"Life in Wilton Meadows seemed a little tame after my run-in with Buffy," Sky observed thoughtfully. Most of her audience smiled at the obvious understatement. Cordelia snorted.

"Some people like tame," she said. "Some people prefer tame. Of course," she added brightly, "we’re not ‘some’ people. We like the bright lights and the excitement and the facing certain death on a regular basis kind of stuff. Don’t we?"

Gunn chuckled at her expression. "It’s what we live for," he said, exchanging a grin with Fred, who rolled her eyes and looked vaguely abashed at the whole idea.

"I’d prefer fewer of the certain death moments," she said. "But … I wouldn’t want tame."

"Nor would I." Sky stretched out her legs, and leant back into the support of the cushions, the movement inevitably bringing her closer to her husband; Giles immediately lifted his arm and put it around her, letting her settle into the curve of his body with comfortable familiarity. Angel couldn’t avoid a small and haunted smile at their easy intimacy. The gesture expressed a lot of things – the tenderness in their relationship, the comfortable and genuine affection the Englishman felt for his wife, and the trust and confidence she had in him. Which said a lot about her, since the arm that now encircled her concealed deadly steel, and the man it belonged to was no longer a man, but a creature part demon and part deva – albeit one with a very human heart. The vampire knew what it felt like, to be loved like that - to be loved so unconditionally, without question or concern, without fear – and seeing it so easily expressed brought back memories he would rather forget. His momentary pang of jealousy was quickly overtaken by bitter sweet regret; it might be the kind of love he craved, but he knew only too well that it was something he would never truly deserve. That Rupert Giles was blessed with it twice – not only by the woman now curled so comfortably against him, but also by the Slayer whose love had saved his soul – was only right and fitting. The man had been through hell: not just in the recent literal sense but at many times and in many ways throughout his years as Buffy’s Watcher.

There’d even been a time when Angel himself had been responsible for putting him there.

"I couldn’t get what had happened out of my head," Sky was saying thoughtfully. "I was on edge whenever I went out at night, half expecting to see demons lurking in the shadows – and I started staring suspiciously at everyone I met, just in case they were more than they seemed. I never actually met another vampire in Wilton, but I kept looking, all the same.

"Trouble was, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. All I knew about this ‘other world’ that Buffy had told me about was some brief glimpses of Spike’s true face, a few hectic and frightening moments facing some ugly creatures in the dark – and some half crazy rumours about the reason for Warden Henshaw’s heart attack. Of course, they didn’t start circulating until after Rupert and Buffy had left town, so I had no way to check out what had really happened that night. But I picked up enough to know that something had been going on out at West County – and that Ripper here had earned himself a decidedly weird reputation as a result of it." She threw the owner of that reputation a sideways smile, and he smiled back with wry acknowledgement.

"It was driving me crazy," she explained. "I’d spent my life trying to make a difference, wanting to protect the innocent and the vulnerable against the evils in the world – and suddenly I’d glimpsed a whole new layer of nastiness that I’d never even dreamed existed. It was like spending an entire summer sitting on a sun warmed rock and then – on the last day, lifting it up to find all the skittering, slithering poisonous things that had been lurking underneath it all the time. I’d become aware of dangers and threats far greater than the ones I’d been trained to face and fight – and horribly conscious that any one of them could have struck at any time, at anyone – and that I’d have been helpless had it happened.

"I hate feeling helpless. I can’t just stand by and watch. I have to act. I have to do something. I wanted to join the war – and the only person I knew with an active combat unit was Buffy."

"So - you moved to Sunnydale, right?" Cordelia questioned, sliding round to help herself to a fresh cup of coffee.

Angel sighed, taking the coffee pot from her to refill Sky’s cup. "Not something most people do by choice," he said. "Unless they happen to be vampires, demons or sorcerors in search of personal power."

"Destiny sends the rest," Giles murmured, earning himself a sympathetic look from his fellow Watcher.

"Slayers don’t get a choice," Wesley pointed out, "so neither did we. Well," he added, with a sudden desire for accuracy. "There was choice involved. But – when you’ve trained for something your entire life …"

"Duty and honour, the cause and the crusade." The quote was delivered with quiet irony; Giles made it sound more like an epitaph than a rallying cry. "The Council often has difficulty understanding what their agents face in the field. Mainly because a great many field agents don’t last long enough to become Council members." He smiled suddenly, a grimace without any humour in it. "Do you know," he asked thoughtfully, "the cause of death noted against the top three names on the Watcher’s honour roll?"

Angel echoed the man’s ironic smile. "Staked by their Slayer," he announced with confidence. His entire team – Lorne included – threw him a startled look. "I – uh – had a hand in one of those," he explained, a little uncomfortably. "Spike inevitably went straight for the girl. I always tried to be a little more subtle about it."

Giles threw him an arch look. "Angel," he observed, with the benefit of personal experience, "there is subtle and there is subtle."

"Ah, well," the vampire blushed - as much as vampires can, that is. "I didn’t need to play that card with you. I already had the ‘someone she loved’ card well covered."

"Hey guys," Lorne interrupted. "If we’re going to traipse down memory lane, can we just make it one road at a time, huh? I know the whole ‘Angelus was here’ refrain. The lady was telling us her story, remember? About what brought her to Sunnydale?"

"Yeah," Cordelia agreed. "I want to hear the stuff we don’t know. Like how you two guys became an item, for instance. I mean – no offence, but he is a demon these days. That’s gotta be a killer first date, for a start."

Sky laughed. "You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But – by the time that came around? I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into. And Rupert’s right. It was destiny that brought me to Sunnydale – although I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was that I wanted to make a difference. I was toying with the idea of taking a sabbatical, maybe looking Buffy up and picking up a few pointers I could make use of – and the very day I decided that might be the best way to got about it, Maybourne threw a recruitment circular on my desk. ‘You were asking about this Sunnydale place,’ he said. ‘Looks like they’re looking for new blood.’"

"Hooee," Lorne chuckled. "Did he hit the nail on the head, or what?"

"Well, quite," Sky agreed with a grin. "But the opportunity was genuine enough. Turned out Sunnydale PD are always looking for experienced officers. They go through them pretty fast."

"I bet," Cordelia muttered, sharing a knowing look with Wesley, who couldn’t avoid a small shudder. Life in the demonic suburbs of LA was bad enough – but living and working right next to the hellmouth was something else entirely.

"Anyway," Sky continued, sipping at her coffee as she did so, "I put in for the transfer that same day. Less than three weeks later I was on a plane to California with a whole new life ahead of me. Maybourne thought I was crazy. So did the Captain of my new precinct. He sat me down with a file full of alarming statistics and welcomed me to weirdsville USA. ‘Some days,’ he said, ‘it’s sheer hell out there.’"

Her husband sighed. "He didn’t know how right he was," he said. She smiled.

"You never know with JG," she said. "Sometimes I think he does know – but it’s easier to turn a blind eye and pretend things aren’t what they seem. There’s this unwritten rule - about the precinct weirdness quota. Everyone gets an incident every now and again. The line is – first two or three you put down to coincidence. The next few you write off or ignore. And after that, you take leave. Occasionally the really weird ones get discussed, logged – and filed away, just in case. But most of the time, what you know you keep to yourself. So long as we get the job done, so long as the public isn’t freaked out, the truth is better left to the people who can do something about it. Like Buffy. And you guys.

"Of course, I didn’t know any of that then. I’d been an experienced officer in the Nevada force, and suddenly I was back to being a total greenhorn. A greenhorn with a promotion, mind you. Detective Zaherne hit the streets of Sunnydale full of determination – and the streets of Sunnydale hit right back …"

 Blurred images. A pounding headache and a churning stomach. The feel of something hard digging into her side; the side she appeared to be lying on, which was definitely not right – especially as the last thing she remembered was pulling her gun and ordering the young man struggling with the protesting young woman to let go and hit the dirt.

"Ooohhhh," she groaned, wondering why the world felt as if it were swaying beneath her. She was definitely lying on a lumpy and uncomfortable surface; it felt a little like coal, or building hardcore. And there was an odd sense of chill in the air. As if wherever she was had never even seen the sun.

"I think she’s coming round," a voice announced from somewhere close by. It sounded like a girl’s voice – a teenager, not a child. Sky blinked, fighting for focus. The images in front of her slowly coalesced into more determinable shapes; wherever she was, it was only dimly lit – and in the dimness, a group of anxious faced waifs were huddled together, watching her.

"Are you okay?" The same voice; its owner appeared to be crouched beside her, kneeling on the rough, shifting surface. Sky rolled over with another groan, trying to assess her surroundings and the concerned teenager all at the same time. She seemed to be in some kind of industrial building; boxy metal walls surrounded her on all sides. Walls without any windows in them; the only light came from intermittent overhead lighting, tucked discretely into the junction between wall and ceiling. They looked like emergency lights; little more than spots of illumination anchored in a world of red-grey shadows.

It was coal she was lying on; a shifting, rugged pile of it, which filled the space under the lights from wall to wall. The girl kneeling beside her was coated with its black dust, dirty smudges on her cheeks and chin, and her clothes begrimed from head to foot. She seemed to be a rather pretty young lady, with long hair and a pert face – although the best that Sky could make out was a gleam of anxious eyes and an equally anxious smile. A first guess pegged her at fourteen or fifteen– a couple of years older than the three huddled strays that were crouched up against the far wall of the room. They were equally begrimed with dust, as was she – her efforts to sit up stirred the unstable surface, and her hand sunk deep among the coal.

"You have to move slowly," the girl advised. "It’s kinda – shifty."

"I noticed." Sky eased herself up, tentatively checking the sore spot on the back of her head. There didn’t seem to be any blood, but it was still painfully tender; someone had knocked her out with a determined blow, and her head was pounding from the after effects. "Where are we?"

"On board some ship or other. In one of the cargo holds, I think. I - I didn’t see much when they brought me on board."

"They?" Sky had glanced upwards, seeking confirmation of the girl’s theory. Sure enough, there was a metal runged ladder leading upwards in one corner of the vast metal space, with what might be a closed hatchway above it. There were indications that parts of the ceiling might also form a hatchway – a much larger one, suitable for the loading or unloading of cargo. They did seem to on board a ship of some kind – which would explain the way the world insisted on subtly shifting under her, and why she felt vaguely nauseous.

Although some of that might be the aftermath of the headache …

"The vampires," the girl answered brightly. "There’s a whole nest of them aboard. A dozen or more. I think. Some of them are kinda young."

"Vampires," Sky echoed, wondering if she should sound surprised and deciding against it. This was Sunnydale, home of the hellmouth – and the Slayer. Who, with any luck, would shortly arrive in a blaze of glory, kick vampire butt, and save the day.

Or the night.

Whatever time of day it was.

"Uhuh." The girl nodded matter-of-factly. She lowered her voice a little. "I think we’re in their larder. But I haven’t told them that," she added, tilting her head towards the rest of their company. "They’re pretty scared as it is. You know about vampires?"

"I know about vampires," Sky affirmed, reaching under her arm to check her shoulder holster. It was empty. Of course it was. "Met one once. We’re in trouble, aren’t we?"

The girl nodded. "Pretty much. But we’ll be okay. Help’s coming. I hope," she added with a small wince.

"You hope?" This didn’t sound very promising.

"Well, yeah." The teenager looked a little embarrassed. "See – I was meant to be bait. They’ve been intercepting runaways at the bus station? Common MO for newbie fang guys. Easy prey, you know? We – that is, the gang – stake the place out from time to time. Just to keep an eye on things? Anyway, the past couple of weeks there’s been a whole mess of disappearances. But no bodies turning up. So Buffy – that’s my sister – figured there was a vamp somewhere trying to build up an army and we needed to stop them before it got out of hand. I was undercover kid. Hanging round, so I could be snatched. Which I was. The whole ‘we know a place you can stay, come with us’ routine. Only they had a car – and I got driven away before anyone could stop them. They’ll all be looking for me though. I’m sure they’ll find me. Us. In time."

She didn’t sound entirely convinced. There was a tremble of fear in her voice she couldn’t quite conceal. Sky wasn’t surprised to hear it. Being locked in a filthy, dark hole, facing the prospect of being someone – something’s – lunch wasn’t exactly her idea of fun either. She knew about the recent rise in the numbers of missing teenagers; the Captain had sent her to take witness statements from a distraught mother only the day before. In fact, she’d been on her way to check out a local arcade for possible leads when she’d run into the altercation in the alley. She should have listened to her new partner. Never walk the streets alone after dark, he’d advised. But missing kids hit all the wrong buttons where she was concerned – and it had been on her way home …

"Wait a minute," she realised, staring at the girl in astonishment. "Did you say Buffy? The Slayer is your sister?"

"Uhuh." The response was bright. "I’m Dawn. Dawn Summers. You know Buffy?"

"In a manner of speaking." Sky clambered carefully to her feet and took a good look around. "We worked on a case together a few weeks back. I’m a police officer. Detective Zaherne." She glanced over at the three frightened waifs and she sighed. "And these look like my current case load. Ellen, Michelle – and Amber, right?"

They stared at her with wide eyes. Two of them had been snatched on the way home from school. The third had vanished after a dance class. Right after the dance class by the look of things; she was still dressed in little more than tights and a leotard. All three of them were shivering, and not all of it was from cold.

"They were here when they dropped me down the hatch," Dawn explained. "And then – about ten minutes later, they dropped you in. There’s no way out," she added, as Sky started to trudge towards the exit ladder. "The hatch is locked or something. I tried it." Her shrug was apologetic – as was her twisted smile.

"You mind if I try it?" Sky asked a little pointedly. Dawn shook her head.

"Be my guest. But – ah – " she warned, "if one of them is up there …"

The reminder was salutary. Sky had no idea how you went about fighting a vampire, let alone a dozen of them. "Maybe – we should wait for the sun to come up," she suggested, letting go of the rung she’d just grabbed hold of. "Just in case …"

Dawn nodded. "Sound’s like a plan," she said. "Only - what if they don’t?"

"I’m open to suggestions." Training and instinct were screaming at her; secure the danger zone, evacuate the hostages and get them to safety at any cost. But she had no weapons and no way to assess the risks of leaving what seemed to be the relative security of the hold.

"I’m - kinda out," the teenage admitted. "I - I don’t even have a stake. Xander thought that might have been a little obvious."

A stake?

Sky took a moment to absorb that, unable to help the way cliché images from bad movies started flickering through her mind. "Oh great." She slumped back against the metal wall, wishing – if only for a moment – that she’d listened to Maybourne and stayed in Nevada. Two days on the job and she was about to become another of JG’s statistics. That just wasn’t fair. On the other hand, Buffy was out there … somewhere. Looking for her sister. She just had to hope that the Slayer found them before –

A sudden, unexpected sound rang through the chilled air. The sound of metal moving on metal; a protesting, creaking noise, followed by a soft sharp snap. It wouldn’t have been all that loud above deck – but down in the hold it echoed like the trump of doom. Sky straightened determinedly, staring up at the hatch as it began to ease open. "Get back," she ordered, waving Dawn behind her. Her eyes had just caught sight of the jutting handle of a shovel, half buried in the coal, close to the ladder. It wasn’t much, but it was something. If these vampires wanted to feast on these innocent souls, they’d have to get by her first.

The hatch slid back. Sky lunged for the shovel, tugging it free with sudden adrenaline. A shadowed figure dropped down from above, landing a little awkwardly on the coal, which shifted under the impact of weight. She let out an angry yell, swinging her weapon round with force – and barely pulled the blow in time, halting its descent scant inches from the new arrival’s skull.

It wasn’t a vampire.

It was Rupert Giles.

"Good Lord," he reacted, blinking at her in total astonishment. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you that," she retorted, letting the weight of the shovel drop to the coal but hanging on to the handle, just in case.

"Giles!" Dawn exclaimed, launching herself at him with decided delight. He turned and caught her, giving her the barest of hugs before standing her firmly back on her feet. Sky caught the look of relief that briefly crossed his face – and then he frowned, so sternly that the girl quailed under its impact.

"I suppose," he said archly, "that don’t take chances and stay out of trouble have slightly different meanings in your vocabulary than they do in mine? Do you have any idea how much heartache you’ve put us all through in the past hour or so?"

Dawn grimaced apologetically. "I know," she winced. "I’m sorry, Giles, I - "

"Didn’t think," he concluded, letting the frown dissolve into world-weary resignation. "I know. I know. Buffy never does either. I should have learnt to expect it by now. We’ll talk about this later. Are you all right?"

She nodded, looking clearly contrite – a reaction which elicited a quiet sigh and a matching shake of his head. It was the soft patient sigh of parents and guardians the whole world over. If Sky didn’t know better, she’d have thought he was her father – especially given the quick, warm grin that crossed the girl’s face as he turned to deal with more immediate issues.

Like her.

"Deputy Zaherne," he acknowledged awkwardly. "You’re a long way from Wilton Meadows."

"So are you," she retorted, uncertain of how to deal with him – with this situation, which wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined their next meeting might be. For one thing, he was a lot better looking than she remembered – although that might be because he no longer sported the cuts and bruises that she’d been partially responsible for. He still had the same short cut hair with its distinctive spattering of grey, the same high forehead, the same chiselled features – and those same enigmatic eyes, quietly profound and disturbingly intense behind their esoteric hint of violet. Oddly enough, that taint was still recognisable even in the dim red light– although it was a deeper, darker colour, a swirl of indigo across shadowed depths. Those eyes had haunted her ever since she’d first looked into them. Even then she’d known they’d been witness to things beyond normal human experience; now she recalled what Buffy had told her and she shivered, somewhere deep inside. According to the Slayer, this man had been tempered in fires so fierce they would have consumed a lesser soul.

And he had every right to dislike her. She’d treated him abominably.

"I live here," he countered brusquely. "What’s your excuse?"

"I live here. Now," she told him, stepping back as he moved past her to look down at the rest of their company. "I transferred to the local force."

"Oh, that’s just wonderful," he muttered, crouching down to consider the trio of anxious faces that were staring at him. "Hello," he offered, his voice softening into gentle reassurance. "I - um - don’t think you should be here, do you?"

They shook their heads in mute denial and he smiled. "I didn’t think so. Well, we’ll get you out of here in a minute or two. I have some friends up there … " He glanced upwards as he spoke, the look conveying a hint of anxious concern. Sky wondered if he worried about Buffy as much as the young woman worried about him – and then grimaced, knowing that that was exactly the case, and probably more so. "Clearing the deck," he concluded softly. "Once that’s done, the officer here can take you home."

"Detective," she corrected. He threw her a slightly astonished glance and she coloured a little under the coal dust. "Got a - promotion, too," she explained.

"Really," he noted dryly. "Well, that was expedient." He turned back to the frightened girls, peeling himself out of his jacket with an easy shrug. It was the jacket she remembered, the one cut from dark tan leather and designed with practicality in mind. He was wearing what looked like a lightweight sweater underneath it, its dark sleeves pushed back up to either elbow so that his forearms were exposed. "Here," he offered, draping the jacket’s warmth around Amber’s shivering shoulders. She huddled into it with a wan smile of gratitude.

Dawn had moved to the bottom of the ladder, peering up at the open hatch and bouncing a little as she tried to glimpse what was happening overhead. There were muffled sounds of conflict drifting down; the crash of disturbed metal and the rumble of overturned boxes. Sky tightened her grip on the shovel. She’d half expected an experienced member of Buffy’s ‘gang’ to be appropriately armed, but now he was without his jacket it appeared that their rescuer wasn’t carrying weapons of any kind. That didn’t make any sense.

Then again, this was a man who, it was rumoured, had emerged victorious from an all on one pit fight at West County …

"All right?" he was asking, getting wary nods from the huddled youngsters. They probably found him a little intimidating – although nowhere near as intimidating as the creatures that had kidnapped them in the first place.

Somewhere, close by, there was an odd crunching sound, as if some of the coal had shifted of its own accord. Sky frowned, looking round for the source of the noise. So did Dawn, sufficiently distracted by it to stop staring up the ladder and start peering around instead. "Did you just -?" she started to ask, then gave a startled gasp. Less than three feet from the huddled girls, and right behind where Rupert Giles was currently crouching, a hand was being thrust upwards from underneath the coal. It was quickly followed by an arm, a head and a shoulder as a dust covered figure heaved its way out of the cargo, emerging into the dim light with a hungry hiss.

Sky’s blood ran cold. It wasn’t the twisted, distorted features on the thing that chilled her, clear evidence of its undead nature. Nor was it the clawing, reaching hands that groped greedily for its first meal. It was the sheer horror of the moment, knowing that she was watching the rebirth of something unnatural, something foul.

"Giles!" Dawn exclaimed, a cry of warning and alarm. He froze in place for a moment, his eyes going wide and his body rigid as he assessed the reason for her cry - and then he swung round with lightning speed, his left arm extending in a practised, measured blow. Something schnickted out: a soft whisper of metal, a flash of reflected light glittering in the dimness.

And the vampire impaled itself on suddenly extended blades, its forward momentum halted in a gulping jerk of surprise.

Steel briefly blossomed from its back. It cried out with pain and anger, jerking backwards to stare down at its punctured chest with wide-eyed disbelief. Giles stood up, holding the thing at arm’s length and studying it with grim disgust. The victim who had died to create it hadn’t been much more than fourteen or fifteen. Dawn’s age. A young man, killed before he had a chance to really live.

"Dracu," Sky gulped, not sure which was worse – the struggling, angry corpse, or the reason for its distress. He has … demon issues, Buffy had said, referring to a haunted man, the victim of a horrifying crime against his soul. A man who didn’t need to carry weapons, since it appeared he already was one; the blades had unfolded from directly beneath his skin, opening out into a fan of deadly steel. "Oh hell!" She stepped back and hastily thumped down with the blade of the shovel as groping fingers reached out of the coal and grabbed for her ankle. There were other creatures emerging from the coal. They weren’t in the vampire’s larder at all. They were in their hatching ground.

"Damn it," Giles swore, tugging the impossible blades free and dispatching his captive with a quick sideways slice that took its head clean off. It instantly collapsed into nothing but dust. "Dawn – go. Get out of here."

The girl didn’t need telling twice; she leapt for the ladder, scrabbling up it as fast as she could, kicking out as one of the newly emerged creatures lunged after her. It fell back, unable to stay on its feet in the shifting coal – and Sky added further encouragement with a sweep of the shovel blade, knocking it over completely.

"Go, go," Giles was ordering, chivvying terrified teenagers towards the ladder while trying to drive back at least four more of the hissing, hungry vampires. The youngsters didn’t need much encouragement; they bolted for the ladder in blind panic, almost falling over each other in their haste to escape. Sky stepped aside to let them get out, hastily slamming the shovel in the face of one of the hunger maddened creatures, and downing another with a sideways kick. "You too, Detective!" the man – or was it demon – commanded, grabbing hold of the creature that lunged between them and using its own momentum to send it flying. Flailing limbs entangled with those of its brethren; five of them went down in a heap.

"But -" she half protested, hesitating beside the ladder as the now wary monsters picked themselves up and began to close in again. Her instincts were yelling at her to get out, to run, to get as far away from these things as she could – while her sense of duty and honor was busy telling her that you did not leave a man to face a situation like this on his own.

"Go!" The tone in his voice brooked no argument; she threw the shovel as hard as she could at the advancing vampires and made a leap for the ladder, climbing up it two rungs at a time. Halfway up, she glanced back; Giles was protecting her retreat with grim determination, cutting a circle of defence around the foot of the ladder with a gleam of metal unfolded from both wrists.

The sight was surreal; the red gleam of the emergency lights glinted off the flashing blades and bathed the circling monsters in an eerie glow. There were six – no, seven of them – all of them impossibly, heartbreakingly young. Coal dust painted their distorted features and covered their clothes, so that they danced and feinted like half seen shadows against the shifting surface of their early graves.

"For heavens sake," the figure they besieged exclaimed, realising that she’d paused in her ascent. "Will you get out of here!"

She scrambled up the rest of the way, driven as much by the exasperated tone of that command as by any other consideration. Somewhere below her there was a flurry of movement as the boldest of the vampires took advantage of the Englishman’s momentary distraction. Sky heard the sound of metal stabbing into flesh, a hiss of pain and the muffled thud of a body making contact with a steel wall. The ladder vibrated under her – and then there were hands helping her out into the night, pulling her up before she could object.

Dawn was there, and a young man with dark hair and an anxious honest face. He was the one who’d grabbed her arm, and who was now trying to drag her away from the hatch. "No – wait," she protested, twisting in his grip and trying to look back down into the hold. "He’s in trouble down there …"

"Lady," the young man announced with feeling, "if he’s in trouble, then you and I are way out of our league. Buffy? Buffy!"

The Slayer came at a run, armed with nothing more than a roughly cut wooden stake. She vaulted over an upper rail, landed lightly on the plated deck and closing the remaining distance with an easy sprint.

"Oh good," Buffy smiled at Dawn. "You found her." The smile grew bemused. "Deputy Zaherne?" Then it became a frown. "What have you done with Giles?"

Three hands pointed at the open hatch with dramatic synchronicity.

"He’s down there." "He’s slam powing vampires." "You have to help him." The babble of their combined voices probably didn’t make much sense, but the common gesture conveyed the message effectively enough. Buffy stepped across and stared warily down into the hold – just as a young and feral faced vampire lunged up at her from below.

She dodged back in alarm, hastily flipped the stake over in her hand and struck the creature firmly in the heart while it was still only halfway out of the hatch. A cloud of dust – both the grey, ashen remains of the creature, and the thicker darker weight of coal – collapsed across the deck with dramatic effect. The Slayer took a careful step forward and peered cautiously downwards again. Sky’s heart was in her mouth. If one of them had reached the ladder, did that mean ..?

"Giles?" Buffy called down into the echoing hold. "Need a hand down there?" He obviously answered her, although the sound of his voice was little more than muffled noise by the time it reached the deck. The sudden crunch of disturbed coal was much louder; it was accompanied by a hollow sounding thump and a vibrating shiver that ran the length of the ship. "Oh. Right. Okay." The Slayer glanced up to throw a reassuring smile at her sister and her friend. "Be right back," she announced – and promptly jumped down the open hatch.

Muffled noises followed her disappearance. A whole concerto of conflict drifted back up into the night, suggesting frenetic battle and breathless struggle. The ship shivered under a series of impacts adding emphasis to the occasional nauseous surge of the vessel as it wallowed in an ebbing tide. Sky’s eyes were fixed on the hatch. She barely noticed when Spike appeared from the upper levels of the ship.

"Nothing but dust left up there," he reported, eyeing Dawn’s coal streaked figure with amusement. He seemed pleased to see her. "You okay, little bit?"

"Ya-huh," the teenager nodded, greeting him with a quick smile before returning her attention to the entrance to the hold. "It was close though. They left us to be lunch."

"Supper," the young man corrected abstractedly. He – like Sky and the teenager – was watching the open hatch with anxious eyes. "Lunch is a midday thing. After dark it’s supper."

"Riiight," Spike drawled, his tone mocking and his expression quietly scornful. "Like that’s gonna matter when she’s got teeth in her neck." He glanced round, registering the huddle of frightened youngsters crouching in among the crates and bundles where the young man had guided them, recognised the coal painted policewoman with a puzzled frown – and then followed the general gaze of the crowd to the gaping hole in the deck. "I thought that thing was locked."

"It was." The young man winced as a particularly loud impact reverberated through the deck plates. "I couldn’t find a crowbar, but … Giles managed to open it anyway."

"Yeah, right," Spike mocked with amusement. "What with? His bare ha – " He broke off, catching the young man’s expression – and a look of discomforted realisation flitted across his face. "Oh. Yeah," he breathed. "Right. Right. And here was I thinking they might need a hand down there …"

Sky blinked, her eyes darting to the abandoned padlock, lying next to the hatch. A causal glance would make you think someone had opened it the usual way – until you realised that the curved shackle at the top had been snapped off, close to the body of the lock. She shuddered, recalling that earlier snap of metal just before the hatch opened. With his bare hands? What kind of strength did it require to do something like that?

One final, resonating thump echoed up from below - and then there was nothing but silence. Dawn, the young man and Spike all took an instinctive step forward. Sky took one back. She felt distinctly out of her depth, and completely unprepared for any of this. Frightened runaways perhaps. But an entire horde of ravening vampires? An unexpected rescue from someone who’d turned out to be as much demon as he was man? It didn’t help to realise that his sudden arrival had probably saved her life. If Rupert Giles hadn’t appeared just when he did, she’d have been helpless against the tide of hunger that had erupted from below their feet.

She’d thought coming to join the fight would be a challenge. An adventure.

So far it had been totally and utterly terrifying.

"Phew," Buffy gasped, emerging from the hatch with her hair in wispy disarray and her clothes covered in coal dust. "That was fun."

Spike offered her his hand and she took it, using his help to clamber back onto the deck. A moment later, an equally dusty figure appeared behind her, his expression grim. The young man’s half proffered hand was ignored – something the young man looked vaguely relieved about. Sky didn’t blame him; there was still a gleam of steel jutting from the man’s wrists – half folded down, but not entirely put away.

"That," Giles announced sternly, "was a lot of things. But I would hardly call it fun. Are the girls all right, Xander?"

"I think so." The young man glanced in the relevant direction and Sky filed his name away for future reference. Xander what? she wondered.

"Dawn?" The teenager nodded, and Giles heaved a relieved sigh, reaching to comb his fingers back through his hair. Coal dust sifted down and he pulled his hand away, grimacing at it in disgust. "Oh, wonderful," he griped. "I don’t know what’s worse – vampire or coal dust."

"Coal," Buffy said confidently, eyeing her own state with equal repugnance. "Corpse dust is dry and powdery. It just brushes out. This stuff – yuk. Gonna have to scrub this off."

"Yes," Giles sighed, fanning the blades on his left wrist partly open and staring glumly at the filth patterning the metal. "I don’t suppose anyone has a clean handkerchief I could borrow?"

"Never sheathe a bloodied blade, huh?" Spike was grinning at the look on his face – and earned himself a decidedly arch glare as a result.

"I have," Sky volunteered, almost without thinking. She attracted the attention of the whole group, and found herself being stared at by a circle of wary eyes. "Here." It would have been rude to withdraw the offer once she’d made it, so she dug into her pocket and produced the piece of pristine linen she’d tucked into it on her way out that morning. It was a little crumpled now, but still clean; she held it out and, after a moment’s hesitation, Giles reached across and took it.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked bluntly. Buffy and Spike exchanged a glance. The Slayer’s eyes asked a question; the vampire answered it with a shrug.

"I’m not entirely sure," Sky admitted, a little surprised that she managed to keep the tremble from her voice. She’d learnt to keep herself together in a crisis situation; faced with armed men, and hostage situations she could be as cool as a cucumber. Cooler. But this was different. She hadn’t been ready for this. "I thought – "

"No you didn’t," he interrupted, his tone brusque and his eyes hostile. "If you’d thought, Detective -" He noted her newly acquired rank with acerbic emphasis. "- you’d be a long way from Sunnydale. You think one encounter with a – a bunch of Zamaroth, for heavens sake – makes you a seasoned demon hunter? This town sits on a hellmouth. And this is a slow day. You’re out of your league, you’re out of your depth, and you’re out of your tiny little mind."

It was like being blistered with shotgun pellets; every word stung, and every word was true. There was anger in his voice and fury in his eyes. Deep, violet eyes - practically black in the sodium light from the dockside lamps – that blazed with indignation. Sky’s heart quailed - but she set her shoulders and she endured the tirade, knowing that she deserved it. She’d put herself at risk, and she should have known better.

Only fools and rookies went into a hazardous situation without intel or backup.

"Now," he went on firmly, "I suggest that you round up those poor, frightened children and you see about taking them home. And once you’ve done that? Take yourself home. Home to - to Nevada, or wherever it is you come from. It isn’t safe here." The blades at his wrists flicked forward with a snap, making her – and Dawn – jump. "There are demons stalking these streets at night." He half turned to walk away, and then looked back, a little reluctantly. "Thank you for the handkerchief. If you need me, Buffy, I-I’ll be … over there. Cleaning up a little." He stalked away, leaving several pairs of eyes staring after him in startlement.

"So – uh – who yanked his chain?" Spike asked after a second or two. Buffy threw him an exasperated look.

"It’s been a long day, Spike. Don’t start."

Start what? his expression asked innocently, but she’d already turned back to Sky with a thoughtful frown. "Deputy," she acknowledged cautiously. "Looks like your turn to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"It’s … Detective now," Sky corrected abstractedly, unable to help her sideways glance, seeking out the rangy figure who’d found himself a perch on a packing crate further down the deck. The light from the dockside lamps pooled across the ship’s rail, turning him into little more than shape and silhouette – but he was still the lean and melancholy knight whose air of wretchedness had struck such a chord with her, that first night they’d met. Never sheathe a bloodied blade, Spike had said, meaning it in jest and yet conveying a hint of truth he probably hadn’t recognised. What had Buffy called the man, trying to explain things that probably couldn’t be explained, in those last dying moments of a very disturbing day?

He took our paladin, our gentle knight, our true champion …

Seeing him, sitting there, starting to carefully polish those impossible lengths of steel, Sky finally began to understand what she’d meant. There was something noble about him, something quietly understated and yet unquestionably there. His anger had been as much an expression of righteous fury, of valorous intent, as it had been hostility or animosity. This was a man who’d endured, who’d held fast, who’d survived …

And who apparently had deadly blades buried beneath his skin, backed by the kind of strength capable of tearing open locked padlocks, or, maybe, just maybe, ripping apart regulation handcuffs. You should be glad he didn’t fight back, Spike had laughed, explaining how the scent of demons lingered in the desert air …

Sky shivered and hastily turned back to Buffy, not wanting to follow the path her thoughts were taking her down. "And – I think you’re probably right. I had hoped I’d meet up with you again, but – not like this. I really wasn’t ready for this."

"Nobody ever is," the Slayer assured her soberly. She’d followed the line of Sky’s glance and looked back with wary, anxious eyes. "He’s right, you know," she offered softly. "You really shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a game, and even if it was, you don’t know any of the rules. You should have stayed where you were safe."

"If I wanted safe," Sky retorted, just as softly, "I’d have stuck to directing traffic. What you told me – showed me – I can’t walk away from something like that. I came here to help. Teach me the rules. Help me to learn and I’ll – I’ll be ready. I know I will."

"I don’t," Buffy answered brusquely – then sighed. "All right. I’ll think about it. Providing you do. If you really want to learn more about my world, then … look me up. If you can find me, I’ll listen. In the meantime, Giles is right. You should take those children home."

"I will." It hadn’t been outright rejection; the door was open, but only if she really wanted to walk through it. She was saying she did, but she wasn’t all that sure anymore. Her head was telling her to back off and back away as fast as she could. Her gut was telling her she’d already taken that one step too far. And her heart – beating way too loudly beneath her ribs – just didn’t know what to think. "Thank you."

The Slayer found her a wry smile. "Don’t thank me yet," she warned. "This really isn’t a game …"

 Long Sea Crossing-Chapter Three. Part A-One. Disclaimer:This story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to violate any copyrights held by anyone - Universal, Pacific Rennaisance, or any other holders of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Buffy the Vampire slayer trademarks or copyrights.
© 2005. Written by Pythia. Reproduced by Penelope Hill