"I wish Buffy Summers had just stayed in LA!"

For a moment Anya said nothing. Then she turned, and Cordelia knew that she might have just made the biggest mistake of her life. Anya wasn't human. There was no way she could be even close to human.

Then her newfound "friend" spoke, and it was too late. "Done."

* * *

"Come back here!"

Buffy Summers ran after the vampire, her heavy boots thump-thumping on the pavement. Her quarry threw a look over his shoulder and rounded a corner, the Slayer following barely fifteen feet behind him.

An alley appeared off to his right and the vampire threw himself desperately at it. Buffy cursed. If there was a fire escape back attached to one of the buildings, she'd never catch him. She wanted this pointy-toothed jerk dead. Now. For good. No one killed kids on her watch.

The vampire pounded down the alley, eyes fixed on the last apartment building. The metal stairs of the fire escape gleamed in the moonlight. Even if he could not break into the building, he doubted this stupid, persistant girl could follow him onto the roof. He prepared to jump up.

"Eww! Go away!" A second figure, dressed much less practically than Buffy, detatched herself from the wall and clubbed the offending vampire with a large cross. Before he quite knew what was happening, the rather puzzled creature screamed and tumbled toward the ground.

Buffy leaned down and staked the vampire, bouncing back upright before the dust could settle. "Nice," she said simply. Not "Are you hurt?" Not "Couldn't have done it without you." Just "Nice."

Nicole stepped daintily over the ashes. "You could have warned me," she griped. "I'm supposed to be planning for the May Queen pageant, not hitting people in dark alleys. Besides," she added with a resentful look, "isn't this your boyfriend's job?"

"Pike's up north."

"Wow. Monosyllabic much?" The offended socialite sighed dramatically and started down the alley. "God, my shoes are /so/ ruined. Why am I even helping you?"

Buffy crossed her arms and glared after the girl, not bothering to point out that the only reason Nicole was here to complain was because Buffy herself had snatched her from a vampire's clutches. That was the same day she had, through incredible bad luck, almost burned down the gym. She had been suspended for that little incident.

True, Nicole wasn't the best help in the world. Nor, for that matter, was Pike. Even Buffy herself was hard-pressed to keep LA marginally human. It was no secret that hell had quite literally broken loose nearly two years ago, and it was also no secret that LA, despite its proximity to the epicenter of the demonic invasion, was an island of calm.

They hadn't gotten any credit, of course. That had gone to the police. Suppressing a sigh, LA's last defense against the forces of darkness stuffed her stake in her pocket and set off after Nicole.

**

"How the hell do we get up there?"

Nancy frowned at the tower above Sunnydale High. "I guess we could climb," she suggested doubtfully.

"Maybe." Larry sounded about as sure of himself as she did - which was to say, neither of them had any clue. "Is there an elevator?"

"It's boarded up. Of course not."

"Just checking." The former football player sighed and looked down at a rumpled parchment scroll. "It says 'From the highest point of the mouth of hell you shall see the savior of the world.' That's as high as this school goes."

The third member of their group eyed the tower for a long moment before speaking. "We could ask Snyder."

"Not that he'd help us," Nancy muttered. "C'mon. Let's go tell Giles this is a bust."

The three teenagers trouped out of the deserted school courtyard, nearly running over one of the resident ditzes as they stepped through the doors. Cordelia Chase gave them a startled look and hurried off in the opposite direction.

Nancy ignored her, just as she ignored everyone who wasn't A) a creature of darkness or B) someone trying to kill a creature of darkness. She had been staking, shooting, and generally maiming demons for well over a year. Her GPA had taken a nosedive. Far too many of her fellow Whitehats - Devon, Marcie, Jonathan - were dead. She didn't have time to apologize to a ditz in a bite-me dress.

The former scholar pushed open the doors of the library and looked around. "Mister Giles?"

"Hm?" The school librarian and resident demonic expert poked his head up from behind a stack of musty tomes. "Nancy? Larry? Oz? Did any of you find anything?"

"Our prophecy was a no-go," Larry said, tossing the parchment onto the table. "We can't figure out a way to get to the tower."

"And they don't think Snyder will help us," Oz added.

Mister Giles visibly deflated. Nancy couldn't blame him. "We all tried," she said as gently as she could. "It's just no good. We need someone who can fight fire with fire."

"Or demon with demon," Larry muttered.

"Yes, well...I-I suppose you did the best you could." Mister Giles set the parchment back in a book. "You'd better get ready to go on patrol."

"We'd be ditching tenth," Nancy pointed out, more out of habit than anything else.

Larry gave her a Look. "You'd rather be learning about biology?"

She sighed. It wasn't as if she was passing the class. "Point. We're taking the van along Elm Terrace tonight?" When Mister Giles nodded, she turned to Oz and Larry. "That's pretty close to the Bronze. We'll need heavy-duty stuff."

"Crossbows?"

She shot Oz a glare. There were times when the truth was just too depressing to hear. Their heavy artillary was medieval. "Yeah. Crossbows. And probably some holy water. And make sure you have gas in the van this time!" she added as they started to gather equipment.

She didn't see the look Mister Giles gave her, which, given her current state of mind, was probably just as well. And she certainly didn't hear his muttered comment.

"Too bloody bad she isn't the Slayer."

**

He had a headache. Hell, he'd had a headache since Harry died. This was a downright, skull-splitting migraine.

He was also in love, which wasn't helping matters.

The girl had come to him with the migraine, appearing in a flash of light and laughter. She was pretty, maybe five or six years younger than him. There was something about her - some expression or smile - that no one he knew had, some indefinable quality that Harry had possessed.

Innocence. That was it.

Her name was beautiful, too. Cordelia. It sounded Welsh, maybe Scottish. It was exotic and rare, about as rare as innocence was these days. He had loved her the moment he saw her, even through the splitting pain that seemed to come with these visions.

And that was the heart of his problem. He knew that if he didn't do something, she wouldn't live to see tomorrow.

That was why he was sitting in a stolen car, driving at full, bone-jarring speed towards the Hellmouth and Sunnydale. He didn't want her to die.

Cordelia.

It had a nice ring to it.

Part 2
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