered. “A promise...a pact.”

“A...p-pact?” Buffy whispered.

“Best friends forever,” Willow said. “Not lovers. Not friends with benefits. No more seeing each other naked. No massages, no bubble baths, no smoochies. Just love. The love we’ve always had for each other. Best friends forever.”

Buffy nodded. “Best friends,” she whispered. “Best friends forever.”

“No matter what, Buffy,” Willow said. “Best friends forever no matter what. You’ll never lose me and I’ll never lose you. Never. Never.”

Buffy managed to smile a little. Willow wiped her tears away.

“We gotta...we gotta figure out Thanksgiving,” Buffy said. “My Mom’s gonna be coming home tonight and we gotta...Oh God we gotta find your cranberry sauce! The cool sauce that’s... that’s all like jello. The stores are gonna close tonight. We gotta get the cool cranberry sauce that’s like...like jello.”

Willow smiled. “Yeah. Real cranberry sauce is too weird. We need the processed kind that comes in the shape of the can.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll find it. We’ll do some shopping and get pizza.”

Buffy nodded again. She was still shaking a little. Willow held her.

“I’ll never lose you?” Buffy whispered.

“Never,” Willow whispered back.

“You...you promise?”

Willow smiled. She kissed Buffy’s cheek.

“I swear to the Goddess, sweetie,” Willow whispered.

“When was this recorded?” the Mayor said, as Xavier inserted a surveillance tape into the bank of machines they kept in a dusty little locked room in the basement off of the archives. He frowned at a copy of Hustler magazine he found on the chair. He picked it up and tossed it in the trash barrel.

“Early this morning, the part I want to show you happened around two a.m.,” Xavier said, and sat down at the old wooden desk next to the Mayor, and directed his attention to the monitors. “Though we’ll have to review every second of the tape ourselves afterwards, because I had to erase the memory of the boy who brought it to my attention.”

“It’s that bad?” the Mayor said, as the image flickered to life: he recognized Buffy Summers. She was sitting in a living room with a friend.

“Yes. That’s Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg. They’re in Buffy’s house. Listen.”

So...okay, here’s what we know, Buffy said. The Mayor controls the whole town. He built this town on a Hellmouth so he could appease some demons and get power from them. Which is how he’s managed to live for a hundred years without aging a day. He sacrifices people to the demons. He runs everything so we can’t go to the cops here for help...

Well...not the police here, Willow said. But maybe the state police? The FBI? The governor?

And tell them what? That a hundred year old sorcerer guy has some kind of plan that’s gonna happen next year and it’s gonna kill like three-quarters of the frigging town? We can go to the Watchers maybe. Giles always said they have connections and Rebecca says so too. But...if we do that we have to go through Rebecca, not Giles. I don’t trust Giles right now. Until we figure out why he lied to us...I can’t trust him with something this big.

Um...is there any possibility that Willy’s wrong about this? I know you said he’s not lying with your cool super Slayer spider-sense but...maybe he believes it and he’s still wrong. Okay...I’m in denial over here. I’m completely grasping at straws, aren’t I?

Yeah. Denial’s fun, and that’s why we’re gonna pop those pills in a minute, but--

The Mayor took the remote from Xavier, and paused the tape.

“Popping pills?” the Mayor said.

“Recreational drugs,” Xavier said. “They take a pill apiece in a few minutes. Ecstasy, they called it.”

The Mayor frowned again. “Now why would a smart, hard-working girl like Buffy Summers take drugs? And Willow Rosenberg! She’s at the top of her class and she’s got a bright future ahead of her. Do you know her principal wanted to suspend her last week? Something about an argument he had with her in the halls. I bet it’s these drugs. Anyway I wouldn’t let him do it. That girl has worked hard her whole life and she deserves to make it out of this town, to attend Harvard or Yale or Oxford or wherever she wants to go.”

“You are certainly a puzzle sometimes, Richard.”

“We need to find out where these drugs are coming from. And we need to ramp up our community outreach programs. I’m going to meet with the new police chief and then I’m going to have Gracie working on a campaign tomorrow morning.”

“In the meantime, Mister Mayor, there is still the small matter of the Slayer and her friend knowing, it seems, everything there is to know about you.”

The Mayor nodded, and resumed the tape.

--We can’t stay in denial forever, Buffy continued. Once Rebecca and Faith get back we gotta figure out a plan. It’s happening next year, whatever it is, but we don’t know when next year. Maybe we’ve got a year left, but maybe we’ve only got a few months.

And don’t forget his wizard, Willow said. According to Willy we can’t just go after the Mayor guns blazing because that wizard is with him all the time.

“Shall I kill Willy?” Xavier said.

The Mayor shook his head. “If we kill Willy right now Buffy and her friends will wonder how we could’ve found out that they know. We can’t risk tipping them off to our surveillance.”

So...what do we do? Willow said.

We wait, Buffy said. We find out everything we can about him and we look for weaknesses. He’s the Mayor, right? We know where he is, he’s right in City Hall. Maybe...we can spy on him somehow.

How? Wait...isn’t our school offering City Hall internships for course credit? Maybe one of us could get in.

Yeah...yeah, that’s right. Too late to apply this semester but the program starts up again in January. Buffy grinned. Think I’d make a good secretary?

The Mayor paused the tape again.

“I like that girl,” the Mayor said. “I thought so before and now I’m sure of it. She’s wasting her talents with the Watchers.”

“Don’t like her too much,” Xavier said. “Your orders?”

“We’ll stick a pin in this,” the Mayor said...and smiled. “Until January.”

Grace had been trying to get up the nerve to ask the new girl down in Graphics out for drinks for a month now. Being a vampire meant she had the best gaydar in the world and she knew for a fact the girl was a lesbian. And the girl was cute as hell. Today, Grace had finally taken the plunge.

It was a mistake. The girl had stood there stuttering and making excuses, deathly afraid of Grace and disgusted at the prospect of being with her at the same time.

Grace walked home after sunset, and when she was absolutely certain no one could see her, she let herself cry a little. It was a small thing; she barely knew the girl. But for some reason, the whole situation made her almost unbearably sad. It made her feel alone.

Grace stopped off at the corner store to buy cat food, even though she knew it was ridiculous to think the beautiful white Siamese with the bright green eyes would somehow have known to wait for her.

But when she arrived at her house, she smiled as she caught its scent: the white Siamese. The cat was in the backyard again.

Grace walked around to the backyard. The cat was hiding behind the willow tree again, her green eyes glittering like emeralds in the moonlight. But the cat was shivering in the cold.

She approached the cat, slowly, smiling. The cat shrunk away from her. But she didn’t run. Grace knelt down in front of her.

“Hi, beautiful,” Grace whispered. “Are you cold out here? Are you hungry?”

She reached out her hand, slowly. The Siamese allowed her to stroke her fur.

“Let me take care of you,” Grace whispered. “It’s nice and warm in my house.” She took a can of cat food out of her shopping bag. “And look! Yummy nummy cat food. Fish and...uh... stuff...yummy stuff!”

Grace stroked the cat’s fur. The cat looked up at her with her bright green eyes, and seemed less afraid.

“I think we’re both pretty lonely,” Grace whispered. “How about...we keep each other company. And that way neither of us will feel so lonely anymore.”

The cat purred.

Grace smiled, and picked her up in her arms, and carried her into the house.