Tahani the Vampire Slayer
by imp

Tahani the Vampire Slayer

imp

Summary

It starts with seeing a very drunk, very blonde vampire tobogganing down an old landfill. It ends somewhat more complicatedly.

Notes

None

Chapter 1

"I'm sorry, but I think you're a bit confused," Tahani said, as gently as she could. The less fortunate deserved good treatment as much as anyone, of course, and that included the sort of person with dinosaur figures lined up on his bureau and a stack of vampire novels in the loo. "The convention for the odd people in the plastic horns is in the motel across the street. This is the Four Seasons."

"Oh, no, I'm not confused," said the man who was making Tahani think very seriously about forsaking Edinburgh, even if several million dollars in charitable contributions were at stake. "We've had a bit of a, um, situation, and now, well, you're a little too old for it, but -"

"Excuse me!"

"I'm sorry. I've never done this before." He looked up at her with wide eyes, distorted through his thick Gary Potter imitation glasses. "Tahani Al-Jamil, you're a Slayer now. The fate of the world is in your hands."

This had gone on quite long enough. "Excuse me," Tahani said, and walked over to doorman. "Call security, please," she said. "I need a small and very confused man removed."

-

Three Years Later

"You know, this is what I always thought a Hellmouth would be like." Tahani stepped carefully over the smashed remains of a bong on Phoenix's sidewalk. "Hot, full of old racists - it's like they've stumbled out of hell itself."

"Understandable, if somewhat eccentric," Chidi said. "But we're looking for the Seal of Damaranth, remember?"

"Remind me again what it looks like." Details of the occult still weren't Tahani's strength.

But fortunately, Chidi had learned how to get his point across. Instead of telling her about the seal's history for twenty minutes, he said, "It'll be large, made of iron, and welded into a vampire's shield. Probably."

"Where else might it be?"

"Well, it burns to touch," Chidi said, "but vampires are into some weird stuff, I guess, so." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "I'm sure it'll be obvious when we see it."

They didn't find it, though. They spent the night prowling downtown Phoenix in a spiral, working their way out further and further until their starting point the next night was near an old landfill. It'd been covered with dirt and planted with grass, a pretty effect that was only somewhat ruined by the fact that this was a desert, and lawn grass shouldn't be growing at all.

"What if we never find it?" Tahani said. "What if it's not here at all?"

"Oh, it is," Chidi said. "Its owner can enslave anyone they want, and it's only powered by proximity to an unstable Hellmouth. This is the only one that qualifies right now."

"I'd prefer it was Paris."

Chidi nearly smiled. "Well, yes, but here we are."

"Woo-hoo!" someone screamed into the night. "Outta my way, suckers!"

A blonde woman came barreling down the mountain of covered-up garbage, riding a rounded disc of some kind. Or, rather, a blonde vampire: she was not human, as the tingling sense at the back of Tahani's neck attested to.

"Eat grass!" she whooped as she zoomed past Tahani and Chidi.

Tahani sighed and pulled her stake out. "Let's go," she said. The hill ended soon; she'd have to slow down then.

"Tahani, wait."

She turned to see Chidi staring after the woman with a wide-eyed, terrified gaze. Tahani thought back over the last thirty seconds and came to an inevitable, quite awful, conclusion. "That was the Seal of Damaranth?"

"It would appear so," Chidi said glumly.

"And I've got to go retrieve it from that - person?"

"Vampire," Chidi said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "To be, uh, perfectly precise."

Tahani bit her tongue on an acerbic comment. "Right," she said, and pulled a stake out of her bag. "I'm sure this will go well."

She found the blonde vampire sitting on top of the Seal of Damaranth, staring at the night sky with a gormless expression on her face. When she spotted Tahani, she threw her arms wide and said, "Heyyyy sexy lady! Come drink this tequila with me!"

That explained the gormlessness, then. "No, thank you," Tahani said.

The vampire shrugged. "Suit yourself, grumpypants," she said, and took a swig of - ugh - some kind of bottom shelf swill.

But there were more important issues at hand than some undoubtedly young vampire's bad taste in liquor. "My apologies for interrupting you, but you see, I'm a Slayer." She lifted her stake as proof. "And I'm going to need that, um, sled you've got."

"Sled? Ha! This is no sled." The vampire rolled off the object in question, lifting it. Tahani just barely held back her wince. That was, indeed, the seal, facing towards Tahani herself, radiating potentially deadly power.

"I see. Well, it looks like...um." How would she talk her way out of this?

"This," the vampire said in tones of great portent, "is a toboggan." And with that, she slipped on nothing and fell to the ground, the Seal of Damaranth toppling to the ground, laughing maniacally.

Tahani edged closer, wrinkling her nose at the stink of tequila now coming off the vampire in waves. She'd just dumped the bottle all over herself. It was so sad, so profoundly pathetic, that Tahani didn't bother to stake her.

Later, much later, she'd look back on that moment of mercy with the profoundest regret.

-

After a healthy and refreshing 8 hours of sleep and a carrot-ginger juice, Tahani sat with Chidi as he mapped the magical properties of the Seal of Damaranth.

"She was just so odd," Tahani said for the third or fourth time.

"Mmm." Chidi made a note on his graph paper.

"Just so, so odd. Do vampires normally get barmy? Is it some kind of condition?"

"The old ones do, sometimes," Chidi said. "But I would guess, based on the behavior you've described, that she was just young, drunk on her own power. And, uh, literally drunk, of course."

"It doesn't seem very nice, being able to kill people."

Chidi gave her a wry look. "World history disagrees."

Tahani was about to launch her usual argument - killing for money or land was so different from the messy, animalistic killing vampires indulged in! - when the hotel knocker sounded. She realized, much too late, that the back of her neck was tingling.

At ten in the morning? What was wrong with Phoenix? She slid silently from her seat, grabbing a stake from the TV stand and making her way over to the door.

The vampire who entered moved too quickly and strongly for Tahani to stake her. She shouted a warning to Chidi and kicked out, but then it threw the blanket off its head, revealing the drunk blonde from last night.

"Hi - whoa, whoa, whoa." Her hands moved too quickly and she caught Tahani's foot mid-kick. "I thought you recognized me!"

"I intended to stake you before you got inside," Tahani snapped. "Let go of my foot. These are Jimmy Choos!"

"Whatever, man." The vampire dropped Tahani's heel. "You really shouldn't open the door to strange vamps. How long you been in this gig?"

Not long enough. "None of your business."

"Please, sit," Chidi said. "By all means. I invite vampires into my hotel room every day."

"She's a threat," Tahani said.

"I recognize her from your description."

"She moves too quickly. She was lying." Tahani tightened her grip on her stake and prepared for a deadly fight.

"Whoa." The vampire held up both hands. "First of all, I'm just fast 'cause I played lacrosse in school. You know, Title IX and all that. Second of all, I come in peace, okay? Otherwise, why would I have come during the day?"

"Too drunk at night?"

"Chidi!" Tahani snapped. "Focus, please, on the imminent death! Remove the -"

"Artifact?" the vampire said. "Yeah, no can do. That's actually what I'm here for."

"I knew it," Tahani said, and leaped forward, stake raised.

She blinked on the way over and found herself pinned to the bed, painlessly but utterly hopelessly.

"I really don't want to hurt you," the vampire said. But she betrayed herself: for one horrible moment, her eyes strayed to Tahani's neck, and Tahani thought of all the literature on what a Slayer's blood was like for vampires.

"You're not going to get a chance to try." Chidi again, closer this time. The vampire stiffened above Tahani, then lifted her hands again, stepping to the side.

Chidi followed her movements with the crossbow, even as he motioned for Tahani to get up. Of course: she still lay prone, heart pounding, breathing much too quickly. She rolled to her feet, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

"Now," Chidi said. "Let's sit down at the table over there and discuss what, exactly, you want with the Seal of Damaranth."

"You know," the vampire said, edging over to the table, "I feel like we got off on the wrong foot."

"You weren't on your feet at all." Tahani sat across from her, clutching her stake at her side. "You were drunk."

"You keep bringing that up. Do you nag everyone like this, or am I special?"

Chidi cleared his throat, sitting at the seat next to the vampire, so that his stake-loaded crossbow poked her neck.

The vampire just rolled her eyes. "My name's Eleanor," she told Tahani. "Call your Watcher off, or that's the last info you'll be getting out of me."

It was empty bluster - it had to be; no vampire could get away from a Slayer and highly trained Watcher, both armed and ready to strike, when the sun was beating through curtains a mere few inches away. Still, Tahani said, "We should hear her out, I think."

Chidi would never follow her lead if he didn't think it was safe to do so; Tahani was relieved when he said, "All right. You, Eleanor. Talk."

"So, I was drunk, you were right about that. My b." The vampire, Eleanor, smiled. Tahani suspected she meant it to be conciliatory, perhaps even charming. It was mostly just sleazy. "But the Seal actually does make a great toboggan. And, funny story, I was hoping you wouldn't know what it was."

"Wow," Chidi said, dry as the desert outside. "I wonder why."

"Yeah, yeah. Look, I need it. For a totally legitimate, non-evil purpose, I swear." She sat back and looked at them expectantly.

"That's it?" Tahani said in spite of herself. "That's your speech? I need it, so give it to me?"

"Um, yeah, basically. Thrall's kind of hit or miss with Slayers."

Thrall wasn't supposed to work on Slayers at all, actually. Tahani filed that little detail away for later. "Why should we give it to you? Why aren't you trying to just take it, if it's that important?"

"The Seal goes where it wants," Eleanor said, "and I can command it, but between you and me, it's kind of a softy. It likes the good guys. That'd be you."

"I'm aware," Tahani snapped.

"So, as the good guys, you should give it to me. I need it. See? Simple."

"Surely even in your short time dabbling in vampirism, you've learned that's not how negotiations with Slayers work."

"Actually," Chidi said, "technically speaking, we're not really allowed to negotiate with you at all."

"C'mon, man!" Eleanor flopped back in her seat in disgust. "I'm not a terrorist! But fine, sure, take the Seal and lock it in some Watcher's vault. Meanwhile the Spigonnis will rip open every Hellmouth in Europe with their freaky mojo, but hey: at least you kept the Seal from one little vampire."

Tahani opened her mouth to say there was nothing little about any vampire, even a vertically challenged one such as Eleanor, but Chidi beat her to it. "What did you say about the Spigonnis?"

"Italian vampire clan, dating back to the third century. I'd hope you'd've heard of them."

"I have." And there was nothing humorous in Chidi's voice now. "What exactly are they planning?"

Eleanor held out her hand. "Nuh-uh, buddy. Seal first."

"That's not happening," Tahani said. She didn't miss the way Chidi hesitated, though, his eyes flicking between them. "Chidi. It's. Not. Happening."

Before Chidi had a chance to reply, Eleanor laughed - no, that was inaccurate. Eleanor cackled. "Wow. She's really got your balls in a brace, huh?"

"Chidi doesn't prescribe to such outdated ideals of masculinity," Tahani said, as coldly as she could. "I don't know what your Midwestern mid-1950s upbringing taught you, but I'm a Slayer, which means I have a say in all this. The seal will be held by those who can wield it responsibly, or won't wield it at all. Now tell us why you think you need it."

"I told you. The Spigonnis are planning on sending the world to hell." Eleanor stabbed a finger at Chidi. "He knows it's serious, and he knows a vampire's the only creature who can bring a Seal to its full potential. Ask him."

Chidi looked like he'd rather drink bottom shelf tequila in a dumpster with Eleanor herself than admit she was right. Yet, still, he said, "It's...a complicated situation, if she's telling the truth."

"Oh-ho, if I'm telling the truth? Buddy, I have a YouTube channel about it." And Eleanor pulled a cell phone out of her pocket.

She did, it turned out. The videos about the Spigonnis were interspersed with "HOT BLONDE POPS MASSIVE ZIT" and other such disgustingly-titled clips, but she had several videos laying out what proof she had that the Spigonnis were planning something. In the videos, she called them mobsters, but winked several times.

"That's how you know they're vampires," Eleanor told Tahani.

Tahani ignored her. Well, she tried. It wasn't entirely successful.

And yet, after twenty minutes of the videos, she found herself thinking: if Eleanor was telling the truth...

"How many Hellmouths would open?"

"Twenty," Chidi said. "There's nowhere in the world with as many as Europe."

"We're pretty terrible," Eleanor said, her face empty of anything but sunny, shallow cheer.

"What happens after that?"

"More Hellmouth openings, probably," Chidi said, "between all the vampires, the demons, and human enthusiasts...maybe a year would pass before it'd be the demons' world again."

Tahani hadn't been raised with the expectation that she would be called. She'd been given an excellent education in the classics. The last three years had been an equally excellent education in martial arts and the likely historical trajectory of a world left to the demons once again.

She looked at Eleanor, who continued to sit there, short and grimy, entirely unsuitable for such a mission.

"Right, then," she said. "Here's how it's going to go."

-

Tahani wasn't proud of it, but it satisfied some very specific, clearly disturbed part of her to have Eleanor by her side like this, servile and blank-gazed, among Italy's most fearsome vampire clan.

They had hoped to avoid the subterfuge entirely, in fact, and it wasn't helping Tahani's conscience to hear Chidi bemoan the necessity of it. But still, it was satisfying. Eleanor refused to acknowledge the inherent irritation that an insubordinate vampire might present a Slayer. In the Spigonni nest, however, Eleanor was Tahani's pet: weak from Tahani feeding on her, following her everywhere with thrall-induced stars in her eyes. The Spigonnis, Eleanor had repeatedly reassured her, wouldn't be able to tell that Eleanor was the source of the stink of vampire. And even if they did, they carried the Seal of Damaranth with them, and thus had almost unlimited power at their disposal should an emergency strike.

In theory, anyway. They hadn't tested it; Chidi said there was no way to do so without alerting various vampires to its activation.

"You don't look comfortable enough," Eleanor mumbled out of the corner of her mouth.

"It's hardly a comfortable place, is it?" They stood in the center of the expansive Spigonni nest, a huge manor house east of Florence. The house's two rambling Tudor-style wings held the living - or unliving - quarters of over two hundred vampires. The ballroom, where Tahani currently reclined, had enormous plush chairs scattered everywhere, cages for unfortunate humans, big iron candlesticks, and of course, beds for thrilling misadventures. The windows obscured sunlight with enormous black velvet curtains. It was all very Anne Rice, and Tahani couldn't say she was enjoying it.

But Eleanor made a nearly silent, extremely derisive noise upon hearing her - completely rational! - opinion. "It's the lap of luxury for a set of vamps whose idea of luxury is specific and very expensive."

"It's tacky."

"Deal. With. It. You. Diva," Eleanor hissed.

A Spigonni wandered towards them. Eleanor's expression melted into servility. Tahani couldn't resist: even as the evil vampire bore down on them, she reached out to cup Eleanor's cheek in one hand and press her nails into Eleanor's skin. "Much better," she said, smiling down at Eleanor's fury.

"Eleanor of Aquitaine," the vampire said. "What a surprise."

Tahani just barely managed to keep her expression neutral. What a ridiculous identity Eleanor had chosen. "And you are?"

Feline pleasure alerted her to her mistake. "Giovanni Spigonni, head of the family. I'd advise you not to put on such airs that you can't recognize me, my dear."

And then Tahani understood. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before. This man was just like her parents' friends, obsessed with status and money and desperate to pretend they didn't care about either.

She plastered a smile on her face. "Giovanni, darling, of course I recognize you. Our natural state isn't enough to render someone like yourself anonymous."

His answering smile was miserly, but still, it existed. "Of course. Do enjoy your stay." He nodded, then moved on.

"You suck so bad at this," Eleanor mumbled. "We should just use the Seal and be done with it."

"We are absolutely not, under any circumstances, going to use the Seal," Tahani said through her smile.

-

"Maybe we should use the Seal," Chidi said.

"What? No! Absolutely not! We're in Italy because we're trying to stop people from bringing about the apocalypse, not hasten it ourselves!"

"Dude, she has a point. But on the other hand..." Eleanor pressed her fingertips together. "Think about how, a, this sucks and is boring, and b, the Seal would make it all way easier."

"The temptation of never-ending power is the reason people don't use ancient and powerful artifacts all willy-nilly!" Tahani glared at Eleanor. They'd been infiltrating the Spigonnis for two weeks now; admittedly, it wasn't Tahani's favorite way to spend a fortnight in Italy, but she felt significantly closer to unmasking Giovanni and his consort Maria's plans. All of that would be destroyed if Eleanor used her wiles to convince Chidi to unleash the Seal.

Eleanor didn't seem to care. She crossed her arms and said, "Okay, fine, you got me. I hate pretending to be your human bitch. Wow, shocking, right?"

"Servant! In my thrall! Which, by the way, you told me was an honor for humans. It's not so honorable when you're the one at the end of the leash, is it?"

By the end of her question, Tahani was shouting. She'd leaned across the table so she was inches from Eleanor, and she was breathing as though she'd just chased a werewolf down. Her heart was pounding; she felt quite unhinged.

Eleanor, in contrast, only snorted and rolled her eyes, as crass and unmannerly as ever. "Whatever, man," she said. "Save your crusading speeches for someone who cares."

Tahani was about to hit her, or stake her, or - throttle her! - when Chidi said, "If I may interrupt?"

Oh, God. "I'm sorry. Yes, of course. But you can't possibly be thinking of -"

She closed her mouth with a sharp click of teeth at the look Chidi gave her. It was one of his very specific looks, a bit impatient, but also holding the kind of deep compassion that meant she wasn't going to like hearing whatever he had to say.

"They're going to end the world with or without the Seal," Chidi said.

Right on one count, then. "Of course," Tahani said dimly. "I'd guessed as much." Of course she hadn't. "Perhaps I'll call my friend, Beyoncé, she's a Slayer too. We could use reinforcements."

"I'm not sure there's time for that."

"You know, I'm more of a Jay-z fan," Eleanor said.

"How can you possibly - you know what? No one asked you," Tahani said. "What do you mean there's no time?"

"I got a call from Alaya, one of the members of the London Coven. Several of the witches there, herself included, have been plagued with visions lately. They think Italy's about to blow. The Spigonnis are moving in on something - something big. Apocalyptic, even."

"And we need the Seal to stop it? Can't I just -"

"Run a suicide mission?" Chidi smiled. Well, not really. He moved his lips into a tight, unhappy line. "I know I'm selfish, but I'd prefer to use a tool we already have, and keep my Slayer after the dust settles."

"Wow. Gay," Eleanor said.

Fire again shot through her. "Shut up, Eleanor."

"Make me, Slayer."

If she had the Seal, if she used the Seal, she could. Fright and excitement shot through her with near-equal strength.

She shouldn't. She couldn't. But -

Tahani wasn't really ready to die, either. How could she be? She hadn't even gotten any grey hairs yet.

"Right, then. Tell me what we need to do."

-

The Spigonni lair had a basement. It hadn't been dug in the normal way, but rather carved via magic. Half of it contained storerooms of food ("have they heard of refrigeration?" Tahani asked; "Sure, that's where they keep the bodies," Eleanor told her), and the other half contained a maze. The maze was booby-trapped; at its center lay the magical artifact ensuring that even staking Giovanni Spigonni wouldn't kill him.

Maria Spigonni, his consort, knew how to get through the maze. And so it was Maria they planned to enchant, or compel, with the Seal. At least, that was the plan if they ever managed to activate the seal. At the moment, Tahani had her doubts.

"Man, come on, just pull the trigger already!" Eleanor threw up her hand. "Every ancient artifact comes with like six tons of paperwork, you're the only person I've ever seen actually try to get through all of it."

"It's not paperwork," Chidi said, making a note on parchment that was probably older than the Spigonni mansion. "It's vitally important information that will keep all of us alive while we use the Seal."

Tahani cleared her throat. "We really should use it tonight, though," she said. "Given the apocalypse, and all."

"Listen to your Slayer, Chidi, they don't make 'em that tall and hot for no reason."

"The last Slayer before Buffy Summers barely topped five feet tall." Chidi rolled the scroll back up.

"She was also fourteen," Eleanor said, as casually as one might remark on the weather. "My point is - ohhh yeah. Come to mama." She made grabby hands at the Seal when Chidi pulled it from his pocket.

His eyes slid away from her as though she hadn't even spoken. "Tahani. Can we talk?"

They'd chosen a random room in the non-family wing for their adventures. It was as safe as enchantments could make it, which meant very safe indeed, but they couldn't leave the room while discussing their deadly plans. Chidi could only pull her to the far end of the - admittedly large - room before saying in a low voice, "I want to make sure you're ready to do this."

"I know it's necessary." Chidi's expression made it obvious that he didn't consider that an adequate answer. "And I'm as ready as I can be. This is hardly the first dangerous thing I've done."

"If you need to run, promise me you will. Promise me you'll stay alive."

Tahani opened her mouth, and then closed it. Any words she might have said, any possible glib dismissal, would only sound false. She didn't want to die; Chidi knew it, had been the recipient of many a breakdown to that effect. And Chidi, for all that he was devoted to the Watchers, understood. He was giving her an out.

God forgive her. She planned to take it.

"I will," she said. "I promise."

And so they began the ritual. It was, of course, an odd mix of tedious and time-consuming. Chidi handled the Latin, and Tahani provided a conduit for the power. Eleanor provided the demon blood.

The power rose in the room. What magic Tahani had was of a rather false sort: Slayer magic, which was capricious at the best of times, and came from power she hadn't sought or chosen. But as the Seal began to fill with power, Tahani felt it on the air: the tang of blood, the salty scent of the sea.

Still, somehow, she felt as though she'd been punched in the chest when she blinked and a woman appeared at the center of the ritual circle.

"Was this supposed to happen?" she said as the woman - demon - thing - cocked its head and looked at Chidi.

"It's possible," Chidi said. "But then again..."

Tahani put a hand on her stake.

"Chidi," the demon said. "My...summoner."

Chidi took a deep breath. "The Seal of Damaranth compels you to -"

The demon tilted its head back and laughed. Lightning crackled horizontally across the ceiling.

"You know," Eleanor said from behind them, "she's kinda hot, in a deadly way."

"I compel you!" Chidi said. "This ritual -"

"Opens a gate to hell, using the Seal of Damaranth, and out walks a servant." The demon bowed. "That's me. Here to do whatever you want." Her smile deepened into a smirk. "For as long as you can hold me, anyway."

Chidi looked at Tahani. She could practically see the gears turning in his head, the various ethical dilemmas inherent in summoning a demon, rather than just using a magical object, to destroy the Spigonnis. He looked close to flying to pieces and sending the demon back, so Tahani did what she did best: she acted.

"Tahani, Vampire Slayer," she said, stepping forward. "And you are...?"

The demon's eyes didn't leave Chidi. "Call me Vicki, gorgeous."

"I am, thank you," Tahani said. "We've a little problem, a vampire coven. We're currently in their nest. I'd like you to tell them to rip each other apart."

"You don't want me to kill them?" Still not looking at her, still only with eyes for Chidi. Demons loved him; it vexed Tahani to no end.

"No," she said. "They must turn on one another, so that news of their treachery spreads."

Then, finally, Vicki looked at her. "That's diabolical, for a Slayer."

Before Tahani could reply, Eleanor said, "You should see her picking out a dress for another girl. Total Caesar situation."

"They're not going to be happy to see you here," Vicki told her.

"Enough demonic interplay!" Tahani said. "Turn them against each other now."

"Ah-ah-ah, not so fast," Vicki said. "I know it's unusual for you goody-two-shoes types to summon demons to do your unearthly will, but there are rules here, and you're going to follow them. I won't just run off and brainwash a bunch of vamps without my trade."

"We gave you the blood, over the Hellmouth -"

"That's a trade with the forces of Hell that keep me captured," Vicki said. "I'm asking what's in it for me. See, normally when I get summoned, it's by some pretty nasty baddies, and my reward is not being tortured by them before I get sent back down to the big boys. But you two...well, a girl knows when she has leverage. What's. In. It. For. Me."

Rage. Pure fury. Feeling as though she could take on an army, Tahani turned to Chidi.

Who raised his chin, looked Vicki dead in the eye, and said, "Time."

"In this crappy dimension? Give me a break."

Chidi shrugged. "Guess we'll send you back, then," he said, and began paging through his book of spells.

"Fine," Vicki said. "One year."

"Two months."

"One year or I'll go back myself, hot stuff."

Chidi closed his book. It echoed, Tahani thought, with a kind of terrifying finality. "Done."

Vicki smiled, an awful, haunting expression. "Let's get to work."

-

She'd have nightmares of that day until she died.

Vicki's bloodlust was like nothing she'd seen. She'd hoped the vampires would simply stake one another, but instead Vicki had them lure each other into monstrous traps, commit horrific painful violence before dealing the killing blow, feast on each other, desecrate one another's bodies...eventually she had to close her eyes, knowing she was a coward but unable to force herself to be stronger. When she said, "Please, this wasn't what I meant," Vicki only laughed.

Eventually the Spigonnis were all dead. The prickling feeling of too-much-power slowly faded. They should've been left with very little mess - would have, if Vicki had obeyed the spirit of the order. But instead, they stood in the middle of the Spigonnis' ballroom, and blood soaked the antique tiles beneath them, dropped from the wall sconces, and left a stench in the air that Tahani knew she'd remember in her nightmares.

"One year, you said," Vicki said. "I trust you won't make me keep track."

"Don't worry, it's already in my calendar," Tahani said. "One year and then the world's rid of you again."

"Ah, truly, whoever brought me here has cursed humanity." She laughed in cruel delight and leaned in to plant one on Chidi's cheek. "Until next time, cutie."

Chidi pressed a shaking hand to his face, even as Vicki disappeared in a whirl of foul air.

"Well," Eleanor said. "That was weird."

"More than weird." Tahani felt sickened to her core. "Chidi, are we - that is, do you want to -"

He understood. Thank whatever, whoever might be listening, he understood. "Let's go."

"Hey." Eleanor darted in front of them. "What about me?"

"Do what you want," Tahani said. "I won't try to stop you. For now."

The last she saw of Eleanor, she stood in the middle of the blood-streaked Spigonni mansion, staring at Tahani with a look almost like betrayal.

Chapter 2

"I cannot believe we're stuck in New Jersey," Tahani grumbled, flopping into the horrid polyester rented couch that furnished the living room in their new flat. "I wanted to go to New York!"

"The Council's nervous," Chidi said. He had that particular placid quality to his voice that meant he was nervous, in turn, about the Council.

"And so they're starving out one of their Slayers, who saves the world for them on a regular basis?"

"Tahani. They're not starving us out." Chidi waved a hand around the admittedly comfortable hotel room. "This is all we really need, and besides, it's time we focused on -"

Tahani groaned.

"Patrolling." Chidi's implacable tone had come to be its own kind of harbinger of doom. "You've been gun-shy since Italy, and you won't tell me why."

"Gun-shy is hardly the term."

"Stake-shy, then." His voice gentled a bit. "I haven't written about it, and I haven't reported it to the Council. I know what we saw was disturbing to both of us. But..."

But, Tahani thought, tick-tock, because even in the brave new world, there were only a handful of Slayers and the Council couldn't spare a lazy one.

She repressed the shiver that went down her spine as best as she could. "I'll go tomorrow night, I promise. I've been...processing it. What I saw."

"I think you mean you've been processing what I did," said the darkness in the room's far corner.

Tahani was too practiced at being frightened to scream. She did, however, pull a knife out and hop over the bed, landing on the balls of her feet and holding the knife to Vicki's throat. "You have ten seconds to explain why I shouldn't kill you."

When Vicki spoke, hellfire threaded through her voice. "I don't think you want to break a bargain with the Demon of the Seal, Tahani."

Ten months still. What had they been thinking? She put the knife away. "Why are you here? I can still kick you out, even if I can't dispatch you to hell quite yet."

"Believe me, there's not much worth sticking around up here for." Vicki eyed Chidi. "Well, mostly."

Thinking of that - eugh. "Answer the question, demon."

"You can call me Vicki, you know." She sat down on the hotel room's only couch. "Heard the Council's breathing down your neck."

"Who, exactly, did you hear that from?"

"Chidi, just now. You should really put up better protections if you're going to be here for awhile."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tahani ground out. "My standing within the Council is none of your business."

"No, it is, though." Vicki twisted up her face. For a moment Tahani tensed, thinking - oh, who knew, that rats might pop out of her eyes, maybe. But in the end she only said, "I owe you an apology."

Tahani waited for the words to make sense. When they continued to be utterly nonsensical, she put her hand on her knife again.

"Oh, stop that. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead."

Vicki, not being human, didn't understand Tahani's problem. She knew how powerful Vicki was - she was, in fact, intimately acquainted with the potency of her power. It was the very idea of her own helplessness that kept her hand on the knife.

"Fine. Well, I'm sorry. I'd been imprisoned for awhile, and I tend to favor the...dramatic means of accomplishing a goal." She directed an unnervingly charming smile at Chidi. "Some people told me it might have been a little offputting."

"Tahani's had nightmares for weeks." Chidi spoke with the kind of mild tone that meant he was furious. "I guess that didn't figure into your plans. Or maybe it did. Slayers aren't popular with your kind."

"I can respect a fellow tool of the divine," Vicki said. "Ah, but you don't like when I call her that."

"I'm standing right here!" Tahani said. But Chidi didn't remove his eyes from Vicki.

"Someone got to you," Chidi said. "But people on our side tend to be more subtle than that. Who was it?"

"Don't tell me you haven't guessed."

"I have my theories. I have theories about a lot of things. But my priority is protecting and helping Tahani, and right now, you're in my way."

"A vampire we both know," Vicki said. "I haven't been in this dimension in several thousand years; that should narrow it down for you."

Eleanor. "No," Tahani said. "No. Absolutely not. She's trying to make trouble."

Vicki raised a single eyebrow, clearly amused.

"Tahani," Chidi said. "I can handle this."

"Oh, and let her keep mocking you? Please." Tahani advanced on Vicki. "If you're in contact with that two-bit big-bad wannabe, tell her to leave me alone. This whole thing, including you, that was her idea. And now she wants to pretend she's sorry? Get out. Tell her she can go back to hell for all I care."

It was a good speech, she thought, but Vicki only watched her with one of those maddening half-smiles, then said to Chidi, "I don't really care about the Slayers, to be honest. Those kinds of infantry battles aren't my priority - and if the world became overrun with demons again, well, they can use the Seal as easily as humans. More easily." She lifted a shoulder in a delicate shrug. "But I was looking into you two. You're an interesting duo. And I got more information, yes, from Eleanor. So here I am. Sorry. I'd like to hang out." She looked between the two of them. "How was that? Good, right? I got some coaching."

"Abominable," Tahani said, "much like yourself, actually."

"Stop goading her," Chidi told Vicki. "If you're here in your capacity as a demon wandering freely on Earth -"

"I don't know that I'd call myself free. Would you?"

"- then you should know there are rules."

"Wrong," Vicki said, grinding her calm satisfaction through her teeth. "You can't tell me that Watcher spiel works on your usual customer."

"Why are you here!" Chidi burst out, nearly shouting.

Tahani blinked. "Good lord."

"Well, well, Chidi," Vicki all but purred. "Look at that, we're finally getting somewhere."

But Chidi wasn't intimidated - and he didn't let up, either. He looked Vicki dead in the eye and said, "You're going to give me an explanation, or I'll break the bargain. Don't think I won't. Me and my Slayer have survived worse than a minor demon's revenge."

That much was true, Tahani thought, but she'd never known Chidi to renege on an agreement like this. Vicki had whipped him into a frenzy.

Interesting. She began to edge towards the door. When neither of them so much as glanced at her, she let herself out.

The truth was that New Jersey, while reputed to be unbearable in both personality and infrastructure, provided a kind of welcome relief to Tahani. There were fewer lonely alleys here than in a lot of other places; the populace was accustomed to human crime and didn't shy away from shouting at what they assumed to be a scarred up methhead trying to rob them. People still died, of course, from vampires and demons and countless other dangers. But she didn't see quite so much helplessness in would-be victim's faces. When she rescued them, half the time they'd snap at her, "Keep walking, weirdo!"

Oh, sure, it was rude. But Tahani felt weary so often now, tired in a way that had nothing to do with macronutrients or hours of sleep. She welcomed the rudeness. It meant people were still alive.

By the time she got back to the hotel room, Vicki was long gone. Chidi sat in his usual corner, scribbling in his journal. "I went patrolling," Tahani said when he didn't look up.

"Mmm," he said. "Report?"

"Looks like you're busy writing your romantic novel about Vicki."

Chidi's head snapped up. "I'm not - that is - the aberration of a demon's bargain -"

"Chidi." Tahani held up a hand. "I didn't mean that as criticism." Well, she sort of had. Would Chidi be surprised when Vicki went in to kiss him? "I killed three vampires, saw no other unusual activity."

"Staked."

"Yes, the usual way." Chidi didn't think of it as 'killing', of course, but it wasn't his job to dispatch the creatures. Tahani briefly thought of Eleanor's hissing criticisms of her behavior at the Spigonni mansion, of her glee in sliding down piles of garbage. They might be loathsome, and technically dead, but that didn't make them un-alive.

"Good." Chidi stopped writing, finally. It was like a spell had broken: he looked suddenly stricken as he took off his glasses and massaged his temples. "I know other Slayers and other members of the Council deal with morally complex situations as well, but this feels...wrong. Strange."

"Unpredictable," Tahani said. "Yes."

"I thought your interplay with Eleanor was funny, but she's still out there, most likely killing people." Chidi pulled a face. "We let ourself get pulled into demonic nonsense. I should have known better."

"To be fair, so should I have."

"You haven't been a Slayer that long."

Tahani couldn't help but bristle at Chidi's tone. "You're the one who told me the Council used to go through Slayers in just a couple years! I think I've done rather well."

"You have, of course you have, especially given your age. I just -"

"Hey!"

"You know what I mean. But I've trained in the ways of the Council for well over ten years at this point. There's no excuse for me. I know what the books say, I know what protocol is, but..."

"But meeting the enemy in the flesh, you can't quite agree," Tahani said.

Chidi gave a tiny nod. "She's likely out there killing people, right now, as we speak. She could be the most charming person, thing, in this dimension - that wouldn't change the facts."

Tahani wasn't sure which 'she' he was talking about. She also wasn't sure it really mattered. "Yes."

He sighed and gave Tahani a wry look. "We'll keep to ourselves for the rest of this trip. We need to get back in the groove of things, clearly."

"Oh, of course," Tahani said, and left Chidi to his work.

-

The first warning appeared a week later.

She'd grown tired of New Jersey, but the Council had directed them to stay for another two months, to complete their favored three-month time period for chasing vampires away from a human population center. Word had gotten round about a Slayer in town, so she'd had to trade heeled boots for tennis shoes: the vampires ran away now.

She was pulling out a stake to dispatch one of them when he held up deathly pale hands and said, "That bitch'll betray you, you know. They always do."

Cryptic last words among vampires weren't exactly rare, but some odd instinct stayed Tahani's hand. "What bitch do you mean, exactly?"

"The one pushing in on Grasso's turf. You know who I mean. You think you can control a little would-be underworld sheriff? Think again." He giggled.

His hand was also moving, though, in a clear bid to knock the stake away. Right, then. She staked him, then stood, dusting herself off.

She hadn't heard the name 'Grasso' before, so she said it to the next three vampires she encountered. Two of them snarled and gave no information. The third sneered and said, "Why do you think there's so many of us, princess?"

"Because vermin always comes in where it's not wanted," Tahani snapped, before kicking the vamp in the head and sending him heart-first onto a broken wood pallet.

That night, she opened her report to Chidi by saying, "This isn't the typical maintenance visit." She described what she'd seen: increased numbers of vamps, odd rumors, and the apparent fame of Grasso. "Probably some kind of vampire mob boss, right?"

"Maybe," Chidi said. "They do enjoy congregating, consolidating power. I'll ask the Council to look into it."

"One of them said something's coming. A turf war? Something worse?"

"It's always something." Chidi sighed. "Get some sleep. I'll call the Council later, see if they have any information."

It struck Tahani as supremely unfair that the Council got to keep traditional office hours, but she knew better than to protest. She spent the time she usually used for meditation mulling over the puzzle: who, exactly, did the vampires of Newark think she was working with?

Meditation brought no answers, and neither did the Council. The next night found Tahani in Newark's second-oldest cemetery, playing the interrogator.

"I think we both know you know who Grasso is," she told the vamp she had pinned under her boot. "I don't actually enjoy torture, and I certainly have no desire to start snipping your nails off, or -"

"Blinding me with hot irons?" The vamp made a face, wiggling in his awful pleather jacket. "Honestly, lady, you're weird even for a Slayer. I told you I don't know anything."

"I've been reliably informed that Grasso's famous in these parts."

"By a guy you killed, I'm guessing."

"And vampires are congregating here for a reason, and I want -" she pressed down on his chest a little harder - "to be done with this charade. Where. Is. Grasso."

The vampire stared at her, his wide yellow eyes rimmed with bright red, sickly burst vessels. After a long moment, he said, "Okay, seriously, I gotta spill, I'm in town from Cincinnati, I just wanted to play the slots down in Atlantic City, I don't know -"

She staked him.

Her neck prickled even as his ashes swirled in the air. She whirled around, and the vampire who'd been leaning against a tree and watching clapped her hands.

The first thing Tahani noticed was the vampire's height: she wasn't quite as short as Eleanor, but Tahani had easily half a head on her. She wore her blonde hair very closely cropped to her head, and her skin was so white it shone in the cemetary's security lights.

She didn't look like Eleanor, not really. But somehow, looking at her, Tahani thought she saw a similarity.

Then the vampire said, "Hi, sweetie," and ran forward, kissing Tahani square on the lips - and Tahani understood.

Desire.

The vampire kissed like someone who was accustomed to kissing strangers. Tahani had - Tahani had been a flirt, before. Pre-Chidi, pre-destiny. But she'd never kissed that much, and since she began training and patrolling, well, opportunities had been limited.

This vampire kissed with an odd desperation. Clearly she was used to this sort of thing, yet she was clumsy, too, her hands shaking as she touched Tahani's hair, her unnecessary breath coming a bit too quickly as she bit Tahani's lip just slightly too hard.

It was the imperfection of the illusion that allowed Tahani to step back, to say, "Who are you?"

"She's taken everything from me," the vampire said. "And so now I seek out my death, as I knew I would always have to, for as long as the Old Ones roam the Earth."

"I don't mean to alarm you, but you're really not speaking sense."

The vampire smiled, sharp, and stepped back into open air, spreading her arms. She changed into her fang-face and said, "There are two children playing in the park a block away - up past their bedtimes, poor dear. A couple is having a distraught argument in that brick house across the street; the husband will come out here soon. An old woman is napping in that yellow house at the intersection, and there's a drunk passed out in the Honda parked across the street from us."

Tahani understood the message; she wasn't an idiot. And yet, heart racing, lips still tingling, she hesitated.

No. No. She was a Slayer. The power roared through her, and she reared back, staking the vampire as it held its arms wide.

It only occurred to her later, after she reported to Chidi, showered, and relaxed with some meditation, that she'd helped precipitate a suicide.

She needed to find the nest, she thought the next night. This was supposed to have been a relatively uneventful trip. Nothing about being the Slayer could really be relied upon to be uneventful, but damn it, she wanted a break between large-scale mystical-disaster types of events. She wanted an even bigger break between moments where she stared up at the night sky and half-hoped she'd finally be taken out, granted peace that Slayers never got during their time on Earth.

She couldn't think that way. She couldn't. But...

Interrogating the vampires clearly wasn't working, in addition to tending making Tahani feel queasy, so she moved on to her next strategy: good old detective work. Before her family had more or less abandoned her, Tahani's sister had always had considerable criticism for what she saw as Tahani's lack of deductive skills. "This is why you only got into two Ivies," she'd said as she painted with the proprietary shade of navy she'd pilfered from John Galliano's dressing room. Tahani had always bristled at such accusations, but she felt strongly that she could have used another brain just now, as she canvassed Newark and tried to suss out just where this mysterious vampire's nest might be.

At least no other vampires tried to kiss her. It was important to acknowledge the small mercies, she told herself.

She'd almost decided to give up for the night when she saw her first clue: an adult vampire dressed in a puffy old-fashioned skirt knocking on a worn wooden door in a careful rhythm.

Tahani crossed the street, doing her best to look casual, and slipped into the shadows of the alley next to the door. The vampire knocked again, a little more emphatically this time, in the same pattern.

The jangle of a doorknob, then: "Don't come 'round here again," said a child.

Tahani couldn't stop herself from wincing, forcing her hands not to curl into fists.

The adult vampire said, "I don't want to come in. I want you to send her a message for me."

"Speak quick, or you'll be sorry."

The vampire's tones turned deadly, furious - and perfectly, horribly clear. "Tell Eleanor Shellstrop that she'll give up the nest she's stolen and return it to the rightful heirs of Grasso, or this city will burn."

-

It couldn't be.

It couldn't be, it couldn't be, but of course it was. 'Shellstrop' wasn't exactly a common name, and vampires weren't so numerous that she could blithely assume coincidence. The simplest explanation was that the Eleanor who now controlled this nest, who controlled children, was the Eleanor Tahani had recently left.

The Eleanor she'd been - distracted - by.

Damn. Hell. Fuck.

"Fuck," she said. A rat scuttled out of the dumpster, running past her shoe. "Oh, fuck you too," she muttered at it.

No use cursing the rat, really; it was probably perfectly happy with its life of turgid, trash-filled splendor. She had to focus on the problem at hand. The short, blonde, annoying problem, likely hanging out on the third floor, in a throne perhaps, while her vampiric child slaves -

"Tahani? What are you doing out here?"

Tahani wasn't proud of it: she screamed. Eleanor's voice was mere inches from her head. By the time she'd whirled around with a stake out, Eleanor had propped the first floor window open and was staring at Tahani with a perfectly blank face.

"If you're done with your freakout, I asked a question."

"I'm - I was working!"

"Clearly." Eleanor eyed Tahani's stake with no small amount of chagrin, and an irritating lack of fear.

"I could stake you right now," Tahani said. "Tell me why you think I shouldn't."

"Aside from the fact that I have higher ground and a window and reach and speed on you, and could break your neck before you fixed, like, any of that?"

Heat flared in Tahani, a shiver of - what, exactly? Fear? Arousal? Ugh. She tightened her grip on the stake. "You're using children. That's disgusting. You must know I'll stop you."

"Stop me from doing what?" But Eleanor was smart, regardless of her other failings. Tahani watched the realization come over her. "Oh, come on! You seriously think -"

"I'm coming back with reinforcements," Tahani said, even though she had no idea what that might constitute. She turned on her heel and walked out of the alley.

She heard the window slam behind her. A moment later, Eleanor was next to her. "Okay, first of all, lame-o asshole move, making assumptions like that! Where do you think you get off -"

Tahani punched her, sending her flying, and kept walking.

"Hey! I'm talking to you." Two steps, and Eleanor'd caught up again. "You're a real - you know, other Slayers have been a lot nicer. You could even call them open-minded."

Tahani was absolutely, positively, swear on her ancestors, not going to ask Eleanor about previous Slayers. "They're also all dead," she said instead. "And so the mantle passes to me, as the ancient magic dictates."

Eleanor snorted. "Come on, we all know about the mumbo-jumbo that witch worked in California. You're not that special anymore."

She very nearly stumbled. "How do you know that?"

"You'd be surprised at what I know."

"Ugh."

She'd begun to hope that if she just kept walking, Eleanor would leave her alone. But Eleanor's sense of timing and sociopathy were apparently more keenly developed than that. She followed silently down several streets, through two alleys, and even stood aside as Tahani staked a vamp. She didn't speak until Tahani was stepping through the revolving door of the motel.

Then she said, "You're still an asshole."

"You won't be able to enter my room," Tahani said, "so I'm not sure what you think you're accomplishing, here."

"Listen, fucknugget, I'm immortal. I can wait outside your door. And I'm happy to, if you plan on spreading the news that I'm - what is it you think I'm doing, actually? Enslaving children?"

Eleanor said the last bit a little too loudly; she might not've noticed the glances they got from patrons sitting at the bar, but Tahani did. "Not here," she hissed, and grabbed Eleanor's hand, pasting a smile on her face as she half dragged Eleanor down the hall and into the - blessedly empty - gym.

"If I have to stake you, I will," Tahani said, but of course that was a very poor way to go about resolving a conflict. "No, I'm -" Wait, she wasn't sorry! Eleanor was using children, turning them, for perfidious reasons! How could she possibly think of anything else, even with Eleanor standing at her, looking at her with hurt eyes?

She shook her head. "No. I will. I promise you, I will. And if you're trying to put me under thrall, you should know it won't work."

"I'm not trying," Eleanor said. "But I am going to just tell you, it's seriously a dick move to not even investigate my business before you condemn it."

"I'm sorry, you must have forgotten: you're a vampire."

"Oh, like that means anything. People are terrible too, I didn't see you accusing the asshole behind the check-in counter of killing kids."

"Vampires are demons! You literally have a demon inside of you!"

"Better a demon than a heartless bitch masquerading as a Slayer!"

Tahani recoiled. She couldn't help it. Eleanor couldn't have conceived of a better shot at Tahani if she'd studied her for years.

"Being a Slayer is my job," she finally managed to say. "My job, and my duty. If you have a better explanation, you're welcome to tell me."

Eleanor stared at her in murderous silence. For a horrible moment, Tahani's mind went straight to the gutter.

She imagined taking hold of Eleanor's face, letting her fingers bite into that sharp jawline. She imagined twisting her fingers, throwing her across the room. Her face burned and her heart raced; she wanted so much, terribly, undeniably.

It was the terror that made her move to step back, trying to get distance, perspective - anything that would make her remember and care about how much of a threat Eleanor was. But even as she moved, Eleanor reached out and grabbed her. Her fingers were shockingly cold and stronger than steel. Tahani had no hope of resisting.

It should have been repulsive. Eleanor might be cute, in her way, but she was a vampire, a particularly loathsome one. But - oh, God, God. It wasn't repulsive at all.

At first Eleanor was gentle, so much so that it took a moment for Tahani to realize she was giving Tahani a chance to escape. As soon as Tahani stepped forward, though, Eleanor moved with her impossible speed, pinning Tahani against the wall of the gym, tugging at her hair. Her height suddenly didn't matter: she had Tahani dead to rights, holding her arms against the wall with twin implacable grips on her biceps. And Tahani burned with desire, with need, all her wits fleeing as she bit Eleanor's lip, licked into her mouth, desperate for more.

It wasn't until Eleanor leaned back that she realized the odd whispering she heard was herself, saying over and over, "Please, please, please."

For a moment, Eleanor only looked at her. Her eyes gleamed in the hotel's fluorescent lights; no sweat marred her brow. She wasn't bothering to breathe.

Then she shook her head, too quickly for Tahani to track. Her vampire teeth shone in the light, too.

"Go upstairs," she said, voice made thick and inhuman by her rearranged jaw. "If you want to see what I'm doing, come by tomorrow. After sundown, obviously."

She moved so quickly then that she might as well have disappeared. Tahani had never seen a vampire with speed like that before; she wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

It took her long, long moments of deep breathing until she could convince herself to go upstairs. When Chidi gave her his I Know Something Happened look, she only smiled wanly and said, "I'll tell you tomorrow, I promise."

Then, of course, she didn't tell him. How could she? They'd done their best not to talk about romantic entanglements. Tahani found Chidi charming, and of course he was dedicated to his work, but he didn't quite understand how things had been for Tahani before he'd found her, and what she might want from a relationship. He'd once screwed up his face and said, "One of my colleagues told me having hos in different area codes might be good for me? We don't talk much anymore."

He was all but celibate, flirtations with Vicki aside, and he very much did not get it. And so Tahani told him she'd seen disturbingly young vampires and didn't mention Eleanor at all. She noted his suspicion when she suited up to go patrolling much earlier than she normally would have, but she brushed off his not-quite-question with a false smile and made her escape.

She found the rowhouse again as though it had a homing beacon. She walked up to the front door this time, knocking the pattern she'd memorized the day before. A window in the door opened and suspicious, small - young - eyes stared at her.

The child vampire behind the door huffed loudly. "Robert, what did Miss Shellstrop say about the Slayer?"

"Tall," said a child she couldn't see. "Long hair, brown skin. Oh, um, very beautiful, but very snooty."

"I am not snooty!"

Beady eyes glinted at her. "It's her," the child said. "Come in, I guess." The window slammed shut; the door creaked open. By the time she stepped through, the two young - the two - the people were gone.

Doing her level best to ignore the incessant pricking in her neck, the Slayer equivalent of a five-alarm fire, Tahani crept forward.

She made it halfway down what looked to be an entry hall when Eleanor said, "No stakeout. I'm impressed."

She didn't jump, quite, but she did go very still. "Eleanor. Where - ah." Her eyes made out a slightly lighter shadow in the recess of the stairwell.

"You'll have to forgive Darnell and Robert," Eleanor said. "They're both very young, and I don't mean in vampire years."

And of course she had the temerity to sound angry, with a hardness in her voice and a tenseness about her frame that Tahani felt positively attacked by. She'd been told to come by, hadn't she, and so here she was: it seemed fairly straightforward to her, despite Eleanor's apparent hostility.

And the children. She'd said she didn't - or she'd implied she wasn't hurting them. How, then?

No. She was here to get the full story, a task that necessitated listening. She could do that, even if Eleanor was hostile, even if she was distracting.

Even if Tahani wanted to grab her and -

"Stop that," Eleanor said. "I can hear your heartbeat, and all your...humanity." She jerked her head towards the stairs. "Master bedroom's mine, come on."

Tahani moved to stand on the far side of the room while Eleanor locked the door. The room itself held a desk that was empty but for a cheap-looking laptop, and a wide bed with a heavy wood frame and a foam mattress. "Frame's old," Eleanor said when she saw Tahani looking at it. "I'm not sure it fits out the door."

"They'd build them in the room sometimes," Tahani said. "Or so history books tell me."

Eleanor smiled in that odd way she had, like there was some kind of joke Tahani wasn't yet included in. "Of course. So, here you are, in my evil lair. Someone told you about Grasso?"

"They described him a bit, yes. Some kind of - vampire mob boss."

"Cute. No, she was more than that. And less, in some ways." Eleanor paced from the door over to the bed, then back again, never fewer than two meters from Tahani. "Grasso was very old, and a real piece of work. When we get old, we tend to start feeling again. Like the demon's being poisoned by its human shell, you get it."

Tahani absolutely did not, but she nodded all the same.

"Grasso's been in Jersey since the first brick was laid. She's had her finger in every possible moneymaking activity over the years. Manufacturing, slave-catching, boating and shipping, you name it."

"I'm sorry, did you say -"

Eleanor cut her a look, a 'don't be stupid' kind of look. "She was a bad person, okay? A bad vampire. Whatever. She owns some strip clubs around here, an online escort service. What she planned for the kids was along those lines, but less savory."

Tahani thought of what one might do with eternally young-looking vampires and fought the urge to throw up.

"Exactly," Eleanor said. "And after that whole fiasco with the bitch Seal of Damaranth, quite a few of my old contacts aren't talking to me. I don't like living in squalor, and I figured not too many people would be pissed at me sending Grasso packing, so here I am."

Tahani opened her mouth, then closed it. She had the uncomfortable suspicion that she'd wind up being hit if she asked the most obvious question.

"And no, I'm not keeping the kids for business."

"I didn't think you were -"

"You did. It's fine. Vamps, man, am I right?" Eleanor held up a fist as though waiting for a phantom fist-bump. Tahani raised hers to the thin air, and, twelve meters apart, they executed an awkward mutual salute. "Anyway, there's nothing that can be done, they're fucked when it comes to aging. They'll be like that forever, all creepy and doll-like. But I can teach them to be people who won't turn into total monsters, so." She shrugged. "Here I am."

The story had holes. Tahani wasn't so dazzled that she couldn't see that. For starters - "How are you making money, then?"

"Cybercrime," Eleanor said, like it was obvious.

"That's...nice of you."

"It's expedient. I want to settle down for a couple decades."

Tahani wondered if Eleanor realized she was a piss poor liar. Maybe she didn't care; maybe she hadn't been a vampire long enough to learn what her demonic tells were.

But Tahani believed her about the children. She didn't believe that teaching them to hack or whatever it was Eleanor was doing could really be called responsible, or teaching them morals, but they hadn't acted afraid. Which meant Tahani owed Eleanor an apology.

Ugh.

Tahani put on her best Oh Look, It's My Good Friend Gwyneth look. "I owe you an apology, then. My sincerest apology: I misjudged the situation entirely."

"Oh, sure, that's why you look like you're ready to Ides of March me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Stab me. Right in the back, like -" Eleanor mimed the motion.

"Technically I think Caesar was stabbed all over."

Eleanor opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head. "Whatever, man." She walked over to the bureau and pulled a crystal bottle out. "Bourbon?"

"At eleven at night?"

"Why not?" She poured herself four fingers or so, far beyond what might be considered polite. "The kids are all right. Literally, in this case. Mission accomplished, so you can go do other Slayer stuff now."

The dismissiveness burned, even though she was technically correct. She wanted to say or do something to - what, exactly?

She couldn't kiss Eleanor again, and it wouldn't be sporting to stake her. So she nodded and went downstairs, instead.

It wasn't that late yet, so she headed towards the cemetery she'd begun in last night. The night was crisp and clear, the kind of late summer day that might more accurately be called early fall. The east coast of America might be crass and full of unsavory vampires, but this particular weather sent Tahani's blood pumping, making her feel like anything was possible.

A leaf fell in front of her. She realized the incongruity too late. A sneering face appeared in front of her. "Say night-night, Slayer."

"Oh, give me a fucking -"

The chloroform absorbed the rest of her objection.

-

She felt the pressure against her arms and legs first. The rope cut into her arms at painful angles; someone had trussed her ankles very thoroughly as well, pinning them against the pointy legs of her chair. It was competent work, done by someone who'd tied people up before.

Before she even opened her eyes, she felt cold down to the bone.

A sibilant voice said, "Wake up, Slayer. Your heartbeat's changed. You humans can't hide from us."

Right, then. She obeyed, then recoiled upon seeing a green, rotting face inches from her own.

The face had once belonged to a white woman of indeterminate age. Now, the power illuminating it from within laughed at Tahani, sending waves of stench over her. "Don't be such a girl. Didn't your Watcher tell you about necromancers?"

"Magic isn't my specialty." She did her best to sound calm, unaffected. "Necromancer, you say?"

"Technically speaking, just a witch." Another uncanny laugh. "It doesn't matter. You're not my main target." The corpse stood, lurching its way across the room. Tahani squinted in the low light - then winced as the screens on the far wall all turned on at once, showing a brilliantly sunny day outside.

Who was the witch trying to trap? Chidi? He wasn't foolish enough to just come charging in. "I'm not sure what you hope to get from this. The Council has training in hostage situations. Whoever told you this was a good idea, they probably wanted to get you in over your head."

A snorting corpse was apparently a horrible thing, all phlegm and squelching. "Just sit there. I'll get what I want."

"No, seriously. I'm honestly curious. What's your plan here? You have to know that if you give me even a moment's opportunity, I'm going to escape."

"Slayers," hissed the corpse. "So arrogant, every one of you."

That wasn't the explanation Tahani wanted, though. "If I wasn't a Slayer, would you be doing this? Is it a grudge towards us specifically, or -"

"Silence!"

Tahani wouldn't have obeyed, but a peculiar magic charge ran through her, painful but not unbearable, forcing her muscles to clench and her jaw to lock tight. The corpse hadn't so much as twitched a finger; the actual witch who was driving it was still nowhere to be seen.

The display of power might not have been deadly, but by the time the feeling faded, Tahani was well and truly terrified. Even as she began straining against the ropes, looking for weak spots or mistakes, she kept her mouth firmly shut.

She expected someone to retrieve her soon enough, though she was sure it wouldn't be Chidi himself. Consequently, when one of the cameras let out a boom and went dark, she wasn't surprised. "Slayers have powerful friends," she told the corpse.

The necromancer still controlled the corpse, but it didn't answer as it slouched over to a closet and pulled out a baseball bat.

Who was coming, that the necromancer thought the corpse could damage with a bat? But she got her answer a moment later, as someone burst into the room, slamming the door behind them and throwing the heavy blanket they wore off their body.

Shock was an odd thing. Tahani had learned to ignore it, to push through and finish whatever she needed to do: strike with the stake, decapitate the demon. Kill her now-possessed friend. But here she couldn't move, and so she had nothing to distract her from the utter, overwhelming shock she felt at seeing Eleanor staring at the corpse, face twisted, vicious teeth on full display.

The corpse moved too quickly, breaking the bat under its knees. And now Tahani understood: sharp wood in both hands, laughing with the necromancer's voice.

"You know," the corpse said, "we had a bet on. No one else believed you'd be so fooled by a Slayer, and an also-ran at that. The magic almost didn't touch her. We can see it."

"Bullshit," Eleanor said. "And, sidebar, I don't care. I'm here for Tahani, not to talk to some lieutenant of the damned."

"You're already damned, Eleanor of the Oaks."

"Oh, shut up, you pretentious piece of shit."

And then they fought.

Tahani had no hopes that Eleanor would win. The corpse throw magic at her even as it kept her physically repelled with the broken bat. Invisible claws slashed at Eleanor's shoulder; it healed almost right away the first time, but after the fourth or fifth time, the cut stayed, and Eleanor's movements began to slow.

No. No! She didn't give a fig if Eleanor was staked, but she really didn't want to stick around and find out what the necromancer had in store for her after that.

The ropes were strong and the knots were tight. She couldn't fiddle her way out of them, wouldn't have been able to if she'd spent twelve more hours trying. But she was still a Slayer.

She focused her power, concentrated as Chidi had taught her, and breathed long and slow.

Then she stood up, shattering the chair, the ropes falling to the ground.

Eleanor glanced at her and backed away - and then fell as her knees buckled, biting back a cry as she caught herself with her damaged shoulder.

Right. This had gone on long enough. Tahani walked over to the corpse, wrenching the bat from its hands. She felt magic begin to build around her, and so she took the bat and slammed it, pointy end first, into the corpse.

It fell. But as it lay on the ground, impaled and twitching about the limbs, she heard the necromancer laugh.

"Bloody lunatic," Tahani muttered. She turned to Eleanor. "Are you all right? This was really an unnecessary rescue, I promise you."

"It's my city now, this is my job." Eleanor pushed herself upright, nostrils flaring when Tahani knelt down next to her. "You should...back off."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Blood." Eleanor nodded down to Tahani's scraped-up wrists. "I'm real close to tweaking. Back up."

For a moment she thought of it: Eleanor sinking her teeth into Tahani's wrist, Tahani holding still, letting her do it. Trusting her. She knew it could feel good; why else would people sometimes give blood willingly? But -

Eleanor, feeding from her. Eleanor, bringing her to the edge, but not letting her go over. That was what she wanted: not the sensation, but the person she imagined giving it.

She was getting wet. It wouldn't do. She refocused her mind on the corpse, trying to recall every detail.

"I'm going to need to wait till nightfall," Eleanor said. "You go back to the hotel, make a report. We're gonna want an audit trail for this."

"Are you sure?"

"Just go," Eleanor snapped.

And so, for a second time, Tahani left Eleanor alone.

She hadn't been gone long enough for Chidi to send out a search party, but he knew something had happened as soon as he saw her. "You smell like a cemetery," he said. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, define it and I'll tell you." She shook her head. "A lot has happened."

Chidi eyed her with what Tahani privately thought of as his Watcher-face, careful and assessing. After a long moment, he nodded. "Get some sleep, then you can make a report. Unless the world's ending...?"

Tahani was starting to have her doubts, to be honest. "Not yet."

Six restless hours later, she sat at a table with Chidi, describing what she'd seen. "I know it's impossible, but - that body had power. Or was channeling it, I suppose, more accurately."

Chidi typed furiously. "I wouldn't say it's impossible. Improbable, certainly, but Council archives are full of impossible things. And I don't even mean the vampires."

She returned his smile half-heartedly. "In that case, something weird was going on. That corpse almost killed Eleanor."

"I know you say she's more intimidating when sober, but if a necromancer could control you, it's not surprising she could take on a single vampire."

Tahani opened her mouth, then shut it, trying to figure out how to explain. "She's stronger when she's sober," she said finally.

"You don't know the half of it, man."

Tahani jumped to see Eleanor in their doorway. She looked, Tahani couldn't help but note, much better: not as wan, not as sad. Stronger. Still pretty, in that short, weirdly young way. "How did you even get in?"

"Credible front desk staff." She held up a piece of paper. "Enough of that, though. You've got bigger problems."

"Tahani," Chidi said, very slowly, his gaze fixed on the paper. "Isn't Kamilah your sister's name?"

"Yes." Tahani stared at the cut-out letters, pasted on the page with brutal carelessness. "Yes, it is."

The message read only, KAMILAH SAYS HI. Below it was a Polaroid, showing Kamilah's loathsome, terrified face.

"Soooooo." Eleanor turned the message around. "We're really up shit creek, huh."

Tahani thought of the necromancer's magic and her throat closed up. "You could say that."

"Right." Eleanor tilted her head and regarded them both, birdlike. "Chidi, get that bitchy demon girlfriend of yours - no, don't even try to deny it, dude. You reek. Tahani?"

"Yes?"

Green eyes found hers, somehow mocking and serious, cold as ice yet warmly worried. "Where do we start?"

Chapter 3

"I really don't understand why it has to be here," Tahani said.

"Yeah, we should definitely tell the necromancer that when we find him," Eleanor said. "Like hey, buddy, thanks for nothing, kidnap Tahani's sister to a resort next time."

Tahani swatted away a fly, annoyed. Georgia was nothing like the songs had indicated. It was hot, swampy, and while not technically sunny at ten PM, it still reeked of life and light.

Normally she'd have enjoyed it. Growing up in England hadn't entirely acclimated her to doom and gloom. But right now...

Right now, it felt like betrayal.

Chidi, damn him, detected the direction of her thoughts with uncanny swiftness. He touched her elbow and murmured, "We'll find her, Eleanor, I promise."

"Gay," Vicki said from behind them.

As Eleanor cackled, Tahani said, "That doesn't even make sense, you tiresome - demon!"

"You know calling me a demon isn't insulting, right?" Vicki said. "It's kind of my whole reason for existence."

"Ugh," Tahani said, and hastened her pace.

They'd been searching for Kamilah for three days. She knew Kamilah was still alive, because every night the necromancer sent an envoy to their motel room to mock them and drop hints. But they hadn't yet closed in on her. Locater spells had gone nowhere; they were down, once again, to detective work alone.

Well, detective work and two annoying demons.

"I'm bored," Vicki said. "Can I torture that guy?"

"That man is sleeping on a bench," Chidi said, "so I think we can both agree he's having a hard enough day."

Vicki sighed theatrically. "You take the fun out of everything."

But she was being affectionate, in that weird demony way, and Tahani suspected she didn't really mean it about torturing the homeless man - or at least, she wouldn't go through with it, even if doing so would've satisfied her implacable bloodlust. She had attached herself to Chidi and understood his moral code perfectly well.

It all struck Tahani as being deeply, deeply creepy. And yet she'd only rarely seen Chidi laugh this much, even if half the time it was from being so incorrigibly appalled. That fact was the only thing stopping her from carving Vicki's heart out.

Well, all right, that fact and their arcane no-harm bargain. But still. Tahani allowed Vicki to stay because she wanted to see more of Chidi's smiles. She was a good Slayer, devoted and true.

Maybe if she told herself that often enough, she'd forget what a poor sister she'd been.

She was about to suggest they widen their radius when Eleanor stiffened and threw a hand out. "Wait, all of you."

"What is it?"

"I can sense...something." She flared her nostrils and inhaled deeply. "It smells like you, but it's not you. There's more...patchouli? And, ugh, natural deodorant." She whirled around and stalked towards a nearby shop. It had closed for the night, but its sign advertised ATLANTA'S BEST SHRIMP 'N' GRITS.

"Atlanta's best, my ass," Eleanor said. "Necromancers can only cook long pig."

And she kicked the door open to the sound of screams.

It should have occurred to Tahani to stop her. She'd learned firsthand how dangerous this necromancer was; she knew that impulsive door-kicking was not the way to rescue her sister. But in the moment, the damage was done, and all she could do was rush into the fray.

"Downstairs!" Eleanor shouted. She moved too quickly again, breaking necks, kicking people aside. Tahani kicked a glowing rock from a witch's hand and dropped her with a punch, then whirled to stake a vampire who'd thought to sneak up on her. They advanced down the stairs, Chidi and Vicki bringing up the rear, Vicki spattered in - ugh, were those intestines? Why were demons so gross?

"Hello, Tahani," said a low female voice in Tahani's ear.

Her heart began pounding in her chest. "Who are you? What -"

"Come down here. I've grown bored of your sister." Amusement colored the necromancer's voice. "I've decided to let you go. For now."

"We're going to kill you."

"Dude, what the hell," Eleanor hissed. Tahani tapped her skull, then pointed at the stairs leading to the basement.

"Ohhhh. We can deal with that." Eleanor flipped a knife in her hand, then made her way down the stairs.

But Tahani heard only laughter in her head. "Darling, you won't catch me," the necromancer said. A screech, like metal dragging against stone, made Tahani lurch to the side, holding her ear.

"Damn it!" she heard Eleanor shout. She rushed to follow, taking the stairs down two at a time.

"Cursing will not ameliorate your pain," Kamilah told Eleanor, looking hale and healthy and annoying as ever.

Well, all right, and chained to a chair. Eleanor gritted her teeth and walked over, breaking the chair's back and one leg, so that the chains fell to the ground.

"Thank you," Kamilah said, and stood, shaking the iron chains off as though they were mere silk scarves.

Eleanor pointed a finger at Kamilah. "Yak it up, mini-Plato, I'll cuss my way into the sunset if I want to."

"As you are a vampire," Kamilah said, "I imagine you wouldn't make it very far. Hello, Tahani."

"Kamilah."

"You can leave now. I've arranged for transit from my coven."

"What, are they going to fly you home on their broomsticks?" Eleanor said.

"Naturally not. They're wiring me funds."

"Hold on a second," Tahani said, "since when do you have a coven?"

Kamilah looked at her with that studied blandness that she'd perfected in sixth form. "Why, Tahani, you can't imagine you were the only sister with occult leanings. Although, it must be admitted, developing magical talent through diligent study is a bit different from being caught by vicissitudinous ancient magics."

For a moment Tahani sat again in the solicitor's office, listening to her parents' careless last words. For a moment she felt the phantom ache from where she'd punched through the marble wall, two days before Chidi had found her.

Then she was back in the present, with a very complicated life that, whatever its other failures, involved a minimum of her sister's superiority complex. "Right. Well, off you go then. I'm going to look for clues."

"She swept the room before she left. I wish I could provide you with a description, but I'm afraid she was only ever here through her...mouthpiece."

"Another body," Tahani said. "Of course."

"You're welcome to look, though," Kamilah said - as though Tahani would ever dream of asking for permission for such a thing! She opened her mouth to say as much, but Kamilah was already swanning up the stairs, head held high, not looking like a hostage at all.

"Guess we'd better wait until she's gone, huh," Eleanor said. "So you guys don't have to do anymore sisterly bonding?"

Tahani thought that might be Eleanor trying to be sympathetic. Certainly, she looked a bit softer, under all the gore from the people she'd ripped apart.

She couldn't bring herself to even really care, much less be grateful. She looked away, studying the rest of the basement with deliberate focus.

"Tahani." Chidi's voice this time, quiet in that way that meant he knew she needed space. "Let's go."

-

Atlanta's second highest rated Best Western didn't currently host many night owls, thankfully; they encountered no one as they slipped down the hallway, still covered in blood. Tahani let Eleanor have first shower, saying, "It'll be dawn soon anyway, I know how much you hate staying up after your bedtime." Eleanor had bared her teeth in response, but in an almost gleeful way, as though she hoped Tahani would try to fight her.

Honestly, she was demented. Because she was a vampire. Tahani never quite forgot, but she kept having to remind herself of that very basic, very dangerous fact.

She needed to talk to Chidi. At a time when he wasn't having intimate relations with a demon.

Eleanor fell into a deep sleep the moment dawn began pressing against the shades. Tahani, however, lay awake and worried. They'd disposed of their bloody clothes; housekeeping wouldn't find them, crammed into the dumpster as they were. The necromancer, well, letting her escape wasn't the best strategy, but they'd deal with her. There was no real reason to be struck with insomnia.

Kamilah was a witch now. Damn her, anyway. Tahani just wanted this one thing, and -

Vicissitudinous ancient magics, her mind whispered with Kamilah's mocking, perfect enunciation.

She was a good Slayer. She was.

Not good enough to catch this necromancer, though. Not good enough to be given an assignment more important than the usual traveling from city to city, killing low-level vampires.

Ugh. She rolled out of bed, wrapping herself in her robe and grabbing a few dollar bills from the neat stack on the dresser. If she couldn't sleep, she could at least get a sparkling water - or, more realistically, some tooth-rottingly sweet soda.

She heard the banging before she found its source: a slow, rhythmic slap, reminiscent of an enchanted demon's last struggles. Hand on her knife, she approached the alcove that held the vending machines.

Kamilah stood there, slapping the vending machine and muttering incoherently. Tahani would've preferred the vampire. "What are you doing here?" she snapped.

Kamilah stiffened and turned her head so slowly that for a moment, Tahani was worried she was enchanted. But no, that was a Kamilah expression on her face, annoyed and unbearably superior. "I could ask you the same."

"I thought your oh-so-powerful friends were flying you out on the next chartered jet."

Kamilah glared at her. "Buy your adult cavity and leave me be."

"Oh, very mature," Tahani said. She purchased the plain water, cursing herself. "I don't suppose you're following us because the necromancer still has you under her spell."

Kamilah locked her jaw and looked at the wall past Tahani's shoulder.

Of course, Tahani knew exactly what was going on. Kamilah was alone, likely penniless until she could get back to England. Her friends had left her here - or perhaps she'd never had those friends to begin with. Tahani found it almost tragically easy to believe that narrative. Kamilah had always been charming, but get to know her, and she was a viper.

A pathetic viper, currently. "I'm trying not to rub this in," Tahani said.

"You're not doing a very good job of it." Like everything else, her tone said.

Tahani wanted to fire back. This was familiar, the mutual frustration, the back-and-forth sniping. She knew how to do this. She was good at it. But even as she opened her mouth to deliver a cutting setdown, she thought of Chidi, his huge glasses and utterly ridiculous insistence that Tahani was a hero.

Random magic. It was only random magic.

"You'd better stay with us, then," she found herself saying.

Kamilah's eyes widened. "Me? Stay with you? Here?"

"Yes, well, I know it's not quite what you're accustomed to, but -"

"Oh, as if Father and Mother didn't ensure you'd also be able to afford appropriate accommodations."

"I don't have Father and Mother's money," Tahani said, "and besides, this is - easier."

"I'm sure."

It would have been nice to note the sarcasm, make it obvious it wasn't welcome, and send Kamilah on her miserable way. But now that Tahani had decided to be decent, she felt oddly compelled to stay the course; consequently, she only said, "If you choose to stay, you'll understand why. But you do need a place to sleep. Follow me."

Turn and walk, not looking back to see if Kamilah followed: it was a classic move communicating confidence, one taught to both of them by comportment instructors many years ago. And it worked. When Tahani returned to her and Eleanor's room, Kamilah stood right behind her.

"There's a pullout bed," Tahani said. "Never mind the vampire. She won't wake 'till dusk."

"You'll need to sleep too." Kamilah examined the cot with clear disgust. "Or are Slayers beyond such things?"

"Of course we're not. You're certainly not, either, whatever else you might be." Tahani drank half her water, lay down in bed, and turned her back to Kamilah. "Goodnight."

"I'm a witch," Kamilah said quietly. But when Tahani didn't choose to continue the argument, silence fell. It remained until dusk.

Then, Tahani woke to the sound of Eleanor saying, "Look what the overly moralistic cat dragged in."

"Tahani," Kamilah said, "could you please deal with your - vampire?"

"She's not my vampire," Tahani said, even as Eleanor said, "The only thing that owns me is bloodlust, sister, and right now it's cracking the whip right at you."

"I think she's threatening to kill me." Kamilah sounded exquisitely bored. "Did you plan to ring for service? I'm hungry."

"Did you ring for service, pip pip," Eleanor said, exaggerating her vowels clownishly. "It's the Best Western, princess. We'll get eggs at the diner down the street."

"You're a charming example of vampirism."

Tahani had only seen Eleanor with her teeth out a handful of times. She didn't expose them now, but something in her sneer at Kamilah hinted at them. "And you're a charming example of humanity. You reek, by the way. You should take a shower."

Once Kamilah was safely ensconced in the bathroom, Eleanor said, "You can't possibly expect me to put up with her."

"It's not like you like me, either. She's just...another me."

For a moment she believed she'd said something very wrong. Fury passed over Eleanor's face, along with...well, it looked a bit like hurt. But of course that couldn't be true, and it was gone as soon as Tahani blinked. "I like you just fine," Eleanor said. "For a human, anyway."

"Well, then. You'll just have to deal with one more of us."

"Charming," Eleanor said. "I can't wait until this necromancer is dealt with. I'm going to buy a villa in Russia and spend the next...how long do you have? Ten years? In it."

She might as well have pressed ice against Tahani's spine. Tahani looked away, scrolling through her phone instead. Eleanor didn't apologize; Tahani didn't ask her to. It was almost a relief when Kamilah returned to justify the awkwardness.

Over breakfast, Chidi laid out his suspicion that the necromancer had left town. "Whoever they are, I wouldn't stick around town if you were gunning for me." He ignored Vicki and Eleanor's dramatic eye-rolling, grinning at Tahani.

"That's sweet," Tahani said. "But there's a 'but', isn't there."

"Of course." Chidi's smile grew strained. "The Council disagrees with my assessment of the situation, and has asked us to stay here. Ordered us. They've ordered us."

"And of course you're going to do what they say," Vicki said.

Ah, so they'd argued about this earlier. Tahani raised her eyebrows. "I could call my good friend, Buffy, to ask for intercession. But..."

"They pay my salary," Chidi said. "And generally speaking, we save our goodwill for the big stuff."

"Does this not count as big?" Eleanor said. She sounded genuinely curious, though of course Tahani knew her to be an accomplished liar.

Tahani looked around the table. Kamilah had fading bruises all over her neck and chin; the way she kept her shoulders covered suggested they didn't end at the collar, either. Vicki looked, if anything, even more unnervingly bloodthirsty than she had last night. Chidi was staring at his hands, the familiar and not at all comforting furrow back in his brow.

Eleanor looked directly at Tahani. If someone had set off a bomb in the next booth, Tahani wasn't convinced Eleanor would look away. As vampires went, Eleanor was unimpressive. Why, then, did Tahani feel so terrified?

"Not yet," she managed to say. She picked at the napkin in her lap, squeezing her hands together where no one could see her, willing herself to believe her own words. "When it is, we'll know."

-

"This is boring," Eleanor said. "I'm bored. Why didn't you take Chidi?"

"He's human, and physically vulnerable." Tahani punched the very tall, male vampire attempting to rip her throat out.

"You're one of those things." Eleanor tapped her foot against the gravestone she was perched on top of. "Case in point."

The vampire picked that moment to throw her ten feed. Tahani tucked and rolled, as she'd been taught, and came up with a knife in her hand. "Foolish, foolish Slayer," the vampire crooned. "You think a knife can kill me?"

"You know, if you're worried, you could help," Tahani told Eleanor. She flipped the knife and threw it, catching the vampire directly in his left eye socket. As he howled from the pain, she ducked inside his reach and staked him.

"It's more fun this way," Eleanor said as Tahani wiped the knife clean on the grass.

Something in Eleanor's tone made Tahani look up. For a moment she felt caught like that, kneeling on the ground, knife in hand, as Eleanor regarded her with an utterly unreadable expression. For a moment she imagined that regard turning into touching, imagined Eleanor leaving the top of the tombstone to pull Tahani down on the ground and -

"Let's keep going," Tahani said, leaping to her feet. "These vampires aren't going to stake themselves."

"Not unless they're super depressed, anyway."

They kept on like that, the tense moment decidedly broken. Tahani told herself she ought to be glad.

That morning, Kamilah coolly informed them that she'd be sleeping in her own motel room for the foreseeable future. Tahani told herself that she didn't care about her sister gaining access to her inherited fortune; it would've been better if Kamilah had left Atlanta altogether. But, as she told Tahani, "I intend to see this whole thing through, and ensure my captor is sufficiently dealt with."

Tahani was a Slayer. Of course she'd deal with it. But she only smiled and told Kamilah she'd see her in the afternoon.

She was settling down for a quiet seven hours of sleep when she heard the tell-tale noises of fabric rustling and tiny gasps. Tahani had gone to a girls' boarding school; she knew clandestine sexual activity when it aurally assaulted her. "Would you stop that?" she snapped. "You don't even need to breathe."

"It's more fun this way." Eleanor laughed, low and wicked. She stopped breathing, but it didn't matter; Tahani could hear the sheets still, the slick movements, the - oh god, Eleanor would have to be really wet to make those noises. Tahani pressed her thighs together and told herself no.

"Fuck," Eleanor whispered from the other bed.

It was so hard not to think about: Eleanor's hands on her own tits, pinching her nipples, fucking herself. The smell of arousal was heavy in the air now, and Tahani wanted to touch herself so badly that she all but shook with it. She pressed her thighs together - but that only made her more aware of how badly she ached.

Oh, forget it. She'd do what she'd done at boarding school.

Touching her clit felt like it might set off sparks. She moved as quickly and quietly as she could, even as she knew there was no hiding from Eleanor. When Eleanor laughed, low and knowing, it just spurred her on, added to the wicked feeling of slipping fingers inside herself, fucking herself as quietly as possible, getting closer and closer -

"Ahhhh," Eleanor said, a long exhalation that turned into a moan. And humiliatingly, that was what did it for Tahani: she came, clenching her jaw, heart pounding in her chest.

A long pause. Then: "Hey, can vampires get yeast infections? 'Cause let me tell you, it smells funky over here."

Tahani groaned.

-

Kamilah sat across from Tahani in the Denny's booth, clearing her throat delicately. "I told the others we'd be eating privately. Sisterly bonding time, you know."

Tahani didn't bother pointing out how unlikely that was. She said, "Remember that time you mocked my good grades by pointing out that being proud of my scores was tantamount to approval of English empire?"

Kamilah didn't so much as flinch. She never had. "I was going through a phase."

"You're still going through a phase, I've read your poetry." Tahani sighed. "I just...a fringe benefit of being a Slayer was supposed to be, you know." There was no way to put this delicately. "Freedom from you always being better, always being there."

Kamilah stared at the table. Perhaps she'd never seen a vinyl surface before; Tahani found the thought depressingly plausible. "I'm your sister. Shouldn't I always be there?"

The words were so far outside what Tahani had expected her to say that for a moment she simply didn't process them. Of course then she did, and they were nothing short of appalling. "You can't be serious."

"When have you known me to say things I don't mean?"

"When have I known you to be possessed of a sisterly feeling?"

"You can deny it if you want." Kamilah sounded like she'd expect nothing less, or more. "But I thought we'd have more time to...reconcile. And now you could die at any moment. See it from my point of view, would you? I'm trying to get to know you again."

It was a hell of a speech, as delicately manipulative as Tahani had ever heard from Kamilah. It made her think that perhaps Kamilah really meant it; she didn't generally bother to manipulate people she didn't care about.

What a thought. But she might as well test it. After all, Kamilah was right: she could die tomorrow. Or tonight.

"Right," Tahani said. "I don't suppose Denny's sells margaritas."

"No. Why?"

Tahani ignored the prickly, suspicious look on Kamilah's face in favor of grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. With Tahani's Slayer strength, Kamilah had no choice but to go along with it. "We're going out," she said, and waved to Eleanor, sitting in a nearby booth with Chidi and Vicki. "Eleanor. Where's the nearest dive bar?"

Eleanor smiled slowly, teeth glinting in the fluorescent lights. "Why, Slayer, I thought you'd never ask."

An hour later, Tahani bit back laughter as Kamilah examined her neon pink drink with open suspicion. "A non-Newtonian fluid shouldn't behave this way."

"What, the dancing bits? They're totally not enchanted maggots from another dimension. Don't worry about it." Eleanor tossed her own drink back. "Hey, where'd Chidi go?"

"He's in the back with his skank," Kamilah said.

"Kamilah!" Tahani said. "Feminism!" And preservation of her brain, ugh, she didn't want to think about that.

Also, she'd already had one of the not-maggot drinks, so perhaps she was a bit sloshed. Speaking of - "Eleanor. Eleanor! Pay attention to me!" Men and demons both already ogled Kamilah. The least Eleanor could do was not follow the trend.

"Yes, dear?"

Tahani ought to have paid heed to that treacle-poison tone. She didn't, of course. "I meant to say, I meant a human bar, not - whatever this is."

"Humans, meh. Aren't you worried I'd take a bite out of them?"

"I know you're young, but you're not that young."

"What about Vicki? That bitch is old as the hills. In a human bar without the standard demony no-harm rules, she'd clean up. In terms of murders."

That might have been preferable to Chidi putting his lips all over her, but Tahani wasn't yet drunk enough to say that outright. "I don't know if I can be responsible here." Whoops, that wasn't exactly non-embarrassing. "I mean, with the demons, if one of them goes to pull Kamilah's intestines out -"

"I can set it on fire," Kamilah said. She downed her maggot-drink in one go.

"Niiiice! Dude, she totally is competition," Eleanor said, clapping Kamilah on the back.

That was fine, Tahani told herself. For once, she didn't care.

"Another drink!" she called to the bartender. "And then...karaoke."

The bar had strobes and a jukebox that would try to kill you if you got too many lyrics wrong. Chidi begged Tahani not to try it; she did three NSYNC songs in a row. Eleanor drank and drank and drank, a truly awe-inspiring amount.

She was a sloppy drunk. Tahani found herself making excuses for her, steering angered demons away from her, holding her hair when she vomited over the club balcony into a potted plant on the stairs. The night passed in a blur of alcohol and poorly considered decisions, and Tahani almost wrote it all off and slipped away early.

There she stood, alcohol coursing through her veins, on the threshold of a demonic establishment. But she glanced over at the wrong time, to see Chidi telling what she knew was one of his ridiculously overly complex demon-academia jokes, and Eleanor...

Eleanor was laughing, fueling Chidi's delight, slamming back her drink as Chidi gesticulated and strobe lights danced over both of them.

Chidi looked so happy. Eleanor looked so - loose, almost normal. And Tahani, oh, Tahani was a complete and utter fucking idiot, because in that moment she wanted Eleanor more than she'd ever wanted anything short of never having been a Slayer to begin with.

She didn't leave. She couldn't. But she did drink more, then, chasing oblivion with singleminded determination.

-

At first, when she woke to the smell she thought it was simply an odd hallucination related to her aching head.

Then her senses focused, and her healing kicked in, and she realized Eleanor wasn't in her bed.

She was out of bed and across the room before she'd fully processed it. Eleanor knelt on the floor in the bathroom doorway, holding her side. Based on the blood leaking through her fingers, her grip was the only thing keeping her guts inside her body.

"What happened," Tahani said flatly, dropping to her knees next to Eleanor.

But Eleanor recoiled. "Don't. Get too close. I'll -"

"Bite me? I'd like to see you try, in your state."

"Two thousand years," Eleanor said. "I could do it."

Two thousand years of what? "Maybe you should." She must be still drunk; she felt oddly calm as the pieces fell into place. "You've been attacked. You need blood."

It could only be true. Eleanor was even paler than usual, her face covered in cuts, deep scores like claw marks down both arms. Blood soaked her jeans and the carpet below her, and she stank of urine. She was very obviously not long for this world.

And yet she held herself perfectly still, not even trembling, face angled away from Tahani.

Impulse guided her. She wasn't sleeping in long pajamas in Atlanta, so it was easy enough to put her bare wrist in Eleanor's face, to press it against her lips when she tried to move away.

"Don't," Eleanor said, breathy yet furious.

"You need blood." Hungover she might be, but Tahani understood that. "Here's some. Take it. Drink it."

"I could die." She sounded desperate to do so, actually. "What happens if I die, Tahani? Won't you celebrate?"

"Stop that."

But she could hear the weakness in her own voice. Eleanor must have too, because she smirked and said, "So hurry up and let me."

No. Not yet. Not ever in Tahani's lifetime, surely, but definitely not before they'd gotten rid of the necromancer. In that moment she thought she understood Eleanor. She was hedonistic, selfish, and ridiculous, but even as she insisted otherwise, she wasn't ready to die.

And so Tahani twisted, grabbed the knife on the bedside table, and slit her own wrist.

"No!" But it was too late. Even as she choked out the objection, Eleanor moved so quickly that Tahani only registered it after she began to suck her blood. She did it so neatly, too, licking to sterilize and then sucking, not even sinking her fangs in - though they were there, pressing against Tahani's wrist, and her forehead had gone ridged.

She didn't want to like it. In fact the thought repulsed her. But Eleanor held onto her with easy competence, and vampire saliva had sedative properties, and Tahani...drifted.

For a moment, she felt safe. She wasn't, of course. But arousal filled her, making her pliant, interested, grateful, even. Eleanor was so strong, taking such good care of her, as she licked Tahani's wrist until the wound began to close, held Tahani as she shook in near-orgasm.

Ah, no. As Tahani's mind began to clear again, she saw the other side of it. Eleanor still held her wrist in one hand, one shaking hand.

When Eleanor met Tahani's eyes, Tahani saw what her blood had given Eleanor: not just healing, but also power. She all but glowed with it; when Tahani tried to pull her wrist away, she found Eleanor's grip stronger than ever, implacable against Tahani's own strength.

"Slayer," Eleanor hissed, and then her eyes really did glow.

"Um," Tahani said. How could one even reply? "I'd really appreciate it if you'd let me go, now."

Eleanor laughed. It wasn't her normal laugh, low and shallow. This laugh spoke of age, and spite, and terror. "I'm sure you would, Slayer. You'd like me to tuck all my power back inside and keep pretending. A housecat instead of a lion."

Tahani practiced self-control by not pointing out what a ridiculous statement that was. Instead, she said, "Eleanor. Come to your senses, please, and let me go."

"No. You're going to forget this, Tahani." Glowing eyes caught hers, and she couldn't look away. "You'll forget that you saved my life, and you'll forget what happened after. We were both drunk. We came back to the motel and went to sleep."

The power in Tahani shifted discontentedly at that version of events. "I wouldn't have wanted to sleep."

A pressure asserted itself in her mind, creating a horrible, heavy weight. "We went to sleep."

"Being a twit about it won't make it true," Tahani snapped. "Let me go!"

Before Eleanor could respond, someone in the doorway chuckled.

"Did you like my hound, Eleanor?"

Eleanor's grip on Tahani slackened. She closed her eyes, her skin growing sallow. "Fuck off," she breathed through suddenly cracked lips.

"Oh, I don't think I shall." The figure moved inside. It had once been a woman; now it was a fetid collection of skin and fat hanging off yellowed bones.

The necromancer, Tahani thought, swallowing back bile. "Leave us," she said, leaping to her feet. "Now."

She had a split second of freedom while the corpse lifted its hand. She used it to shout, "Chidi! Get in here now!"

Then green fire shot from the corpse's hand, hitting her square in the chest. She flew backwards, smacked her head on the wall, and fell.

She didn't pass out. It might have been better if she had. The magic kept her paralyzed; she had no control over her body. She couldn't stop the corpse from breaking Chidi's arm when he came charging in with an axe. She couldn't stop it from snapping Vicki's neck once, then again when Vicki healed and resumed her attack. And she couldn't stop it from reaching out to Eleanor and absorbing all her Slayer's power, rendering Eleanor helpless and then unconscious, picking up her - not dead, Tahani thought, please not dead - body and carrying her out of the hotel.

Chapter 4

"I don't want to be that person who points out the obvious," Vicki said in a supremely unrepentant tone, "but whether Eleanor's alive or not, your last rescue attempt didn't exactly go well."

"And that one was our problem," Chidi said, "since Kamilah's your sister. I'm not sure this should be our lookout at all."

For a moment, Tahani saw red. "She got taken with me! I'm the Slayer! This is my job!"

She only realized she'd been manipulated when she saw Chidi's slight smile, the approval in his expression. "Yes, well done, you've nagged me into caring," she said. "But Eleanor might be dead. And all I saw was -" A corpse. It'd been horrible, deliberately so, Tahani thought. "She's really powerful," Tahani said. "And I don't know what she'd want with Eleanor."

"Wow," Vicki said. "Seriously?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Vicki snorted. "Okay, yeah, sure. Pull the other one."

"No, seriously," Chidi said. "No one here understands what you're trying to say."

"I thought you'd all just gone along with it, so it wouldn't be weird. I figured she'd asked you to."

"Seriously, what are you talking about?" Tahani said. "Eleanor's just some random asshole. The problem is that the necromancer knows she's -" Important to me. Yikes. "- close to a Slayer."

Vicki rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh. Let me assure you, Eleanor of the Oaks, three thousand year old vampire of legendary power, is not 'some random asshole'."

"Oh, my God," Chidi said faintly.

"What does that mean?" Vicki's words sank in. "Wait, three thousand years old? That can't be true."

"I assure you, it is," Vicki said. "That's also the last time I was in your stinking dimension, and she's just like I remember. Well, angstier."

"She acts like an adolescent!"

"Yeah, like I said," Vicki said. "Angst."

"That can't be true," Tahani said again. She'd repeat it until Vicki admitted she was lying. She was right, she knew. She had to be.

"Tahani," Chidi said. "It might be."

"Might be? That's no way to talk about someone who's had her fingers in your -"

"How do you know?" Tahani said, before Vicki could finish and traumatize her permanently.

Chidi made a face, but said, "Eleanor of the Oaks is a well known character in Slayer mythology. She tried to kill two slayers for invading her territory in Hungary way back in 1100."

"Eleven hundred."

"She was pretty old by then, already known to us."

"Did they...I mean. Her territory?"

"Absorbed into Győr some time ago. She evaded capture."

Tahani knew the history of the Slayers well enough to be familiar with the old, somewhat more warlike ways. It still sent a shiver through her to think of one of her predecessors driving an innocent woman out -

No, not an innocent woman! A vampire. An evil, murderous vampire. "I thought vampires that old got all, you know." She waved at the face to indicate deformed ugliness. "Weird."

"Like the Master, you mean? Sometimes they do. Eleanor of the Oaks was rumored to be a witch, and she avoided a lot of the darker stuff the Master was known for."

"Avoids," Tahani said. "Present tense. She's alive, and we're going to get her back."

"I should really back away from this," Vicki said, staring into space. "Like, no dick is worth this. No offense, Chidi."

"Don't worry, I very much agree."

"I could call my sister, she's probably still got a sweet job as a torturer. They still torture people, right?"

"Um," Tahani said. "It's against the Geneva convention."

"Ha! Humans. I love you." She finally looked down, then, her gaze passing between Chidi and Tahani. "Oh, look at that face. That longing, the naked pain." She touched Chidi's cheek.

Tahani did her best not to gag, but honestly: how ridiculous. Chidi wasn't even crying.

"All right, you pulled my arm," Vicki said. "I'm on Team Rescue, or whatever."

She only saw it for a moment before Chidi locked his expression down: a cheery, contented fondness, affection that extended beyond Vicki's transparent attempts to portray this as a torrid, sex-only affair.

Oh, Tahani thought. Oh. Her chest felt oddly constricted. Yet of course she was happy for Chidi. Of course. He deserved to be happy, even if the thought sent a poisonous thought through her, whispering in a tone that vaguely resembled Eleanor's voice: no one deserved to be happy, not really. The world didn't hand out happiness in exchange for good deeds.

No, Tahani thought, pushing back at the invisible toxin. Chidi deserved happiness! He really did.

The universe, or Eleanor, or her own conscience, provided no answer. So she forced a smile and tuned back into the conversation.

"- want to tell your sister?"

"Sorry?"

Chidi gave her the Look of a teacher who knew when his student wasn't listening. "Do you want to tell your sister to fly back home?"

"She's determined to see it through." And Tahani felt a kneejerk kind of defensiveness at the idea that she might not. Sisterly loyalty, now that was really new.

"If she finds out we're dealing with at least once ancient witch who's also a vampire, she might change her mind."

"He's saying get out so I can sit on his dick," Vicki said.

"This is my room!" Tahani howled. But Vicki was taking her bra off, and while Chidi's sense of duty and decorum hadn't entirely deserted him, it clearly wasn't as strong as it could be.

Demons! They ruined everything. Tahani stomped out, trying not to feel too grateful for the momentary distraction from whether or not Eleanor was even still alive.

She found Kamilah sitting on her bed, legs crossed, meditating. There was no doubt as to her activity; she was tediously obvious about it, wearing flowy silks and crossing her legs, holding her fingers at an affected angle. Tahani poked her and said, "Don't pretend I'm just a mote of dust in your mind, or anything. I know you can hear me."

Kamilah cracked one eye open. "Eleanor's been taken."

Her room shared a wall with Tahani's own; there was no reason to assume clairvoyance had led her to that conclusion. "So she has."

"By...the necromancer."

"Whose identity and location remain secret, yes. Chidi says I'm to -"

"Try to send me back to London. I know." Kamilah closed her eye. "I won't do it."

"That's what I said."

"I know."

"You're not making this very easy!"

"I know that, too." Kamilah sighed, then opened both eyes. "Tahani, I can't leave. I'm tangled up in this. If she can kidnap an ancient vampire, she can dispose of me, too."

"Okay, now I know you were eavesdropping."

Once, Tahani had flown into a fury to see the kind of smile Kamilah wore now, sly and self-satisfied. It barely signified just then. "Magically, though."

"That's impressive." She was a little surprised to realize she meant it. "So you're going to stay and help?"

"If you'll have me."

And oh, she meant that, and it hurt. Neither of them had been raised to abandon family. Tahani had done more of the abandonment than she really wanted to admit. "Of course."

Kamilah rose with enviable grace - and Tahani, naturally, did envy it. But for once, the envy was distant to other, more urgent emotions. Like - oh, God. Eleanor had been taken. Eleanor might be dead!

"Tahani? Tahani," Kamilah said with no minor urgency.

And then Tahani appalled them both by bursting into tears.

"There, there," Kamilah said, awkwardly poking Tahani's shoulder. "I don't...is this...? Don't cry. Please, really, it's very - ah. There, there."

"I thought she was - she could've been a friend!" More than a friend. No, that wasn't a thought to share. "And now she's probably dead, or being tor - tor - tortured!"

"It's unlikely she's dead this early on," Kamilah said, which of course wasn't comforting at all. "And she's smart, anyway, and - what's that on your wrist?"

Much too late, Tahani realized that the wounds Eleanor had left - and that she herself had made - weren't quite healed. Vampire bite marks were distinctive, and there was no pretending this one had any other origin. "It's not what it looks like."

"We can leave her to the necromancer, then," Kamilah said in a high, furious voice. "I can see she deserves it."

"Are you being protective?"

"I'm capable of it, you know, Tahani."

"That's not the point!" She had to focus. "Something attacked - I should have realized it was a trap. I offered her my blood, because she was bleeding out after protecting me."

"You're the Slayer." Patent disbelief, now. "You don't need protecting."

It would have been utterly ridiculous for that to hurt her, so Tahani didn't let it. She said, "From this, I did, apparently. But it wasn't coercion. I offered."

"Moon and stars," Kamilah said. "You love her."

"I - what! That's preposterous. I don't - I wouldn't - she might be dead!"

"You can love the dead."

Tahani didn't say the first three insensitive things that came to mind at that. Instead, she shook her head. "We don't have time for this. I don't even know how we're going to find her."

"Ah," Kamilah said. Her eyes gleamed with subterfuge, then, and Tahani felt concern curl around her. "Now, see, about that. You've given us an opportunity."

-

Blood magic.

Tahani knew what the Watcher's Council would say, were any of them to lower themselves to come to Atlanta in person. They'd screech and wail about probably threaten all four of them with death or imprisonment. The Council liked to play at somber generational responsibility, but Tahani had grown up in the finest schools Europe had to offer: she knew buttoned-down hysteria when she saw it.

Fortunately for them and fortunately for the Council's collective blood pressure readings, they did this work alone. Or, rather, Kamilah did the work. She set up the circle and ordered Chidi and Vicki to stay out of it. She had to re-open Tahani's wound to smear a few drops of blood on a quartz crystal, but after that she didn't so much as glance at Tahani as she finished her preparations, burning herbs and sprinkling grave dirt around. Finally, she settled in the center of her magical circle, opened a book, closed her eyes -

Ignored Vicki's derisive snort -

And began to chant.

Kamilah had learned Latin in school. Tahani had meant to, but it had fallen by the wayside as she'd grown older. She felt a boob, standing there and watching her sister work. The crystal beginning to glow was a welcome distraction from that old, too-familiar feeling of itchy inadequacy.

Kamilah opened her eyes. For a moment they were utterly black. Then she blinked and said, "She's north of here, in a town called Mardle Beach."

"Myrtle Beach," Vicki said. "I killed, like, six CEOs in that town."

"It's an area known to the Council as possessing high levels of demonic activity." Chidi nodded. "And it's by a large body of water, which of course a necromancer would find useful."

"Any witch would." Kamilah smiled. It looked more like baring her teeth.

Tahani cleared her throat. "Right, then," she said, trying to sound both upbeat and in charge - which she was! She was the Slayer! "Shall we drive there, or do you think the Council will spring for a flight?"

"Drive," Kamilah said.

"I'm actually not sure we should tell the Council we're doing this."

"Chidi!" Tahani put a hand to her chest, feeling as though a horse had kicked her. "You're advocating lying? To authority figures?"

It could have passed for a joke, perhaps, but she didn't mean it as one and knew Chidi was aware of that. He said, "To get someone important back. You've already lost too much," and every word pressed into Tahani's chest like a block of stone.

Kamilah and Vicki, she noticed, weren't looking at them anymore.

Three years ago he never would've done this. Tahani could have raged at him and he would have been immovable. She'd been worrying lately that Vicki had changed him; perhaps she'd ignored the ways she herself had done so.

"Thank you," she said. "I suppose we'll drive."

"Great, 'cause I stole a car yesterday, and the owner won't be filing a police report anytime soon," Vicki said.

Tahani groaned, Chidi winced, and they all dispersed to pack.

Myrtle Beach was as distracting and sleazy as Vicki had promised. Tahani found herself perversely glad for it: every tourist trap theatre and culturally appropriative store they passed sparked a moment of feeling, revulsion or annoyance or fascination, that distracted her from her awareness of how much time had passed since the necromancer had taken Eleanor. Kamilah had been of the opinion that the extra time driving wouldn't imperil her; "Either she's being kept alive for a reason or she's already dead," she'd said, and Tahani had itched to slap her but known she'd been right. Consequently, it had been nearly twenty hours by the time they pulled into the parking lot of the hotel that Kamilah pointed them to.

Or, more accurately, motel. "A Holiday Inn on the beach for a necromancer?" Tahani said. "Seriously?"

Kamilah shrugged and held up her quartz. It gleamed bright white, the light broken only by smears of Tahani's blood. "No accounting for taste."

"Enough rich bitch bullshit," Vicki said. "Let's get this over with."

Chidi cleared his throat. "Reconnaissance might be a good idea, at this stage."

"I'm unremarkably human," Kamilah said. "I could go."

"Tahani?" Chidi said.

She realized then that they were all looking at her. Oh, Vicki looked about as inclined to follow her orders as she might be to open up an orphanage and swear her life to pacifism, but still, she held back. Slayers had always been meant to be leaders, but before the Sunnydale cataclysm, Tahani had never been meant to be a leader. The magic probably would had passed her over, had it passed merely from one girl to another. She was keenly aware of that.

And yet. She was still, in this moment, a Slayer. The Slayer, at least municipally.

"I'll go," she said. "Alone. You all will stay out here, waiting for my successful exit. If I don't make it, then attack. I want Vicki at the front; she can absorb the most damage."

The sea breeze ruffled Kamilah's hair as she nodded. The scent of old Italian food drifted in from the Olive Garden across the street.

"Right." She had no more to say. "I suppose we'd better do this, then."

A Holiday Inn was not exactly fortified against reconnaissance. She got in easily. Kamilah had given her the crystal, which glowed more and more insistently as she made her way towards the far end of the hotel, facing the beach.

She tried not to think of Eleanor. She tried, specifically, not to think of what she might do, if she found the necromancer and Eleanor had been dusted.

When she got to the sixth floor, the crystal began to vibrate. It glowed so brightly that Tahani had to tuck it in her pocket. The building's floor plan was a simple, boring rectangle, with closed doors. Anything could be behind them.

Please, Tahani thought, please let Eleanor be in here somewhere.

She paced down the hall first, then doubled back. At first her Slayer sense lay dormant, but then her eyes drifted down to a sliver of light under Room 781, and she felt the tingling in the back of her neck - barely there, a whisper of a sense, but a sense nonetheless. There was a vampire behind that door.

Reconnaissance. She should go back and tell Chidi, go in with backup.

But what if Eleanor was in there? What if she was dying?

She lifted the crystal out of her pocket and said, very quietly, "Kamilah, if you can hear me: room 781." She dropped it back in her pocket and squared her shoulders.

The door opened. A woman stood there, young and white, eyes glinting with malice. "Tahani. Slayer. So glad you could make it."

Tahani pulled a knife. The woman didn't look surprised, didn't even look worried; she held up a hand and said, "Not so fast, dear. If you hurt me, she dies."

Tahani knew what she'd see even before the necromancer stepped aside. Eleanor hung in the center of the room, illuminated by magic - and protected, too, for the blinds were open and morning sunshine streamed in, glinting off the ocean.

"She'd go up like so much tinder if I dropped this spell," the necromancer said. "The very old, you know, are quite sensitive to sunlight."

Eleanor had tracked her down by hiding under a blanket. She couldn't be that sensitive.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Tahani had to clear her throat before she could be confident of speaking without also squeaking. "I'm just not sure what you want me to say."

"Beg me for her life," said the necromancer with terrible precision.

Tahani's heart didn't stop. But it - skipped, perhaps, and for a moment she was back at the charity benefit, young and utterly ignorant of how easy it was to pull a spine from a human body. "Why? Just tell me why."

"You love her." The necromancer shrugged in a single elegant movement. "And I loathe her, so I think it would be funny."

"Why do you loathe her?"

"What do you think you stand to gain by keeping me talking?"

Chidi and Vicki might run in. Then again, they might not.

The necromancer laughed softly. "No one is coming to save you, Tahani. I'd have thought you'd be used to that by now."

Tahani opened her mouth to argue, or shout for help, or - something. She'd never know what she intended to do, because in the time it took her to take a breath, the necromancer cast a spell.

It slid over her skin like oil on a puddle, and suffocated her at least as effectively. Her feet lifted in the air; she couldn't move to fight it as the spell rendered her supine, moving her over right next to Eleanor.

Eleanor. What kind of spell worked on a Slayer and a vampire exactly the same?

"The sort worked with incredible power, my dear," said the necromancer.

The world went dark.

-

"...just saying, it totally counts as a margarita, even if there's blood in it." Eleanor looked over at Tahani, who'd appeared at the bar next to her. "Hey there, gorgeous. What's a hot little thing like you doing in a place like this?"

Tahani blinked and took a moment to absorb it all: they were at some kind of demonic dive bar, resplendent with fake palm trees and vampires even more clearly drunk than Eleanor was. And then of course there was Eleanor, looking rougher than she had before, exhausted and sallow even by vampire standards.

Oh, yes, and drunk. Very, very drunk.

"I said, what's a hot little piece of very human ass like you doing in a dive like this?" Eleanor waved at the bartender, who plunked a margarita in front of Tahani.

"I'm not that human," Tahani said, and took a sip.

Eleanor eyed her lecherously. "Yeah, I bet."

"Also, we know each other. Or we should, anyway." Tahani hadn't known this kind of bar existed in Atlanta. Were they in Atlanta? They were here for...Kamilah, something to do with Kamilah. Tahani frowned at her drink as the details escaped her. Maybe being a Slayer meant you went senile early?

"I definitely don't know you. Wow. Believe me when I say I'd remember someone like you."

"Yes, well." She shouldn't be flattered by that kind of statement, she knew. She just couldn't...quite...recall why. "Your face is familiar to me."

"Maybe we met in a dream," Eleanor said, and winked.

Oh dear. Tahani really wanted to do something about that wink. More specifically, she wanted to grab Eleanor by the hair, force her mouth down, and fuck her until she begged.

She was quite certain she said none of that out loud, but Eleanor laughed in boisterous delight anyway. "I like you," Eleanor said. Her eyes locked with Tahani's, and - oh, Tahani thought. She looked quite compelling, Eleanor, alive and alight with interest that Tahani could now realize she'd never seen in Eleanor's eyes before.

Before. She'd been busy. She was -

Holding Eleanor's hand as she pulled Tahani back into a VIP room, offering her throat to Eleanor and gasping when Eleanor bypassed it in favor of nipping at Tahani's collarbone, playing with her tits.

It was so good, almost impossibly good. But Tahani's mind skittered away from that as soon as she'd thought it. It wasn't too good, it was perfect; Eleanor was here and hers, staring at her with love and respect in her eyes, pressing a thumb against Tahani's clit -

Wait. Love and respect?

Tahani, whispered her sister. Remember.

At first her only thought was irritation: how dare Kamilah try to boss her around here, as she was having sex with an alcoholic vampire of her vague acquaintance! Then sense caught up with her, and she remembered the necromancer, Eleanor's coma, and her own extremely tenuous existence.

She'd have hoped to be immediately jolted out of her trance, if she had thought about it. She would have been sorely disappointed. The moment a shred of awareness came to her mind, it was obliterated by screaming, horrific pain. The necromancer knew her mental state, and was punishing her.

It took her a moment to realize Eleanor was fighting her. "We had a deal!" Eleanor screamed. She'd backed away from Tahani; she stood braced against the far wall of the false VIP room, staring at the ceiling with fury in her expression. "Torturing my - torturing the Slayer was not part of it!"

"She broke the rules," said a terrible, distorted, disembodied voice.

"Fuck the rules!" Eleanor shouted.

Bad move, Tahani could've told her. They were immediately launched back into the maelstrom.

-

"Ugh, I can't believe I let you pick out these ridiculous Pottery Barn curtains." Eleanor took a sip of her mimosa. "It's so cute in here, I want to barf."

Tahani looked at the curtains. They were covered in flowers and birds, fluttering in the breeze and letting in dappled sunshine. Outside, their clothes were hanging to dry; she'd have to remember to take them in before the afternoon, she thought, and pricked the perfectly poached egg on her plate. "I like them," she said.

She did. The filtered sun lit up Eleanor's hair perfectly.

"Oh, whatever. This is good, though." Eleanor waved a triangle of yolk-soaked toast. "Soon you'll have me gardening."

Tahani couldn't help but smile. "You've been quite easy to domesticate."

"Ha fucking ha. You'll say that until I tell Gertie down the street to shove her oxygen tank straight up her ass."

It was such a crass thing to say, yet Tahani found herself laughing anyway. She loved when Eleanor got like this, all sharp and arch, purely to amuse Tahani. The hostility that Tahani remembered from her early acquaintance with Eleanor had mostly faded over time, leaving only a wit that Tahani found both attractive and amusing.

"We're trapped here," Eleanor said, and for a moment flames licked over her cheek.

Tahani blinked. "Sorry?"

"I said, I'm stuck here." She tapped her toast. "You made way too much food, dude."

"I'm not a dude."

"I just like making you go all English." Eleanor smiled.

Tahani smiled back, but a thread of nervousness had lodged itself in her. She blinked - and for a moment saw Eleanor's face, rotting, worms crawling out of her eye sockets.

"Tahani!" Eleanor's hands on Tahani's wrists made her realize she'd jumped up, backing away from the vision. But when she focused again it was only Eleanor standing in front of her, face and - oh God - eyes intact.

"What's going on with you?" Eleanor said.

"You're not..." She looked down at Eleanor. Breath, life. This wasn't right. Eleanor was a vampire, she couldn't be here. And that warm concern in her eyes, while flattering, was nothing like what the Eleanor Tahani knew would look like.

And Eleanor, her Eleanor, was not strong enough to hold Tahani like this. Tahani herself was a Slayer.

Everything about this was wrong.

Tahani broke fake-Eleanor's grip, throwing her across the room. The sunlight turned dark immediately, and wind howled through the open windows. The too-perfect curtains snapped menacingly, and the thing that wasn't Eleanor smiled, its eyes rolling back in its head.

"What tipped you off?"

"Why should I tell you?" Tahani retorted. She grabbed the table, testing her strength.

The necromancer cannot hold you if you do not let her, Kamilah whispered in her mind.

Right, then. Tahani knew she could've thrown the table in real life. The knowledge gave her strength; she felt it run through her veins, incalculable. She lifted the table and threw it straight at the fake Eleanor.

Hold her, Kamilah whispered. I've almost got her.

"How'd you do it?" Tahani said. She advanced on the necromancer, whirled when she disappeared, grabbed a kitchen knife and threw it. She disappeared again, of course, but more slowly this time, reappearing a few feet away.

So much stolen life, she had. So much stolen time. But Tahani would not tolerate her theft any longer.

She leaped forward and, when the necromancer disappeared, twisted her body, kicking off the wall and grabbing at empty air. Right before her fingers closed on nothing, the necromancer appeared in the empty space. They went crashing to the floor. Worms and beetles crawled out of the necromancer's body, attacking Tahani - but this was a dream, and Tahani felt no confusion this time, no hesitation. She got her hands around the necromancer's neck and squeezed.

"Bitch," the necromancer hissed.

"Likewise," Tahani said, and concentrated.

Magic gathered in the room. She felt it against her neck, under her fingers. Don't let up, Kamilah said. I can't draw her out, otherwise.

The imaginary world faded around them. Tahani didn't allow her grip to slacken, not even when the hotel room reappeared and she discovered, as she inhaled the newly salty air, that she really was holding onto a semi-rotting corpse.

"I was going to jump soon anyway," the necromancer said. "Maybe I'll put myself into your love, and drink your blood once I'm done."

Lightning flashed outside - and then jumped inside. Kamilah. Tahani braced herself, glaring down at the necromancer.

"What's wrong?" the necromancer said. "Worm got your tongue?"

A beetle landed on her hair. Oh God, she'd always hated bugs - but that was the point of this. She would not give in. She would not give in. She would not -

The door behind her burst open. Vicki shouted, "Bedtime, bitch!"

Chidi said, "That's inappropriate."

And in Tahani's mind, Kamilah roared, BEGONE.

The magic swirled all around them, locking onto the necromancer. Tahani punched her once, then twice, then kicked her across the room, past Eleanor's still-unconscious floating body.

She could tell the moment it worked, because the necromancer screamed, and her body began to liquefy, a disgusting process that Tahani couldn't quite look away from. Then every bit of the body disappeared, and Eleanor dropped to the floor.

"Tahani," Chidi said, "are you -"

"Wait," Tahani said. "I'm fine, I -" she half-hopped, half-crawled over to Eleanor. The necromancer had weakened her somehow: it took effort to roll Eleanor's body over.

How could you test for life in a vampire? She looked up at Vicki. "Can you - is she alive?"

"She's a vampire, so no," Vicki said. "But no. I can't tell."

"Tahani," Chidi said again, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"No." She barely recognized her own voice; it felt as though she'd pulled it from the depths of fury that she hadn't even realized she carried. "She's going to be okay. She has to be."

"I know." Chidi held out his other hand. A small pocketknife rested in his palm. "I'm pretty sure this is one way to wake her up."

"Kinky," Vicki said.

Tahani ignored her, taking the knife and cutting her own wrist, hovering it over Eleanor's face. When she didn't so much as twitch, Tahani pressed Eleanor's jaw open and let her blood drip directly into Eleanor's mouth.

Nothing for one, two, three horrible breaths. And then...

Eleanor coughed, arched her back, moaned, and latched onto Tahani's wrist.

It wasn't as sexual this time. Tahani was desperately afraid, for one, and also Chidi stood not a meter away. But it was something, electrifying her and filling her with impossible relief as Eleanor leaned back and, finally, opened her eyes.

"You came," she said, eyes flickering between the three of them. "That was very, very stupid."

"The necromancer's dead."

"You sure about that? She's powerful. From -"

"Centuries ago, yes, she told me," Tahani said. "We killed her. Myself and Kamilah."

"Teamwork. Nice." Eleanor tried to sit up; when her elbows buckled, Tahani was there to catch her, hauling her upright and holding her close.

For safety. Obviously.

"She separated us," Eleanor said, glancing at Tahani. "I guess you'll want a report on that."

Chidi nodded. "If you feel up to giving it, that would be very helpful. The Council had no idea this person existed, which for a magic user of her caliber is a concern."

"Thank you," Eleanor said. "All of you."

"I'm just here for the strippers," Vicki said. "Speaking of which, Chidi, are we done here? Please say yes. There's this place by the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum that I want to try."

Tahani closed her eyes, counted to ten, and opened them again. Chidi looked decidedly chagrined, but also...caught. Amused.

Well. Tahani could feel her blood singing with need; her wrist still tingled from Eleanor's touch. She could hardly throw stones in the 'seduced by evil' category. "Go," she said. "Let Kamilah know we've done it. I can get Eleanor back to our hotel."

"It's daylight," Eleanor said.

"Afternoon," Tahani said. "We'll work something out." She didn't want to actually tell any of them that she needed time alone with Eleanor, but she suspected Chidi realized it anyway; he gave her one of his 'we'll talk about this later' looks, then led Vicki out of the room.

"That's so much to take in," Eleanor said. "Do you think he lets her tie him up? Historically, that's what she's into."

"I don't know, and I don't want to know." Tahani surveyed the room. For all that the necromancer had been a disgusting rotting corpse, the room itself had been kept clean. She didn't see any body parts or vials of blood or anything.

"She was very tidy," Eleanor said, as though she could still read Tahani's mind. "You won't find anything in the drawers, either."

It took a moment for the implications to sink in. "She kept you awake."

"For part of it. She wanted me to know it was her. Once I started figuring out her game, though, she had to put me under." Eleanor smiled brittlely. "Don't want your pet vampire to escape before you've finished sucking her life force from her."

Tahani couldn't help herself then. She reached out because she felt she had to, touched Eleanor's face with shaking fingers. When Eleanor didn't move away, she leaned in; when Eleanor didn't make a crude joke, she brought their lips together.

If she'd thought about it, she would have anticipated a desperate, crude kind of kiss, appropriate for two people who'd almost died. Instead, they both moved slowly, carefully. Tahani could feel Eleanor thrumming with power; her Slayer-sense was going nuts, screaming at her her that there was a vampire in the room. None of that mattered as much as the way Eleanor carefully stroked her hair, the ease with which she lowered Tahani to the floor. They traded slow, wet kisses, lazily open-mouthed, dizzyingly good barely-there touches anywhere they could reach.

By the time they pulled away from each other, Tahani's heart was pounding desperately. Eleanor said, "Not that I wouldn't love to get this bitch back by fucking in her hotel room, but -"

"Morbid," Tahani said. "Very, very morbid."

"I was going to say, there's definitely not a dildo here," Eleanor said. "But that other thing too." She leaned down and kissed Tahani again, harder this time: a promise, not a benediction. "Let's go."

-

In the end they fucked against the wall, wild, desperate, then again in bed. Tahani got Eleanor bent over, on her hands and knees, begging for more as Tahani fingered her, screaming into a pillow when Tahani fucked her. When they collapsed on the bed, Tahani slick with sweat, Eleanor boneless and sated, Tahani couldn't think of a single thing to say.

So she kept quiet. She stroked Eleanor's hair, and when she needed to, she slept.

The next several days were too full of work to think about the future. The Council, upon learning of the necromancer's existence, insisted on flying several employees out for a full forensic examination of the hotel room, as well as interviews of Tahani and Eleanor. Tahani only just managed to talk Eleanor out of lying to them, and in the process embarrassed herself. She said, "If you want to be with me, you're going to have to get used to talking to them," and Eleanor had stared at her in disbelief until Tahani'd all but run away.

And then of course there was Kamilah. She and Tahani were very successfully Not Talking About It, until the night when Tahani found Kamilah screaming in her adjoining hotel room. Then, she'd stood guard over her, and felt something akin to sisterly love when her presence made Kamilah actually sleep.

Everything was complicated and exhausting. Such was the life of a Slayer. She didn't see Eleanor again for days. When she finally got some spare time, she went to ask Chidi if he knew where she'd gone, only to find Vicki there instead. "Chidi's off going over some test results. Your necromancer left quite the magical signature behind, apparently."

"Have you seen Eleanor?"

"Oh, yeah, she split town so she wouldn't have to talk to the Watchers."

Tahani felt her mouth fall open. She clapped her hands to it, fighting back the tears that suddenly, violently threatened to erupt.

"Whoa, whoa, okay, I was kidding. Jeez. She's still here, she's with Chidi, giving them background on the necromancer. And herself, I think. She must seriously love you if she's doing that, revealing herself after all these centuries."

Tahani had spent quite a lot of time these past few days feeling ill used and betrayed. It had been almost as bad as when she'd first been called, when she spent hours resenting her destiny and trying, and failing, to hold onto her other life.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "I don't see why you'd care."

"I'm old as balls. I like when people surprise me." Vicki shrugged. "I have her number. I can tell her you're looking for her."

It hadn't even occurred to Tahani that Eleanor might be waiting for her to reach out. "Yes. Please do."

"Cool. Now scram, unless you wanna do molly with me? Chidi won't be back for hours."

Tahani thought she did an all right job at concealing her horror at Vicki's choices. Back in her room, alone, she did what exercise she could in the small space, then meditated.

The scent of death, the terror of a shifting, magically constructed world - no.

Eleanor's smile, Eleanor's scent. A future of fighting, yes, but not alone. She'd never get the Pottery Barn curtains, but she would get the real Eleanor, her Eleanor.

Hopefully.

She managed to sink into meditation eventually, wrapping what calm she could around herself. She listened to her own breath, then the sounds of the hotel, then the distant noises of the ocean. Her heartbeat slowed and her breathing evened out.

"Wow, you're nippin' out."

What did it say about her that hearing those words sent a surge of affection through her? She opened her eyes to see Eleanor leaning against the door frame, looking considerably healthier than Tahani had last seen her.

"Vicki told me you were looking for me. About time."

Tahani attempted to say hello. All that came out was a kind of sad croak.

"Uh-huh." Eleanor meandered into the room, doing a loose circuit, looking at the walls and the nightside table - looking, Tahani realized, for any indication that the room wasn't real.

"I've been having trouble sleeping," she managed to say. "But I'm pretty sure this is the real world."

Eleanor's dismissive tut didn't quite manage to be convincing. "Sure. So." She turned back to Tahani. "Here I am."

"I'm in love with you."

Oh dear. Oh, oh dear. That wasn't what she'd intended to say at all. She'd meant to build up to it, ask Eleanor out to dinner, take her back here...fabricate a reason for her to travel with them, then maybe in a year or two work her way up to actually saying it.

Eleanor took one look at her and laughed. "No, but seriously. If you want to bone down, you can just say it."

Tahani felt like she might be sick. "I really did mean it, though."

Eleanor stared at her, expression wiped clean. She whirled around and examined the room again, glaring at the walls before shouting, "This isn't funny! When I get out of here, I'm going to find whatever you left behind and rip it to pieces!"

"It's really me." Tahani stood, walking towards Eleanor before she could think better of it. "I mean, really and truly. You can forget about the love thing. I don't care." She did. She was only a coward, and the panicked look on Eleanor's face made her think that Eleanor might bolt at any moment.

Eleanor laughed, high and almost unhinged-sounding. "You can't have it both ways, fake-Tahani. Either you care, because you're in love with me, or you're just another bullshit facsimile - and you should know you can't drive me crazy by now, you callous bitch."

By now? How many times had the necromancer tried? But Tahani couldn't waste time right now with wondering about such things. If Eleanor left, Tahani felt desperately sure she'd never see her again: Eleanor would bolt, and the shaky whatever-it-was that lay between them would amount to nothing. Maybe Eleanor would have a drink in Tahani's honor when a vampire finally managed to take her out.

Tahani had never been brave. When she'd had her previous, normal life, she'd felt her heart jump in her throat a hundred times an hour, whether she was introducing her good friend Beyoncé to her other good friend Paul, or standing on a stage auctioning off time with her sister, or watching her quarterly fundraising totals come back from the accountant. She'd always opted for the safe option, and becoming a Slayer hadn't changed that. She ducked away from danger. She always tried to find the less suicidal option. Chidi had given her diaries of Slayers who'd gone out in impossible blazes of glory; Tahani couldn't identify with any of them. She'd nearly run away from her destiny so many times.

This was smaller, technically. If Tahani ran away from Eleanor, the world wouldn't end. It only felt like it might.

"I'm real," Tahani said. "And I do care. I just think I'd settle for almost anything, if it was enough to convince you to stay."

Eleanor wavered. Only for a second, barely a blink of an eye's worth, but Tahani saw it. "That just makes you pathetic."

"Maybe." Tahani stepped forward. When Eleanor didn't back up again, she did it again, bringing them toe to toe. "For you, you see. Maybe." And she kissed her.

It was slow this time. Eleanor's hand shook against Tahani's face, and for a moment Tahani braced herself, waiting for some form of violence. But none came. Eleanor stepped back against the hotel wall, and Tahani followed, tilting Eleanor's head back, kissing her deeply. She felt cool to the touch, odd and nervy, absolutely perfect. When she pushed Eleanor's blouse aside, Eleanor snorted a laugh and pulled her shirt off entirely.

She wasn't wearing a bra. She was so beautiful that Tahani could only stare for a moment. When Eleanor said, "I can do this myself, you know," and cupped her breasts in both hands, Tahani couldn't help it: she kissed her, too hard, bruising them both in her desperation.

"Oh, God," Eleanor said. She muttered something then - Tahani didn't understand the language, and didn't much care. She got the gist of it from the way Eleanor ground her hips into Tahani. She was still moving slowly, much more careful than any time they'd done this before, but there was nothing casual or hesitant in the way she curled her fingers into Tahani's jaw.

There was something so reckless about this. She tugged Eleanor's hair and almost lost her coherency when Eleanor gasped in response, going weak against her. "Yes," she hissed. She didn't quite shift, didn't vamp out, but there was something there - intense and feral, needier than Tahani had ever seen her.

"Drop to your knees," Tahani said in a low voice that she scarcely recognized.

Eleanor obeyed immediately, beautifully, bowing her head and pulling Tahani's pants down. She had scarcely any room, against a wall as she was, but she made it work. She slipped her fingers inside Tahani, kissed her thigh, scraped with blunt human teeth until the thought of something more, sharper, made Tahani cry out.

And, God, she could barely think. She splayed a hand on the wall and delegated her physical responses to whatever part of her mind usually kept her alive during a fight.

She'd never thought about what vampires could accomplish before, not needing to breathe. Deep sea diving, perhaps. Exploring abandoned mines. And then this, Eleanor pressing her tongue against Tahani's clit, sucking and licking as though she'd never tire.

Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she'd keep going until Tahani wept, until she begged, back away and take her over the edge over and over until she couldn't even think.

"Atta girl," Eleanor muttered, digging sharp nails into the back of Tahani's thighs.

She went over the edge with a shudder, liquid heat running down her spine. She could feel herself fluttering around Eleanor's hand, but it wasn't enough, damn it, so she hauled Eleanor up and all but threw her in the bed.

She covered Eleanor's laugh with her mouth, tasting herself against briefly sharp incisors. That was Eleanor losing control. It should have terrified her; instead, she rolled them, getting Eleanor on top of her, disheveled and gorgeous.

And of course it was partially because Eleanor was letting her, but Tahani found it easy to lift Eleanor up, to bring her down on Tahani's own fingers. She was easy to stretch, wet and ready, and when Tahani curled her fingers, Eleanor moaned.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck me," she said, moving her hips, playing with her own tits. She practically glowed in the weak yellow security lights, and - weird kink, Tahani told herself, but there it was: she was so beautiful, and Tahani wanted to see her come.

She turned her head and bit Eleanor's leg, fucking her fingers into Eleanor so hard she almost lifted her off the bed. She had good instincts, it seemed, because Eleanor came violently, so slick that Tahani's fingers were soaked, clenching around her, unbelievably tight.

She'd had plans. They fell by the wayside. Eleanor sank down and kissed her messily, and when Tahani saw that she'd changed, saw her fangs -

"Sorry," Eleanor said.

"You're not."

Eleanor grinned. It looked ghoulish and, oh, fine: incredibly dear. "I'm not."

"Bite me."

"Ha, you first."

Damn it! "No," Tahani said, "I meant -" She put a hand behind Eleanor's head, guiding it down to her neck, tilting her own jaw back so there was more room. "Please."

"Seriously? I completely lost control before. You really want me to?"

"I trust you." It was true, even if she was also just so turned on she could barely think. "I want...I don't want to remember before. Plus, Chidi told me all about how old you are; don't pretend you can't control yourself, in normal circumstances."

"Yeah, these aren't exactly what I'd call normal circumstances." She'd noticed the way Tahani was rubbing herself, then, quick and desperate, fumbling with how badly she wanted it. "Fuck. Okay. Yeah. Fuck, yeah."

A lick, tawdry, and then her fangs slid into Tahani's neck.

She knew about the historical explanation, the enzymes that produced the euphoria, all the boring stuff. There was that. But it was also - Eleanor moaned into her neck, holding onto her, not so firmly that she couldn't break away, but enough that Tahani felt it. It was better than when she'd fed Eleanor to save her life. Her head spun, and she felt herself getting wetter, aching, so slick she could barely keep strong enough pressure up. She bucked around her own fingers, moaned into the open air as Eleanor drank. It was dizzying, terrifying, this trust and this sharing, and when Eleanor leaned back and began licking the wound closed, she embarrassed herself completely by coming, long and loud, moaning Eleanor's name.

"Jesus, that's some kinky shit," Eleanor said as Tahani struggled to catch her breath.

"Oh, shut up," she managed to say.

"Well, that's not gonna happen. Seriously, I had no idea Slayers could get down like that."

"And you didn't even go all scary."

"That was mostly the jealousy talking, that first time. And the crazed near-death bloodlust shit." Eleanor nuzzled her neck. "Though, I feel like I could run a fucking marathon right now. That's potent stuff."

Tahani felt rather the opposite. She reached out, fumbling until she could grab Eleanor's shoulder, rolling them so that she could spoon her. "Nap."

"Tahani -"

"Shhhhh," Tahani said. She was rapidly dropping off; she felt warm and comfortable and she had absolutely no desire to talk. She pulled a sheet over them both. "Shhhhh."

"Fuck's sake," Eleanor muttered. But she didn't so much as wiggle, and Tahani fell asleep moments later.

-

"Oh my god, put a top on!"

"Augh," Tahani said, pulling the sheet up over herself and Eleanor. "You've learned altogether too much magic."

The floating vortex that held Kamilah's face glared at her. "Yes, well, I didn't think you'd be in your skivvies."

"We're free-ballin' it, man," Eleanor mumbled from her spot on the far end of the bed. "There's nothing but skin under here."

"Charming," Kamilah said dryly - but for once, she sounded a bit amused. "We're needed in Winnipeg."

"Winnipeg? Ugh, not even Vancouver? What on Earth for?"

"Excuse me," Chidi said, and crowded into the vortex. "Tahani. Eleanor. Congratulations."

Eleanor grunted and theatrically snored. She definitely wasn't asleep; Tahani had to bite back an impolitic smile. "Thank you," she said. "Winnipeg?"

"A Slayer who should've been called with all the others has just been activated," Chidi said. "It's lighting up every seer in the Western Hemisphere - including the demonic ones. I've booked us a flight in three hours."

Tahani glanced over at Eleanor.

"Stop being a moron, he bought me a ticket too," Eleanor said without opening her eyes.

"I did," Chidi said. "And, uh, Vicki as well."

"We're a team now," Kamilah said.

"Right." Tahani could barely process it, but when she turned the idea over in her mind...

She didn't hate it. "We'll be right down."

"Do cover your neck, though," Kamilah said, and cut the connection.

Tahani put a hand up to her neck, feeling the light scabs, and laughed.